Knight Esquire ya-2

by P. S. Power

  Ursala and Rolph busted up laughing joined after a second by Sara, still crying. It made for an awkward hiccupping sound.

  Tor blushed. This had been a joke, and he’d fallen for it? He felt a little stupid and started to close down, so that he wouldn’t burst into tears in front of everyone like a baby. Ursala at least explained why they were laughing which made him feel a little better once he got it.

  “Pull her out from under him? Oh, that’s funny…” She wiped at her eyes a little.

  Sara tilted her head down a little and shook it slowly.

  “No, not that, we all got that you weren’t taking it seriously then, or even that you might be putting us off, but just didn’t want to be rude. Calling yourself a troll like that… well, “you’re too good for me” is an excellent way to stop someone from pursuing you, very polite even in a way, taking the blame for why it wouldn’t work, but I told them that you just were a little down on yourself. I just didn’t know why back then.

  “Then Rolph said we had to go through his mother, so we sent off the papers on it that night. It was accepted at the gate but then we never heard back from you at all, and you never mentioned it to me. Not even a note about it, or a go between, if you couldn’t bear to do it yourself. Then, you know, a week later, well two weeks, but it felt almost instant and you were getting together with Trice. She’s my best friend, so I made myself let it go, even if it hurt a little. But my family didn’t. I figured you just didn’t like me that way, so, you know, I tried to hide it. Or, well, I did kind of sleep with Rolph on the beach trip and I… I thought you might be mad about that. You’re rules, the ones from Two Bends are just so different than ours.”

  Ah. That had been why they’d been afraid the sweet fried corn cakes were poisoned? But, he’d never heard of a marriage proposal at all until the one from Meredith Sorvee. What, he wondered out loud, had happened?

  Rolph ducked his head under the water, and came up grinning; it was a guilty seeming look somehow. Not just a little either.

  “Um, well, this is awkward isn’t it? You see, I kind of had the gate guards pull anything that came from Debri house, you know, just in case it was a love letter or something I wouldn’t want my mother to read in public. Aaaand long story short, I didn’t open my mail until the night before we left to go back to school, I figured, you know, if Tor already had something arranged, then it was a moot point…”

  Tor started to get mad, but then busted out laughing instead, and covered his face with both hands. Of course that would happen. Well, he certainly would have married Sara, he would now, except that Varley got there first, but until the wedding took place he wasn’t going to count on that one either. The options for a Princess were too great, and face it, he told them all, Princess Veronica was very good looking. Plus she had that rumored chance with Varro the Gardener.

  The odds of her sticking with the engagement had to be less than certain.

  “I don’t know Tor. Karina is scrambling to find a husband now, because of this. She has to get married first by tradition, if possible, and she doesn’t really like the one my parents have arranged for her. Count Peterson? He’s the one in charge of the flying school and that department?”

  “Oh… Yes, he seems nice… but, um, intense looking. As in scary. Well, I’m sure something will turn up. She’s cute too and has that whole Princess thing going for her. I’m… I don’t want to sound backwards, but I still have some problems with the “everyone has lovers” thing. I still feel like Rolph’s going to come hack me up one night over Ursala as it is, you know?”

  “What?” Rolph burst out, smiling and calmly interested, not angry, as far as Tor could see.

  “You two? That great Tor. I mean if there are two people I want to see happy you know?”

  Ursala chuckled.

  “Oh, well, don’t get too excited yet, we’re going slowly. Both recovering still. But there will definitely be more going on, I’ll just have to alternate nights with Sara. Well, I guess I can put up with a little future hubby action on those nights, if you can stand it.”

  Everyone laughed, including Tor. This he got, was a joke.

  Except it wasn’t.

  Later that night he made a light on the focus stone, which took him about ten minutes longer than on copper, and a deeper working state, but captured a nice clean field. One that he knew would last for a long time. Things on stone did after all. Sara came over to his bed to look at it and then hit the lights. She turned the focus stone light on and off, then asked Tor to turn his shield off. When he did she turned the light in her hands off and let her lips gently meet his. He figured that she’d kiss him, maybe a couple of times, then call it a night. Instead she lay next to him and kept kissing for a long time, finally her hands started exploring his body.

  She assured him when they were done that nothing they’d done had been sex. Which thanks to Ursala, he already knew. But all of it was fun, if a little confusing. She kissed him for a while longer and then went to find her own bed. It had been interesting to say the least. He kind of wondered if it was a onetime thing, like maybe she was proving a point or something. Then he decided to try not to worry about it and just enjoy what there was. That there was a trick or set-up in it was kind of implied, right? After all, he was involved. It was probably just a joke or a weird kind of high society teasing he didn’t understand. No big thing.

  After all, the next day he had to work on making enough copies of shields, flyers and weapons to outfit a small army, just in case they had to take on County Ward head on. Plus the King’s army needed more of everything. It wasn’t going to be fun, but if he started early enough, maybe a good start could be made. Copying was so boring though. What if he increased the number of devices per batch? Ten was supposed to be near the top of what could be done, but then most people took a lot longer trying to get even those finished well. What if he just did more? Could he? He’d never tried.

  At school they’d said ten was tops so Tor had just accepted that, and made it his standard. Well after he slept, he’d give it a go. What was the worst that happened? He failed and looked retuleous, wasting a bunch of metal? Really though, as long as he remade the same field on it, even a botched device copy wouldn’t hurt anything. All he could really lose was a little time then. The chance of success was worth the risk of a few hours of wasted time.

  In the morning he tried a batch of fifty before breakfast. It definitely took longer, sitting in place on the covers of his bed, the frame solid and unmoving but the mattress filled with something halfway soft, instead of straw, which had a tendency to poke through while you slept no matter how thick the covering material was. You got used to it, but it was never all that comfortable.

  He dropped low and deep, like when he’d tried to cut that dark paving stone with a hastily built field over and over again. That kind of focus. Then he drove into the glassy blackness inside his mind, until even that went away, leaving only the idea. The field. From memory he transferred it over and held it in place until it locked onto each bit of metal in front of him.

  An hour and twenty minutes. Good enough, if the devices actually worked. It took longer to test them all, shield devices as they were, than to build them. Two full hours. They seemed strong enough and the field didn’t fade at all. Good sign.

  Now he had to wait at least six hours all told, so another four at least. If it held then, it could be a new and much faster way of getting things done. If not, well, back to regular methods. Tor ate breakfast with everyone else, eggs, bacon and a sweet roll that had been half butchered. It tasted fine, but whoever cut it hadn’t had a clue what they were doing at all. Sorlee should have caught that, but maybe she didn’t want to say anything for some reason? The girl may be selling sex for a living, but she could still get oddly shy at times with strange things, like giving giant men orders.

  Since he was just waiting anyway and everyone else had other things to do in the morning, Tor decided to go and see what was up in the kitchen. Sara,
of course, worked, supporting the war effort with her deliveries. Ursala took correspondence from her County and then checked on the girls of the station, since that was her job now too and she took it very seriously. Rolph had to go and check in at the palace since he was only supposed to be gone to help Tor write the letter to Trice. He got to wait all alone today, so he might as well be useful.

  When he got to the dining room he saw what the problem was pretty quickly. For some reason the kitchen staff that he was used to seeing was gone. The people in the room were a mix of confused looking military men that he’d seen in the bath house, and girls that he’d seen, well, most of them not at all, honestly. If they’d met he’d probably had his eyes closed at the time. They seemed to recognize him instantly as he started making small corrections and occasionally barking orders at the men, most of whom responded better to it than not. After a few minutes they all started to get the idea, do what the little bearded man said. Good.

  Sorlee looked ready to pull her hair out.

  “I have no clue what’s going on Master Tor sir! I showed up to bake, but no one else came at all, so I grabbed people I recognized and put them to work, was… that right?”

  Smiling, Tor asked one of the women to fold the scrambled eggs, not stir them. That way they’d hold together a bit better. She worked with a focus stone baking pan with high edges that sat on the metal on the griddle, but it seemed to be working, so he didn’t correct that. Why bother her if she was doing well enough? She had dark hair shot with gray, long, in a single braid down her back. She didn’t look pretty, but her smile was kind and she didn’t take offense at the correction. That this was one of the “girls” kind of surprised him, but hey, she did the job, and if people frequented her, why shouldn’t she help out at Wilderness Station?

  As he looked around he saw a girl trying to cut a tray of rolls with a spatula instead of a knife. They were obviously still warm, which meant that trying to use the dull paddle just squished the poor things instead of separating them.

  “Alright… You with the spatula at the rolls, stop please… Oh Gods please stop killing them like that. I beg you. Pretty please?” The girl looked familiar from the back. The dark curly hair kind of gave her away, along with the fact that she was the tallest woman in the room by far. Six-four at a guess. Tor got a sharp knife from the rack and approached her efficiently, and pushed in along side of her, causing her to stiffen as he bumped into her side, his arm accidentally touching her breast. Then when she realized who it was she started to step back. Shocked. Possibly scared.

  Tor could see that.

  “No, you do it, but use a good sharp knife on them, all right? Then use the spatula to lift them onto the plates as they come by. Don’t worry you’re doing fine, it just takes a little practice and the right tools. Like most things in life.” He kept his voice soft and relaxed, worried that she might panic or try to run away, seeing him there suddenly like that.

  Then he moved to the next station and tried not to even think about the girl at the rolls. They got through the meal, but no one came to explain why the kitchen had been emptied. He didn’t really have time to run a kitchen himself right now, but he would if that’s what was needed. No matter what else was going on everyone needed to be fed, right?

  Tor found Godfrey and Kolb yelling at each other in back of one of the furniture shops. The bald man looked ready to hit the military leader and neither was backing down from whatever the situation was. Tor walked over quietly and spoke gently. Neither of them seemed to hear him, but there was no battle aura, just anger and loud words. Finally he spoke a little louder. When that didn’t work he screamed at them as loud as he could.

  “Situation Report!” He’d seen it work before at least, though Rolph had been shouting it then. He just didn’t have a spare Prince hanging around today, so he’d have to do it himself. Tor felt incredibly awkward the instant the words left his mouth, but didn’t let it show on his face.

  Kolb turned to him and spoke a single word, his voice coming out as a low half hiss.

  “Thieves.”

  Chapter seventeen

  Looking from one man to the other Tor tilted his head quizzically. Why would they be yelling, and almost fighting, over thieves? Surely neither one of them was the thief. After a few seconds Tor decided this was simply a fact. If that were the case then they wouldn’t be yelling at each other, they’d have fought physically, and Godfrey would be dead already, no matter which side of the matter he was on, right or wrong.

  So it wasn’t that.

  Holding up his right hand a little Tor spoke softly, trying not to trigger either man into violence. Neither was going into combat rage, but that didn’t mean no one would get hurt if they got into it. Probably him when he got between them. Luckily his shield was on, just in case that happened.

  “What was stolen, do we know who took it, and why?”

  He really didn’t want to make too big of a deal over people lifting something or another if he could help it. At Wilderness Station there was an awful lot of expensive gear just lying around for instance. What would someone like Sorlee have done if she thought the family farm was going to be lost and didn’t have a convenient Tor to step in for them? Or more to the point, if someone didn’t realize they had him to help them out? Anyone could have asked and he’d do what he could, but did they know that? They might be tempted to say, lift a water heater or maybe take a compressor unit and sell it. Who could blame them?

  Well… the military could. They publicly beat people for that kind of thing, Tor had heard, though so far no one had been at his house yet. He kind of wanted to keep it that way.

  “They stole our cooks! Also fifty good men with building gear and four of our transports! It was the military!” Kolb didn’t shout, but the tone was aggressive and directed at Godfrey who clenched his jaw and right fist so hard it turned red and white.

  “Ah! Well, Kolb… the cooks and all, and the military men, those are kind of their people. It’s inconvenient for us, true, but that’s not really theft. Now the transports are ours, or more to the point they belong personally to me and Godfrey as co-owners, not the military at all, so I’m sure those were only borrowed and whoever did it fully intends to return them. It would have been nice if they’d asked first. Unless… Did they Godfrey? Perfectly fine for you to lend them after all.”

  It turns out that they hadn’t. The flight school, under orders from Count Peterson their commander, had “borrowed” the fifty workers to build new structures, along with their gear. They got the cooks on a whim because, apparently, they’d found themselves understaffed as well in that department. No forms had been sent or anything. In fact it was kind of a raid.

  Tor laughed.

  “OK. Kolb, Godfrey, calm down. This isn’t a military advance, it’s… a training opportunity! Send the Count… No, I’ll send the Count, a letter explaining that we understand the “exercise” and will be retrieving our personnel and materials within the week. That will give our people time to do some building. We should presume that they’ll be heavily guarded and that, of course, we can’t use military force to get it done. These are our friends after all. So, Kolb, that’s your department now. Really, I’d like for the personnel to be back as soon as the building is done. Perhaps bring a few of their men back here for training on the gear? Without asking I mean. Say twice as many as they took? Next time they really need to ask though. We could spare more men, and get the work done faster that way for one thing. I’ll put it in the note.”

  Both of the other men blinked. Kolb apparently thought that their honor had been besmirched and Godfrey really didn’t want to go up against a Count. Both had good points. Still, Tor explained calmly, chuckling a little for effect, their prime mission had to be getting the work done and building things for other bases wasn’t outside of what they should be doing. As to honor… Tor pulled the secret unit leader aside and spoke to him privately about that.

  “Kolb… we don’t have the luxury of
that any more. Not during a war, not a force like we have here. I… the faster we all get used to that, the better we’ll all be at our jobs. Really… You know Kolb, send in ten people from your section to work in the kitchen today.” Tor held up his right hand again. “I’ll be in and out there myself, and let them know that they won’t just be taking orders from… whores, but if they do anything but make any of the ladies feel like the Queen her own self they’ll answer directly to me. And no, I have no clue how I’ll back that up, so kind of be vague on that part, alright?” He grinned at Kolb and raised an eyebrow.

  Kolb shook his bald head and frowned.

  “They… won’t be happy with that Tor. We’ve got a crew that’s about eighty percent noble and…”

  That got a nod. They wouldn’t be happy. Tor rubbed at his now hairy chin, the bristles short enough still to be sticking straight out, but long enough that he actually looked to have a beard now, not just a very dirty face. Mostly. After a second he shrugged.

  “I don’t care. They don’t have to like what they’re doing, most of the time they won’t like what they’re doing, but they need to make it seem like they do in this case. Make it part of the mission. Happy hard workers that do their best to act humble and meek. Take orders from people they normally wouldn’t even meet and make the world buy it as real. Their mandate is to go anywhere and do anything. This is anything, and if a kitchen is the worst place we ever have to send any of them, then thank all possible gods, right?”

  The letter got sent off within the hour and Tor specifically made a game of it, pointing out that the transports were private property, which meant, he hinted obliquely, that if the Count made a big deal of it, he’d have to come collect them himself. His “threat” there wasn’t that he’d fight the three thousand men at the base or something stupid like that, but that he’d come and be a pain in the rear until they gave up. Of course that meant that no work would be coming from Tor until they did, which would annoy a lot of other people…