The monkey’s life depended on Tiphaine’s. Royal favourites are seldom popular in court circles. The monkey had amusing tricks but dirty habits; few would put in a good word for it when Tiphaine’s death plunged the court in sorrow. Nothing at all could be pled for Morel and Amanita58, Tiphaine’s latest importees from the mortal world. Strictly speaking, they were not changelings, for they had been bought with good fairy gold. This in itself was against them; but, however got, they would have been detested. They were twins, and orphans; their parents had been burned as heretics during the Easter festivities in Madrid, and the Brocéliande ambassador, on his way back from the Kingdom of the Gaudarramas, had stolen them from the convent of penitents to which they had been assigned. Tiphaine had bought them from him. For a while she was devoted to them—as devoted as she had been to the still remembered changeling Tiffany, who for thirteen years she had kept as her lover. Tiffany, in his mortal way, was tolerable. Morel and Amanita were intolerable from the start. They thieved, destroyed, laid booby traps, mimicked, fought each other like wildcats, infuriated the servants and tore out the Chief Harpist’s hair. (Custom dictated that it be worn long and flowing as in olden days.)

For as in the kitchen loyalty grew daily more ardent and more undiscriminating, in the gallery it developed a sense of historical perspective. There had been some regrettable incidents in the past—blown up by scandal, of course; but there is no smoke without fire. Tiphaine was indiscreet in her choice of Favourites—the fault of a generous character, no doubt, but she was often sadly deluded. Admittedly, she was headstrong—but to live under the rule of a vacillating Queen would be far more exhausting. Beauty like hers could atone, for everything—or almost everything. Perhaps her complexion had been a shade, just a shade, too florid? ‘You would not think that if you saw her now,’ retorted the Dame of Honour.

‘I suppose so, I suppose so.’ The words sounded slightly perfunctory. The speaker was looking at the chessboard, where Morel and Amanita had rearranged the pieces.

By now, it was the end of March and cold as ever.

The Sub-Archivist had entered the bedchamber, seated himself, wrapped a foxskin rug over his knees, taken the virgin parchment, the day’s quill pen. The monkey sat hunched before the fire. Dwindled, mute, a dirty white like old snow, Tiphaine lay among her snow-white pillows, and did not notice the replacement. She was remembering Thomas of Ercildoune59.

It was May Day morning, and she rode at the head of her court to greet the established spring. Doves were cooing in the woods, larks sang overhead, her harness bells rang in tune with them. She pulled off her gloves to feel the warm air on her hands. The route took them past a hawthorn brake60 and there, lolling on the new-grown grass, was a handsome man—so handsome that she checked her horse’s pace to have a completer look at him. She had looked at him and summed him up when suddenly she realized that he had seen her and was staring at her with intensity. Mortals do not see fairies.