8
‘You know you don’t have to bargain, Ves,’ said Baron Alban in his lovely congenial way. ‘I am, as ever, happy to help.’
I beamed into the phone. ‘Well then, I’ll give you all the details over a pancake or something, but here’s the situation…’
Even the abbreviated version took me a couple of minutes to tell, time which Zareen spent roaming around inspecting the gathered coaches with some interest. They really were coaches, not the species of bus which is these days awarded that name: tall, bulky vehicles with huge wheels and big windows. The difference between these and the horse-drawn varieties of old was simply the lack of horse. There wasn’t a beast of burden in sight, and none of the coaches had traces to attach a horse to. They didn’t work that way.
Zareen was clearly intrigued.
