The Business

CHAPTER NINE

I'd shopped in the afternoon, picking up a trail of small pillow-children who'd seemed determined to follow me everywhere as soon as I'd stepped outside the palace gate. The last time I'd been here, shopping in Thulahn meant forgetting about credit cards and using cash. Luckily — I thought — I'd remembered this and brought vast amounts of US dollars from Karachi. Only to discover that some of the more up-to-date retailers in the capital did now take plastic. The main foreigners' outfitters in Thulahn was the Wildness Emporium, a huge stone barn of a place, which smelled of kerosene and was full of very expensive Western hiking and climbing gear. It was run by two turbaned Sikhs who'd looked like they were fed up explaining that, no, it wasn't meant to read the Wilderness Emporium.

I'd picked up a very thick and much-pocketed mountaineering jacket in yellow and black, a matching pair of insulated dungarees and another set of padded thermal trousers in vivid red. I'd also bought a pair of no-nonsense hiking boots that looked like old Timberlands but had less fiddly laces that went through hooks instead of eyes at the top, a complicated multi-coloured hat with ear flaps, velcro chin flaps and an adjustable peak, and a pair of stiff black ski-gloves with draw-strung gauntlet extensions that came up to my elbows. A fleece in aquamarine, a couple of pairs of thick socks and two sets of vests and long johns completed my new wardrobe. The two Sikhs — brothers as it turned out, once we'd got talking — had happily relieved me of a bothersomely bulky wad of bills and urged me to come again anytime.

I'd staggered into the street, wearing some of this gear and carrying the rest, and been mobbed by children once more. They'd insisted on helping me carry my stuff. Heading back up to the palace I'd taken a different route and discovered a shop that sold native Thulahnese gear, so we stopped off there and left with a gorgeous black fur hat I felt only a little guilty about buying, a matching hand muff, a pair of black hide boots with fur on the inside and fifty-millimetre-thick soles made from layers of auto tyres (which makes them sound horrible but actually they were beautifully stitched and finished), a little satin jacket with mandala designs, and a long red quilted jacket with matching trousers.

And all for not very much money at all, really. In fact, for so little that I'd tried to leave a tip, but the old Thulahnese couple who owned the place had just looked mystified. I'd felt so bad I'd taken another turn round the stock and come back to the counter with the most expensive-looking thing I could find (and, trust me, I'm good at spotting this sort of thing): a long, slim, silk and satin jacket, jet black with gold and red dragons sewn into it, delicately quilted and sparkling with gold thread.

Seeing what I'd selected, the old couple had made a show of having synchronised heart-attacks, puffing out their cheeks and shaking their heads and bustling amongst the racks to bring me much cheaper jackets that were almost as nice, but I'd clutched the one I'd chosen to my breast and refused to let it go regardless of all cajolings and remonstrations until, eventually, with much puffing and shaking and hand-waving, I'd been allowed to buy this beautiful, beautiful thing for, well, still not very much money.

The only thing I forgot to buy was a big bag or rucksack to carry it all back in. Usually I remember to do this when I've made a lot of purchases abroad.

But for the children I'd have needed a wheelbarrow to take all my new clothes back to the palace. I didn't know whether to offer them money or not, and in the end they'd just left me at the gates with lots of bowing and smiles and nervous giggles.

I confess that I had briefly worried that one of my bags might not make it all the way back with me, or that something would disappear from one of them, and so felt quite utterly mortified when, in my room, after checking the bags were all there, I opened them up and discovered that not only did they contain everything I'd bought, several of them held more: little home-made sweets and savouries wrapped in carefully folded greaseproof paper and tied with ribbon, and tiny artificial flowers made from wire and cut silk.

The weather early the next morning was appalling: a furious snowstorm whirled outside my triple glazing. I could hear it through the glass, through the stone walls. I had mixed feelings about this sort of weather. It would make getting around difficult but on the other hand it might hold off the Prince for another day or two. At least it hadn't stopped the palace generator from working. Electric power: hot water and a working hair-dryer. I treated myself to my second shower in twelve hours, lost myself within the comforting hum of the hair-dryer, then hesitated when it came to dressing. Western or ethnic?

I chose Western, so pulled on the dungarees, seriously pocketed jacket and fake Timbies, and plonked the complicated hat upon my head. As an afterthought, just before I left the room, I stuck one of the little wire and silk flowers in the velcro fastening of one of the jacket's pockets.

By the time I was squeaking through the snow in the main courtyard the weather had abated somewhat; the wind had dropped and only a few flakes were falling, though the mass of cloud above the valley looked low and dark and heavy with more snow.

Children met me at the gates again, appearing from every direction. To my shame, I realised I had no idea if they were the. same ones as yesterday or not. It was time to stop treating them as a mass, I guessed. I hunkered down and smiled and started trying to find out names.

'Me, Kathryn,' I said, pointing at myself. 'Kath-rin.'

They giggled and looked down and snorted and shuffled their feet. Eventually I worked out what I hoped were a few of their names and got them to understand I wanted to go to the Heavenly Luck Tea House. I tied a few pointy hats on properly and wiped a couple of snotty noses with a paper handkerchief.

I stood up, took two of the offered chubby little hands and we tramped downhill through the snow.

'Ms Telman. Hi. Josh Levitsen.'

'How do you do.' We shook hands. Mr Levitsen was not what I'd been expecting at all. He was young — though his tan skin was deeply lined — he was full-bearded, blond, and wore a slightly grubby fawn parka with a matted fur hood lining, and a pair of leather-sided circular mountaineering glasses with surfaces like oil on water.

'Fine. Just fine. You having breakfast? I've got tea here for both of us.'

The Heavenly Luck Tea House was within a skyed penalty shot of the football field/airstrip, with a view over that and the snow-filled valley. It was warm and steamy and full of people, mostly Thulahnese. Polished wood was everywhere and the floorboards creaked like a swamp full of demented frogs.

'What do you recommend?'

'Rikur saraut, champe and thuuk.'

'What's that?'

'Corn pancakes — they keep syrup behind the counter just for me and my guests — porridge and thick noodle soup; kampa — spicy — if you like.'

'Perhaps a very little of each. I'm not terribly hungry.'

He nodded, waved one arm and shouted the order. He poured us both some strong tea into cups with no handles but little ceramic tops. We exchanged a few pleasantries and agreed to use first names before he sat forward and lowered his voice a little. 'Just to let you know, Kate, I used to be with the Company.'

'The CIA?' I asked quietly.

He grinned. 'Yeah, but now I'm with the Business.' He lowered his glasses to wink.

'I see.' This had, of course, been mentioned in the CD-ROM Tommy Cholongai had given me: Mr Levitsen wasn't actually an employee of ours, but we did pay him quite a lot of money and he had a vague idea that we were interested in the place for more than the odd diplomatic passport.

'You let me know if I can be of any help.' He spread his arms wide. 'I am at your disposal, Kate. I have a lot of contacts. Smoke?' He pulled a little painted tin from one pocket of the grubby parka and took out a slim hand-rolled cigarette.

'No, thank you.'

'Mind if I do?'

I glanced round at the counter. 'I take it you're not expecting the quickest of service.'

'Ten, fifteen minutes on a good day.' He lit the roll-up with a Zippo. Some smoke rolled across the table. Not a cigarette, then, a joint. He must have seen me sniff. 'You sure?' he asked, through a smoke-wreathed grin.

'A little early in the day for me,' I told him.

He nodded. 'Heard you saw the old lady yesterday.'

'The Queen Mother? Yes.'

'Is that a weird fucking set-up, or what?'

'Weird just about covers it.'

'She say anything about the Prince?'

'She wanted my opinion on his marriageability.'

'Yeah, she's been talking about that a lot recently.'

'Do you visit her often?'

'Na. Just been the once, when I first got posted here, three years ago. But, like I say, I got contacts everywhere.' Above the oil-on-water glasses, his sun-bleached eyebrows arched. 'So, what's happening with the Business here? I keep getting hints there's some sort of major shit coming down, or maybe not shit, maybe more like major manna coming down, you know?' He pulled the mountaineering glasses down again and gave me what could almost have been a leer. 'You part of that? Bet you can't tell me even if you are, right? But you're here, and you're, what, a Level Three, yeah? Best looking L-Three I've ever seen, by the way — uh, hope you don't mind me saying so.'

'No, I'm flattered.'

'So, what's happening?' He leaned closer again. 'What was all that stuff out on Juppala last year? And down on the valley floor here and upstream. All that laser range-finding and drilling and surveying shit. What's all that about?'

'Infrastructure improvements,' I said.

'On Mount Juppala? You kidding me?'

I sipped my tea. 'Yes.'

He laughed. 'You aren't going to tell me a damn thing, are you, Kate?'

'No.'

'So why did they send you?'

'Why do you think anybody sent me? I'm on sabbatical. I can go where I like.'

'Weird time of year for a holiday.'

'A sabbatical isn't a holiday.'

'So why did you come?'

'To see what the place is like at this time of year.'

'But why?'

'Why not?'

He sat back, shaking his head. He attached a roach clip to the remains of the joint and sucked hard, brows knotted with either concentration or the sharpness of the hot smoke. 'Whatever,' he said, on an in-drawn breath on top of what he'd already smoked. He pinched the roach out and left it folded in the teacup's saucer. 'So, where do you want to go?'

'When?'

'Whenever. I got a Jeep. Get places Langtuhn's limo won't. Anywhere you want to go, let me know.'

'That's very kind. I may take you up on that. Are you free this afternoon?'

'Sure. Where to?'

'You're the local knowledge. Suggest somewhere.'

'Well, there's — ah-hah! Hey, that was quick. Here's breakfast.'

'Uncle Freddy?'

'Kate, dear girl. You made it to Thulahn then, yes?'

'Yes. Managed to avoid the prayer flags. Been having a look round. Done the palace and bits of the city, seen the old Queen and had a guided tour of the lower valley and the nearest town just this afternoon. The weather's atrocious now. Nearly didn't make it back.'

'Prince returned yet, is he?'

'No. He's not due back from Paris for another few days.'

'Oh, he wasn't going to Paris, dear girl. He was in Switzerland,' Uncle Freddy said. 'At CDO.' CDO is what we usually shorten Château d'Oex to.

'Oh. Well, no, he's still not due back until next week.'

'Jolly good. Did you give the Queen Mum my regards?'

'No. I didn't know you knew her.'

'Audrey? Oh, golly, yes. From way back. Meant to say. Thought I had. Senility, probably. Still. She didn't mention me, then?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'Not to worry. Heard she'd gone a bit batty actually, if not totally ga-ga. How did she seem to you?'

'Eccentric in that sort of feral way that old English ladies go sometimes.'

'Probably the altitude.'

'Probably.'

'Who was your guide if the Prince isn't back?'

'The honorary US consul. Youngish chap, second-generation hippie. Secured me a breakfast that was surprisingly edible and then took me down to Joitem in his Jeep. It's a bit like Thuhn except lower down and flatter and surrounded by rhododendron bushes. Visited an abandoned monastery, saw a few farms and prayer windmills, nearly skidded off the road into ravines a few times, that sort of thing.'

'Sounds terribly exciting.'

'And you? I've tried you a few times and you never seem to be in.'

'Oh, just faffing about as usual. Driving.'

'You should get a mobile.'

'What? One of those things you hang above cots?'

'No, Freddy, a phone.'

'Pah! And disturb a good drive by having a phone go off in my ear? I should cocoa.'

The skies were clear the next day, though confusingly (for me and probably no one else in Thuhn) snow swirled everywhere for a few hours beneath that cloudlessness; a stiff, freezing wind blasted down from the mountains and across the city and the palace and seemed to scour most of the snow away, brushing it off down the valley in tall, white, dragging shrouds and gathering it into huge drifts beneath the river's steeper banks.

Josh Levitsen had warned me about wind chill the day before and, anyway, this wasn't the first time I'd been in a cold place. I made sure I had a scarf over my mouth and nose when I went out, dressed in Western gear again, but even so the ferocity of the chill was stunning.

The children were nowhere to be seen. The city seemed deserted. My eyes watered in the icy blast and the tears froze almost instantly on my skin; I had to keep turning and bending and brushing drops of salty ice away and rubbing feeling back into my cheeks. I pulled the scarf up higher and eventually found my way down to the Wildness Emporium, where the Sikh brothers fussed over me and poured me warm paurke — tea with roasted barley flour and sugar in it; it tasted much better than it should have. There also I bought a polarised ski mask for my eyes and a blue neoprene thing that fitted over the rest of my lower face and made me look a little like Hannibal Lecter but which was much more effective than the scarf.

Suitably kitted up, with not a square centimetre of bare skin left exposed to the elements, I left the brothers happily counting even more of my dollars and set off into the wind again.

People were keeping indoors. It was the best time to see the city just as a set of buildings and the spaces in between them. I walked all over it until hunger and chance brought me within sniffing distance of the Heavenly Luck Tea House around lunch time, and then sat, extremities tingling, tucking into dhal bhut (sticky rice with lentil soup poured over it) and jakpak kampa (spicy stew with mystery meat). A watery yoghurt called dhai — pretty similar to a plain lassi — washed it all down.

The other diners — all seriously quilted, mostly male, some still wearing pointy hats — laughed and grinned and talked at me in machine-gun Thulahnese and I just grinned like an idiot and laughed when they laughed and made dumb faces and fanned my mouth in what was apparently a quite hilarious manner when I bit on a chilli in the stew and nodded and shrugged and mugged and whistled and just generally behaved like a complete cretin for about forty minutes, and then finally left the place with a huge smile on my face under the blue neoprene Hannibal Lecter mask, feeling full, content and warm as well as perfectly, blissfully happy and with the sense that I'd just spent one of the most pleasantly communicative and life-affirming lunches I'd ever experienced.

'Kathryn?'

'Mr Hazleton.'

'You are well, I hope?'

'I'm fine.'

'And your stay in Thulahn, is that going well?'

'Very well.'

'I've never been. Would you recommend a visit?'

'That depends on your tastes, Mr Hazleton. It's fine if you like lots of mountains and snow.'

'You don't sound very enamoured of the place, Kathryn.'

'I like lots of mountains and snow.'

'I see. I was wondering. I was trying to decide whether you'd decided. Trying to make up my mind whether you had made up your mind, or not.'

'Uh-huh.'

'You're being very reticent, Kathryn.'

'Am I?'

'Is there somebody else there in the room with you?'

'No.'

'You're upset with me, aren't you?'

'Upset, Mr Hazleton?'

'Kathryn, I do hope you believe me when I say I had nothing to do with the contents of that disc. It came into my possession and I confess I thought to turn it to my advantage, but what else was I supposed to do? …Kathryn, if I'm wasting my time with this call, tell me and I'll hang up. Perhaps we can talk again later.'

'What was the purpose of your call, Mr Hazleton?'

'I wanted to know if you'd come to a decision regarding the contents of the disc I had delivered to you. Have you decided to do nothing, or are you still mulling it over?'

'Oh, I'm mulling. Mulling away furiously here.'

'Are you, Kathryn?'

'Would I lie to you, Mr Hazleton?'

'I imagine you would if you thought it was the right thing to do, Kathryn.'

'Well, I'm still thinking.'

'The problem hasn't gone away, I'm afraid. Right now, even as we speak, Mrs Buzetski is —'

'Boston. She's in Boston, and she's not really visiting an old school chum at all.'

'Ah. You know. You must have spoken to Stephen. How is he? Do you think he suspects anything yet?'

'I'm sure I couldn't say, Mr Hazleton.'

'I'd better go, Kathryn. Give my regards to the Prince when he gets there, will you?'

In the late afternoon Langtuhn Hemblu appeared and announced he was to take me to the Foreign Ministry for the formalities to be completed. I was to bring my passport. I asked him to wait and changed into my ethnic clothes, then we took the Roller a short distance down into the crowded city to a squat building with plain-painted walls.

I was shown into a large room where a bulbously tiled cylindrical stove in one corner radiated heat and four young, yellow-robed clerks perched on high stools behind tall desks. All four stared at me and then put their heads down and scribbled furiously when a tall, bald, orange-robed man appeared from a door to one side of the big stove, announced he was called Shlahm Thivelu, Senior Immigration Officer, and invited me into his office.

We sat on either side of an impressive desk topped by a curved gallery holding lots of compartments containing rolled-up documents. Mr Thivelu put on a dainty pair of glasses and inspected both my passports as though he'd only ever seen one or two such odd documents before.

The last time I'd been here I'd gone through immigration control and customs in the arrivals hall at the airfield. This had consisted of ducking through the cargo door of the crashed Dakota, giving my name to an adolescent sitting behind a tiny rickety desk and shaking his hand. Obviously things had become a lot more formal since then.

Mr Thivelu nodded, searched about the desk for a while, muttered something about a damned stamp, then shrugged and wrote something into my UK passport before handing both back and wishing me a pleasant stay.

As I stepped out of the ministry I looked at what he had written. He'd printed the date and Welcome To Thulahn. Langtuhn held the Roller's door open for me. He was smiling widely. 'You look happy,' I said, as we set off back up the hill.

'Oh, yes, Ms Telman!' Langtuhn said, his face positively radiating happiness from the rear-view mirror. 'His Holiness the Prince will now be returning tomorrow!'

'Yes, unfortunately I'm not sure — what?' I jerked forward in my seat. 'Tomorrow?' I'd thought I'd have at least three more days here before having to worry about Suvinder showing up.

'Yes! Isn't that wonderful news? Now you will get to see him after all! He too will be happy to see you, I'm sure.'

'Yes. Yes, I expect he will.' I watched the Wildness Emporium slide past. One of the Sikh brothers saw me; he smiled and waved enthusiastically. I waved back feebly.

I couldn't even get the plane out; it had been and gone again since I'd arrived and tomorrow's inbound flight bringing the Prince was the next one. The alternative to flying was finding some motorised transport and taking the long road north and west and eventually south and back to India. Days of hair-raising travel and nights in dubious rest-houses, from what I'd heard. Or I could hike straight out, if the passes were open, which was unlikely at this time of year. I'd done some trekking in Nepal in my early twenties so I wasn't totally inexperienced, but I wasn't hill fit either, or that young any more. Anyway, I supposed it would look terribly rude.

'What brings the Prince back so early?' I asked.

'We do not know,' Langtuhn admitted, hauling the ancient car straight as we passed a butcher's and skidded on a patch of what looked like chicken entrails. He laughed. 'Perhaps he has run out of money in the Paris casino.'

'Ha ha,' I said. I sat back. Suvinder. Oh, well.

Maybe having the Prince here wouldn't be so terrible. He wasn't that difficult a guy to deal with and he would, I assumed, make it even easier for me to travel round the country and gain access to, well, whatever I needed to gain access to. So, not such a bad thing after all.

Look on the bright side, I told myself.

The Prince arrived back the following morning. What seemed like most of Thuhn turned out to watch the plane land. It was another clear but bitingly cold day, though the wind was barely more than a breeze. Langtuhn Hemblu, wearing a slightly threadbare chauffeur's outfit, which was a size or two too big for him and which included tall boots, jodhpurs and a peaked grey cap, drove me down to the airfield in the Rolls-Royce but explained apologetically that I would have to make my own way back to the palace, as the car would be required by the Prince and his entourage. I told him this was fine by me and joined the crowd on the banking above the football pitch/airfield like everybody else. They'd removed the far set of goalposts, I noticed.

Some of my little pillow friends appeared — Dulsung, Graumo and Pokuhm, if I'd got their names right — and we stood together, though they couldn't see very well over all the adults in front. Dulsung was the smallest, so I lifted her on to my shoulders. She giggled and slapped a pair of sticky hands on to my forehead, below my black fur hat. The two boys looked up enviously at her, put their pointy-hatted heads together and conferred for a moment, then each tugged at the nearest pair of quilted trousers, pointed meaningfully up at Dulsung, and after some teasing were duly hoisted on to neighbouring sets of shoulders.

Everybody else seemed to see the plane before me. People started pointing and a few cheers rang out. Then I saw the tiny scrap of metal against the grey-black rocks of the mountains high above and away to one side, its dark shadow flickering over ridges and gullies as it tipped and fell towards us. It looked about the size of a small bird of prey. The sound of its engines was still lost in the spaces between the mountains.

I looked up towards Dulsung, pointed at the aircraft and said, 'Aeroplane.'

''Roplane.'

The plane raced down, wheeling and stooping through the winds, no longer making straight for us but heading diagonally across the sky above the ice-choked gorge. It curved out to one side of the city, turned sharply over the gravel beds in the valley downstream and came flying back straight towards us. The wind, I realised, must be in the opposite direction from when I'd landed. The square-sectioned, hunched-looking craft seemed almost static in the air, the drone of its engines audible now.

The plane jiggled, riding waves of wind and shaking its wings as though it was shrugging. It seemed to be about to overshoot and go round again, then it dipped suddenly and flared, wheels smacking the far end of the field in a cloud of dust and gravel with a thud, just about where the goalposts would have been. Everybody seemed to take this as a cue to start clapping; even Dulsung removed her hands from my forehead to slap them together a few times. Over this racket, the plane's engine note had changed and swelled and the machine seemed to bow, compressing the nose wheel's landing gear as it rushed towards us with a swirling grey-brown cloud rising behind it.

I could see the two pilots in their seats. I got ready to run. The engines screamed, the whole plane shuddered and slowed, and then it turned, tipping slightly and skidding to a halt, still not quite into the nearer penalty box and a good fifty metres away from where I stood.

I joined enthusiastically in the applause while the cockpit window slid open and a Thulahnese flag on a stick was jammed into its hole. A small line of welcoming officials formed up on the gravel and Langtuhn Hemblu manoeuvred the Roller on to the touchline near a couple of four-wheel-drives and then got out and stood, cap under arm, by the rear door.

The Prince was first out of the plane, waving from the doorway, dressed in what looked like a niftily tailored dark blue version of the traditional quilted trousers and jacket. People waved back. Some were drifting away already; presumably those who came only to watch the plane, or hard-line republicans disappointed to have witnessed another safe royal landing. More people spilled out of the aircraft behind the Prince.

I glanced up at Dulsung. Her muddy boots were leaving marks on my quilted red jacket. I pointed. 'The Prince,' I said.

'Thirp Rinse.'

Suvinder looked around, seemingly distracted, as he progressed down the line of bowing officials. He motioned Langtuhn Hemblu over while everybody else was getting themselves and their luggage organised. Langtuhn and the Prince talked briefly then Langtuhn pointed at our bit of the crowd and they both shielded their eyes and stared in our direction. They weren't looking for me, were they?

Then Langtuhn looked right at me, waved and called out. He touched the Prince's sleeve and gestured in my direction. In front of me, heads were starting to turn. The Prince caught my gaze, smiled broadly and waved, shouting something.

'Shit,' I breathed.

'Shit,' said a little voice quite clearly above me.

'It is so good to see you again!' the Prince enthused, clapping his hands and smiling like a schoolboy. He wasn't wearing any rings, I noticed. There were seven of us squeezed into the back of the Roller, bouncing uphill to the palace. I was thigh-to-thigh with Suvinder, who was relatively comfortable in the middle of the rear seat with B. K. Bousande, his private secretary, on the other side. Hisa Gidhaur, the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary whom I'd last seen at Blysecrag, sat directly across from me. Hokla Niniphe, the Home Secretary, was sitting sweating next to the cabin's stove, while Jungeatai Rhumde, the Prime Minister, and Srikkuhm Pih, commander of the militia, had been the last two to get in and so had to squat each with their backs to a door. I'd have assumed they'd be better off in one of the two four-wheel-drives following us up the hill, but apparently there was some big protocol thing about travelling with the Prince.

I'd been introduced to the officials and dignitaries I hadn't met before and they'd all been very polite and cordial before we clambered into the back of the car, but I sincerely hoped I wasn't inadvertently treading on as many metaphorical toes as I had physical ones.

At least they all seemed happy enough, sitting or squatting hunched in their thick clothes with big smiles on their round, hairless faces, nodding at me and making appreciative noises. I put it down to the understandable euphoria of at last having their. chunky Thulahnese asses only half a metre above the ground in a vehicle travelling at little more than a fast walk which, if it broke down, would just sit at the roadside decorously wisping steam rather than plummeting abruptly towards the nearest patch of icy rock.

'You have seen my mother,' Suvinder went on. 'She is well?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'How did you get on?'

I thought carefully. 'We had a full and frank discussion.'

'Oh, very good!' Suvinder looked delighted. I glanced round the others. The cream of the Thulahnese hierarchy looked appreciatively on, nodding their approval.

The Prince's suite was in the same recently modernised section of the palace as my room, though a floor higher. The whole royal complex was suddenly full of people dashing about, slamming doors, waving bits of paper, carrying boxes and clattering open shutters. I stood with B. K. Bousande in the lounge of the Prince's private suite, watching servants I'd never seen before rushing round the room distributing bits of luggage and straightening pictures.

The lounge was relatively modest, even restrained. Plain walls held a few gauzy watercolours; a polished wood floor was scattered with intricately patterned carpets, a couple of big cream-coloured settees and a few pieces of what looked very old and elaborately carved wooden furniture including a low central table.

A servant carrying a bunch of fresh flowers appeared through the door and set them in a vase on a sideboard. I straightened the little wire and silk flower I'd worn the day before and had transferred to my red quilted jacket, then noticed again the muddy grey marks Dulsung's boots had left by my lapels. I brushed them off as best I could and dusted my hands.

'You must tell me all you have done since you arrived!' the Prince called out from somewhere beyond the bedroom door. Judging from the echo, from the bathroom.

'Oh, just sightseeing.'

'You will not be rushing away, I hope? I would like to show you more of Thulahn.'

'I can stay a few more days, I guess. But I wouldn't want to interfere with your duties, sir.'

There was a pause, then the Prince stuck his head round the door from the bedroom, frowning. 'You do not call me "sir", Kathryn. To you I am Suvinder.' He shook his head and disappeared again. 'BK, deliver my invitation, would you?'

B. K. Bousande bowed to me and said, 'We are holding a reception to celebrate His Highness's return this evening. Would you be his guest?'

'Certainly. I'd be honoured.'

'Oh, good!' the Prince called out.

The high valleys were torn ribbons of scrappy green rammed between the force of mountains pitched tumultuously against the sky. In them was a whole raised world of tenaciously adapted bushes, trees, birds and animals somehow able to grow and multiply in this winded sweep of gust-eroded ice, naked rock and barren gravel.

The reception was held in the palace's main hall, a relatively modest space not much larger than the throne room in the old palace, but much less bizarre in its decoration, with a stalactitically carved wooden ceiling and walls covered by what looked like crosses between Afghan rugs and tapestries.

After consulting with Langtuhn Hemblu on the propriety of the little blue-black Versace — regretfully deemed too short — I'd chosen a long green silk sleeveless number with a high Chinese collar. This is the sort of dress that makes me look long and hard at myself; however, I passed the inspection of my own in-built body-fascist program and, happily, people did later compliment me on the dress in that way that means they think you look good in it, and not in the way that means they're astonished how tolerable a job it's doing of making mutton look like lamb.

There were perhaps two hundred people present at the reception. The majority were Thulahnese but there were a couple of dozen Indians and Pakistanis and a smattering of Chinese, Malays, other Oriental people whose nationalities I wasn't so sure of and some Japanese. A lot of Westerners seemed to have crawled out of the woodwork, too; I hadn't known there were so many in Thulahn, let alone Thuhn.

I was introduced to the Indian High Commissioner, the Pakistani and Chinese ambassadors, and various consuls, honorary and otherwise, including Josh Levitsen, who looked awkward in a three-piece suit that had probably last been fashionable about the time of his senior prom. Perhaps to take his mind off this he was already quite drunk when we shook hands.

The Prince guided me round his ministers, advisers and family members. This last category included his rather subdued brother and sister-in-law whose son was the heir to the throne if Suvinder didn't have any children and who was at a Business-run school in Switzerland. I also met representatives of the other noble families, of which there were about a dozen all told, a swathe of subtly varied saffron-clad lamas, a couple of Hindu priests clad in borderline-garish, and I was introduced to the remainder of the Thulahnese Civil Service that I hadn't met in either the Twin Otter four years earlier or the Foreign Ministry the day before.

I made a point of bowing and smiling a lot. A gift I've always been very grateful for is never forgetting a name, so I was able to greet people like Senior Immigration Officer Shlahm Thivelu, Home Secretary Hokla Niniphe and Prime Minister Jungeatai Rhumde without having to be prompted. They all seemed pleased. I spotted a female face I knew I'd seen before but couldn't place until I realised it was one of the old Queen's ladies-in-waiting.

The remaining foreigners included a clutch of VSO Brits and Peace Corps Americans — all appropriately young, enthusiastic, naive and full of energy — a few teachers, mostly English and French, a couple of Ozzie doctors and one Indian surgeon, some Canadian rough-diamond-type engineers and contractors engaged on relatively small-scale infrastructure work, a handful of sweaty mixed-European businessmen hoping to land contracts with the various Thulahnese ministries, and a physically attractive but corrosively smug Milanese geology professor with his own little entourage of students, all female.

Only when you started to look, only once you'd had your fill of gazing at the dazzling white peaks above and refocused your sight to what was really around you did you see the variety of forms displayed.

'They are very bad workers.'

'Are they?'

'Impossible. Quite useless. They cannot keep time. I think sometimes they cannot tell time.' The speaker was a tall, bulky Austrian businessman with a tight grip on his cocktail glass.

'Oh dear,' I said.

'Yes. We have a factory — just a very small concern you understand, something quite tiny, really — in Sangamanu making eyeglasses and ethnic jewellery. We received funding from the World Bank and various NGOs and the project was seen as a way of providing much-needed employment. It could be acceptably profitable, but the employees are quite hopeless. They forget to turn up, many days. They wander off before the clocking-off time comes. They seem unable to understand that they must be there five or six days out of seven; they go ploughing fields or gathering wood. It is quite unacceptable, but what is one to do? This factory means nothing to my company. I say nothing, of course it means something, but really it is so small in scale that it means next to nothing. But, you see, in Sangamanu it is the biggest employer. These people should be grateful that it is there and do their best to make it a success, as we have done, but they do nothing. They are just pathetic. They are a very childish sort of people, I think. They are immature, yes, like children are.'

'Really,' I said, shaking my head and looking as though I found this fascinating. I created an excuse to get away from the guy shortly afterwards, leaving him agreeing sternly with a German surveyor that, yes, the people here were just impossible. I went in search of anybody not conforming to their own national or cultural stereotypes.

I spotted Srikkuhm Pih, the militia commander, standing stiffly in his rather grand ceremonial uniform, which looked as if it might have been fashionable in the British Army about a hundred years earlier.

'Mr Pih,' I said, bowing.

'Ah, Miss Telman.' Srikkuhm Pih was old, slightly stooped, shorter than me and had the greyest hair of any Thulahnese I'd seen so far.

'I very much like your outfit. You look terribly grand. That sword's quite wonderful.'

Mr Pih responded very well to flattery. Apparently as well as being commander of the militia he was Minister of War , Secretary of Defence and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. After he'd shown me the dazzlingly bright and beautifully inscribed sword — a present to one of his predecessors from an Indian maharaja at the turn of the century — we were soon talking about the ticklish nature of his job and the generally unwarlike nature of the average Thulahnese male.

'We very bad soldiers,' he said, with a happy shrug.

'Well, if you don't need to fight…'

'Very bad soldiers. Monks best.'

'Monks?'

He nodded. 'Monks have competition. Of this.' He mimed drawing a bow.

'Archery competitions?' I asked.

'That right. Four time year. Each…'

'Season?'

'That right. Four time year they competition, all sampal, all monk-house against all other. Arch. But always get drunk first.'

'They get drunk first?'

'Drink khotse.' This was the local brew, a fermented milk beer that I'd tried exactly once when I'd come to Thulahn the first time. I think it's safe to say that even its greatest fan would agree it was an acquired taste. 'Get drunk,' Srikkuhm Pih continued, 'then they fire arrow. Some very good. Hit middle of the target, bang spot on. But. Start good, then drunk, end not good. Laugh too much. Fall over.' He shook his head. 'Sorry state of affairs.'

'You can't use the monks as soldiers, then?'

He mugged horror and dread. 'Rinpoche, Tsunke, head lama, chief priest man, they not let me. None of would. They are most…' He blew out his cheeks and shook his head.

'Didn't you have sort of samurai or something? I thought I read about a warrior caste. What were they called? The Treih?'

'They no good either. Worst. All gone soft. Very soft peoples now. Too much of living in houses, they say. Just not officer material, don't you know.' He shook his head again and regarded his empty glass. 'Sorry state of affairs.'

'What about the rest of the people? Where do you get your soldiers?'

'Not got soldiers,' he said, shrugging. 'Got none. Not a bean.'

'None at all?'

'We have militia; I am commander. Men have guns in house, we have more gun to give, here in palace, also in Government House in each towns. But not barracks, not standing army, not professionals or territorials.' He tapped his chest. 'This only army uniform in country.'

'Wow.'

He gestured to where Suvinder was talking to a couple of his ministers. The Prince waved. I waved back. 'I ask Prince for money for uniform for men,' the militia commander went on, 'but he say, "No, I am afraid not yet, Srikkuhm old fellow, must wait. Maybe next year." Well, I am very patient. Guns more important than uniforms. Not wrong there.'

'But if, say, the Chinese invaded, how many men could you put up? What would be the maximum?'

'Government military secret,' he said, slowly shaking his head. 'Very top secret.' He looked thoughtful. 'About twenty-three thousand.'

'Oh. Well, that is a fairly respectable army. Or militia.'

He looked dubious. 'That how many guns. Men not supposed to sell them or use them for other thing, like for plumb in house, but some have.' He looked glum.

'Sorry state of affairs,' I said.

'Sorry state of affairs,' he agreed, then brightened. 'But Prince always is saying he happy to have me most unemploymented man in Thulahn.' He looked around, then leaned closer and dropped his voice. I bent to hear. 'I get performance-relate bonus every year there no war.'

'Do you?' I laughed. 'How splendid! Well done.'

The militia commander offered to refresh my glass, which didn't need refreshing, then wandered off in the general direction of the drinks table, looking pleased both with himself and the financially agreeable absence of war.

I did some more circulating and found myself talking to one of the teachers, a young Welsh woman called Cerys Williams.

'Oh, Cerys, like the girl in Catatonia?'

'That's it. Same spelling.'

'I'm sure you get asked all the time, but what's it like, teaching here?'

Cerys thought the Thulahnese children were great. The schools had very little equipment and the parents were inclined to keep children away from lessons if there was anything that had to be done on the farm, but generally they seemed very bright and willing to learn.

'How long do they get in school? How many years?'

'Just primary, really. There is secondary education, but you have to pay for that. It isn't a lot, but it's more than most of the families can afford. Usually they educate the oldest boy up to third or fourth year, but the rest tend to leave when they're eleven or twelve.'

'Always the boy, even if there's an older girl?'

She gave a rueful grin. 'Oh, well, almost always. I'm trying — well, we're all trying, really, but I think I'm trying hardest — to change that, but you're up against an awful lot of generations of tradition, see?'

'I'll bet.'

'But they're not stupid. They're coming round to the idea that girls might benefit from higher education; we've had a few successes. It still usually means only one child per household goes to secondary, mind you.'

'I imagine there might be a few eldest boys who feel resentful because of that.'

She smiled. 'Oh, I don't know. They're happy enough to leave school when the time comes. I think most of them would much rather it was their sisters who had to stay on.'

More circulating. The Prime Minister himself filled me in on the workings of the Thulahnese governmental system. There was a form of democracy at the most local level, where people in each village and town elected a head man or mayor, who then chose town constables to uphold the law (or didn't bother: there was very little crime and certainly I hadn't seen any sort of police presence in Thuhn so far). The chief of each noble family and the head men and mayors formed a parliament of sorts, which met irregularly and could advise the monarch, but after that it was down to appointees of the monarch, and appointees of appointees. Anyone in the kingdom could appeal to the throne if he thought he'd been hard done by in the courts or elsewhere. Suvinder took this part of the job seriously, though Jungeatai Rhumde thought people were inclined to take advantage of the Prince's good nature. He'd suggested a sort of supreme court set-up instead, but Suvinder preferred the old system.

'Aw, shit, no, they're great people. You wouldn't want to confuse them with anybody who gives a fuck, mind you.' Rich was an Ozzie civil engineer. He laughed. 'Some of the fellas disagree, but I think they've got a great attitude to life, but then they think they're going to be reincarnated or something like that, you know?'

I smiled, nodded.

'Who needs crash barriers if God's looking after you and you might come back as something better next time anyway, you know? Fucking hard little workers, though. Don't know when to stop.'

And more circulating. Michel was a French doctor, moodily good-looking but one of those people who makes no effort to be attractive or even interesting beyond keeping their good looks kempt. He was a bit dour, as we say, but provided an overview of medicine in Thulahn, which was pretty basic. High infant mortality, poor ante- and post-natal care in the outlying villages, whole population prone to influenza epidemics which killed a few thousand each winter, some malnutrition, a lot of preventable and/or easily treatable blindness. Goitres and other deficiency conditions a problem in some of the valleys where they didn't get a full spectrum of minerals and vitamins in their diet. No sign of gender-biased infanticide. AIDS known but not common.

On which negative but happy note, the good doctor propositioned me in a bored sort of way that left it open whether he was so used to women falling into his arms that he'd got out of the way of putting much effort into it, or was so frightened of rejection he thought it wise not to invest the suggestion with too much significance.

I did my impression of the Roman Empire, and declined.

Blue pine and chir pine, prickly leaved oak, Himalayan hemlocks and silver firs, juniper and scrub juniper filled the crannied spaces where any soil had gathered, the last — stunted, blasted by the wind, burned by frost but still just growing — only finally petering out at five kilometres above sea level.

'This is a pluralist society. We respect the beliefs of our Hindu brothers and sisters. Buddhists tend not to see themselves as being in competition with others. The Hindu faith is like Judaism, providing an ancient set of rules by which one may live one's life and order one's thoughts. Ours is a younger religion, a different generation of thought, if you like, grafted upon a set of much older traditions, but having drawn lessons from them, and respectful of them. Westerners often see it as more like a philosophy. Or so they tell us.'

'Yes, I know a few Buddhists in California.'

'You do? So do I! Do you know—?'

I smiled. We swapped a few names but, predictably, came up with no matches.

Sahair Beies was Rinpoche, or head lama of Bhaiwair monastery, the biggest in the country. I had already seen it, albeit from a distance, strung across the rock faces above the old palace a few kilometres out of Thuhn. He was slight, indeterminately old, shaved bald and wore very deeply saffron robes and little wireframe glasses behind which intelligent-looking eyes twinkled.

'You are a Christian, Ms Telman?'

'Nope.'

'Jewish, then? I have noticed that many people whose names end in "-man" are Jewish.'

I shook my head. 'Evangelical atheist.'

He nodded thoughtfully. 'A demanding path, I suspect. I asked one of your compatriots what he was, once, and he replied, "Devout Capitalist."' The Rinpoche laughed.

'We have a lot of those. Most are less open about it. Life as acquisition. Whoever dies with the most toys wins. It's a boy thing.'

'He gave me a lecture on the dynamic nature of the West and the United States of America in particular. It was most illuminating.'

'But it didn't persuade you to move to New York City and become a venture capitalist or a stockbroker?'

'No!' He laughed.

'What about other faiths?' I asked. 'Do you, for instance, get Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses turning up here?' I had a sudden comical image of two guys in sober suits and shiny shoes (covered in snow) shivering outside the giant doors of a remote monastery.

'Very rarely.' The Rinpoche looked thoughtful. 'Usually by the time we see them they are…changed,' he said. His eyes bulged. 'Oh, I find physicists much more interesting. There have been some famous American professors and Indian Nobel Prize winners I have talked to, and it struck me that we were — as one says — on the same wavelength in many ways.'

'Physics. That's our Brahmin faith.'

'You think so?'

'I think a lot of people live as though that's true, even if they don't think about it. To us, science is the religion that works. Other faiths claim miracles, but science delivers them, through technology: replacing diseased hearts, talking to people on the other side of the world, travelling to other planets, determining when the universe began. We display our faith every time we turn on a light switch or step aboard a jet.'

'You see? All very interesting, but I prefer the idea of Nirvana.'

'As you said, sir, it's a hard path, but only if you think of it.'

'One of your American professors said that to study religion was merely to know the mind of man, but if one truly wanted to know the mind of God, you must study physics.'

'That sounds familiar. I think I've read his book.'

The Rinpoche pinched his lower lip. 'I think I see what he meant now, but I could not explain to him that the thoughts of people and the phenomena we seek to explain through physics might all be revealed as…subsidiary to the attainment of true enlightenment, which would be like the result of one of those experiments which use high energies to show that apparently quite different forces are in fact the same. Do you see what I mean? That having achieved Nirvana, one might recognise all human behaviour and the most profound physical laws as being ultimately indistinguishable in their essence.'

I had to pause while I let this sink in. Then I stood back a pace from the Rinpoche and said, 'Wow, you guys don't just wander into this job, do you?'

The Rinpoche's eyes sparkled and he held one hand over his mouth while he giggled modestly.

Amongst and above them snow pigeons, sunbirds, jungle crows, barbets, choughs, warblers, babblers, grandalas, accentors, Himalayan griffon vultures and Thulahnese tragopans hopped, flitted, scurried, dived, wheeled or stooped.

I was on my way back from the toilet; I nodded and smiled at the little lady-in-waiting as she headed where I'd just been, then spotted Josh Levitsen letting himself out of a door and on to a terrace overlooking the dark town. I followed him. He stood by the stone parapet, swaying, hands cupped in front of his mouth as he fumbled with the Zippo, his face suddenly yellow in the flame as the lighter flared. He looked up as I approached.

'Hey, Ms Telman, you're going to catch your death of cold out here, you know that? Nice dress. Did I say that earlier? You're a babe, you know that? If you don't mind me saying so, that is. Here, you wanna toke? Sun's over the yard-arm and shit, right?'

'Thanks.'

We leant on the stonework. It really was quite cold, though at least there was no wind. I felt the hairs on my arms prickle, goose-bumps rising. The grass was strong. I held it in for a while, but ended up coughing on the exhale.

I handed the skinny joint back to Levitsen. 'Good shit. Local?'

'Thulahn's finest. Every pack comes with a sanity warning from the Lord High Surgeon General.'

'Do they export much? I've never heard of Thulahnese.'

'Na, me neither. For consumption on the premises only.' He studied the joint before handing it back to me. 'Maybe just as well. Prices might go up.'

We smoked in silence for a while.

'It true they have opium poppies in some of the lower valleys?' I asked.

'Yeah, some. That leaves the country, but it's minimal.' He sucked smoke and handed the J back. 'Compared to other places. Tried that stuff once,' he said, pronouncing the words as he sucked more air in. Then he grinned and shook his head until he blew out a cloud of fragrant smoke. 'Just the once, though. Toooo nice. Faaar too nice.'

I shivered. 'Absolutely. Moderation in all things. Here.'

'Couldn't agree more. Thanks.' Silence. 'What you looking at?'

'Can you see the old palace from here?'

'Na. Further round the valley there, higher, too.'

'Right.' Silence. 'Breeze.'

'Yup.'

'Wind getting up.'

'She'll be fine until the east wind blows.'

'What?'

'Nuthin'.'

Silence. 'Jeez, the stars.'

'Cool, huh? Hey, you look cold.'

'I am absolutely fucking freezing.'

'Better get back in. People will talk.'

'Indeed. Good grief, my teeth are chattering. I didn't think that really happened.'

A stiff vodka martini gave the impression that it was counteracting the effects of the joint. Probably doing nothing of the sort, but I felt like I needed it anyway. I didn't entirely trust myself not to slur my words, or babble, so I circulated in Minimum Speech Mode for a while, standing on the outskirts of groups and listening, or just nodding knowledgeably/sympathetically as somebody else sounded off. I narrowly escaped being collared a second time by the boring Austrian with the factory, but in the course of this manoeuvre bumped into the Prince.

'Kathryn, you are enjoying yourself?'

'Having a total hoot of a time, Suvinder. What a swell party this is. How about you, Princey baby?' Ah, well, Kathryn. Still in Potential Babble Mode, then. Just shut up, you idiot.

'Ha ha! You are a scream, Kathryn. Oh, yes, it is good to be back. And I am enjoying this party very much. Now, listen, as I was saying, I would love to show you more of the country. Langtuhn Hemblu is keen to take a four-wheel-drive and take us all over the place. We might need a week. It is such a beautiful country, Kathryn. Can you spare us that long?' He put his hands together in a beseeching sort of way. 'Oh, Kathryn, please say you can!'

'Ah, what the hell, why not?' I heard myself say. My, that grass was strong.

'Ah, you wonderful girl! You have made me so happy!' Suvinder went as though to take my face in his hands, but then changed his mind and just grasped my hands — they'd more or less warmed up by now, with no visible signs of frostbite — and shook them together until I thought my teeth would start chattering again.

That night I slept very, very well indeed. I had half thought that I might not be spending it alone. There had been a few attractive possibles in the crowd at the reception, which had had a pretty good social, conducive buzz about it, plus I was feeling pleasantly, mellowly receptive and sort of generally well disposed to men, which always helped…but in the end, well, I was just too tired, I guess. It had been a good party, I'd met lots of people, encountered an only slightly smaller number of interesting people, gathered a lot of information and over-all just had a fine old time.

I didn't even feel I'd made a mistake accepting Suvinder's offer to show me round the country. I was aware I might, come the chill light of morning, but not then, not right at that moment, not yet.

Here, too, was a mostly unseen rainbow of animals: grey langurs, red pandas, blue sheep, black bears and yellow-throated martens, their presence — like the leopards, tahrs, gorals, musk deer, muntjacs, pikas and serows that shared the mountains with them — usually witnessed only by their droppings, prints or bones.

The Prince and I visited the towns of Joitem, Khruhset, Sangamanu and Kamalu and Gerrosakain. Langtuhn Hemblu trundled the old Land Cruiser slowly through dozens of huddled villages where people stopped and grinned and nodded formally, children ran away laughing, goats limped hobbled, sheep wandered indifferently and chickens pecked at dirt. In the ruins of the great monastery of Trisuhl we took tea.

The rhododendron bushes flourished everywhere in the lower valleys, their leaves glossy, thick and so deeply green they were nearly black. The valleys had once been much more heavily forested, and here and there mixed woods still lay across the folded hills and lined the steeper slopes. Where the forests had been, now farms were strewn across the undulating countryside, their terraces looping along the pitched gradients of the land like contour lines made solid.

Relatives, noble families, lamas and government officials greeted the Prince with a variety of reactions that ranged through polite affection, restrained respect, simple friendliness and what certainly looked like unalloyed joy. There were no great crowds of people brandishing the national flag and shouting hip-hurrah, but no cloaked anarchists lobbing bombs either. People waved a lot and smiled.

We visited one hospital. It was clean but sparse, just a building with many beds in many rooms, with little of the equipment the average Westerner associates with institutional medicine. Suvinder took little presents for the patients. I felt rudely healthy, as though my own constitution — which felt pretty sturdy and glowing — was an insult to these sick people.

We went round a couple of schools, too, which were much more fun. We visited the yak market in Kamalu, saw a Hindu marriage near Gerrosakain and a Buddhist funeral in Khruhset.

We took short hikes into the hills to visit half-frozen waterfalls, abandoned forts, picturesquely ancient monasteries and picturesquely ancient monks. In the lower valleys, we crossed the milky rush of rivers by open wicker-work tube bridges. The Prince puffed and panted up the trails, using a couple of tall walking sticks, perspiring freely and apologising profusely for it, but he always made it and we never had to stop and wait for him. Langtuhn carried whatever picnic or other stuff he thought we might need and wouldn't let me carry anything other than the pair of binoculars and the Canon Sureshot I'd bought in Joitem.

I was pleased to be able to keep up with Langtuhn, even though he was loaded down with all the gear, had ten years on me at least and — I suspected — was throttling his pace way back to make life easier for us.

It was on one of these walks I lost the little artificial flower Dulsung had given me.

Kkatjats were snacks. We nibbled on a lot of Kkatjats. Pancakes featured strongly. Jherdu was roast millet flour, pi'kho roasted wheat flour. I'd been studying my guidebook and knew words like pha for village, thakle for innkeeper, kug for crow, muhr for death, that sort of thing. Some words were easy to remember because they bore a similarity to their English, Indian or Nepalese equivalents, like thay for tea, rupe which was the local currency, and namst, which was the everyday form of hello.

We stayed in two Thulahnese stately homes (one warm and unfriendly, the other the opposite), a government rest-house (minimalist; big rooms but a padded hammock, for goodness' sake. Still, very good night's sleep), the Gerrosakain Grand Hotel, Guest, Tea and Bunk House (long on sign, short on grandness) and a monastery, where I had to sleep in a special annex hung out over the walls because I was female.

Somewhat to my surprise, and much to my relief, Suvinder was a perfect gentleman: no flirting, no hands on knees, no tappings on my door at midnight. All in all it was a very restful and relaxing holiday in a pleasantly tiring sort of way. I'd deliberately left my lap-top and both phones back in Thuhn (the ordinary mobile was totally useless here anyway). It was like a sabbatical within a holiday within a sabbatical. Or something. Anyway, I felt very good. I thought of Stephen a few times, and took out the two discs I had, the CD-ROM with the Business's plans for Thulahn and the DVD with the evidence of my beloved's spouse cheating on him, and held them up to whatever light was available and watched their rainbow surfaces shimmer for a while, before putting them both back in my pocket.

Maybe, I thought, everything will have changed when I get back to Thuhn and make a few calls and send a few e-mails. Stephen will have found out about Emma's infidelity, she'll have taken the children and he'll be winging his way to Thulahn, To Forget. The Business would have suddenly discovered somewhere even better to buy, but donate billions to Thulahn, just to say thanks.

Somehow being away from all electronic contact, even if only for a few days, made this seem much more likely, as though there was a capacitance for change and difference in my life which was constantly being shorted away to ground by all the calls I made and e-mails I exchanged, but which, left alone for a while and allowed to charge up fully, would, when finally released, blast through all problems and light up all and any darkness.

Well, hoping is always easier than thinking.

I stayed up talking to the Prince a couple of nights over a whisky or two. He talked about the long-mooted change to becoming a constitutional monarch, about better roads, schools and hospitals, about his love for Paris and London, about his affection for Uncle Freddy, and about all the changes that would inevitably ensue if — and when, because he talked about it as though it was unavoidable — the Business came in and took over his country.

'It is a Mephistophelean thing, what?' he said sadly, staring into the flames of the rest-house's sitting-room fire. Everybody else had turned in for the night; there were just the two of us and a decanter of something peaty from Islay.

'Well,' I said, 'if you were thinking about this constitutional monarchy thing anyway, you aren't losing so much. Maybe, in some ways, you gain. The Business will probably prefer to deal with a single ruler than a chamber full of politicians, so remaining…' (I tried to think of a polite alternative to the word that had first occurred to me, but it had been a long day and I was tired, so I couldn't) '… undemocratic for as long as possible will suit them fine. And any pressure for reform, well, they'll just buy that off with improvements if not outright bribes. You should look on it as securing your position, Suvinder.'

'I did not mean for me, Kathryn,' he said, swirling his whisky round in his glass. 'I meant for the country, the people.'

'Oh. I see.' Boy, did I feel shallow. 'You mean they don't get a say in whether all this happens.'

'Yes. And I can't really tell them what it is that might happen.'

'Who does know?'

'The cabinet. Rinpoche Beies has a sort of idea, and my mother managed to get wind of it too, somehow.'

'What do they all think?'

'My ministers are enthusiastic. The Rinpoche is…hmm, indifferent is not the correct word. Happy either way. Yes. My mother has only the vaguest notion, but despises the whole idea utterly.' He sighed heavily. 'I thought she would.'

'Well, she's a mother. She just wants what's best for her boy.'

'Huh!' The Prince drained his glass. He inspected it as though surprised to find it empty. 'I am going to have some more whisky,' he announced. 'Would you like to have some more whisky, Kathryn?'

'Just a little. Very little…That's too much. Never mind.'

'I think she blames me,' he said morosely.

'Your mother? What for?'

'Everything.'

'Everything?'

'Everything.'

'What, like the Second World War, toxic shock syndrome, TV evangelists, the single "Achey Breakey Heart"?'

'Ha, but no. Just for not having remarried.'

'Ah.' We hadn't — ever — touched on the subject of the Prince's short-lived marriage to the Nepali princess who'd died in the helicopter crash in the mountains, twenty years earlier. 'Well, one has to mourn,' I said. 'And then these things take time.' Platitudes, I thought. But this was the sort of thing you felt. you had to say. I read once that Ludwig Wittgenstein had no small-talk, no casual conversation at all. How hellish.

Suvinder gazed at the flames. 'I was waiting to meet the right person,' the Prince told them.

'Well, hell, Prince. Your mother can't blame you for that.'

'I think mothers have their own idea of original sin, to use the Christian term, Kathryn,' Suvinder said with a sigh. 'One is always guilty.' He glanced round towards the door. 'Always I wait for her to come through the door. Any door, whenever I am in Thulahn, and sometimes when I am further afield, scolding me.'

'Well, she does seem kind of committed to her bed, Suvinder.'

'I know.' He shivered. 'That is what's so scary.'

He did touch me that evening, but only in a friendly, companionable way, taking my arm as we walked to our respective rooms. No attempt at a kiss or anything. Just as well: I was set for a struggle with that damn hammock, though once I was in it was very comfortable.

The next day was the last. We headed back towards Thuhn on a fine, clear, cold day and had a picnic lunch in the ruins of the old monastery at Trisuhl.

Langtuhn Hemblu unpacked the little table and two chairs, set the places, arranged the food and brewed a pot of Earl Grey tea, then went off to visit a relation who lived nearby.

The trees growing within the walls rustled where their tops stuck out into the light breeze, and little rose finches and redstarts hopped and jumped around us, almost but not quite accepting morsels of food from my hand. Choughs called out, their cries echoing in the empty shell of walls.

Suvinder chattered a little, and spilled some tea on the table, which was not like him. I felt content and harmonious with everything. I had mixed feelings about heading back to Thuhn and I was surprised to find that, while I was certainly looking forward to getting back to my e-mails and phones, if anything — given the chance — I'd have chosen to continue the tour round Thulahn. But, then, it was a small country. There was not much more to see, perhaps. And I'd been lucky to have had the undivided attention of somebody with as many responsibilities and calls upon his time as the Prince.

It was the sort of time when it paid to remember what Mrs Telman had said, back in the hotel room at Vevey that night. Appreciate at the time, enjoy the moment, count your blessings.

'Kathryn,' Suvinder said, placing his teacup down. Somehow, I just knew we were suddenly in formal territory.

I turned from feeding the little birds to sit square and upright. Plumped up in our thermal jackets, we faced each other across the little table.

'Your Highness,' I said. I clasped my hands on the table.

He addressed them rather than my face. 'Have you enjoyed the last few days?'

'Immensely, Suvinder. One of the best holidays I've ever had.'

He looked up, smiling. 'Really?'

'Of course really. How about you?'

'What?'

'Have you enjoyed yourself?'

'Well, of course.'

'There you are, then. Hurrah for us.'

'Yes. Yes.' He was looking at my hands again. 'You have enjoyed my company, I hope?'

'Very much indeed, Prince. You've been the perfect host. I'm very grateful for your time. I feel very…favoured. I just hope your subjects don't resent me monopolising you for so long.'

He waved one hand dismissively. 'Good. Good, I…I'm glad to hear that. Very glad to hear that. Kathryn, I…' He exhaled suddenly, an exasperated expression on his face, and sat back, slapping the table. 'Oh, this is no good. I will come right out with it.' He looked me in the eye.

And, dolt that I am, I swear that I still had absolutely no idea what was coming next.

'Kathryn,' he said, 'will you marry me?'

I stared at him. For a while. 'Wi — Will I…?' I said, eloquently. Then I felt my eyes narrow. 'Are you serious?'

'Of course I am serious!' the Prince squeaked, then looked surprised. 'Of course,' he said, in a normal voice.

'I…I…Suvinder…Prince…I…'

He searched my eyes. 'Oh, dear, this has been a complete surprise to you, hasn't it?'

I nodded. 'Well, ah, yes.' I gulped. 'I mean, it is.'

'Have I made a complete fool of myself, Kathryn?' he asked, his gaze dropping.

'Prince, I…' I took a deep breath. How do you really, clearly, kindly say to someone you've come to like — even like quite a lot — that you just don't love them and so, no, of course you don't want to marry them? 'No, of course you haven't made a fool of yourself, Suvinder. I'm very, very flattered that you —'

He turned sideways in his seat, crossing his legs and arms and casting his gaze to the sky. 'Oh, Prince,' I said, recalling the drunken call in Blysecrag a few weeks earlier. 'I know people have said this sort of thing to you before, used these words. But I mean it. I'm not just trying to be kind. I like you a lot, and I know how much you must have…but hold on. I mean, you can't marry a commoner anyway, can you?'

'I can marry whom I like,' he said resentfully, scratching at the tablecloth with one fingernail as though trying to remove an invisible stain. 'My mother and anybody else can go hang. Tradition implies I must marry a princess or someone similar, but there is nothing but this…succession of precedents. From an age when there were many more princesses around. This is the twentieth century. My God, it is almost the twenty-first century. I am not unpopular. I have taken the precaution, even though I have resented it, of gauging the reaction of people to you. Ordinary people seem to like you. My ministers do. The Rinpoche Beies was most taken with you and thought we would be most happy. So it would be a popular match.' He sighed. 'But I should have known.'

'Hold on, they don't know, do they?'

He glanced at me. 'Of course. Well, not the ordinary people. But I told the cabinet members in the plane on the way to Thuhn, and the Rinpoche before the reception the other night.'

'Oh, my god.' I sat back, stunned. I remembered them all nodding at me, smiling and nodding at me. They weren't just being friendly. They were sizing me up!

'What about your mother?'

'Her I was leaving till later,' Suvinder admitted.

An appalling suspicion began to form in my mind. 'Who else knows?' I asked, keeping my voice cold and flat.

He turned to me. ' A few people. Not many. All most discreet.' He sounded bitter as he said, 'Why? Are you so ashamed that I have asked you to marry me?'

'I said I was flattered. I think I still am, but I mean does anybody in the Business know?'

He looked defensive. 'I don't know. No, I mean, one or two, perhaps, knew that I, that I might…' His voice trailed off.

I stood up. 'This was all meant, wasn't it?'

He rose too, reaching out to take my hands in his while his napkin fell to the grass. 'Oh, Kathryn!' he cried. 'Do you really think so?'

I jerked my hands away. 'No, by the Business, you idiot!'

He looked mystified and hurt. 'What do you mean?'

I stood there and looked very carefully into his eyes. There was a lot of stuff going through my mind in those moments, none of it nice and some of it positively paranoid. So this was what they meant by thinking on your feet. 'Prince,' I said eventually, 'is this the way the Business makes sure that Thulahn is really theirs? By having me marry you? Did they suggest this? Did any of them — Dessous, Cholongai, Hazleton - did they even hint that this might be a good idea?'

Suvinder looked as if he was about to weep. 'Well, not…'

'Not in so many words?' I suggested.

'Well, I think they know I…that I have very strong feelings for you. I did not…And they did not…'

I don't think I have ever seen a man look so abject.

Sometimes you just have to trust your feelings. I reached out and took his hand. 'Suvinder, I'm sorry that the answer is no. I like you, and I hope you will stay my friend, and I accept that it was a sincere offer, from the heart. And I'm sorry I called you an idiot.'

His eyes glistened as they looked at me. He gave a small and sorry smile, then lowered his head until I couldn't see his eyes. 'I'm sorry I didn't protest when you did,' Suvinder mumbled at the table. I looked down at the white tablecloth, in the man's shadow, directly under his face. A clear droplet hit the linen surface, darkening it and spreading. He turned away with a sniff and walked off a little way, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket.

'Suvinder?'

'Yes?' he said, still not turning to look at me. He blew his nose.

'I am so sorry.

He waved one hand and shrugged. He carefully folded the handkerchief again.

'Look,' I said, 'why not tell people that I'm thinking about it?'

He looked back with a smile. 'What would be the point of that?'

'It might…No, you're right, it's a stupid idea.'

He returned to the table, pocketing the hanky and taking a deep breath, his head high. 'Oh, look at us, eh? I am ashamed at myself for spoiling a perfectly good picnic, ruining a most pleasant holiday.'

'You haven't ruined anything, Suvinder,' I said, as he held my seat for me.

'Good. I must say, I'm still hungry. Let us eat, shall we?'

'Let's.'

He hesitated as he was about to take his seat. 'May I say one more thing? Then I promise never to raise the subject again.'

'All right.'

'I think I love you, Kathryn.' He paused. 'But that is not why I asked you to marry me.'

'Oh,' I said.

'I asked you to marry me because I think you will make a wonderful wife and because you are somebody I can imagine being with for the rest of my life, when perhaps love, of a sort, of a very important and special sort, might grow between us. I think it is wonderfully romantic to marry for love alone, but I have seen so many people do so and live to regret it. There are some lucky people, no doubt, for whom everything works out just perfectly, but I have never met any. For most people, I think, to marry for love is to marry…at the summit, as it were. It must be downhill from there on. To marry for other reasons, with one's head and not just one's heart, is to embark on a different sort of journey, uphill, I suppose,' he said, looking embarrassed. 'My goodness, I do not choose my metaphors so well, do I? But it is a journey which offers the hope that things will become gradually better and better between the people concerned.' He spread his hands and gave a sharp sort of laugh. 'There. My thoughts on the Western romantic marriage ideal. I did not put it, or rather them, very well, but there you are. No more.'

'You put it just fine, Suvinder,' I told him.

'I did?' he said, pouring some more tea from the padded pot. 'Oh, good. Please, another sandwich? We cannot feed them all to the birds.'

Even moving higher than Thuhn, scaling tracks that seemed to zigzag up for ever to still higher valleys, you could find yourself beneath the lowest limit of an animal's domain; snow leopards that lived perpetually above the tree line and bharals that even in winter never descended below four thousand metres.

'You what? You go to this remote Himalayan kingdom, the Prince proposes to you and you turn him down? Are you fucking insane?'

'Of course I turned him down. I don't love him.'

'Ah, so what? Say yes anyway. What girl gets a chance to marry a prince these days? Think of your grandchildren!'

'I don't want grandchildren. I don't want children!'

'Yes, you do.'

'No, I don't.'

'You do too. No one's mileage varies that much.'

'I'm telling you I don't, dammit!'

'Yeah, right.'

'Luce, I wouldn't lie to you. I've never lied to you.'

'Oh, come on, you must have. I'm your girlfriend, not your analyst.'

'What a terrible attitude! And I don't even have an analyst.'

'Exactly.'

'What do you mean "exactly"?'

'That just shows how much you need one.'

'What? Not having an analyst shows how much I need an analyst?'

'Yes.'

'You're mad.'

'Yeah, but at least I've got an analyst.'

Slow-gliding in the air above them all slid the wing-spread shapes of the bone-eating lammergeiers, forever cruising the blade-thin winds that sliced across the frozen peaks.

'Mr Hazleton?'

'Kathryn?'

'I just had a funny thought.'

'Funny? How do you mean? I thought you'd be ringing about Freddy —'

'Mr Hazleton, I've just received a proposal of marriage from the Prince. Am I supposed to…What about Freddy?'

'You haven't heard? Oh dear. He was in a car crash. He's in — what do they call it nowadays? — Intensive Care. Kathryn, I'm very sorry to be the one to tell you, but they don't seem to think he's going to make it. He was asking to see you. Though, I don't know, by the time you'd be able to get there…'

Suddenly I remembered — or half-remembered — a joke Uncle Freddy had told me once, something about a man, a fanatical hunter who was a great marksman with a double-barrel shotgun and was forever bagging vast quantities of grouse and pheasant but who in the end went mad and sincerely thought he was the piece of cotton on the end of a length of string that shotgun owners use to clean out the barrels of their guns. The punchline was his wife saying, 'But, Doctor, do you think he'll pull through?' This had sent Uncle Freddy into a tearful, knee-slapping frenzy; I could still see him hooting and guffawing and bending and struggling to catch his breath through his laughter.

I said, 'Tell them I'm on my way.'