The Ill-Fated FeastA Chapter by SpeedyHobbit ArmstrongKiran, a young paladin visiting the land of Dremeadow on a diplomatic mission for his lord, unexpectedly finds himself accused of causing the death of Dremeadow's queen.
Previous Version This is a previous version of The Ill-Fated Feast. This
was a most unusual way to spend the last day of the year, Kiran Mani thought,
adjusting the fastening on his cloak and straightening his muffler before
passing through the wooden main doors of the palace of Hrothgar Foxtrot, the
king of Drémeadow. He’d never expected to abroad celebrating with a kingdom
other than the one from whence he’d come. He’d anticipated being in Cancalia conducting his
duties as the constable of the Northchester city guard under Duke Ivan’s
instructions, celebrating at a tavern or inn with Nont’im and the latest women
of the cleric’s fancy, or perhaps even visiting his adoptive father down in the
city of Cadvashire. That was a typical new year. However, a week ago the paladin had
been dispatched to Drémeadow by Duke Ivan’s son, ruling on the behalf of his
father while the Duke visited the Cancalian royal family, to discuss medical
supplies with the Drémeadow hobbits’ king. The journey north had passed
smoothly. It was only when he had reached Drémeadow that Kiran had felt as
though something were terribly wrong, even though visibly everything seemed well.
Ultimately, the young paladin had decided that perhaps it was the merely absence
of trouble putting him on edge. He was too accustomed to trouble to feel at
ease when things were going right. Despite his persistent misgivings and the
persistent uneasy feeling, the diplomatic visit had gone well. Kiran had
learned that the king and his people had been put on edge by several incidences
of narrow misses with marauders bent on bullying the small folk for whose
safety Hrothgar Foxtrot was held responsible, and there had been injuries to several
hobbits patrolling the borders. In response, the paladin had negotiated a trade
in which Drémeadow would send supplies with the understanding that Cancalia was
expected to send back a unit of trustworthy men to assist in protecting the
more exposed areas of the border while the hobbits safeguarded the parts where
they might take cover and vigilantly watch for foreign troublemakers from the
shadows. At that point, the king had invited the paladin to stay through the New
Year. Kiran accepted the invitation, knowing accepting Drémeadow’s hospitality
would prove to Cancalia’s advantage. Besides, it was uncharacteristic of a
notoriously generous land to turn stingy without reason. Refusal to give up
some of their surplus of medical supplies to help a country needing them was
uncharacteristic of the hobbits. Kiran
felt it his duty to establish whether the matter ran deeper than marauder
attacks. Therefore, Kiran was in
Hardscrabble, Drémeadow with the halflings. No, hobbits,
Kiran corrected himself. He’d learned that although his fellow humans, dwarves,
elves, and even gnomes referred to the smallest sized race as halflings, they
themselves despised the term and found it rather belittling. “It implies we’re
only half of something rather than whole... like how you’d rather have a whole
apple than just half. Wouldn’t you find it offensive if we hobbits started
calling all humans… oh, I don’t know, the too-talls or something to that
effect?” the king’s spunky eighteen-year-old son Folco had said, punctuating
the rhetorical question with a grin. Kiran
had answered with a laugh but made a mental note to never use the term “halfling.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The young man walked
down the long cobblestone walkway and through the ornately decorated wooden
gate, intending to head towards the village to grab a drink at a local tavern
before it closed for the holiday. Kiran’s dark eyes vigilantly swept his
surroundings looking for signs of trouble. The hobbits around him were in high
spirits. Tiny hobbit children barely surpassing Kiran’s knee were racing up and
down pathways, chasing balls and each other, shouting and shrieking with
delight. Carts were trundling along the cobblestone roads in both directions,
most headed towards the city’s commercial district but some back towards what
Kiran knew to be Hardscrabble’s residential areas. Groups of them were
clustered outside shops, laughing and gossiping merrily. Even some of the feral
cats were at play- a pair of them was alternating between chasing each other
around the doorstep of a shop that sold fish and placing their front paws on
the door as though hoping to get fed fish. The only people who seemed to be
showing signs of stress were the royal family and their staff themselves, but
Kiran knew it was because they were getting ready for the Pre-New Year’s
Banquet- they had quite a lot to do. The two sons and two daughters, who ranged
in age from eighteen to thirty-one, had been sent off in various directions
that morning to procure chairs from relatives. All of them had since returned
and proceeded to other duties, but everything appeared to be in order. So why
was the paladin unable to shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong? Shaking his head, the
young man entered a tavern called the Banging Hedgehog and ordered a barley ale
at the bar. Once he received his drink, the paladin selected a table near the
back of the crowded tavern where he would have a vantage point of watching the
crowd of hobbits. One table seemed immersed in a card game. Another group was
swatting a wooden ball back and forth to each other. Still another seemed to be
drinking out of each other’s glasses, all of which had a different drink in it.
A fourth table was belting out a drinking song Kiran could only assume was a
local one, as he’d never heard it before.
Several tables were covered in plates of food. He could overhear
snippets of several conversations, all of which seemed to feature exchanges of
local news, family news, comments on the holiday and the crowd and the frigid
weather, and discussion of the king’s upcoming feast, with questions such as
“what’s your placement number?”, “what food and drink do you suppose his
Majesty’s going to have?”, or “who else do you suppose will be going to the
king’s banquet? Do you know who is sitting near you yet? Do you know anyone
else’s placement number? ” Kiran
heaved a long, low sigh, taking another sip. His drink was doing nothing to
assuage his discomfiture. He took another glance around, but the worst misdeed
he could see was hobbits sneaking food off the plates of relatives or friends,
and there was nobody lurking acting in a manner that suggested they were up to
no good. Nobody was lurking near the box containing gold, silver, and copper,
nor was anyone paying more attention to another patron of the tavern than they
ought. People back in Northchester often behaved much worse, although his
status as constable might skew his viewpoint, Kiran thought. He knew far too
much about crime in the city there because of his occupation. He had yet to witness anything remotely
resembling a tavern brawl break out in Drémeadow. The worst he had personally
seen here was reckless cart driving. Not
that life was perfect here. Far from it. Kiran had learned of several things
that did not sit well with him since the paladin had entered Drémeadow. Firstly, there was the matter of the orc
guards, which had troubled Kiran the instant he had seen them. When he had
inquired about their presence, he had found out that the orcs had been brought
in after trouble with bandits in the southern region of the kingdom. Kiran had
also learned that the individual behind that decision, which he privately felt
to be a bad idea, was an adviser named Jarmir Esteel. Esteel was Kiran’s second concern. Evidently,
he had persuaded the king that the hobbits would be unable to defend themselves
against foreign bandits unless they had assistance from larger and fiercer race
than themselves, hence the presence of the orcs. It also seemed that Jarmir
Esteel was encouraging Drémeadow to cut itself off from other lands. Kiran had
overheard him discouraging the king from giving food to an elf nation that had
suffered a loss of vegetation from fire, insisting that Drémeadow had been
overly generous to other lands in the past and suggesting that other kingdoms
were taking advantage of the kindness of Drémeadow and “exaggerating minor
problems to garner sympathy.” Even if Kiran had not possessed the uncanny
ability to discern the taint of evil in the souls of other sentient beings,
simply seeing him manipulating the king of Drémeadow was enough to suggest that
Esteel did not mean well. The paladin was now in a quandary over how to handle
the situation. It did not help that Hrothgar Foxtrot was Drémeadow’s first-ever
king. Drémeadow had been governed by an elected body called the Council that had
been voted upon every four years from whenever it was founded until 3010 by the
Standard Calendar, during which Drémeadow had converted to a monarchy after
suffering over a decade of economic hardship and instability. One of the most
prominent and respected Councilors, Hrothgar Foxtrot, had been selected in the Drémeadow
Council’s final meeting and the Foxtrots became the royal line. The
third concern was a matter of the royal family itself. When the paladin had
entered the kingdom, he’d been under the
impression that there were two princesses and two princes: 31-year-old Nora,
26-year-old Jillian, 22-year-old Odo, and 18-year-old Folco. However, Kiran had
overheard a conversation between Folco and what turned out to be the unnerving Jarmir
Esteel. In this exchange, during which the young prince had sounded a
combination of nervous and defiant while the king’s adviser sounded almost
amused, Esteel had superciliously uttered words Kiran could not shake from his
head. “You really ought to be more careful, Folco Foxtrot. I daresay you
wouldn’t want to end up like your sister,
now, would you?” he had said. After Jarmir had left the cell in which the
prince was to be locked for three days as retribution for a serious mishap that
had nearly gotten a ten-year-old child killed, a deeply concerned Kiran had
entered and inquired about the conversation. Folco had responded with
evasiveness. When pressed, he had told Kiran he was talking about Jillian. However,
the paladin suspected he was not being truthful because Folco had fidgeted with
his clothes and looked own while saying it. However, the young prince had also
mentioned that the family archives. The next morning, Kiran accessed these and
noticed that some of the records had been tampered with. He had also located a
box that contained ribbons and medals related to archery including one for a lass
who had been sixteen in 3002. There was a major issue. Someone who was sixteen
in 3002 would be twenty-eight or twenty-nine now. Neither of King Hrothgar and
Queen Arabella’s known daughters were that age. When
Kiran returned to tell Folco his findings, the young hobbit looked exceptionally
uncomfortable. After gentle coaxing from the paladin, the youth muttered that
he’d had a sister named Xenia who had died, then made him promise not to tell
anyone at all he’d said anything. “It would greatly upset my parents. It was
really hard on us all, you have no idea…” the prince said in an odd voice. “Don’t
bring my sister up or mention her to anyone.Please.” Kiran,
who had agreed in alarm, still wondered about the truth of Folco’s claim. There
had been no sign of the possibility that any member of the king’s immediate
family had an untimely death among the documents. However, he had tactfully
chosen not to press the matter, believing that if Folco was misrepresenting the
matter in any way it was not out of malicious intent. He could not, however,
repress the feeling that there was a lot more to the story of Xenia Foxtrot
than her younger brother was willing or permitted to tell. Regardless, the
paladin hoped to learn more of the matter, especially since Jarmir Esteel had
obviously reminded the young prince of what had happened to the girl in order
to intimidate him. What happened to Xenia? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After
Kiran finished his drink, he returned to the Halfling palace, intending to
inquire whether there was any way he could help his hosts with preparations for
the feast. The king had granted free rein in the palace, so the paladin did not
need to go through any of the king’s staff to talk to Hrothgar. When he approached
the king’s study, he paused at the door. The four sons and daughters were
standing in front of their father’s desk. The older three were dutifully
nodding, evidently having just received instructions, but the youngest looked
quite frustrated. “Father!” the young prince complained, throwing his
hands up. “You never said we had to be doing stuff all day!” The
harried king raised both eyebrows at his son before his golden brown eyes met
Kiran’s. He held up one hand indicating that Kiran wait in the doorway and mouthed
“one moment, please” before returning his sharp gaze to his child. “Folco. You
knew there was to be a major banquet tonight. You have known this for a long
while. You are perfectly aware that when we have major events, you are expected
to be assisting with tasks related to the event. Stop…” “I helped to bring extra chairs all the way
from the other side of Hardscrabble this morning!” interjected the adolescent,
who was met with a stern look the instant he’d interrupted his father. “Folco.
Your sisters and brother are accepting their duties without complaint. They,
too, have other things they prefer doing, yet they are doing their share to ensure
everything goes smoothly. I need you to do the same. Furthermore, we have a
guest waiting to speak with me, and you are being indecorous.” “But…” “Silence!”
Folco fell quiet. “As I told you before, give as much help in the kitchen as is
needed.” “But
Lindo and Linda have a whole bunch of their cousins over from the Hills East!
The other Riverses, the Shores AND the Gladdens! I haven’t seen their cousins
since September! They’re only here until tomorrow and I promised Lindo I’d drop by to visit with
them all. It’s not like I’ll be able to during the feast since obviously I have
to be with the family for that! This is so
unf-” Hrothgar
Foxtrot rubbed the skin over his left temple hard, glowering. “What is unfair is how you are currently wasting
valuable preparation time by acting like a petulant child. You will need to
explain to your friend that you have obligations to the family and Drémeadow
that currently supersede your plans. Do I make myself clear?” The adolescent
grudgingly nodded, biting back a retort. “Now then. You all have my leave to go
help where I told you. That includes you, Folco
Foxtrot.” The
young Foxtrots all inclined their heads towards their father- Folco was still
scowling- and departed the room. Kiran inclined his own head as they passed
before entering the study. Once inside, Kiran gave a respectful bow. “Your
Majesty.” “Good
afternoon, Kiran,” Hrothgar said, sounding weary. He rubbed a hand unconsciously
against his temple, pushing age-loosened skin upwards. “How is your day so far?
How may I be of assistance?” “It
is well, thanks, Your Majesty,” replied Kiran. “I was just wondering whether I
might be of assistance in any way, since I know you have much to do to prepare
for tonight?” The
king delivered a small smile. “Everything is proceeding well for now. I
apologize for my son’s misbehavior, by the way, he knows he ought not to conduct
himself as he did just now. We will need help with welcoming the lines into the
Great Hall, and ensuring that everyone is in their proper place in line, for
that matter. I do not doubt there will be hobbits who believe they could enter
sooner than their place number, nor that there will be some who will attempt to
sneak in. “ “I
would be happy to help, Your Highness.” The
king gave an appreciative nod, and then commenced explaining what the paladin was
to do. “There are 285 numbers. It was checked and double-checked to ensure
there are no duplicates or missing numbers. In my guest instructions, I
informed them that they would be in danger of losing their place if they lost
their placecards. There is to be another line for anyone who wishes to enter
but did not get a place or who has lost their card. There is a list of who
corresponds to what number, so if someone gives both their name and number,
whoever has the line they’re in can check and make sure the name and claimed
number correspond to one other. If the guest claims not to remember their
missing number, they will have no choice but to go in the line for people who
are not guaranteed entry. Do you understand me?” “Yes,
Your Majesty.” “Do
you need me to repeat the information?” “I
just want to make sure I heard right, sire,” Kiran said. “So the cards from one
through 285, and every number has a name with it on a list we will be given?
Everyone must stand in numerical order and show their place cards or correctly
state their name and number?” “That
is correct,” replied King Hrothgar. “The list of who has what number will be
given to you when the lines start. I have instructed my queen and children to
be ready at five-thirty for the lines to start at six. I know people will try
to come early, but my guards will not permit them onto the grounds until we are
ready for them to do so. Do you have any questions?” “No,
Your Majesty.” “Excellent,”
said the king. “Thank you. You have my leave to go.” Kiran
exited the room with a bow. He was thinking that he would briefly visit Nont’im
at the nearby inn in which the cleric was staying when he noticed Folco talking
to a hobbit who looked to be somewhere from his late thirties to his forties.
The hobbit was gesturing towards the kitchen, and he caught the phrase “in your
stead”. Kiran immediately gathered that the older hobbit was offering to take
over Folco’s post in the kitchens. “I
don’t know, my father said I must…” Folco said dubiously, his dark brown eyes
wandering longingly towards the main entrance of the palace. “I
will tell your father if he comes in that I offered to take your place, Your
Highness,” the older hobbit replied, unconsciously running his hand through his
graying hair. “If you wish, I will assure him that you were properly carrying
your weight before I came in and noticed that you looked tired and needed a
break. You did have an archery tournament two days ago and spent all day
yesterday traveling all over Drémeadow delivering placecards to speed up the
post’s process, did you not, if I remember what your mother said correctly? And
were you not fetching chairs today because there was nobody on the staff who could
because they had other tasks?” Folco
nodded, and then crinkled his brow. “Are you sure, Kirk? Didn’t you just get
back from a journey abroad? Don’t you want to rest?” Kirk
shook his head. “Thank you, Your Highness, but I’m not tired. Besides, I know
you to be an honorable sort of fellow who does not generally renege on promises
to friends.” Folco
beamed. “All right then. Thanks, I owe you one!” he said brightly before
running towards the main door leading out of the Halfling palace. He stopped a
few feet from this exit, calling over his shoulder, “Send word if you need my
help, will you? The Riverses and I will not be far from the palace. Lindo said
something about his siblings- they’re younger- wanting to play Hide and Seek
and this area will be far better than downtown, which is bound to be crowded,
or his place. More places for everyone to hide.” He turned to directly face
Kirk. “Anyway, send word.” “Naturally,
Your Highness,” the hobbit called Kirk said before passing through the door to
the kitchens. Folco gave Kiran a nod of acknowledgement before exiting with an
excited spring in his step. Kiran
spent the next several hours praying to his deity, making himself as tidy and
clean as possible, and getting the best outfit he had brought with him ready.
Ever the one to keep his belongings at close proximity to each other, he stowed
his armor near his bags. He had brought a lot with him because he had an
exceptionally strong steed. It was a mount not of the world but another realm
of existence that no human could see unless in death, provided they had lived
well. Most of the time, the paladin
strove to function without his horse, but at times such as during a battle or
particularly dangerous quest, when he needed to travel quickly, and on
diplomatic missions directly commissioned by his church or his lord, he would
call the mount to aid and abet him. He had called the mount to service to
travel to Drémeadow and released it once he had crossed the border into the
land of the Halflings. By a quarter after
seven, all of the guests had been ushered to their appropriate places in the
king’s Great Hall. The lines had gone relatively smoothly with the four Foxtrot
children, the Queen Arabella, and Kiran each heading a line. There had been
clumps and jostling, but the bulk of it had dispersed with Kiran reminding the
crowd that everyone was to be in a straight line and the queen pointing out
that the less cooperative they were in the lines, the later the feast would
begin. The queen’s words in particular calmed the overexcited guests down.
Other than the lines, the only major incidents had involved one person in
Kiran’s line attempting to forge a place card so that two people in the line
ended up having the same number, 227, but that had been easy to resolve- a name
intended for males was next to the number on the list, and the forger had been
a woman, so she had been sent to the very back of the line for people hoping to
gain entry, as had a hobbit who had claimed to be number 403 and two without
place cards who claimed to not know
their number. Kiran, as the messenger
of an important noble in Cancalia, had been granted a place at the end of the
High Table. The king and queen sat in the center, the king to the left of the
queen. Princess Nora had a place next to her father with Prince Folco on her
other side, and Princess Jillian sat next to her mother with Prince Odo to her
right. Kiran was placed at the far end
of the queen’s side of the table. Others granted the honor of seating at the
High Table included close royal relatives and several of the more trusted
advisors. He noticed that guests were in attire on the dressier side of casual-
comfortable enough for a long feast and travel, yet presentable and
put-together rather than sloppy. The royal family, however, were in formal
attire. The princesses and queen had their hair elaborately styled- the
princesses with complicated braiding and ribbons woven through and the queen
with gold hair ornaments- and they wore many-layered dresses of silk - Nora in
mauve, Jillian in a light pink, the queen in burgundy. The two princes both
wore thick-soled calf-high boots and reddish-brown hose and silken white
tunics, but Odo had a velvet blue vest with gold buttons trimmed with while Folco had green with silver buttons.
The entire royal family had the edges of their sleeves, collars, and cloaks
trimmed with ermine. Kiran noted from afar that the Foxtrots eschewed the use
of jewels embedded in their clothes, but perhaps that was not such a surprise-
hobbits did tend to favor comfort over flashiness. The
royal family sat quietly, watching over the guests as they removed their winter
clothing and laid it over the benches. The guests would not need their coats,
scarves, mittens or stocking caps in the hall, which had all eight of the
large, ornately decorated fireplaces around the room lit. It still appeared to
be the time in which the guests made their initial greetings to those they know
and introductions to those whom they did not know. Hobbits were shaking hands
with others at their tables and turning about in their seats to speak with
their neighbors. Kiran inclined his head at the royal relatives with who he
made eye contact, and they nodded in response. He then scanned the hall.
Several servants had emerged with quills, blank booklets and notepads. They
were starting to take drink orders from the guests. Another servant had emerged
from the chamber concealed with curtains behind the High Table and was
requesting the orders of the royal family, relatives, and guests. When the
servant, a corpulent middle-aged hobbit with ruddy cheeks and closely cropped
curls came to Kiran, the paladin responded “Barley ale, please.” The servant
nodded and scribbled the requested item onto a notepad. “Thank you,” he said
after the retreating back of the hobbit, who had already proceeded to the next
occupant of the High Table. Inhaling deeply, he took another glance around
the hall, studying the faces of the guests. Kiran recognized several of the
hobbits. Some of the adolescent ones he knew as teammates of Folco in archery
at the prince’s school. Unlike many other lands, all hobbits seemed to have
some form of schooling in their youth when it wasn’t planting or harvest
season, and the Foxtrot progeny attended school alongside the commoners- or at
least, Folco did. The older three had aged past both lower and upper school to
which all the children of Drémeadow were entitled. He recognized Folco’s friend
Lindo Rivers, a pudgy lad who wore his hair cut close to his head, Lindo’s
younger siblings, and a woman who had to be Lindo’s mother- she was holding
Lindo’s two-year-old sibling in her lap. Lindo was be exchanging silly faces
with the younger prince when neither his parents nor the king and queen were
watching their respective sons. He also recognized several local merchants,
including the seamstress who had mended his torn cloak after it snagged on
thorns four days previous, the arms store owner that often sold his merchandise
to the parents of human boys, a cart driver who brought hobbits without their
own family cart and ponies around Drémeadow for a nominal fee, and a miller.
Several smiled when Kiran caught their eye, and the paladin returned the
gesture. After an exchange of
nods between Kiran and the two black-haired hobbits that had come to Cancalia
with the king’s message denying supplies, King Hrothgar and Queen Arabella
stood. The paladin immediately turned his head towards Drémeadow’s reigning
couple, as did the rest of the High Table. Jillian dropped her hands from her
curls to her lap, Nora primly folded her right hand over her left, Odo straightened
very tall in his chair, and Folco, who had idly been toying with his utensils,
replaced them where they belonged. At the long guest tables, the din of
conversations gradually died down as hobbits saw their ruler and alerted their
neighbors. The king was the first
to speak. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the annual Pre-New Years Banquet
in my palace. I am pleased to see each and every one of you present in my hall,
and I would like to thank my staff for ensuring that this banquet would be possible.
I would like everyone to stand to join in singing the national anthem. My
daughter, Her Highness Princess Jillian, will be leading you.” The princess stood up. There
was a scraping of benches as the hobbits rose to their feet, and Kiran followed
suit. Jillian began to sing in a clear soprano voice, and the rest of the hall
immediately joined in. The paladin had not learned the words, but he
respectfully kept his eyes on the princess and imitated the gesture that all of
the hobbits were making, bowed heads, chins tucked into their necks, and hands
folded before them. Once the song had
finished, the king bade everyone sit. “Thank you. I intend to
keep my speech short-“ there were several appreciative smiles among the guests
“as I know everyone is very hungry and would like to eat, but first I wish to
introduce everyone at my table for those who do not know all the names.” At the
same time, servants began emerging with the drinks. The hobbit king started
with his wife, “Her Majesty Queen Arabella,” then his children from the oldest
“Her Highness Princess Nora” to the youngest, then the royal relatives most
closely related to himself and his wife, during which time Kiran’s barley ale
arrived, and finally the guests. “This gentleman is visiting us from the land
of Cancalia- Lord Kiran Mani, a paladin and the constable in the Cancalian Duke
Ivan’s city of Northchester.” Kiran gave the room a wave as the previously
introduced had done. Like all those before, Kiran was the recipient of
applause, and the volume was rather higher than several others who had been
introduced before him. The King proceeded
through the few left after Kiran, waited for the applause to die down, and then
said “Now then, we will commence our feast with the Queen leading us all in a
toast. If you have not yet received your beverage, please signal your servers.”
A smattering of hobbits at the second table from the left partially raised
their right hands, and several servants converged on the one in charge of the
table, a sheepish-looking lass who looked to be around the same age as Princess
Jillian that gave the king a quick apologetic look before showing her notepad
to the servants who had come to her rescue. The lag was quickly rectified as
the more experienced servants brought several of the youngest one’s orders in
her stead to the guests. Once the hands went
down as the last of the hobbits received their drinks, Queen Arabella held her
glass of wine aloft in the air. “My dear hobbits, thank you all for making the
time and effort to travel here tonight in the cold. I greatly appreciate seeing
each and every one of you gathered here, as do my king and my sons and
daughters. Now, I invite you all to take part in a toast. Please raise your
glasses.” Kiran tentatively took hold of his glass and cast a quick glance
along the High Table to see how the locals did it. Like Cancalia, it seemed
Drémeadow denizens held their drinks aloft in their right hand. The paladin did
the same. “To the feast!”
Arabella said. The rest of the hall echoed her. “To family and friendship!”
Another echo of the queen’s words. “To the health of all present in this room!” At that, the Queen
began to drain her glass, followed by the king, princes, princesses, Kiran, the
others at the High Table and all of the guests. The first indication
Kiran saw of anything wrong was Queen Arabella’s eyes widening, followed by the
rapid blanching of her skin to white, then grey, then an ominous greenish hue.
Some of the hobbits at High Table and guest tables alike noticed immediately- Folco
had a confused look on his face and Nora mouthed “Are you well, mother?”, and
some of the guests were muttering to their neighbors and nodding at the Queen,
but most were thus far oblivious. The king himself was occupied with speaking
to Prince Odo. Kiran pushed his chair back, wondering whether he ought to try
to help or whether it would do the Queen more harm than good, or if she would
even want the assistance- it was a frequent habit of royalty to not wish to be
made to look weak, and Arabella Foxtrot might prefer concealing her sudden
illness. All the same, he wished Nont’im were there. The cleric was also a
trained and skilled healer, and had grown up learning how to care for the sick
and injured. When the Queen started
shaking for a second or two, however, before collapsing to the ground with a
crash, there were several cries from among the guests. Now everyone’s attention
was fixated on the High Table with all the horrified fascination of people
watching a tavern brawl that had escalated to drawn weapons, a cart overturning
or colliding with another cart, and other such events. Several of the royal
relatives and all four of Hrothgar and Arabella’s children left their seats,
crowding around the convulsing queen so that she was out of sight. “Stand back! Give her
room!” shouted the king. His voice sounded significantly less composed than
usual, almost fearful. “Out of the way! I need a healer now! Fetch me a healer! Odo Foxtrot, move! You
too, Jillian!” The group dispersed,
revealing the queen, who had gone utterly still, her face turned away from the
paladin. Kiran took a few tentative steps forward. “I could help,” he said but
this voice was lost in the resonating clamor. Meanwhile, Jarmir Esteel had come
forth and was bending over the queen, seizing her wrist to feel for a pulse,
placing a hand just above her mouth to feel for breath, straightening her face,
and finally checking her neck. Kiran’s heart sank as the purple-haired advisor
touched the queen’s eyelids with his pinkies as though closing them and then
whispered something to the king, whose face went stark white. This could only
mean one thing in regards to Queen Arabella Foxtrot’s condition. The Foxtrot
children were clinging to one another, sharing expressions of mingled shock,
disbelief and terror. Nora had an arm around Jillian, who was visibly fighting
back tears, and Odo, whose eyes were squeezing open and shut in rapid
succession as though he hoped to see something different each time they opened
anew. Folco was gripping his brother’s shoulder with one hand and pressing his
cupped hand against his mouth, dark brown eyes the size of saucers. Jarmir
summoned several servants, and the lifeless queen was borne out of the hall
into the back chamber. Kiran stepped forward,
understanding what must have happened. He was already formulating a long list
of questions he would ask if he were given permission to help the king’s people
in investigating the matter of the queen’s murder, starting with learning the
type of poison that had killed her and where it might be acquired, who had been
present in the kitchen, and proceeding from there. The king’s expression
was at first unfathomable. He muttered something to Jarmir with his head tilted
sideways, and his advisor issued a long reply in a whisper that was impossible
to hear through the hullaballoo. The guests looked confused. Many of the
younger children were tugging on the arms of their parents. He then stepped
forward, extending his finger towards the paladin, his cheeks two bright red
spots against a pale background, his golden-brown yes smoldering to almost
wholly golden. Nothing could have prepared Kiran for what Drémeadow’s king said
next. It was the last utterance he expected to ever hear in his life. “Paladin! How dare you!
You enter my land, we grant you hospitality, we grant you generosity that your
land needed, and you repay us by taking away my wife’s breath and heartbeat and
robbing her of life with your poison! Leave at once! Get out of Drémeadow!”
Author’s note: The term “hobbit” is
borrowed from Tolkien. A few minor details, namely things like names of gods,
were borrowed for Dungeons and Dragons. The borrowed details will disappear
once we devise our own names. Also, is this too long? Too much exposition? Did
I repeat myself on anything too much? I’ll greatly appreciate any reviews
leaving advice on improving the story!
© 2013 SpeedyHobbit Armstrong
Author's Note
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StatsAuthorSpeedyHobbit ArmstrongLong Island, NYAboutMy name is Cher Armstrong, also known as Speedy Hobbit. I'm a USATF athlete in racewalking for the Raleigh Walkers club team. I just graduated from Queens College in Queens borough in New York Ci.. more..Writing
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