The sul­try evening light fil­tered through the stained glass win­dows of the royal cham­ber, illu­mi­nat­ing the specks of dust that hung heavy in the air.

The woman in red flicked her eyes back and forth across every sur­face as she stalked her way towards the throne, the look of dis­taste on her face grow­ing ever more vis­i­ble with every pass­ing sec­ond. When at last she arrived, she flicked one plump fin­ger across the arm­rest and threw a tantrum more befit­ting a six-year-old than a lady of her years.

“It’s DUSTY!”

Barely a sec­ond later, a wiry fig­ure resolved itself from the shad­ows at one edge of the room and hur­ried for­wards, whilst bow­ing pro­fusely and try­ing to make sooth­ing noises. The fact that this made him look rather like a chicken peck­ing at the ground had pre­sum­ably been noticed before, as the man sported a hair­piece that — although impres­sive — would have far bet­ter suited a cockerel.

The lady paused to inspect her­self in one of the many mir­rors that adorned her throne room whilst the ser­vant bus­ied him­self with the clean­ing. Her eyes beheld the reflec­tion of her unglam­orous waist­line, and she sighed. Two years on the road, two years of rid­ing all day and eat­ing trav­ellers’ food, and she hadn’t lost even a tiny bit of weight.

The Duchess struck a pose, and smiled. At least if she couldn’t man­age ‘thin’ she could cer­tainly man­age ‘imposing’.

“If you might par­don the cluck intro­duc­tion, my Lady, your throne is now cluck fit to hold your most highly esteemed presence.”

She turned, and grinned as she saw her servant’s ridicu­lous pos­ture. He was bow­ing from the waist, his entire upper body bob­bing slightly as his ancient mus­cles stressed and fretted.

“Thank you, Mis­ter Chicken,” the Duchess replied. “Now, sum­mon the Court. One has returned home — and when one returns home, one returns home in style!”

The musi­cians arrived first, arrang­ing them­selves on the low­est part of the floor to the Duchess’ left, and began to play a calm melody. Next came the lady’s advi­sor, who knelt to one side of her and whis­pered urgently in her ear; then her two sons who sat to her other side; then lord after lord, lady after lady made their way into the cham­ber and milled around expectantly.

Within a few min­utes, the place was full of so many nobles, retain­ers, musi­cians and serv­ing staff that the floor might have all but disappeared.

before long the music qui­etened, and a trum­pet blew abruptly. All heads bar the Duchess’ turned to face the her­ald. At last there was quiet, and he began his announcement.

“All rise, for her lady­ship Duchess Regara of House Poppy!”

Out in the sta­bles of the cas­tle, the horses that the nobles of house Poppy had rid­den for so long were rel­ish­ing the almost pal­pa­ble taste of home almost as much as they were rel­ish­ing their gen­er­ous help­ing of hay.

All except one, anyway.

One horse lay down as if to sleep, snorted, flick­ered, and the air shim­mered around it for a moment.

A hand reached up and unlatched the sta­ble door, a mop of brown hair and two green eyes poked out, and with a split-second flash of faun he was gone.

The sta­ble door clat­tered shut in the slowly gath­er­ing spring breeze.

A few moments later, in the kitchens, a faun ducked down behind one of the huge cook­ing ranges and uncorked a vial of black liquid…