Knight Esquire ya-2 Read online

  It seemed to take forever, but he managed to sit up, and immediately wished he hadn’t even tried. Now he threw up, or at least his body went through the motions. Nothing came out, which was almost worse than if something had. He signaled for a pencil and paper, but no one understood what he meant. He pantomimed the action of writing again. Finally, frustrated, he slowly climbed from bed and slumped to the hard chair across the room.

  Tor took up his old note pad and wrote carefully, his hand shaking so much it was barely legible.

  Where is everyone?

  Had they all abandoned him when the King and Connie decided he didn’t belong at palace functions? Or… Tor had nothing after that. A wave of sadness came over him then, so deep that he couldn’t believe that it was possible to feel that low. He was really alone here, wasn’t he? He knew he wasn’t loved by anyone, but he’d thought his friends were, well, his friends.

  Kolb went to the door and called out softly, which Tor appreciated. His head felt like the inside of a kettle drum. Not that he knew what that really felt like, but if he imagined it, that feeling would be… this. Hollow, thumping and ringing. Not fun at all.

  After only a few seconds Rolph, Trice and Sara all came in, each had their head hanging down like they were guilty of something. They might have been, but Tor doubted it. It was one thing to decide not to be someone’s best buddy, another to try and kill them. No one here had any reason for that at all. Not that he knew of anyway.

  Rolph asked for the room, and even though he had an uneasy look on his face, the Dean left. Kolb followed, but stopped at the door.

  “I expect my Squire to be alive when I return.” He didn’t say anything else, but the tone conveyed weight. A promise to back the words up if needed. Possibly with violence.

  Rolph just nodded as if it was serious.

  No one spoke for a time, but both Sara and Trice cried. Finally Tor wrote something for them.

  ‘You know, if your parents didn’t want us to get married, they could have just sent a note!’

  Trice burst out into loud sobs.

  Chapter six

  Tor didn’t want to be mean, but the crying was starting to get on his nerves. It either was the case that the Morgans, or at least one of them, had poisoned him, or, and he tried to be very clear when he wrote this last bit out, someone else wanted him to think that. It was actually far more likely to be the second one he pointed out while Trice cried. That or her parents were morons that wanted to be caught.

  How likely was that?

  Not very.

  Tor had talked to both of them at length and not only had they seemed like good people, they seemed intelligent to him. Even if they were secretly evil poisoners, that would have taken a lot of acting talent to pull off, and they would have had to know to set the ground work by trying way back then. That turned out to be too hard to convey with his nearly illegible handwriting at the moment. Darned shaky hands. The tremors seemed worse now than they had been when he’d started writing as if all the stress was making it even harder. Of course, for some reason as he wrote and the shaking got worse Trice cried harder and Sara started in too.

  At least the tall blond did it quietly.

  Across the room Rolph prowled, looking alternately angry and guilty, finally, Tor wrote down one word on the note pad, then underlined it and held it out for his tall friend to read.

  What?

  Sara and Patricia didn’t get it, but Rolph certainly did. They’d just known each other too well for too long for him not to. The Prince sighed and sat down with a thump on his own bed, which got the girls attention, even if it wasn’t enough to stop the crying.

  “Well… both my parents have sworn to me that they weren’t behind this in any way, and that they’ll lay down their own lives to catch whoever did this to you. Even if it was the Morgans…” This pronouncement got a panicked wail from the normally emotionally solid girl. “However… They could both be lying about it. I mean, you were snubbed at the palace gates not once, but twice. That doesn’t happen by accident, at least not that I’ve ever heard. Sure, mom cried about it for days and even locked herself in her room over it, but dad just got kind of flat like he does. It’s the same if he’s angry, sad… I don’t know what all, because it’s just so expressionless, right? I thought he was upset about it at the time, but what… what if he was just mad at Tor?”

  That got everyone’s attention and except for the occasional sob, much lighter than before, everyone focused on Rolph. Maddeningly the Prince didn’t say anything else. He scribbled at first, then realized that he couldn’t make out the words he’d just written, so Tor started over and tried for clarity. It still looked like a seven year old had written it.

  ‘Why would he be mad at me?’

  It seemed a trifle excessive if it was all about him calling the King “Rich”, wasn’t it? Oh, sure, having him turned away from the palace, that would be fair enough. If someone ticked you off regularly, there was no reason you had to invite them into your home. Or invite them to your birthday party. But having him killed? Plus, would the King’s assassins have failed? The idea didn’t add up right. If the guy didn’t like how Tor spoke to him, he could just order him to fix it, right? Or even just suggested it in passing.

  His tall red-haired friend raised his eyebrows as if Tor was being purposefully dense.

  If he was, it wasn’t on purpose. He held his hands up and shrugged, asking for an explanation. It was still shaky, but easier than writing it all out.

  “Well, let’s see, sleeping with his wife, and her being far less than subtle about it in public? He really shouldn’t blame you, since you were always trying to play it right, but mom, well, let’s just say she could have done a better job of being discrete. It wouldn’t be a huge issue normally, he’s not the jealous type, but clearly you have a larger impact on mom than most of her “friends” do.”

  No one else in the room looked at him, which meant he had to wave the pad around to get their attention when he finished writing.

  What? Never slept with Queen! Who said?

  Sara looked at the note and then him. Then frowned, and did both again.

  “Everyone is saying it Tor. It’s all over the Capital. I even heard it from my own mother, who normally doesn’t like to gossip, but felt I should know, in case it impacted business with you. We’ve kind of tied our horse to your pack train, so mom’s working to keep tabs on you, probably a lot more closely than you think.” She took a deep breath and continued, soldiering on, or so it felt to Tor.

  “It could have been you seeing Collette Coltress too. You were good enough about it that no one knew, until you were both turned away from the gate like that. The Queen might have felt slighted that you were seeing someone younger and even prettier than she is.”

  It felt like it took forever before he got the message written, it took a page and a half of the notebook, because he had to write big in order for the words to make sense. He explained that Collette was going just as a friend, mainly so that her half sister, Maria Ward, wouldn’t make fun of her for not being invited. Maria’s name got underlined several times.

  The bitch probably had fun with the whole being turned away at the gate thing, Tor bet. It was part of why he’d given all that stuff to Collette, as poor as his little trinkets were, he felt like something had to be done to boost up her spirits if an onslaught was coming from that quarter.

  He drank more water, checking it for poison first. His friends all looked at him, a little hurt, but he shook his head. From now on, anything that he ate or drank got checked out. Period. It just looked too stupid, him being laid up from having been poisoned like that. He wrote that all out for them, which got a tired laugh from all three.

  On the third day he got out of bed and went to class in the morning, not waiting for permission. He felt sick still, weak and shaky, but lying in bed wasn’t helping him anymore, it didn’t seem. His voice was cracked, sounded broken and strained, but that could be lived with. No on
e really wanted to listen to him anyway, did they? In the afternoon he couldn’t go to weapons practice or exercise on his own, so he sat in his room making copies instead. He tried for six hours of copy work but had to stop at five. His control just failed after that. Basically, he just couldn’t pay attention any more.

  Thoughts of who might have come after him plagued his mind day and night. He had dreams of Rolph strangling him in his bed, only to wake up and find his friend soundly sleeping. Other dreams about the Morgans coming in and stabbing him or once Davie Derring just hacking him apart in practice. It was hard for him to focus, but he made a point of doing it anyway. Six hours a day until he could do it without needing a break. Tor tried to look at it like exercise. Slack off and you lost what you had.

  It took almost two weeks for people to start showing up to “visit” him. His mother and father made sense; they were just worried about him. He didn’t mention that the juice that had been tainted was a gift from the Morgans. If there was something to it, then it would be hard enough for his mother to handle later, when it had been proven. If there wasn’t, then making a big issue of it would just color their friendship in a negative way. They’d all just gotten that back and it felt wrong to damage it now.

  A lot of the others made much less sense.

  Dorgal Sorvee came and knocked on his door one evening, which got Rolph to let him in, along with his friend Marco. Rolph stood by warily, ready to intervene if need be. To fight. Dorgal and Marco didn’t get it, but Tor did. His giant friend had a force lance clutched in his right hand ready to go at a moment’s notice. One of Tor’s too, so that it could stay hidden, since they were smaller than average. Neither man had a shield on that Tor could sense, so if they attacked it would probably be about the last thing they did. He remembered how Wensa had gone through the wall, which had been repaired really fast, now that he thought about it. Almost scary fast to tell the truth. Benefits of having the Prince sharing his room? Probably.

  Dorgal managed to sound almost like a real person when he spoke, rather than someone planning to take advantage of Tor’s weakness.

  “My father wanted me to check on you and see if your unhappy working with Debri House yet. I mean, they could at least pay you something, after all, you’ve pretty much handed them the military as nearly sole provider for shields, and given them total control of the flight market. All of that is your work and no one else has even managed a knock off of either one yet, meaning you have total domination of those fields. But what have they given you so far? Your own mansion in the Capital? Large tracks of land along the ocean?” He smiled. The speech sounded practiced and like he hadn’t written the words himself at all. For one thing, Dorgal never called him a moron for letting Debri fleece him, or referred to Tor as “little baker boy”. Big signs right there.

  “No? What’s that you say? They haven’t given you anything but a few supplies to work with? Sorvee house may not be able to give you as much per unit, but we’ll actually pay what we owe and won’t over reach capacity. Yes, Debri is a reputable house and will eventually give you what they promise; no one doubts that, still-”

  Tor staggered to his feet, making the room go silent, and walked to the chest at the foot of his bed. He pulled out the template for the earth moving field. He didn’t need it anymore he’d found, after making a few hundred of the devices already. Tor explained, softly, what it was and how it worked.

  Then he handed the template over to the jerk in front of him. Yes, he was a bully, but still, his family didn’t deserve to go downhill because of Tor, did they?

  “Ten percent recopy fee to me. Charge what you want, make how many you want, give them away if it suits you, but don’t cheat me. If you do, I won’t do business with you anymore. If you act fairly, then we’ll see. I have a few more things ready to go right now that no one holds even a verbal contract on. Goodbye.”

  He didn’t let the men say any more or ask questions, Rolph, laughing, kicked them out of the room with big waves of his hands. After they left the Prince didn’t let his gaze waiver at all from the door.

  “That was… odd. My understanding was that you didn’t trust or like him at all. He’s kind of earned your dislike over the years you know.”

  Tor nodded thoughtfully, “Yeah, but consider this enough rope for him and his family to hang themselves if they prove that they’re as bad as I think they are. If they deal fairly, I gain from it, and maybe make new friends. If they don’t, I learn from it and take back the template. Works either way. Besides, this way I could kick him out of our room without seeming too mean. “Here, take a present and get the hell out” just doesn’t sound nearly as evil as all that, does it?”

  Rolph didn’t even laugh at the idea.

  “That’s the noble tradition.” He said, eyeing Tor with something approaching respect.

  The next set of visitors was nicer, even if Tor didn’t understand why exactly they came. It was Karen, along with Davie, and Petra the combat giant. For a second Tor wondered if they were planning on beating him for missing class with them, but they all started hugging him instead. Even Davie gave him a hug, oddly enough. Petra even sat on his bed with him for a while and kept patting him on the arm and back, looking concerned. This got a small smile from Davie, and earned the boy a covert elbow from his sister, but really, Tor didn’t mind it. Petra was good sized and strong from all the weapons work, but kind of good looking anyway. She had a really nice, straight nose and pretty brown eyes to go with her short dark brown hair and silky looking dark tan skin. Her look was kind of like Ellen Wards he decided. Or Count Wards. But then no one in the world had ever denied the guy was good looking, and it worked for Petra too.

  She made a point of being the last one out the door about twenty minutes later, and turned quickly to give him another hug before she left, which was really sweet of her at least. It seemed like she really wanted him back to weapons practice soon from what she said. The other targets must not be challenging enough, Tor thought, very nearly breaking out in a grin. Before she left he reached out suddenly and touched her arm. The others had left already, so they were alone, though the door was still open a crack, so no one would think he was trying to take advantage of her, Tor didn’t think.

  Like he could make her do anything she didn’t want too right now? He almost laughed again. Ever. He couldn’t have taken advantage of her ever. He knew for a fact she could break him in half with one hand. Actually she’d almost done that to him once if he remembered correctly. By accident. In practice. His spine twinged a little at the thought.

  “Oh! Um, do you have your own flying gear and shield yet?” He asked gently, voice rasping and grating through his throat.

  “Huh? Oh, no… those are hard to get and even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t be able too, money’s a little tight at home since my dad died.” She shrugged a little, but didn’t look away from him. “My brother’s wife kind of hates me and my mom, so she’s gotten my brother to nearly cut us off. Mom has to scrimp just to hold my place here. I mean, she never complains about it, but it’s been hard. It was better when dad was alive.” The last words were just a little sad. Not pure grief, but enough that Tor could tell she missed the man.

  “Sorry to hear about that. My condolences. Um, you know, if you ever need to talk about it, I’m here, OK?” Tor looked down for a moment and just prayed he’d said the right thing, he never knew what to say when people died, but his mom had always told the kids that almost anything, no matter how awkward sounding, was better than saying nothing. He shuffled over to the chest and pulled out some amulets and plates for her.

  “Here, flying rig, shield, temperature control amulet and, um, some lights for your room? If you want or need anything else, just come and knock on the door, yeah? I’ve got loads of everything now. Too much actually.” Blinking he stopped and pulled a water heater for her. If she was having to scrape by, she might not have funds to go to the bathhouse in town. Tor hadn’t put any of the devices in the girls’ bat
hs, for obvious reasons.

  Duh.

  He handed her ten of them.

  “Could you, would you I mean, set these up in the girls section?” He looked down then, hoping it wasn’t too much to expect of her. She was always nice though, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem?

  This, unexpectedly, earned him a kiss, one that probably would have made even Rolph blush if he’d been there to see it. Well. Apparently it was worth it, giving this tall girl stuff. He’d have to keep that in mind for when Trice dumped him. He had a lot to give away after all. She left shortly after that, but kissed him several more times first.

  Definitely worth it.

  Two days later, his voice finally starting to work almost normally again, a knock came at the door, a sound he was starting to dread more than a little. Not that anything bad had happened so far, but people kept coming and having difficult conversations with him. Wanting to know how he felt about almost dying and things like that.

  It was annoying.

  This one he quickly realized probably wouldn’t be any better, since Trice stood in front of the door with her parents, all of them looking nervous as hell. Tor couldn’t blame them really. He gave Trice a hug and then Mercy, who flinched like he was going to strangle her or something, as if she couldn’t snap him like a twig. Eric got a hearty handshake, or what Tor could manage towards that as best he could at the moment.

  “Hey!” Voice rasping and popping, not as bad by half as it had been, but still sounding like he’d taken up broken glass gargling as a hobby. “Come in. Not a lot of places to sit…”

  They settled uneasily, looking at each other and then the bed as if it might be booby trapped. That… He stopped for a second and thought.

  Yeah, it wouldn’t be easy, but he could do that. Set a trap that wouldn’t go off until a single, or in this case two, targets got in range. That he wouldn’t, not just because they might have had something to do with someone trying to poison him at least, hopefully would be enough for them. Eventually.