"You. Yes, more wine. No, not that stuff. That. Ah. Adlain. Come and sit by me."

"Majesty."

"Wine for the Guard Commander. Come on. You have to be quicker than that. A good servant acts to carry out a master's wishes even as the wish is still being formed. Isn't that so, Adlain?"

"I was about to say that myself, sir."

"I'm sure you were. What news?"

"Oh, mostly the woes of the world, sir. Hardly fit to be revealed in a fine place like this. It might spoil the view."

We were in the Hidden Gardens behind the Great Palace, almost at the summit of the hill. The red, creepercovered garden walls hid all but the highest towers of the palace. The view from the little hanging valley which contained the gardens led the eye down to the distant plains, which were blue with distance and faded out into the light of the sky at the horizon.

"Any sign of Quettil?" the King asked. "He's supposed to be giving me something or other. All has to be arranged of course, being Quettil. Can't just happen. No doubt we're due to get the full pomp."

"The Duke Quettil is not one to murmur when a shout might attract more attention," Adlain agreed, taking off his hat and setting it on the long table. "But I understand the map he intends to present to you is a particularly fine one, and long in the making. I expect we shall all be most impressed."

Duke Quettil occupied the Duke's Palace within the grounds of Palace Hill. The Province and Dukedom of Quettil, of which the city of Mizui and the Yvenage Hills were but a modest part, was entirely his to command, and he was, by repute, not shy about imposing his authority. He and his retinue were due to enter the Hidden Gardens shortly after the midday bell to present the King with his new map.

"Adlain," the King said. "You know the new Duke Ulresile?"

"Duke Ulresile," Adlain said to the thin, sallow youth at the King's left side. "I was sorry to hear about your father."

"Thank you," the boy said. He was barely older than I, and less substantial, more wispy. The fine clothes he wore looked too big for him, and he appeared uncomfortable. He had, I thought, yet to take on the look of a powerful man.

"Duke Walen," Adlain said, bowing to the older man, who sat to the King's right.

"Adlain," Walen said. "You look as though the mountain air suits you."

"I have yet to find air that does not, thank you, Duke."

King Quience sat at a long table set within a shady pergola, attended by the Dukes Walen and Ulresile, a smattering of lesser nobility and various servants, including a pair of Palace serving girls who were identical twin sisters and to whom the King seemed to have taken a particular shine. Each had gold-green eyes, yellowwhite tangles of hair and seemed to be almost but not entirely in control of tall, sinuous bodies that in places appeared to defy the law of gravity. Each was clothed in a cream-coloured dress edged with red piping and ruffled with lace, which, if not exactly what a rustic shepherdess might wear, was perhaps what a famously handsome and well-endowed actress might have worn if she was taking part in an expensively produced Romantic Play which featured rustic shepherdesses. One such creature might have caused a normal fellow's heart to melt into his boots. That there were two such beauties capable of occupying the same world at once seemed unfair. Especially as both seemed quite as taken with the King as he did with them.

I confess that I had been unable to take my eyes off the two golden-brown globes which bulged like swollen fawn moons at the lacy cream horizon of each girl's bodice. The sunlight poured down over those perfect orbs, highlighting the nearly invisibly fine down there, their voices tinkled like the fountains, their musky perfume filled the air, and the King's very talk and tone taunted and teased with the implication of romance.

"Yes, those little red ones. Some of those. Mmm. Delicious. How one does enjoy those little red ones, eh?"

The two girls giggled.

"How's it looking, Vosill?" the King said, still smirking. "When can I start chasing these girls?" He made to lunge at the shepherdesses and tried to grab them, but they yelped and danced out of the way. "They keep getting away from me, dammit. When can I start hunting them properly?"

"Properly, sir? How would that be?" the Doctor asked.

The Doctor and I were there tending to the King's ankle. The Doctor changed the strapping on it every day. Sometimes she changed it twice a day if the King had been out riding or hunting. As well as the swelling from the sprain, there was a small cut on the ankle which was taking its time to heal, and the Doctor was scrupulous in keeping this cleaned and treated, nevertheless it still seemed to me that any common nurse or even chamber-servant could have performed this function. However, the King appeared to want the Doctor to do it each day herself, and she seemed quite happy to acquiesce. I cannot think of any other doctor who might have made an excuse not to treat the King, but she was quite capable of it.

"Why, properly in the sense of having a decent chance of catching them, Vosill," the King said, leaning forward towards the Doctor and using what is, I believe, called a stage whisper. The two shepherdesses laughed tinklingly.

"Decent, sir? How so?" the Doctor asked, and blinked, it seemed to me, more than the flower- and leaf-shaded sunlight called for.

"Vosill, stop asking these childish questions and tell me when I may run again."

"Oh, you may run now, sir. But it would be most painful, and your ankle would probably give way within a few dozen steps. But you most certainly can run."

"Aye, run but fall over," the King said, sitting back and reaching for his wine glass.

The Doctor glanced at the two shepherdesses. "Well," she said, "perhaps something soft would break your fall."

She sat at the King's feet with her back to Duke Walen, cross-legged. This odd and unladylike position was one she adopted often, seemingly without thinking, and which made her adoption of men's clothes, or at least some part of them, almost a necessity. For once, the Doctor had changed out of her long boots. She wore dark hose and soft pointed shoes of velvet. The King's feet rested on solid silver footstools topped with plump cushions, vividly dyed and patterned. The Doctor washed the King's feet as usual, inspected them and, on this occasion, carefully trimmed his toe-nails. I was left to sit on a small stool at her side, holding her bag open while she lost herself in this labour.

"Would you break my fall, my lovelies?" the King asked, sitting back in his chair.

The two girls dissolved into laughter again. (The Doctor, I think, muttered something about being most sure to if he landed on their heads.)

"They might break your heart, sir," Adlain observed, smiling.

"Indeed," Walen said. "With one to pull in each direction, a man might suffer terribly."

The two serving girls giggled and fed more little pieces of fruit to the King, who made to tickle them with a long feather from a fan-tailed tsigibern. Musicians played on a terrace behind us, fountains plashed melodiously, insects hummed but did not annoy us, the air was fresh and full of the scent of flowers and freshly tilled and watered earth, and the two servant girls bent and leant to pop fruits into the King's mouth, then squealed, jumped and jiggled when he lunged at them with his feather. I confess I was glad I did not have to pay too much attention to what the Doctor was doing.

"Do try to keep still, sir," she muttered as the King stabbed at the two girls with the tsigibern feather.

Chamberlain Wiester came panting up the path beneath the flowers and vines, his splendidly buckled shoes glinting in the sunlight and crunching on the semi-precious path stones. "Duke Quettil, your majesty," he announced. A blare of trumpets and a clash of cymbals sounded from the garden gates, followed by the roaring scream of what sounded like a fierce and angry animal. "And retinue," Wiester added.