If, Then

All is still quiet in the summer palace.
No silver-spun carriages jingle up the bailey's grand boulevard. No heralds announce any arrivals - feather-crested horses, footmen, fops. All are blind to the beauty of the avenue of linden trees dappling the cobblestones; the garlands swooping between gilt lantern-posts; the once-impeccable topiaries dotting once-immaculate lawns. No guards salute at the keep's high oak doors. No maids curtsey and whisk rich cloaks into richer cloakrooms. No stewards offer chilled wine in the atrium, nor usher ambassadors into passages burrowed behind cleverly damasked panels. No satin slippers skim over the ballroom's parquetry, no pampered toes splash in the the quadrangle's merriest fountain. No cooks bellow at spit-boys and butchers and hearth hounds.