Knight Esquire ya-2

by P. S. Power

  “So, I send her a note, like we talked about and something, a gift that she’ll just give away or destroy or whatever? I think I have an idea…” It wasn’t anything big, but maybe if he coupled it with a few other things it would work?

  Varley wanted to go back to “Tor Base” with them, but she was too needed there, at the palace, for now, the King informed her, gently. Escorting guests and dignitaries in didn’t seem like a huge deal to Tor, but he could kind of see it in a way. If the King and Queen were too busy to come see someone, having one of their own children escorting some high-muckity around could smooth a lot of feathers. No one could complain that they’d “only sent a Princess” to see to their needs, could they? Rolph was actually in the planning sessions, he had to be in his role as heir. God forbid something happen to Richard, but if it did, Rolph had to be ready to take over seamlessly. Karina was working with Connie nearly full time on whatever Queen’s did during wars, social projects in support of the effort, Tor thought. So that left the junior Princess kind of stuck picking up all the meeting and greeting herself.

  “Well… It’s true, even if it’s mainly a boring job that a monkey could do. Still, can I come up in a few days or a week or so? Don’t try to disappear into a work trance or something before I come and visit for a bit!” Then she pulled him outside the little room and on to the stairs.

  “Tor… be careful and make sure to eat, all right? I’ll be there in a few days and if not… well any extra break you take is probably a good thing.”

  She gave him a tight hug and a lingering kiss like she had been doing each time they met or parted. He kind of worried about slobbering all over her like a dog, but she didn’t seem concerned about his obviously poor skill at the task. She didn’t relent until Sara cleared her throat and suggested that they shouldn’t block the stairs. There was, at least, a chuckle in her voice.

  The ride back was fast enough. Godfrey had just waited for them, which Tor thought was kind of him, and needed because Ursala didn’t have flying gear yet, or, as far as he knew, skill in flying at all. So far she’d been getting rides in the people transports. That wasn’t a bad thing, Tor knew that as hearty as she was pretending to be, poisons like that could and did take a lot out of you for a long while. He was still feeling the effects of nearly dying himself for instance and it had been a while. Months now, he thought.

  He spoke to Sara, who decided to sit right next to him on the trip back, even though there was room for each of them to have several of the already large benches. She didn’t try to touch him or anything, but sat as close as she could without the shields bumping so that they could talk. Her voice was pitched low and soft, so that it wouldn’t carry, not that Ursala couldn’t have heard them anyway, the space wasn’t big and the whole thing flew with an eerie silence, even the air rushing past not making a sound. The woman seemed to be lost in thought and sat at the back, as if knowing instinctively that the other blond wanted Tor alone for a time.

  “Tor… Um, so… what are your plans?” It didn’t seem to have the air of a casual question, but what she meant Tor had no clue. Not really. What plans should he have?

  “Well, right now, I need to get back and maybe eat some more, then climb in bed. Baking starts early in the morning as a rule and I told Sorlee I’d help her learn enough to do her job, that one at least. After that? Well, I want to test the Sky Rivers for Afrak, but that’s going to be a bit, because I need to make copies of it first and I have no idea how long that’s going to take. I need to build back up physically and maybe, I don’t know, get some exercise? Then… well, I have a half dozen projects that are all screaming at me to get done and I guess that if I don’t get back to making copies soon a dozen generals are going to descend on the compound and start pestering me. That’s… about all I have for now.”

  Her breath caught in her throat, half way through its cycle and she made a sound that at first he thought might be a sob, but it wasn’t. She laughed. Not a huge laugh, but more than a polite chuckle.

  “No… Not what I meant, though I agree that you need to take a break and get your health back right now. I… well, I kind of mean what are your plans in regards to Trice…”

  Ah. That.

  How was he supposed to answer? Sara and Trice were still friends and as far as Tor could tell the blond girl was pretty certain that her friend really hadn’t meant to hurt him with her words at all and really had just been trying to do what she’d claimed later and get whoever had attacked him to approach her, looking for an opening to get to him. It would have been a good plan really, except that he’d found out, and broke everything off in public like he had. That pretty much got her out of what she’d been complaining about, right? Going after him once the engagement ended would just seem insane. But he had nothing for Trice now.

  Shifting on the bench a little, his field bumped into Sara’s, who’d taken to copying him and wearing her shield all the time. Ursala hadn’t started doing that yet he realized, which he’d have to fix.

  Suddenly it occurred to him that she probably didn’t own a shield at all. There was a war on and she was at least as good a target as anyone, being a royal and the future wife of the heir. Plus, his friend. That last wouldn’t make her more of a target, but it did mean whatever small protections he could drum up with would be coming. Anyone that thought differently was too stupid to live. They’d get his friends when they crawled over his dead body to reach them. Even then, he decided, he’d make it so that his people were protected as much as possible.

  “I… Sara, I know that everyone keeps saying that Trice isn’t like that, and that she must have had some other plan in place. Maybe. I don’t know. But that all seems predicated on the idea that she didn’t just hate me to begin with. I mean so far in life, every woman I’ve ever approached has done that to me eventually. Publicly humiliating me like that, telling everyone how little they think of me, how bad I am. So… what am I supposed to do here? Am I… supposed to just trust her anyway? I guess I should if everyone else says so, but I’m not really ready for that yet. I’ll work on it. I promise, all right? For now… I’ll send a letter and some gifts like the King wants and then get back to work. It’s all there is for people like me, you know? Work. That’s all stupid little trolls are good for.” Did he sound bitter? A little. Couldn’t be helped though, could it? What he’d said was just the truth after all.

  At least this time her eyes didn’t fill up with tears, and she didn’t look like she pitied him either. Sara snorted at him instead, sounding an awful lot like Rolph at his most derisive.

  “Just… stop that right now Tor. I’m getting sick of your stupid “no women will have me” line. Yeah, you’ve had some hard knocks, but it’s still bullshit and you have to know it by now! My mom seriously tried setting up a marriage for you and I, you know. Because I asked her to. This was even before you were Countier Lairdgren of muckity-whatever or even “The Tor”. Just my friend. Do you think that Ursala wouldn’t have married you when you asked, if they’d all known it would have been within the three steps? Hell Tor, she’d marry you now I think. I know that Rolph was worried about leaving us alone with you when he left, because you might steal both of us away.”

  Now it was his turn to snort.

  While it was kind of her to say, it wasn’t true, he knew. Rolph, for one thing, didn’t worry about having girls stolen away from him and didn’t have too. He was, well… him. Even if his friend hadn’t been the Prince of the realm and all that nonsense, all the girls would still like him. Everyone did. Besides… Trice and Maria had both said that Tor wasn’t good enough.

  Trying to hold his voice to wry, he mentioned that.

  “So? Trice would do anything she had to in order to protect her friends and family, anything, if that means losing you, you know that she’d do it. You two are just alike that way. Granted, she should have told you first. I get that now, but back then, after the thing with Maria, I doubt she thought you could handle it. It was stupid of her to thin
k that way, true. I mean, we both saw how you went in to that middens after that boy, and she’d seen you fight a man three times your size, who was in a full combat rage, to save a woman you didn’t even know. There’s probably not a lot that you can’t handle if you know to prepare for it, but in her own way she was probably trying to protect you….” Sara, brushed her hair back, a habit developed from a life time of actually having some. Right now her hair didn’t even hang down into her eyes. It was a sensible cut for her current line of delivery person at least. It looked cute enough. Rolph hadn’t complained at least.

  “But… Tor, that’s beside the point. The fact is, you shouldn’t listen to them. Even if you don’t want me or… Ursala… or even want to play with your new little friend Sorlee, not one but two members of the royal family have shown extreme amounts of interest in you. Enough to get people to talk. Right now you’re really bordering on being cruel yourself with a bunch of people you know.”

  From the back of the transport a voice holding a low chuckle chimed in.

  “Darn straight! If you don’t want to do us all, well, that’s… Actually kind of silly. All of us are wonderful in our own ways, even Sorlee is more than worth having sex with I bet, I’d give her a shot if she offered… But it’s your decision; still you need to at least make sure you aren’t being unkind. At least learn to play back a bit even if you don’t want to engage. You did manage to kiss Varley well enough, but really, how do you think the rest of us feel, you doing that and ignoring all the signals we’re sending out?”

  “Um, signals?”

  They were sending him signals? How? Smoke? A tapped military thing? Some secret code no one had ever taught him? He wondered for a second if this was all some kind of game they were playing with him right now. Luckily at about that time the transport landed, a much faster thing this time, since they were expected and all that, plus no Royal Guards were hanging around waiting to take the transport out of the air if it moved too fast. Not that he knew of at least.

  It was, at least nominally, his house. True Rolph owned the property, but he was kind of renting it, in exchange for his work with the military, wasn’t he? So you’d think that any arrangements like that would be run passed him.

  He laughed at himself when he finished the thought.

  Right, even if everyone agreed with him, when would they have done that? It wasn’t fair to require people to ask for his permission to do things if he wasn’t going to really be able to talk to them for days or weeks at a time. No one seemed to really, agree with him, all of them still calling it a military base, worse “Tor Base” a name which made him shudder a little when he heard it. Maybe if he made a sign and hung it out front? What could he call it though? “Tor’s house” was just as bad as Tor base. Nearly at least.

  Rich people named their houses sometimes, didn’t they? It was in the stories at least.

  Maybe the compound needed a name. What could he call it though? There wasn’t anything around that really stood out, just a bunch of empty lands. He’d have to think about it. Tor asked Sara and Ursala if they could come up with something better than “Tor Base” before he crawled into his bed and tapped the light plate stuck to the wall over the head of his bed. The plate, just copper with acid etching of course, making a green design in the middle, sat recessed into the wall. Someone had carved that out while he’d sat right there working?

  Amazing. He’d never even noticed at all. They would have had to sit on his head or something while they worked practically. For a few seconds he envisioned exactly that happening, some military guy sitting on him while working with a hammer and chisel, but it was more likely that they’d just moved him out of the way first, then used a specialized cutter for the job, taking only a few minutes. When he worked he was pretty much gone, Tor knew, so it wouldn’t have been hard.

  When he got up the whole place had gone dark, so pulling shoes on carefully, his light plate set to its lowest level, Tor made his way out carefully. He could hear heavy breathing coming from behind the other screens as he moved. He didn’t know what time it was really, but it felt like time for all good little bakers to be getting a start on the day at least. No one seemed to be out and about that he could tell, so he used the restroom and then went to the bath house. Inside the lights had been left on, which made sense. After all, there was no oil wasted, and the place didn’t have windows, so even during the day it would have been pitch black without them.

  The tub gurgled full pretty fast. At this point in the system a pipe, one about four inches around emptied directly into the huge bath. It was so big that it had to have a bench all the way around the inside of it and really, as long as the people weren’t as vast as the biggest nobles, three or four people would be able to soak in one at once. He’d seen people sharing a few times, which Rolph had assured him were a normal bathhouse thing. You showered first, then shared a tub to warm up after. They hadn’t done that at home or at school, but they didn’t have tubs like this either.

  Right now though, he didn’t have to share with anyone at all. The tub, big as it was, filled in less than a minute, a lot less. He selected a warm setting for the water, tapping the plate on the side, and after getting his clothing off he gingerly climbed the little ladder that let him get in. As easy as baking was, given his health at the moment he found himself more than a little sore from the previous day’s labors. Kolb would have beaten him back into shape most likely at this point. Since he wasn’t around he’d have to buckle down and do it himself, an idea he dreaded. For the moment though, a hot soak was better than nothing and he had a few minutes to just sit and enjoy the water before he needed to get to the kitchens.

  Eyes closed he heard other people coming in, and the showers towards the back get turned on. That took guts he knew, because the showers didn’t have heaters yet. Even with the weather being decently warm, the water felt cold enough to make a body shiver. Really, he just needed to make a plate or two for it like for the tubs and the roof cistern could be warmed easily enough. It kind of surprising to him that no one had just stolen one of the heaters from a tub to do that with already. That… he could do it later in the day. It would only take about an hour after all, and people in a hurry shouldn’t have to freeze. Tor thought that he could get to it after lunch without anyone getting mad at him, if he was quick about it, even if he was supposed to be taking a break from hard work.

  Could he manage a griddle or two for the kitchen too? It would be tricky, because if he tried to do too much work, the girls would probably… Tor had no clue what they’d do to him. Douse him with water so that he couldn’t work properly? That wouldn’t be enough to mess him up, unless the water was really cold. Or hot. But burning him might be counterproductive, if the goal was for him to not damage his health any more.

  Some of the other tubs started to be filled with water, the sound a lot softer than when he’d done it. Ah! Right, they only had the flow of one little stream to work with and the water pumps didn’t work if there was no water to put out. Another reason to test the new rivers he realized. His little house here needed more water, and so, most likely, did the bigger base where the flight training was going on. That map pointer guy had mentioned it as a growing problem already even.

  After about half a minute Tor felt the water in his tub suddenly rise as someone climbed in to share, and before he could even open his eyes a second body joined the first. He nearly panicked for a second until he realized that assassins or robbers wouldn’t climb in with him. Robbers would have just lifted what was sitting on the little bench, and assassins would have slit his throat from behind. The idea wasn’t comforting, but as Varley had pointed out, inside like this, well, they did have guards and stuff, right? He could live without any pleasures, sure. He’d done it. But if he couldn’t even have use of the little joys and comforts available to him, what was the point of being anymore?

  “This is the best part of this job. In the city we’d just get a cold bucket out the back alley to scrub up
with after the night.” The voice was entirely too feminine, causing Tor to freeze suddenly.

  Worse the next voice that spoke was just as womanly.

  “Same where I was. I’ve got to say though, I was a little afraid at first, what with this place not having proper bouncers and all, but all the costumers are right gentleman, aren’t they? “Please miss, if it’s all right, might I do you from behind?” and “If it’s acceptable, would you please use your mouth?” at first I thought they were just putting us on, but they’re all like that. One got a little rough with Glari the other day and the other blokes came boiling out and thrashed the man right proper, and then, get this, without them even threatening him or telling him he had too, he apologized to her and gave over all the coin he had! Really, no one even said he should. It wasn’t even that big a thing, didn’t bruise her or nothing, just made her gag a little much is all.”

  Apparently, he realized quickly enough, he’d come at the time of day that the women of… rettry, got off work and was invading their normal bath time. Well that was rude of him, wasn’t it? It kind of made sense, the end of their shift being near the beginning of his today given their current professions. Now he was kind of stuck, wasn’t he? If he opened his eyes, they’d all be there, naked. That wouldn’t be proper at all. Well, there was only one thing for it; he’d have to keep his eyes closed until they left to preserve their dignity. His own was… well, given everything, that didn’t matter, did it? He was the one in the wrong here, not them.

  “The lady of the house told me that everyone is so nice here because the base commander, that fellow they call Major Godfrey? He told them all that the Prince himself said that if any of us is mistreated in any way he’d get Tor the wizard to come out and thrash them himself. No one wants to cross him.”

  From the sound of it, this came from a tub down a ways to his left. From just slightly closer another voice spoke, this one a little breathy and younger sounding.