Shea repeated the tale of Bayard's stranding in Eriu. Answering Ruggedo's questions, he was in the midst of a summary of twentieth-century mundane history when the royal couple returned. Evardo said:
"How is this, Sir Harold? We will get out the Belt and fetch Bayard from that barbarous world wherein he dwells. Rut we will not send him to Gnomicia with you. On such a mission, two is fine but three is a crowd, more likely to be discovered.
"Instead, Bayard shall remain here until you return from your quest. If you perish in the attempt or, despite valiant efforts, fail from circumstances beyond your control, we will send him—or the twain of you, as the case may be—back to your mundane world. Fair enough?"
"In other words," said Shea, "you'll hold Bayard as a hostage."
"That's a crude way of putting it, he'll be very well treated. And I would not insult a dubbed knight by implying that he might slip away and run out on his obligations.
"I'll buy it," said Shea, "provided you equip me with enough magical gadgets to enable me to succeed."
"The Queen and I shall consider the matter and outfit you in the morning."
On a small table before Ozma's throne lay two round, woollen, peakless caps. When Shea picked one up, he found it so much like the common Mediterranean beret that, when he looked inside, he expected to read Fabriqué en France or Producto de España.
"Don't put it on yet," said Evardo, standing beside the throne. "They art; the best we could find in the magical arsenal. Most of our magical devices will not work in Gnomicia because of Potaroo's counter-spells. These tarncaps will, I am sure. They are set for full charge, so they will render your clothes as well as your body invisible."
Shea: "The lesser charge, which would affect only my physical person, wouldn't be very practical, would it?"
Evardo smiled. "We wouldn't ask you to strip naked before invading the Gnome Kingdom. I can think of base uses to which persons of low morals might put a tarncap—
"Evardo!" said Ozma sternly.
Evardo sighed. "My dear! I was only thinking of the loot an invisible thief could garner, and that therefore we must keep these headpieces under strict control. What had you in mind?"
"Never mind!"
She suppressed a grin. Ozites, he thought, had some remarkably Victorian attitudes. Ozma and Dorothy Gale, close friends as girls, had evidently matured with similar ideas on the management of husbands. He said:
"Your Majesties! We'll need three caps, one for Oznev when and if we release him and are on our way out. You said yourselves you couldn't use the Belt to snatch us away until we're free of the caves. Hadn't we better take a look in your magic picture to see what we'll need?"
"Right on both counts, Sir Harold," said Evardo. "Let's take a look, my dear."
Looking at the magic picture, Shea said: "We mundanes have a thing somewhat like this, called a television screen. But we can't always see what we wish, and much of what is shown gets pretty tedious."
Ozma, facing the picture, placed her fingers against her temples and whispered. Presently the scene in the picture, a conventional landscape with trees and a waterfall, faded. Instead, the picture darkened, showing an adolescent youth on a bench in some sort of crypt or dungeon. Stout chains joined the gyves on his wrists and ankles to massive staples set in the masonry.
"Is the cell barred?" asked Shea.
Ozma whispered some more, and the view moved back from the prisoner. There was indeed a set of bars with a door closing the front of the cell, but the door stood ajar.
"Shiver my strakes!" growled Ruggedo. "Kaliko's a careless sort of king. When I ruled, any jailer who left cell doors open would be fed to the slicing machine!"
"Next," said Shea, "assuming we gain entrance to the cell, how do we dispose of the chains and handcuffs?
Picking locks is not one of my skills. Haven't you a wand or something I could zap the chains with?"
"I fear not," said Evardo. "If we had, it probably wouldn't work in Gnomicia."
"Is there a bolt cutter in Oz?"
"I know not, but I shall find out."
The next day saw Shea at the royal smithy, trying to explain to the royal smith, with the help of a diagram, the principles of a bolt cutter.
Back in the informal reception room of the palace Shea told the royal couple: "I think I got the idea over, but his first try at a bolt cutter may not work. The last I saw, he was muttering spells over a piece of bar stock. Are you going to fetch Bayard now?"
"Yes; we were waiting for you," said Ozma. She wore a wide belt that reminded Shea of the belts favored by motorcycle gangsters. She leaned forward, closed her eyes, waved a wand in an intricate pattern, and whispered. With a floomp of displaced air, something bulky landed with a bang on the carpet. Blinking in surprise, Shea realized that the object was a large bed of primitive construction, with a rough-hewn wooden dame and a network of rope in lieu of a mattress.
Moreover, the bed was occupied by two persons, who thrust up heads beyond the end of the blanket. One was that of a big man with a bushy brown beard; the other, that of a red-haired, pale-skinned young woman. As they sat up, the blanket fell down to reveal that both were naked, at least to the waist. The woman snatched up the edge of the blanket to cover herself, emitting a shriek:
"Fomorians! 'Tis a pair of dead corps that we are!"
The bearded man blinked, stared around, and finally said: "Hi, Harold! I thought you'd get me out sooner or later. But where did you get us out to?
"The Land of Oz," replied Shea. "These are Queen Ozma and her consort, King Evardo of Ev. This is Ruggedo, the former Gnome King. Doctor Walter Bayard, Your Majesties. Sorry to have snatched you at an inconvenient time, Walter."
Bayard bowed as best he could sitting up in bed. "Pleased to meet Your Majesties. Excuse my not getting up, but as you see I don't have on my court dress. This—" (he indicated the red-haired girl) "—is my caile dhonn. otherwise Mistress Boann Ni Colum. Tell me, Harold, are the people here as fussy about exposure as those of mythical Ireland?"
"We observe the normal decencies," said Ozma.
"Then," continued Bayard imperturbably, "may we borrow some clothes? Had we but known in advance ..."
Ozma gave orders to a bodyguard, who departed. Shea said: "I didn't know you with the whiskers, Walter."
"A druid without a beard is no druid at all."
"You're a druid now?"
Bayard smiled. "I got to the third degree in the order of Vates or wise men. A little modern psychology, tactfully applied, put me so far ahead of the competition that it was no contest."
The guard came back with four muscular flunkeys, who carried out the bed. Ozma explained:
"I'm putting them in the fourteenth guest room, with clothes to don. Do they wear clothes in this mythological Ireland, Sir Harold?"
"Indeed they do! In that climate, without them everyone would die of pneumonia."
Bayard appeared in green knee breeches, shirt, and vest; Mistress Boann, in a gauzy gown that Shea suspected of being one of Ozma's castoffs. Bayard bowed ceremoniously saying:
"I thank Your Majesties with profound gratitude." After a gracious royal dismissal, Bayard asked:
"Harold, where's Belphebe? I'd have expected to see her with you."
"Home having a baby," said Shea.
"Congratulations. I'm surprised she let you go, even to spring me from the land of poetical headhunters."
Shea frowned. "On the contrary, it was she who insisted I go. I think she feels somehow guilty over the fact that it's to be a girl. She comes of a culture that rates sons far and away above daughters. I explained about Y chromosomes and told her over and over the gender didn't matter, and I'd be delighted whichever it was; but she feels she's somehow failed me. So she practically bullied me into going before the kid was due. Silly, but there it is."