the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (snow like ashes txt) 📕

of cooking is almost too excellent to be factual.”
”An unusual thing, most certainly,” Nomed answered, humbly. “My dears, I must confess that it is just a question of practice. I had plenty of support from my previous employer. He loved that.”
“Women like versatile men.” Morgana smiled. “They never become lackluster.”
He raised one black eyebrow elegantly; his black mustache making a little twist and swung his cape behind his back and tilted his head closing his eyes. “You’re too kind!”
Morgana smiled at this dashing youngster whose muscular frame seemed to burst out of the satin vest and cotton fabric. Obviously, Richard, suspicious of this, tried his best to smile.
“Lieutentant Landstorm!” He shook his hand.
“Princess Morgana!” She stood up straight, trying to make her breasts shoot forward a bit and gave Nomed Snekawa a touch of a dimple.
“You royal highness, blue becomes you. It suits you even better than the green.” Patricia smiled whilst Morgana smirked. Belinda wondered at this man’s memory. He would probably know the guard’s names as well. “Sire Marcus! Sire Philip!”
“Good Sire!”
“Senator Cretan! Happy to see you again!”
”And you!” He was careful with Belinda, having been brushed off again.
He turned to Belinda and she gave him a beaming smile.
“But you, your highness, are the crowning glory of female perfection!”
”That is why we are getting married!” Steven smiled. “She is perfect!”
“Lucky man to have a perfect woman at your side.” Nomed spat.
Steven countered with unusual ease. “I, too, found your performance fantastic yesterday. You most certainly deserve to be in the semi-finals. Where are you originally from, Good Sire?”
Nomed nodded with a grin. “My father was a gold and ivory renovator for the Russian Crown so that is where I grew up. In Moscow, that is.” Belinda nodded. “My parents met in Milano, where I went to school for the first two years of my life. That is where I learnt to play the lute. Then we moved to the Macedonian Kingdom to become advisors for King Zeadran. I took a four-year break to serve the Mongolian Emperor and I have been in service of the Ottomans since I was 21. I make sure I leave occasionally to participate in festivals.”
”You do get around.” Sieglinde said, sardonically. There was an atmosphere of admiring and hating Nomed at the same time. He was so talented and so extraordinary that it seemed fake. As if this perfect man was a literary figure that could not have a foundation in real worlds.
Belinda sparkled and shook his hand. “Well, Sire Nomed, I certainly hope to see you again.”
“Goodbye, Lady Belinda!” They walked on as the gent started playing and singing again, his rich Baritone echoing across the marketplace.
“Fashionable man!” Steven said. “Almost too much so. It seems so affected.”
”I’m not sure if I admire him or find him a bragging scoundrel.” Belinda whispered.
“Don’t you find it affected?”
”No, not affected,” Belinda corrected. “He certainly loves himself, though.”
”I do find him affected!” Sieglinde remarked. “But he is undoubtedly a genius.”
Belinda shook hands with some people and smiled at the fruit sellers she was passing, who were bowing. The entourage walked on and said hello to the dancing company before walking the round to the stands with the serums and to the jesters.
“He is quite a handsome gent, though. Don’t you think?” Steven provoked.
”So he is, Steven. You enjoy the aulos ladies and I enjoy the lute players.”
He smirked. She took his hand.
“Steven, I might like watching handsome men just like you like watching enticing young female dishes. Alas, sincerely prime gent of musk, I love … only you!”
He nodded. “Happy to hear that!”
”Belinda!”
Cretan pointed at the stand with instruments.
“We gave the instrumentalist a place to sell their personal craftsmanship that you ordered.”
”Wonderful, Senator! They complained about the absence of this endeavor last year.”
Cretan nodded.
“Get me away from this sleeze, Steven.” Belinda exclaimed through gritted teeth.
He chuckled. “You got yourself into this, get out of it yourself!”
”You are in a good mood today, Steven.”
“Only jests, Belinda!”
Spontaneously, a group started applauding as they walked by and she waved back. The theatre company that was performing a tragedy got a round of applause.
The royals received some grilled meat from the butcher and a sample of serums from one of the magicians. All the while there were people talking to them, giving them compliments and nodding every time they said something. Then, as they walked out toward the middle of the marketplace, where Bantrard was sitting on the middle stage by the well, the guards posted around the marketplace started gathering people together to have them come nearer the stage. Belinda, Steven, Sieglinde, Morgana, Richard, Patricia, and Cretan were now up on the stage with Marcus and Philip slightly behind them.
“It is lovely to have so many devoted subjects!”
”They love you!” Steven exclaimed quietly.
“So they should.” Cretan added. “You are the best we could hope for!”
She smiled. “Oh, how charming of you, Julius!”
Steven tried to quench his grin.
It took a few minutes to gather all of the citizens present nearer.
“Mr. Cretan” Belinda asked.
“Yes, your highness!”
”Quite extraordinary how organized everyone is here, don’t you agree?”
“We have briefed all the guards and told everyone entering the marketplace how you wanted this to work. The people have been as cooperative as you wanted it. For those who can read we put up notices as to when and how you wanted this to happen. For those who cannot we spent the entire time yesterday briefing people vocally.”
”Thank you, Senator!”
Soon enough there was a crowd around her of maybe five hundred people standing peaceful and attentive. The stage was open without a roof and not a sound was heard from a single entity. She tried to speak as loud as she could to have all of them hear what she said.
“My valued populace, splendid performers, ladies and gentlemen,” Belinda began. “I am utmost content to see so much elation here and so much capacity being spread about the citadel! It is an asset for our nation that this Summer Festival continues to be something of a tradition and also it is devotedly obliged to be grateful that this year, according to Senator Cretan here, has been the year of least crime ever!” The crowd cheered and applauded. “My father, the King, has today his inspection of the troops and could not attend. He sends his love to his community and feels that we are a nation of talented winners!” There were little children smiling in front and Belinda smiled at them. The same children, a little boy with curly hair and a girl with black straight hair, had played on the cobblestones earlier. They were dressed in beige clothing. Their mother beamed at Belinda. “He will again be here at the end of the month for the final inspection with my dear mother!”
Sieglinde now took over, her exquisite alto reverberating like prosperous audile plum. “We are in high spirits that this festival has occurred to our liking and are also happy that the semi-finalists all seem to be enjoying themselves royally, if you excuse the idiom. We wish them all the best of luck and hope they all know that each winner of each category has a chance to become the Clurafar Hero of the Year!” The crowd cheered again. Some hats flew up in the air. Morgana saw Nomed smiling about ten feet from the stage. He looked like a winner already. Why did that worry her?
“We also hope,” Belinda continued “that we can invite this winner to a ceremony that will take place on the 23rd of September of this year.” Steven took her hand and Belinda raised it. “I will be marrying my fiancée, Prince General Steven of Gargetania in St. Raphael’s Cathedral.” The crowd cheered as the couple kissed tenderly.
“Then we must say,” Morgana added. “That inspecting all these lovely bits of entertainment, talking to the people has been a delight for me and Richard as well. We are all proud of you and discover this kingdom is bursting with endowment. Also you foreigners have a lot to bestow to our nation.” The merriment was now not so much in honour of her words, but the male audience seemed to enjoy hooting in her favour because of her fabulous round stature. Morgana knew that. “We are all thankful!”
Patricia ended this round by saying: “As a Clurafar citizen I am swollen with pride to have you as my fellow Prosperanians and am looking forward to greeting the victor at the bastion at the end of this month. Being a devotee of poetry myself I hope the winner has a divine tender elegy to convert to me!” This was utterly popular with the male audience.
Some of the women scowled at the way their men cheered at this.
Julius Cretan waved to the guards to push back the citizens and when that was done the full party of rulers walked back to their coach with Marcus and Philip behind them to cheering ovation.

On the way home, Belinda could not take her eyes off that mahogany heart with its words of “LOVE AND FAMILY” written on it.
She wondered who the young girl might be and what she might be doing right now.
Alexander that day again went to the well beyond the palace garden, hidden inside a small patch of forest and watched the coin glitter at the bottom of the well. He thought of his father and he prayed for his daughter’s spiritual safety and for the protection of God. He prayed that the angels might save them from ill and that everything would turn out well.
The heart meant a lot to Belinda and she prayed that day that the girl might find her peace.
Alexander went up in the attic that night. Although Lucinda had warned him years ago not to do so and Belinda’s attack might be a warning he did what he had feared for decades: he burned all of Lucinda’s boxes of black magic instructional designs engraved upon parchment.
They disappeared into the flames of the fireplace in the Alexander Room and he went to bed that day feeling very good. Inside the flames an old curse awoke. It kept the palace awake with very old, very bad memories of a young black-haired girl named Lucinda Winsletenna, a girl who was out to disturb a certain daughter’s sanctuary.
Belinda was up alone a short while later than her father. She sat in the Alexander Room reading her old diary from the time when she had been an eleven-year-old imprisoned girl. Tales of horror followed on page after page. There were diaries with tales of love and of summer, but they wouldn’t help her find the answer. She had found the sanctuary. Why was Lucinda so brutal? It was in here, she was absolutely positive it was. It had to be in here. Then she read a passage about Lucinda prancing the dungeon and claiming that this was an issue far more dramatic than Belinda could ever imagine. That was when it struck her. Belinda put down her bronze mug of red wine and stared into the jittery and crackling flames within the fireplace. The warmth of the blaze did not help her feeling cold at the thought of what this was. This was not just a question of a family vendetta.
This was an issue of power.
Lucinda wanted to take over the Prosperanian Kingdom, removing Simon’s ancestors and the official Winsletenna Dynasty from the throne of Clurafar and replacing them with Nocturanian diplomats.


CHAPTER SIX:
WHEN THE WEDDING BELLS CHIME