“Who?” Sara asked, sounding scared… or maybe angry, Tor couldn't tell.
What he could tell was that she seemed to know instantly that “Doretta” wasn't the actual name of the girl at all, which had to be true, because Tor had never known a woman by that name in his life. Trice sat up from where she'd been sitting, her eyes going wide.
“Was that… Maria?” Her voice was soft and low, deadly sounding. It reminded Tor that no matter what else these girls might be, rich and pampered things that couldn't even cook a basic meal or probably start a fire without special gadgets or devices, they were both deadly in their own way. They could kick his butt anyway. Dangerous enough for the time being.
The Prince stood all the way up and moved to the other side of the fire so that he could address both girls at the same time.
“Yes.”
He looked at Sara particularly, avoiding Tor's gaze altogether. Probably because now that Tor got what he was referencing, he really didn't want the topic discussed. The most embarrassing moment of his life shouldn't become a fireside tale. Ever, if he had his way in the matter. Apparently he didn't though, since the Prince kept talking.
“It was in our first year, about halfway through. I'd been given a roommate of all things, can you imagine that? Me? One that the dean himself had decided no one would ever expect the heir to be placed with, making the boy nearly perfect in a way. I think I may have also been put with him to learn humility too. I mean, here I was, lord high of the mighty and who was he? Just some little backwoods kid with a fraction of my education, a quarter my size… and about eight times my intelligence. I was a little put out at first, since I'd expected my own room, and personal servants, maybe a spare girl or two brought in a few times a week for comfort and relaxation, not some country boy underfoot all the time. But… after the first day I found that I kind of liked Tor, who seemed smart and kind, even if he did come from a place that I'd never heard of, and talked of baking a little too often… He had a really thick accent then too, which he got rid of in… weeks. It was kind of amazing to watch really.” Rolph smiled.
“Anyway, he decided, at the urging of myself, to ask a girl that he'd noticed in one of his classes to the student party at the beginning of spring. She was a pretty thing, not a grand beauty like either of you, of course, but nice enough looking. I didn't recognize her as peerage and really, what was the worst she'd do when he asked? Tell him she already had a date or let him down easy perhaps? Or, if desperate enough, she might arrange for a friend to go with him instead, which would give him a date at least and after all, he thought he could be interested in her, not that they were true loves, destined to be together for all eternity. He wasn't even trying to get her into bed. How cute and innocent is that? Besides… why would she say no? I really figured that even if she had another date she'd drop the guy and pick Tor instead. Maybe I'm biased because he's my friend but…”
Rolph had both girls staring at him, and milked it for all it was worth, spinning it as if a popular tale rather than the most embarrassing moment of Tor's life. So far anyway.
“So, steeling himself after practicing the right words, coached by me, so you know they were the right ones, I didn't let him go in sounding like a backwoods hick or anything, he approached her after dinner one night, gave her a very nice arrangement of flowers that he'd spent most of the afternoon on, you know how he is with projects, so it was meticulously done, it looked, well, my mother wouldn't have thought twice about receiving such as a gift and would have called it fine, and she can be picky about flowers. It was more than good enough for a school girl. Maybe too good? He could probably make a living doing flower arrangements in the Capital you know, it was that good. Seriously. Elegant. Delightful. Hell, if he'd given it to me I probably would have agreed to go with him to the party. You two probably would have done him in your dorm room without waiting to hear what he was asking for… and really, it's not even an insult to suggest you would, it really was that nice.
“So he approached her and started saying the words, a simple invitation to consider going to the party with him, if she wasn't already engaged or busy that night. No presumption that anything more would happen or hint of anything untoward. Really, it was nearly perfect. Leaving her a hundred ways out if she didn't want to go with him. She could have said that she couldn't go due to a previous arrangement, or that she was engaged otherwise. She could have offered a friend that she felt would suit him better, you know the obvious stuff, or even…”
Rolph took a huge breath and continued, obviously angry, even after nearly two years.
“Or she could even have simply told him no.”
Sara winced and Trice reached out and touched Tor's arm, which caused him to jump away from her a little bit. He instantly felt bad about it, since she was just trying to be nice, but it had startled him, being unexpected.
“What…” Sara looked at Rolph hard, not looking towards Tor at all. Her gaze felt conspicuous in its absence. “What did she do?”
Tor dreaded this next part. Did Rolph really want to humiliate him so badly in front of these two? They were practically the only girls not related to him that didn't try and run away screaming. OK, no one had ever actually run away, but close enough.
The Prince grimaced.
“She… was vile. Evil to him, for simply asking if she'd consider possibly, maybe, going to a party, in public, with him. She screamed, called him names, said he was worthless, dirty and probably had diseases she didn't want to catch. She accused him of having sex with animals and probably men to boot. She went on and on like that for at least six minutes, and would have probably kept going in that vein to this day if some older girls hadn't pulled her from the room by force. That was… bad. But what she did next…”
This caught Tor by surprise, there was more? He didn't remember anything else, except everyone turning on him for a while after that. Glaring at him mostly.
“She started a campaign of rumors, one in which Tor was the villain of everything wrong that could be imagined. He didn't know about it, because he wouldn't leave the room for nearly three weeks. They almost had to kick him out of school then, and send him home. I actually had to contact my parents to intervene for him, which they did without question, Tor, based only on what I'd told them before. For a while the faculty was afraid he'd kill himself if he knew what was being said about him. I won't repeat any of it, even now. Let's just say that the reason Kolb started training Tor to fight and protect himself was directly related to that… and no Tor, it wasn't a mistake, and no one put him up to it, Kolb chose you for training personally. That's why you're never getting out of it now, even after everything has died down. I think he views it as a personal challenge. You aren't exactly huge after all.”
He continued on, telling them how Maria was recalled home for some reason, what he hadn't known at the time. He'd thought that her family had caught wind of what their daughter was doing and sent her away in shame, at least to another school, if not to live with Howard Turnbull on his country estate.
Trice nodded then. “I see. I'd wondered at the meeting why Tor looked so upset. That explains it. I'm surprised she even dared show her face! Can you believe that Sara?”
“Maria who? Is she… a servant at the palace? Or…” Blond hair flopped just a little as she shook her head.
“No… She married a Count. Count Ward to be exact. Vile bitch. No wonder the Count chose to sleep with Ursala, who isn't half as pretty, instead. That's… well, she wouldn't have tried that if she knew who Tor was going to be, I bet. That's why there are rules about such things! What if Tor decides to make war on Ward?”
Trice moved closer to him and hugged him awkwardly from the side. He wondered what the heck she was talking about, but enjoyed the attention for a bit, even if she was being silly.
Him make war?
Maybe, if he got lucky, he could be a minor inconvenience to someone like Ward personally, trip him or something if he caught the man off-guard. Duck down behind him and get someone else to push him over maybe. But war? His army would just destroy him.
That… sounded better than the facts would really allow for, he knew. A few men from his army would destroy him. The rest would probably hold a picnic while they waited for the two or three men it took to finish up. They could hold games and eating contests while they waited. What was he going to do, bring his brothers in to fight an entire county?
That, oddly enough, the idea of Torrence Green Baker personally going after county Ward in retaliation, was a fact not lost on the King and Queen according to Rolph. That Tor might take it in mind to do battle, alone, against the Count and his army.
“When we fought, the Count and I, both in full battle rage, Tor simply stood between us Sara. Ward pounding him from behind and I was trying to work my way around to get at the louse. When I tried to strike, he'd jump in the way, taking the blow instead. We both tried direct effect and were blasting aura the whole time, and it did nothing. It was like a mountain had been placed in front of us for all that we could get at each other. It's the shield he made of course, but no one in the world could really take those away from him, he could just make more. Notice how even that buffoon Ward stepped into line after that? It was especially impressive when Tor had just been standing there taking a beating intended for me from the man and started talking, casually, about who we could get to marry Ursa. Of course wearing my old court livery really worked out there. To Ward and Thorgood both it was as if the King himself had stood there and commanded us all to heel to his will… Kind of enforced it too. Then he just walked away as if nothing happened, not even out of breath, not holding a grudge or even calling us to task for it, which would have been within his rights.”
Sticking out his tongue, Tor gave the opinion that Ward hadn't even noticed him, and that Maria obviously either didn't even know who he was or didn't care. Fair enough, all things considered. He wasn't a very important person after all. Why should she even remember him?
Moving back to sit down, Rolph brushed at the blanket as if getting some sand off, then sat back down, the side of his body touching Sara. Tor smiled. It looked like fun, but if Maria had taught him anything it was that women didn't like him that way. It didn't matter. He'd learned to be happy with his work. It wasn't the same as being loved, but it was all he really had. Well, that, and his friends now. Rolph really had been there for him, after all.
Curious, he asked who Doretta was.
Trice looked at him and gave him a gentle look.
“Oh… that… makes sense, it's probably not a story you were told as a kid. OK, short version, since the rest of us all know it. Um..
“A long time ago there was a shopkeeper, a humble young man that sold goods in a decently large city. He worked very hard and was successful, being smart and clever. A woman came in regularly and they'd talk, in a friendly way, so one day, working up his courage, the man finally proposed marriage to her in the street in front of the shop. The woman spurned him publicly, since she was of noble blood, if not very highly placed. The daughter of a Knight or something; it varies depending on who's telling the tale. She told him no, and suggested he should have known better than to reach above himself, and dare imagine he was worthy of someone as grand as her.
“So the shopkeep, despondent and humiliated, joined the army, seeking his death in combat. That way he could redeem his honor you see, wash the stain of humiliation away in his own blood. Years passed, and he proved to be a good fighter, eventually saving the life of the Prince himself, who became his good friend…”
Trice gave him a significant look her eyes darting several times between him and Rolph. A soft snort escaping her, she continued.
“As unlikely as that always seemed to me… Time passed and the shopkeep was made a general, then, eventually a Count.
“After a time, over twenty years later, he found where the girl lived, her having married a Baron, and took his army to meet her husband in battle, and slaughtered him. Killed everyone in the Barony, including the woman's entire family. Then he had her put on a small island so that she could slowly starve to death, reflecting on how her own actions of spurning him so cruelly had led to all that death and destruction.”
It wasn't, they assured him, a real story, just one used to teach kids not to be like that. There was even a phrase they used, “don't be a Doretta.” as a warning when someone was about to step out of line or hurt someone else's feelings too much.
Tor shook his head at the very idea.
“But that would take a minor personal matter and make it lethal for a bunch of people that hadn't even been there! What kind of monster would do that? Not me. Maria could have been a thousand times worse and I wouldn't even go after her, much less those around her that just have the misfortune of knowing her…” The idea made him shudder a little. Trice moved in and held him for a while, getting a grin from Rolph, even though Sara kept giving him uncomfortably nervous glances. Probably because a Ducherina was sitting too close to him and he was only two steps above a pig farmer in the social scale. He knew enough not to think it was anything more than, oh, a lady petting her dog. Trice just wanted to reassure him, that was all.
The talking continued then, moving to different and less embarrassing tales, at least for him personally, but Tor's mind escaped from the awkward conversation into solving the water flow problem. It wasn't that hard, he just had to keep the field from shutting off with water in the force line itself. Basically what would happen with the fountain in the pond garden. It took about two hours for him to figure out how to do that, but he thought he had a solution when Rolph stood, stretched and announced that it was bed time. He gave Sara a hand up and dragged her away towards the house, both giggling like little girls.
That left him and Trice to put out the fire, which they did using big handfuls of sand, finally kicking large drifts of it over the fire. Nothing glowed on the surface at least, so it should be good enough he figured. It might smolder in the sand for a while, maybe even a day or two, but with nothing else around to burn, that wouldn't make any difference at all.
Then he shook out the blanket the other two had used and got Trice to help him fold it. She wasn't very good at it, but she picked the idea up quickly, and when they did the next one she moved in almost perfect unison with him.
They made their way back to the cabin well enough, the light of the more than half moon making it possible to see the trail at least. A light colored strip with darker vegetation on either side a few feet off. Trice held his hand for balance, but ended up keeping him upright at least as much as he did her. She was simply bigger than he was, so her stumbles rocked him, pulling him into a full awkward tilt, where his barely budged her. She was lean and tall, he noticed again, at least a full head more than he was, more than that, a full foot. He knew he must look like a little boy next to her when they walked this way. It was dark and anyway, there was no one to see them stumbling along so it didn't really matter if he looked silly, did it?
After a while Tor began to understand that his friend must be at least a little drunk. Not sloshing, falling down drunk, but a stage past tipsy at least. Her pale arms and legs flashed in the moonlight, his own nearly invisible in his full brown students outfit. When they got inside she hugged him close to her suddenly and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
When she spoke her words slurred a little bit.
“Don't worry Tor. Not all women are like Maria. Most aren't even. Be willing to give some of us others a chance and you might be surprised…”
Then she made her way to the room she and Sara were sharing. His room was first, so at least he didn't have to grope as far along the hall. He undressed, down to underclothes, some nice things that Rolph had gotten him for the trip, in case they went swimming in them. It was that or skinny dip, the Prince had told him. So far they hadn't swum, the others splashing and playing in the water near the shore while he worked. Tor knew he'd been less than fun or interesting, but it was an important problem he was trying to work on, and the King had asked him to, right? That meant he kind of had to pay attention and work fast.
Five minutes later the door opened slowly, then closed with a firm, sudden bump. A form crawled into the bed and tucked under the covers next to him. Tor was half asleep, so didn't think anything of it, drifting off easily, hoping to get up early, so that he could try to build a new water transfer field that wouldn't kill thousands of people if it shut off.
Rolph was unusually cuddly, so he had to keep throwing the other boy's arms and legs off of him as he slept, but at least the amulet he wore kept things from getting too warm, or later when all the covers got stolen in the middle of the night, too cold.
The morning light came through the curtained window waking him up slowly, over the course of minutes, rather than all at once. That was fine, he needed to get up before everyone else to work anyway, so that he could make breakfast in a few hours for the others. They were going to leave in the afternoon, late though, since they could be back in the Capital pretty quickly.
If nothing else the flying devices were good for vacations. He probably wouldn't have gotten to go back home even, with only a month for him to travel, and Two Bends was only five hundred miles from the school. It had taken half a month nearly to get to school by wagon, so he only went home on the long breaks so far, spending a month home and traveling for a month. Now he could make the same trip in a few hours.
While he'd slept Rolph had wrapped an arm over his shoulder, and pressed up against him from behind. Looking away at the wall he raised his eyebrows, or at least tried to. Laughing he pushed the arm off and slipped out of bed. Something he'd learned from growing up in his house, when you shared a bed with other people, you couldn't get overly sensitive about personal space issues. People did strange things in their sleep and really, they couldn't help it. They weren't even aware of what they were doing.
It wasn't until he was half dressed that he noticed it wasn't Rolph in the bed at all, but someone with long brown curly hair. Who snored softly. He blinked. Rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. She must have gotten confused and found the wrong bed. Well, that happened sometimes. More than once his own sisters had ended up sleeping in a pile of their brothers when they were little and they hadn't even been drunk. No harm done. It wasn't like he'd touched her or anything. Except to push her off.
Of course if her parents found out they'd probably insist that he and Trice get married, or at least that Tor be beaten publicly. He chuckled to himself then sobered, remembering they were royals. From what he'd been told the day before, they might not care if he had slept with their daughter. Even having sex, not just sleeping like they had.
Either that or they'd call for his death. It was still a gray area for him, really. Did their strange rules apply to him or was it just something they thought he needed to know about for the future, since he was in the Capital and all? Near the Prince and the girls, who those things did apply to?
He took an unmarked copper plate from his trunk and worked his way outside, trying to be silent. He'd planned to do the work in the bedroom, but the sand would be comfortable enough for him, so Tor didn't bother with a blanket, just sitting down on the beach, well away from the water line.
The work was easy, compared to the day before, but when he opened his eyes the water had moved. The tide, he remembered having been told about the phenomenon. How the ocean, vast as it was, shifted around twice a day. Right. So the field would need to stretch far enough out into the ocean so that it never ran dry. How far out did it need to go, he wondered? An extra five miles should do, he guessed. It really didn't seem to have moved too much today, if this was normal that should be fine. If not… well, he'd make it ten just to be certain.
That was just extra work and good placement of the final field, which he could trust to someone else, probably. If not he could fly in and do it himself, he guessed. No big thing. He had time for now and after break, well, by then someone else would have taken over or, if no one else cared to, he could fly down to check on things every week or two on his off days. For now he had to walk nearly to the water to try the field out. A simple half loop of salt water since it didn't need purification to test this, it was just a flow test after all. The line formed easily coming out of the water about five feet above the shore line, just hanging in the air like it was supposed to and looping around to spray back in the ocean about two hundred feet further down. Holding his breath he tapped the plate, causing the whole thing to stop, but only after emptying everything at the far end first.
He checked it a few times just to make sure it worked right, but it did, thankfully. He headed back to the house with a grin. Now he could get cleaned up and make breakfast.
Yay.
This was real progress, now all he had to do was manage things well enough to not die while trying to make the super-massive field and this might even work.
He'd planned on corn bread, but found sugar and a large jar of honey as well as soft wheat flour and rising agent. He collected a little salt water to use instead of granules, since there was an awful lot of it outside, right there in that giant puddle called the ocean, and made sweet fried corn cakes instead as a special treat. A bit of jam on each and they'd have half of a meal.
The rest would be pan fried potted meat, of course. He was a Baker, after all, not Tor Cook. Luckily he had a bit of skill there too, because in a family the size of his, everyone had to pitch in where needed. He could chop down trees, build a house or barn, tend chickens and change a baby's nappie at need. True, half of what he knew how to do was “woman's work” but it was, oddly enough, proving useful anyway.
On this trip he'd had to cook twice, but hadn't cut down a single tree yet at all for instance, or had to hunt wild animals for food either.
He just had the corn cakes coming out of the pot of oil when everyone started emerging from the bedrooms. Perfect timing. They were best warm.
Rolph needed to shave still, so did Tor come to that, but Sara emerged looking fresh and lovely. Tor kind of thought she'd gone to the bathing room to clean up already. He'd heard something, but didn't check closely, in case it was something he wasn't supposed to notice. Girls had rules about that kind of thing and he didn't really know them all. Even his own sisters were like that. Better to be careful with these highborn ladies.
Patricia came out looking tousled and disheveled, her eyes half closed still, stumbling a little bit, like the floor still moved under her feet or the room spun. Tor noticed that she looked cute in a grumpy way, sort of like a sleepy child. She shook her head, and walked to the table, plunking down in a fairly unladylike fashion.
“Morning.” She yawned making Tor and Sara both yawn as well. He laughed about it and smiled at Trice, glad for about the six hundredth time that he didn't drink. She looked like she felt awful. How people could wake up the next day and think they'd had fun, feeling like that, Tor didn't know. Did they rationalize it into being different than reality or something?
The blond girl wore a very nice, pale pink shift of shiny material, that didn't hug her body, but kept bumping against what was under it, showing some interesting things in outline. Tor tried to ignore the effect, since it wouldn't be proper to stare at her when she sat in a chair on the far side of the table. He figured that she'd either cling to Rolph or make fun of Trice, since the girl had shared a room with him, which probably really was actually kind of funny from everyone else's perspective, but instead she very studiously tried to avoid his gaze for some reason.
Was she feeling ashamed?
The night before she'd seemed fine with the idea of going off with Rolph and, after all, from what he'd gathered it wasn't the first time, or against their societal rules or anything, so probably not buyer's remorse or anything silly like that. Rolph didn't seem to be having a problem at least.
The red haired giant sat on the opposite side of the table from Sara, smiling and seeming… normal for him. Nice, and friendly. He accepted a pile of sweet corn cakes and some fried ham and put strawberry preserves on when Tor instructed him to. Rolph waited for everyone else to get theirs and then hesitated to eat, waiting for some reason.
So did everyone else. Right, they'd never had these before, most likely. Good, but simple country type food that it was. Tor took a big bite and smiled. They were good. A childhood favorite of his, that they didn't normally get at home. Breakfast was normally a pot of oats and some day-old bread. This kind of sweet food they got a few times a year, normally around holidays. But hey, it was vacation, the nicest one that he'd ever been on in his life, so it seemed appropriate.
Trice took a bite next, chewing carefully and swallowing as if it were dangerous or too hot for her still.
“This is really good! I mean, you could serve this to Uncle Richard and he'd probably request it again. Really I can't believe I've never had this before. Sweet corn cakes?”
Giving him a strange look, Rolph went next as if corn cakes would be some kind of dangerous adventure. He took a bite seriously and looked like he was having to choke it down. The smile that followed seemed a little forced. Didn't he like them? Trice seemed to be eating with vigor after the first bite. Sweetened fried batter. Who didn't like that? Maybe it was too rich for him, but… Half the food served at the palace had been as rich, or more so. They used cream in more ways than Tor had thought could exist, including as part of sauces for meat, of all things. It would probably even taste good on this, a thickened and sweetened cream. He didn't know how that was done. If he could find that cook again, the one that gave him food that one time, he'd have to ask.
Sara looked terrified when she took her first bite, almost literally shaking in fear. What the hell? Had he done such a horrible job with dinner that his cooking scared her now? He reviewed everything and then it clicked in place.
“Hey!” He said, feeling put out, “why are you all doing your “see if he poisoned my food” thing with me? No one did it last night and we're all still alive. I'm not that bad a cook. Am I? I thought it was fine…” Tor stared at Rolph first, but the man just looked down and took another bite.
“This really is quite good. I have to agree with Trice there.” The Prince said, giving all his attention to his food.
Sitting next to him Trice chuckled and nodded, then turned to him.
“Oohhh! I get it… you don't get it… Of course, because in your world, we're all being morons. OK. Let's see here… So, Rolph and Sara, you know, in the room last night? Obviously they weren't just there to avoid our snoring, right? Even though that would probably be fair. But, you see… Someone whom I won't name,” she pointed behind her hand at Sara, a mock gesture since the girl could have easily seen it if she was looking up, even though she wasn't at the moment.
“Is supposed to be making arrangements to get married to a certain someone else, and now she's afraid that her spending the night with Rolph might ruin that. Still, Tor won't poison us, that's silly. He probably doesn't even know what kinds of things would be poisonous anyway. A magical trap or maybe a super-weapon, sure, but poison? Now me, I know how, and so do you, Sara, but these guys? No chance.” Her look included Rolph, who nodded, a little slowly at first, but faster after a few moments' thought.
Ah. So Sara was feeling guilty, because she was supposed to be marriage minded right now, not having casual flings with guys she could never marry at all. Still, Tor didn't know how that translated to her thinking he'd poison her. Trice was right there, in that he really didn't have a clue how that would be done, even if he wanted to, which he didn't. Why would he?
Tor didn't ask. These people…
They were his friends, sure, but sometimes they just did weird things that didn't make sense at all.
Looking up finally Rolph mentioned that they'd heard him go out early, at first light. It didn't sound like a leading question at all, but he had a suspicion that the Prince was fishing for information. Was he expecting a pit trap in the front yard? At least that was something he could have actually done, having hunted boar that way a few times with his brothers and dad. Probably not in the soft sand out front though. The sides would keep collapsing. Now if he could shore that up somehow, with timber or stone…
Tor told them all about the new field he worked on, designed to shut down in stages so that it wouldn't flood the world underneath it, as Sara had demonstrated the day before.
“It's kind of cool looking really, I'll show you all later if you want?” Tor smiled, feeling happy enough about the work, even if everyone else was being moody.
The girl looked half in tears as she ate, still not looking up. She finished the food on her plate at least, so hopefully she liked it. Then she excused herself and went outside, rushing as if something was wrong. Trice chuckled and told them that she'd take care of it, while they cleaned up. Was this all a plot to get out of clean-up then?
Tor could credit it. After all, as wonderful as his friends were, they were also very high class people, which meant more than a little lazy, and kind of caught up in convoluted plans and plots. It seemed a little overdone just to get out of clean up, especially since they could have just said they didn't want to and he'd get it done anyway. Rolph helped with the work though, so maybe it wasn't all of them? Tor shrugged and smiled at his friend while they worked. At least the heir to the kingdom wasn't trying to trick his way out of work. That was a good sign. From what Tor had seen, the King's job required diligence to say the least.
A quick bath and shave later as well as a solid tooth brushing and Tor was ready for the day. Rolph took a lot longer, but then he had all that hair to take care of, which Tor just didn't. Thanks to the trunks they'd loaded along they had clean clothes to wear too, which was nice, since washing things would have been a chore here. He had one of the clothes drying plates at least though, so that would have sped it all up. He should come up with something to do the washing for them too. Now that he could move water… He stopped himself and went back to work. He'd think about it later, when he had time and wouldn't be abandoning all the chores to the Prince of the realm.
The rest of the day went a lot like that, with Trice chuckling at odd moments, Rolph avoiding his gaze, but not seeming overly worked up, just a little subdued, and Sara rushing away looking teary. To keep them amused Tor showed them how the new field transferred water, which wasn't novel to them, except when turned off. It was basically a giant high flow pump too, which could have a lot of uses once the bugs were worked out. It had to have a way to direct the water for instance, built in to the device, unless he wanted to make a new one for each purpose, which would cut its utility a lot.
For what was supposed to be a fun outing, no one seemed to be very pleased anymore, except Tor, and to a lesser extent Trice. He decided that something had happened that he just didn't get. Maybe Sara and Rolph had an argument? Well, they'd work it out, he was certain. They were friends if nothing else and Sara was smart enough not to ruin her friendships because of hurt feelings.
There were no debts between friends, which meant no emotional debts either, at least ideally. Who was she supposed to marry, he wondered? Some rich merchant guy probably, or maybe a Baron. That… would be just within the three step thing, right? Her social position put her family just on the verge of being royalty themselves and they clearly carried at least some royal blood, all them being as tall as they were.
Well, he wouldn't tell anyone, if it bothered her so much. They were friends and if that meant keeping her liaisons secret, then Tor would. Still, did they think he was hired to spy on them or something? By who? And for that matter, how much was he being paid for? So far no money had been coming in at all. You'd think they'd have noticed that. A horrible idea occurred to him then.
Real stomach dropping horror.
Sara had mentioned Sorvee house and how they were still mad about a failed marriage proposal. Dorgal, the bully from school, his last name was Sorvee, and that couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Was it part of some plan to mend fences? God, they weren't planning on marrying her off to that lout were they? It would be a good match on paper, maybe, they were the same age nearly, knew some of the same people and both came from the same basic background, but… Gah! It was too cruel to even consider.
If that was the case he'd have to visit Heather Debri and make sure she knew what Dorgal was really like first. Yeah, that guy would have a problem if he found out about her sleeping with Rolph, especially since he probably didn't know that Rolph was anyone but the cool kid from school. Plus Dorgal was the type that liked to have problems with things. If you gave him a bag of gold it would probably start a fight. Tor could hear him now in his head, “that gold's not shiny enough, and there isn't enough of it, and why didn't you give it to me sooner?” Something like that at least. Snotty self-entitled jerk.
The trip home was different than the one out mainly because they stopped in a small town, one not much bigger than Two Bends, and had lunch, bread, cheese and fruit, coming at a cost that made Tor wince. It should have been measured in a few coppers, if that, but came to almost a silver when everything was tallied. The woman at the shop just shrugged.
“It's this drought. Things still look green, but in six months gold won't hardly buy food anymore, because people will hoard what little they have. We can't all afford to buy supplies from Garish, Sorvee and Debri, not with the cost of shipping on it. So we have to get more from you now to survive later.” She was a thin and hard looking woman, nearing fifty and shorter than he was. She took in the plain brown of Tor's clothes easily enough, but wouldn't even look at the others. Actually refusing to even glance at them after the first time, eyes staying down, towards the ground.
Right. They all looked royal to her, even Sara. Her tall blond good looks weren't exactly common stock like his. The woman didn't seem happy, but managed a small tight and strained smile for him after she explained. Tor took his share of the cheese and a pear, going to the shade outside to eat it after saying a few words to her, trying to be hopeful about the whole thing. The pear was a little green and hard this time of year, but edible, even if the skin did ram between his teeth making him feel awkward, not wanting to pick at them in company or anything rude like that.
They sat under a tree, an elm that did look thirsty, and it really was greener than the brown grasses and low shrubs around them. If they couldn't get these people some relief, it would hurt in half a year like the woman had said. A lean summer was annoying, but the winter to follow would be nearly impossible. People would die most likely, even in a warm place like this. Not as many as the same shortage would cause up north, but bad enough.
The town was dusty and small, but the people didn't seem defeated yet. They rested during the day, the heat beating down on them too much for real work to be done. Their little group didn't notice it, how warm it was, but these others all dripped sweat and went to the large wooden water barrel getting dippers full of water more often than was probably normal. Somewhere deep inside their bodies knew that water was short, so they struggled to put more in now, saving it for later. It didn't work like that, he knew, water leaving in a day or so, no matter how much you drank, but the deep mind didn't know that. It just tried to make sure the individual survived, as best it could.
Tor flew back wondering if the water he planned to get would be enough. If the crops were gone for the season already they'd need more food from other parts of the country fast. And cheap. He could make that happen, the transport part at least, but on top of the water project, it wouldn't leave him much of his break.
Oh well.
Lives had to come first. Always. Besides, his friends probably all wanted to be off doing things without him by now anyway. He left the others to talk, and just followed along behind them as they flew back, thinking about what would be needed first. If only he had more time to work.
The river that led to the Capital flowed well, the drought not daring to come this far yet apparently. It was, interestingly enough, just called the King's River. It didn't have some other more fancy name or anything, a subtle thing that didn't try to promote Richard, but did anyway. You said its name and you thought of him automatically. A clever bit of propaganda really.
The water had dropped in it since he'd first seen it, less than a week before. Looking at it he realized that if he got the water to the head of the river here, past the Capital, the normal irrigation channels could be used along with shunts to pull out some water further north from the above ground part. Probably about fifty miles or so, more if he could make it work. It would make an elongated circle of water to be used then. He'd have to check, obviously, since he didn't know where people farmed here at all, except the little he'd seen from the air.
“What's that?” Trice yelled back, pointing to a group of people, about fifty or sixty of them, gathered a short distance outside the southernmost gate into the city.
The people were a motley group from the air, mainly wearing brown and white, near the center there was a clutch of city guard red and white. At first, given the soft yelling that he heard, Tor wondered if the people were going to attack the guards. They had them surrounded, sort of, a rough semi-circle. But then he noticed that people were running from the town, carrying heavy timbers.
Then he got it. He'd seen something similar once a long time before, when one of the neighbor kids, Bill Sampson, had fallen down a well.
Without waiting he redirected towards the group on the ground and flew in as fast as he could, so fast he couldn't breathe the air sucked away too hard for his lungs to capture. Tor just held his breath. If someone was down a well they either had hours to get them out… or seconds. He couldn't tell which from the air. They probably couldn't really tell on the ground either.
He shoved his right hand out as far as it would go, the copper medallion around his neck growing first warm, then hot, which it had never done before. It burned, but not to an extent that he thought he was being injured, about like too warm bath water. He landed outside the group away from the vast white wall and ran towards the center as fast as his legs could carry him. Rolph overtook him on the ground, his longer legs stretching out.
“Situation report!” He yelled, a tone of command that Tor had never heard from his friend before. It got the guards talking all at once, finally the man in charge of the guard group shouted the others down and explained as fast as he could.
Tor couldn't tell if the man recognized Rolph or not, but apparently a giant man flying up and yelling for a situation report got a response. Something he might need in the future himself, if he ever grew a foot and a half taller. He could already do the flying part, so half of the work on that was done even.
“Child, boy, seven years old. Tanners kid. Fell down old well. Middens really.” The man didn't seem to care who they were overly, and turned back to shout at the men with the timbers.
“No good! Crap, those won't hold a man, we have to send someone down there. We need thick timbers! Now!” He screamed, sounding a little panicked.
Tor could see why.
The sides of the hole in the ground were crumbling in. He could feel the field shifting, even if it looked solid at the moment, the walls were already collapsing. It probably wasn't even all that deep, but if it caved in, the child died. A thin man in red and white dangled over the edge, feet held by three other men, all big and brawny workman types. They pulled the guardsman out and he shook his head.
“No good Captain… I can't work my shoulders past the first bend and if I try to dig it starts to hit the kid. We can't wrap a rope around a corner neither. Someone has to go down.” He looked the captain dead in the eye and shook his head grimly. If he couldn't do it, as thin as he was, no other man there could either.
A woman who looked to be about twenty-five or so, with dark brown hands and smudges of darkness on her face, cried out loudly.
“Simon! My baby!” A swarthy man in stained clothes and a stout leather apron took her in his arms, both had tears in their eyes. He tried to comfort her, but it didn't seem to be working too well. Of course not. Her boy was about to die in an old shit pit. No comforting could work on her at all right now.
Tor sized up the man that had tried to get to the boy, thin, like he was, but tall, near as tall as Rolph. That made a difference in how big a person really was, he knew that firsthand from fighting practice. Big skinny guys weighed a whole lot more than he did. They were bigger around too. The bones of the shoulder and waist were bigger even if they looked as thin over all. It was a difference in scale. Looking around Tor thought he had what he needed. Or enough to give it a shot anyway. Someone had to try something.
There was a child trapped.
He turned to Rolph and noticed that the girls had landed and stood next to each other about twenty feet back. He pointed at the trunks. And then told Rolph to get him enough rope, at least fifty feet. The tanner, the man holding the woman got big eyes when he saw who was standing there trying to fetch rope to save his child and scrambled to get it himself. Luckily the rope that someone had gotten looked to be both long and strong enough.
“Girls!” He pointed at Sara and Trice. “Get the plates off of the trunks and put them all on the bottom of… Sara's. It's the strongest of them.” It was too, heavy wood with iron banding, meant to last if she had to travel for a few years he guessed. Or possibly if she had to use it to beat someone to death. It was just that solid.
Tor had them put the plates on the bottom of the chest while he took his clothing off, hoping to narrow his profile a smidgen more, except for the new underwear that Rolph had provided, which he kept for modesty's sake. Not that it would stay on when he crawled down, but for now at least no one would point or stare. A shame to climb into a pit like that wearing the nice silky material, a lavender color, the nicest piece of clothing he'd ever actually owned, since they'd been an outright gift not just loaned to him like the other clothes had been. Oh well. He was tempted to take them off anyway, but there were all those women watching and it would be rude to force them to see his naked body. Bad enough so much flesh showed already.
When the chest was rigged up with all four copper floats on the bottom and the rope tied to it securely, Tor took a deep breath.
“I need this tied to my foot. The left one. I may need the right later…” He smiled when he said it, a grim feeling deep in his mind, touching his soul. They really had to hurry. The lines of force were dipping around the edge of the pit, he thought.
A well had packed and solid walls in general. A cave-in took your water away, so you made sure that didn't happen if you were smart. You put in supports or lined with stone. Probably doubly so in a dry area like this. A cave-in to a cesspit just broadened the mouth and covered the waste for you. No one reinforced them particularly. Worse, as they dried over the years they became fragile and could collapse under their own weight. That was probably what had happened here. The brown earth above hadn't been covered, no boards or planks for safety, so the hole the boy was in probably hadn't been dug at all. It had just been filled a long time before and forgotten about, until the kid fell in and started crying for help.
One of the sturdy men, an older guy in a light tan canvas workman's outfit, came over and tied his foot off, almost taking out the circulation.
“Boy,” he whispered, close enough that Tor could feel the moisture of his breath on his right cheek. “Any looser and it won't support what I think you're going to try, but hurry. More than ten, fifteen minutes, and you risk losing the foot.”
Tor nodded that he understood, realizing that to most of these people it probably looked like they were sending one mostly naked little boy in after the other. Close enough. He looked around and found that all the guard actually had flying rigs. He saw the captain and waved him over.
“Your best man? The steadiest I mean… The… the one that will follow my orders for this? Even if it seems ridiculous listening to someone like me?” It was a lot to ask of a grown man, following his orders, but Tor knew they didn't have a lot of time for arguments either. It was why he couldn't ask one of his friends to do it. That and the fact that the whole thing could go incredibly wrong. If he died, Tor didn't want any of them to carry that with them, did he? At least some stranger wouldn't feel like they lost a friend.
The fellow in charge looked around and waved a man who looked to be near fifty over and just pointed at Tor, not explaining anything. Good. This must be the right man if that was all the information he needed.
“OK. The floats on the bottom of the trunk will do the lifting. Tap them with your hand piece before you take off, they'll follow you. When you're in the air give me slack until I tie the boy off. Then take it up slowly as I try to get him out. If it collapses… well, I'm going to get a shield on him and me, so if that happens try to pull us up as hard as possible as soon as you notice it. If it does go… just pull. I, uh, may scream if you do… That doesn't mean stop. Got it?” He didn't want to sound weak, but if he started squealing like a baby the man had to know what to do.
“Got it.” The man sounded confident at least. His weathered face and hard eyes under the white and black hair was reassuring.
Tor found himself dangling within half a minute, carrying a coil of rope in his right hand. He was lowered carefully, but quickly enough. The hole didn't smell like much, thank god, the dried human waste like dust, mainly. It was gross when it got in his mouth. It only tasted like dirt but he tried to ignore it, knowing what it really was and crawled as best he could into the hole the boy had fallen down. It took a long time, it felt like, several minutes passing, his foot going cold and then numb as he struggled to fit. Even his shoulders were too big for the second turn, one that took the boy down about another five feet. He made them fit anyway, a tiny inch at a time, skin ripping as he forced his way down, gasping shallowly, not able to take a full breath because of the pressure on his chest.
Great, the walls weren't strong enough to hold, but they could strip him bare of skin? How the heck did that work? Hardly fair. He would have yelled that at the walls, but didn't have enough air for it. The old waste stung when it touched blood and flesh, almost like salt in a wound.
The boy really wasn't too far down, about ten feet, but around a bend that hid him from view from the top. Tor lowered the rope and started working it around the boy's middle, under his arms. It didn't take long and there were, thankfully, no problems.
When the kid was tied off, he started crying, loud.
“It's alright, I've got you. No problem…. Here,” he slipped one of the two shields he had on over his head and worked it on to the boy, then activated it for him. The walls around the small boy pushed away a bit. It was the part of the new design to keep the wearer from being strangled too easily.
He called out then, for the man up top to start taking up slack. He scrambled back as well as he could, both of them inching up, his foot aching at the ankle from the rope.
Just as they started back around the first corner, he saw her.
A girl, tiny, maybe three or four, about two feet further down than the boy had been. Just as he noticed her the rope dragging up the uneven tunnel started a collapse and the line pulled harder in response.
“No, wait!” He called out. It sounded pained, because it hurt, but that wasn't why he was screaming. The girl! She'd be buried in a few seconds.
He pulled off his shield amulet and threw it down the hole, praying it hit. Praying that the field would cover her and not just bounce off. He hadn't built it for this, but didn't have anything else. The girl screamed at first, then her voice went almost silent and he and the boy were surrounded by darkness, in desperation he tried to do what he'd seen Rolph do. Generate a field, an organized sense of movement, of interlocking connectedness, between himself and the tiny child. Old shit rammed into his mouth and flesh tore and stretched at his ankle, in a screaming instant something there snapped. He almost passed out, but he couldn't. He couldn't let go.
There wasn't time for it.
Suddenly light surrounded him and the man above started to lower them to the ground.
“Go higher!” He screamed. If the man lifted them into the air, maybe he could use the connection to the girl to get her free. It came out as a weak gasp as the man settled them to the ground. Others came and surrounded them, pulling them both away from the imploding edge of the pit.
No.
It was not going to happen this way.
Tor extended his right hand and remembered the field he'd made at the beach, moving water from one place to another. He built one now, similar, but for something heavier. Dirt. It would have to be stronger. Much so. Dirt didn't flow well.
And it would have to be now. It wasn't possible of course, not for someone like him, but there was no choice. Not if the girl was going to live.
He firmed his voice as much as he could.
“Move.” His voice was flat, all emotion gone. Anger coursed through him, surrounded him in an instant. Rage. It was odd, being so angry at dirt, at the unfairness of it all, but it was what he felt, stupid or not. He said the word again, gasping softly, trying to yell.
“Move.”
No one did until Rolph screamed at them to run. It wasn't the most manly sound to ever come out of the large Prince's mouth, but people scrambled away fast, which was all that really mattered to Tor.
Then a fountain of earth moved, crashing through the air, a cloud of dust and things best left buried where they were, came up like a water fountain and finally, clutching a shiny piece of metal in a chubby little fist, the girl. She rolled end over end through the air for a second, crying. Then she connected with the ground and held in place as if stuck with glue or nailed down.
She was sobbing, a high pitched squeal.
Thank god.
That meant she was alive.
He dropped the field that he could barely hold and rolled over, gasping for breath. Tor couldn't breathe, fire ran through his left leg, and muddy blood dripped down his arms and chest. But he could hear crying.
The boy joined the girl in his sobs. Tor closed his eyes and smiled. For the first time in his life, other than at the birth of a child, it was a joyous sound. He nodded to himself, feeling a bit of moisture in his own eyes. Probably just trying to get the grit out.
Yeah, he really did probably have something in his eyes. The laugh that came out didn't make a sound, his lungs burned too much for that and he couldn't breathe through his nose at all, clogged with shit. He could pretend it was dirt, that was fine, right? He just lay there, crying and sobbing like a baby, but not because he felt sad. It must have been a hilarious picture to all the brawny workmen standing around, and the tough as nails guardsmen too.
He didn't care.
Tor didn't even care that he'd been left naked and bare on the ground, pink and bawling.
The world went black then. He wondered if he'd still be crying when he woke back up?