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and then slumped into the corner, an expression of sullen vacancy suddenly investing his face. He began to pick at his ear.
     
     
        Agnew reappeared.
     
     
        “Sire Clarence, sir,” he reported.
     
     
        Sire Roger Clarence, powdered, perfumed, teased, waxed, plucked, lipo-ed, laced, veneered, buffed, polished and heeled in the very latest fashion, flounced into the Solar. Clarence swam in the intermediate depth of the Court pool, and was one of Woolly’s more effective facilitators. Behind him came two pike-men of the Royal Household, sweltering in full Beefeater uniform. They were meant to be in attendance, but one of them had caught the head of his polearm in the staircase ceiling, and they were both engaged in freeing it. Clarence paused in the doorway for dramatic effect, realised his dramatic effect was still outside on the landing fighting with three yards of halberd, and decided to make the best of things as they were. He waved Agnew aside with a lace nosegay so stuffed with scent it made the grim man gag, and turned to Triumff.
     
     
        “Felicitations, stud,” he said, “I hope I’m not intruding, but it’s Court business.”
     
     
        Triumff looked up from the book on fly fishing he had been pretending to read.
     
     
        “Well, I never,” he said, smiling dangerously, “Roger Clarence, the man of whom they say in hushed whispers ‘his name is not an instruction’. Come in. Can I get you a diet malmsey, or would you like something stiffer with a cherry in it?”
     
     
        Clarence turned up his nose and closed his eyes in protest. “You are an awful man, Triumff. So common. So unreconstructed.”
     
     
        Triumff got to his feet and closed the book.
     
     
        “Things must be slow at Hampton today to get you down to the sleazy end of town. Or are you slumming?” he asked.
     
     
        Clarence looked at him contemptuously, and then shook open the newspaper he had been carrying under his arm. “Have you seen the rag this morning?”
     
     
        Triumff took the paper and studied it. “Times Bingo Coffers to be won?”
     
     
        “The headline, you monstrous man! ‘New Continent Expedition Still In Doubt.’ The Council’s sent me down here to gee you up. De la Vega’s expedition is champing at the bit. When the hell are you going to make your report?”
     
     
        “When I’m ready,” said Triumff. “When I’ve assembled all the facts. I’m still studying the trinkets I brought back.”
     
     
        Clarence eyed the hulking figure of Uptil, who was staring into space with empty eyes.
     
     
        “Hnh,” Clarence murmured. Then he remembered himself and turned to glare at Triumff. “Well, Rupert, let me tell you, they’re reaching the end of their tether at Court. They’re saying your lack of enthusiasm proves there’s something down there worth exploring, something you’re keeping to yourself. De la Vega won’t be gainsayed for long. The time will come when the Queen will grant him his Letters of Passage anyway.”
     
     
        “The Queen?”
     
     
        “Yes, the Queen. She’s getting impatient.”
     
     
    “The Queen?”
     
        Clarence looked around the Solar with artificially wide eyes.
     
     
        “Is there an echo?” he asked. “Yes, old Three Ex herself. Don’t fool yourself, Rupert, it’s been a decade since you were her blue-eyed boy. You’ve been away for three years, and you’ve hardly been a constant presence at Windsor since you’ve been back. De la Vega’s her favourite now, and Slee has her ear. The day’s long gone when you could string her along by force of your charm alone.”
     
     
        Triumff glowered and sat down heavily.
     
     
        “Cheer up, stud. All it takes is you attending on Her Majesty for an afternoon with your report. The Council will look it over too. Then you’ll be in her good books, and the