“It was in our first year, about halfway through. I'd been given a roommate of all things, can you imagine that? Me? One that the dean himself had decided no one would ever expect the heir to be placed with, making the boy nearly perfect in a way. I think I may have also been put with him to learn humility too. I mean, here I was, lord high of the mighty and who was he? Just some little backwoods kid with a fraction of my education, a quarter my size… and about eight times my intelligence. I was a little put out at first, since I'd expected my own room, and personal servants, maybe a spare girl or two brought in a few times a week for comfort and relaxation, not some country boy underfoot all the time. But… after the first day I found that I kind of liked Tor, who seemed smart and kind, even if he did come from a place that I'd never heard of, and talked of baking a little too often… He had a really thick accent then too, which he got rid of in… weeks. It was kind of amazing to watch really.” Rolph smiled.
“Anyway, he decided, at the urging of myself, to ask a girl that he'd noticed in one of his classes to the student party at the beginning of spring. She was a pretty thing, not a grand beauty like either of you, of course, but nice enough looking. I didn't recognize her as peerage and really, what was the worst she'd do when he asked? Tell him she already had a date or let him down easy perhaps? Or, if desperate enough, she might arrange for a friend to go with him instead, which would give him a date at least and after all, he thought he could be interested in her, not that they were true loves, destined to be together for all eternity. He wasn't even trying to get her into bed. How cute and innocent is that? Besides… why would she say no? I really figured that even if she had another date she'd drop the guy and pick Tor instead. Maybe I'm biased because he's my friend but…”
Rolph had both girls staring at him, and milked it for all it was worth, spinning it as if a popular tale rather than the most embarrassing moment of Tor's life. So far anyway.
“So, steeling himself after practicing the right words, coached by me, so you know they were the right ones, I didn't let him go in sounding like a backwoods hick or anything, he approached her after dinner one night, gave her a very nice arrangement of flowers that he'd spent most of the afternoon on, you know how he is with projects, so it was meticulously done, it looked, well, my mother wouldn't have thought twice about receiving such as a gift and would have called it fine, and she can be picky about flowers. It was more than good enough for a school girl. Maybe too good? He could probably make a living doing flower arrangements in the Capital you know, it was that good. Seriously. Elegant. Delightful. Hell, if he'd given it to me I probably would have agreed to go with him to the party. You two probably would have done him in your dorm room without waiting to hear what he was asking for… and really, it's not even an insult to suggest you would, it really was that nice.
“So he approached her and started saying the words, a simple invitation to consider going to the party with him, if she wasn't already engaged or busy that night. No presumption that anything more would happen or hint of anything untoward. Really, it was nearly perfect. Leaving her a hundred ways out if she didn't want to go with him. She could have said that she couldn't go due to a previous arrangement, or that she was engaged otherwise. She could have offered a friend that she felt would suit him better, you know the obvious stuff, or even…”
Rolph took a huge breath and continued, obviously angry, even after nearly two years.
“Or she could even have simply told him no.”
Sara winced and Trice reached out and touched Tor's arm, which caused him to jump away from her a little bit. He instantly felt bad about it, since she was just trying to be nice, but it had startled him, being unexpected.
“What…” Sara looked at Rolph hard, not looking towards Tor at all. Her gaze felt conspicuous in its absence. “What did she do?”
Tor dreaded this next part. Did Rolph really want to humiliate him so badly in front of these two? They were practically the only girls not related to him that didn't try and run away screaming. OK, no one had ever actually run away, but close enough.
The Prince grimaced.
“She… was vile. Evil to him, for simply asking if she'd consider possibly, maybe, going to a party, in public, with him. She screamed, called him names, said he was worthless, dirty and probably had diseases she didn't want to catch. She accused him of having sex with animals and probably men to boot. She went on and on like that for at least six minutes, and would have probably kept going in that vein to this day if some older girls hadn't pulled her from the room by force. That was… bad. But what she did next…”
This caught Tor by surprise, there was more? He didn't remember anything else, except everyone turning on him for a while after that. Glaring at him mostly.
“She started a campaign of rumors, one in which Tor was the villain of everything wrong that could be imagined. He didn't know about it, because he wouldn't leave the room for nearly three weeks. They almost had to kick him out of school then, and send him home. I actually had to contact my parents to intervene for him, which they did without question, Tor, based only on what I'd told them before. For a while the faculty was afraid he'd kill himself if he knew what was being said about him. I won't repeat any of it, even now. Let's just say that the reason Kolb started training Tor to fight and protect himself was directly related to that… and no Tor, it wasn't a mistake, and no one put him up to it, Kolb chose you for training personally. That's why you're never getting out of it now, even after everything has died down. I think he views it as a personal challenge. You aren't exactly huge after all.”
He continued on, telling them how Maria was recalled home for some reason, what he hadn't known at the time. He'd thought that her family had caught wind of what their daughter was doing and sent her away in shame, at least to another school, if not to live with Howard Turnbull on his country estate.
Trice nodded then. “I see. I'd wondered at the meeting why Tor looked so upset. That explains it. I'm surprised she even dared show her face! Can you believe that Sara?”
“Maria who? Is she… a servant at the palace? Or…” Blond hair flopped just a little as she shook her head.
“No… She married a Count. Count Ward to be exact. Vile bitch. No wonder the Count chose to sleep with Ursala, who isn't half as pretty, instead. That's… well, she wouldn't have tried that if she knew who Tor was going to be, I bet. That's why there are rules about such things! What if Tor decides to make war on Ward?”
Trice moved closer to him and hugged him awkwardly from the side. He wondered what the heck she was talking about, but enjoyed the attention for a bit, even if she was being silly.
Him make war?
Maybe, if he got lucky, he could be a minor inconvenience to someone like Ward personally, trip him or something if he caught the man off-guard. Duck down behind him and get someone else to push him over maybe. But war? His army would just destroy him.
That… sounded better than the facts would really allow for, he knew. A few men from his army would destroy him. The rest would probably hold a picnic while they waited for the two or three men it took to finish up. They could hold games and eating contests while they waited. What was he going to do, bring his brothers in to fight an entire county?
That, oddly enough, the idea of Torrence Green Baker personally going after county Ward in retaliation, was a fact not lost on the King and Queen according to Rolph. That Tor might take it in mind to do battle, alone, against the Count and his army.
“When we fought, the Count and I, both in full battle rage, Tor simply stood between us Sara. Ward pounding him from behind and I was trying to work my way around to get at the louse. When I tried to strike, he'd jump in the way, taking the blow instead. We both tried direct effect and were blasting aura the whole time, and it did nothing. It was like a mountain had been placed in front of us for all that we could get at each other. It's the shield he made of course, but no one in the world could really take those away from him, he could just make more. Notice how even that buffoon Ward stepped into line after that? It was especially impressive when Tor had just been standing there taking a beating intended for me from the man and started talking, casually, about who we could get to marry Ursa. Of course wearing my old court livery really worked out there. To Ward and Thorgood both it was as if the King himself had stood there and commanded us all to heel to his will… Kind of enforced it too. Then he just walked away as if nothing happened, not even out of breath, not holding a grudge or even calling us to task for it, which would have been within his rights.”
Sticking out his tongue, Tor gave the opinion that Ward hadn't even noticed him, and that Maria obviously either didn't even know who he was or didn't care. Fair enough, all things considered. He wasn't a very important person after all. Why should she even remember him?
Moving back to sit down, Rolph brushed at the blanket as if getting some sand off, then sat back down, the
