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agents who speak to them persuasively from behind the iron grilles. Pilgrims come here even in freezing weather, when the ice on the troughs must be broken. On two great days in November and February there is a special ‘Day of Whipping’ in which the most committed of the Fellows go in procession through the City, beating themselves with scourges, for these are the ones that are mad beyond repair and have come to revere, and even to love, the suffering of their own flesh.’
    Will felt a shiver of revulsion go through him. He looked to his wife and daughter, anxious now about the ordeal thatwas soon to come. It was said that at each of the City’s seven great gates there was kept a pair of dragonets, silvery wyrms whose task it was to guard the capital. Gwydion said that in olden times they had been bred to smell out treachery, and would pick clean the ribs of anyone whom they thought unworthy to enter.
    Gwydion had spoken many times of the great city of Trinovant. Often he had likened its size and power to that of Tibor, the Slaver capital of old.
    ‘Over the centuries this place has grown into a vast, walled capital, a city of spires and towers and palaces, of the Guild Hall and the White Tower and Corfe Gate. A sprawling, rollicking morass of people live here, huddling inside for warmth in the cold midwinter, sweltering in the sweats of high summer. It is a city of high and low, from the bright, castellated battlements of royal palaces to the crowded hovels of the poor. It is quite unlike anywhere else.’
    Now, as the shadows of the elms stretched more and more, the wizard turned, pointing ahead. ‘And do you see the white heart weather vanes of the Sightless Ones? Look how they rise above the walls. Those walls that will soon pass on our right are not the walls of the City, but those of the House of Silence. Beyond it lies the College of Benedix and the glass-makers’ yards, which is another rich establishment of the Fellows…’
    Will listened as Gwydion pointed out the various marvels that were to be seen as they approached the City wall proper. So much of Trinovant seemed to have burst out and overspilled into the land beyond. But these unprotected buildings were not all mean houses and trade stalls as he had thought. His eye passed along many a row of tall merchants’ houses, some of three and even four floors built right on top of each other. In the street there were all manner of people – such a flow of traffic coming in and out of theCity that Will could hardly believe there was not some special reason for it.
    As they came past the great chapter house to their right, Will got his first sight of Eldersgate. It was like the gate of a great castle, all decorated with the rough likenesses of several great wyrms – the five great dragons of Umberland, Gwydion said. Their heads snarled down at them stonily.
    ‘What you will never see of this city are the cellars down below,’ Gwydion told them. ‘The whole place is greatly undermined. There are the secret passageways of the Guilds and many a sunless dungeon that lies beneath every lordly mansion flanking the river. There are tunnels too, linking together the many places of secret power – places like Bayard’s Castle and the Fitchet’s Den. The lords dwell there and the streets around them are wide and throng with sellers of costly wares. You will see, but first we shall pass by more humble ways, for we must go by Fish Street, Salters Ride and the Cloth Market, and so by unstraight ways to our destination, for today I must speak with Magog and Gogmagog.’
    ‘Magog and Gogmagog…’ Willow mused. ‘Weren’t those two the last of the giants? The ones that were put to flight by King Brea in the olden days?’
    ‘Put to flight? Not at all. Do you not know your own history? They were taken captive by Brea. Chained by him, then brought to his oaken palace, which was from that time onward called the White Hall.’
    Will said, remembering his lordly