Failing to grasp the obscurely allusive Yank reference, but deeply embarrassed by the creative visualization of the naked physicality evoked, he elected to plunge on, despite the sense that he was being sucked into a circular verbal morass. "Root vegetables being neither here nor there, Madam..."

3.

The Queen was daydreaming of Balmoral.

Unfortunately for her, that favored haven lay one hundred and fifty miles to the north, while she was stuck within the confines of Holyrood, a place that always succeeded in putting her in a foul frame of mind. She positively hated it there, even if it was for just one short week out of every year. It was cold and damp and draughty and, as if that were not all bad enough, the archaic heating system and electricity were always going on the fritz. Were it not for the fact that the call of duty demanded her annual presence there for such important events as the Ceremony of the Keys, she would have given up a goodly portion of her Civil List allowance in order to find herself elsewhere.

"Did you shoot this, too, Philip?" innocently enquired the Duke's mother-in-law, indicating with a nod of her head to the waiting server that she would very much like some more of the sherry.

The grim person being so addressed took another violent jab with his fork at one of the tough birds that the three elder Royals, with some degree of difficulty, were dining on. "No, I did not," the Duke of Edinburgh, who had been having a rather rough go of it lately in the bird-bagging department, groused huffily.

The Queen swirled the wine in her own goblet, studying the play of flickering lights on burgundy liquid, before taking a fortifying swallow. "Do you think, perhaps, that we should show some sort of-oh, I don't know-an interest?" She reached for her glass again, one slug having proved insufficient. "That is to say, do either of you think it necessary that we meet Charles's new friend this evening?"

Earlier that same afternoon, the Queen had observed Daisy's arrival. By peeking out through a crack formed by heavy tartan draperies, she had witnessed the convergence of the Americans as they had passed Queen Mary's Bathhouse, the turreted lodge on the left-hand periphery of the grounds, approaching from Canongate.

Charles cannot be serious, she had thought, upon this second inspection of Daisy. This One was far too short. Why, put her behind a podium with a microphone, and This One would be no more than a talking hat.

Experiencing a rare reversal of opinion, the Queen had groaned inwardly. At least The Other One had been tall enough for making fashion statements; This One looked to be only capable of fashion clauses, at best.

Thankfully, however, the nostalgic reversal proved to be merciful in its brevity. One would simply have to wait and see.

The Queen was called back from her reverie by the grunting sounds that her husband was making as he bared his teeth, rending the last shreds of meat from the carcass.

"If you're asking for my advice," he said, "I say that it's best to leave it for as long as you possibly can."

"He's right, dear," said the Queen's mother. "You know that you always dread coming here enough as it is. No point in spoiling the entire holiday for everybody else by becoming intolerably pettish before you absolutely have to."

The Duke of Edinburgh, basking in the warm glow brought about by his mother-in-law's rare concurrence with his point of view, waxed expansive. "Leave it until the party, day after tomorrow," he generously suggested, referring to one of the four Garden Parties that the Queen hosted each year.

He picked a stubborn piece of pigeon from between his teeth and sat, examining it where it was now wedged beneath his fingernail. "That way, we can enjoy at least one or two nights' good rest, before learning what fresh horror that son of yours has chosen to visit upon us this time."

At last, he succeeded in dislodging the last smidgen of pigeon from under his nail, and dismissively flicked it away. "Surely, even this palace is large enough to avoid her until then. Isn't it?"

Before the Queen had the chance to respond to this query, the questionable light fixtures flickered once (ominously), twice (dangerously), before the entire structure was plunged into darkness, granting dismal gloom free reign for the remainder of the evening.

From out of the encroaching darkness, as servants scurried to locate candles, there came a single plaintive request from the Queen Mother.

"Has anybody seen my wineglass?"

4.

"Well, there goes Mother, off to work again, I see," the Prince said, indicating with his chin the water-blurred but nonetheless purposeful stride of the stolid figure as glimpsed through one of the rain-drenched windows.

What did she carry in that bag? Daisy silently wondered, referring to the inevitable purse that could be seen dangling from the Royal wrist. A spare lipstick? A dime for an emergency phone call? The world's finest electronic organizer?

Daisy had always previously assumed that the Queen carried her tampons in there. But, surely she was past that point at this stage, no? Not to mention, that it was difficult to feature the Monarch as ever having been the victim of bodily functions. What was the protocol, for example, if the Queen were to fart?

Then Daisy remembered something that she had read somewhere. Out loud, she asked, "Charley, what does the Chief Clerk of the Privy Purse do?" Perhaps this would provide the answer that she was looking for. "Is he the man in charge of that little bag that your mother's always clutching?"

"Not at all," a bewildered Charles replied. He failed to see any connection. "Actually, his duties involve..."

But Daisy was off again in handbag speculation land, and would thus never know what the Chief Clerk of the Privy Purse's job description entailed. An emory board? Mace? House keys?

"... so, as you can readily see, to some people's way of thinking, he is a very important man."

The Prince leapt down from his perch on the back of a velvet sofa, where he had been sitting, feet dangling over the side.

"At any rate," he said apologetically, "I'm afraid that I shall have to leave you for a few hours, as I must be off to work as well." His brow furrowed. "A distillery opening? Ground-breaking for an orphanage?" He shrugged. "Well, no matter. Sturgess will have it all written down for me somewhere. Speaking of whom, I shall leave him behind with you. Should you require anything, do not hesitate to call upon him. I am sure that he would be only too glad to help you out. I shall try to return as early as possible. But until then, by all means make yourself at home."

Hmm. What to do, what to do, Daisy wondered. Left to her own devices, she was idly swinging her arms back and forth, clapping her hands together.

Then her eye chanced to fall upon a discarded tour brochure, sticking out from underneath the drapes. It had been abandoned there by one of Daisy's fellow countrymen, the same little urchin who had deemed it necessary to also leave behind his chocolate mark.

Daisy thought of the oak-paneled walls of Holyrood, the portraits of Scottish nobles, the oak chests, the candles, crepitating floorboards, and small windows. Not to mention, enough tartan to gag a warhorse.

She thought of the howling wind. Thankfully, the on-again-off-again heating system was presently in 'on' mode, because the downpour was turning it into a particularly frigid day. Even Edinburgh did not normally get this chilly in the month of July.

She listened for a moment to the creaking of the ancient wooden structure. If a palace could be said to quiver, then this one was doing it.

Okay. So, maybe it was all a trifle over-the-top; just a tad bit Orson Welles on a plaid acid trip. But Daisy decided that she liked it.

Stooping, Daisy snatched up the surprisingly thick pamphlet. She flipped through the glossy pages that made it look as though the sun shone over Holyrood at all times. She was thinking that some tiny tourist's mommy or daddy had forked over a pretty pence for this souvenir, only to have it tossed aside, along with the gummy candies that she had found tucked up under the hem of the curtain.

Well, why the heck not? Daisy asked herself, fishing out the red candies first, with the intention of leaving the licorice ones for last, an eventuality of final resort that would be called into service only in the event of absolute sugar privation.

Charley had said that she should make herself at home, mi casa es su casa and all of that. And what better way for a Silverman to make herself at home than wrapping her hands around some printed matter and reading her way through it? She would take herself on a self-guided tour, she decided. Surely, she could amuse herself for a few short hours. After all, she had never needed a Sturgess to take care of her before. And, even if you were only planning on stopping at a certain place for a short period of time, it still always made sense-at least, to her way of thinking-to find out something about where you were, so that later on you would always know where you had been.

Hmm. Let's see...

Holyrood was located at the Canongate eastern end of the Royal Mile, which began at Edinburgh Castle. Peppered with interesting old structures-replete with turrets, gables, and chimneys-the quaint little shops that now studded the Mile sounded to Daisy to be no more than an aesthetically pleasing architectural device, employed to wean people from their own presumably hard-earned cash.

Adjacent to Holyrood Abbey and dating back to the early 16th century...

Yawn. Chomp, chomp. Flip the page.

Mary, Queen of Scots had moved there from the French Court, already a widow for the first time at the age of nineteen. Well, now, that was a bit more interesting.

Chew, chew.

Daisy paused in her strolling and reading to study a marker that recorded the spot where David Rizzio had died on 9 March, 1566.

Nothing like having a veritable tombstone smack in the middle of your home, Daisy thought.

Mary's Italian secretary, Rizzio, had been murdered, assassinated some said by Lord Darnley-Mary's second husband-along with his cohorts. The dirty deed had taken place in this, the audience chamber of Holyrood. The rather-as all reports agreed upon-shrimpy form of Rizzio was said to have been stabbed fifty-six times. A nice round number, that.

The syphilitic Lord Darnley (the brochure didn't exactly refer to his medical condition in so many words, but Daisy had remembered reading something once) had been, in his just turn, also murdered. The same some, who always seemed to be saying something, this time said that Mary's hand was the guiding force behind the plot.

So, plenty of murder and mayhem. A little grim, perhaps, but nothing really out of the way there either.

Yuck, how bland: an orange one. Daisy swallowed. Flick of the page.

Bonnie Prince Charlie had hosted one whale of a rip-roaring ball there in the mid-eighteenth century.

Now, that sounded a little more uplifting.

But then, not long after that, the circumstances of his own existence had undergone a distinct reversal of fortune.

And, of course, Mary had also wedded her beloved Bothwell there, an obscenely short time after the murder of Darnley. This union was the signal event that many historians agreed had precipitated her downfall, but it was also one that Daisy had always found to be romantic, if only in a remotely 'other time' sort of way.

The way that Daisy had always figured it, Mary's first husband-the childish French King-had probably played with her; Darnley had provided her with great sex-at least, initially; while Bothwell had, in all likelihood, been the only one who had actually listened to her (for about five minutes, at any rate), thereby explaining just about everything.

But, as anyone at all familiar with Scots history knew, practically even before the third honeymoon was over, Mary's own life took a decided turn for the worse.

In fact, Daisy thought as she flipped the pages more rapidly, it would appear that quite a few people who had entered at the portals of Holyrood had found themselves meeting their own untimely demise. Was it not possible to, having once walked in, walk out again?

Daisy shuddered. The implications of history could be frightening.

Feeling somewhat relieved, she found herself at the last number in the brochure. The entry pointed her attention to a curious piece of needlework, executed by Mary during her twenty years spent as the "guest" of Elizabeth I, while waiting for her own execution. The stitched scene was that of a cat-and-mouse game, with Elizabeth I sewn as being the cat.

Daisy immediately thought of the present Queen.

It must be trying after a while, to always be seeing your progenitors depicted as being wantonly cruel or in any of a number of other despicable lights. Surely, it must make you begin to wonder what they would all be saying about you once you were safely in the ground.

Never having given much of a damn before about what others thought of her, Daisy gave a second shudder, this time in sympathy for the woman whose image appeared on all of the coins in her pocket.

Happily, she discovered that her guided steps had soon led her back to the point from which she had begun, just as Charley was making his own return from another doorway in the room.

"It seemed as though I was gone forever," he said. "Did you have any trouble keeping yourself occupied?"

Not waiting for an answer, he crossed to the window that they had been looking out of earlier.

"Oh, look," he said, parting the curtains. "Mother is back from work as well."

Daisy ducked her head under his arm and peeked out, watching the Queen's approach. From the slight droop in the normally military bearing, it looked as though the Ruling Monarch had experienced a particularly trying day at the office.

Doesn't her left wrist ever get tired of holding that handbag up? Daisy wondered. Surely, there must be a permanent mark tattooed onto it.

Daisy realized, with a mental thud, that the Queen must have been about eleven years younger than Daisy was now at the time that she had ascended the throne. Why, she'd been a baby! What must that have felt like?

Still feeling very much a kid herself, she couldn't imagine.

5.

It was payback time for the Queen.

Hostesses in Scarsdale knew about payback time; in Frankfurt, the social laws governing it were followed to the embossed letter, and the French had their own phrase for it: l'argent de la derriere.

It was therefore inconceivable that the Queen, being the world's most commonly hosted and hosting woman, should not be aware of a tradition that was practiced even by the Inuit who knew enough to reciprocate in terms of whale-blubber barbecues outside of their igloos.

One could hardly expect less from the Queen.

In exchange for the countless teas enjoyed at the domiciles of others during the course of the year, the Queen herself hosted four Garden Parties during any given twelve-month period, and one of these was always held during the week that she was in residence at Holyrood. But, more than just a tit-for-tat affair, stocked solely with nobles and dignitaries, it was also an opportunity for the Queen to acknowledge the good works of ordinary citizens. Also invited were any number of riffraff, all for no apparent reason other than the fact that they had either enough pull or enough push to wrangle their way in.

This year, the Queen was having 4,000 guests over for her July tea.

And they were all going to have to fit under the tents that had been set up all over the back lawn of Holyrood and which would, pray God and Queen, protect their coifs and top hats from the torrential downpour.

The men, for the most part, knew enough to show up wearing the expected morning suits. The ladies, for their part, were attired in hopeful light dresses and flowery hats, behaving as though they had been delivered of the perfect summer day that they had every right in the world to expect.

The aristocracy was therefore, as was required of them on this occasion, rubbing shoulders with the so-called "little people." Or, to put it more bluntly, with people like Daisy.

For a personal introduction to the Queen-for even that capable little Stateswoman could not be expected to greet each of four thousand individuals in a single afternoon-a card was supposed to be filled out weeks in advance and delivered to the Lord Chamberlain. But today Daisy Silverman would be meeting the Queen, having leapfrogged such banal formalities. For the first time in her life, Daisy could be said to be well connected.

And she-standing nervously with her own entourage of Charley, Miss Chance, and Sturgess-along with everyone else squeezed in under the canvas, was impatiently awaiting three o'clock and the expectedly prompt arrival of the Queen.

As she poked her head out from under the tent, Daisy could see that the cats-and-dogs thing that it had been doing out there had devolved to the inevitable dismal drizzle. Well, she thought, looking at the gray sky, at least it isn't plaid.

Like clockwork, the Queen could be seen to be making her slightly sodden way across the lawn, trailing her own ambulatory flotilla of hangers-on. The Queen had never been one to disappoint the fans.

There were bands playing under the tent, and a small fanfare went up, as Daisy watched the Royal entrance.

The Gentlemen Ushers leapt to attention, stepping to the front to escort the Queen and other important female persons, and deliver them from the moment of their entrance to the individuals selected for special introduction who were waiting amid the throng. Those flanking the Queen, on this occasion, included the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. The latter had grown bored early with the London season and, at the last moment, had elected to motor up to Edinburgh, springing a surprise visit on her sister and keeping one eye out for a spot of fun.

As she tracked Margaret's (only mildly teetering) progress around the perimeters-not to mention Margaret's covert glances at her sister, the Queen-Daisy decided that she must be witnessing the Guinness World Record case of Longest Maintained, and Most Justifiable Reason for, Sibling Rivalry. But, all voyeuristic cheap thrills aside, a part of her longed to reach out and, grabbing the sure-to-be-startled shadow-dweller by the shoulders, urge her to "just get over it!"