28

Duke Ruffino brushes a speck of nothing off his immaculate pants. "Ten years ago tomorrow marks the day King Saul the IV first donned his gilded crown."

"I can scarcely imagine what you must have been engaged in a decade ago," Malodoro says, regarding you with the intrigued distaste typically reserved for unfamiliar beetles in the garden. "Were you out of nappies yet?"

"Politic it would be in my station," the Duke continues, "to celebrate our Liege's milestone day with train of gifts delivered double-quick—as if my taxes are not gift enough.

"But leave that be. This morn, with all the sundry gifts arrayed, I grappled with the gnawing, deep unease that all would be found mean in royal eyes. So turned I to my steward with the charge: 'What else can we bestow befits a King?'"

The only sound is an oblivious morning breeze as the two most powerful people in the Keep look at you.

"Hum," you say, trying to discern their meaning. "What, indeed?"

"You," says Malodoro.

Hold