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it.’
    ‘Dzzllll…’
    ‘Do not voice the sound! Just breathe.’
    ‘Shlllew.’
    ‘Almost. Again.’
    ‘Llyw.’
    The wizard smiled. ‘You see? The rede is correct: practice does make perfect. But take care how you use your new-found knowledge, for there is danger in it.’
    By now Willow was coming back, so they made ready to go. Gwydion steered them away from the stables, out of the inn and then onto the high road, saying that he had arranged for their horses to be left at The Bell Without and now they must walk.
    They had almost reached the moated bastions that flanked the triple arch of Eldersgate. The soaring stone structure, deftly wrought and set with dragons, seemed dour and unwelcoming. A group of travellers waited gloomily beside a barrier.
    Will waved a hand in front of his face as he caught his first clue that this was no ordinary gateway – the smell took him back to the wyvern’s cage he had seen at Aston Oddingley. He now understood why Gwydion had left their horses at the inn. All travellers wishing to enter the City were made to dismount fifty paces before the Eldersgate. Stolid Midshires cart horses stamped their shaggy hooves as they approached the drawbridge. Even brave warhorses were unharnessed and led aside to be specially blinkered and let in by a side arch so they would catch no sight of the dragonets.
    Will saw that this brought good trade to the gate-keepers and porters who dealt with the animals or worked in gangs to pull carts and wains in through the main arch. It gave them the opportunity to charge twopence a time for their labours, and Will smelled more than the stink of wyrm about it.
    Once they were nodded through the barrier he glimpsed the two dragonets that were chained inside the middle arch. They were not great dragons, being only about the size of bulls, yet they seemed to be more dangerous than lions. They were flighdess wyrms, specially bred to their task, small-winged but powerfully clawed, with barbed tails and flickering red forked tongues. Their hides shone like quicksilver as the muscles beneath rippled. They snarled and trod back and forth fearsomely.
    Willow clutched Bethe to her as she approached the gate. Gwydion walked beside her. ‘It is best not to look the wyrms in the eye,’ he said. ‘Such beasts as these have attended the gates since the time of King Ludd. They are supposed to safeguard the City against the entry of people of ill purpose, for it is said they can smell guilt in the sweat of a man like dogs can smell fear. But over the centuries their keepers have fallen into sorry disrepute. For a silver coin they will give an easy passage to any wayfarer who happens to rouse the guardian beasts to wrath – which you will see happens most often whenever a wealthy person arrives. Do you see that merchant in the blue hat? Watch how they winch the chains back so there is a wider way for him to pass. They drive the animals back with those white shields quartered in red.’
    The keepers set up a loud banging on their shields, hitting them with red-painted truncheons shaped like short swords until the dragonets turned their heads aside.
    ‘The keepers seem careless of the danger,’ Willow said.
    Gwydion surveyed the goings on in the gatehouse. ‘Thecolour red and the number four are held to be worrisome to the beasts. They are said to shy away from the good-hearted, but it is just the loud noise and how these rogues have trained them, for they are also the ones who give them their feed.’
    Then, all of a sudden, Gwydion cast up the wing of his travelling cloak and ushered Willow and Bethe past the beasts. The nearer of the two dragonets was momentarily quieted, and Will saw in his black eyes a spirit more touched by sadness than rage. On an impulse, he put out his hand to the creature and felt its moist red tongue flicker with interest over his palm.
    ‘It wants for salt,’ he said, pitying it its life trapped in this acrid stall. ‘And it wishes for a