It is fortunate for children (and for grown-ups too if they can manage it) when they do not concern themselves greatly about the future possibilities of a calamity. Sylvia and Joe were of this kind—especially Joe—and what chiefly troubled them as they rode along in front of their guards was the separation from their friend Gorbo, who if he could not have actually saved them from this happening, would at least have been comfort to them on the road; the fact that they were being carried captives to a monarch of whom they had heard distressing accounts seemed less of an evil, for its troubles were connected with the future, and the future is always some distance ahead.
They were not treated badly, and they were allowed to talk with the men-at-arms with whom they rode, but in a low voice because otherwise it would have been bad for discipline. Baldry rode at some distance from them so they got no chance to speak to him. The leader had allowed him to go unmuzzled after a time on the condition that he did not talk, and Baldry passed the time singing quietly to himself songs about cruel fate and other melancholy subjects. He had evidently resigned himself to whatever might befall.
The leader—whose name they learned was Sir Giles—asked the children some questions as to how they came to be with the King’s jester, but though they answered him truthfully and told him all about Watkyns Bay (which he had never heard of) and the Snergs (of whom he had heard very little and that little not good) and their strange adventures, he could make nothing of it; and he finally said that it defeated him entirely and that abler heads than his must solve the mystery.
As they went on the country became rather more populated; there were farms and windmills and so forth, and here and there a small castle or moated grange. They halted for about half an hour at an inn to rest the horses and have breakfast; Sir Giles told the host to send the bill in to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sylvia and Joe had each a plate of little hot fish, rather like sardines, and a bowl of milk, and this cheered them up greatly. Baldry interrupted his sad crooning to eat two chops and drink a pot of ale. Then he went on with a new song about his being Fortune’s toy. Baldry wanted some understanding.
It was well on in the afternoon when they came round the corner of a thick wood and saw the town close at hand. It reminded the children of a picture of a mediæval town on a coloured calendar that Miss Scadging had brought from London last year. The houses had heavy crossed timbers and high pitched roofs, and the streets were paved with huge cobble stones like grey footballs. They passed through a gate with big towers and by quaint little shops and taverns where people sat outside on benches and drank out of large pots, or else leaned against posts. There seemed to be a good deal of spare time in the town, and people came clustering round to stare at the children; but when Baldry was recognized (he had for some reason seated himself facing the horse’s tail as soon as they reached the town) there was great excitement, and they called other people to come and see. But Sir Giles ordered them to stand back like good fellows and make way for the King’s men, and the procession went clattering down the street until it halted in the courtyard of the royal palace.
It was indeed an anxious moment for Joe and Sylvia as they were lifted down and led through into a lofty hall. At first they had only a confused impression of brilliant costumes and high pointed head-dresses of ladies and the crimson legs of small pages and general gorgeousness. Compared to the palace of King Merse II this was as a house in Park Lane, W. is to a maisonnette in Poplar, E., and they felt very small and untidy and of no importance at all as they went with Sir Giles (Sylvia carrying the puppy) through these high-class surroundings and halted before a throne on which was seated one who wore a kingly crown. At last they were in the presence of the dreaded monarch.