Knight Esquire ya-2 Read online

  “I don’t know when I have the time, really, but let’s make sure you all get those weapons anyway. Oh, and please tell Petra thank you for me? You too of course.”

  For some reason Karen seemed really pleased with the fake deal. That he needed work on his weapons skill was clear after that. He didn’t have to do it that night at least, which was good. Karen hugged him as he left the training square though, either happy about the free stuff, or more likely, trying to make him feel better about needing extra lessons.

  It was really sweet of her. Especially since she could have just hit him in the head with the side of her practice blade and ordered him to show up.

  There were other things to do first though. Hard things. Royal things that he wasn’t prepared to handle at all.

  Tor sat in his room later trying to think of anyone in the world that might dislike him enough to do something like that. Kill him, or even just push him down some stairs for fun. That was what he was doing when Rolph, Sara and Trice came in. Standing, he gave Trice a hug and then, feeling more than a little awkward about it, a kiss on the mouth. It wasn’t exactly romantic, he knew, but he really did want her to know that he appreciated her efforts so far. She kissed him back for a few seconds, far more warmly and expertly than he’d managed. She held him and sighed, her chest pushing softly into his through the slightly shiny black blouse she wore.

  “Now that’s more like it. What’s up?”

  It took a while for Tor to explain everything that had happened, but less time than he’d thought, since Rolph had already filled them in. They’d actually come to help him work everything out. They all had ideas too, ones that, oddly enough, fit their individual backgrounds more than the situation at hand. The idea that they all walked around in different worlds took him for a few seconds. Everything overlapped, of course, but did Tor actually live a different existence than they all did, even while in the same space? That… actually made a lot of sense.

  He saw things to be fixed, by making a device, or a plan, or just by working hard. Rolph, for all that he was a great guy, really just kind of expected everyone to fix things for him if he asked. Being a Prince, that worked for him, most of the time at least. Trice was more calculating, but her world made her guarded, suspicious and more than a little un-trusting of people she didn’t know well.

  Sara thought like what she was raised to be too, naturally enough, but what she said was still news to Tor.

  “It could be one of the other merchant houses… Your stuff is taking a lot of the high end market right now and probably will for years to come, even if you don’t add anything new to your line… And really, how likely is that? You have a half dozen things that no one’s even making yet, ready to go. Stentli house for instance, used to have all the shield contracts for the military. What they offer isn’t half as good as the second Tor-shield, which is what’s in production right now, and even if someone copies that, you have three versions that are better, ready to go right now. But…” The girl shook her head. “They wouldn’t start with something like that. They’d probably send in women to ply you with sex for a while, try to find what you need or want and provide it to win you over, soften you up first, or… possibly just come and beg you on hands and knees to work with them instead. I’m a little surprised they haven’t yet, to tell the truth. Debri would be if you’d gone with Sorvee back at the beginning you know. They… might even spread rumors about how evil Debri house is or how we’ve been cheating you, which… Well, it’s not the long term plan, but that argument could be made until we start getting the money from the military for the shields and flying rigs they’ve been buying up. It’s probably destroyed their business, your new work… They couldn’t have been ready for you to just show up like that at all.”

  Tor took a deep breath, a sudden and shuddering thing that rattled in his chest. It made him feel young, and stupid, and he couldn’t help it. His work had taken business from other people? He’d never even thought of that. To Tor, the idea that he might even make money from anything he’d done seemed like an abstract thing, so of course he hadn’t considered what might be happening anywhere else. Why should he?

  Tor stopped and shook his head. Could he fix it at all? They had people to feed and workers that needed their jobs too. Looking down at the floor he wondered out loud if Stentli house would be willing to except a couple of his other devices, ones that Debri house couldn’t make right now due to the new military contracts anyway, to replace the coins that he’d taken from them and their workers?

  Sara chuckled at him. “Tor… I’m… sure they would… Do you have anything in mind?”

  No one was making the heat equalizers or the poison detectors yet he pointed out. He couldn’t keep making them all himself and a few more people might want some. Sara smiled, moved across the room and sitting next to him draped her arm over his shoulders and planted a warm kiss on his lips that made him sit up straighter, worried what Rolph and Trice would think, though they both just smiled at him.

  “Debri will let go of the heat equalizers to keep the peace, and the water pumps, but the poison detectors… Tor, if you want me to sleep with you, or for that matter every woman in Debri house to be lined up at your door, just go ahead and suggest that one to my mother. I’m pretty sure that you don’t really want that though. Well, me maybe, if I’m lucky, but not all of the women in my house are exactly good looking…” Then she leaned in and kissed his cheek and started stroking his back with her hand gently. Seductively.

  Blushing Tor shrugged her off and held up his hands, grinning but feeling awkward. “Alright, stop that before Rolph and Trice both start kicking my butt. Fine, can we get them the equalizers and… water pumps to start with? I didn’t know that I was hurting anyone…”

  Sara pointed out that it really wasn’t likely that they’d be trying to kill him over that, which he already knew. Obviously. Getting them something to replace what he’d taken wasn’t about protecting himself, but protecting them from the damaged he’d done.

  It was only fair.

  For some reason saying that made Sara chuckle, but not the others. So for once she was just being weird? Good. He’d been starting to feel like everyone in the world got everything and only he was missing it all. The gold haired girl shook her head a bit, smiling.

  “It’s a good thing you’re a builder and not a merchant Tor… I’ll see to it though.”

  They all kept brainstorming. The ideas came, but most of them were nonsense really. Would his instructors be mad enough at him to do it, because he hadn’t gone to class enough? Rolph roared with laughter at that and rubbed his knuckles on the top of Tor’s head. It kind of hurt.

  “They could just tell you that you had to go to lessons first, don’t you think? Or, if they were really all that put out they could just tell you to turn your shield off and beat you in the commons. No one’s even suggested that you’re not getting good marks yet Tor. Well, Kolb isn’t that happy with your progress I hear, but the rest of the instructors all say you’re getting top grades. I checked the last time I went around telling them all you wouldn’t be making it to class so you could work.”

  Tor smiled and shrugged. He’d have to work harder in the afternoons somehow. Karen was always there to help him out he knew. She’d said that at least, that he should spend time with her and Petra. Maybe some extra practice wouldn’t hurt? He kept trying to put together who’d dislike him that much though.

  “No one from Two Bends hates me that much, I don’t think, plus, how would they even get here? It’s kind of a long way to walk over some old grudge from grammar school, isn’t it? Plus no one there’s that tall. So what does that leave? Wait, that Duke? Um, Winchester? I guess that he could have done it; I mean we got in a fight, sort of… Not him personally, of course, he’s way bigger, but he could hire it done, or get a friend to do it maybe?”

  That didn’t seem very likely according to Rolph. Sitting on his own bed cross legged he looked lost in thought for a while, t
hen he shook his head.

  “I’ll have it checked out, but I really doubt it. If anything the Duke probably thinks of you as his personal hero and friend, you saved him from harming an innocent woman in public and then didn’t even shame him about it afterwards, you even named him a personal friend, which takes a lot of the sting out. Everyone kind of accepted it as his buddy Tor stepping in to keep him from making a social error, so really the only looked a little bad in the whole thing, and like his friends cared enough to step in when things got hot. Nearly perfectly played by the way. No one can even belittle him for “losing” to you now. He wouldn’t have wanted to really harm his friend, would he? Even during the event, after getting his attention all you really did was stand there and let him beat on you. It’s kind of hard to take offense at that and it really is what a very good, and powerful, friend would have done. Still… Just in case I’ll get a message off to… No, let’s go down in person. We’ll beat a message down if we fly anyway… and we can go down for dad’s birthday celebration week. Mom will like it and we get a break from school anyway.” The large redhead nodded and started to speak more excitedly. “Of course we wouldn’t be expected to show up for it normally since it’s only a weeklong event, but the fact that we can fly down in hours means that I should go at least. That gives us a week to plan for it even.” Rolph seemed pleased by the idea at any rate.

  The King’s birthday? Tor had totally forgotten about that. Yeah, they got the week off, which he’d planned to use as free work time, but now that he knew the man, was even on a first name basis with him, he’d probably be expected to get him something. He still didn’t really have any money and didn’t expect any from his work for months yet. Looking at the others his eyes went wide and he stood suddenly.

  “Do you… I mean, would it be too tacky, if I made him something? I don’t know what he’d like, but… Well, how about water heaters for the palace and guest house? For baths. Or would that be too bland? What do people normally get a King anyway?”

  The Prince gave him a wry look.

  “Honestly? Generally useless crap that he never touches after the party. A water heater for his bath would probably go over well, at least with the servants that have to use a fire to warm the tub for him in the winter if no one else. For that matter if you decide to do that, get me one too. I’ll pay you.” Everyone else chimed in that they would too, but then Trice kissed him, pushing Sara out of the way with a gentle nudge, slipping in between them and wrapping Tor in a tight embrace from the side, her right breast pushing into his side firmly.

  “Wait, I get one free, right? Being that were going to be married and all?” She laughed, but Tor shrugged. Fiction or not she really would get one anyway, they all would. He dared to kiss her back, because it seemed to be the way the game was played. He’d miss it, he realized, when the whole thing was over.

  It was nice even if it was make believe. As far as he knew Trice hadn’t even been sleeping with anyone else. Then, being discrete was, generally, supposed to be a big part of things in her world. He’d probably only learn that they were breaking off the engagement when a go-between came or something like that. How was that done anyway? Tor had a strong suspicion that he’d find out within the year. He suppressed a sigh and hugged the tall girl beside him for a while, hoping it wouldn’t seem desperate. After she was gone he probably wouldn’t get a lot of contact with anyone, so it seemed like a good idea to save it up now if at all possible.

  They had a plan at least. It wasn’t a good plan, as far as finding who had kicked him down the stairs, because they all knew Duke Winchester probably hadn’t even thought about the events of that night after he’d made his apologies. From what Rolph said the guy was normally pretty even headed and nice, not the kind of person that would hold a major grudge over a fight that he’d gotten into with a stranger that was helping him and who’d allowed him to save face, even though he didn’t have too.

  The next week was spent largely working, locked in his room. The water heaters for baths didn’t take that long, because he already knew how to pull heat from the ground. It just took figuring out how to localize it in space, so that it would only heat water outside the body, but inside a specific space, big enough to heat even a very large tub. It wouldn’t do to cook people from the inside out after all. The unit was built to allow for temperature control of the water, just by hitting one of the five sigils on the hand sized silver plate.

  It cost a lot more to do the work in silver, especially since he made six of them for the gift, but it was a present for the King specifically. The rest of the copies he made in copper like usual. Trice told him to make up about a hundred of them and took off with one of the first ones for herself just after he finished them. That left him with four days in which to do school work. Thank goodness Sara brought him the first of the supplies from Debri house or he wouldn’t have had any material to work on at all. She assured him that it was all his to use however he wanted, not just on house projects.

  Tor made up some things that he thought people might like at the palace, complicated devices that he turned in for class credit with his novel build instructor. Fines smiled when he showed them to him and told him to keep up the good work with a pat on the back.

  He didn’t know if anyone would really like them or not, but they seemed like fun to him and gave him something to hand out that would probably never be sold anyway. Just little doodads with no market value. Plus, if it helped get him a good mark in class…

  On the morning they were set to leave, actually a day before classes were officially released for the holiday, but a fairly useless day anyway, since most of the students wouldn’t be concentrating on work at all, but rather on parties and getting drunk for the next week or whatever useless things that the real kids did when no one else was looking. It meant that all the instructors, except Dorris, the meditation teacher, had been willing to let him out of lessons early. For some reason she seemed to feel that such distractions, and striving to overcome them, would be beneficial to her students. She was probably right of course, which was why she had the job. They left just after that, so he felt pretty centered and relaxed while they flew along headed south.

  He actually had two chests this time. The one Rolph had lent him before and a new one that Debri house had sent with the work materials. He’d had to off load most of that in his room, but kept a few things just in case he needed to make copies of anything for someone, or, just as likely, he had an idea and managed to get a little time to work on it.

  It was chilly aloft as they flew, thousands of feet off the ground like they were, but not so bad he needed to use an equalizer or anything. Even moving as fast as they were the ground moved slowly enough under them, a bare crawl it seemed. The forest finally gave way after the first two hours in the air and Rolph gestured for them to land in a city that Tor had never been to before. It was big. Not as big as the Capital, but large enough that it had its own wall around it. That was a mud brown, but it had a crisp feel to it, like it had been built either a short time before or that it was cared for religiously. The sides were shear and smooth and reached at least twenty feet high.

  There wasn’t a good place to land near one of the gates, so they used a central courtyard area. One that as they descended seemed to be nearly as big as the whole school campus, which meant his sense of scale had been way off as to how big the place must be. Youch. It was a lot closer to the Capital in size then, if with a lot fewer people about. The cobblestones were flattened on the top, an almost polished looking shine that meant a cutter had been used on them at some point and then weather and years of walking feet had dinged them up a little. They were pretty, marble or something that reminded him a little of a gem, sitting in the mortar. Impressive and expensive to use as paving material.

  The scent in the air, cinnamon, clove, and anise seed all mixed together hit him as they touched down. Some kind of sweet confection? To let his nose lead towards an outdoor stand that seemed to be serving s
omething that looked like festival food. Maybe they had a big King’s week celebration here? People certainly looked happy enough. Rolph smiled and headed over to the stand, coming back a few minutes later with a small tray that held four giant sized rolls, each bigger than both of Tor’s hands put together and smothered in rich looking white frosting.

  They sat on the edge of a fountain near the center of the space, sitting on the edge of the pool. It had a statue of a man in the center, but Tor didn’t bother looking at it other than to note it was there. After all, he’d never had a festival cake like this before and he wanted to analyze it. The anise seed was the principle flavoring, though otherwise it was a cinnamon roll like he’d learned to make as a child. It had a sugary caramel on the bottom, which meant that they hadn’t stinted on the filling for it. The frosting was too much, and he had to covertly scrape most of it off onto the serving tray. It was good, very much so, he just didn’t want to make himself sick on the sweetness of it. Just the little he’d gotten was pushing it already. He smiled and leaned in to Trice gently, bumping her arm with his shoulder.

  “A little strong on the licorice flavor, but other than that these aren’t bad. Is this an annual thing, do you think? For King’s week?”

  “I don’t know… If it is these people certainly have a love of Uncle Richard. It looks like they have jugglers and singers coming out over there… We probably need to be going soon, but…”

  Rolph winked.

  “Hey, we can stay for a bit, an hour or so anyway. After all, we’re making really good time thanks to the new flying rigs. I don’t want to leave the luggage just sitting, but…”

  Just then a group of people, all dressed in finery and looking more than a little nervous, walked over to where they sat. At first Tor wondered if the festival was supposed to be a private thing. If it was they could leave of course. He didn’t want to mess up their tradition or whatever. The man in front, a slightly older man with blond hair and eyebrows with a square jaw that made him look important, wore three different colors of mustard yellow. The shirt was a little poufy but had a good solid looking workman’s vest over it. The covering made sense for this time of year. It wasn’t cold out, most likely, not that Tor could tell, but it wasn’t the heat of summer anymore either.