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seven guardians were waiting to say goodbye. Or, more likely, make sure they left!
    With the morning sun shining through its ruined roof, the entrance hall wasn't as frightening as it had been the night before. When Lyla peered up through the hole in the ceiling, she saw the peeling remnants of the M'dgassy royal family portraits, painted on the walls of the second floor. And there was a portrait of three dark-haired, black-eyed princesses standing with their arms around each other.
    Malcolm opened the palace's doors.
    `Thank you for your hospitality,' said Lyla, averting her face so that none of the guardians would notice how closely she might resemble one of the princesses. Celeste certainly did, and Lyla was thrilled to have gazed, even for a moment, on the faces of her mother and aunts. Even if she hadn't known which was which.
    `Thank you for mending my foot, Miss Bethy Bee. It feels much better,' said Swift, bowing to the younger woman.
    `And for the stew and porridge, Mistress Emma,' said Chad, bowing to the old woman.
    Blushing red, the old woman handed Chad a cloth-wrapped parcel. `It be a piece of fish each. You'll be needing it as you won't reach Wartstoe Village this day.'
    `Nor tomorrow morning,' said Bethy Bee, handing Swift a handkerchief full of plums. Then, while wagging her finger at him to emphasise her words, she warned him: not to cross the toll bridge if they had no payment; not to travel through Snake Tree Woods at night; and to take care when climbing the cliff track to Wartstoe Village because it be used by fierce bandits and Huntsmen who would skin them alive if they caught them.
    `What are snake trees?' Lem asked Malcolm Leftfoot as they reached the bottom of the staircase. `And is that true what Miss Bethy Bee said about the bandits and the Huntsmen?'
    `It's all true, every word. The snake trees will crush and eat you, and the plateau be the home of the Huntsmen and bandits who will both steal the skin off your body and toss your corpse over a cliff. Only difference being, the Huntsmen will do it faster.'
    He then pointed to an overgrown path meandering through a dead rose garden. `Follow that to the moon dial. Turn east and walk through the dead rose gardens to the Royal Woods. Three to four hours walking along the Royal Wood's path will bring you to Abel Penny's bridge. Take care of him. He be a nasty piece of goods, bewitched by the High Enchanter.'
    They thanked him and as they set off across the lawn he stood, hands on hips, watching them go.
    Swift hurried up beside Lem. `Lem, do you think he was making it up about the snake trees and the bandits and Huntsmen?'
    `The snake trees, yes. The Huntsmen and bandits, maybe not.'
    It took them half an hour to walk to the moon dial and another to reach the Royal Woods. The track through was unused, overgrown and narrow. One step off it and the thorn bushes tore at their boots, capes, arms and legs, so they were forced to walk in single file. During the next four hours, as noon came and went, they didn't see a bird, person or animal which made it very difficult to capture anything to pay for their toll.
    So they were empty-handed when Lem ventured out of the trees onto a wide wagon track and there in front of him was the humped-stone toll bridge.
    Dozing in a chair in the middle of the bridge and blocking the way across, lolled an enormously fat man with large, pudgy feet resting on four pink cushions. Backing into the woods Lem told the others what he'd seen and they all discussed what they should do.
    With nothing for the toll they decided to cut through the woods, find the river and swim across it. They had just stepped off the path when they heard loud voices coming from the wagon track, so they peeked through the trees.
    Three farmers were pulling a sack-filled wagon towards the bridge. On seeing the sleeping toll master, the farmers stopped pulling and one of them crept towards the snoring man. He put just one foot onto the bridge...
    The toll