The King's Servants

Chapter 13

The children went down to their room to get their utensils and plates. When they reached their room, before they did anything else, all the children flopped down on their beds and pondered deeply on what had just happened.

"Guys, we just got hugged and kissed by a giant king", said William, still in absolute awe of his own words.

"How many humans get to say that in their lifetime?" asked Ella, with a quirked eyebrow, as the impossibility of the sentence sunk in. They all laughed as they realised just how lucky they were.

After a moment of reminiscence, the children got everything they needed and they returned to the waiting king, who had already set up everything for his little servants. As soon as they returned, the king picked up each of them and deposited them carefully onto his tray, so that they could easily reach the food to take as much as they wanted. Once everyone was settled in and eating, conversation started up again.

"I guess the only real question that I can ask you is how you are after such a long time", said the king casually, as he gave each of the children something to nibble on. He was so happy to have them there on his bed with him. It gave him a strange warm feeling on the inside.

"Well, your highness, we are as good as any six humans forced to do work that people their size should not be doing", replied Thomas tiredly. Despite their little lie-in in the morning, the children were all still extremely exhausted. It was going to take days before they made up for all their lost hours of sleep.

Thomas' response made Baritorin sigh. He wished that he had known sooner about the unjust punishments. That way, he could have immediately put an end to them. They talked some more about the kinds of duties she gave them. They talked about the abusive words she used with them, how she deprived them of leisure time and how she had painted him as some sort of evil demon who hated them.

"Oh children", began Baritorin, "you have no idea how much I regret yelling at you that evening. If I had just listened to you, none of this would have happened. But don't worry, now that you have been completely reinstalled as my servants, and you have no other duty but to satisfy all my desires, I am going to be taking extra good care of the six of you", said the king, determination strong in his voice. "Armana is not going to be able to just walk all over you as she pleases. She already knows that I do not like her and I don't think she'll want to do anything to upset me any further".

Those words were all that the children needed. The king's reassuring speech healed the kids' hearts and gave the children their hope back and things soon returned to normal. They resumed eating proper meals and developed a regular sleeping pattern. Most importantly, they continued with their daily entertainment of the king.

One afternoon, the children decided that they would surprise the kind king. They knew how much the king enjoyed the little drama sketches that they did, so they decided to show him one that they had all worked on together.

King Baritorin had just returned from another conference. He was looking forward to another quiet evening with the children but was surprised to see some sort of mini-stage set up by their door. It was made up of two small thrones and two pillars, one on either side of each throne.

A very confused Baritorin sat by his bed to scrutinise the small stage when he heard some kind of trumpet fanfare. Then William burst in yelling, "Make way for her royal highness, Queen Armana of Valencia!"

Baritorin then realised what was going on and his face lit up with a big grin. The children were putting on a show for him. This would be good.

After William announced the "queen's" entrance, what Baritorin saw next was more than what he was expecting. Camilla strode in an extremely extravagant queen costume with her hair styled up in bows and with a thousand pounds of make-up on her face. A striking resemblance to the woman that was queen Armana.