The King's Servants 9 (GT)

The King’s Servants

Chapter 9

The next two weeks were absolutely unbearable. The children were always working all of the time and had very little time to do anything else. The tiny breaks they had were mainly used to get rehydrated as they worked outside in the hot sun for most of the days. Due to this horrible work schedule, along with the fact that King Baritorin now despised them, (or so they thought) the six children all became terribly depressed. They didn’t smile as much as they used to. They didn’t have the same vim and vigour that they had grown up with and they all talked a lot less.

This made all the giant servants very worried about them. The main reason for all the worry was that the children were not eating. They stopped showing up for meals and this caused them to all lose weight, making them very weak and skinny. Every day, the maids would leave giant-sized snacks for them in their little room, like biscuits, scones and fruit, but the children never ate them. When the maids went to clear up the plate, they would still find the snacks completely untouched.

What was worse was that they weren’t sleeping either. The huge workload required so many hours that the children would be awake till the early hours of the morning, slaving away. That meant that they only got about three to four hours of sleep each day.

Unknown to the children, King Baritorin had been searching for them everywhere. They had just stopped showing up to his room. Whenever, he got a break from Armana and her constant need to talk to him, he would try to find them. He was in the servants’ quarters very often just so he could check if his little servants were there. He checked the kitchen, the dining room and all the other places that he had seen them working before, but they were never there.

“Are they actually making a conscious effort to avoid me”, said the exasperated king. He wanted to find them so badly. If they weren’t going to come to him, then he would go and look for them. He didn’t care if it looked like he was desperate. He really wanted to properly apologise to them. The king only had about a month and a half left, so his time was running out. As much as he wanted to be as far away from Armana as possible, he didn’t want to leave any grievances behind.

Now, the king was aware that on a certain Sunday in each month, Armana let the servants stay outside and enjoy their day. They didn’t do any work until evening. It should have been like that every Sunday, but Armana was not that lenient and was of the opinion that her workers shouldn’t get the same privileges as any other workers. They worked in the palace after all, that alone was privilege enough.

Baritorin knew that since they weren’t working that day, it would be ten times easier to locate the children and talk to them. They would be free, relaxed and probably in the right mood to talk. The large man smiled to himself. This was another opportunity that he had to take, and the way he saw it, there was nothing that could prevent him from seeing them, whether they had been avoiding him on purpose or not.

On that Sunday, the weather was clear and warm. The queen’s garden was alight with the beauty that was the sun and all the flowers bloomed in their full glory. After the church service had ended, all he servants gathered in the garden to relax, play games, chat and just enjoy the freedom that they had been given.

“Now where are those six sweet little teens?” whispered Baritorin as he scanned the ground for the children. As the king directed his blue eyes up and down the garden floor, his happy grin began to fade. There was no sign of them. “Maybe I’m not looking hard enough” thought Baritorin, as if to reassure himself that they were somewhere in the garden.

He decided to search a bit further. He walked through a large expanse of the beautiful garden, greeting many servants along the way. Still, he didn’t see them. The large king was not happy. Where on earth could they be? The question throbbed in the king’s mind as he began to ponder on the children’s whereabouts.

“King Baritorin, are you looking for someone this fine morning?” said a voice from behind the king. Baritorin swirled around to see one of the maids who had brought him breakfast recently. She had bright red hair that was blowing in the breeze. Her question had caught him off guard, but he answered her nonetheless since she may be able to help him.

“Why, yes. I’m looking for the human children. Have you seen them anywhere?” asked the king, hoping that she had the answer.

“Well your highness, if they are not out here, then they are definitely in their room, back in the servants’ quarters. No one is supposed to work so there is no other place that they could be”, answered the maid politely.

Baritorin relaxed as she answered him. He thanked her for her help and immediately went over to the servants’ quarters. He knocked on the door and when no response came, he assumed that the room was empty. He opened the door slowly, not wanting to have any embarrassing experience with any of the staff, just in case they hadn’t heard him knock.

Luckily the room was indeed empty. He entered and immediately set his sights on the hatch that covered the children’s room. He heard a clatter from within the little room. That meant that the children really were there. The king let out a sigh of relief and regained his confident composure once more.

“Children, it’s me King Baritorin. Now please don’t run away. I know that over this last month, we’ve had our differences and you’ve obviously come to the point where you are somewhat scared of me”, began the guest king as he walked slowly towards the little hatch room.

“I can completely understand why you would be afraid. My behaviour that night was inexcusable and I really just want us to take time, together, to talk about what happened. So please don’t leave”, he continued.

“Besides”, said the king with a cheeky smile on his face, “If you run away, you won’t be able to get these treats that I’ve brought for you. Consider them as a sort of peace offering.” finished the king, glancing down at the six treats in his hand. They were little squares wrapped in golden foil. Baritorin had brought a box of chocolate treats from Balboway, so he quickly grabbed six of them as a means of making the children stay.

After having finished his little speech, Baritorin finally reached the children’s room. He had approached it with caution, so as not to startle the children with his thunderous footsteps.

“I’m about to open this hatch, so you had all better be decent”, announced the king before he carefully lifted the hatch to reveal the children’s room. As the monarch peered inside, he expected to see six small faces but what he actually saw made his heart sink to an all-time low.

Emptiness. The children weren’t there. In fact they had never been there. The clattering he had heard had only been an ornament in the room that the wind in the walls had blown to the ground. Baritorin had just poured his heart out to nobody. It turns out that Queen Armana had forced the children to work that day, as an addition to their punishment, so they were working somewhere else.

Frustrated, the angry king slammed the hatch shut, with a resounding bang. “How infuriating”, thought Baritorin, “She said that they had to be here, so why aren’t they here? They wouldn’t be working would they?”

As more questions poured into the worried man’s head, he decided to take his leave from the servant’s quarters. As he was on his way out, he bumped into the chief maid. She was a portly, rather elderly woman with grey hair. She politely asked him if everything was alright. He answered saying he was alright. That’s when Baritorin decided to ask her something that had been plaguing him.

“Now madam, you’ve been here for such a long time, so you know all the younger servants better than anyone. From what you’ve seen recently, would you say that the human servants… hate me? You know, because of what happened?” asked the king nervously.

Now the chief maid had not been there when the fake note was read out, so she saw no reason as to why the children would hate him. “Your highness, Queen Armana is a heartless witch that has tormented the children mercilessly. Despite that the human children do not hate her, they just dislike her, so there is no way that they could hate you”, replied the old lady with a smile on her face. The old woman’s words gave Baritorin enough hope to get him through the rest of the day without thinking too hard on what had happened that morning.

The following night…

There had been another conference and all the royals were dining together again when it had ended. Amongst the royals was King Salvador, a good friend and even better ally of Baritorin. Over the course of the meal, he had dropped his spoon and had sent one of the maids to fetch him a new one. He was more than surprised when he saw a tiny human girl bringing the spoon. Baritorin had been sitting right across him and when the girl noticed that, she began to proceed with caution. She was very scared and refused to look up as she passed the large man.

“Here you go, your highness. Here is the spoon you wanted”, said the small girl as she shook under the gaze of Baritorin.

“Thank you my dear, and don’t look so unhappy. Smile, you are a beautiful young lady”, replied Salvador, as he tilted the small girl’s face to look up at him. He was satisfied when he saw that his kind words helped the girl put on a small smile. She thanked him and took her leave, avoiding any eye contact with Baritorin.

Baritorin was not having any fun that evening. He was so hurt from not having seen the children that he couldn’t participate in all the jokes. He was just sitting there sulking when he saw a small figure in the corner of his eye. He turned his head only to receive a shock. There was little Ella, bringing a spoon for his good friend Salvador.

He was hoping that she would at least look at him, but his hopes were destroyed when she became scared when she saw him. He exhaled a sad sigh and drew his gaze more towards Salvador. When she gave Salvador his spoon, he said something to her which had made her smile. On seeing that, Baritorin clenched his fist. Salvador didn’t even know her but he had succeeded in making her smile, something that Baritorin couldn’t do anymore.

As Ella was leaving, an attendant poured a full cup of wine for king Baritorin. He picked it up and looked at the dark red liquid inside. He couldn’t drink it. It brought back many memories of what happened that evening where he had almost hurt the children. Alcohol was the cause of all of that. Baritorin was so put off by the wine that he growled at it and pushed the cup far away from himself.

Salvador had thought that Baritorin had been acting strange the whole evening, but what he had just done with his wine was the most odd. Baritorin loved wine and he had just shunned it like it was the world’s most horrible thing. He also noticed that Baritorin had been drawn to the young human girl. He had to investigate further.

“What seems to be the trouble, Baritorin? You aren’t really yourself this evening. Is there something on your mind?” asked Salvador in a hushed voice

Of course Salvador would pick up on his sour mood. Baritorin hadn’t thought of telling anyone about the situation, but Salvador would be perfect for the job of hearing him out. “Well, I would love to tell you all about my predicament, but I would rather do that in private”, whispered Baritorin.

Salvador then took the matter into his own hands. He immediately excused himself and Baritorin from the table, saying that they wished to take a walk in the garden. Queen Armana gave them the go-ahead and they both got up to leave.