Knight Esquire ya-2 Page 23

  Well, as long as they didn’t burn the pies, it would be all right. They’d even be fine without icing if it came to that. Not as good, but some people liked them a little less sweet. Even Debbie made both for her shop. The iced ones sold two to one over the others though.

  Burks didn’t pull him all the way back to a real room, instead he found a small space that was about five foot square inside in a small corridor next to the kitchen. Without hesitating the good looking black haired man made him strip and change right there.

  Well, the guy had already seen him naked, so no big thing, right? Embarrassing, but…

  Apparently it was an issue.

  “You’ve lost weight. A lot of it. I’d suggest that you eat more… sir, if that can be worked into your schedule?” Burks sounded a little sour about it, as if Tor had done it on purpose or out of pure neglect for his own health. It was half true, but still…

  Tor snorted out loud, making his face as wry as possible, a little half grin and raised eyebrows.

  “I’ll work on it, but between work and getting poisoned like I was, it’s been hard. Still, as far as I know, from now on I have nothing but time.”

  “I’d not heard you were poisoned sir. Has the… culprit been apprehended yet?” The voice that had been a little disproving, and maybe playful, was suddenly deadly serious and sounded cold, as if the man intended to see justice done himself if need be.

  “Nope. Sucks too. I mean, two months ago I didn’t think that anyone in the world would more than dislike me a little, maybe call me names, now I keep having to look at everyone like they plan to kill me. I’ll let you know as soon as something breaks, if anything does. You can help me bring them to justice.” Tor had tried for playful, but it sounded odd and serious when it came out. It was how his voice resonated still, he decided, with the slight rasping and popping.

  “Very good sir. I shall stand ready to assist in any capacity needed.” The man sounded so sincere that Tor just nodded. Every time he turned around here the man was doing something to impress him, apparently without even trying. Tor felt himself almost tear up for a moment. It was humbling to see someone so good at their job. Probably why he worked at the palace. Cream of the entire kingdom for sure.

  The clothes that had been brought were a little too loose, a fact which Burks cleverly hid by making them even looser, rather than trying to tighten anything. Tor got a nod at least, and if it wasn’t approving as to his looks, at least the servant didn’t tell him to play sick and not go to the dinner at all.

  In fact the man kind of pushed him out of the little room a few moments after the last lace was tied, and everything double checked rapidly. While he’d been busy in the kitchen, people had been arriving and mingling it seemed. Well, he’d feel bad about missing all that, but… no.

  He just couldn’t be bothered to.

  Tor had to turn the shield off to eat, but made sure that he had a poison detector to hand, a real one that wouldn’t make anything blow up. He had that one too, and his flight gear on him ready to go if he needed it. All of this Tor kept hidden, wearing it all on cords around his neck.

  This time he found himself only a little ways down the table from the King and Queen, Rolph directly across from him and Connie to his right. Next to him sat Ambassador Mutta, who smiled hugely when she saw him sit down next to her.

  “Aha! I knew you must be someone important! Are you related to the King and Queen then? Or an official of some sort? Or… are you really the court jester? That’s an important position isn’t it? Making people laugh is one of the great gifts a being can have after all.” It was said so sweetly and with such innocence that Connie had to cover a laugh. Not a royal twitter or polite covering of a fake laugh, but a genuine one that caught the attention of people down the table a good ways.

  “Oh! Or are you her lover? I know that the royalty here engages in a system of much looser relationships than what I’m used to, it was in my briefing packet.”

  That got everyone’s attention indeed, and not in a good way. The King glared at the Ambassador, but Rolph snickered a little.

  Tor just answered honestly.

  “No, nothing nearly so fun or interesting. I just got kind of left off some lists, so their sitting me up here so everyone can see that I’m not out of favor or something like that. As for the rest, yeah, their rules are different than what I grew up with too. Don’t let it worry you too much though, you aren’t obligated to actually have sex with anyone if you don’t want to, though once they find out you’re a single woman, I don’t doubt that the offers will come. You’re far too exotic to ignore. Really, we should probably get the Queen to handle all the proposals for you, just so you don’t end up overwhelmed with men trying to marry you or something. Don’t you think Connie?” He added the last in a whisper.

  The Queen smiled and nodded, then spoke in full tone so that the entire top of the table could hear.

  “Indeed. Any man seeking Ambassador Mutta’s hand in marriage should come to me directly, as proxy for her own mother, at least while she’s in our kingdom. Don’t worry ambassador, I won’t agree to anything without your say so. This will just keep the wolves off you for a few days.”

  Tor hoped they weren’t being too obvious, but he’d had such a hard time figuring out her gender that saying it out like that might help the word get around, stopping some embarrassing suggestions. Rolph blushed brightly and looked down at his plate. So he got it at least.

  The first course was a small bowl of nearly clear broth. Almost as one, about half the table checked the food for poison using detectors, so Tor did too, then he waved his over the ambassador’s bowl, which was also fine.

  Then he coached her not to eat until after he did. He leaned into her slightly, not touching her at all, but just close enough so that his words weren’t shouted to the whole table.

  “Checking for poison, then it kind of goes down the table, we each take a single bite, with the people most likely to be poisoned at the far end. I don’t get how it’s supposed to work myself, hence the poison detectors.”

  She pointed at the copper rectangle sitting next to his knife on the right hand side.

  “Do they work? The Queen said you were poisoned once?”

  He nodded.

  “Both. I just forgot to use mine, which was insanely stupid of me. I was alone and felt comfortable, and well, where I was raised no one ever does anything like that. Very rural. Near the middle of a forest actually.”

  That led to talk about her country, Afrak, which like Noram was the entire continent.

  “I’m not actually a real Ambassador. We don’t really have that position strictly speaking, but the … leader decided that it was worth investigating the floating river here. We could move water to the great desert, but the one here takes sea water, desalinates it, and moves it hundreds of miles without any perceivable extra energy cost! If we could work out something like that we could achieve our dream of recovering that land. It used to be a mighty forest, thousands of years ago. We have the workers to do the needed planting and tending to get it started, even the seeds ready, but water has been the problem for the last thousand years.”

  Her hands gestured in the air expressively as she told him about the plan. It sounded good to him. Take useless land and make it green again. They could feed millions off of it, not that they needed the extra food production, their population being very stable, but it was always nice to know that you had the capacity she let him know. It made sense. Really good sense in fact.

  All of this had to be learned slowly, because they were interrupted by food coming. Really, you couldn’t tell that anything had happened in the kitchens at all, the flow of good food was normal for the palace, which meant perfect. But with each course everyone stopped and first checked their food for poisons then took their first bite in turn. They were good at it, so it only took about a minute each time, almost like a choreographed dance or something.

  The only problems that Tor could see w
as that the Afrak needed at least three, maybe four rivers like the falcon for what they wanted to do, and each of them would have to cover at least a thousand miles or more if it had to go around a mountain, which they almost certainly would. That and drainage on the way out.

  “Sure, the desert will take most of the water, but if you don’t spread it out you might as well be making a lake or small sea there. An interesting project maybe, but not exactly what you’re going for I don’t think. Earth moving equipment will be needed to create irrigation and canals for that. We have some, but right now their designed for doing relatively small scale work on sewers and doing things like building foundations. That could be changed for this I think.” Tor took a bite of roast beef. He was only eating about a third of each course, which Mutta copied easily. Looking down the table he saw that Varley was doing about the same.

  The idea was interesting, and certainly doable, making the rivers to get the water into place at least. He was careful not to mention any of that though, because he knew nothing about Afrak. Mutta seemed fun and colorful, but for all he knew she was the one nice person in her whole land. That could be why they chose to send her after all. Best foot forward and all that. He’d never heard of aggression with them, but what he didn’t know about world politics could fill volumes. Still, if he didn’t have anything else to do he could probably get it all ready for them in about two weeks. Call it a month and he wouldn’t even have to push very hard.

  Sure, he’d promised Ellen Ward a wall, but that would take a few days at most. The gear for was sitting in his chests, which had been moved into a closet here. If he had to make it again for some reason it would take longer, but not that much. A day, no more than that. Of course he doubted that the palace staff really wanted to make off with his luggage particularly. Even the one filled with gold would be a silly to abscond with since he’d take exception to it. Now if they only took a few bags of gold out, especially from the bottom, he’d probably never miss them at all.

  The hand pies went over well, he thought. The kitchen served them up topped with very chilled sweetened cream that was somehow light and frothy. It wasn’t quiet the fluff he’d had before though, but it was very good. The pies were still slightly warm even.

  After the meal there was something a little different than the last time he’d been at something like this, in that the King and Queen “retired” to a sitting room near the back of the hall, a space that was cozy only by comparison to the outer room, which was simply huge. The chamber in back was identical in look, polished wood trim, all dark hard wood for the walls and fixtures. The floor was all polished stone, but nearly black in color. If he looked hard Tor could just see veins of different colors in the black expanse. Green, blue and red, all so dark they nearly vanished into the surrounding inky expanse.

  What went on in the back room wasn’t lounging it seemed, but high level deals of various types. To his, and probably almost everyone else’s, surprise, Tor was requested to come with them. Rolph was too and Karina started to walk in as well as if expected, only to have the Queen send her off with a smile. Tor shrugged. He really didn’t care if the girl knew what went on. Then again, someone had to stay and represent the King out front while they did whatever it was they wanted to do to Tor. Skinning and eating alive came to him as one possibility, but that was just crazy thinking on his part.

  No one could eat that much after a full meal like they’d just had.

  He hit his shield amulet, turning it on before he entered the room. If anyone noticed, they didn’t blink at the action, but then again he really didn’t care if they did. It wasn’t that he thought anyone was going to attack him here, but he still didn’t know who’d tried before. Or… really, there wasn’t a good reason for it. He just didn’t feel like trusting anyone now. Not anymore.

  The King started, his face long and a bit sad looking.

  “I owe you a big apology, several in fact. I’ve been trying to think about how to make things right with you, but really, nothing has come to mind. You simply don’t seem to want anything I have… Which is humbling. Normally I could just buy a person’s good will with a title or a titular advancement, instead it seems I have to beg you not to let go of what you have already. Please don’t?” The King didn’t bow or even look particularly humble, for all his words, but then, he was a King. Even saying something like that was probably a big deal for him.

  “The first time you were turned away from our door, well, that was a simple error, as I think you can see? The guard looked for a different name than was written down. With all the titles and marriages that go on in our society that kind of thing happens. No one would really think twice about it, unless they decided to go to war over the slight, of course. It’s rare, but battles have started over less. Even a few recent skirmishes. I simply ask that if you must do so, please keep this between you and me personally? I promise it was not my intent to harm you in any way, but for a mistake, no one else should suffer.” Slowly Rich rubbed his left temple as Connie gasped softly.

  “Richard?” She whispered the word, barely making a sound, but the King shrugged in response.

  “Alphonse is ready, if it comes to that end dear. I don’t believe it will. Torrance Baker is an honorable man, but not falsely proud or concerned over such things, I don’t think. I don’t think he’d take my life over this even if I’d had him spurned publicly on purpose.”

  Tor blinked and looked at Rolph, who nodded but didn’t make eye contact with anyone, and then the Queen, who looked nervous suddenly.

  “Um, what?” He spoke quickly, a little too loud for the room.

  “Why would I… I don’t understand at all. It’s your home… if you don’t want me hear, then that’s your right. I’m a bit worried that I made someone mad at me, and that’s why I left the city. I just didn’t want anyone to go after Debbie or anyone else for helping me, if I angered or insulted anyone by mistake…” He faltered, it all sounded so stupid, even to his own ear. As he started to blush a bit something strange happened.

  The King bowed. Not a very deep thing and not a standing gesture, but real, none the less. He held it for nearly fifteen seconds before rising up.

  “Indeed. I promise that isn’t the case however. As I said, it really was a simple error the first time. The second… well, that’s the one that I have to stand ready to answer for, isn’t it? After having the children deliver the invitation like that…” He sighed and put a huge hand on his giant head. Connie reached over gently and patted his other arm, as if consoling him.

  She still seemed worried, which Tor didn’t get at all. She spoke softly then, voice low, deeper than he’d heard it before.

  “If that had happened to any noble it would be considered an act of war or at least something in which redress would be sought. Even as a Countier… I beg you not blame others for this, I… stand ready-”

  The King looked at her suddenly and shook his head, silencing her.

  “No dear. I rule here, the failure was mine alone, and the punishment for it must be mine.”

  A silence came into the room then. Tor didn’t really understand it all. Oh, he got what was being said, the King was offering to face him in a fight, or maybe just let himself be killed, to prevent a war. What he didn’t get was why. Over being turned away at a gate? It wasn’t a fun thing, but it wasn’t a matter that should cause death. Especially one of a King. What did they think he was going to do? Star a letter writing campaign? Call them names?

  That would just be compounding the situation, wouldn’t it?

  Richard sighed and shook his head, more slowly, dark hair not moving at all.

  “What happened the second time, that was all my fault.” He held up a hand to stop Tor from saying anything, so the smaller man just sat in his chair in front of the rather intimidating red thrones, a small gray thing that was about right for him, but must have felt like children’s furniture for half the nobles they had in to chat with.

  “Honestly, I’d forgotte
n that the event had invitations at all. Even if asked, I probably would have assumed that you’d be staying here with us by then and not need one. It never occurred to me that you’d feel honor bound to stay and work in a local bakery. I… well there’s no excuse. We should have detailed a man or two to walk you in personally. That no one thought it would be needed, well…” He held his hands up.

  It occurred to Tor that he was probably supposed to be angry and demanding, that they expected him to yell or make threats or something stupid like that. He just didn’t care that much anymore. Oh, it had been embarrassing, and he’d feared that he’d done something really wrong at the time, that maybe they’d come to try and kill him or worse. Maybe even hurt his family or Debbie. He didn’t know what could be worse than that, but they could probably think of something or hire experts to do it for them.

  The big thing had been that he’d brought a guest and was embarrassed in front of her. She’d been kind enough about it, to his face at least, but he didn’t doubt that others had heard about the whole thing in a way that showed him in a less than favorable light, not that people’s opinion of him was that good to start with. His voice was quiet as he mentioned all that.

  The Queen nodded and looked directly into his eyes.

  “Yes. I’ve heard some of it myself through channels. I promise you that where it’s been found, we have all personally refuted it. What I can confirm to you however is that none of it seems to have come directly from Baronetta Coltress. You have rather a staunch defender there in fact. I had an audience with her to express our apologies and found her… charming, after her initial… coldness. She told me, to my face by the way, that if Richard and I were too blind to see how wonderful you were, we didn’t deserve to have you as a guest at all, much less a friend. That had to take a good bit of… conviction coming from a young lady of her rank and social options. Stuck in that awkward place between being too high too comfortably associate with the merchant class, and too low for almost anyone else. I believe I smoothed that over well enough for now. She showed me the collection of devices you bestowed on her. If I didn’t know you better, I’d have thought you were trying to win her over…”