place outdoors if you wanted it, with a cold bucket and whatever soap you'd brought from home. Goody. Tor just grabbed one of the leaky wooden containers, it's handle nearly coming off on the right hand side, the small wooden peg having broken nearly off. He had to pick the whole thing up from the bottom to carry it to the gravel wash station. Heating the water would have taken moments, if he wanted to admit he was in possession of massive amounts of magical devices. Things that would cost enough to get attention.
Of course they were traveling in carriages, which were just plain wooden ones, but only the wealthiest people did that. Less rare than flying, sure, but would they be wealthy enough in their wooden carriages to have water heaters just sitting in their luggage? Sighing Tor admitted that didn't seem likely. At least it wasn't freezing yet. Just nearly.
He kept his temperature equalizer on, but each splash of fresh cold water came as a giant shock to his system. It had to be done, the carriages were too close inside, too small, for him to skip it. No one could afford to reek on a trip like this. No one else came out to join him at first, but as he finished the Royal Guard came out and followed his lead. Rolph stood in the door and shivered, a mock thing that pretended at being cold, coming out to join them making yelps the first few times water hit his temperature equalized body.
Voice low the Prince looked at George with a stern face, one that Tor wasn't used to seeing at all from his friend. “Fine, we'll freeze out here for the sake of appearance, but the girls are going to the baths before we leave. Varley is pregnant and I-”
“Seconded.” Tor said, splashing the cold water over his head to finish rinsing off as he stood naked in back of the inn.
Kara the guard looked over at him and grinned.
“You couldn't have told us that earlier? I would have waited for the warm water if I knew you were paying for all the girls to go to the baths in town…” It was a joke but Tor shrugged. He had the money for it and really, he wanted them to have guards the whole time, didn't he? Before he could say anything Rolph shrugged too.
“And have you get all soft on us? Besides, you and Wensa are the only cute girls I can sleep with on this trip…” It got a laugh and Wensa cocked a hip, which was actually sexier than Tor had thought it would be, her hair wasn't gray any more, outside of school. That and her age suddenly went away. Out of class it seemed she was in her mid forties Tor thought, not late fifties at all. Some kind of makeup to make her look older? That was both an interesting idea and a good one. Who pretended to have gray hair when they didn’t?
The Royal Guard Captain grinned, and actual happy looking thing. Playful.
“Hmmm. Well, OK, but do you think you can take both of us at once? I think we might just be a little too much for someone so… young.”
Another laugh from the group made Rolph looked pained. Shaking his huge red head he sighed.
“Tor, see how they treat me? Doubting my abilities already and they haven't even tried me out. Of course they’re right. Guys think they can serve two women at once, but truth is that more than one is just extra effort. Not that it's not fun to try every now and then, but it just doesn't work in practice very well.”
Kara walked over, brown nipples perky and tight from the cold water, bending slightly and crossing her arms under them to push them forward, winked.
“Right, but two men and one women can work… You two are both of age, right?” Her gaze took in Tor too. Well, he was, regardless of looks.
Rolph chuckled, but didn't say no. Tor on the other hand just tilted his head. Kara seemed nice enough and was firm and fit, tall, but not taller than Petra, so about six-five or so. She had dark hair, real, since her pubic hair was as dark as her head. Tor didn't stare. It would be rude.
Finally she chuckled and moved off, going back towards the other guards. They whispered amongst themselves, which Rolph ignored, but it bugged Tor, since it seemed like it would be about them. Well, he should have said something, except what would he say? She was more than cute enough to sleep with and there was nothing wrong with Rolph, the idea was just scary to him. What if his friend used it as an excuse to touch him?
So Tor smiled at her later as everyone finished up, getting a grin back. It wasn't exactly being polite inside “the rules” but it was better than ignoring her, wasn't it? She didn't seem put off at least. Breakfast had to wait for the girls to get their bath, and was eaten in the carriage, everyone having decided that they didn't want to risk staying in the place two nights in a row. Half the guards had fleas, even after washing, since they'd infested their clothing when they slept. The royals had gotten the “good” rooms.
That got Tor thinking about what it would take to ward off insects like that. He had sort of promise Julie White something like that for her people, hadn’t he? It would be hard, except that now that he considered it, it really only had to cover animals under a certain size. Bigger than that and a person would handle it on their own. About the size of a mouse, should cover it, right? It didn't really have to be that large, but Tor wasn't wild about mice in general, so he could add that in without harm.
Tor figured he could manage it before the exercise portion of the day if he hurried and went deep to work, which would let him avoid a little boredom to, which given how little else there was to do, made it a fine idea.
After breakfast, sitting uncomfortably in the carriage, he did just that. Before going on his run three hours later he handed one out to everyone. Modified shields that would throw tiny bugs off if they were on you, or block as they approached, so that the fields would free a person of bugs too. The guards didn't comment, except after the exercise for the day, where a few told him it worked. It was a Royal Guard thing, Tor thought. If you presented something to them, they judged it and if it wasn't good enough, you'd hear all about it. Get it right and they just went on with their day, incorporating the new thing seamlessly.
Not high on praise maybe, but it worked for him, because compliments always made him feel uneasy anyway. Embarrassed, like he couldn’t possibly have earned them. Really, given what Burks had told him before, he wondered if that was in his personal pattern too? He was starting to get that something else was involved in that part of things, and it wasn’t all just simple “genetics” but what exactly it was, he didn’t know yet. Magic probably, but if so, he hadn’t been able to isolate the field for it yet.
The next several days went about the same way, except that more of the evening was spent with the girls. Tor made a point of practicing his violin each night too, behind his field of silence. It wasn't that he really believed he'd ever be going back to school, Tor just didn't want to lose what little he'd gained there. It was kind of frustrating, but what could be done except keep trying to learn?
The trip wasn't exactly exciting over all, but at least he had some friends to spend time with, even though the sights that they were promised didn't seem to come up for some reason. They saw trees, which were very nice, but not new. He’d grown up in a forest after all. By the fifth day it was getting hard for Tor to hold his temper with everyone, which wasn't fair, since not a single person had been anything other than nice to him. Ali would sit by him and talk about what kind of house she wanted, which he could provide in days, if he found a good location for it and procured the land. It was nice and even cute, but after a while he felt annoyed and had to fight to keep his mouth shut, and not ask her to shut up.
At least he managed to keep it off his face. Barely.
Varley mentioned historical facts, which were actually fascinating, but not a topic he could add to, so he just sat and tried to memorize what was talked about. Rolph kept looking at him funny, which had nothing to do with some hidden puppy crush and everything to do with realizing how close Tor was to losing his temper over stupid things. Of everyone, only his old friend got it. Karina was mainly quiet. When she finally spoke it was expected, and foolish at the same time. If understandable.
“I should go and get her myself.” The tall and red hair Princess said suddenly in a lull in conversation.
Tor didn't have to ask who she meant. Daria Serge.
What surprised everyone was that Tor agreed with her. After a fashion.
“You're a Princess. She's basically one. You can't go and kill her yourself without starting a war. A real, tens of thousands dying thing, not what we have now. What you need to do is have her killed. While you have a good alibi and look as innocent as possible. Possibly some kind of religious service or something, with one of the pacifist organizations? Feed the hungry or something… Which isn’t a bad idea. We should look into that anyway. But, really, we all should have good alibis. I mean, it wouldn't do to let any of us look guilty. Maybe rescuing babies at the time or something as a distraction?” There had to be something like that they could be doing, right?
Everyone stared at him as if he'd grown a second head and was slapping it or something. Like he’d slap Timmy? He nearly chuckled remembering that that’s what he decided to name his second head if he ever grew one. If his brother wasn’t still using the name.
Sure, he personally didn't go around killing people, but Daria Serge was evil and had killed Yardley Principle.
