The Queen in particular, had a wonderfully soft, creamy looking cleavage that jiggled invitingly as she swung her shoulders with each stroke.

Once again, Vulkan was thankful for the knee length tabard he wore as his prick swelled and bulged within the murderously tight confines of his breeches.

In an effort to 'break the ice' between her stubbornly unwilling daughter and the saturnine, yet strangely magnetic prince, the queen dismissed Flamia's partner from the grass court and insisted that Vulkan pair with the princess to play out the rest of the match. And so it was that Vulkan spent a pleasant, but ultimately dissatisfying hour knocking the little, coloured wooden balls through the small metal hoops, whilst the queen did her exasperated best to fill the silences with all manner of innocuous small talk.

Fortunately, for Vulkan's slipping self-control, the game was ended prematurely by the approach of the seneschal who had come to report the apparent disappearance of Princess Lilliphane.

A hasty meeting of all available knights had been called by the king and a thorough, yet discreet search of the castle's many towers organised. For the sake of appearances, Vulkan volunteered to head up one of the search parties and soon found himself traipsing up and down the many flights of steps in one of the far most towers; a structure which seemed to be given over mostly to the storage of unwanted furniture and ancient artefacts.

In a small, flag draped hall at the base of the tower, Vulkan came upon a display of captured armour and weapons. He stopped in front of an imposing, if somewhat barbaric battle harness, running his fingers over the many stylised scales and plates.

"That suit was taken from the body of the foul Kragnar himself, war chief of the nomad raiders against whom the king led a great pogrom two summers ago," one of the accompanying squires proudly informed him, "note the primitive handiwork and the curious runes worked into the tooling – typical only to the raiders of the northern mountains."