him all the way to the ground in a heap of tiny bodies.
“S'torence! S'torence!” The little voices squeaked at him as they climbed all over him for a few seconds, then the older two stopped, eyes going wide as they looked at the strangers. His sister Tara, who was only seven, hid behind him and pulled little Taman, the youngest, behind her protectively. His brother Terry looked at the newcomers with a tilt of the head.
“S'whos des?”
Tor explained who everyone was and asked if dad and mom were around. A few seconds later his father, wearing a buff colored heavy apron with more than a little flour on it walked out of the shop, clapping his son on the back heartily. He looked like a baker, but Tor just shrugged. If that wasn't impressive enough for his friends, then they shouldn't have come to a bakery, right?
“Dad,” Tor used his home accent naturally with his father, who wouldn't have understood him if he hadn't, most likely. “These are my friends and, well, this…” He took Trice's hand and smiled. “This is Patricia Alyson Morgan. She's agreed to marry me, if you and mom say it's alright. They're really good people, even if a trifle over tall. These are her parents… Can I, do you think?”
His father laughed and walked towards the Morgans, dwarfed by their great height but not overly intimidated for some reason. He held out his hand to Eric and shook with the man, patting his arm like they were old friends. Natural enough, he'd have done the same if Tor had come home with a girl from one village over and her parents. He also shook with Mercy who smiled at him and said hello.
In his thick dialect he explained that Tor's mother would be out in a few moments, since she had some berry pies to watch in the oven. It wouldn't do to let them burn after all. He offered them all a drink, the local hard cider or water, since they hadn't been expecting any guests and that's what they had chilled in the spring house, well that and some fruit juice for the kids. But you didn't offer juice to adults, he mentioned to Tor with a sideways glance and a small smirk. His da always teased him a little about not drinking and had for years.
Tor went with him to the small shack about a hundred yards from the back of the bakery, away from the house by twice that distance, where a natural spring burbled out of the ground.
“Tor! So… well, I guess we'll get the story of how you managed to rope the poor girl into marrying some Two Bends kid later, what is she? Merchant from the city?”
“No da, she's… actually she's what they call a “Ducherina”. That's the kid of a Duke or Duchess that won't inherit anything really. Her mom's a Baroness, but Trice won't get that title either. It's, really she shouldn't be marrying someone like me, but don't tell, alright? Obviously they know who I am and who we are, but I don't want to scare them off.” Tor grinned.
His dad grunted a little and got the jugs that were being held in the water, metal containers that while plain were tight and didn't leak into the spring at all. Tor took the hard cider, really no stronger than the wine the nobles drank day to day, so it shouldn't bother them too much and walked back towards where everyone waited, his father smiling a little.
“So, do you love the girl? Trees, you said her name was? Funny name, but it fits in here at least.”
“Trice, like Treez, yeah. That's not her full name, like I said earlier, Patricia. But to answer your question, yes. I really do, I mean enough for marrying, we're friends. I kind of have for a while now, but… that she's willing to be seen with me in public was more than I thought I should ask for, you know? That she's willing to actually do this…” He couldn't get himself to tell his dad that it was all make believe. Tor still didn't even know why Trice was willing to go along with him about it.
His dad patted him on the back.
“Well, love can make people do strange things. I got your mother after all…”
His father went inside to get some glasses, not wanting to try and crowd the giants into the tiny store front, they set up at the long outdoor table in the clearing behind the shop. It was just a bunch of split logs nailed with spikes to a sturdy frame. It had been there, with its two long benches made in a similar fashion, since before Tor had been born, he thought. It was big enough for the whole family, as long as they were cuddly about it.
A minute later his dad came back holding several glasses, the good ones for company that Tor had never seen them actually use, followed by his tiny mother, who also carried several glasses. She rounded the corner and smiled.
“S'torence ndeed! Goodn'see ya. Missing'yer we did.” She set the glasses down on the table and hugged him, tears forming in her eyes. Wiping them a bit, she looked at the people sitting around the table and stiffened, her face going blank.
This, Tor knew, might be a problem.
She'd always taught all of the kids to be at least a little wary around nobles of any kind and now here he was bringing in a bunch of them, claiming one might want to marry him. It could be a hard sell, if she panicked.
She didn't.
Instead she turned to her husband and asked him if he'd bring out some butter and bread rolls, the fresh ones, for their guests. He nodded and went to do it, looking at her oddly.
Letting go of Torrence she took a deep breath and moved towards the table, her demeanor shifting, her face changing from what he'd grown up seeing, kind and a little care worn, to something that looked younger and a bit regal. She stood dressed in her brown homespun with a matron's kerchief on her head and a heavy apron over her light brown shirt that didn't even have buttons, just ties to hold it in place.
It took a second, but the smile fell from Mercy's face first, replaced by a look of shock. Duke Morgan looked at Tor's mom strangely for a few seconds, then he stood.
“Laurie?”
“Hello Eric. Mercy. How have you been?”
Tor looked at his mother as if she'd grown a second head. He hadn't known that she knew how to speak anything other than the regional dialect, but her accent was… good. Better than his when he tried to speak standard.
“Laurie!” The Baroness ran towards the smaller woman and swept her up into her arms, hugging her like a child.
“God, Laurie, we all thought you were dead!”
Chapter twelve
Rolph stood up and walked around the scene to get to where Tor stood and looked at him, baffled. “Not to make myself sound artificially brilliant or anything, but, whaaa…?”
Sara and Trice looked just as confused as Tor shrugged at them. He didn't have a clue what this was about either. His mother was named Laurali, but he'd never heard that changed to Laurie before. For that matter, the fact that all these people where hugging and crying seemed more than a little off-putting.
He'd expected to have to soothe his mother, or possibly argue that he wasn't too young to marry, or wouldn't be by the time the date was set, and assure her he planned to finish school, but this? Boom, blow to the side of the head. Didn't even see it coming at all. Had he missed something again that everyone was supposed to just know or figure out on their own?
They let this go on for some while, even after Douglas came back with the rolls, butter and some of the honey reserve. He looked at the scene and shrugged. “Thought so. I wasn't sure, I didn't really know them back in the day, part of why the Count arranged for me to marry your mother, instead of one of them. The Austran wouldn't think to look for her here, after all.” This came out smoothly and with an accent that, if it didn't sound like what was spoken in the Capital, would have at least passed at the school as being normal. Possibly even cultured.
“So, da, I was just wondering…” Tor let his voice go wry. No need to get all worked up until he at least knew the score here. Probably not even then. After all, acting like an angry jerk had never helped anyone that he had seen. Just look at Dorgal. His doing that had cost his relative a marriage already at least. “And I mean this with great respect and kindness, but… what the hell?”
Tor pointed at the scene with all the hugging and now kissing, some of it a little too amorous to be just “I missed you a little”.
His father looked at them all and then back to Tor, then he shrugged. “Watch your language. As to the rest,
