moment.
No one answered for a few moments, then those moments stretched and warped into something embarrassing. At first Tor thought it was something he’d done, but finally Princess Veronica shook her head.
“No. It’s too much to ask father. Better to just arrange for the Wards to die in an “accident” and forget justice.”
Tor shifted in the air, so he faced the girl and tilted his head a little. His left hand rested on the table after the turn, helping to steady him, not that he was wobbling before.
“Um, I don’t get it… They want me to apologize to Count Ward? For… giving his mother some stuff? Or… you don’t think they mean Maria do you? That was a while ago, and I’m willing to let things go, because we were both just kids and sometimes people do stupid and cruel things without realizing what they’re doing really, but I’m not apologizing to her for it. I didn’t do anything wrong after all, so I don’t think it would seem genuine anyway.”
His large redheaded friend cleared his throat.
“Ah no, Tor, dad wasn’t suggesting that.” Looking uneasy Rolph finally shrugged slowly.
“He means to have you apologize to Trice.”
Chapter thirteen
“What? Do you want me to apologize for being a short, child-like moron that kisses like a dog?” Tor asked, sarcasm dripping from him. It occurred to him that he might want to be a little more genteel with the King, considering the man could just as easily order his death as have another chair brought into the room. Still, it took him by surprise. His main point, well other than wondering what he’d have to apologize for in the first place, was simple enough.
“Why?”
That was the big thing in his mind. Varley started to take his arm gently, but the force fields collided. Instead she stood next to him, nearly the same height now that he was floating. Her dress, a nice light blue thing with a lot of frills and puff, managed to spread out along the edge of his shield. He looked down at the effect for a second, as it looked like the cloth wanted to ride along and around his own field, wrapping it in hers. He’d never thought of that happening, since he always wore pants. Could one field be wrapped in another? It didn’t have any ready purpose, he didn’t think, but it looked kind of cool.
Looking at him seriously, the King gave him a single nod.
“Precisely so. We’ll send an apology just like that, if you can’t come up with something better, along with some of your own devices. Things normally too expensive to simply get rid of or give away. That way, when Patricia does get rid of them, or gives them away out of spite, it will make it look like she hates you in truth. She’s not certain that the Wards and their friends are really buying her story yet.”
Blinking Tor suddenly felt really tired. Drained almost really. Like getting some sleep would be a good idea. He felt his eyes starting to close, but forced them back open and shook his head a little. Burks looked at him, blue eyes taking in everything about him it felt like for a minute, then finally the man gestured at him.
“We can do that, if you have anything lying around to send of?” Then the servant turned and stared at the King. It was unblinking, almost stern. “However, I think for now, at least a few weeks, we need to ensure that Tor takes a break. Such an “apology” doesn’t have to be in person. Better to use an intermediary actually, because that would seem more realistic right now. Ideally one reading from a note. Now, if we could get you to pen that, in your own hand, it would be good. Not absolutely needed, since the Wards probably don’t have a sample of your writing, but definitely harder to refute later if they check.” Waving at him a bit the man suddenly got a strange look on his face and stopped dead.
“Oh, of course… No one’s told you yet. Brilliant move that, Ricky, leave the one man who single handedly could destroy everything we’ve done in the dark, bumbling for a light.”
No one said anything for a while, but Tor remembered the King once telling him that he didn’t want to be called Rick or Ricky. Even now the large man winced when he heard it, but he didn’t challenge the other man at all, letting it pass instead.
The large man in black pseudo military garb took a deep breath and then exhaled, but nothing else came out at all. His mouth even opened a few times as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. All of Tor’s friends looked down, including Ursala, leaving only the Dean and Varley making direct eye contact with him.
“Well?” Tor asked softly, hoping someone would answer him.
The cute Princess did, sounding a little worried as she spoke, but plunging bravely ahead. Varley was good at doing things like that, at least with him. Too bad she was going to end up so tall, Tor thought and he looked into her eyes and held them for a second.
“This… I don’t know much here Tor, but my guess is that Trice has gotten inside with Ward and his group. However she’s done that, what dad wants you to do is goad her now, so that she has a real reason to publicly mock and rebuke you, which will make it look like she really hates you and that all possible ties between you are cut, but…” Turning away slowly, the girl started to pace. It was only a few steps before the wall forced her to turn back, but she did it several times before she turned to face him again.
“The thing is Tor, that this could end up being really, really public. Maybe. We know that she’s probably worked inside Ward and that she’s trying to get proof that she and her parents didn’t try to kill you, but we don’t know how far she’ll be willing to go in order to get that done. She could… Well, you think it’s bad so far, but if you did this, she could possibly push you into attacking her or her parents and no one here wants that either…”
It didn’t make a lot of sense at first. Trice was with Ward now? Well, he was certainly tall and good looking enough and probably didn’t kiss like a dog. About as close to the opposite of him as possible. She definitely wouldn’t feel like she was making a move on a child when she was with him at least. But he was supposed to poke her with an obviously fake apology? Like what David Derring did to Count Rodriguez when he apologized for existing?
OK. That he could get. The problem though would be like having poked a bear. In her hatred and anger at him she might attack. True, with words and lies, or maybe just unpleasant truths, but it could really hurt him and everyone knew it. But it might help her take down the Wards?
“Why would I want to help her do anything? I mean, especially if it gives her a chance and reason to come after me again? I guess I can buy that the Wards are somehow behind all this, even attacking me, but how do we know that Trice wasn’t with them all along?”
“We don’t.” Rolph said quietly, shifting in his wooden chair in a way that caused it to creak under his weight.
“All we really know is that the Wards, particularly Maria, may be behind this. I guess… It might not make sense to you right now, but we’ve all known Trice for longer than you have and, well, it pretty much comes down to that. She told the King that she didn’t try kill you, and that she intends to take down the people who did. Even that she really does love you. She’s working on credit from her past with us, but I can see how that might not be enough for you personally, not after what she did. She’s kept to her story with us, that she just said those things to get attention from anyone that dislikes you, but…”
Well, as long as he could see that Tor might be a little uncomfortable, then that made it all OK, didn’t it? Tor had to fight not to roll his eyes. Trice supposedly loved him now? God he’d hate to think what she’d have done if she’d really hated him then. The discussion that followed was hard, because he was exhausted, so tired he could barely pay attention to what everyone else said, he forced focus so that it wouldn’t look rude, but it was hard. The King never tried to order him to do anything in particular, but it was clear that almost everyone in the room thought it was a good plan, giving Trice something to use when she needed it.
Tor settled to the ground and paced himself for a while. It was a plan. Not a good plan and it had a major flaw, in that it required Trice to not only be able to get information from the Wards that would show they were guilty somehow, but actually be trying to. For all Tor knew the woman would just use his apology against him personally and nothing good would come of it ever. Not that he was all that worried. If people hated him because of what she said and no women would have him, well, the sum worked out to be the same. Zero. No women wanted him anyway. So what did he lose by doing it? It was a risk, sure, but not one so big that he couldn’t take it, just in case the Wards really had tried to kill all those people.
Still, it seemed wrong and more than a little stupid for him to give over the keys to his personal destruction,
