The Builder tya-1 Page 22

  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. Rolp
h 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.