Penelope:
I was escorted back to the queen’s banquet room. That made me wonder about the servants I wasn’t seeing. Who was cooking the meals, baking the bread, tending the chimneys, and doing other odd jobs like washing the queen’s clothing? But again as I entered the huge room, I saw no one but the three guards and the queen, herself.
Earlier I’d noticed a scraggly=looking dog scavenging among the items beneath the table. Were food scraps being tossed under the table, rather than disposing of them more hygienically? Based on the dust all about the palace I doubted that cleanliness was one of the the queen’s virtues. But then, perhaps when the Court was here, things were kept sparkly clean. It would certainly be easier to waltz about without pieces of potato or bones under foot.
When the queen glanced in my direction, she clapped her hands and let out an exclamation of joy. “Oh, good, the entertainment is here.”
Wonderful to be lumped into a group with clowns and mimes. Not that I was knocking them, only, I had no ability in that direction, which is why I would prefer that the queen didn’t get so excited about my arrival as “entertainment.” It meant that she was going to call on me to come up with something new and exciting. I supposed I could do the tongue twister about seashells, but I certainly didn’t want to sing again. And to have to dance with the nasty guard . . . yick.
“I approve. You look halfway decent now,” the queen added with another questionable compliment that I could have done without. Personally, I thought the yellow dress I was wearing was designed with the absolute worst taste and wished I could have kept my jeans and tee shirt on. But, I curtseyed and thanked the queen anyway. Polite and well-mannered was probably mandatory in captive situations. Head chopping and dungeons might be on the agenda otherwise.
“Now, I command you to eat something,” the queen said in a voice that ended all debate about whether doing such a thing in Faeryland was a wise decision or not. Poor Persephone, had she been under the same compulsory directive in Hades?
I took two steps closer to the table and eyed the offerings. No pomegranate seeds, but I did see a couple of apples and a huge bowl of grapes. There was also a platter towering with some kind of flat bread biscuits. They looked like they might have fruit in them, so scones? I took in a deep breath, giving myself one more pause for courage, heard the queen hiss at me for dawdling, and reached out to take one of the biscuits.
“Yes,” the queen said. “Good choice. Those are my favorites. They have pomegranate seeds in them, which makes them sweet yet slightly tangy.”