berating the chef

Queen Cassandra marched with purpose through the crowd, scowling as she ignored those who tried to get her attention and those wise enough to step out of her way. She came to a stop in front of Theodora, the portly, auburn-haired royal cook, who was wearing her impeccably-laundered formal chef's uniform, and resisting an urge to run when Cassandra made eye contact.

"What is THIS?" the queen growled. "What is, ah, what, your highness?" "You know FULL WELL what I mean!" she said, pointing to serving girls carrying trays of small cream-covered pastries. "Oh, um....the king requested sweets be served before dinner. Again."

"OF COURSE he did. We spoke of this before, that you weren't to change the menu without my say-so. "

"Shall I get rid of them, your highness?" "No. Let the crowd enjoy them. But no more surprises." Theodora nodded, gesturing to an enormous multi-layered cake near the center of the room. "As you can see, your highness, for dessert, I have created the pièce de résistance!"

Cassandra frowned. "And if I hear about any resistance from you, I'll have you torn to pieces!" "Your highness it means--" "I know what it means! Get back in the kitchen and out of my sight!"

Her response had been somewhat more than a joke. Over the last few weeks, there had been signs of unrest. Although her knights, sheriffs, and constables couldn't detect where it was coming from, graffiti that was unflattering to the queen had been showing up in the kingdom. It had started with an elaborate caricature of her in the port, and then other examples, both words and pictures had shown up in various places--most recently only blocks from the castle! The content of just one of these would have been enough that Cassandra would have the perpetrator tortured and then hanged, but there were dozens. And no one seemed to be able to tell her where they were coming from. According to the reports of her spies, the peasants and townspeople were no more or less happy with her than they had ever been--it wasn't a reflection of how she was seen, perhaps, as an operation designed to change how her public received her.

As far as she could tell, it wasn't working. The dead-eyed nobles at this party were as sycophantic as ever. Although she did catch small groups of them snickering about something. When she walked close to those groups, the subject seemed to change to something more serious and benign. If only she could get her hands on the people responsible for those filthy scrawlings!

Doing her best to put the matter out of her mind, she walked over to one of her guests, a maiden just past her teenage years, the daughter of one of her subject baronesses. "My, Cordelia, you've really filled out. Perhaps I need to increase the grain taxes paid by your barony." It was all the somewhat chubby Cordelia could do to hold back tears. When her mother walked over to see what was wrong, Cassandra added, "Well, it must run in the family I suppose," then turned to mingle with the next group of guests.