The Constable was sitting in the middle of his bamboo grove, enveloped in 
a suit of hoplite armor, similarly filthy and scarred, that was twice as big as 
he was, and that made his bare head look absurdly small. He had ripped the 
helmet off and dropped it into his fish pond, where it floated around like the 
eviscerated hull of a scuttled dreadnought. He looked very gaunt and was 
staring vacantly, without blinking, at some kudzu that was slowly but 
inexorably conquering the wisteria. As soon as Nell saw the look on his face, 
she made him some tea and brought it to him. The Constable reached for the tiny 
alabaster teacup with armored hands that could have crumbled stones like loaves 
of stale bread. The thick barrels of the guns built into the arms of his suit 
were scorched on the inside. He plucked the cup from
Nell's hands with the precision of a surgical robot, but did not lift it to his 
lips, perhaps afraid that he might, in his exhaustion, get the distance a bit 
wrong and inadvertently crush the porcelain into his jaw, or even decapitate 
himself. Merely holding the cup, watching the steam rise from its surface, 
seemed to calm him. His nostrils dilated once, then again. "Darjeeling," he 
said. "Well chosen. Always thought of India as a more civilised place than 
China. Have to throw out all of the oolong now, all the keemun, the lung 
jang, the lapsang souchong. Time to switch over to Ceylon, pekoe, assam." He 
chuckled.