and real ashes on her
head--at least Anthea thought so, but it may have been only road-dust.
She complained that her husband was in prison.

'What for?' said the Queen.

'They SAID it was for speaking evil of your Majesty,' said the woman,
'but it wasn't. Someone had a spite against him. That was what it was.'

'How do you know he hadn't spoken evil of me?' said the Queen.

'No one could,' said the woman simply, 'when they'd once seen your
beautiful face.'

'Let the man out,' said the Queen, smiling. 'Next case.'

The next case was that of a boy who had stolen a fox. 'Like the Spartan
boy,' whispered Robert. But the Queen ruled that nobody could have any
possible reason for owning a fox, and still less for stealing one. And
she did not believe that there were any foxes in Babylon; she, at any
rate, had never seen one. So the boy was released.

The people came to the Queen about all sorts of family quarrels and
neighbourly misunderstandings--from a fight between brothers over the
division of an inheritance, to the dishonest and unfriendly conduct of
a woman who had borrowed a cooking-pot at the last New Year's festival,
and not returned it yet.

And the Queen decided everything, very, very decidedly indeed. At last
she clapped her hands quite suddenly and with extreme loudness, and
said--

'The audience is over for today.'

Everyone said, 'May the Queen live for ever!' and went out.

And the children were left alone in the justice-hall with the Queen of
Babylon and her ladies.

'There!' said the Queen, with a long sigh of relief. 'THAT'S over! I
couldn't have done another stitch of justice if you'd offered me the
crown of Egypt! Now come into the garden, and we'll have a nice, long,
cosy talk.'

She led them through long, narrow corridors whose walls they somehow
felt, were very, very thick, into a sort of garden courtyard. There were
thick shrubs closely planted, and roses were trained over trellises, and
made a pleasant shade--needed, indeed, for already the sun was as hot as
it is in England in August at the seaside.

Slaves spread cushions on a low, marble terrace, and a big man with a
smooth face served cool drink in cups of gold studded with beryls. He
drank a little from the Queen's cup before handing it to her.

'That's rather a nasty trick,' whispered Robert, who had been carefully
taught never to drink out of one of the nice, shiny, metal cups that are
chained to the London drinking fountains