Unfit for Duty

Chapter Five

For the rest of the day everything remained quite focused on the events of the Victory Parade. Pompadour maintained well enough to not have anyone bring up his state of health to him anymore, for he was only seen when bringing up business, except at supper, but here everyone was much too in wonder at the obvious sudden conflict between Pompadour and Troubadour. They did not look at each other much and when they did it was only to huff with annoyance.

When Pompadour wanted something in front of Troubadour, he did not face him as he said very stiffly, "Dear Troubadour, would you be so kind as to pass the salad?"

Haughtily, Troubadour lifted up his trunk and passed it just as stiffly.

Cornelius and I looked at each other with raised brows and squints.

"Is something wrong?" I demanded when such behavior continued.

"Oh, nothing serious, Sire," said Pompadour lightly, "just a professional disagreement is all, but we will work it out between ourselves soon enough."

I sighed with annoyance.

"Well, whatever it is, I hope it gets resolved soon," said Cornelius, "it is admittedly making supper rather uncomfortable."

"I apologize," said Pompadour. "We shall try to keep our differences in the work place only as is only proper. Isn't that right, Troubadour?"

Troubadour paused but nodded in defeat.

"Good," I said still a tad doubtfully.

After that Pompadour began to act fairly normal to Troubadour. Although Troubadour eased a little too, he looked unhappier the less annoyed he looked.

#

That night Pompadour took himself to bed at a proper time and woke up at an equally proper time. For the first time since he had opened that parcel with that horrible plant, he felt quite normal once he had a little breakfast and coffee. As today was all the physical preparations for the palace, all he had to do was to go about and monitor everything and report it to the king. That made it easy. A little tremor here or there was nothing to bother about. A little nausea was usually fixed with medicine or a cup of chamomile, and weakness could be hid in a coffee break.

Yes. Although today provided ample opportunity not to be noticed, by late morning he felt just as badly as he had the day before. In fact in some ways he felt worse. All the tingling and fuzzing up of his body was quite distracting, but his coming and going and even going up to his room to rest for a few moments was nothing anyone could notice, except maybe Troubadour.

He was following him around a lot of the time with parchment and pen to write down anything anyone in the palace answered to Pompadour's questions and any comments that Pompadour wished to place before the king. Still Troubadour did not look at Pompadour often and neither did Pompadour look back at him. The awkwardness of it irked the both of them. Much of the staff looked after them rather confused.

Cornelius was enough to break the tension as he came to join them on and off, and I was out and about in town more than at the palace. It made it difficult for Pompadour to find me when he felt it time to give me an update. It was just as well, because he had to check on the parade itself anyway.

In front of me, Pompadour and Troubadour were on their best behavior and acting as normal as they could. I was too distracted by everything else that I did not notice much or did not have the time to bring it up, anyway, much to Pompadour's satisfaction.

The anticipation and joy of most people in the town including myself and his friends made Pompadour and Troubadour quite forget to be haughty with each other.