Sir Gideon didn’t stop complaining during the whole of their journey back to the city. But by the time they reached the Guild of the Knight Dragons’ building, his anger was beginning to subside.
‘I suppose you want me to get us in,’ he said, but he didn’t wait for a reply before flying to a small recess in the wall. Almost as soon as he’d settled, his scales began to change from green, to blue, to grey. The edges of his wings started to blend with the brickwork behind him, so that soon Hattie couldn’t make them out at all. His legs and body disappeared. And then, when the only things that were visible were his blinking eyes, part of the wall in front of them opened up.
‘Did … did Sir Gideon just do that?’ Hattie asked Victor.
‘That’s how the knight dragons make sure no one outside the Guild can get in,’ Victor replied as though there was nothing remarkable about a wall moving by itself.
The colour at the edges of Sir Gideon’s wings was turning green again. ‘Run in quickly, before it closes up,’ he said.
They dashed forward and Hattie found herself racing into a large hallway. ‘We’re going to watch from up here,’ Victor told her. He started up some shallow stone steps just wide enough to take an elephant, giving Hattie no time to see the wall close behind them. Following him, she found herself on a broad balcony overlooking an area that was alive with light. It bounced off the hundreds of silver crests that crammed the walls.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, twisting to see behind a pillar. The crests really were everywhere.
‘It’s the Guild’s great chamber, where the dragons come together to debate.’
Now that Hattie’s eyes were adjusting to the brightness, she could see that the crests were decorated with coats of arms, and above each crest was a tangled twist of metal. ‘And what are those?’ she asked, pointing to the one that was nearest.
‘When the knight dragons swear their oath to the Guild, they breathe fire one last time to melt a sword. After that, breathing fire is forbidden unless they do it in defence of the Realm. Those swords are here to remind them of their vows.’ Victor glanced over at Sir Gideon. ‘Are we in time?’
‘I think they’ll still be debating,’ he said.
Victor led them to a low rail at the edge of the balcony. From there, Hattie could peer down into the large circular chamber. Below her, was a swirl of colour. Rows of tiny benches surrounded a podium that dominated the centre of the room. On them, golden-, cerise-, emerald-, silver-, and magenta-coloured dragons stood side by side. One dragon was apart on the podium. He was larger than either Lady Serena or Sir Gideon and wore a breastplate on which a dragon rose from the crater of a volcano.
‘Sir Willow-Wood,’ Sir Gideon whispered. ‘If he’s speaking, this is very serious.’
Hattie leaned further over the rail to hear what was being said, but Sir Gideon tugged at her hair. ‘Not too far. You shouldn’t be obvious. They won’t mind Victor being here but it’s best if they don’t see you until the vote is over.’
‘Fellow knight dragons,’ Sir Willow-Wood was saying. ‘We are gathered here on a very dark day for our Guild.’
‘Indeed,’ Sir Gideon muttered.
‘One of our members has been arrested and flung into the Keep with the Hundredth Children. This is the first time a dragon has been jailed in the history of the Guild.’
There was a murmuring around the benches.
‘Since its beginnings, the Guild has existed with the purpose to defend the Realm. We vow to hold this purpose above all other things and to sacrifice ourselves to that purpose if we are called upon to do so. We’ve been honoured for our work as a Guild and as individuals.’ Sir Willow-Wood bowed. ‘I myself have been honoured for leading the Battle of the Three Volcanoes against The Traitor.’
‘Not on your own,’ Sir Gideon muttered.
‘Since he came to rule over us as Lord Protector of Somewhere-Nowhere, we’ve been at Lord Mortimer’s side, making sure the Realm and its inhabitants are safe.’
‘Yes.’ Sir Gideon joined in the general agreement in the chamber.
‘But something has happened to change all of that. Lady Serena has brought shame upon us all.’
This time Sir Gideon shook his head.
‘She’s brought dishonour on us in Lord Mortimer’s eyes. She brought back a child from the human realm who isn’t one of the Hundredth Children.’
Beside Hattie, both Victor and Sir Gideon shifted position uneasily.
‘She claimed that he was Nimbus.’ Sir Willow-Wood stamped his foot. ‘She claimed she’d found the Lost Seal.’ He stamped his foot again.
‘But no! She hadn’t found the Lost Seal. And Arthur Handley-Bennett wasn’t Nimbus. Lady Serena has betrayed the Realm of Somewhere-Nowhere with her falsehoods. She’s betrayed Lord Mortimer. She’s betrayed the Guild.’
A murmur of agreement went around the chamber. The colour of the knight dragons had changed. Now almost every one of them was vermillion red. And Sir Willow-Wood was reddest of them all. ‘I tell you, brothers and sisters of the Guild of Knight Dragons, Lady Serena must be cast out. She isn’t worthy to be among our number. We must banish her from our midst.’
‘Yes!’ The other knight dragons started to stamp their feet as the noise in the chamber swelled. ‘Banish her. Banish her,’ came the cry. ‘Banish her now.’
Sir Willow-Wood raised his wings. ‘Do we agree to vote on whether to banish Lady Serena?’
‘Yes,’ the dragons chorused.
‘No!’ Sir Gideon yelled.
Every face in the chamber turned up to the balcony and Hattie shrank even further back, hoping she hadn’t been spotted.
‘Sir Gideon,’ Sir Willow-Wood snarled. ‘Do you wish to speak against Lady Serena? She is condemned already. Even you may find it difficult to say anything worse about her.’
‘I want to speak, but not to condemn her.’
Sir Willow-Wood looked puzzled. ‘I thought you weren’t Lady Serena’s friend anymore.’
‘I’m not, but I can’t let you cast her out without anyone speaking for her.’
‘We asked for someone to do that at the beginning, but no one came forward.’
‘I come forward now.’
Sir Willow-Wood sighed. ‘We need to get on. We are all busy dragons.’
‘It’s Lady Serena’s right to have a champion when she’s not here.’
Sir Willow-Wood moved from the podium. ‘Very well. Every member of the Guild has that right, even when they don’t deserve it.’
Sir Gideon flew to where Sir Willow-Wood had been standing. He turned slowly until he had the attention of every dragon in the chamber.
‘My brother and sister dragons,’ he began. ‘Lady Serena has done a shameful thing. She’s brought a child from the human-realm to Somewhere-Nowhere who isn’t Nimbus or one of the Hundredth Children.’ For a second his gaze locked with Victor’s before moving on. ‘By doing that, Lady Serena has gone against the Code of the Knight Dragons.’
Sir Willow-Wood smiled at him and the dragons in the chamber brayed and stamped their feet.
Sir Gideon waited for the noise to die down. ‘We know that the punishment for breaking the Code is banishment from the Guild.’
The cheer went up again.
‘And yet I don’t believe that Lady Serena should be banished.’
Sir Willow-Wood frowned and the chamber fell silent.
‘Each of us has gone on many quests. We know what we are asked to do. We swear the oath each time we leave. We know we must only bring back one of the Hundredth Children or a child with the Lost Seal. We swear this every time we go into the human realm.
‘Arthur Handley-Bennett wasn’t one of the Hundredth Children, Lady Serena knew that. But she did think that she’d found the Lost Seal and therefore that Arthur Handley-Bennett was Nimbus. She did exactly what she’d sworn to do. She did exactly what each of us swears to do every time we go on a quest. The object she brought back wasn’t the Lost Seal. Arthur Handley-Bennett isn’t Nimbus. But Lady Serena did what she was supposed to do. She did her duty.’
A low murmur went around the chamber.
‘But …’ Sir Willow-Wood began.
‘You have spoken, Sir Willow-Wood,’ Sir Gideon said. ‘It’s my turn now.’
‘Any one of us could be imprisoned in the Keep now instead of Lady Serena. Any one of us could be imprisoned for keeping our vows. She hasn’t dishonoured the Guild, she has honoured it. And she’s paid a high price. Now we should keep the vow we made to each other when we joined the Guild. We promised to be brothers and sisters. We said we’d support and defend each other as well as the Realm. Lord Mortimer knows this, just as every other ruler of Somewhere-Nowhere has known it. That bond we have to each other has always been respected, whoever’s in power. Lady Serena is in the Keep, but it could have been you.’ Sir Gideon pointed to one of the dragons. ‘It could have been you.’ He pointed to another. ‘Or you. Or you. It could have been any one of us who had carried out a quest as we had sworn to do.’
The scales of the dragons changed to fiery orange.
‘I urge you to vote, but not to banish her. I urge you to save her. I urge you to save the honour of the Guild. I urge you to vote to save a member who was just keeping her vows.’
‘We can’t have two votes — and we’ve already agreed to vote on whether to banish her,’ Sir Willow-Wood sounded angry.
‘Why can’t we have two votes?’
‘Because it’s never been done before.’
‘Has a knight dragon ever been imprisoned before?’
‘Two votes — one on whether she should be banished, the other on whether she should be saved,’ a dragon called out, and Hattie recognised Lady Violet’s voice. She leaned a bit further and saw the dragon she’d met on her way to the city, whose kind face had made Hattie want to tell her everything about home. Lady Violet’s iridescent scales flickered with the most vivid purple Hattie had ever seen. Around her, the other dragons rose from the benches and hovered anxiously in the air.
‘But,’ Sir Willow-Wood said.
‘Two votes.’ Lady Violet spoke with certainty, as if she didn’t expect to be challenged again.
Sir Willow-Wood scanned the chamber. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I propose that we banish Lady Serena for bringing the Guild of the Knight Dragons into disrepute. All those in favour say “aye”.’
There was silence.
‘And I propose that we save Lady Serena and Arthur Handley-Bennett for the honour of the Guild of the Knight Dragons,’ Sir Gideon said. ‘All those in favour say “aye”.’
The chamber erupted with the sound of dragons shouting.
‘Very occasionally, I feel proud of that stubborn dragon,’ Victor whispered to Hattie.