Despite their best efforts at courtliness, the bearers deposited the Baroness in front of the piled food as if she were another haunch of meat being added to the feast. First Senator Silvermain’s free company mercenaries took position along the wall, guns and armour jangling, two food tasters emerging from a doorway to flank the politician and his noble guest – both the food tasters kin of the kitchen staff, as was the Jagonese tradition. The possibility of poison aside, the two food tasters looked as happy to be sampling the foreign food as the First Senator’s favoured courtiers and cronies. They were trying not to make it too obvious as they covered their noses with silk handkerchiefs in distaste at the fare in front of them. There were a few disgusted mutters of wet-snout food whispered by the courtiers forced to sit down with this foreign savage. Banging the First Senator’s staff of office on the stone floor, the senatorial rod carrier declared the state occasion open with all the flowery language expected of him and extended the senate’s official leave-taking to the baroness of Pericur, expressing the senate’s deep regret at her recall to her noble homeland.
