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.