Between ourselves the life of the jobbing poet can be hectic. People ask how I retain my trim figure given they see me living a life of hedonistic excess, dining from the buffet tables of the rich. What they don’t see is me covering the ground between the establishment of one patron and the next, on foot, at speed, and often in the rain. They also don’t see Shena and I at home on those days when our main meal is Shena’s celebrated ‘Stale bread and discarded vegetable of the day soup.’

But occasionally I do have times when cultivated leisure is almost forced on me by circumstance. One such occasion was when I was planning an evening entertainment for a lady. She wished it to have a Partannese theme and after some thought I remembered Koyle Longjack’s celebrated work, ‘A Partannese Expedition.’ This work is an account of his trip through Partann two centuries ago, with tales of the people he met, the patrons he found, the poems he wrote and the circumstances in which they were delivered.

My idea was that I would blend Koyle’s poems and anecdotes of Partann with some of my own tales and poems from my travels in the area. Thus I would give my Patron and her audience something which would suit a wide range of guests. Those uncouth clods who were not particularly enamoured of poetry would still have something to entertain them, other than the delights of their hostess’s cold table.

Now whilst I don’t own a copy of Longjack’s work, the Great Library does. My plan was to visit the library, get the book, and take it to the Salon where I could probably afford a cup of coffee as I read it and took notes. I estimated it would take most of the day to get what I wanted and the day looked like being particularly wet. So it did occur to me that staying inside and just reading was a good way to spend my time. Mutt seemed to be of one mind with me in this, or it may be that he has a strong liking for the Salon’s iced buns.

I had barely entered the Great library than I was hailed by Eran Klun. He is a pleasant enough young man, one of Lord Cartin’s men-at-arms. Hence I was a little surprised to find him in the Library.