The banquet was held on a large upper deck in a tree near Ashtoreth's palace. It was an expansive wooden platform, outfitted with supports and held at the four corners with ropes. The wooden railings were spaced with torches.
It was coming on evening, and just beginning to get dark. It was looking to be a beautiful summer evening, perfect for Ashtoreth's Midsummer Feast. The servants, including Marian and the other goa'uld's lotars, had been in the kitchens all day working.
Due to her position, Ophrenet had stopped by once or twice to check on their progress, but really she had no experience cooking, and figured they were better off left alone. Now she surveyed the long spread as the food was hauled up from below on the rope-lift and carried to the table by slaves. The plates were gold and the forks silver. The napkins were silk and the knives were blunted. There were roasted doves, and a larger bird with a long neck and head curled back. The grains had been cooked into fine twisted breads and cakes.
Ashtoreth took her place at the head of the table, not more dressed than before. She did not seem even slightly uncomfortable. Netty and Kianna together sat down at her right hand on one of the couches that surrounded the long table. The seating had been decided by the Queen herself, and Netty was pleased; this arrangement reflected the Queen's approval, and gave her the chance to engage in direct conversation with the Goa'uld.
The gods of the Veiled City began, one by one, to arrive for the feast. First there was Bacchus, dressed in a toga, who lay down reclining next to Ophrenet and one place removed from Ashtoreth.
Second came the Fates, they arrived at once and walked together, sitting three in a row next to Bacchus. Then came Nike, who placed herself at the Queen's left hand, directly across from Netty. Though her figure was lovely, she had a broken nose and a scar down across one eye. It gave her a rather rugged appearance, and she did not smile. After her came Pan, lurching and grunting, and he did not lie down but folded his bulky green legs under him crosswise.
The furies were next, and these three women were nearly as nude as Ashtoreth, but with paler skin and covered in jangling jewelry. Their hair was wild and unkempt. Lastly came Puck, of course, at the very far end.
Pan was the first to dig in, grunting as he shoved an entire dove into his mouth. The rest of the table set about more slowly.
The furies immediately began arguing.
"You took the fruit that I was going to take!"
"Well, so what if I did? I got it first."
"You call yourself a sister of mine."
Puck had found a bowl of candies and poured all of them onto his plate.
"Hey! That's not fair!" one of the furies snatched some of the candies back.
"You STEAL from me?" Puck raged.
Everyone else ignored them.
Then came the drinks, delivered by the individual lotars of each Goa'uld. This was, as Kianna understood, to help them feel more secure against attack. Everyone else seemed to be getting theirs first.
Ashtoreth's wine was delivered to her, and after her lotar had arrived, he stood still and silently behind her.
"Let us begin," she announced, though her less polite company had obviously refused to wait. They all served themselves. Ashtoreth passed her goblet carefully behind her to her lotar, who drank from it, and then passed it back.
Kianna felt more than a little trapped, surrounded by so many Goa'uld.
This better go off well.
The pulley was rolling again, and the lift reached the top with both Marian and Nike's lotar arriving at the same time. They crossed to opposite sides of the table, and Marian came up behind Netty's shoulder.
"Your wine, My Lady."
"Thank you," she said quietly. Marian made herself scarce, and Netty looked down the table. She was mildly alarmed to see, out of the corner of her eye, Puck surreptitiously switching goblets with Pan, who was paying all of his attention to a huge animal leg.
"Ridiculous, are they not?" said Ashtoreth quietly, below the uproar.
"Indeed," said Nike. Her one eye narrowed. "And they call themselves gods. Such squabbling is beneath us."
No one here has drank any wine yet, Kianna observed.
Good call. Netty touched the glass, but only to push it away slightly. Then she looked up. Well, except Bacchus.
Bacchus was, if possible, already drunk. He was finishing his first (?) glass and had his lotar again approaching to refill it.
"Is it good wine?" Netty asked him conversationally, with a hint of humor in her voice.
"Oh yes," Bacchus said glibly. "Very good, of course. I obtained it myself. Only the best… only the best for my Queen, of course."
There was a tap on Ophrenet's shoulder and she flinched involuntarily. Trying to regain her dignity, she turned to see Marian standing behind her. She leaned in close to them and spoke, quietly so no one else could hear, but in a tone of urgency. She seemed slightly distressed. "M'lady. I'm sorry I couldent warn thee before. I must tell ye."
"M?" Netty leaned back. She kept her voice to an ordinary tone in order to stay quiet.
"There is a talk in the kitchens m'lady that Nike has got 'erself a poison they say can kill a god."
That could only mean one thing.
Symbiote poison.
One of the few things that Netty truly feared.
"They sayin' she want t'kill her Majerster the Queen…" Marian's voice trembled. "And frame thee. My lady."
"Me?"
"Ah don't understand it, m'lady."
Hang on a second, thought Kianna. We saw some glass-switching earlier. Who here knows about this? Does everyone know about this except us?
"But your current cup's safe, m'Lady," Marian hastened to tell her. "I tasterd it m'self on the way up."
"Marian!" Kianna burst out. "You didn't have to do that."
"Art thou displeased?"
"No, but… it wasn't necessary." It really wasn't.
The symbiote poison wouldn't affect a lotar. We are still not safe.
"You have done well for telling me," said Ophrenet. "You are dismissed."
Marian nodded, dropped a quick curtsey, and left again.
Netty eyed her cup with even more distaste.
But it wasn't intended to kill me. It was intended to kill Ashtoreth. That means…
Ashtoreth stood to make an announcement, and the table quieted somewhat. "It is the custom in this court," said the Queen, "to switch cups with the person sitting across from you. This is to make sure no foul play goes down in my court."
Ophrenet was startled, but she saw through the nonsense in that right away. Ashtoreth herself was not included in this glass-switching, being at the head of the table. It was a means to maintain some semblance of control over these fools.
Everybody grumbled, but it seemed they were used to this; there were the movements of reluctant clanking and scaping and a little bit of sloshing all across the table.
Nike placed her hand on the base of Ophrenet's cup, Ophrenet nudged it over to her and took Nike's.
Just then, she looked up to see Nike's lotar also approaching the table from the lift. He passed around behind Ashtoreth, and at that moment his hand flashed out and seemed to pass dangerously close to Ashtoreth's cup.
He just put something in her drink.
That was Kianna's first thought.
No, but the poison is in our cup. You must be mistaken. It could have been a coincidence.
That was no coincidence. Hell, even Ashtoreth must have seen that—
But of course she saw that. It's just impossible to know for sure.
So is she going to say anything? Is the poison in both cups? I don't underst—
"Look at them, Nike," said Ashtoreth to the Goa'uld, nodding down the table at the furies, who had resorted to pulling at each other's hair. Fat was dribbling down Pan's chin. Puck was practically standing on the table, but barely any taller for it.
While Nike looked, Ophrenet watched mutely as Ashtoreth switched her own glass with Nike's.
"They are pathetic," said Nike. "We must find victory together, not at each others' expense in petty disputes."
She looked back at Ashtoreth, who was holding the stem of her own goblet now delicately.
Ophrenet felt nearly frozen. Ashtoreth thought she'd gotten rid of the poison, but really, she'd just picked it up. Nike had planned this from the very start knowing how Ashtoreth would react.
"Do you really believe that, Nike?" Ashtoreth asked. "Or do you merely wish for your influence to be the dominant one?"
Bacchus slurped down the rest of his glass off to Netty's right side. He seemed to be paying little to no attention to the scene that was playing out right in front of him.
The Queen passed the glass to her lotar, who again dutifully tasted it.
Oh hells. She thinks it's safe.
Ashtoreth drank delicately, a long, self-satisfied sip, and then put the cup down and sat back.
There was an odd sort of silence.
"Well?" said Ashtoreth. "I see that you have not drank any of your wine. Is there some problem with it? Surely you would not wish to offend Bacchus."
"I—I…" Nike was looking Ashtoreth up and down as though unable to believe she was still alive.
"I mean," Ashtoreth grinned with something approaching glee as terror dawned on Nike's face. "Your own lotar tasted it, did he not? I am sure that it is safe."
Nike was looking a little pale. "Yes, of course, certainly, I shall drink."
"For Bacchus."
"Yes, of course, for Bacchus."
Nike's hand moved toward the cup, and then in an instant struck it off the table. The wine spilled over the tablecloth and soaked into the couch. "Oh dear! How clumsy of me. I am so sorry, your Majesty, I will simply get a new one. Surely it will not offend Bacchus."
Ashtoreth smirked.
Wait a minute, Kianna pointed out. Nike thinks Ashtoreth refused to switch the glasses and the poison is still in front of her. But she DID. I SAW it. So, right now, by all rights, Ashtoreth should be dead.
Bacchus turned to Ophrenet suddenly. "Hey." He pointed at her untasted glass with a meaty finger. "Are you going to drink that?"
Netty shook her head silently, a small 'no'.
That was all he needed. Bacchus picked up Netty's goblet and chugged down the contents in a single gulp.
Marian suddenly appeared from the lift, practically running across the boards of the wooden balcony in order to reach Ophrenet's side. She reached out to grab Netty's arm, and barely restrained herself. "My lady!" she hissed.
Netty pulled back from the table. "Excuse me."
She took a few steps back to speak to Marian. "You cannot keep disturbing us like this. What is the matter?"
Marian's face was an ashy color. "M'lady, I've made a terrible mistake. Thou canna' drink. F'give me! I didn't know."
"Didn't know what? You didn't know what?" Ophrenet bit her lips.
Ow. Stop that.
Marian scratched at her own arms. "I did'n say it… I shoulda told thee… I knew one of the goblets 'd been poisoned so I switched yours with Nike's in the kitchen. I thought't m'self if she's the poisoner then her own cup is the only one that's defently safe. I didn't know thee'd be switchin them back at table!"
Netty had never turned around so fast. Bacchus was clutching at his throat, he was going blue in the face. Ashtoreth was looking on with a smirk, and Nike was staring in shock.
No one made a single move to help Bacchus. He eventually slumped, face-down in his bowl of soup.
"Go back to the kitchen, Marian," said Ophrenet carefully.
Oh dear.
She is not all that bright, is she?
Netty made her way slowly back towards her place, but did not seat herself, looking instead with some dismay upon the dead man next to her.
"Very clever, Ophrenet," said Ashtoreth, smiling. "You know," the Queen mused, "Food and drink are two elements not so distant from one another. I'm sure I can arrange to have you appointed to his position, if that is what you desire."
"Thank you, my Queen." Netty bowed respectfully.
Nike had on her face a look of fury comparable only with the looks now on the faces of the furies themselves, who were descending on Puck to beat him with their plates.
"Ophrenet," said Ashtoreth, pointedly ignoring Nike, "What do you think of this clamor here?"
"It is disgraceful, my lady," said Ophrenet.
"I agree," stated Ashtoreth simply. She stood up tall before everyone, and raised her voice.
"SILENCE!"
There was at least a moment's silence. The furies froze, one with her fingers in another's hair, the other with a bent plate in her hand.
"Alecto! Magaera! Tisiphone! What have you to say for yourselves?"
They untangled themselves and straightened up, in the meanwhile releasing Puck, who scrambled as far away from them as possible.
"My Queen," simpered Alecto. "Is competition not the natural state of the Goa'uld?"
Ashtoreth's face turned sour, twisting into a mask of anger and disgust. "Competition! Not this buffoonery!" She left the table and walked back, heading toward the pulleys and the lift. "Let me show you fools what it means to be one of the old gods!"
She jerked on the ropes of the pulley and the lift began to rise again.
It rattled and jerked, and when it stopped at the top, there was the prisoner she'd transported into the city, the man who'd been on the donkey. He'd had a bag over his head then, and now he was blindfolded. He was also bound hand and foot, and trembling.
Ashtoreth grabbed him by the hair. "Out of my way!" she shouted, and the Goa'uld scattered from the table.
She marched toward the table, dragging him in tow, and with her other strong arm swept the table clear of food, wine and drink in a fearsome clatter.
"This," she growled, her voice seeming almost animalistic now, "Is the true offering to the Goa'uld. This is the offering to my children. Not the food. Not the wine."
She threw the man before her onto the table, spilling over the only remaining wine goblet that had not yet fallen, then climbed onto the table to stand over him. He lay there on his back with his wrists bound in front of him. She crouched over the man, and looked around at the other Goa'uld, her eyes wild. "Blood! Human blood, their bodies, their souls! These belong to us! To me!"
She came down off the table, but only to hold the man down as he started thrashing about, trying to escape. She snatched from the floor near her own place a knife—the only knife, Netty supposed, that was truly sharp— inside her Kianna was recoiling in horror, wanting to close her eyes, to stop looking at what was about to happen.
Ashtoreth held the man's hair violently as she slit his throat, and then stabbed the knife deep into his chest. There was blood. Blood, everywhere. The man choked and spasmed. The entire tablecloth was red.
Bacchus alone had not moved from his seat.
Ashtoreth stepped back from her work, regaining her composure. She dropped the knife and went to smooth her hair, then seemed to rethink and held her bloody hands away from her body. "All of you go home."
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