Knight Esquire ya-2 Read online

  “Hey, you’re not alone, you’ve got me.” His friend smiled and patted him on the back gently.

  “Thanks. I know. That’s… not what I meant.”

  Rolph sighed hugely, actually blowing a breath of air out hard.

  “I know. It… this won’t last forever you know. It’s not you, it’s just a string of bad luck. It could happen to anyone. Really, a lot of women here in the Capital are fond of you…”

  Sure. That’s why they were all beating down his door. He didn’t even have any as friends, they just wanted to use him for some reason. Well, that’s how it felt at least. Maybe he should make it harder for them? After all, if he wasn’t getting anything out of the deal, why should they?

  He asked Rolph what room he’d be staying in, which turned out to be the same one as last time. His trunks were already sitting there, even though he hadn’t seen anyone carry them past at all. He hadn’t seen anyone except for Rolph in fact. It was… eerie. Like ghosts had done it or something. Tor had never seen a ghost, but if anyplace was going to have some, it would be a place like this. Old and filled with history. It wasn’t spooky feeling at least.

  Burks came and helped him get undressed, thankfully, and pulled back the pale blue covers for him, a thick light blue comforter now that the weather had begun to cool a little. It wasn’t cold by any means, but Tor wouldn’t feel the temperature anyway, not with all the amulets he wore to sleep with now. The heavy weight pressing down on him was comforting, like getting a hug. Except that the thick blanket didn’t care who he was, so he didn’t have to feel guilty about it or like it was just trying to use him for other purposes. What those purposes might be he couldn’t imagine anyway. Maybe to keep from having to be too close to the mattress? He’d have thought they’d be fast friends, but who knew?

  Those things could be complicated.

  Tor didn’t sleep well, but he made up for it by sleeping long. It was easily mid-morning when he climbed out of the soft cocoon he’d ended up making out of the blankets and sheets. He drank some water from the pitcher by his bed, then nearly panicked, realizing he hadn’t checked it for poison.

  How the hell did people live like this? Tor didn’t know, but he didn’t want too.

  His heart pounded in his chest even after he checked the water out carefully and found that it was fine. Closing his eyes he wondered if he should just leave, even if Rolph had asked him to stay personally. It would be a lot more comfortable if nothing else.

  No, he had to see things through here. No matter what happened. He owed Rolph too much for having been his friend to abandon him now.

  Burks entered the room, bringing in a fresh set of clothing, black silk that was loose fitting and had matching under things, also silk. There was a pair of soft sued boots in his size, dyed to match. Before he could change, the man went and began drawing him a bath. A subtle hint that he reeked? Probably. He smelled of smoke and tension if nothing else. He had to dig through the trunk to find one of the tub warming plates, most of which had disappeared “magically” in County Ross. He had a half dozen left at least. So fourteen gone? Well, hopefully people enjoyed their warm baths.

  Burks had to run and get him some wire to fix it to the ceramic tub, but it worked well enough once in place. It even looked all right hanging there over the edge, the copper and green worked well with the very pale tan of the vessel itself. After a warm soak, Tor decided to get a little work done. The idea he’d had coming in to town wouldn’t take long, he knew.

  Indeed he had it finished by dinner time. It wasn’t good not to eat like that, Burks told him as he roused and started making copies, wanting him to eat right then. Tor declined, trying to stay polite about the whole thing.

  Dinner would be in a few hours anyway. It would be greedy to eat twice.

  Rolph came for him, with Varley in tow, about half an hour before it was time to eat, just as Tor was about to try out the new device standing in the lawn. As they walked up he tapped the device and rose four inches in the air. Both of the royals stopped and gave him funny looks.

  Like they weren’t used to him doing strange things?

  “It’s for in town. See, this way I can zip around a lot faster than I can walk, or a carriage can go, but its way more controlled than flying, to prevent accidents. I can move around at walking speed easily and it only ever goes this high, so, it can’t really be called flying right?”

  “Hmmm…” Rolph looked at him as if he were trying to break a rule, but Varley asked if she could try it with a sweet smile. Together they zoomed around the yard for a few minutes, then went in, still levitating about four inches off the smooth floor, but keeping their speeds reasonable. When Karina saw them she cried out.

  “Ah! Something new!” She got the application immediately. More to the point, she really wanted to get some for her friends, to impress them. Tor nearly pointed out that a Princess worrying about impressing people seemed a little off, but held his tongue and asked how many she wanted instead. Varley winked at him behind her back. She was right of course, it was way easier to just give the girl what she desired without worrying about it. Now they just had to convince the King that it wasn’t flying. Tor thought his argument was sound, but he didn’t want to try and slip it past the King or anything. It really was way safer than flying though, and faster than walking, at least for him.

  When Connie came in Varley handed her one of the devices to try out, since it really was a lot easier than flying because you didn’t have to worry about two of the directions at all, they all assured her. Plus afraid of heights or not, four inches wasn’t a big challenge. It took a while but the girls had her floating around the room laughing when Richard came in.

  “And what, may I ask, is this?” He pointed at the air underneath everyone’s feet, the look he gave them kind of blank.

  Tor cleared his throat, looking at the situation as a kind of moment of truth. The man either agreed with him on this one, or he’d wasted the afternoon.

  “These are… Not-flyers. They don’t go any higher than this and um, aren’t flying? For getting around in town, without carriages or, um, any illegal flying type activity?” He tried his best to look confident, but guessed he failed when the King started chuckling.

  “Alright, if it’s not flying, then my councilors can’t complain about me trying it, yes?”

  They all floated around the room until the cook, the tall gray haired woman named Laura, walked in and ordered them to sit down and stop playing. Everyone laughed, but turned the devices off and got to eating. Connie whispered that Laura had worked at the palace since she was fifteen and had them all wrapped around her finger.

  Tor could see why, after the way she pulled together the meal the night before. That was retulsive. A lot more impressive than the little toys he’d brought to dinner at least. Tor doubted that he could have pulled it off after losing half a meal like that. Not for hundreds of people on such short notice. The level of skill she’d shown was humbling.

  The meal they enjoyed was a lot more relaxed, everyone seemed happier at least. Tor checked everything for poison, but no one blinked at all at that, they did it too. Given everything it wasn’t even a comment on them. He hoped that they all understood that at least. It was just that he hadn’t seen who came in contact with the food at every step. That meant he checked it. Possibly even if he had seen it the same thing would have happened. Tor didn’t want to be offensive, but he wanted to die a lot less.

  Being poisoned freaking hurt.

  The next day Rolph came and got him early, about eight in the morning. Tor had kind of planned to try another build, but the Prince had other ideas.

  “I was thinking, um, if you’re willing, Sara came into town, and wants to meet with you. At Debri house today? I was thinking we could try out the Not-flyers, since dad’s all right with them. That surprised me, but apparently he just doesn’t want little kids being crippled by drunken morons. So we have license on these. If you’re not going to bankrupt Debri, you
might want to let them in on the secret. Kind of cruel to let them drain everything to pay you, just because you forgot to fix what you set in motion then changed your mind about.”

  That seemed reasonable, even though he didn’t really want to see Sara. She might have been innocent, or she might have been in on it all from the start. How was he supposed to know? Either way what she said would be about the same. That there was a rational reason for everything she’d done. Then he’d have to point out that her thinking he was a moron and trying to rob him was a reason too. It would just go around in circles unless he could trust her, which, honestly, he didn’t really.

  Not right now.

  Yes, he’d heard what she said at the restaurant and really, it hadn’t seemed bad or inconsistent with who she claimed to be, but that didn’t mean that she liked him or wanted to do anything but use him.

  Still, he could let them know that they had a little more time, and maybe figure out where the golds were at the moment. He didn’t doubt that they could hide it all from him, but hey, at least he could try to not look like a complete push over. Even if he was.

  Going by Not-flying was way faster than the oppressive carriages and while people stared at them no guards tried to tackle or even arrest them. That could have been because he was with the Prince. People seemed to actually know who he was in the Capital.

  Then again, maybe they all just agreed that being that close to the ground just meant it wasn’t flying too? They moving along at twenty odd miles per hour probably didn’t hurt either. A person could catch them, if they were fast, but it would have taken work. Of course the top speed was actually nearly double that, but that was more dangerous to other people, so they went slow. The controls were similar to the flyers, but on the right hand like the original ones, since they weren’t meant for military use at all. Just getting around in the city. He’d done it that way as kind of a sign that they were a peaceful thing, but didn’t know if anyone else would be able to get that. It was a little abstract maybe.

  Rolph looked odd, zipping along in his green silk shirt and black trousers, his legs not moving at all as they traveled. Less odd than he likely did, dressed in another all silk outfit, this one a powder blue that would have looked good on Trice. The color would go with her eyes, not matching them, but giving her a little bit of a softer look than the blacks she normally wore did. He found himself wondering if she’d like the Not-flyers… until he remembered. A sudden flash of rage and sadness moved through him then. It hurt. Like a physical pain coming from a place that didn’t exist within him properly.

  He tried to shake it, putting his mind on the world around him instead. It really did make it easier after a few minutes. Tor even found that he could breathe again after a bit.

  Debri house looked the same as the last time that he’d seen it, so they hadn’t been spending all the coin from the sales on renovations at least. Not on the outside of the house at any rate. Not that it mattered. Right now he just couldn’t bring himself to care about gold at all, and more than anything he wanted to turn around and leave, rather than face another uncomfortable situation. But he had to.

  He couldn’t avoid this forever and they didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t like they were working with Trice to get him or something and short of that, well, wealth wasn’t that important really, was it? Tor tapped the amulet under his shirt, the one with a stylized sandal on it, to signify walking.

  Well, it wasn’t walking either, but Tor thought it fit the “Not-flying” theme.

  He stood back and let Rolph ring the bell, since for him to do it would have required him to stretch up on tippy-toe to grab the little pull chain or maybe jump a little. Rolph, taller now than he used to be, barely had to reach out straight. The implication being that if you weren’t tall enough to reach it, you better not? The idea that it may have been put up like that on purpose had never occurred to him before, and left him feeling a little cold. Was it a subtle way of telling him that he wasn’t important enough to work with at all? Or good enough?

  The door opened quickly. A man just over six foot tall, about fifty years old and nearly as thin as Tor was after all his weight loss, asked them to come in, with a deep bow. Short or not, looking like a child or not, Tor got one too. Heather Debri stood in the hallway, Sara next to her, with a tall blond guy, Sara’s brother Kris, to the older woman’s right.

  “Welcome Prince Alphonse, Master Builder Torrence Baker. Please, won’t you come in and have a seat? Perhaps refreshments?” Heather gestured towards the room to the right with a sweeping motion that was choppier than Tor remembered her being. He wondered if, in that room, they’d find assassins waiting or at least a tray of poisoned muffins. He walked in slowly and stopped in shock.

  Two for two?

  On the table was indeed a tray of muffins, poppy seed by the look of them. They smelled cold, so they were probably either made earlier or bought from a bakery. Warm product always filled a room with stronger scents. Sitting at the table behind them, in a slinky black dress that wouldn’t have been warm enough anymore up north at his old school, sat Trice.

  Holding up one finger, Tor forestalled speech, then fished inside his shirt for the incredibly dangerous explosive device that was masquerading as a poison detector. He held it carefully and put his thumb on the activation sigil. It didn’t go off, because that would only happen if he intended it to. He smiled and then laughed slightly, a little bitterly.

  “Right, so… if I trigger this device in here, shields or not, we all die. Well, probably. Anyone I point it at will certainly die instantly. Given that we’re inside the city, and this will probably take out half of it or more. I don’t think that any of us except Rolph would survive long, even if we lived through it, you know what I mean? The Royal Guard would probably kill anyone here just for being too close to it at the wrong time.” Tor gestured for the Debri family to move in front of him and put Rolph at his back. It wasn’t much protection for his friend, but it was all he could think of on short notice.

  “I don’t know what your plan was today, but I don’t think it’s going to work very well. We’d come to tell you that you had more time, based on the idea that you weren’t really trying to rip me off and that it was all just a misunderstanding based on my incorrect hard feelings, and that you weren’t working with my enemies against me, but this… I think not. You have four hours to have every template I’ve made for you at the palace. I don’t care where they are. If they don’t show up, then I’m going to come looking for them.”

  Laughing a bit harder, an unhappy forced sound he held up his left hand palm out towards Heather. “Yes, you’ve heard that I’m not a killer, maybe even that I’m weak and stupid enough to fall for anything. Possibly so, but know this, I may have been too dumb to require payment up front from people I thought of as friends, but for enemies the rules are a lot different. Four hours or I start finding every Debri property in the kingdom and destroying it. If you don’t think I can do it… Well, then you haven’t been paying attention at all, have you?” Tor looked around the room, trying to keep his face as still as possible.

  “I’m starting here, so, you know, if you have anything you want to keep, you might want to hurry, or at least move things out in that time.”

  He started to back out of the room, but Rolph blocked him slightly. He kept moving until his large friend got the idea. It looked clumsy as all get out, but it worked well enough. Tor wasn’t about to let two special school students have his back, even with a shield on. Just as he got to the door of the room, Trice called out.

  “Tor… It… what I said, it wasn’t what you think! I didn’t mean it, I was just trying to make people think that I thought that, so that maybe whoever poisoned you would try to use me to kill you and we could catch them.”

  Oh. Well. That made sense.

  “Ah, I see! So you’d kill me, and then blame them for it? That’s… actually pretty clever. Or…” He tilted his head at her as if inviting comment.

 
“No! Just catch them, with you alive and well. I love you… I thought you knew that.” Her voice became soft, agonizingly alluring.

  Too much so. If she’d just said the words, or sounded sad at the end, it might have had some effect on him, as it was he affected his own soft look.

  “Oh? I… well, that makes everything different of course. How could I have been so silly and not realized that you were only playing make believe, saying those things to help me… Of course. It all makes sense now. You were just trying to get attention for your plan, to help me out and… probably help clear your parents as well? That’s understandable. Even sensible. I never thought they’d poisoned me anyway you know, no benefit in it. You just committed to your plan totally, because anything less would leave holes that the bad guys could see?” Tor tried to make himself sound like he actually believed the story. It was a credible job, particularly if she really thought he was as moronic as she’d said.

  “Yes. Let’s put the past behind us and run off together to get married right now, we’ll do it today, so that no one can gainsay our love!” He nearly giggled when he said it. It sounded like something out of a bad romantic tale.

  It was about that time that her eyes, looking a little hopefully into his own dropped down to notice that the explosive was pointed directly at her still.

  “Um, Tor?” Moving just one finger she indicated the weapon with a weak smile.

  “Oh that? Don’t worry about that. That’s just there because I may have to take out the side of the house here. You see, the problem with saying things like, “I could probably sleep with both of you in front of him and he’d still go on with the marriage because the ugly little troll can’t do any better and he’s so stupid.” Is that even dumb people stop trusting you. Makes it harder to fool them again I imagine. You might want to work on that one in the future. You know, with the next guy you jerk around like this.”