Knight Esquire ya-2 Read online

  “So, has anything gone forward with the County Ford relief effort?” Tor knew he was casting around for a topic other than “hey, did you have me poisoned by chance?” but the fact that they’d show up was a good enough sign that they hadn’t. As good a one as he was going to get. It wasn’t like they’d admit to doing it if they had, right?

  The relief effort had gone forward, in fact they’d even expanded the project, offering the loan of food driers and shipping in return for half the difference in what would have been lost otherwise. The same deal Tor had made with them. That left the accounting to the honesty of the farmer or his lord, of course, but so far the returns were pretty good. If anything, Eric told him gently, people were erring on the side of giving too much, not less.

  “They know that it’s not greed on our part, but a humanitarian effort, I think. Given they still gain from it, most want to do what they can to help.”

  It had to be scheduled carefully, because there was a limited number of food driers, and they were using half their shipping containers to turn a profit at any one time, ferrying goods cross the kingdom, but it was coming together well enough that Count Ford was nearly certain that no one would starve when winter came.

  Slowly, like an old man, Tor got up and opened his trunk. Buried under the clothing he had about fifty more of the food driers, which he matched with cargo hauling plates, shields and flying rigs. It came to just slightly less than that number for each, because he saved a few back for use specifically in Two Bends. The farmers in that area could use them to preserve a few more things than they’d manage otherwise. Plus, a few of the neighbor kids had apparently expressed interest in working for Two Bends delivery, but needed the gear for it. Why not? It cost him only a tiny bit and would help out his old friends. If need be he’d make rigs for the whole town. Oddly, not everyone wanted to try flying though.

  Mercy started crying.

  Not little tears or just quiet sobs, but big wracking things that, almost unbelievably, put Trice to shame. The girl looked to be tearing up herself, so Tor tried to head that off.

  “Well, I see which side of the family you got that crying from. Oh… wait.” He pulled out a set of ten lights that he’d made and turned one of them on. It matched the one that Rolph had hung on the wall. It made a glow that wasn’t as bright as sunlight, about half that really, which still almost blinded you if you looked at it for too long. There was a nimbus of light around the device that made an aura up to about a foot away. Holding up a finger he showed them how, by tapping the difference sigils on it, they could control how bright the light was. It was new, he told them, but not all that difficult to make.

  “But…” Mercy sobbed loudly, a hiccup in the middle of the word. “Don’t you think we tried to kill you?”

  Did he? Tor shook his head slowly.

  “Not really. Why would you? To get your daughter out of an unsuitable marriage? If that’s all you wanted you’d send a go between or just come and tell me “no thank you” yourselves, not send a barrel of tasty poison. It really was good by the way, until the horrible pain part, then it kind of sucked. Anyway, back to the question. Honestly? I don’t know. How could I? I can’t see a good reason for it, but then I can’t ever see a reason for that kind of thing, so maybe I’m just too stupid to get it? As for this,” he gestured at the pile of stuff in front of him. “Either you’re perfectly innocent and someone wants me to think you’re guilty, which this should thwart pretty well, showing I won’t be swayed that easily, or you’re secretly criminal masterminds, in which case, please consider this a bribe towards my continuing survival. I’ll send more if you want. Really. Much more profitable by far to keep me alive. Yep. Definitely worth doing. I’ll kiss you all too, if that will help?” He’d liked it well enough when Petra had done it.

  He smiled at them, chin coming up in a nod that was almost a tick, but wondered if the smile reached his eyes. It didn’t feel like it, but then he was only partly kidding.

  “For that matter if you see them, please tell the King and Queen that whatever I’ve done to anger them, if anything, I’m sorry and won’t bother them anymore. Honest.”

  They solemnly said that they’d see the message delivered if they could. It seemed that they didn’t think their own reception in the Capital would be all that warm either. Well, Tor told them, at least if they got turned away from the palace they had their own place to go to there. Stopping them before they left, he asked if they could deliver something for them, if they were going that way anyway.

  “These lights are for Debbie, who runs the bakery by the south wall near the Cartwright. Please tell her that I’m sorry for leaving half way through the festival like that. Thanks. Oh… um, if you’re willing to play delivery people for me?” Tor gave then a nervous smile, but the Morgans both nodded a bit, looking nervous.

  Tor made up a large sack of devices for Debbie on a whim. It got rid of some of the things and cleared space up, so why not? Hopefully she’d be able to give it away or something. It was a lot more than she needed just for herself. Maybe she could sell some of it? If nothing else it was on copper and that had some value.

  Trice gave him a little hug on the way out.

  It wasn’t lost on him that she’d almost stopped touching him since everything had happened. Probably getting ready to cut ties, but not wanting to do it while the whole poisoning thing hung over her family’s heads like it did. That plus the fact that he still looked like crud. His face, not normally meaty anyway, looked even thinner and more pale than he’d ever been before. If this kept up he’d end up a walking skeleton. Not that it mattered overly. It wasn’t like his looks had ever gotten him women before.

  He did manage to finally get back to work and make a new, decently complex, device that didn’t have any use he could think of, but that still got him a good mark in his novel build class. He needed to get back to working on useful things though. A device like the one he just made, that did nothing but listen to a sound and then regenerate it when the plate was activated properly, probably wouldn’t have any purpose at all. It was a fun toy, allowing people to talk and then repeat things perfectly later, but that wouldn’t help a real person, would it?

  After lunch, about three weeks later, he decided that it was time to at least make a showing at the weapons practice sessions, even if he wasn’t up to working yet. The truth was that he’d run out of copper for templates a few days before and couldn’t make copies of anything. That had been about his only recreation for a while, so he really missed having something useful to do when it suddenly ended. Plus, the room was filled with enough devices at the moment that he could very possibly open up his own little store if he wanted.

  Sara had laughed at him when he mentioned that.

  “You’re kidding right? You have more inventory than most device shops in the entire kingdom here. Plus it’s all Tor stuff, so you know its quality. All you need is a shop front…” Her look went calculating, but she’d stopped talking. So if she had an idea, Tor didn’t know about it. It was an idea though, if he got stuck for money, he could always open his own little shop and sell his junk to unsuspecting people.

  That’s what he was thinking about when he walked into the training square. No one was retuleing, instead they were all trying to shift around a half dozen stone squares that must have weighed about five tons each, easy. Kolb saw him and smiled, waving him over.

  “Tor! Just the man I need. We’re finally paving the upper right corner here, but we have to get these stones cut into one inch thick slabs. Apparently thanks to your new cargo plates, it was cheaper to ship these uncut, but right now, we can’t move them, and none of our cutters have a long enough sweep to do the job, miss by about a foot and a double cut never works with those things. If you’re off at all the stones come out uneven or break. I’m going to go to the Dean and complain about this right now, but we still have to do something about it. Can you take care of it? Don’t just build a cutter, and definitely don’t try to move t
he stones yourself! I don’t have to be a doctor to see you’re still not a hundred percent.”

  Cut the stones without a cutter? Could he do that?

  It was, he knew, technically possible. Tor had even generated a few fields that were strong enough to do things on occasion, on the fly so to speak, unanchored things. They’d fade though and this was a lot of cuts if he had to build a new field for it each time…

  Well, that was the assignment, so he’d try at least. Kolb wouldn’t set him the task if it wasn’t part of training, even if it did seem unlikely. The man was hard, but he’d gotten Tor to come up with those shields, and the flying stuff, hadn’t he? So far Kolb was right about what he could do if he really tried, no matter how insane what he asked had sounded. Sighing Tor nodded.

  “Alright. I can do it.”

  That got a slap on the shoulder before Kolb stalked off.

  Someone had already set up a cutting guide, just two boards about an inch thick that normally you’d run a cutter down with it activated, so all the slices would be straight and true. Cool. Now all he had to do was get it in place, and get a few of the giant weapons brutes to grab the stones when they came off, so that they wouldn’t fall each time. That part was the most difficult for him, which Kolb undoubtedly knew. It was probably why he’d been told to do it that way instead of just using floats from his room.

  “Um, excuse me please?” Tor looked around as about half the people stared at him.

  “Kolb ask me to see to these stones, but I’m not allowed to use a cutter, or move them myself. So if I get these into slabs, can you all help get them into place?”

  No one said anything, but Karen walked over grinning and patted him on the back and Petra smiled at him gently. Right, he’d been out for a while and had been spotty before that. Tor was just glad they hadn’t decided that a sound thrashing was in order to help him remember to come. Yet at least. They were probably waiting for him to recover a little more. Well, that was polite of them. Also it gave him time to come up with a way to avoid the punishment.

  It took a lot more concentration than he was used to using in order to get the first field up. He could feel it but it was tentative and weak. He went slow and made sure that the cut was as perfect as he could manage. It wasn’t good enough, the cut didn’t show, if it had happened at all and the stone stayed intact.

  Alright.

  He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and made another one, not starting the cut until the field was strong enough this time, so it took a full minute before he could even move and four more before he started the cut. This time the slab came free.

  He didn’t want to let the field go, but had to, in order to not accidentally hack anyone’s limbs off as he repositioned the cutting guide and his hand. That, he knew, wouldn’t make anyone happy. For one thing it would make a mess. He let the field go and stepped back while one of the smaller giants reset the cutting guide for him, which was handy. Then he did it again, and again. It took nearly three hours to get all the slabs cut and down on the ground, longer than it should have, because as he got tired near the end his concentration flagged a bit, making a few of the cuts not work right. They lost two slabs that way, breaking off near the bottom, still attached in a narrow strip as the cutting field failed, but they didn’t need them all for the space, so maybe it would be all right.

  They were cut stone though. He hadn’t used a cutter, but he may as well have as far as how polished and slick the pieces all looked. They’d need to make them rougher unless being slick was part of the point, to make them harder to stand on when fighting? No one knew, so they just waited for Kolb to come back. Karen got to him first and asked, but that didn’t deter Kolb from walking directly over to Tor first.

  “I thought I said not to just build a cutter for it. I have to admit it looks good, but…” Large bald head tilting to the right, Kolb stared at him. Hard and a little angrily.

  Karen came to his rescue. Smiling proudly even.

  “All direct effect, no cutter involved at all. It was kind of neat really. There must be what, three people in the kingdom that could manage that? He wasn’t even in combat rage or anything. That could be dead handy in a fight, once he practices up with it a bit. So far it was a little slow… But do we rough it up or leave it smooth?”

  Rough it up was the answer. Tor was half way through the design of a complicated device that would make small and irregular pits in the surface of the material when one of the guys he didn’t know grabbed a few handfuls of sand and started scuffing it around with his boots. It didn’t make deep marks, but the lines were enough. Chuckling at how simple the solution had been, Tor grabbed a handful of sand and started on his own square.

  Not everything needed magic after all.

  The practice square looked sharp by the time Tor felt tired enough to leave, dragging just a little from the light work of scuffing his feet like that. It was really kind of pitiful. Worse, he knew for a fact that both Kolb and Karen noticed. They didn’t say anything about it at least. He’d have to start running again soon, he decided.

  Or maybe walking? Slowly?

  Yeah, that sounded a lot more reasonable.

  The next set of visitors he got kind of surprised him, because he wouldn’t have expected them to come and visit him in a million years. They arrived with a full retinue and headed straight to the headmasters offices. Tor learned all this when he was summoned and Rolph had to take him over, because Tor didn’t know where that actually was.

  Karina and Varley sat in well padded chairs waiting for him.

  “Tor!” Varley jumped up and nearly tackled him with a hug. The move made him stagger more than a little bit because the girl outweighed him now. Not by a lot, but with her growth and his weight loss, they seemed to have traded places. Sigh. Now everyone he knew away from home was bigger than he was. She had her hair up in the back and looked older suddenly, a lot like her mom.

  “Varley, Karina. How are you two doing and most importantly, what are you doing here? Come to visit your brother? He’s just outside…”

  Karina spoke first, standing far more regally; she walked to Tor and bowed.

  “Don’t be silly. We’re here to invite you to the palace. Here,” she held out and envelope to him that he’d missed in his bafflement at seeing not one, but two Princesses in the room upon entering. “This is an invitation for you, and a guest, to the royal dinner party next Tuesday evening. Please come at seven. Father and mother will also be at the main gate personally to make sure that nothing goes wrong.”

  She looked cute in the silk and leather flying clothes she wore, the blouse was a rich purple. Varley wore an identical outfit, which made the whole scene even more interesting, though he didn’t mention it. Cute identically dressed Princesses could easily spark a fantasy that would force Rolph to thrash him if he wasn’t careful. If his friend found out about it at least. Tor wasn’t sure if Connie could read minds, and Varley had her moments of insight, but Rolph never seemed to do anything like that at all, so maybe Tor could survive having such thoughts.

  Varley chimed in then. “It isn’t a summons, just an invitation. Given everything I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to skip it, but I do know that no one has really figured out what happened, and trust me, no one wants to alienate you at all. I mean no one too. Half the palace staff threatened to quit after the birthday party incident you know and only a solemn promise that this would be handled efficiently and quickly has gotten them to stay.”

  The younger girl hugged him again, and then again as they all walked to the door.

  “We’re just delivering messages this week. Dad has us flying all over the kingdom. Still, we’re getting massive flying practice in, aren’t we? Please come? It’ll be nice having someone there that I can actually talk too. Please?” She attempted a Karina worthy wheedle, but he stuck his tongue out at her, getting a laugh from the Dean and at least one of the Royal Guard, dressed almost identically to the girls. Ah, camouflage. It should
work too. From a distance they’d all look about alike, especially if everyone had their hair up under a flying cap. He didn’t own one, but they were all the rage in some circles he’d heard. Those circles being amongst people with money to waste on funny looking leather caps made to size for the wearer.

  “Honestly? I don’t know. I’m a little tired still and wondering around the city looking for a place to stay all night might be a bit much for me right now, you know? It would be nice to see everyone, if they want to see me, that is. I’m just not really certain they do…” Tor relented a little and told her that he’d think about it, because she’d asked so nicely.

  The idea of trying to walk around the Capital all night right now really did kind of seem like too much. But still, maybe in a week? Five days. He had to count them out but… It was so hard to know.

  Torrance collected more hugs on the way out, which was more than he’d gotten altogether since he’d been not let in the palace the first time. Huh. Well, if they let him in at all, it would be a big deal. He wasn’t going to go without another place to stay first, and some coin this time. If they did leave him stuck he’d be able to get some food and maybe pay for a place to stay. That, he guessed, would be the big thing then. Could he get enough money in time?

  Probably not.

  Later that night he asked Rolph about what things cost there and, lifelong resident that he was, he had almost no clue. How would he know the price of an inn when he lived at the palace? His suggestion was that they go find Sara and ask. Not so much because she’d know either, but because she might know who would, merchants had friends that traveled and that meant they might stay at an inn and would need recommendations as to which ones to frequent. It neared dinner time, and while the girls weren’t going to be eating in their dining hall, Rolph did know what restaurant in town they liked.

  That the little town had eating establishments Tor knew. What they were like inside? Not a clue. Going in had always been a bit of a bad idea for him. Oh, it would have been possible for him to do it when Rolph paid him for the clothes driers for the Queen, but since then he’d spent most of his money on materials to make stuff.