He used his sleeve to clean the sweat from his face, and hurried to the side of the sedan. He was not sure when to bow, so he started bowing halfway to the chair, and trotted the rest of the way stooped, as if passing through an invisible tunnel.

At first glance the chair appeared to be entirely full of an enormous wig, powdered pale lilac and cunningly shaped to resemble a sultan’s turban. On second glance the constable discovered a long, handsome face beneath it, with beauty spots carefully painted in the same place on either cheek. The face was smiling, but the smile looked out of place, as if the Duke were holding it for someone else.

“Why,” asked the madly smiling, richly rouged mouth, “are none of your men on the river?” The Duke’s voice was pitched higher than the constable had expected. “I am told that the highwayman Blythe and the seditious rabble responsible for every ill in Mandelion are mocking you from the waters with impunity.”

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but no boat will take us.” The constable could not prevent desperation and frustration creeping into his voice. “All the skippers say that it’s against the Watermen’s rules—only the Watermen’s wherries can take passengers . . . I swear it, Your Grace, I all but clapped a pistol to their heads, but they wouldn’t say different.”

“Then call a wherry!”

“Your Grace . . . there aren’t any. They’ve all vanished upstream . . . searching for the highwayman, some say . . .” The constable licked his lips. “There’s the coffeehouses, of course, but you have to hand in your weapons when you enter them . . .”

“They will not ask me to disarm,” the Duke declared. “Feldspar! My hat and my walking wig.” He ducked out of the enormous, turbanlike wig, which remained exactly where it was, hanging from great pins that jutted out of the walls of the sedan. The Duke’s valet slipped a silky, flowing wig in the “natural” style on his master’s head, and perched a triangular hat trimmed with peacock feathers on the top.

The crowd on the waterfront hushed as the Duke stepped out of the chair, resplendent in sapphire and kingfisher blue, his silk waistcoat shimmering beneath his full-skirted velvet coat. The raised heels of his crimson shoes turned him from a tall man into a gleaming giant out of a court painting. Staring across the water, he treated his people to the sight of the famous, handsome profile of the Duke of Mandelion.

“See!” He suddenly pointed upward. High above hovered a great kite, decorated with two female heads that faced each other and seemed to smile a secret. “The owners of that kite honor Their Majesties, and so in turn they shall be honored with our custom.”