waved to her, she looked a little plain, and about thirty or so, but had a nice smile. At least she seemed playful in her attentions and hadn’t screamed in fear about a half naked man. In Two Bends it would have been a bit of a scandal, but here it was just… Wednesday. For that matter, Tor kind of thought that if the woman had been the topless person no one but him would have batted an eyelash. Then, given the heat, he kind of wondered why anyone wore clothing here at all.
Changing was a problem. He had clothes, Rolph had sent an outfit for him, just putting it in his trunk, but lacking Burks to help him into it, dressing took a lot longer. It was frustrating, because he couldn’t reach the laces that ran up the back, and in the end he had to break down and ask Debbie to help him. It was a heavy silk and velvet thing, with no color in particular to the whole outfit. Debbie thought it made him look older.
“Good though. Kind of small for a royal, but you could be one of those merchant princes from Tellerand. Not that I’ve seen any, but I hear they have about your size and look. Dark hair, pale and, um, short.” She whipped back to work as if he’d be insulted by the fact that he wasn’t all that tall. He’d lived it his whole life and came from a place where everyone was his size. It was the people in this place that looked too tall to him. He grinned at his boss’s back and finished getting ready.
Tor barely got the chests drug around before Collette showed up, in a very pretty powder blue dress that had more lace on it than could possibly be comfortable. It looked warm, uncomfortably so, and she was trying to cool herself a little when she walked in, with a silk fan that nearly matched the color of the gown.
“Good evening!” The tall blond said when he walked out, doing a double take when his luggage followed him, hovering about a foot in the air.
It was just a simple modification of a basic luggage float. It would go up to the point he lifted it to and then stay there. He had an amulet around his neck that it followed, no matter where he went. It had some issues, for instance, it could be confused by doors and would try to pass through a person if they got in its path, but if you paid attention it was way simpler than trying to carry something that weighed that much. The main chest was just on the edge of what he could pick up on his own. Copper and silver plates and even amulets, added up way faster than it looked like they should and he had a lot with him. Party favors mainly.
About twenty minutes later a carriage pulled up, the wood was polished, a deep, dark color that spoke of taste, and a lot of care, because in the Capital anything that shade would show each speck of dust easily, and that did collect. On everything. It probably had to be cleaned daily to keep it looking like it did, which was virtually spotless.
Tovey stepped out of the back, along with a pretty woman that wore a red dress designed to catch the eye. She was short, and looked different than he’d ever seen her. He realized who she was at least fifteen full seconds before she seemed to recognize him though, so he figured the points had to go to him on that one.
“S’t… Torrence? You look great. Who’s your friend?” She asked this with an accent that sounded a little fake to his ear, but really, if he just listened to her without remembering she was Terlee from Two Bends, she sounded like a royal. Way more than he did. He sounded a bit more like a merchant in accent, at least that’s what Rolph had told him. Then, Tor had learned to speak like he did by copying Rolph’s, which at school was all “Rolph Merchant” his disguise, “Prince Alphonse” sounded different.
Tovey looked puzzled by the addition of Collette to their group as they stood in the store for a few moments. He waited for an explanation apparently, and possibly a bit anxiously, so Tor filled them in. He could get the possible unease. Terlee was from Two Bends, not the Capital. Having an extra girlfriend around might just make her go off. Except that it was Terlee, and Tor knew his sister better than that. She might hide all evening, but she wouldn’t get openly angry.
“Collette is a friend of ours Terlee. She was originally going to go to this with the Count but they decided that wouldn’t work too well, since the situation with you and he has changed? I’ll need to be filled in on that sometime soon I think. Anyway, since she’s a friend of mine too, I’m getting her in to the party. There’s more to it than that, but that should serve for now.” To his amazement Terlee just smiled and took Collette’s hand gently.
“Nice to meet you.” She said, getting something similar back from Collette, who seemed happier and more at ease suddenly. Of course the situation could have been a lot more tense given everything, so that probably made sense. Terlee was a lot of things, but mean wasn’t one of them and apparently, rumors of her not being understanding aside she really was trying to adapt to the new situation at least as hard as Tor was. If anything she fit in better, he decided, feeling proud of his sister again. She’d gone from Two Bends to engaged to a Count in what, a month? A month and a half? Tor had been out of the village for nearly three years now and still wasn’t engaged to a Count at all.
Tovey helped him boost the chest onto the back of the carriage, moving it easily. Tor couldn’t have picked it up that high on his own, not within two feet even. He marveled a little, knowing that no matter what else happened in his life, he’d just never be that tall. No wonder people let them lead. It was just darned impressive. Before they got in the back of the carriage Tor took out a handful of amulets and started handing them out.
“Presents. One to keep your temperature stable,” Tovey pulled his out from under his shirt, so Tor took the one he’d tried to give him back with a smile. Good to know that he’d kept it all this time. “The other is just, well, here….” He put the amulet on and looked down at the little array of sigils and tapped the first one.
A soft white light grew slowly out of the air around his body, resting about two inches off of his skin. It wasn’t glaring and showed better in the back of the dark carriage than it would under bright lights, but it wasn’t meant to be useful, just interesting.
Collette looked at hers.
“Why are their seven sigils though?” She didn’t hit any of the others, being smart enough to know better. No sane adult ever touched a sigil without knowing it was safe.
“Each ones a different color of light. It’s harmless. Let’s see…Here.” He reached over to her and hit the right sigil, fourth from the left, not noticing at first that he was tapping so near her chest until after the light blue sprang up in the air around her. He suddenly felt awkward, but no one else seemed to notice. Terlee matched her own with red light after a few tries and the Count decided that green suited him best.
“If nothing else,” Tovey said as he looked at the people with him, smiling in that relaxed fashion of his. “At least we’ll be easy to see.”
Chapter five
Tor nearly just left the city in embarrassment when the gate guards tried to turn him away again at first. He didn’t have an invitation.
No one had even mentioned the idea to him before. Count Thomson had one, printed in a fine hand on sturdy paper; it was black ink on a smooth cream colored paper that he’d never seen the like of before. It even had his sister’s name on it; right there in hand inked lines. Rolph hadn’t mentioned even needing one at all! Well, at least he’d warned Collette that this might happen. She didn’t seem overly put out by it at least, just shrugging it off.
“Do I get to keep the amulets? I think that I could use them to deflect the worst of Maria’s bites tomorrow… God that sounds mercenary doesn’t it? I just-” the woman shrugged a little and touched his arm gently, leaving her hand on it as the gate guards kind of glared at them for not having the proper papers. Had the invitation just been some kind of game then? Why? Then again, they were all royals and everyone knew that they didn’t do things in a straight foreword manner if they could help it. Even Tor had grown up with stories about that.
So was this really him being snubbed? Worse he’d brought his own witnesses. Crap.
He should have just skipped it, shouldn’t he?
“Of course, heck, I’ll load you up with amulets and fields if you want them, I brought plenty. I guess I really did make someone mad at me here. I wonder what I did? Probably being too short or something silly like that. Well, anyway, Tovey, would it be all right if we borrowed the carriage to get Collette back home? I’m horribly embarrassed about all this. I was asked by Rolph and Varley to come personally, they said that it was directly from the King and Queen and I figured… well, I guess things are different than I thought? Nothing for it now.”
He forced a smile, even knowing he sounded horrible. It was just that his stomach was making an effort to sink through the bottom of his tummy that did it. Probably trying to hide, away from the shame he’d brought on them.
The Count and Tor’s sister both got out, but looked uneasy doing it. Tor made a point of giving the King’s
