From the back of the transport a voice holding a low chuckle chimed in.
“Darn straight! If you don’t want to do us all, well, that’s… Actually kind of silly. All of us are wonderful in our own ways, even Sorlee is more than worth having sex with I bet, I’d give her a shot if she offered… But it’s your decision; still you need to at least make sure you aren’t being unkind. At least learn to play back a bit even if you don’t want to engage. You did manage to kiss Varley well enough, but really, how do you think the rest of us feel, you doing that and ignoring all the signals we’re sending out?”
“Um, signals?”
They were sending him signals? How? Smoke? A tapped military thing? Some secret code no one had ever taught him? He wondered for a second if this was all some kind of game they were playing with him right now. Luckily at about that time the transport landed, a much faster thing this time, since they were expected and all that, plus no Royal Guards were hanging around waiting to take the transport out of the air if it moved too fast. Not that he knew of at least.
It was, at least nominally, his house. True Rolph owned the property, but he was kind of renting it, in exchange for his work with the military, wasn’t he? So you’d think that any arrangements like that would be run passed him.
He laughed at himself when he finished the thought.
Right, even if everyone agreed with him, when would they have done that? It wasn’t fair to require people to ask for his permission to do things if he wasn’t going to really be able to talk to them for days or weeks at a time. No one seemed to really, agree with him, all of them still calling it a military base, worse “Tor Base” a name which made him shudder a little when he heard it. Maybe if he made a sign and hung it out front? What could he call it though? “Tor’s house” was just as bad as Tor base. Nearly at least.
Rich people named their houses sometimes, didn’t they? It was in the stories at least.
Maybe the compound needed a name. What could he call it though? There wasn’t anything around that really stood out, just a bunch of empty lands. He’d have to think about it. Tor asked Sara and Ursala if they could come up with something better than “Tor Base” before he crawled into his bed and tapped the light plate stuck to the wall over the head of his bed. The plate, just copper with acid etching of course, making a green design in the middle, sat recessed into the wall. Someone had carved that out while he’d sat right there working?
Amazing. He’d never even noticed at all. They would have had to sit on his head or something while they worked practically. For a few seconds he envisioned exactly that happening, some military guy sitting on him while working with a hammer and chisel, but it was more likely that they’d just moved him out of the way first, then used a specialized cutter for the job, taking only a few minutes. When he worked he was pretty much gone, Tor knew, so it wouldn’t have been hard.
When he got up the whole place had gone dark, so pulling shoes on carefully, his light plate set to its lowest level, Tor made his way out carefully. He could hear heavy breathing coming from behind the other screens as he moved. He didn’t know what time it was really, but it felt like time for all good little bakers to be getting a start on the day at least. No one seemed to be out and about that he could tell, so he used the restroom and then went to the bath house. Inside the lights had been left on, which made sense. After all, there was no oil wasted, and the place didn’t have windows, so even during the day it would have been pitch black without them.
The tub gurgled full pretty fast. At this point in the system a pipe, one about four inches around emptied directly into the huge bath. It was so big that it had to have a bench all the way around the inside of it and really, as long as the people weren’t as vast as the biggest nobles, three or four people would be able to soak in one at once. He’d seen people sharing a few times, which Rolph had assured him were a normal bathhouse thing. You showered first, then shared a tub to warm up after. They hadn’t done that at home or at school, but they didn’t have tubs like this either.
Right now though, he didn’t have to share with anyone at all. The tub, big as it was, filled in less than a minute, a lot less. He selected a warm setting for the water, tapping the plate on the side, and after getting his clothing off he gingerly climbed the little ladder that let him get in. As easy as baking was, given his health at the moment he found himself more than a little sore from the previous day’s labors. Kolb would have beaten him back into shape most likely at this point. Since he wasn’t around he’d have to buckle down and do it himself, an idea he dreaded. For the moment though, a hot soak was better than nothing and he had a few minutes to just sit and enjoy the water before he needed to get to the kitchens.
Eyes closed he heard other people coming in, and the showers towards the back get turned on. That took guts he knew, because the showers didn’t have heaters yet. Even with the weather being decently warm, the water felt cold enough to make a body shiver. Really, he just needed to make a plate or two for it like for the tubs and the roof cistern could be warmed easily enough. It kind of surprising to him that no one had just stolen one of the heaters from a tub to do that with already. That… he could do it later in the day. It would only take about an hour after all, and people in a hurry shouldn’t have to freeze. Tor thought that he could get to it after lunch without anyone getting mad at him, if he was quick about it, even if he was supposed to be taking a break from hard work.
Could he manage a griddle or two for the kitchen too? It would be tricky, because if he tried to do too much work, the girls would probably… Tor had no clue what they’d do to him. Douse him with water so that he couldn’t work properly? That wouldn’t be enough to mess him up, unless the water was really cold. Or hot. But burning him might be counterproductive, if the goal was for him to not damage his health any more.
Some of the other tubs started to be filled with water, the sound a lot softer than when he’d done it. Ah! Right, they only had the flow of one little stream to work with and the water pumps didn’t work if there was no water to put out. Another reason to test the new rivers he realized. His little house here needed more water, and so, most likely, did the bigger base where the flight training was going on. That map pointer guy had mentioned it as a growing problem already even.
After about half a minute Tor felt the water in his tub suddenly rise as someone climbed in to share, and before he could even open his eyes a second body joined the first. He nearly panicked for a second until he realized that assassins or robbers wouldn’t climb in with him. Robbers would have just lifted what was sitting on the little bench, and assassins would have slit his throat from behind. The idea wasn’t comforting, but as Varley had pointed out, inside like this, well, they did have guards and stuff, right? He could live without any pleasures, sure. He’d done it. But if he couldn’t even have use of the little joys and comforts available to him, what was the point of being anymore?
“This is the best part of this job. In the city we’d just get a cold bucket out the back alley to scrub up with after the night.” The voice was entirely too feminine, causing Tor to freeze suddenly.
Worse the next voice that spoke was just as womanly.
“Same where I was. I’ve got to say though, I was a little afraid at first, what with this place not having proper bouncers and all, but all the costumers are right gentleman, aren’t they? “Please miss, if it’s all right, might I do you from behind?” and “If it’s acceptable, would you please use your mouth?” at first I thought they were just putting us on, but they’re all like that. One got a little rough with Glari the other day and the other blokes came boiling out and thrashed the man right proper, and then, get this, without them even threatening him or telling him he had too, he apologized to her and gave over all the coin he had! Really, no one even said he should. It wasn’t even that big a thing, didn’t bruise her or nothing, just made her gag a little much is all.”
Apparently, he realized quickly enough, he’d come at the time of day that the women of… rettry, got off work and was invading their normal bath time. Well that was rude of him, wasn’t it? It kind of made sense, the end of their shift being near the beginning of his today given their current professions. Now he was kind of stuck, wasn’t he? If he opened his eyes, they’d all be there, naked. That wouldn’t be proper at all. Well, there was only one thing for it; he’d have to keep his eyes closed until they left to preserve their dignity. His own was… well, given everything, that didn’t matter, did it? He was the one in the wrong here, not them.
“The lady of the house told me that everyone is so nice here because the base commander, that fellow they call Major Godfrey? He told them all that the Prince himself said that if any of us is mistreated in any way he’d get Tor the wizard to come out and thrash them himself. No one wants to cross him.”
From the sound of it, this came from a tub down a ways to his left. From just slightly closer another voice spoke, this one a little breathy and younger sounding.
“One of the men here told me about how there was this Count from down south, who’d challenged a little noble boy to a fight to the death, just to punish the kids da, and Master Tor went and made him fight him instead and humiliated the man into apologizing to the boy, just by pointing at him. How fierce and powerful a man do you
