Knight Esquire ya-2 Read online

  The man just laughed, as if he’d said something funny. Maybe he just looked funny? At least no one would be assuming he was a child any more. He decided to keep the beard. If the guy wasn’t smart enough to figure out that the guy making Sky Rivers for Afrak and wearing Tor’s clothes, was Tor, then telling him otherwise would be a waste of time. Still, if he had connections in the kitchen, the fool might be useful. Tor didn’t like his demeanor, it felt too slick and wheedling at the same time, but hey, any port in a storm and all that.

  At the kitchen the “knowing a guy” thing turned out to be a lot less a specific person and more of just standing at the door and offering to trade work later for food now. Laughing Tor waved the other man away. A tall man, older than the rest and wearing a light brown apron stepped forward and sized Tor up.

  “Can you cook, or at least wash dishes?” The voice was skeptical, as if most people couldn’t.

  “Baker. Not what I’m doing now, but I have a few days off coming. I grew up in a bakery, literally.”

  The man seemed impressed and gave him some bread and cheese from a cold box. Not the kind from the palace, but one that someone had rigged up a room cooling plate to the inside of. It did keep it cool enough, if the cheese was any indication. He’d have to make a freezer or two for the place before the next summer. Right now it was cool outdoors, not so cold he needed a jacket, but then wearing all his pendants Tor wouldn’t have bothered anyway.

  The huge ovens at the back of the room where producing a steady stream of pots, a lot more than fifty or even a hundred people would have needed. He asked, curious, how many they were cooking for. It turned out to be nearly three hundred. Apparently while he’d been working someone had decided to turn his little compound into a center for learning how to make military supplies.

  Tor suppressed a groan. After all, if people were making more furniture and learning how to do it, as well as other things, that meant they’d need more of the compressor devices, and that, of course, meant more work for him. Yay. Well, at least he was useful now.

  Well, he was finishing the rivers first. At least if anyone let him.

  Fed well enough that he was uncomfortable, even if he hadn’t eaten much at all, he walked back to his room, using his feet, just to get the exercise.

  It wasn’t good of him, but Tor hoped that Sara had stopped crying by now so that he wouldn’t have to deal with anything new. If she was pregnant with Rolph’s child, or worse, someone else’s, it would just be a pain in the ass. This time he wasn’t going to offer to marry anyone to help some girl get out of the mess she’d gotten herself into either. In a way it made him a little sad that he’d lost that innocence along the way. That desire to help a person just because they needed it. Why had that happened anyway?

  Right… it happened about when he’d figured out that Trice thought he was a stupid troll.

  So, great. She thought he was a moron, which was turning him into an evil Galasian Tor troll. Troll of Galasia. It was even in his list of titles at the palace now. So apparently at least someone there thought it really fit. Probably Rolph.

  Inside winding through the outer hall and going down the steps he noticed the crying had stopped at least. Yay. He walked slowly towards the table that had been set up in the common area and sat in one of the chairs. His chair actually, so it fit almost perfectly. The other three were much larger, but he didn’t care. Tor was just glad that no one had carted his humble little chair off without asking first, after all so much else had changed and it didn’t actually match.

  A few minutes later there was a stirring from behind the screen where Sara had obviously set up, and the blond head popped out and looked at him, then made a happy sound and flowed out to the table, where she tried to hug him. The shield stopped her short.

  “Tor! Drop the stupid shield so I can hug you silly! I thought you might be gone for good this time. Oh!” Arms moved around him when he dropped the field and she held on as if he was keeping her from drowning.

  Over her shoulder he noticed a large figure in a dress come out from behind the screen and he almost panicked, starting to slap at his shield, wondering if Sara had set him up to be killed by Trice. But it wasn’t her. This girl was slightly plumper, in a healthy way, and a little taller. Blond and pretty, but no one he recognized. He stared at her for almost a minute before he got it.

  “Ursala? But…” A hundred questions popped in to his head then, but instead of getting to ask them he was suddenly rushed by the woman and found himself wrapped suddenly in a pair of warm arms that shouldered Sara out of the way.

  Ursala pulled back, breathing hard, her exhalations coming out broken, like sobbing.

  “Tor… They’re all dead…”

  Chapter twelve

  Tor froze.

  Who was dead? His mind flitted from one possibility to another rapidly. The royal family? Rolph wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so it could be that or… His family? The idea terrified him more than he cared to think about. Luckily he didn’t have to wait long for the answer.

  “We were poisoned, my parents, me, several of the estate servants. Mom and dad didn’t last the night. I… lost the baby and nearly died myself. I just didn’t have as much of the poison I guess. It was in an old bottle of wine, and I only had a few sips, because of the… baby. Other things were poisoned, the wine for the staff too. They have different bottles, the staff, so someone had to have targeted them specifically for some reason.”

  She continued then, how it wasn’t just them, but eight other families as well, all on the same day. Two more had been spared, because they’d had and used poison detectors at home. Sara hugged him again, dislodging Ursala this time.

  “One of the families that escaped… it was Ridley’s. You know, the first one that you gave detectors to? It saved them all.”

  Tor had to think back, but not that hard, “Oh, right, one of the guys that Trice said she was going to have sex with in front of me to prove what a spineless wimp I am? Didn’t he say that his parents were afraid that Count Ward was coming after them? I mean, really, that’s why I didn’t even bother to think about giving him the stuff, because I’m not overly fond of Ward right now…”

  Ah.

  Ursala sat in one of the chairs and swallowed.

  “Right in one. It took everyone else days to put it together, you were working, or we could have asked you earlier. But Ward’s a sitting Count, so it’s, well, if proved it’s an act of war. Worse really, treason, because we’re already at war. This took out two Counts, a Baron and two Knights. Plus servants and others, so many others… Rolph had to go to the Capital to help with all this and show a strong front to the Austrans so they won’t use the turmoil as an excuse to attack.” She shook, holding herself tightly. Tor felt awkward about it, but patted her back lightly until she could continue.

  “If this had happened during a time of peace, I think that the Wards would be gone by now. As it is a lot of people are calling for their deaths.”

  Sara looked down at the table and move fluidly into the chair next to him.

  “Kolb nearly led the combat students from the school on an attack of Wards forces. It took a direct order from the King to get him to stand down and that’s only temporary. Rolph told me that his father was probably tempted to send them in anyway. It’s the second largest group of trained flying fighters you know. Only the King’s military has more… Sorry, of course you know. You outfitted them all. But it isn’t going to take the students at the school that long to realize that the King’s orders don’t apply to them directly in this, not all of them. He only told Kolb not to attack yet. Karen was popular with the combat types and already a Knight at twenty. Do you know how hard it is for a girl to get the title? She must have been tough.”

  Karen?

  “What? Karen Derring?” God let it be some other Karen. It was a common enough name after all…

  “Yes. She was one of the Knights that died. Her younger brother David was poisoned, same thing, bot
tle of wine. He lived though. They were in their County on a weekend trip, since they could fly back and forth. No one could figure out what the connection to Ward was at first, since it wasn’t to Count Ward at all, but the Countess, his wife Maria.” Sara put her right hand on top of his left, the skin warm to the touch for a brief flash, until the temperature regulated.

  “When Maria was at school, when she said those things to you, and those older girls pulled her away? Well, they didn’t just pull her out the door. Apparently they beat her pretty soundly for being so vile to you. One of the other girls was poisoned too, her husband died, but she survived. A Countess. Um, Printer I think?”

  Maria? But… why? Yes, being beaten was no fun, but to come back years later and try to kill them over it? For that matter why go after Ursala and her family at all?

  Maybe Ursala read the look on his face or maybe she was just filling in the blanks for him, the she seemed to follow his train of thought either way.

  “It makes sense in a warped fashion. She goes after the girls that beat her, the woman that got pregnant by her husband, a Count that had thwarted her husband in business and so on. Nothing really deserving of death, unless you’re a self-serving little bitch that’s jumped over most of her family and friends through marriage, and bristles at the idea of the whole world not worshiping at your feet. Then it starts to make a bit of sense. In an insane and illogical way. But insanity and logic don’t always go hand in hand.”

  That got Tor to start nodding a bit, slowly, thinking hard.

  “Then when I was attacked and poisoned earlier this year…” It made sense. Not because he’d be any kind of special target for the Wards himself, just because he was an easy test subject, someone to practice on.

  That was where Sara differed from him in opinion, she laid out a very different scenario without waiting for him to say more.

  “Yes, you had to have been really eating at her for a while now. First, not only did you manage to recover from her insults all those years ago, the slanders and attacks she put out about you, you became, well… Tor. The Tor. Then suddenly you turn out to be a Squire and a Countier, with your fortunes growing to a point where even a Count might be jealous. On top of that, you’d offered to marry Ursala when she was in trouble. You didn’t mean it that way, but it was a slap in the face to Maria most likely. That story made the rounds, and really, a lot of people still talk about it. It’s the kind of thing that starts legends you know. A good man stepping in to make things right when a less noble one won’t even try… And in this case the less noble man is her husband and a Count, so…”

  Tor laughed. Not a big laugh, but a dark one that might as well have been crying. He wouldn’t go into how little it had done for him with Trice. This situation was way to serious for him to dwell on that kind of crap. It was bigger than him by far.

  “OK, so what’s the plan?” Tor waited, but neither one spoke to him for a minute, finally Ursala gave him a vague answer that caused more questions than it answered.

  “I can’t say much here, but Tor, the King already has agents in place with Ward. It wasn’t easy to get them in and I was only told because of my parents. So that I didn’t launch an all out attack yet. I can’t say any more, sworn to secrecy on the matter, but if there’s any way to get at this we will. I know you must be angry about them hurting you but-”

  He snorted. Angry?

  “It’s really just as likely that Trice did it. She really didn’t want to be married to me. I didn’t go after her for it, why should I go after someone that I’ve already, I don’t know, forgiven is wrong. I haven’t forgiven Maria. Come to peace with? I don’t blame her. I just learned that I wasn’t worth very much. I mean the girl was a stupid fourteen year old at the time for god’s sake. With Trice, well, that was way worse. Even if…” He shrugged. Nothing else he could say would help and it would just distract from the situation at hand.

  Both of them seemed awfully sure that it wasn’t Patricia Morgan behind the attacks on him, so he let it go. The girl was obviously at least known to both of them and they didn’t want to think that ill of their friend. Well, he didn’t want to think it either, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of choice. At least Trice should have left off trying to kill him, now that the engagement had been broken. He hadn’t even pursued her parents in his anger, or her for that matter.

  Probably because he lacked a spine. But yet, here he was, walking upright and everything.

  He let it go. The fact was, Tor had a lot of work to do and needed sleep to do it. A deep work state may keep the need for sleep in abeyance for a while, just like it lowered his need for food and water, but it didn’t eliminate it all together and now that he’d eaten, he was exhausted.

  It took him a few minutes to explain, but he got into bed after that, letting them know that when he woke up he’d probably be taking a break for a few days if he could. He slept deeply for a while, then had troubling dreams of women saying things to him that he didn’t understand. Telling him that they were innocent, but he didn’t know what they were supposed to be guilty of. Trice he kind of understood, but Maria Ward was there too and… Connie.

  It was dark when he woke up. Pitch black. That didn’t mean it was night, but that seemed likely, since he could hear deep breathing in the room with him. Not wanting to wake anyone he tabbed the light next to his bed to the lowest setting, a bare glow that was just enough to see the hands of the clock by. Four-eleven in the morning. Well, if he was on to bake that day he needed to get up and go to work.

  He went and cleaned up, putting on his oldest pair of school browns before heading to the kitchen, walking slowly still. He’d need more exercise before he’d recover enough for speed he knew. Way more.

  In the kitchen, on a blackboard, written in bright white chalk, there was a list of what was needed for the day. Fifty loaves of bread, assorted sweet rolls and some cookies. It didn’t describe what kind of cookies, so he figured that it was up to his discretion. Bread first of course, since it would have to rise. He had to make ten large batches of dough, but at least they had the bowls for it. Huge things made of the glossy compressed dirt substance that everything seemed to be made of here.

  While that was rising he worked on dough for the rolls, sweet rolls for desert, and then got the bread into the baking pans for the second rising as he started to work on the rolls themselves. They didn’t have a lot of cinnamon, so he used orange peel instead, as well as a hint of clove. There was plentiful sugar and butter, which was kept in the big cool room. Just as those where going into the rack near the ovens to rise he decided to start getting the bread in.

  It was about six-thirty when the room started to fill up, the bread not yet out, but plenty of space left for the rest of the food. Even if some of the ways they were cooking looked odd to him. Bizarre really. They boiled water for the eggs by putting big pans in the oven on the side away from the bread, which he got to pull out about then anyway and put aside into racks for cooling. That was good, because the water vapor would have made the bread crust chewy, not a horrible thing, but this was the wrong kind of bread for that. The rolls would just have to wait. Chewy sweet rolls would suck. His were meant to be light and fluffy, with a flaky crust. He hoped they wouldn’t over proof in the mean time.

  Nothing was fried, because there wasn’t a stove top in the room, all they had were ovens. Tor hadn’t thought about it before, but of course a griddle or stove top could be done easily enough. Those could even be turned on and off. The oven plates needed to be inside the ovens and were too hot to touch… because, Tor realized, he was a moron. Oh, it worked out all right with these huge things that took days to get up to temperature, they’d have to stay on anyway.

  Smaller units could have controls on the outside, and so could griddles and warming pots. He’d already done things with remote activation like that. The control for the flying rigs for instance. The actual flight field was on the amulet worn around the neck, not the one on the hand used for contro
l.

  As Tor lamented his own stupidity and lack of forethought, the man he’d talked to the day before wondered in to the kitchen looking blurry and tired. He had a cup of something in his hand that smelled familiar, the same stuff that he’d been given for combat rage reaction. This guy just looked hung over to his untrained eye. Maybe it worked for that too?

  “Hey. New guy, you actually showed? And did something useful? Smells good even. I don’t suppose that the military would let you out of whatever you’re doing now so you can come work here each day, would they? What do they have you doing anyway, building furniture?” The last bit was, Tor realized, almost like asking people in the country what they did for a living… farm? Everyone around here built furniture, or other needed supplies, so of course Tor would too, right?

  “No, I build field devices, magic, and I really think that the military would whine if I tried to stop doing it. I don’t actually work for them though, unlike most of the people around here. I decided to take a break for a few days and they can just deal, you know? Anyway, we need to get the sweet rolls in as soon as the pots of water come out, or they’ll over-proof. Sure, that’s no great horror for this type of product, but too much and it will destroy the texture. I’ll start on the cookies next.”

  The man took a sip of his beverage and grinned.

  “Heh, Sorlee will like that, this practically gives her the day off. I’ll have to find something for her to do or she’ll get in trouble.”

  Before Tor could ask who Sorlee was a young woman walked into the room. She was cute in a young, un-made up way, tending towards very small and thin, making her look pretty youthful compared to what he guessed her actual age was. Maybe fifteen or so? She barely came up to Tor’s chin. The girl smiled when she saw him and the head cook, walking over like she owned the place.

  “S’hey ‘on, tought baky m’job. Y’sir’da baky pro’per n’like?” The girl put her hand out to shake with him, so he grinned and returned the move.