unwilling to say anything. With little else to do - for the Bumptiouse Barrelle of Larde sat on her right and, taking his cue from the Queen, was also ignoring her - Jenna occupied her time listening to the acrimonious conversation between Etheldredda and the young man and was amazed to hear him call the Queen "Mama."
A gong sounded.
An expectant silence fell upon the hungry crowd. This was the announcement of the first of fifteen courses. They licked their lips, shook out their napkins and, almost as one, tucked them under their chins. The little Door Pages heaved open the doors, and a long line of serving girls in pairs, each one carrying two small silver bowls, filed in. On entering the Ballroom, the girls pided up, one line to serve each table. In a tide of gray, the girls swept along the tables, each depositing a bowl in front of an eager diner. The last two girls to enter the Ballroom made their way up to the dais, and soon Jenna too had a small silver bowl in front of her.
Curious, Jenna looked down at the bowl and gasped in horror. A young duckling, scarcely big enough to be out of the egg, lay in a puddle of thin brown broth. The duckling had been marinated in wine, plucked, and its little naked, goose-bumpy body was slumped in the bowl. Its head rested on a small ledge that stuck out from the special duckling bowl and gazed with terrified eyes at Jenna. It was still alive. Jenna was nearly sick on the spot.
Queen Etheldredda, on the other hand, looked very pleased at the sight of her duckling. The Queen licked her lips, remarking to the young man on her left that this was one of her favorite dishes - there was nothing like a tender young duckling freshly scalded in hot orange sauce.
The gong sounded for the second time, announcing the arrival of a long line of boys carrying jugs of boiling hot sauce. Jenna watched the boys enter the Ballroom two by two, one line going to the right and one to the left, each boy stopping to pour some of the orange sauce into the waiting bowls of the diners. The two boys at the end of the line with the hottest jugs of sauce were ordered straight up to the dais. Quickly, before the sauce boy reached her, Jenna picked the duckling out of her bowl and thrust it into her tunic pocket, where the tiny creature lay in the soft fluff at the bottom of her pocket, rigid with terror.
Jenna watched the boys thread their way through the throng. Eyes down, trying to avoid spilling the brimming jugs of hot sauce, they stepped up onto the dais, where a burly footman hissed in their ears, "Tarry not, serve the Queen and Princess Esmeralda first." And so it was that when Jenna looked up to politely thank the boy who had just poured orange sauce into her duckling-free bowl, she found herself looking into the haunted eyes of Septimus Heap.
Jenna looked away. She did not believe it. This boy with the long straggly hair, thin in the face and somewhat taller than she remembered, could not possibly be Septimus. Not in a million years.
Septimus for his part had expected to see Princess Esmeralda - so that was who he saw. He was annoyed with himself for thinking for a few hopeful seconds that the Princess could possibly be Jenna. He had already been fooled like that once before when Princess Esmeralda had stayed with Marcellus just before she disappeared. He wasn't going to let it happen again. Carefully, Septimus poured the orange sauce into her bowl, grateful that for some reason she did not have a small, live duckling in there.
Suddenly there was a loud crash and a collective gasp of horror mixed with glee rose from the Ballroom. At the sight of the duckling in Queen Etheldredda's bowl, Hugo had dropped the jug, and the boiling orange sauce had spilled into the Queen's lap. Etheldredda leaped to her feet screaming, the Bumptious Barrelle of Larde threw back his chair and grabbed Hugo by the neck and lifted him bodily off the ground, half throttling him. "You little fool!" yelled the Barrelle of Larde. "You will pay for this. You will regret this moment for the rest of your life - which will not be long, boy, mark my words."
Hugo's eyes were wide with fear. He