Consort Robert Shafto already has two daughters, princesses Suki and Yaki, born to Queen Susu, his stately no-nonsense wife. Belatedly he fathers two sons. One is again by Susu, but the other is by his beautiful dippy mistress, Princess Soso. His impish daughters tease him about how the new ‘babbies’ got into their mummies’ tummies and don’t believe his waffle about storks and gooseberry bushes. Out their earshot, he describes how the boys actually were conceived. One, Prince Alfred (Freddy), is the result of a steamy S&M session with his wife, while the other, Prince Harold (nicknamed Darkie due to his dark skin), results from a night of tipsy passion with his foxy mistress. Freddy is a model student, who proceeds to a glittering military career. Darkie is a wayward youth, who is expelled from school for having ‘disgusting habits’, likes men and women, writes obscure poetry, and kills enemy warlords Forktongue and Troutmouth. Shafto writes off his dark son as a murderous wastrel ladyboy rent-boy, but they come to understand, love, and look out for each other. On a lads’ day out to the coastal village of Hazeburgh, Shafto and his boys find the entire Norling fleet anchored offshore – a terrifying spectacle and the princes’ first sight of the foe that they will one day have to contend with. The enemy has stopped to rendezvous with Princess Sisi, the embittered middle sister of Susu and Soso, who plans to marry Norling King Bluetooth and with his help invade her own country to declare herself queen. The lads watch their treacherous aunt as she is rowed from the beach to Bluetooth’s flagship. When the princes are in their twenties, the Norling invasion comes. Thousands of warriors occupy the city of Harmswick, and hundreds of longships clog its mere. Friends of Shafto are lynched on lamp-posts, and notices everywhere list people wanted dead or alive, including Susu, Shafto, Soso, and Darkie. Matriarchy, Patriarchy and Sagotlan invoke their mutual-defence pact, and a battalion of the Sagottish royal regiment, the Jocks, led by the king of the Sagots, Robert the Braw, flies down in CH-47 Chinook helicopters from Edinaburh. In the historic Battle of Harmswick, the Viking Norling intruders are defeated and ejected from the country forever. Sisi and Bluetooth are captured and sentenced to Setting Adrift in the Northern Ocean. The Dark Prince, seconded to Special Operations, plays a key part in the battle. Due of this and because he killed Forktongue, a perennial thorn in the Sagots’ side, he forms a special relationship with the Braw, who becomes a second father to him. Robert Shafto, who rescued the Scone of Destiny, so prized by the Sagots, and who shares the same name as King Robert, likewise hits it off with him. They all get along famously, and at a party Susu wonders if they aren’t all having a bromantic love-in. The Jocks’ costume, which fascinates Darkie, lends colour to the narrative, while the Sagots’ dialect ( haud yer wheesht , yer erse is oot the windae , lang mae yer lum reek …) provides fun. The rout of the Norlings and the crucial contributions made by princes Darkie and Freddy pave the way for the rebirth of a Viking-free Anglo-Saxon Angland, a prospect dear to Shafto’s heart. He does not live to see it or, following Queen Susu’s death, the Anglish country jointly ruled by his two sons, elected dual kings. But he knows that a land of people who love beefsteaks and hot mustard is inevitable. Darkie provides a tender account of his father’s decline and demise following the premature death of Shafto’s darling Soso. He also describes the Consort’s bizarre funeral and singular burial. At the end, the Dark Prince has lost his beautiful mother, with whom he can no more bake cheese straws or discuss fashion, and also his wise dependable dad, who will never again plant a reassuring kiss on his dark brow. But he has his sexy rock-chick partner, who is expecting their first child.