by P. S. Power
Before she left him, about an hour later, she’d managed to get her top off, which she then had him explore intimately and managed to grope him in places that made him blush to think about, even while she did it. It felt nice, and he really wanted to do a lot more. Some of the things she’d mentioned doing sounded alluring, if wrong.
Not the acts themselves, which he figured, if they were really possible to do, were all normal enough, even if a hick like him didn’t know about it. No, Tor just couldn’t escape the feeling that Rolph was going to suddenly burst in and start hacking him apart with a sword. Who could blame him? Except, by the rules of Rolph’s own class, Tor wasn’t even doing anything incorrect at all.
It was confusing.
Ursala kissed him for a while before going back to her own bed, much to Tor’s relief. Oh, he wanted a lot more from her, that was made painfully clear. Denying it wouldn’t work at all, his body had responded way too easily and obviously for him to try and delude himself there. But by the same token, he had to be up in about six hours and was more than a little tired.
The next day he got to baking early, well before Sorlee got into the kitchen at all. He had the plates with him for the griddles, but, well, no griddles.
At breakfast he popped his head into the dining hall, a large building connected by a hallway to the kitchen, so that the heat could be kept out as much as possible without anyone ever having to walk outside with food. It was a solid and glassy reddish color, with magical lights on the ceiling. He found Godfrey sitting with Kolb at a long table and just because he knew that he needed to eat more, got a small plate of food and joined them, pulling over a heavy chair.
He explained the griddles to Godfrey, which after a minute had the man making notes and drawing a basic plan out.
“So the top has to be metal, but the rest can be focus stone?”
“Um, focus stone?” Tor asked, having never heard the term before.
“Yes. Some of the men decided that “Concentrated dirt” didn’t sound like something you’d want your dishware to be made of, so they came up with focus stone. So far most seem to like the name alright.” He sounded slightly nervous, like Tor was going to have a problem with it. Anything not called Tor-whatever was brilliant as far as he was concerned.
“OK, please tell them I like the name, will you? Focus stone for the base and everything but the device and the metal griddle.”
Tor turned the heating devices over to the man and went back to work, wondering how many days it would take for them to be available in the kitchen. The answer was three hours. Even then, one of the men that came over with carrying the griddles in to the room confided, it wouldn’t have taken that long, but they’d had to send someone down to the Capital to buy the metal tops.
Cook, who had a real name that Tor had never learned, he was sure, took to the new devices instantly and most of the lunch meal was prepared on them. Hot meat sandwiches and grease fried potatoes. It wasn’t Tor’s favorite kind of food personally, but the men in the dining hall acted as if it were suddenly a festival day. Tor took some back for Ursala and Sara, only to find that, when he got there, they were both gone. Not knowing what else to do, he settled down to eat his share of the food and wait. When no one came back after half an hour, he decided to walk around and see what was up with everyone else.
He didn’t find the girls, but a whole new compound looked to be going up in the back, complete with a dozen new buildings and their own wall. It was connected on one side to the rest of the wall, which had a large door cut in it now, ten feet high and twice that wide. The huge slab had been removed by cutter, then floated off to the side and was lying out of the way on the ground to the left of the new door. No one paid much attention to him as he walked through, except for when he got in the way for a few seconds, and people started yelling at him to move. Laughing he scampered back just as a team of twenty people, men and women, started digging out a foundation that was marked off to make a vast building he saw. Really big. About half the size of the palace. What it was for he had no clue, but thinking about the palace made him decide to go and visit. First he needed to head off to the beach and lay out the new river for testing…
He shook his head and laughed.
He needed too? No it just had to be done. Tor could just find someone to do it and act like a sensible person for once, not haring off all over the continent trying to do it all himself. He’d just take a couple of the rivers down to the palace with him in a few days or… Would that be a good first training exercise for Kolb’s people? Sure it would, since he was making it all up anyway. How long could they have a new river in place going from the ocean, to both his place and the military base for the flyers, before anyone reported it to the military anyway? If they could manage a couple of hours, that would be pretty good, wouldn’t it? The sun beat down on him, which he didn’t feel the heat from at least as he searched around for the bald man. Who, it turned out was directing the building of guard towers for the walls at the back.
The things were… Big. They stuck up in a way that certainly caught the eye. Not bigger than the palace parapets, perhaps, but with nothing even close to their height around they looked vast. Well, it was fine, he guessed, as long as they balanced it out in the front too. It wasn’t very humble, but maybe no one would notice, being that they were way out in the middle of nowhere? The glassy red-black of the focus stone looked good at least. Count Ross would be jealous of his wall and little town if he ever got to see it or that old gardener or mason fellow who’d laid claim to it would at least.
If he hadn’t already used some of the “borrowed and lost” equipment to make his own new wall. Then enjoyed a soak in a tub with a water heater from the same place? Tor laughed about it. He’d yet to see that box of stuff show up, but then again, maybe they just didn’t know where to send it? Or, just possibly they sent it off to Two Bends like he’d said to. That would be fine. For that matter they could keep it, now that there was a war on, if they could use any of it for the effort.
Tor found some shade that didn’t look too likely to be buried, blown up or needed for the next hour or two, sat down on a single small patch of scrubby grass and waited for Kolb to either finish up or not be needed any more. After about twenty minutes the man noticed him and came over.
“Tor?”
The words were hesitant as if he didn’t know what to call him. Tor worked well enough. It was his name and really, Kolb calling him sir or worse, lord something or other would just be wrong, in more ways than one. Technically he was still just the guys Squire, so “boy” could work, in a pinch.
“You wanted to know a little more about what kind of force you’re supposed to build?” Tor took a deep breath and fell into as deep a trance as he could manage and still talk clearly. He sucked at lying and was only marginally better at making things up on the fly. Planning was his big thing, really, where Tor shined, if he could be said to at all most of the time.
“What we need is a fast action team. You do anything and go anywhere. This is to be results oriented. You’ll get orders, but those will just have the needed goal. Go and do whatever, and the when it needs to be done if that’s important… if the time or timing is important I mean. The rest is up to you and your people. No rules, no one looking over your shoulder and no specific task profile. Anything means anything. One day you might take on a Count’s army by yourselves, the next you may all be servicing sailors in some port whorehouse. You’ll never have enough time, resources or planning and will probably have to set out to do everything on a moment’s notice as a rule. Right now I want you to pick a team for your first job.” Tor smiled.
“This time, luckily, it’s nothing dangerous. I just need a test river put up and figured I could pawn it off on you all right now.” He explained the particulars of it, how to set the twelve plates so that it would go to all the right places and what the known dangers were.
“Really, school kids with flying rigs should be able to do this in a day,
and be back without ever needing to stop in a town even. The only thing is, I kind of want to see how long we can have a six hundred mile river twice the volume of the falcon’s up and running before it’s reported to the King or his top military officials. That’s the set up and the real test. You have the goal and it’s up to you. For this I’d prefer no one be killed, myself, but that’s up to you and your team’s discretion. Make it part of the assignment or not. When can you have people ready to go?”
The man looked vexed, as if he wanted to say he didn’t know, but instead he shrugged. “Inside three hours?”
That would do. It was just a training exercise after all.
“There’s… I think that this next bit is a bit more delicate and we have to consider it real. In the next two days I need a package delivered to the King. I don’t care how it gets there, it just has to be fast and no one can be allowed to know about it. Especially nobles. The Royal Guard is probably safe, but no one else. This is… It’s the real deal Kolb. I mean, if your people have to… to kill people to make sure this gets through and no one can report to… anyone, then they have permission. Try not too of course! I have to justify everything to the King.”
Tor grinned and shook his head.
“That’s the kicker here, isn’t it? I have no real control over what you do or how you do it. Once you’re up and running, you’ll answer to the King first, the Queen second and the royal family third. You never answer to anyone lower. Ever. Not the military, not the council of counts and not me. I just have to go to the gallows if you guys do something I can’t back up with a good reason later. Yay. So you know, please try and not get me killed?”
Tor stood up then and started to walk away.
“Have you been getting any exercise at all lately then?” Kolb asked his back, having analyzed his state from the act of standing.
“Um… not really. No.” Lying would just be too obvious the man had observed his every move for over two years practically. Now he was limping around like an old man still, puffing slightly just from standing up and walking ten feet. Not good at all.
“Right, so, as the… I don’t know, commander of this whatever it’s called, do I get to boss you around still?” His voice held a chuckle in it, but Tor turned and nodded.
“Yes, most likely, as long as I’m not busy doing my own work. I’m not in the military, or in this… You need to come up with a name, then again, maybe not. Use your best judgment. Not my call. I’m still your Squire. Why? Do you need me to make something for you?”
The larger man in his gray leather outfit that looked old and worn already, even if it had been new a few months before, looked a little like Tor had sucker punched him or something.
“What? Are you saying that if we need something from you, just send in a requisition form and you’ll do the work?” He looked incredulous.
“Well, try not to work me to death, but yeah, that’s about the size of it. Just send a person over though, no forms if we can help it. Obviously. We can’t afford to leave a paper trail, can we? Why else have you all here? You need something to get the job done and if I can do it, I help. You need gold I give it to you, or… well if you ever need a baker, or someone that looks like a first year school boy, then here I am. If not, then you’re on your own, but as for weapons, shields, flying rigs, you get what you ask for. Novel builds, well, if you ask for the impossible, I won’t be able to do it most likely. I imagine everything will always be on a time limit with you guys too, so you’ll have to plan ahead for what you want if possible. Sorry about that, but unless the Austrans or whoever send a letter before showing up, then that’s what we have to work with.”
Walking away again, Kolb called something out.
“Alright then. From now on, at two o’clock in the afternoon, I expect you to meet me or my designated trainer right here. On any day that your other work allows at least. Try to schedule that in though. You look pitiful.” Kolb pointed at his feet.
Tor kept walking and heaved a sigh. He hadn’t really thought that he’d get away without doing anything, but he’d kind of hoped that Kolb would forget after he dumped all that made up information on him. Tor knew one thing; he badly needed to get with the King before he heard about this from someone like Smythe. That, he knew, forming his own little super-army of insane giant warriors, probably wouldn’t be very popular.
If the King didn’t like the idea, he might just be in trouble.
The transports, since they were all controlled by their people and had so far moved very carefully around the palace area, had been allowed to fly over the city to park there. It got past the gate guards and while it was leaving some dead patches on the lawn, the focus stone craft didn’t look that bad sitting there the other day. Tor wondered if he could get a flight to the palace.
No one was going out just then, but Godfrey mentioned that he had four more of the griddles already finished, and that the kitchens there might just want to try them out. It took a bit to get the new griddles loaded, but by cheating a little and using luggage floats, the follow along kind, Tor and Godfrey managed to get them all in place within about twenty minutes. The things were heavy, probably nearing four hundred pounds each, even though most of it was just a frame, that, if made of wood, might have weighted twenty or thirty pounds tops.
It was a good enough excuse to go to the palace grounds, but Tor didn’t know if it would be enough to get him in to see the King. No one came out to meet them at all, not even to tell them to get off the grass. Tor and Godfrey unloaded slowly, trying to make certain no wild eyed Royal Guard was going to suddenly rush them weapons blazing, to protect the King’s honor or some such. Possibly just to keep things off the lawn if orders had come down for that. The new griddles got placed in two rows, one at a time while they waited.
The last one came off the transport through the fold down side door that turned into a fairly handy ramp, since there was a foot high difference between the inside floor and the ground outside to make certain the whole thing was sturdy in flight. Looking harried, Karina bolted through the door, floating a little above the ground and heading towards them at what had to be nearly full speed for the old fashioned Not-flyer that she had.
“Gentles, please forgive my tardiness, I was sent on a pressing errand and… Tor, what are those?” A pale finger pointed daintily at the closest of the griddles. She sounded completely baffled and it didn’t really clear up even after he explained how they worked.
She smoothed her dress, something that was actually brown and a plain brown too, not some gem colored or expensive looking thing. It made her look a little like, not just a palace servant, but particularly one of the scullery maids. She looked a lot cuter this way than she normally did too, which baffled Tor for a bit as he watched her. Why would that be? Was brown just that good a color on her? Finally it clicked in his brain and he chuckled, which got a slightly peeved look from her, because she got that he was staring at her dress. Well, that or her breasts.
“Yes?” She asked, managing to make it sound slightly dangerous.
“Oh, nothing, I just realized that you looked even better than usual, cuter, even in a fairly plain dress, and I just worked out that it’s because you look more approachable. You know, less “get away from me peasant-how dare you gaze upon me” and more “hey, I just work in the kitchen, lets chat”. That’s… really a pretty good idea. I mean Rolph went away to school mainly to learn how to not be all stuck on himself right? You don’t get to do that, go off to school I mean, especially now with a war on I bet, but working for a while would have to be character building. Not that they can afford to let you do something like that right now, but maybe when there’s a chance you should look into it. Wash dishes or tend the gardens for a year or two?”
She stuck her tongue out at him, but then grinned.
“It can’t be less fun than running out to have old men trying to feel me up constantly. They wouldn’t be so bad about it if they knew who I was, but all these old lechers ke
ep pinching me! At least when I’m dress properly they mainly recognize me and don’t leave bruises. Do all common girls have to put up with this all the time? I always thought I had it bad being a Princess, getting propositioned once a month or so, but I swear at least half the men coming through here have tried to sleep with me in the last two days! Worse, most of them are relatives, so talk about icky. ”
That was actually something Tor didn’t know. Did they? Not from him, but as he was coming to realize he might not be the best person to judge others by, for some reason. He hoped not, that sounded really off-putting. Poor girls.
It turned out that the new rules said that if one of them was going outside at all, they had to be dressed like a servant. Tor looked down and realized he could pass at least. Godfrey kind of looked military and having obviously come from the craft next to them, it would be hard to sell any of them as just regular people at the moment. He suggested that they confuse the situation by getting a passel of real servants to come from the kitchen and help take the griddles where they needed to get to.
Laura would want to test it first, he presumed, before wasting kitchen space on them. That was only fair. If they weren’t exactly what she needed then they wouldn’t make the cut, nor should they. As long as he got good feedback, Tor could fix any problems. Hopefully at least.
It would have taken him an hour of walking around and begging to bring the needed people, Karina just raised her right hand and asked for the kitchen staff that could be spared at the moment. She just spoke to the air, not looking at anyone at all. Only a light luncheon was being served that day, so twelve people ran over to them about ten minutes later. It was that eerie palace thing again. He needed to remember to never say anything he didn’t mean to be known by everyone while there.
