Knight of the Realm tya-3

by P. S. Power

  “Right, well, so far it looks like I'm not kicked out of the city, though people keep trying to kill me since we last met. So, if you want I can bring some things for you to sell in a few days? Sooner if I get a chance to work. But well, palace stuff, you know? Who knows how that's going to go.” Tor grinned and looked down. “If they don't refuse me at the gate again, but right now I almost hope they do. I'll make up some things for you and come work in your bakery for King’s week. I mean if you'll have me of course, after the way I dodged out on you last time. I… feel really bad about that. I'm sorry.”

  Tor wondered if he should kneel and beg forgiveness like some of the royals did when they really messed up, but Debbie didn't seem to require that of him, she snorted instead.

  “Tor… you left me enough to keep me as a Princess for the rest of my life! If anyone should apologize it should be me for not realizing who you were sooner, I… sir…” She curtsied.

  “Cut it out Debbie. I'm your employee or maybe, now, partner in half the shop? Without ownership of course, which makes you the boss still, so I'm pretty sure you don't curtsy to me at all. If anything I should bow to you, but I won't, because I think were good enough friends to skip all that. Right?”

  Tor got a beef hand pie and ate it there before saying his goodbyes and heading out to the palace to face Smythe. It was funny but that was the part that worried him now. If Varley couldn't, or no longer wanted to, marry him he'd deal. After all, he had experience with bad relationships now.

  The military minister, that was a different horse all together. Normally he'd have left him blind and crippled, just for his own safety, possibly even suggested he be removed far off to a country estate where it would be harder to plot against him. Even if he had to pay for it himself. Tor wouldn't put a blind man in prison though and wouldn't suggest it. He'd been blind for a bit. It was its own prison. You could deal with it, but it made greater punishment too much.

  It was scary to him anyway. Smythe was needed, for the Wards to feel comfortable if nothing else, and possibly for everyone else too as well. But Tor still shook a little at the idea of facing the evil man again.

  Chapter ten

  The gate guard recognized him at least, though Tor still had to wait for someone to come and confirm it was him. It was a good safety procedure, he had to admit. What if he was just made up to look like Tor? It wouldn't be that hard to find a short man, or even a boy, with black hair and pale skin, and the guards probably didn't know him so well that something like that might not fool them. He'd worked with Debbie for three whole days and she hadn't gotten who he was immediately, so having him vetted just made sense.

  Normally Varley had the job, and once or twice he'd seen Karina do it, but today Rolph came out, smiling.

  “Tor! There you are. We've been expecting you for days now, ever since Varley got back. Come in, come in. Oh…” The gate guard hadn't moved out of the way.

  “I confirm this is Master Tor, Torrance Baker. The Builder. Troll of Galasia and font of wonderfulness. Cutie of the masses and all around great guy.”

  Laughing, the guard got out of the way. Royal Guards creeped Tor out sometimes. Most of the time if he was honest about it. They'd smile and laugh at a joke, sometimes even bad jokes and seemed to really mean it, but if Tor had moved to hit Rolph or even hug him too fast, the guard would have done everything he could to stop him, and barring being able to do that would have fought to the death so that the Prince could run away. If they weren't collectively the best fighters in the kingdom it was only because of the new group Kolb had started and that they were better armed. Well, really, that he'd had Kolb start. The point was that Tor really didn't want to have to fight them if he could help it. Then he didn't want to fight anyone, if it was at all possible.

  They walked in chatting, Tor updating the Prince quickly as to what had happened, not leaving much out. He added the stuff with Trice, but left out that he knew she was faking it, in case of listeners. He did add that he was seeing Petra and Collette and that he'd be a little upset if Rolph stole them both away with his good looks and princely charms. Not that both weren't worth trying to steal, he added, trying to be playful, just that Rolph could get a lot of women if he wanted…

  “Um, sure I can. All the serving girls from the palace that I want. Except that most of them are either way to old, or far too young for me. Or men, which isn't my thing, not mainly, though a few here are starting to look kind of cute… At least when I was at Wilderness Station I had Sara around. She won't even visit with me now you know, too worked up about you leaving. Thinks I made you leave, which isn't fair really. What was I supposed to do, order you to stay around a bunch of people you'd just been fighting with? You were fresh off a combat rage the day before, and already been fighting that day again, the whole thing could have gone lethal in an instant. Displace hundreds of people so that your bruised ego wouldn't hurt so much? I mean, you weren't wrong. It is your house and you still own it, but I couldn't order all those men, vital to the war effort, out into the wastelands to fend for themselves. Even if I did kind of want to at the time. Jerks.”

  Looking around shiftily the Prince leaned in to him.

  “If the guards here did that to me, I'd do the same thing… Only less effectively and probably end up dead, you know? Though part of that is that we have better quality guards here. Not just that I'm a wimp. Just so you understand of course.” Rolph gave him a half smile and tried to keep his face blank. It didn't really work too well and they both ended up chuckling a bit.

  Ending up dead led to the topic of Smythe and how everyone wanted him for the investigation, which meant an audience with the King before Tor did anything, if only to buy him time to work his nerve up. Rolph didn't have to ask him what he meant by that at least. One of the benefits of being long term friends. They knew each other.

  Before they went in to see the King, Tor dropped into a receptive state and held his focus as open as possible. It was… not a good thing to do, but he was getting tired of not knowing who to trust. The hard part would be keeping his reactions seeming normal and lively enough. Facial expressions became subdued in almost any trance state after all, body language too. Tor pulled his features into a small grin as he walked into the room, letting his smile grow larger when he saw the Queen, who looked at least as pretty as ever, even with her new short hair, that didn't really suit her at all.

  Both of them were uneasy to see him, that was clear, it was also pretty easy to see that was about Varley and her being pregnant. Tor bowed a little to each, which he didn't normally do, but this wasn't a pleasure call, they needed to be alert to that or it would waste time. Tor wanted to waste time, true, but it wouldn't due to waste the King’s. He started right in, his breath catching as he did, trance state or not.

  “The Wards think Smythe of Westend is their only hope, and when they heard he was left blind and crippled, they kind of gave up.” He sighed. “I need to talk to him I guess. I can't fix the hand, I could have at the time, but I was busy, you know? The eyes, well, I've done that. I think I can with him, if that's all right? He'll have to…” Tor shook his head, both the King and Queen was too surprised to speak.

  They both thought he was going to call for his death.

  That made Tor blink. He'd never thought to call for that at all. Would that have even worked? Not a real point now, was it?

  “I don't know. Making him apologize means nothing. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't think it was important, right? But really, I don't want to die just yet, so if maybe he could lay off? I… fuck it.” Tor blinked realizing the language he'd just used in front of the Queen ducking his head he apologized.

  “Sorry, I meant to say; fuck it, your majesties. Let my manners slip for a second there. Won't happen again.” The surprise got a chuckle from them both.

  “I'll fix him if he wants it. We need to talk though, I guess, which I don't really want to do. The man hates me enough to want me dead after all. I have no idea how this conve
rsations going to go. I think I'll leave him blind for it, so that I have a fighting chance if he freaks out on me. I guess I should get to that now?”

  Rich looked at him and nodded, obviously feeling… proud? Of him? Why? Because he was willing to face his personal nightmare head on? No…

  It was because he was letting go of the attempt on his life for the greater good. Heh, well, who wouldn't? No matter who you were, avoiding a war was worth more than your own safety, comfort, or even life. Even the Wards agreed with him on that score, how could he do less?

  The feeling from Rolph was calm, and not at all surprised that Tor would do this. It was the kind of thing he expected from his friend. That made him smile a bit. Before he could ask for directions to where Smythe was staying Connie reluctantly raised her right hand a bit, then higher, trying to catch his attention, even though she really didn't want to say the words she had to, knowing it would hurt him more than a little. She projected this so loudly that Tor picked it up without half trying. So it was something she really thought of as important.

  “There's been a change in plans regarding Varley's… and your engagement. It's nothing to do with you of course, but… well, we need to marry her to Count Peterson for political reasons… It's…”

  He shrugged, which made her stop suddenly and stare.

  “Because she's pregnant, it obviously isn't mine and you need a rather tall and dark skinned royal to fill in for the real father…” The pieces flowed together, the baby even felt like him, even though the idea nearly floored him. But an offer of a dalliance had been made, before the engagement, Varley had told him that the very first time they'd met to talk. At a public dinner no less, so it wasn't that secret or anything. She’d said that she'd refused, but royals lied. A lot. Like breathing for everyone else. Or maybe she'd just refused the last in a line of offers from the man? Ah… That could be it.

  “Count Ward.” It wasn't a question, Tor knew it as much as he knew that the sun would rise in the morning or that, barring magic, things tended to fall down.

  Well, freaking heck.

  That got a reaction from the Prince, shock, surprise and rage. So he hadn't been in on it at least.

  “What? He… he defiled my baby sister? I'll… I'll kill him!” He moved as if he was about to fly off to County Ward right then and there and do just that.

  Tor put a hand out towards him and so did the Queen.

  “She told you, did she?” The King said, not sounding overly amused, but not really angry. Not inside. He felt… worried.

  The Queen’s eyes went huge, but she remained quiet and watched her son for signs of combat rage, which didn't happen. In a way, Rolph was within his brotherly rights by both Tor’s country logic and the rules of the nobles. Ward had no business doing anything with a Princess that could get her pregnant when he was already married. It was stupid and he should have known better. Even if he wanted to have her, he should have used precautions or not done it at all. How the man kept getting otherwise intelligent women pregnant Tor didn't know. If they were serving girls it would have been different. First Rolph's fiancee and then his little sister…

  Oh.

  Maria. How had she done it? Obviously by guiding her husband into things, that made sense. Tor explained the situation as gently as he could. It was… Insanely complex, but Maria had felt scorned by the Prince even though he hadn't done anything overly wrong by their rules, and humble apology to Tor or not, she'd never mentioned letting go of her personal campaign against Rolph. After all, he told them, in her mind the Prince was the evil Doretta and she was the noble Count Wylde, rising in power and coming to make him pay any way she could. She could never rise high enough to punish him directly though, could she? So she was using other means.

  Gods it was convoluted.

  The King saw it first. Somewhere inside he had more information than the rest of them did. Something Tor had said was incomplete, but it was close. Enough so that the man looked at the tiny builder in front of him with secret amazement. Tor nearly laughed when he realized that the man was wondering if Tor had a spy network in place.

  Shaking his head he looked at the King directly and smiled. “No. I work with fields, with magic. Everything is made up of information, and I have to know how to read it, don't I? Any good builder can do it, but, well, I just started. Too much is happening and I'm too far out of my depth not to read people if I can.”

  The Queen was puzzled and Rolph too angry to notice the words completely but Richard just let his eyes widen fractionally.

  “I see.” Then the King’s mind went blank.

  Tor bowed a little, and smiled. It was a good trick and one that he'd use himself if a similar situation ever came up. He looked at the Prince and bowed to him too, which got everyone’s attention.

  “I'm not good at complex plotting and planning, but I think that you should send at least a letter to Maria and explain things, maybe apologize for hurting her feelings, even though it wasn't your intent? She got on her knees, in public, and begged my forgiveness for what she did, even nearly getting me killed. And I'm about to go and beg Smythe of Westend to let me heal him because the kingdom needs it, even if he'll probably kill me for leaving him crippled as soon as he can manage it. It seems like a good day for begging and groveling all around, doesn't it?”

  Rolph raged inside for a full minute, for a second Tor thought he was really going to lose it and hit him, or try to at least, but he calmed and knelt instead after a while, bowing until his head touched the floor with a soft thunk.

  “Then let me start here. I didn't know it at the time, but my actions set in motion very bad things for you. I should have realized it and made corrections, but I was too blind, too stupid to see it. I-”

  “Oh get up. There's no debt's between friends and besides, if you could have taken any of what happened on yourself to spare me, I know you would have. Now let's get that apology out before Maria manages to get Karina and your mom pregnant too, shall we?”

  Mirth flowed then, even though he hadn't meant it to be funny. Did they think that she couldn't do it? She was far more clever than Tor had thought and she'd been around him a lot over the last week, even though he'd kept his distance. After all, it wouldn't do to look like she was seducing him into finding in their favor. Especially since he was obviously already trying to do all he really could for them.

  So, at that, the engagement to Varley was broken and he was, well, he wasn't alone was he? Tor still had friends and even a couple that were willing to sleep with him, for whatever reason. They didn't make him pay at least, which was a plus, if only for his ego. Petra had kind of put him off in regards to marriage, but seemed happy to be his girlfriend. That was good enough wasn't it? He was young and really, he wasn't going to get a lot older, one way or the other. Either someone would kill him or he just wouldn't age, like his uncle, grandfather and mom. What was his hurry? He wasn't alone now. It was an improvement for sure.

  Looking a bit put out still, the Prince, his short hair still a dark brown, though a little red was showing and his skin still deeply colored too, but fading to his natural lighter tan color, stayed with his mother to craft the first apology. They all knew a single letter wouldn't be enough. Rolph jokingly wondered if sending his left testicle in a box would be enough, but the Queen, not laughing shook her head.

  “Doubtful. Plus, that's the royal testicle, at least until you produce and heir and a spare. Groveling will have to do and I doubt you'll get off as easy as you did with Tor. Most people secretly like to see others humble themselves and will let it draw out. Might as well start now. The sooner you start the sooner you can get the taste of her boots off your tongue.” Her tone was dark, even though the words nearly made Tor laugh. Rolph did, if a little dryly, but then went to set up a writing station.

  Richard led him to Smythe himself, who, attempted murderer or not wasn't locked in the dungeon, or even in an isolated hospital, just in his room. There was a Royal Guard on the door, who bowed t
o the King and eye-balled Tor, his hand going to his weapon in the little pocket on his side. It was just a force lance, the kind he'd designed when David Derring had been challenged to a duel to the death by a southern Count. It was a good and dependable model, better than most that the military had still. It also wouldn't do anything to Tor at all. Tor considered handing over his own weapon as a good faith gesture, then let that idea go. Not anymore. He wasn't going unarmed, especially into a room with Smythe in it.

  The man sat in bed, a dun colored night shirt showing. He didn't do anything, no music played to entertain him and he didn't have a visitor to chat with or read to him. To his left was a pitcher with water in it and a cup, there was dampness on the table and the room smelled more than a little of urine. Either no one had been doing much for the man, or he hadn't let them.

  “William? It's me, Richard.” The King’s voice was soft and nonthreatening.

  “Good! Strangle me, or use a cutter, and take my head and we can be done with this farce, can't we? I tried for the boy and failed. He should have killed me, but didn't. Don't you see how dangerous he is? He knows he's so strong he doesn't even have to kill his enemies. The guard, Michel? He said that two days after the fight Tor just got up and wasn't even blind anymore! Already built himself a new shield and weapons from bits he took from the wall of the room itself. That was it, it was our best shot and I wasn't clever enough. I'm sorry, but I won't live like this anymore. I'm useless to the kingdom now. End it. Or damn it, give me a knife and I’ll do it.”

  The words were strong, almost fierce, but there was despair and fear underneath. Fear of him. How the hell was he supposed to deal with that? The truth he supposed.