The Iron
Crown

We followed. Our path was one we had hardly suspected before - it lay, as it then seemed, straight through the rocks to the side of our encampment.

But quickly the echoing stony walls gave way to a wild and broken countryside, teeming with big boulders and the cries of tormented curlew and shrike.

And before us on a grand and distant peak there loomed a glorious castle of green and gold, seeming like a great fruit hung before our parched throats.

Taking this to be our goal, we rushed forward, stumbling now, tumbling then, but ever loping on with heads outstretched in the manner of the King, towards our goal.

On the eve of the second day (we had not rested the previous night) Denis suddenly halted the company (with my permission) and led us into a grim dell where the bones of our ancestors lay festering.

Great were our groans and loud our lamentaccioun.