The Iron
Crown

It was certainly a shock when we hit the surface of the water, but I hardly had time to regain my balance and begin swimming when I was hauled out of the water and into a rowing boat by a small man with a rough beard.

My companions too were rescued from the water and without a word the small man, who must have had enormous strength, started to row to a distant shore.

The speed of our journey was singular: we covered a stretch of water not less than twelve miles in extent in under half an hour.

Odder still was that in this half hour night had fallen, and on the small jetty where we landed we were greeted, though not with words, by a few men with torches.

A carriage the like of which I had not seen for many a longish year conveyed us, in acceptable style, to a building where more lights burned, and old men brought us bowls of hot milk and fruits of a singular sweetness.

This was hospitality, we all agreed, though in the presence of our benign captors we chose to remain mute.

Although we were well provided for in these unknown quarters we were not left to ourselves, for at irregular intervals throughout the night heavily bearded men would enter our chamber through hidden doors and root amongst our baggages in a manner not openly defiant, but scarcely wholly polite.

I judged it best to register no complaint, and rather huddled in my sleeping roll gingerly fingering the precious and as yet undiscovered scroll.

Something told me that the days of its usefulness were at hand, and I slid into a dream of Wollis and my favourite horse bearing some witless queen along the brink of a fire-filled pit into which at length they inadvertently fell.

My shudder at this demise woke me, and I found that all was bright around, and a young man with pendulous lips and deep red eyes was shaking me into consciousness; he forced a little water between my lips, and, as I gargled, passed me a missive heavy with an iron seal.

My heart leapt and I bounded from my hammock.

Who, and where, had in the past told me to expect the seal of the Seven Boats?

I racked my brain but it gave no answer.

But the messenger returned with some fine clothes which he gestured me to don, while the pageboys who accompanied him brought garments for my men.

Then it struck me what the seal was: it was the seal of the great Queen who had no name, she whose sign was `themptun postoto', in our own tongue `the Seven Boats of the Silent Valley'.

But I had not long to muse on this for when we were dressed the messenger returned and bade us follow.