the Farmers. It turned out that Sorlee would need to be taken into the Capital so the Two Bends rep could question her personally about where the package needed to go. Rolph pulled out a small, very nice, box for the gold to go in and then they sealed it for delivery. The girl sat and wrote a note to go with it. No one asked what was in the letter, since it was obviously private.
It meant that she had to wait until the next day and that someone would have to go with her. The natural choice being Tor, since he could actually understand her and translate. It meant that they’d have to get up extra early in order to get all the baking done before they left, but he wasn’t going to leave his friends family stuck just because he wanted to sleep in late. All told that left a tiny bit of time left to work on the problem he’d thought of before bed, if he could find out anything about Austran explosives.
Tor needed to get back to Kolb, since he was as close to an expert on how other military organizations fought as they had. At least he got to bring good news to him along with the questions once he found the man. The King was sending along money so that Tor could pay everyone in the new unit. Sure, it was out of his private funds, but they got a little something for toiletries and clothes, as well as what pleasure items and services they may want. It had surprised him a bit, but the King and Rolph both suggested two golds per week for each member of the new unit.
That, they said, meant that they were better paid than the military, but wouldn’t be so well paid that everyone would notice that it seemed special. Most of them were nobles, so that would get them a bit of slack money wise, no one being able to tell if it was part of an allowance from home or just their normal pay. Some of them actually got allowances from home even, so it would further confuse the issue. Tor had figured on paying them a lot more than that, but didn’t argue. He was pretty bad with money and Rolph was trained as an accountant already, mostly. He knew gold.
It turned out that the new shield would only have to hold against raw kinetic force traveling through the air, physical debris, heat and fire. It was a lot because of the size the shield needed to be and he hadn’t learned how to handled force in the air like Kolb described to him yet, but it gave him a starting point at least.
The next day started even earlier than normal but they managed to get into the Capital by ten in the morning, which being Monday meant that the pickup wouldn’t happen for another day. Normally. Since it was one of the six short vacation weeks that kids got off of school not one but two “agents” came to pick up outgoing packages from the Two Bends office while Stewart was working out the complicated directions to Sorlee’s family farm.
“So, it’s a town called Forrest Far? Past the two white top mountains, near the big clearing? And our agent should go into the village center and find the school mistress, S’Lalia? She’ll know where to go then? I see. Is she good with standard do you think? Because I don’t know if any of our delivery agents can speak like that…”
From behind them, as they stood working at the little counter, a young female voice spoke clearly, in nearly unaccented standard. Royal standard.
“That’s all right Stewart. We can all understand the regional dialect there.” Tor spun around causing the girl to look at him questioningly for a few seconds.
“S’Torrents!”
Not one, but two, forms hit him then, wrapping him in familial warmth. The very nicely dressed young lady in front of him was Tiera. He knew she was twelve, but she looked even younger than her years, like he did. Younger than any of the other kids had at that age. It made sense now, if she and he both had the same kind of gene plan or whatever it was called. Did they just age slower than the others? He really needed to get with his mom or maybe with Burks and learn about this kind of thing, since it would be affecting him.
Next to her, standing as tall as the girl, was a young man in the same type of clothing, leather and silk flying gear with deep green shirts. The hair was short on the boy, professional looking, nearly military. When he pulled back a half step Tor realized it was Timon, not the next older boy Toller.
“Tiera! Tim! Weasel I mean… I didn’t expect to see either of you here today. This is great. You both know where I’m living now, right? About an hour’s flight from here-”
Timon grinned.
“Giant black walls, shiny like a wet river stone in the sunlight? Kind of hard to miss. Wildlands Station it’s called? I did a delivery there yesterday. Box from here and a bunch of letters from all around. People wanting to get word from home to their soldiers. Penny a letter. More for packages though. But yes, we know where you live now. If you want we can send someone by every week or two and see if any packages are going out? Not really big enough for it, but you being family we’ll all want to visit anyway, when we can. Plus, if we could overnight with you occasionally, that would mean we can change the delivery hours for the Capital. A lot of business is starting to come in from here and if we could guarantee an early pick up once a week or so a lot of people would be grateful.”
That made sense to Tor, after all, they were his relatives, they were always welcome in his home. With this bit of warning he may even be able to work up a room for them. It seemed more and more like he needed to get a proper house soon. At least a room for special guests and all when they came to visit.
His little sister dimpled at him and winked, gesturing at Sorlee with her head. Ah, right, he’d failed to make the introductions. Before he could speak Tiera asked him if this woman was his new lady then, since they’d all heard about the last bit going south. She clearly had been coached not to make a big deal about it by their parents, or at least someone. Tiera generally loved to tease people if she could get away with it. It was the worst thing about her personality in general. That and how she acted like girls were always better than boys. Then their mother did that a bit too, so it was no wonder where she got that from.
“Na, I just work for him. Sorlee Farmer. My folks ran into some trouble after da’s accident and the farm is about to go under, so Master Tor here is putting up the money for us… He said it was because he and I are friends…” She looked down at the ground suddenly, as if embarrassed.
Both the kids stood a little straighter and nearly as one they both murmured, “There’s no debt between friends.” Which got a nod from Tor even as Sorlee blushed brightly. It was just true though, wasn’t it?
“Sorlee Farmer? Then it was your ma that asked me to deliver the letter for you the other day? Not good news then? Sorry about that.” Weasel gave her a serious look that spoke of having seen things that Tor didn’t know about at least. All of his siblings had probably seen a lot, doing deliveries like that. He’d never even considered it when sending them off into the world like that.
“I know where it needs to go, and can get it there directly. Is that OK? Tor, can I come back and visit in a week or so? It might be two or three… Maybe overnight? Ma will say yes if you OK it. Though she’ll want to know if you have a new girl lined up yet. Its fast I guess, but she thinks you shouldn’t wait too long. Worries about you and all that. Probably because you’re the only one not right there for her to watch all the time.”
Patting the boy on the back his shield stopped the contact, but the younger boys didn’t. He stared at him for a second and got only a baffled look in return. Patting his sisters back he got the same reaction. A blank look.
“Why don’t you have your shields on? And for that matter Stewart, do the people that work here have shields at all? I know that the military is taking them all, but I can give them out. Which… probably answers that question, doesn’t it? It’s war time though, so we need to take precautions all the time. I’ll make some up and have one of these two bring them down within the next week or two, or bring them myself if I can.”
He switch to standard quickly, and then back without pause.
“Anyway, tell mom I already have another engagement set up. This one even seems more real. I’m not holding my breath though, but all the asking and stuff is done and she’s said yes. I’m guessing that mom and dad will be OK with it too, since they know her parents.”
He waited for one of them to ask who it was, because even in Two Bends the name would be recognized, Varley being a Princess and all. OK, so it was name dropping a little, but the idea that she was willing to even talk to him made him kind of proud. This whole thing was incredibly flattering. Yes, he did feel a bit like a troll that forced the lovely beauty to marry him, but that wasn’t his fault. Really, he hadn’t even asked for it. Of course that meant that he had to remain valuable to her for the whole thing to be worth it to her, but that, at least, was possible, as long as what she wanted were devices and not poems. Tor knew that would be a fiasco, since the only ones he knew involved roses being red and opined that violets were blue, when, by retution, they were actually violet.
There were hugs all around, which included Sorlee to her surprise, but not Steward who just smiled looking at them. It was clear he hadn’t understood most of what had been said at all, but that was fine. It wasn’t his job to understand them really, this was the Capital, so if they wanted to be understood, they needed to speak like the local people did.
