Chapter 5
THE GUESTS AND the Regent devoted most of the afternoon to business meetings. The kitchen had to serve meals in a few different rooms.
Regent Bernard had ensconced himself at the head of the table in the official palace dining room with about twenty minor nobles. These dinners were for everyone who wanted to speak with him but was judged insufficiently important to get a private audience.
The Regent loved his food and piled many things on his plate while most of the guests were much more modest.
Nellie hadn’t seen it but, on one such occasion, he had chastised a guest for “eating too much” and had told the poor man, “You’ve already gotten your money’s worth out of your visit. Now bugger off.”
The guests were usually local nobles, although one time when Nellie came in, a man
