I’m late to the garden party, which means that by the time I get there I can barely see the garden itself, so full is it with pressing bodies. I don’t enter the gardens through the ballroom as I did last night, but instead via the more intimate and discrete Royal entrance, which opens out into a wide square clearing surrounded by benches. A delicate fountain sprays in the middle of the clearing, though I can only see the top spout of the water right now.
I’ve been here before, of course – but it’s unrecognizable as the quaint and peaceful courtyard it usually is, instead now packed and humming with conversation. My eyes go immediately to Mahl, standing above the crowd across the courtyard on the painted wooden dais constructed for these sorts of events.
I sigh, knowing I have to get to h
