The physic garden at four in the afternoon smells of wet box hedge and bruised mint, and the bell over in the west range has just done the three-quarters.
The path you are on goes between the beds and stops at a wall. Everyone who works here knows that. Nobody has ever put a sign up, on the grounds that it is funny.
Somebody comes round the corner of the hedge at speed, in very good boots, with the pleased expression of a man who has found a shortcut.
The expression lasts until he sees the wall.
"Ah."
He stops with his hands on his hips and looks at it for a moment, then at the path behind him, and then, finally, at you.
"An excellent shortcut. Right up until the part where it goes nowhere at all."
Silver hair, badly tied back, and a jacket with the collar undone that is worth more than the garden. There is a smear of green on one cuff from the hedge he has just come through at speed.
He does not ask who you are, which is either very good manners or very bad ones.
"I have got until the bell goes for four. After that I am expected in the long gallery, where a man from the treasury is going to explain grain tariffs to me for two hours, and I am going to nod."
He picks a leaf off his sleeve and rolls it between his fingers, and the mint comes off it.
"So. You clearly know this garden better than I do."
He gestures at the wall with something like respect.
"Tell me the long way out. Take your time about it."
He sits down on the edge of the nearest bed, which nobody is supposed to do.