chair he sat in slid on the floor just slightly and the man stood.
“Tor! You look… Let’s get you something to eat.” He finished lamely.
Tor didn’t feel hungry at the moment, but he appreciated the thought, he knew that he looked a lot more like a walking skeleton than not these days, flesh lean and hard all over, as often as not pressing right up against bone. Before anyone could say anything Varley turned and vanished up the stairs, presumably to get him food, as backwards as a Princess waiting on him and taking orders from a room servant seemed. It was war time though, so everyone had to serve as best they could, right?
Then again, if Burks was a simple servant here, Tor would have totally rethink what those kind of people did. Why they were even discussing the school didn’t make sense at all.
“Hey everyone. We’ve, uh, come to get an update on the situation with…” Not wanting to just blurt out that Ursala’s parents had been murdered or go into how Karen, his friend, was dead, Tor waved a hand. Funnily enough everyone seemed to get it.
Rolph sat in a big. Old looking, wooden chair next to the King, both dressed in clothing a lot simpler and more heavy duty than he’d gotten used to seeing them in. The King wore what looked like a canvas military uniform in all black and Rolph sat in an old pair of student browns that actually had a bit of wear on them. Looking around Tor realized that, for the first time in his life, he might be the best dressed person in the room. For the men at least, Ursala still beat him, but that didn’t count, because she was a woman. It just worked that way, if he was making up the rules at least. No one else seemed concerned with that kind of thing right now. Of course. That would be too much to ask now that he finally could have been in the lead, he thought with a sigh. Well, at least he was still winning the contest to be the shortest person still, his conversation with the exotic Afrak ambassador flitting across his mind suddenly.
The room had to be the plainest place in the whole building, plain gray stone making a simple square of a room that was no bigger than his section of the hut back at the compound. Not that his house was that small, but with a bunch of giants in it, things got close fast. The same thing was true here. At the back there was a metal door, also in gray that had obviously been opened in the last days, since fresh scratches had appeared on the stone floor where it had been forced open. It wasn’t a big door either, the King would probably have to twist and bend a lot to get through it. Rolph too, it seemed, since now that Tor looked more closely it was clear that his tall friend had gotten even bigger in the last months.
All the men stood, even Rich, who helped find chairs for everyone. Hardgrove tried to give his chair up to Tor when it became clear they were one short, but that got the man a hard look and a wave of the hand. After all, Tor could just hit the Not-flyer and hang in the air comfortably enough, where the old guy would have had to stand. It meant being careful not to waive his right hand around when he spoke, but really, Tor wasn’t here to talk. That he was even in the room, obviously some kind of secret bunker, didn’t make a lot of sense to him at all.
Wasn’t the point of a secret hiding place to keep it… secret?
Once everyone was seated, no time was wasted on pleasantries. Rich started filling Ursala and interestingly enough, Sara, in on what had been happening behind the scenes.
“Our agents are in place. Things… well, they’ve been going slowly so far. The Wards may not be intelligent people, but whomever they’re working with seems rather more clever. We’ve helped work Baronetta Coltress into place, her father “being needed” for the war effort and him deeming the Capital as rather too dangerous for the time being at our urging. She’s been shunted off to the dowager estate, but Ellen Ward has proven useful in getting her into place in the main household for regular visits. Somehow they’ve all secured flying gear already, making visits to Warden, the Ward County capital simple enough that they’d be expected to make it up there regularly.” He rubbed at his face, clean shaved, but tired looking. Tor could sympathize.
So, their “agent” was Collette? Well, or one of her sisters. Tor had a feeling that the pretty blond was the one though, especially when the hardships she was undergoing at the hands of her half-sister were described. It sounded like Maria really didn’t like either her or Ellen at all and only tolerated Ellen because Count Ward, for all his other failings, still loved his mother.
“You can’t tell by the way he keeps her though, can you? That dowager estate was about to be overrun with royal eating lizard monsters the last time I was there. Well, really, I only went the once, to put in her house dryer, and give her some cooling plates, but yeah, for a royal she’s not being taken care of that well at all.” Tor knew he sounded a little irritated, but Ellen had seemed nice and it would have taken very little work for her son to make sure she was taken care of properly.
Hardgrove’s eyebrows shot up at that bit of information.
“You’ve visited the Dowager Ward at her home?”
“Yes… and no, I’m not sleeping with her, so let’s not malign her name that way,” the last bit wasn’t exactly bitter, but did sound just a little short. He winced and tried to soften his tone with the man, who had, after all, always been nice to him.
“Sorry sir, I mean, I went down a few months ago, and put in some devices to keep her house cool and dry, they make her live in the middle of a huge swamp. Oh, and gave her and her man Georges flying rigs and shields. Was I not supposed to? If not then I probably really botched when I got some of the military guys to go down and build a wall around her estate to keep those lizard monsters out and put in a freezing box and some other things. I… hope that doesn’t mess with anyone’s plans overly, but what was I supposed to do? I mean, giant killer snake things or whatever they are…” He’d never seen one, but they sounded horrible from what Ellen had said. They had to stand ready to do battle with them every time they left the house.
Rather than get mad at him for messing things up, everyone in the room actually seemed to range from non- committal about the move, to happy. Oddly it was Ursala who seemed to not care and Richard along with Hardgrove that seemed pleased. As Tor hovered in the air he was just glad that no one was really angry about it, since he couldn’t fix it now, could he? He moved a few inches closer to the group as Richard explained how they might be able to use it all to their benefit.
Touching his head gently, as if he had a headache, he outlined a tentative plan.
“We could, perhaps, use more items and even… Gold, coming from you Tor, to Ellen Ward and possibly Collette Coltress, given as gifts, to help them gain favor with the Count and his lady. We need some excuse for you to be sending them gifts, but the value would be enough to get their attention and possibly reflect well on our agents. Wait… I’m not exactly getting it yet. One moment.”
The King clearly lost focus, staring at a wall for several minutes. No one else spoke or even moved overly. When he looked around he noticed that half the people in the room were doing something similar. Sara and Hardgrove did at least. Burks stared at Richard closely, as if waiting for an order or suggestion that might be helpful. Ursala didn’t do anything special, she just waited, smiling at Tor and Rolph occasionally. It looked sad.
For his part Tor wondered if this was how people felt when he suddenly drifted away from a conversation in a similar fashion. It was a little annoying, he realized, but mainly just because he didn’t have anything to do. Finally nearly fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Varley came in holding a covered tray. It had a silver platter underneath, covered with a high dome of something that actually looked too shining and bright for silver. Even polished silver rarely looked like that, having a duller cast to it. She set it down on the table in front of him and with a small flourish, quietly unveiled… a sandwich.
It was roast beef, and had some kind of creamy and savory dressing on it. Dill and rosemary he thought. It was good, because really, anything with rosemary was and the sandwich was made on a single loaf of bread, meaning it was huge. If it wasn’t at least a foot long, Tor didn’t know how to measure anything. Luckily it had been sliced in half on a diagonal so that he could actually pick it up.
He hadn’t felt hungry before, but suddenly he was famished. Tor ate it, after checking for poison openly. Eating, even though no one else had food, not caring at first, as rude as it was. After the first half of the meal he was getting full and thought to offer the rest around, but didn’t know how without talking. Just then, as he started to try and get Rolph, Varley and Ursala’s attention with more than a little hand waving, the King shook himself and started speaking.
“What if… Collette Coltress was sent as an intermediary? To make peace after all that’s happened? Tor would have to be willing to apologize most likely, but it would give our person on the ground a chance to cement her relationship with the Wards at least. Is that… Well, socially speaking it’s a good plan anyway….”
Snapping out of their own deep states the others all started nodding suddenly. Tor didn’t get it; he was supposed to apologize to the Wards? For what? Letting Ward beat on his shield at the meeting about the baby? Existing? He asked, knowing that he sounded a little peevish, but not really being able to stop it at the
