you to lend them after all.”
It turns out that they hadn’t. The flight school, under orders from Count Peterson their commander, had “borrowed” the fifty workers to build new structures, along with their gear. They got the cooks on a whim because, apparently, they’d found themselves understaffed as well in that department. No forms had been sent or anything. In fact it was kind of a raid.
Tor laughed.
“OK. Kolb, Godfrey, calm down. This isn’t a military advance, it’s… a training opportunity! Send the Count… No, I’ll send the Count, a letter explaining that we understand the “exercise” and will be retrieving our personnel and materials within the week. That will give our people time to do some building. We should presume that they’ll be heavily guarded and that, of course, we can’t use military force to get it done. These are our friends after all. So, Kolb, that’s your department now. Really, I’d like for the personnel to be back as soon as the building is done. Perhaps bring a few of their men back here for training on the gear? Without asking I mean. Say twice as many as they took? Next time they really need to ask though. We could spare more men, and get the work done faster that way for one thing. I’ll put it in the note.”
Both of the other men blinked. Kolb apparently thought that their honor had been besmirched and Godfrey really didn’t want to go up against a Count. Both had good points. Still, Tor explained calmly, chuckling a little for effect, their prime mission had to be getting the work done and building things for other bases wasn’t outside of what they should be doing. As to honor… Tor pulled the secret unit leader aside and spoke to him privately about that.
“Kolb… we don’t have the luxury of that any more. Not during a war, not a force like we have here. I… the faster we all get used to that, the better we’ll all be at our jobs. Really… You know Kolb, send in ten people from your section to work in the kitchen today.” Tor held up his right hand again. “I’ll be in and out there myself, and let them know that they won’t just be taking orders from… whores, but if they do anything but make any of the ladies feel like the Queen her own self they’ll answer directly to me. And no, I have no clue how I’ll back that up, so kind of be vague on that part, alright?” He grinned at Kolb and raised an eyebrow.
Kolb shook his bald head and frowned.
“They… won’t be happy with that Tor. We’ve got a crew that’s about eighty percent noble and…”
That got a nod. They wouldn’t be happy. Tor rubbed at his now hairy chin, the bristles short enough still to be sticking straight out, but long enough that he actually looked to have a beard now, not just a very dirty face. Mostly. After a second he shrugged.
“I don’t care. They don’t have to like what they’re doing, most of the time they won’t like what they’re doing, but they need to make it seem like they do in this case. Make it part of the mission. Happy hard workers that do their best to act humble and meek. Take orders from people they normally wouldn’t even meet and make the world buy it as real. Their mandate is to go anywhere and do anything. This is anything, and if a kitchen is the worst place we ever have to send any of them, then thank all possible gods, right?”
The letter got sent off within the hour and Tor specifically made a game of it, pointing out that the transports were private property, which meant, he hinted obliquely, that if the Count made a big deal of it, he’d have to come collect them himself. His “threat” there wasn’t that he’d fight the three thousand men at the base or something stupid like that, but that he’d come and be a pain in the rear until they gave up. Of course that meant that no work would be coming from Tor until they did, which would annoy a lot of other people…
The whole thing really would be best handled on friendly, even joking terms. As a prank between friends, this was tolerable. As a training exercise it was… actually kind of a good idea. They all needed the training after all, both forces. All three forces really. He sent the paper off with one of Kolb’s biggest and meanest looking men, a full Baron. He wanted the crisp brown paper delivered, not to have the messenger stolen too.
It was only four hours in, but when he checked all the fields were holding just fine on the shields he’d made that morning. It was a little scary really, because he kept expecting them to fail, or at least have some problem. Be weaker than normal maybe or be twitchy somehow. So far they were, if not perfect, at least perfectly normal. If they held this long it was almost certain they’d hold for years. Still, the wait was worth it. Better safe than not.
Then, digging into one of the heavy wooden trunks under his bed, a nice space saving measure that whoever built the bed had obviously thought about first, having storage there, Tor pulled out three full bags of gold and silver. Counting it out on his bed he got out twenty gold and put the rest away. That had to be good enough as a start, right? Using a nice blue silk bag with a shiny draw string he started to head over to the… Ladies House, towards what was now the inner wall. Rolling his eyes he jogged back to his hut and got twenty of the new shields and the nine water heaters he had. The woman had their own bath house now, he’d heard, but they were still using the main one, because they didn’t have hot water yet. Duh. He’d have done the same thing if he were them. Tor wrapped it all in a single, large piece of tan canvas and started off.
It was late enough that Madam Clarissa was already awake and met him in her parlor, a nicely appointed room by anyone’s standards. The red was a little too rich and bright, mainly velvet pillows and upholstered low couches and a lot of black velvet and lace too, but it wasn’t shabby, and beat what he’d grown up with by about a thousand times. A lot of the room was done up with things made of focus stone, including a few halfway decent statues. Someone had talent. He examined one of them in particular, it was a man standing hands at his side, and a woman kneeling in front of him, her mouth… He blushed when he realized what it depicted.
So, that’s how such things worked? That wasn’t kissing at all… Still, the artwork was fine, nearly as good as anything he’d seen in the palace. If the man could shift away from this kind of subject a little, such a piece could make excellent gifts for Rich and Connie.
Maybe even if he couldn’t. The idea of presenting something like that made him laugh a little as the madam settled on one of the sofas.
“That was a gift from one of the men here. He’s really quite talented. I believe he’s hoping that he can save enough of his pay to one day buy his own shaping rig. I feel he could make a living doing such, don’t you?” Her words had a soft, velvety tone that fit the room somehow. When he turned from the statue her eyes held a glint.
“It really is fine. Have him come to me the next time you see him? Well, after that, I mean. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun. I’ll trade him the gear he needs for some future work, that way he won’t have to scrimp along for years, and can do some up in his off hours here. Besides, no one is making those yet but me, the compressors, so it’s a prime time for him to get one. His current job making him me adjacent and all.” Tor walked over to the woman and handed her the bag of gold first. Her eyes went wide, and she looked inside immediately. Before she could speak he explained.
“Right, so, for a while I need to borrow some of your talent for kitchen duty. Any of them that help get paid what they’d normally bring in, assume a good night, with you getting your normal cut. Um, if they want to work some in the evening too, that should count as extra for them, yeah? I don’t want to take them away from their real work here, we kind of need them, but it’s a pinch, what with the flight school having grabbed our cooks for now, so any of your people willing to help, please let them know that they won’t be losing anything by doing so.”
Her mouth hung open for a few seconds, displaying slightly gapped teeth. It wasn’t un-pretty, but the whole thing didn’t make her look overly bright for a few seconds. Even this early in the day she wore heavy makeup, which probably meant she was older than she looked, nearer fifty instead of forty. She took the bag of gold and tucked it away quickly in a cupboard to the side, under a table, as if he was going to take it back. That said a lot about the life that she’d had to lead, he realized.
Next he handed over the water heaters, and explained how it could be used for the showers as well. Tor felt a little awkward for a few seconds, because really, he should be setting it up himself. There was just so much to do and he only had a few hours to check the kitchen then get to his own agonizing training with Kolb. He rubbed at his arms and shoulders absently, he hurt all over of course. It almost made him want to do a deep building project, or at least more copying, so that he could just ignore it for a while. In front of him the woman sucked in air suddenly, as if in shock.
“This…” Tears came to her eyes and she dabbed at them with a handkerchief pulled from her sleeve. Tall as she was, that was a very underclass thing, Tor knew. It was what farm wives did for instance. It told him a little of her actual origin. Oh well. She faked speaking well enough and really, he only recognized the gesture and habit because that was where he was from too. Was he really any different than her? Well, yes. Shorter. Her act of pretending to be upper crust probably fooled a lot more people than his did.
