Lucifer twisted in his chair, confronting his wife. “Sit down, Affaeteres! And apologize to your youngest and his damned trollop.”
Leianna sucked her breath in and expelled it angrily. “Father Lucifer!” Her tone plainly rebuked his insult to Regan. During the war in Heaven, Leianna had expressed herself just as plainly to him.
He apparently still felt no qualms in responding back to her just as blatantly, leaning toward her with a confidential air. “Azmodeus has many concubines. This one is nothing more than an ornament that Az has chosen to wear on his arm. And he did deliberately choose her because she resembles his mother and he knows that irritates Aff. He also probably means to impress you, Leianna, with the example of Regan’s extreme subservience. Or maybe depress you with it. If I recall from that long ago time, during Eliom’s short-lived war, you were anything but subservient to Bael’s needs until you knew you were about to lose him.
“You and Quatama must forgive us our little entertainments. It gets so boring here in Hell and when we have extraordinary guests, we like to test them in little ways that give us a rise. Please pay these little squabbles no attention, Quatama. We are glad that you’ve accepted our invitation to dine and discuss, shall we say, a new tomorrow?”
As he spoke, Affaeteres had reseated herself. She held up her crystal goblet and struck it delicately with a silver spoon, creating a dulcet ring. “I wish to say something: I have returned.” The dinner guests waited patiently. “I apologize to you, Regan, as Leianna has requested of me. You are most welcome at my table.” She gestured with her hand to the four standing waiters. “Dinner may be served.”
One of the waiters snapped his fingers and new waiters came into the room, carrying various trays of food and beverages, wheeling carts also laden with food. Leianna watched curiously as the other three original waiters surveyed the food, and sliced then lifted morsels of each dish with their own cutlery into their own mouths. When all met with their satisfaction, they gestured for the new waiters to begin serving each offering, first to Lucifer and then to his guests and family.
A thick soup ladled into large bowls held what appeared to be succulent chunks of chicken within the broth and chopped vegetables. Salad plates were heaped with green feathery leaves, orange pepper slices, ordinary cucumbers and tomatoes and pale slices of mushroom. Small clear canisters of salad dressing were placed beside each plate, a thick purple sauce within. Leianna pointed to it. “What is it?”
A waiter answered. “A plum vinaigrette, my lady.”
She nodded. All but two of the waiters had thin black hair combed slickly down and back onto their necks; all wore dark suits with white shirts and were thin. The head waiter and one of the tasters were bald, and now all but the headwaiter withdrew a few paces from the table. The headwaiter placed a jeweled centerpiece on the table before Lucifer and also stepped back.
Lucifer reached over and pressed one of its ruby jewels. It lit up like a lamp, its rays scintillating and spreading out, around and beyond the table.
Leianna became startled, scraping her chair backwards, but Bael stayed her with his hand. “A protective aura,” he explained, “safeguarding us. A custom long established.”
“You need protection during dinnertime?!”
Lucifer answered wryly. “We have upon occasion suffered disruptions and distractions.” He spooned his soup and swallowed his first mouthful.
Water in crystal decanters had already been placed on the table. Azmodeus said, “Regan.” It was not a request. She rose and poured each crystal goblet full, attending to her own last and then took her seat again.
Lucifer said: “Once the force field is set, we engage a trusted servant to serve the remaining meal. This is for your protection as well. Many here suffer no sympathy or love for those who help cast us into Hell.”
Regan settled her gaze upon her place setting, her soup and salad, but lifted no fork or spoon to eat them with.
She intrigued Leianna, seeming not to belong in Hell, much less subservient to its youngest prince noted for his lewdness. Leianna would pursue this later, not now. Tonight she would broach the possibility of an Alliance between Heaven and Hell.
She glanced across at Lucifer. He had finished his soup and was chomping his salad with the heartiness of a man for whom food was an art, who cherished every nuance of texture and flavor. He swallowed and said, “Eat! Eat, please! The food’s been tested. It’s safe.”
Startled at the thought that the taster earlier hadn’t only been approving the taste of their dinner items, she tried the soup, mildly seasoned, its vegetables crisp. The others did likewise, even Regan, as if Leianna were a bell, leading the rest of them.
They ate silently, slightly strained in their quiet courtesy, body language veiled.
The first course ended. Regan stood up and cleared the salad and soup dishes away. Slender and small, her shortness was the one trait completely opposite to the regal height of Affaeteres. Regan moved between two serving stations and the table, carrying heated plates filled with roasted beef and potatoes and vegetables smothered in a rich wine sauce, serving one to each diner, her own last. She then accepted from the head waiter three large baskets of soft, fragrant rolls and butter, placed them on the table, front, middle and end.
“And now,” Lucifer said, “please take your time and savor our chef’s culinary delights. We can reacquaint ourselves in a friendly manner while we appreciate his skills. But first, some wine!” He snapped his fingers and a rich, red Burgundy appeared in decanters on either side of the banquet table, as well as wine glasses for everyone. “It wouldn’t be Hell,” Lucifer joked, “without a little magic. Actually this is my own private stock, its vintage quite ancient, and its taste exquisite.” He snapped his fingers again. Regan stood up and served the wine, then reseated herself.
Lucifer raised his glass. “A toast then. To a new dialogue between Heaven and Hell and to the renewed courtship of my son Bael and the beautiful Leianna!”
Bael and Leianna drank along with the others, nodding to them. Quatama pointed his emptied glass at their host. “A true dialogue will bring many benefits. Heaven wishes to reform Hell. The time for its use purely as a punishment plane, for mortals consigned by their actions or trapped into it or resigned to it by false belief, is soon to end, along with the condemnation which you, Lucifer, and your followers, who rule it, have suffered.”
Lucifer swallowed his mouthful of wine-drenched beef. “By whose decision?”
“Our Creator’s,” said Quatama.
Lucifer poured himself more wine and sipped it thoughtfully. “We have done quite well on our own over the centuries, punishing sinners.” He smiled wistfully. “Sometimes we also reward them if it suits our purposes. Does Heaven propose to forgive them all, even those most evil, lifting them sentimentally into higher planes? And do I get to ride along . . . back home?”
Quatama helped himself to more wine, drank it sparingly and set the glass down. “Heaven is aware that some of those whom you call sinners are not capable of entering Heaven, due to their soul’s current negativity. But we have long known that no one is eternally damned, no more than any being can be eternally blessed. One can only be and in the process of being, learn about oneself and in learning, advance spiritually into a better self, and eventually into an unselfish state that brings accord with all things in the universe. All entities undergo this growth process. Even those who dwell in Hell, including yourself, have an eternal right to it.”
“And so?” Lucifer speared a chunk of beef, waving it. “How do you propose to educate the damned in exercising this right?”
“By rehabilitating them.”
Azmodeus laughed aloud, leaning out over the table, looking down it to Quatama. “And just how do you expect to do that? Prayer sessions? Send a troupe of Catholics down to sprinkle them with holy water?