If he didn’t just pull a weapon and attack. The man had three of them. A knife hidden in his jacket, a force lance of indifferent quality and a cutter that had about a two foot sweep on it. Nothing he had would touch Tor, sure, but that didn’t mean an attack wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Instead of anything like that the whole room just stayed quiet for a long time.
“Fine. I’ll allow passage through my lands.” The Baron said gruffly, biting the words as he spoke, not looking at anyone at all. The King looked at the Duchess, who’d grinned suddenly, but hadn’t said anything. The gaze didn’t waiver and after a while seemed to pin the woman in place, she went still. After nearly a minute, her face frozen into blankness, she spoke.
“I apologize for trying to force my way through. It was high handed and unnecessary. Please accept my apology and promise to not do so again.” Her words didn’t have a truly sincere ring to them as far as Tor could tell and her face didn’t look like the matter was really settled either, but the King seemed satisfied with her response and had them all shown the door with a strong suggestion that they not come back to him on related issues for at least another five years.
Connie reached over and patted at his right hand lightly, forcing herself to comfort him, Tor guessed. He was fine though. Embarrassed about what he’d said, but that was all. It didn’t really matter. No woman wanted him anyway, so if they all learned what Trice thought of him, well that wouldn’t change their minds anyway. If you were an ugly little troll, that was hard to hide, right? All he could do was try to be a good person and hope that would be enough in the end.
The chairs were rearranged and only one was left in front of the group of four this time. An older woman came in, tall, like all the nobles were of course, but this one looked tired and care worn. Her clothing was of fine quality, but looked old and had some spots on it. She was quite about it, but it was pretty obvious after a few minutes that the woman didn’t live in the same reality that the rest of them did at all. Her mind was gone and seemed to have been for a long time.
The scary thing was that the woman was a sitting Countess. Unmarried and childless, she had complete control of an entire County, one of the northern ones that used to be rich, until she’d gained power some fifty years before. County Cannor. They hadn’t exactly suffered under her, but she wasn’t a good leader either from what Tor could glean. Distracted at times if nothing else.
She just seemed to want to visit though, and didn’t have a real issue at all. Not even an imaginary one, which was kind of a relief. What would they have done if she announced herself under attack by forces no one else could see or hear? The King was required to give a certain amount of aid in case of unlawful attack, and honestly, imaginary foes had no lawful reason for attack, did they? It would have been an almost impossible fight to win too. Worse, Tor had a strong feeling that if it came to it, he’d have been the one ordered into battle. Rolph too probably. The woman couldn’t argue that the heir and his best friend going to her aid was less than the King really taking notice, even if she was a little off.
He had a momentary vision of both of them dressed in armor made of wood shingles holding broad children’s play swords running around for weeks trying to slay an invisible dragon.
After half an hour the woman stood and left without saying goodbye. No one commented on it at all. The King just smiled at her back, seeming relieved and happy enough.
“Last one coming…”
Two chairs were put out and the Morgans were lead into the room, by one of the Royal Guard, an older fellow that looked to be important, if the extra bit of gold on his collar meant anything. Both wore somber clothing in dark colors. Death colors. They walked in with heads high, until they saw Tor sitting there. He tried not to look away or glare, but really, he didn’t know what to do with himself either. He felt ambushed and glanced at the Queen next to him, then over at the King and finally Rolph, who at least looked a bit shocked too. That part was nice. At least his stupid looking facial expression had his friends company.
The Prince sat up very straight and pointed at them rudely.
“What are they doing here? After what Trice did…” He looked at them angrily. “After what she said about Tor, you two are just lucky that he’s agreed not to kill you. For now. I had to beg a promise from him for that much! I’d have thought you’d be hiding away somewhere hoping you weren’t found. He may not be “noble” enough for your daughter, but you should just thank all gods that he’s not! Anyone else, and I mean anyone, would have attacked already and not given you a reprieve.”
They both sat without responding at first, finally Mercy looked at the Queen and spoke softly.
“Um. Well, this is delicate then isn’t it? We… didn’t know that Tor would be here still. We’ve tried to talk to Patricia, but she won’t answer our letters, or at least hasn’t yet. We don’t really know what’s going on, just that the wedding is off and that Tor’s demanding all the devices he gave us back? Is that right? And Alphonse is obviously upset, but… What’s going on? I’d thought we left on, if not good terms, then at least as good as possible. Did you two have a fight?” She looked at Tor with concern in her eyes.
Tor wondered if they really didn’t know or if this was just one of those complicated ruses that the nobles liked to pull off to make each other look stupid. It could be, he knew. One of the things that Trice had pointed out was that he wasn’t very bright after all.
Grimly Rolph recounted the whole event in the restaurant and how he’d had to beg Tor not to destroy half the kingdom, which was still tenuous, as Tor had a super-weapon that could do just that. Tor almost laughed about it, not because it wasn’t true, but because he literally had it on his person. Hanging on a little cord around his neck. The Morgans went white as sheets. Not, Tor noticed, at the implied threat Rolph had delivered, but before that, when they heard the words that had been spoken about him.
“Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like her… perhaps someone misconstrued or reported the words of someone else?” Mercy began. Rolph held up his right hand and stopped her.
“Heard it myself. Hard to ignore actually, since she was kind of yelling it to the whole room. It wasn’t even in private, so that dignity could be preserved. It wasn’t even during a fight, so that we could blame anger or lack of caution. Nor was she too far gone into drink for sensibility. She knew where she was, and what she was saying. The people around her even argued against her, not knowing we were there to hear them, but she persisted anyway. She wasn’t being led by her fellows into this… If Doretta had been half as vile Wylde would have killed her in the street.” The last bit came out as a low growl.
Tor wanted to leave. Why did he have to deal with these people? He hadn’t wronged them, had he? For all he knew they had him poisoned on their daughters behalf. She even said to a room of strangers that he was too nice and trusting, too easily taken in.
What did they want from him?
It took a long time for them to get to that. What they wanted, it turned out, was to not have to give the stuff back. Richard let out a huff of air that sounded half like a growl himself, matching the tone of the room perfectly.
“Really? In all this, the most important thing you can come up with to bring to our attention is that? Gold? You have gold! I thought better of you both. I’m very disappointed in you.”
They both hung their heads briefly, but Eric rallied first.
“It’s not gold, not just that… anyway, we’ve formed hundreds of contracts with people for goods shipments, most of them perishables, if we don’t do it, then a lot of people that have been waiting for our rapid transportation are going to be stuck, many of them losing a lot because they’d gambled on our ability to get things across the kingdom for them. We dealt in good faith, but now… I can see the reasoning, I even agree, but it isn’t fair to these others.”
The discussion drifted away from him directly for a bit at least. It was both an easy and hard situation.
“So let me get this straight,” Tor finally put in, anger creeping in to his voice even as he tried to hide it from everyone. It made him sound cold and mean anyway. “I either help you make a bunch of gold, or loads of people that haven’t done anything to me at all suffer because I’m being petty? On one hand I can easily fix this by just letting you go ahead, but on the other, if I do, I’m weak and spineless? I just want to make sure I have this all right. After all, it’s you two, and your own daughter, that are setting these conditions.”
What the hell was he supposed to do? He was being petty, even in his anger he could see that, but if he didn’t do it, he’d look weak. To her. Then again, should he even care what she thought about him at all? Tor knew the answer to that without even thinking. He’d though she was his friend and all the while she’d just been using him. She didn’t deserve to have any of his thoughts or concern at all. If he was too nice, or too stupid or even too ugly, well, that was just what he was.
