that didn’t mean he wanted to kill this guy either. Even if he was a mentally defective a-hole with a superiority complex.
He let the field go. The man sucked in air loudly, signaling he was alive.
“Really? We can’t just call this here? You don’t even have to yield officially, we can just stop and all go home as friends. I’ll even apologize for making fun of you if you do the same for calling out a fourteen year old boy by… mistake. Is that fair do you think? Anyone can get angry and make an error. Not everyone is willing to simply admit it though. Only the good ones. What kind of person are you sir?”
The man struggled to his feet, still breathing hard. Everyone just waited. After two minutes the man bowed his head.
“I apologize for allowing my anger at the Countier’s father to drive me to challenging the boy. It was wrong of me and I now see the error of my ways.”
Tor nearly passed out. He been expecting the fight to resume after the Count recovered a little, this… well only the one honorable thing to do now, he realized.
“For my part I must express my own chagrin at finding that I have maligned a good man in error. I let my own anger foolishly get the better of me. I apologize fully and unreservedly. I was wrong. Let’s set this aside and all leave as friends?”
The Count approached him and bowed from about three feet away. Tor bowed back; making sure his bow was a little deeper. Burks the room servant had explained all that kind of protocol to him before he left the Capital, mainly after any of it would have been useful to him. When he stood he put the weapons away in the inner pocket.
“So, boy, who is it that I fought this day?” The man sounded far more genteel suddenly. It was probably just a trick so that he could turn around and attack him later, send assassins or something. Tor almost cracked that the man had fought his own ego and won, but decided not to push it.
“I’m Tor.” He said instead.
“Ah… of course you are.” The man said weakly bowing slightly again.
Chapter three
“Torrence Green Baker!”
The voice ripped across the dueling field and sent a chill down his spine. Taking a deep breath he turned slowly, fighting the urge to run away. Flying away would be the better option he knew, since his leg was still a little gimpy from the break. When he finished the turn he was glad he hadn’t tried that. His mother stood next to Baroness Morgan, and both of them wore flying gear. The good kind too. He did leave the shield on, just in case.
That the Baroness was dressed in nice flying clothes of leather and silk was natural enough and she looked pretty in it too. He’d even seen her in them before so he recognized her instantly. His mother he’d never seen in anything other than a skirt or dress, and all those in country blah, a kind of blue-tan-gray, that plus the fact that she looked way younger than he remembered her ever being threw him for a few seconds. He put it all together, the whole not aging thing of course, she was pretty much immortal after all, but blinked a few times first. She looked like she could be going to school here, not nearly old enough by half to be his mother. Actually some of the other students looked older than she did.
“Hell…” He started trying for a greeting, but got a sudden harangue that stopped him cold. Tor decided to just listen and glanced at the clothing she wore, brown leather pants, new looking tan boots and a green silk top, a deep green that looked almost black. Mercy had on deep blue. House colors? The King had purple and gold, which Tor liked, because purple was his favorite color, but deep green wasn’t too bad. It worked with his mom’s black hair and pale skin, so it would probably work with his too. At least the house colors weren’t pink and yellow. The idea nearly made him laugh. Lairdgren. In proper country speech that just meant “Lord Green” which made sense. Heck, Tor’s middle name was Green. It all kind of clicked into place suddenly.
“Your father and I did not send you off to school to get into fights like some kind of common ruffian! I’m of half a mind to send you home right now young man. Of all the irresponsible, lame headed, hare brained things to be doing! Well, I hope you haven’t been neglecting your baking skills, because after this little display you’ll be lucky if anyone will let you do even that. Hmph!” Her voice was just as shrill and harsh as he remembered it at least, so that hadn’t changed.
Looking around he saw that Dorgal Sorvee had walked over, probably enjoying the fact that Tor was being chewed out in public like this. Well, it was embarrassing, but she was right. He should have watched what he said and let David deal with it. But still…
“Ah, ma’am?” Dorgal said in a genteel voice, bowing slightly. “Now, normally I’d be all for watching the little baker boy here be taken to task for, well, pretty much anything, since he bugs the crud out of me most days, but he wasn’t in the wrong here. Count Rodriguez challenged a first year student to a duel to the death because he was mad at the kid’s father. Tor got him to challenge him instead. Then handled it without killing him, which was rather smoothly done. That weapon Davie Derring has is… Well, that plowed looking field next to us? It was grass earlier.” The greasy seeming boy shrugged.
“He would have killed the Count and that wouldn’t end well for anyone, probably starting a war, and wars are messy, don’t you think? Bad for business all around. Now, if it pleases you, knowing all that, do continue ripping this guy a new one. I’ll get some snacks and take notes for later use.” Dorgal bowed and stepped back with a smarmy smile, far enough away that the glare from Tor’s mom barely scathed him.
“Friend of yours dear?” Mercy put in, obviously trying to change the subject.
“Ah, no, kind of the school bully actually. Little shocked that he didn’t find some way to use this to his advantage yet. Not that he’s the violent type. He just says things, you know… Related to Meredith Sorvee I think. Good thing Trice asked me to marry her first.” Standing about fifteen feet away Dorgal blanched. “Though really, I’m sure Meredith is a great person… I just couldn’t risk it, in case she’s a relative of his.
“So, if you’re not here to see this debacle, why have you both come? It’s not… Trice hasn’t decided to break off the engagement already, has she? She didn’t mention anything to me about that…” He knew he hadn’t been a very good fiance yet. Since they’d been back he’d spent almost all of his time working on one thing or another, not paying attention to her like he should. Sure the whole thing wasn’t really real, but on the off chance that he could win her over, shouldn’t he try? Or at least… Well, he should make himself look as good as possible to her, so that she might recommend him to other women as a decent person, after she was done with him. He’d make a point of working on that, if the whole thing wasn’t up already. Had she met some other boy? Well, he’d certainly given her time to, so who could blame her?
Mercy shook her head. “Nothing like that. In fact she was just telling me how happy she is with you and how she hoped you didn’t die out there. It looks like you took more of a beating than it seemed though, did your shield fail or…”
Tor touched his face. “No. These… a Royal Guard kicked me down some stairs last night. I took her prisoner and locked her and her troop up in a holding cell after. I guess I get to go deal with that now. Do you think that the King would have secretly ordered my death… or I don’t know, would Connie have done it? I thought we were all friends, but… No one’s talking about why Wensa keeps trying to kill me. She’s claiming that she didn’t do it last night, but it sure seemed like her.” Tor rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I’ll handle all that later. Now, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
The reason they were there surprised Tor a little, but not in a bad way. Terlee had decided to come and visit Count Thomson. They were flying over and saw the gathering of people so they decided to land and see what the situation was. Probably hoping for jugglers or a party.
“Imagine our surprise…” Laurie began dryly, still glaring at Tor a little.
Terlee was over by the Count, who stood in a small group of people around David Derring, it was a good enough excuse to drag everyone over, since it was his sister after all. Besides Trice stood next to her as well. His sister looked… good. Royal, if tiny. Her hair was pulled back simply but her face had been made up like the ladies at court did, but with less color, so it looked more natural. She wore an outfit similar to his mothers, but that pulled in at the waist a little more and pushed her bust line forward. Courting clothes. David smiled when he walked up and
