one thing it would be rude. And really the pillows he had were already almost too fluffy. It was nice of them to offer, seeing to his comfort like that, without even considering that they were all royal and he was just… him.
The next six days were harder than he'd thought they'd be, because the pain kept screaming for attention as he worked at first. Still, Tor forgot he hurt at all by the end of the day, and had to be led to the restroom and fed after that. He didn't know who did it and couldn't spare attention to understand what they did to him, which was probably too embarrassing to consider anyway. Everything he had went into holding the three separate fields constantly nearly the whole time. That he'd gotten the whole thing down to only three fields instead of thousands… It would make a vast difference in the end, he thought. By day four he folded in on himself, the world becoming nothing more than the three sets of information he was generating. Then he locked it all in place taking another two days all told.
After that he had to sleep for a while. A long while, waking up only long enough to eat a little and drink as much water as he could. On the evening of the seventh day he was finally able to send the statues out, he scratched numbers on them so that each would go in the right direction. Number three needed to go up the King's River by a good way, as far as they could get it and still have the full width to work with, he told the men who came to cart them all away. Workmen that were getting a detail of Royal Guard to make sure no one bothered them, this was important after all.
The second had to go nearly a hundred and fifty miles north, halfway to the ocean since it was the field that defined where the line of water went and the first needed to be as close to the coast as possible without actually ending up being washed away. Then number one just had to be activated, a simple tap like one of the shields or clothes dryers used. It didn't have a real sigil, so he suggested they just needed to tap the number. Anywhere on it would work, but most people couldn't seem to get the idea for some reason.
If all went well, the King's River wouldn't overflow. He'd had to guess at the amount of water needed, too much would be worse than too little, but he hoped he'd at least gotten it close. Water could be taken from any point in the stream that would float above the ground, just by sticking something in the flow. A stick or a wooden board would work, if braced well enough.
Easy.
It took most of a day and all the luggage floats, retrieved from the others by Rolph, to get the statues in place, but by the ninth morning they had water flowing into the river, which doubled the height of the water line along the banks but didn't cause any flooding. Tor felt a sense of relief. They could set a guard to turn it on and off at need at the beach, but the less messing with it they did, the happier he'd be.
New clothes, more loose silk that felt wonderful to his skin, but probably looked incredibly bizarre, in a light violet color, was brought for him to wear after he finally got a real bath, the splint being removed so that his leg could be scrubbed carefully. It looked awful, covered in black and blue bruises with the skin torn in a ring around it, a strange oblong where the rope had grabbed at him. Embarrassingly, he couldn't bend over to do that himself, it hurt way too much, so Burks, the man that had helped him at the guest house, came to do it for him. The guy didn't even blush as he reached the soft brush carefully into the bath water. It had to be done if he didn't want his leg to stink the place up, so he put up with it, turning red the whole time in embarrassment.
Splint back on with new wrappings, sturdy canvas, and tied carefully into the loose silk pants he was ready to venture out of the room finally. They wouldn't let him go and see the river himself, since it was a good distance north of the Capital, not yet at least.
Connie came and sat with him at a table in one of the dining rooms, family style, she called it, so that there weren't ten paces of space between them, letting them sit and talk in a civilized fashion. That was good, because otherwise they'd have to scream at each other just to be heard. It was funny, but no one seemed to ever use the whole sitting that far apart thing here, not even at the tense dinner party where the space might of helped a little. Maybe it was an old custom?
Smiling she commented that the new river, temporary or not, needed a name. Most were calling it the “River Tor” already.
“If you have something else in mind, I suggest you let us know quickly, things like that tend to stick.”
Tor definitely didn't want it to be named after him. That would be… well even the King's River was named for the job, not the sitting King at all, right? Still the “Broken Student's River” didn't have much of a ring. Well, a bit of a ring, he reflected, but it was a mouthful.
“How about the “Falcons River” after the statues that have the fields on them? That's on the royal crest even, right? Falcons. So people will know that the King's looking out for them, helping out with drought relief and all that?” It sounded about right to him. He tried thinking about it like he was still just a kid from Two Bends. A sky river the King had made to save crops for farmers? That would go over pretty well. A lot better than if it was named after some kid that they'd never even heard of.
The Queen smiled and took his hand. “But it wasn't Richard that did it. He didn't even ask for it to be done. You just found a need and fixed it…”
Tor smiled and shook his head. He didn't want to tell her she was wrong, but he distinctly remembered the King telling him there was a problem in the Ford distract that had to be attended to, and that they'd need a river of clean water. It was Rich's idea even really.
For some reason Connie chuckled when he mentioned that and squeezed his hand gently. She looked at him long enough that he started to get a funny feeling in his stomach. If she'd been younger, or even just not married, he'd have been very interested in her. She really did look like she could be Rolph's slightly older sister after all and had obviously gotten the job of Queen in part based on her good looks. Or, well, given the way these people selected mates for their kids when they were little children, maybe that had been luck of the draw? However… it had really worked out for the King at least. She was fine.
When the Queen finally let his hand go after a while, and he felt a sense of relief. He knew that she was just being nice to him, treating him like she might her own son, if Rolph were injured, but falling in love with the Queen would be bad on so many levels that he couldn't count them all. Even a puppy crush would be a silly thing to let happen. At least she probably wouldn't be as mean about rejecting him, if he were so foolish as to ask anything of her, as Maria had been. Not from what the others had said at least. It made Tor feel safer around everyone here in a way. The idea that his giving a device he made to someone wouldn't have them throwing it in his face calling him names in public was a good thing, even if he did end up being rejected over and over again.
Look at him…
A little attention from a good looking woman and he was suddenly imagining himself in love? Even if she hadn't been totally out of reach, totally inappropriate, and completely not interested in him, it wouldn't have worked out, because he'd still just be him. Duh. He smiled at her, and got one in return, which was better than he deserved most likely.
“Well, if I'm not going to inspect my work on the water system I should probably get to rebuilding the floats. I mean making the fields larger for cargo hauling in the air? I told the people from Debri house that I'd do that as soon as possible.”
Her eyes went dark then, not angry, but concerned, as if he'd just told her he needed to go back to the front lines of a war or something instead of lounging around in bed for days at a time. He'd have gone running, he told himself, trying to think about what would be good for him, but the broken leg meant he could skip that without even getting in trouble with Kolb. Crippling himself wouldn't help keep him in shape after all. Kind of the opposite by definition.
Yep. Perfect reason to slack off.
Tor wondered then if the woman had some mind reading ability, a real possibility given her royal blood, he guessed, because she narrowed her eyes at him and told him, in no uncertain terms that he would not use a broken leg as an excuse to work himself to death. She softened her statement with a gentle touch on the arm which made him uncomfortable again. It would have been fine if his mother or one of his sisters had done the same thing, so he ignored it and asked if he could have some water instead.
She nodded and got it herself, from a cool pitcher sitting in an insulated box next to the table. The box made him think of something, causing him to chuckle. Right, his totally superfluous idea of making cold boxes that didn't need ice. Tor avoided mention of the idea itself, since he knew it might be considered work, but he did ask if there was a spare box that could be put in his room, like the one next to him. The Queen raised her eyebrows, clearly knowing he intended something other than just keeping some water cool, but nodded and raised her hand about shoulder high. She didn't ask for it to be done out loud, but he knew it would be anyway, in that eerie fashion that
