Elves And Time

"Tiber By The Tail."

Flandry and Queen Gunli are alone together in a garden. See Scheming In The Spring.

"More than ever, she made him think of the elves, in myths that she had never heard." (p. 270)

Anderson makes this scene as similar to an episode in a fantasy as he can. The Scothans might have their equivalent of elves as we know that the Merseians do. See Ruadrath.

"How often had they stolen such brief whiles together?" (ibid.)

Because this is a short story, not a novel, we have not seen any of these "brief whiles," at least not after their first encounter in the castle, but the sentence suggests how much time has passed for Flandry on Scotha.