she put it all together.
“Tor! I…” He found himself wrapped in a hug, or at least her arms tried for it, she stood back eyes wide, but not commenting on the shield.
“I never thought to see you again! How are you?” The voice was worried, but not scared.
Debbie still reminded him of his older sister Terlee, straight black hair, thin, but not raw boned about it, and with brown eyes that looked happier now than they had last time. Her clothing was a good bit nicer too, but then his sister had started dressing the royal, which she was, so Debbie couldn't compete there, not yet.
“Right, well, so far it looks like I'm not kicked out of the city, though people keep trying to kill me since we last met. So, if you want I can bring some things for you to sell in a few days? Sooner if I get a chance to work. But well, palace stuff, you know? Who knows how that's going to go.” Tor grinned and looked down. “If they don't refuse me at the gate again, but right now I almost hope they do. I'll make up some things for you and come work in your bakery for King’s week. I mean if you'll have me of course, after the way I dodged out on you last time. I… feel really bad about that. I'm sorry.”
Tor wondered if he should kneel and beg forgiveness like some of the royals did when they really messed up, but Debbie didn't seem to require that of him, she snorted instead.
“Tor… you left me enough to keep me as a Princess for the rest of my life! If anyone should apologize it should be me for not realizing who you were sooner, I… sir…” She curtsied.
“Cut it out Debbie. I'm your employee or maybe, now, partner in half the shop? Without ownership of course, which makes you the boss still, so I'm pretty sure you don't curtsy to me at all. If anything I should bow to you, but I won't, because I think were good enough friends to skip all that. Right?”
Tor got a beef hand pie and ate it there before saying his goodbyes and heading out to the palace to face Smythe. It was funny but that was the part that worried him now. If Varley couldn't, or no longer wanted to, marry him he'd deal. After all, he had experience with bad relationships now.
The military minister, that was a different horse all together. Normally he'd have left him blind and crippled, just for his own safety, possibly even suggested he be removed far off to a country estate where it would be harder to plot against him. Even if he had to pay for it himself. Tor wouldn't put a blind man in prison though and wouldn't suggest it. He'd been blind for a bit. It was its own prison. You could deal with it, but it made greater punishment too much.
It was scary to him anyway. Smythe was needed, for the Wards to feel comfortable if nothing else, and possibly for everyone else too as well. But Tor still shook a little at the idea of facing the evil man again.
Chapter ten
The gate guard recognized him at least, though Tor still had to wait for someone to come and confirm it was him. It was a good safety procedure, he had to admit. What if he was just made up to look like Tor? It wouldn't be that hard to find a short man, or even a boy, with black hair and pale skin, and the guards probably didn't know him so well that something like that might not fool them. He'd worked with Debbie for three whole days and she hadn't gotten who he was immediately, so having him vetted just made sense.
Normally Varley had the job, and once or twice he'd seen Karina do it, but today Rolph came out, smiling.
“Tor! There you are. We've been expecting you for days now, ever since Varley got back. Come in, come in. Oh…” The gate guard hadn't moved out of the way.
“I confirm this is Master Tor, Torrance Baker. The Builder. Troll of Galasia and font of wonderfulness. Cutie of the masses and all around great guy.”
Laughing, the guard got out of the way. Royal Guards creeped Tor out sometimes. Most of the time if he was honest about it. They'd smile and laugh at a joke, sometimes even bad jokes and seemed to really mean it, but if Tor had moved to hit Rolph or even hug him too fast, the guard would have done everything he could to stop him, and barring being able to do that would have fought to the death so that the Prince could run away. If they weren't collectively the best fighters in the kingdom it was only because of the new group Kolb had started and that they were better armed. Well, really, that he'd had Kolb start. The point was that Tor really didn't want to have to fight them if he could help it. Then he didn't want to fight anyone, if it was at all possible.
They walked in chatting, Tor updating the Prince quickly as to what had happened, not leaving much out. He added the stuff with Trice, but left out that he knew she was faking it, in case of listeners. He did add that he was seeing Petra and Collette and that he'd be a little upset if Rolph stole them both away with his good looks and princely charms. Not that both weren't worth trying to steal, he added, trying to be playful, just that Rolph could get a lot of women if he wanted…
“Um, sure I can. All the serving girls from the palace that I want. Except that most of them are either way to old, or far too young for me. Or men, which isn't my thing, not mainly, though a few here are starting to look kind of cute… At least when I was at Wilderness Station I had Sara around. She won't even visit with me now you know, too worked up about you leaving. Thinks I made you leave, which isn't fair really. What was I supposed to do, order you to stay around a bunch of people you'd just been fighting with? You were fresh off a combat rage the day before, and already been fighting that day again, the whole thing could have gone lethal in an instant. Displace hundreds of people so that your bruised ego wouldn't hurt so much? I mean, you weren't wrong. It is your house and you still own it, but I couldn't order all those men, vital to the war effort, out into the wastelands to fend for themselves. Even if I did kind of want to at the time. Jerks.”
Looking around shiftily the Prince leaned in to him.
“If the guards here did that to me, I'd do the same thing… Only less effectively and probably end up dead, you know? Though part of that is that we have better quality guards here. Not just that I'm a wimp. Just so you understand of course.” Rolph gave him a half smile and tried to keep his face blank. It didn't really work too well and they both ended up chuckling a bit.
Ending up dead led to the topic of Smythe and how everyone wanted him for the investigation, which meant an audience with the King before Tor did anything, if only to buy him time to work his nerve up. Rolph didn't have to ask him what he meant by that at least. One of the benefits of being long term friends. They knew each other.
Before they went in to see the King, Tor dropped into a receptive state and held his focus as open as possible. It was… not a good thing to do, but he was getting tired of not knowing who to trust. The hard part would be keeping his reactions seeming normal and lively enough. Facial expressions became subdued in almost any trance state after all, body language too. Tor pulled his features into a small grin as he walked into the room, letting his smile grow larger when he saw the Queen, who looked at least as pretty as ever, even with her new short hair, that didn't really suit her at all.
Both of them were uneasy to see him, that was clear, it was also pretty easy to see that was about Varley and her being pregnant. Tor bowed a little to each, which he didn't normally do, but this wasn't a pleasure call, they needed to be alert to that or it would waste time. Tor wanted to waste time, true, but it wouldn't due to waste the King’s. He started right in, his breath catching as he did, trance state or not.
“The Wards think Smythe of Westend is their only hope, and when they heard he was left blind and crippled, they kind of gave up.” He sighed. “I need to talk to him I guess. I can't fix the hand, I could have at the time, but I was busy, you know? The eyes, well, I've done that. I think I can with him, if that's all right? He'll have to…” Tor shook his head, both the King and Queen was too surprised to speak.
They both thought he was going to call for his death.
That made Tor blink. He'd never thought to call for that at all. Would that have even worked? Not a real point now, was it?
“I don't know. Making him apologize means nothing. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't think it was important, right? But really, I don't want to die just yet, so if maybe he could lay off? I… fuck it.” Tor blinked realizing the language he'd just used in front of the Queen ducking his head he apologized.
“Sorry, I meant to say; fuck it, your majesties. Let my manners slip for a second there. Won't happen again.” The surprise got a chuckle from them both.
“I'll fix him if he wants it. We need to talk though, I guess, which I don't really want to do. The man hates me enough to want me dead after all. I have no idea how this conversations going to go. I think I'll leave him blind for
