The man just laughed, as if he’d said something funny. Maybe he just looked funny? At least no one would be assuming he was a child any more. He decided to keep the beard. If the guy wasn’t smart enough to figure out that the guy making Sky Rivers for Afrak and wearing Tor’s clothes, was Tor, then telling him otherwise would be a waste of time. Still, if he had connections in the kitchen, the fool might be useful. Tor didn’t like his demeanor, it felt too slick and wheedling at the same time, but hey, any port in a storm and all that.
At the kitchen the “knowing a guy” thing turned out to be a lot less a specific person and more of just standing at the door and offering to trade work later for food now. Laughing Tor waved the other man away. A tall man, older than the rest and wearing a light brown apron stepped forward and sized Tor up.
“Can you cook, or at least wash dishes?” The voice was skeptical, as if most people couldn’t.
“Baker. Not what I’m doing now, but I have a few days off coming. I grew up in a bakery, literally.”
The man seemed impressed and gave him some bread and cheese from a cold box. Not the kind from the palace, but one that someone had rigged up a room cooling plate to the inside of. It did keep it cool enough, if the cheese was any indication. He’d have to make a freezer or two for the place before the next summer. Right now it was cool outdoors, not so cold he needed a jacket, but then wearing all his pendants Tor wouldn’t have bothered anyway.
The huge ovens at the back of the room where producing a steady stream of pots, a lot more than fifty or even a hundred people would have needed. He asked, curious, how many they were cooking for. It turned out to be nearly three hundred. Apparently while he’d been working someone had decided to turn his little compound into a center for learning how to make military supplies.
Tor suppressed a groan. After all, if people were making more furniture and learning how to do it, as well as other things, that meant they’d need more of the compressor devices, and that, of course, meant more work for him. Yay. Well, at least he was useful now.
Well, he was finishing the rivers first. At least if anyone let him.
Fed well enough that he was uncomfortable, even if he hadn’t eaten much at all, he walked back to his room, using his feet, just to get the exercise.
It wasn’t good of him, but Tor hoped that Sara had stopped crying by now so that he wouldn’t have to deal with anything new. If she was pregnant with Rolph’s child, or worse, someone else’s, it would just be a pain in the ass. This time he wasn’t going to offer to marry anyone to help some girl get out of the mess she’d gotten herself into either. In a way it made him a little sad that he’d lost that innocence along the way. That desire to help a person just because they needed it. Why had that happened anyway?
Right… it happened about when he’d figured out that Trice thought he was a stupid troll.
So, great. She thought he was a moron, which was turning him into an evil Galasian Tor troll. Troll of Galasia. It was even in his list of titles at the palace now. So apparently at least someone there thought it really fit. Probably Rolph.
Inside winding through the outer hall and going down the steps he noticed the crying had stopped at least. Yay. He walked slowly towards the table that had been set up in the common area and sat in one of the chairs. His chair actually, so it fit almost perfectly. The other three were much larger, but he didn’t care. Tor was just glad that no one had carted his humble little chair off without asking first, after all so much else had changed and it didn’t actually match.
A few minutes later there was a stirring from behind the screen where Sara had obviously set up, and the blond head popped out and looked at him, then made a happy sound and flowed out to the table, where she tried to hug him. The shield stopped her short.
“Tor! Drop the stupid shield so I can hug you silly! I thought you might be gone for good this time. Oh!” Arms moved around him when he dropped the field and she held on as if he was keeping her from drowning.
Over her shoulder he noticed a large figure in a dress come out from behind the screen and he almost panicked, starting to slap at his shield, wondering if Sara had set him up to be killed by Trice. But it wasn’t her. This girl was slightly plumper, in a healthy way, and a little taller. Blond and pretty, but no one he recognized. He stared at her for almost a minute before he got it.
“Ursala? But…” A hundred questions popped in to his head then, but instead of getting to ask them he was suddenly rushed by the woman and found himself wrapped suddenly in a pair of warm arms that shouldered Sara out of the way.
Ursala pulled back, breathing hard, her exhalations coming out broken, like sobbing.
“Tor… They’re all dead…”
Chapter twelve
Tor froze.
Who was dead? His mind flitted from one possibility to another rapidly. The royal family? Rolph wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so it could be that or… His family? The idea terrified him more than he cared to think about. Luckily he didn’t have to wait long for the answer.
“We were poisoned, my parents, me, several of the estate servants. Mom and dad didn’t last the night. I… lost the baby and nearly died myself. I just didn’t have as much of the poison I guess. It was in an old bottle of wine, and I only had a few sips, because of the… baby. Other things were poisoned, the wine for the staff too. They have different bottles, the staff, so someone had to have targeted them specifically for some reason.”
She continued then, how it wasn’t just them, but eight other families as well, all on the same day. Two more had been spared, because they’d had and used poison detectors at home. Sara hugged him again, dislodging Ursala this time.
“One of the families that escaped… it was Ridley’s. You know, the first one that you gave detectors to? It saved them all.”
Tor had to think back, but not that hard, “Oh, right, one of the guys that Trice said she was going to have sex with in front of me to prove what a spineless wimp I am? Didn’t he say that his parents were afraid that Count Ward was coming after them? I mean, really, that’s why I didn’t even bother to think about giving him the stuff, because I’m not overly fond of Ward right now…”
Ah.
Ursala sat in one of the chairs and swallowed.
“Right in one. It took everyone else days to put it together, you were working, or we could have asked you earlier. But Ward’s a sitting Count, so it’s, well, if proved it’s an act of war. Worse really, treason, because we’re already at war. This took out two Counts, a Baron and two Knights. Plus servants and others, so many others… Rolph had to go to the Capital to help with all this and show a strong front to the Austrans so they won’t use the turmoil as an excuse to attack.” She shook, holding herself tightly. Tor felt awkward about it, but patted her back lightly until she could continue.
“If this had happened during a time of peace, I think that the Wards would be gone by now. As it is a lot of people are calling for their deaths.”
Sara looked down at the table and move fluidly into the chair next to him.
“Kolb nearly led the combat students from the school on an attack of Wards forces. It took a direct order from the King to get him to stand down and that’s only temporary. Rolph told me that his father was probably tempted to send them in anyway. It’s the second largest group of trained flying fighters you know. Only the King’s military has more… Sorry, of course you know. You outfitted them all. But it isn’t going to take the students at the school that long to realize that the King’s orders don’t apply to them directly in this, not all of them. He only told Kolb not to attack yet. Karen was popular with the combat types and already a Knight at twenty. Do you know how hard it is for a girl to get the title? She must have been tough.”
Karen?
“What? Karen Derring?” God let it be some other Karen. It was a common enough name after all…
“Yes. She was one of the Knights that died. Her younger brother David was poisoned, same thing, bottle of wine. He lived though. They were in their County on a weekend trip, since they could fly back and forth. No one could figure out what the connection to Ward was at first, since it wasn’t to Count Ward at all, but the Countess, his wife Maria.” Sara put her right hand on top of his left, the skin warm to the touch for a brief flash, until the
