STATE BANQUET.

DECEMBER, 1999.

Queen Elizabeth II President Bill Clinton Prince Philip Hillary Rodham Clinton Queen Mother Prince of Wales Archbishop of Canterbury Daisy Sills Princess Anne British Prime Minister Prince Andrew Mrs. BPM Jodie Foster Prince Edward Ambassador Packey Packel Princess Margaret (and approximately 484 other distinguished guests)

16.

Like the nucleus of an atom, the fetus of a hippo, or the quaking tremors brought about by creatures in the Jurassic Period-who hadn't a clue as to how to tread gently on the Earth-the mostly Royal procession began, appropriately enough, from the Queen's Closet. Situated between the Queen's Audience Room and the White-Drawing Room, and all such things being relative, the Royal Closet was not what you might expect. In fact, contrary to its innocuous title, which made it sound as though it might be a narrow receptacle for storing dirty gaiters, it represented a rather good-sized drawing-room in its own right-complete with the appropriate marble, crystal, and heavy damask design features. Traditionally, it was the place from which any important evening's festivities usually began for the R.F.. And, as Rachel used to prompt Daisy-being the youngest Silverman branch on their particular family tree-to recite each and every Passover: "So, nu? God? Why should this night be different from any other night?"

Considering how much earlier than everybody else Daisy had been ready, it was somehow fitting then, that she should be the last one to make it into the Closet. Even Prince Edward-often tardy himself-was already in there with Jodie when Daisy arrived, breathless, just in time to make the fast acquaintance of her escort.

She barely had time to shake his hand, but sometimes, first impressions forming hastily and hard, that is all it takes. The rather recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury's hand hung like a limp codfish in her own, a species of handshake that Herbert had always taught her to avoid at all costs. Not to mention, that the Primate was possessed of a profile even more severe than that of the Duke's, making him a much stronger candidate for being somebody's cruel stepmother.

And, how nice, Daisy thought, upon being presented to that smug visage, to be able to be so absolutely certain that one's own poop didn't stink.

But she really had no time to dwell on notions theological; or to attend to the very pertinent fact that her olfactory sense had just put in a brief reappearance; or to even properly appreciate that the President of the United States, in person, failed to disappoint a bit and that he was, in fact, just as tall in real life as he appeared to be on TV (even if he obviously didn't have a clue as to how to dress for a black-tie affair). For, before she knew what she was about, she was being whisked along on her merry way, carried on the surging tide of veddy important people.

At the entrance to the White Drawing-Room-a room with no visible lines for a door-the Queen gave a sovereign nod of the head and the wall swung forward, as if by sorcery. It was sometimes tough on her, striving to maintain that imperiously impervious smile, when the Batman-like effect that this entrance had on other people always filled her with such pleasure. She often wondered, just what would happen if any guests on the other side were to stand too close to the outwardly swinging wall. Perhaps knocking one's guests on their hindquarters, or flattening them like pancakes, was not the done thing in polite company but, thankfully, this hairsplitting point of etiquette had never been tested to date.

Meanwhile-as Daisy played with the notorious swinging door, idly attempting to figure out how the trick was done-the other 484 invitees were arriving downstairs, beginning their inevitable progress towards the Music Room, just on the other side of the White-Drawing Room, there to rendezvous with the sixteen more important (in whose minds?) people already waiting upstairs.

They entered by singles, by pairs, and by clusters. They came through the Ambassador's Entrance; they came through the Grand Entrance. After a brief stop, in order to deposit their coats and things on the bed in the guest room (only kidding!), they, each and every one, found themselves in the Grand Hall.

Those accustomed to such things as a part of everyday life gave it all the old ho-hum treatment. The rest, in an attempt to maintain a mien of outward urbanity, strained not to rubberneck. This set of circumstances left the world, briefly, with one very harried butler who couldn't carry a tune, and 484 dignified souls who would need to seek chiropractic assistance come the morrow for self-inflicted whiplash.

The Grand Hall was, for lack of an adequate adjective, impressive. What with its crimson carpets, its soaring marble pillars with gilded Corinthian columns, its gold, its mahogany, its Sevres, its... you name it. If it represented a superlative item on the individual spectra of the decorative arts, it was there. It was everything and more that one could require from a foyer. The Grand Hall was, quite simply, the most.

Having thus been relieved of their splendour virginity, they made their hushed and bustling way towards the Grand Staircase. There, spit-and-polished black shoes ascended the double staircase, soundlessly passing over the crimson carpet, studiously avoiding the cold marble. There, gloved hands reached out to grasp the heavily gilt bronze balustrade, maintaining a precarious balance on heels, as they gave into temptation, craning their swans' necks heavenward, at the domed skylight overhead. All came finally together at the top, the twin sides curving upwards in a bow, deposited in front of the doors of the Guard Chamber and the appropriately named Green Drawing-Room beyond.

The crimson and gold carpeting of the Green Drawing-Room had already impressed Daisy, on her previous visits there, as being a little bit too far over the St. Nick top for her own tastes. Thankfully for the guests who passed through-before crossing the Picture Gallery and entering the Music Room, there to see the waiting Queen-Daisy Silverman was not piloting the tour bus.

Of course, just because Daisy wasn't piloting the bus, didn't necessarily mean that one could prevent her from obsessing about poor interior design choices-at least, not at this stirringly stimulating juncture in her life. And so, as she sat in the Music Room, listening to some somnolent musical interlude or other, she found her mind drifting across the hall and into the Green Drawing-Room; found herself thinking that the decor choices expressed there represented a clear case of overkill, as though someone had slipped The Russian Tea Room a whole handful of 'ludes. True, the effect of the complementary colors was striking, but, then again, while the odor of horse manure was striking too, that didn't necessarily make it something worth aspiring to. As Daisy leaned across to Princess Anne, however, thinking to pass a whispered comment to this effect, she caught a strong whiff of that Royal personage, and found herself biting her own tongue, having formed a lightning-quick reversal of opinion. Obviously, for some people, certain odors were worth aspiring to.

Sitting there, her own tongue firmly held between her teeth as Anne looked back at her, patiently waiting for word or thought to emerge, Daisy took in the full effect of the Princess's chosen attire. Clad entirely in pink frou-frou, it occurred to Daisy that she looked more like a confection than a person, like marzipan only with walnuts, or a giant petit fours. Thinking to offer some advice-something perhaps along the lines of women of a certain type not being temperamentally suited to certain styles-she opened her mouth, and began the process of unleashing her tongue. Thankfully, before she got the opportunity to find out if she could, in fact, fit her entire foot into her own mouth, the doors to the Music Room were flung open, the hordes began to descend, and it was time for the Royal Party to rise and greet its guests.

A few moments later-as she stood as part of the official receiving line, shaking hands, and using the kind of warmly firm grip that would have made Herbert Silverman proud, at any rate-Jodie was wondering just how one would go about shooting the scene before her; how to convey the idea of hundreds of potentially interesting people, all doing potentially interesting things, all having lives outside of this room where events were (potentially) constantly occurring; how to, finally, convey all of that, while keeping the real focus of the cameras, and, thus, her audience, firmly on the activities of a very small handful of a few of the (crazier than most) characters. When she got back home, she resolved, she would check to see if Joseph Manckiewitz had left any liner notes from Cleopatra. And then she would divide by twenty.

Jodie was, in fact, as she stood at Prince Edward's side-her ruby-red lips looking as though nature had painted them that color; as she parted them regularly and with ease, only to reveal the perfect smile beyond-proof positive of woman's (and man's, one guesses you might say) ability to go on to achieve great success as an adult-in spite of and because of the occurrences in one's youth-and that life was sustainable inside of the fishbowl, if one only had the right set of gills. (As a matter of record, the only other individual that Hollywood had managed to raise successfully to majority, without throwing it out with the bathwater, was Ron Howard. But, unfortunately, the former Opie was already otherwise engaged when Edward rang him up, leaving the Prince with no other recourse but to resort to the second choice on his list.) Jodie was also proof positive that one could express, in one's wardrobe, the dizzying heights of impeccable taste-tonight being clad in a money green satin sheathe, and, thus, refinedly combining wealth and sex in such a way that no man present, including Edward (who usually did not let himself become bothered over such things), would get a wink that night-while, at the same instant, conducting oneself with such an air that it was impossible for the world to ever accuse you of caring a fig about such a banal thing as the world's impression of one.

Meanwhile, a few paces up the line, the Queen Mother reached into the folds of her ermine-trimmed robe, producing a flask from which she took a surreptitious slug. Replacing it in her pocket, she reached up a hand, dearly hoping that she was straightening her tiara as opposed to knocking it further off-kilter.

The Q.M. looked around the room with a slightly skewed vision, taking in the twin chandeliers, the eighteen columns, the candelabra ringing the room. In its present capacity as Music Room, there were few furnishings to be found in the oval room, the domed ceiling being its neatest architectural trick, and the red-and-gold curtains providing its strongest splashes of color. In fact, as far as the Q.M. was concerned, the Music Room still was the Grand Saloon, as it had been called in Victorian times.

Shaking hands with some pasha or another, she took another furtive swig. As she attended with one ear to the fascinating problem of the falling price of palm products, she cast an eye across the room at the brass-inlaid walnut piano. Perhaps, if they were lucky-or, not, depending on one's perspective-Princess Margaret might be prevailed upon, following dinner and a few nice glasses of wine, to give them all a treat by tickling the old ivories.

And, speaking of dinner, the Q.M. wondered, where the hell is it, anyway? The rumbling noise in her stomach chimed off the hours like clockwork. Surely, it must be drawing nigh on nine o'clock. No?

The entire party had bypassed the State Dining-Room, making a beeline for the much larger Ballroom instead.

Which was something of a pity, Daisy thought, herself preferring the smaller room, what with its string of Gainsborough portraits lining the walls. It was always fun when gazing at these to attempt a chicken-and-egg analysis: had the artist left off painting horses just long enough to do these portraits of the Queen's ancestors? Or had the inspiration process been worked the other way around? Either way, Daisy liked the Spanish mahogany table at the room's center, liked its relative intimacy when compared with some of the others in the palace. Unfortunately, however, the room only seated sixty comfortably and the Ballroom, being far more spacious and crowd-friendly, was the only answer for it.

Over one hundred feet in length, sixty in width, and having a ceiling that rose a full five stories overhead, there would indeed be ample arm space at the table such that Edward needn't worry about Mrs. B.P.M. poking him in the eye with her shrimp fork, or his aunt engineering a moat around his foie gras if she chanced to knock over her wineglass.

The room contained six chandeliers, each the size of a planet, and was entirely decorated in crimson, gold, and white, with the inevitable red carpeting covering the parquet floor. In honor of the holiday season, however, slight alterations had been made. The room was festooned with faux snowflakes, suspended-through the artful use of carefully placed wires and by even more carefully managed lighting-as though by magic. This created the impression that the party was taking place inside of a snow globe.

Of course, there had to be a Musician's Gallery in the room. Not to mention, enough Footmen-attired in scarlet and gold livery, white breeches, stockings and buckled shoes-to populate a whole book of fairy stories. And, since tight and short ponytails for men had sprung back into fashion after about two hundred years, a number of these Footmen were sporting appropriate queues. In fact, the whole scene put the President-who, quite naturally enough, was seated at the top table, in front of the throne dais, which stood out in bas-relief against a background of red hangings-uncomfortably in mind of indentured servitude, the single word "slavery" not being very far behind it in his thoughts, as the word began to flash on and off in his brain like the red "petrol low" warning light on an Aston Martin.

A few places down from where the President was seated, and on the opposite side of the table, the Q.M. winked at Mr. Clinton as though to reassure him that things were not as politically dire as they seemed or, at the very least, to goose him into lightening up. Under normal circumstances, the Q.M. would have been seated to the left of the President, her and her daughter forming a Windsor sandwich around the American leader. But Charles, just prior to the onset of the evening's festivities, had pulled her aside, convincing her that he needed her by his side at dinner for moral support.

Her assent, which had evinced the trademark equanimity that she liked to bring to all of life's little curveballs, had thus left Charles free to gaze across the table into the eyes of his beloved. It also left him free-if he could only find a way to slouch down in his seat low enough-to stretch his piggies out under the table, and play footsies with her as well.

From a more practical standpoint, however, what this playing of musical chairs meant was that Daisy was seated smack between the President of the United States of America and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of the Church of England. This positioning, placing her as the woman to the right closest to the Queen, was quite an honor. It also meant that-since everybody who was anybody was in attendance, as well as everybody who wasn't-she would be on such conspicuous display for the entire evening, her prominence impossible to ignore or deny, and that anybody who wished to, or anybody with eyes in their head to see, might bear witness to The Beginning of The End.

The Leader of the Free World and the Leader of the Commonwealth (kindly note the layers of meaning-like a peeled onion, blah, blah, blah-that a mere comparison of titles can take on) had already raised their traditional toasts to one another.

The Queen-resisting the temptation to reach up and adjust her diamond tiara, which was digging a ridge into her forehead-had toasted the President on his performance, saying how nice it was to have them there, and commenting on how equally nice it must be to "always be able to feel so certain concerning one's support from the public," to which he had responded with a quizzical, if gracious, smile.

He, in his turn, trying to maintain status quo or achieve quid pro quo or some such thing, had said how nice it was to be there, and returned her other compliment by stating that, "It must be just as nice not to have to worry about the public's support."

And it really was nice, having the Clintons over for dinner, the Queen thought to herself, as she took a healthy serving of the first course. From the options that the Master Chef had presented her with, she had elected to serve the forty-second President of the United States and his wife Quail Vol-au-Vent; and, for the main course, a dish that she had recently christened Braised Bush Stag.

Whenever possible, the Queen liked to inject her own brand of mischievous wit into what might otherwise be tedious proceedings, and sometimes, the nightly menu was really the only place where she could exercise a free hand to do so. Little did the ninth President to dine at the palace under the Queen's reign suspect-for, while there would always be more presidents, there would only be but one Queen-as he enjoyed eating his quail, that someday (if she lived long enough, God willing), the Queen already planned on serving his successor a preposterous dish called either Gored Game Bills or Bill-less Gored Game Birds. She couldn't quite make up her mind yet on which.

Yes, it certainly was nice having them, in spite of all of that Irish stuff a few years back. And why, if The Other Man had won, then someday they would have all been subjected to some odious dish using tinned pineapples as a base. (The Master Chef, on the other hand, had secretly been hoping that The Other Other Man would change his mind and run. There were ever so many-no longer called for-recipes for newts that he would have liked to try out: Newt Stew, Boiled Newt Legs, Newt en Croute... the list of the ways in which one could cook that particular goose were seemingly endless.) And the President, for his part, really was glad to be there. If one needed to run to a monarchy for a pre-holiday retreat from getting relentlessly bashed by Republicans back home, so be it: hold the fries and pass the tea. A boy from Arkansas could certainly do a lot worse.

Meanwhile, at the President's right elbow, Daisy had thus far been successful in heeding Herbert's old edict: her legs were crossed and her mouth remained shut. And, if this meant that Charles's evening was not turning out to be quite the rip-roaring good time that he had dreamt about, at least nobody had been offended. Yet.

As a matter of fact, Daisy was too busy listening to the voices in her own head, as she pushed her food around her plate with her fork, idly wondering if she was using the one that Sturgess had taught her to; too busy trying to figure out just how in heck life had managed to pick her up at Point A and deposit her at Point B; too worried about being caught out as being the fraud that she was, to be able to string two words together out loud. It was all she could do to keep up with who was who, never mind what was what. Why, the complicated structure of the workers at the Court alone was enough to give one mental pause.

Take the Yeomen of the Guard, for instance, the men in funny costumes who were lining the room. What was the difference between one of these guys and the Warders of the Tower? For their supposedly different Tudor uniforms looked remarkably the same to Daisy's untrained eye. Her head was beginning to spin. And what were the differences, in duties, between the Lord Chamberlain and the Air Marshall-and who really cared? She would never get this stuff straight.

"But... does it matter?" was what she would have liked to cry out. She was stopped, however, by her most recent recurring waking nightmare, the one in which she was walking through a forest and somebody drops a pin-not only does it make a sound loud enough for the entire world to hear, but it also manages, though being only one of those skinny straight pins that come back with your shirts from the dry cleaners, to drive a hole in her head like a stake. Vivid, maybe, but to each her own flirtation with psychosis. So, instead, as she continued to listen to the voices, she merely kept smiling and nodding idiotically at all that was being said around her-all the while hoping that she wasn't smiling about famine, or agreeing to go eat hippo in Australia.

In all of her readings about the R.F., she had never given the matter any serious thought, not along the lines of walking around in the other guy's shoes for a bit, Daisy realized, as she smiled idiotically at the British Prime Minister, who neglected to smile back. (Oh, dear, Daisy thought, perhaps he was shouting up the table to Hillary something about a national health program for the poor.) As she took in the scene around her-the plumes, helmets, the tiaras, swords-she had to ask herself: Were any of these people for real? Was this the product of a modern country keeping pace with the rest of civilization? And, the most burning question of all, as she returned Andrew's half-leer with an idiotic half-leer of her own, why? Why any of it? As the much-maligned daughter of Lear-the King, not the American TV producer-had quite rightly said: What need you one?

Why pay any attention at all to who was who? Daisy thought, raising a goblet of wine to her lips, thankful that the color was a match to her dress, so that when she undoubtedly spilled some wine on her person, nobody would be the wiser.

And was that Bonita over there, hiding out under that ridiculous Tudor costume and fraternizing with the Yeomen?

No, it couldn't be. Surely, it was a trick of the wine.

Oh, yeah, she suddenly remembered, seeing everybody around her at once, as if pulled by strings, swivel their heads to one side. She was supposed to be doing this left/right conversation trick. She turned her head decidedly to the left, gazing up into the eyes of the President of the United States. You'd think that somebody would have realized ahead of time just how short she was, and given her a cushion or a dictionary to sit on. But nooo. She felt positively Lilliputian. So she opted for overcompensation, injecting an extra dose of personality into her words. Coals? Newcastle? Ayup, but somebody had to do it.

"Great job you did with Ireland!" she gushed, raising an approving toast to the Leader of the Free World, thereby earning a glower from the Duke. "(Hic!) My parents (hic!) (hic!)," she hiccupped, "they definitely would have voted to reelect. And while they both might have (hic!) (hic!) reservations-oh, you know- (hic!) Paula, (hic!) Monica and a couple of other minor details, they were uncategorically post-Nixon in their political mindset."

Mr. Clinton, whom Rachel would have deemed "such a handsome man," really did cut a fine figure in his tux (although Rachel's daughter would have amended that he needed to see Sturgess before making all fashion choices with regard to color in the future). He slouched, in a politically correct fashion, towards his dinner companion, the better to see the world from her perspective. "You know, Miss Sills, I do believe that you're right. We, as Americans, must take responsibility for the drinking problems that exist on our fine reservations..."

"...and that are going on, probably, even as we speak." Then, perhaps deciding that he had been serious for long enough, he allowed what was intended to be an evanescent smile to flash across his face, but then second-guessed himself, thus granting it the hang-time of a Michael Jordan hook shot or the aft play of a first-term election victory. "Still, it is always nice to feel that I have the support of our older citizens."

And Daisy, of course, failed to fill him in on the fact that both of her parents-staunch constituents though they might have been-were now dead.

What she couldn't quite bring herself to overlook, however, was his evident decline in fashion savvy.

"You know, you really should see Sturgess before you head for home."

"Excuse me?" came the polite response, accompanied by a cautiously puzzled frown. It wouldn't do to let on too heavily that he wasn't completely up on all the doings of every single M.P. that they had in that Parliament of theirs.

"About your wardrobe?" the newest advisor advised. "You see, I have this pet theory? Everybody in the world has one sense that they're better at than all of their others, and that they're better at than, oh, say, other people who are better at other senses." And here, she bent her head conspiratorially to whisper. "Personally, since I did vote for you, I'm hoping that with you it's vision, and not smell. Otherwise, we're all screwed." Then she straightened in her chair, rising to her full height and arranging the folds of her red gown around her, as she finished up in a normal voice. "Well, see, with Sturgess, it's a matter of taste. The man has just got the most impeccable taste. Any questions?"

Oh, my gosh! she thought, clamping a gloved hand over her own mouth. Had all of that just been said in a way in which... other people could actually hear it? Were the Voices beginning to come out now?

"... Yes, I do agree... But, don't you find, that it is a great difficulty at times, the reconciliation of a traditional nature with an environmentally conscious one? Why, just the other day, I was suggesting to Mother that we really should try out one of those artificial trees here, sort of set an example, start the kingdom moving in the right direction. Oh, of course I have heard the arguments all about how the trees are planted for that purpose. But isn't that a little bit like saying that baby seals are bred to be clubbed to death for fur, so that it makes no never mind? Why, then, you might as well make the leap and go the whole route and say that you can do the same thing with people... So, what do you think? Perhaps you and Bill might consider one of those lovely synthetic trees-perhaps one of those silver ones with the blue balls, thereby taking care of the old Hanukah quadrant as well, hmm?-for the White House next year...?"

Daisy was gazing raptly across the table at Charles who, catching her eye, gave a smile and raised his glass in salute, before continuing his most engrossing discussion with Mrs. Clinton.

A few place settings down from Charles, Jodie listened with intent, while Packey pitched an idea for a new sitcom that would involve two identical cousins who just happened to be gay, and which was tentatively to be titled The Packey Dick Show. And while Jodie's initial reaction seemed to be that the idea was maybe too derivative, a quick conversational insert by Packey concerning the critical and popular success of The Brady Bunch movies served as a reminder of just how lucrative derivative could be. America loved derivative. Why try something new when you could have more of the same? Why take the chance on the potentially more interesting, but risky, caramel turtle ice cream, when you could play it safe with vanilla? The Packey Dick Show, Packey was saying, would simply be yet more vanilla-of a slightly different flavor, of course.

To the left of Daisy, the Queen and the President were still quite busily telling one another how good it was to have the other there and how good it was to be there, respectively.

And to Daisy's right, just on the other side of the bulk of the Archbishop, Anne had drawn Andrew into a heated debate of whose childhood had been worse, to which Charles-leaving his new friend, Hillary, hanging in mid-sentence-decided to jump into feet first, just for the fun of it. Of course, when Edward tried to join in he was quickly shouted down. Why, all he had ever had to do was show up when the pictures were being taken.

Daisy listened to the conversations that were swirling all about her. Then she looked at Charles, seated across the table from her. He looked so relaxed, and getting more so every day. Why then did she feel like such a pretentious ass of late?

She was, of course, still reeling from The Exposure of The Bag. She was torn between her love of Charles, her wish to remain the dazzling woman that she had become, and her dawning realization that there was a lot more around here that was empty than just The Bag. Section off one more piece of her, and she'd be a Picasso.

Following the exemplary behavior of the Queen Mother, Daisy took another slug from the excellent wine, wiping the excess from the corner of her mouth, using the back of her hand. (Too bad the gloves went better with the fish dish.) Seeing heads swerving to the right, all the way down the table, as dessert was served, Daisy went with the conversational flow. And so, turning the full force of her own considerable attentions to the right and thus to the Archbishop, she formed a resolution to take matters into her own hands.

Daisy had frequently thought that it was a good thing that she didn't believe in heaven, a concept that she thought of as The Promising Lure of the Ultimate Carrot. This way, she figured, she could expend her abundant endowment of energy on simply "getting it right" this time.

Too bad then, that-lately, at least-she had been getting it all wrong. Although, perhaps, from her clinically theoretical standpoint, her own batting average was neither here nor there.

True, there were some people who claimed that if you only lived for and in the present, that it necessarily implied a selfish nature. But, the way she figured it, if she was ever going to do something for the poor of the world, then she was going to do it now or shut up about it, as opposed to relying on some other being to attend to things at some unspecified later date.

And, of course, The Promising Lure of the Ultimate Carrot flowed rather neatly into The Doctrine of the Barest Minimum.

It seemed to Daisy that there were an awful lot of people these days, who were just gliding through their lives, operating under the absurd notion that it was okay to spend seventy-two years playing video games and surfing the Internet, because something much more important was going to be happening to them in the future, and that the real fun show was going to start... in another life. She, on the other hand, preferred to believe that this life-for what it was worth-was all she was ever going to get. You couldn't spend all of your life waiting for something big to happen later. Well, actually, she thought, you could. But what was the point?

Sometimes it seemed as though, all around her, people were treating God as though He/She were the greatest enabler of all time, and that most people's personal relationship with what they all liked to refer to as "their" God (as though there could, quite possibly, be billions of different ones) was, if not the most fulfilling, then certainly the single most co-dependent relationship in their lives.

When you began life with the erroneous-to her-premise that someone else had already died for your sins, there was not a whole lot of incentive left to do more than just scrape by. You kind of grew up with the misguided inkling that, surely, someone else would always have to pay, your own fare being the responsibility of some other-possibly nebulous-being.

"What is this 'heaven' stuff that you people are always going on about?" she could distinctly hear herself asking the Archbishop now, as she started the motor running and listened to the engine rev, gearing up towards pontificating like a pontiff. She reached for the dessert wine, hoping the nervous tremor in her hand were not as obvious to others.

Oh, God, she groaned inwardly, how much of what she thought that she had only thought had she actually said? For, now not only was she thinking these dreadful things, but she was actually saying them out loud.

No need to go into all of the gories; suffice to say that, from the creme brulee onwards, matters went from bad to worse, the Voices just popping out of Daisy right and left, like a popcorn air popper run amok, gone kompletely kaplooie; and that, by the time the Queen had led the after-dinner procession through the East Gallery, Silk Tapestry Room and Picture Gallery, and into the sitting-rooms beyond-there to enjoy coffee and after-dinner drinks, with the Queen's favorite bagpipers providing a subtle musical backdrop-Daisy had pretty much well been a success in saying something that she would later regret, something that she herself would think of as offensive, to everybody who was anybody and everybody who wasn't. She really was very equal-opportunity-minded, our girl.

The Royal Family-mercifully-exited first, thus freeing up the rest of their guests to draw the evening to a relatively early close. Which worked just as well for just about everybody, but especially for the poor Archbishop, who just might be in need of some medical attention.

Having overheard a conversation between a Miss Ruby Plyte-Twyse and a Ms. Hortense Spengle-Splyce, he had choked on his wine when he learned that Daisy Sills was to be Charles's next wife. This-the news, not the spewing up of Chateau Lafitte-made him regret, for all time, the haste of his predecessor in declaring that the Prince might marry again. Better that the previous A. of C. had bitten off his own tongue, the present A. of C. thought-as he bit stoically down on his own, thereby creating the minor medical emergency that would later require care-than to have ever uttered such words aloud.

And it was a pretty safe bet to make, that if Miss Ruby Plyte-Twyse, Ms. Hortense Spengle-Splyce, and the A. of C. all knew a thing, then, chances were that the Royal Family-if they did not know already-would very soon as well. And before long, so would the world. Daisy had finally opened up her own personal bag of tricks and, with The Bag part deux now gaping wide open, all kinds of pussies had popped out, soon to be scampering freely all over the palace.

Just about everybody else having been put to sleep, there was not much left but the crying, the last to go to bed being the cleanup staff whose bedrooms were in the east wing attic and who all thought that they either smelled something fishy or saw something that was not quite right.

Which was really neither here nor there either since, by this point, nobody's senses were working right anymore.

At every slumber party, at every summer camp, at every boarding school, there are always at least one or two dirty stay-ups that refuse to go to sleep when the last call is made for lights out. And, having already established that things at the palace were run pretty much like a Jewish Seder, there was really no reason why things here should be any different.

Long after the last maid had climbed the staircase to the attic, there was still one home fire burning, still one golden light that could be seen blazing, if one were to peer in at the right squint.

"I still canna' put my finger on what it is about that wig that excites me so. Maybe, it's just that, seein' as ye're always such a dominatrix, it makes for something' of a wee change, havin' ya looking' more like ya might be good at takin' orders. There's a certain air of servitude about-"

"Shut up and pass that cold quail... Starving. Criminal for people to have to stand around for hours and hours just watching other people eating. Like being a waiter, but with no action and no tips."

Sturgess inhaled deeply. Mm. Tonight she smelled like 100-percent cotton. So maybe it wasn't a smell that you could eat but, still, there was something reassuring about...