“You were willing to marry me just because I need help? Not because of my family? Not just to get a title?” She sobbed out the word family, a choked sound. “That is so... Noble. No, more than that. I know too many nobles to call it that. Even honorable doesn't cover it.”
Rolph clapped him on the back, even though Ursala didn't let go for a while.
“Yep, that's Tor. He's always like that too. It's why he's my best friend. In part. But he's still not a nobleman, and as a Counserina first you're required to marry someone within three steps of you in station. It would be a hard sell with Tor... right now at least.” He turned to Tor and held out his right hand. “Don't get me wrong, any of you. Any woman should be proud to have him, and if they were smart they'd snap him up right now and ride his coat tails up the ranks, but a few more years of reputation building wouldn't hurt first if we want to marry him off to top levels... Maybe less though. He did save Galasia, that has to count, right? He even did it for free, so that has to be taken into consideration too.”
The giant man looked at his son and nodded firmly.
“Indeed. That was a fine piece of work.”
Tor struggled with the concepts. A Counserina was like a Ducherina, but for a Count's daughter? A second or third daughter that probably wouldn't inherit anything of note. Except this one was a first, so she'd maybe inherit? It wasn't anything he'd needed to know growing up. The King and Queen, Richard and Constance. Their son Alphonse and two daughters...
Oh.
Well. That made sense then.
Tor shrugged and his stomach fell. Right. He really was just too dense to live. That was all. Well if they wanted to insist on bowing and scraping now they were a little late. That ship had kind of sailed, hadn't it? Except for with their youngest maybe. Varley was it? Princess Valarie? Heh.
“Well. I guess if the Queen is Connie then that makes you what... Rick?” He said. He meant it to sound flip, knowing it was a stupid thing to say. The King winced.
“God no. Rich or Richard. I used to be called Ricky as a child and it always bothered me. Rhymes a little too well with “icky”. Privilege of being King, I get to pick my own nicknames. At least the ones people call me to my face. The other ones are more fluid I hear.” The man gave him a slightly pained grin.
Nodding, feeling like the world had fallen out from under him he walked to the bench and sat down. It was pretty soft and felt nice. Solid. Clean. He took a deep breath.
“Right, well, my petty concerns aside, and Rolph, you and I will be discussing this later. Possibly you and I too Rich...” He pointed at his eyes with two fingers and then the King, several times, it was a joking thing, though very country, which got a chuckle, but left him wondering why they hadn't had his head chopped off yet. “Right now Ursala's problem has to come first. Well, that and, if I'm not needed here, my meeting at Debri house. Rolph was supposed to get me there, but given this...”
Connie waved her hand at them.
“Oh, don't miss a meeting over this. She's not having the baby today. Planning session this evening though Alphonse. Bring Torrence; it will be comforting to know that Ursala has a defender in the room I think... Patricia too. Maybe they can figure something out that us old people will miss. Say seven? We can turn it into a dinner party.” Connie, the Queen, seemed excited about the idea for some reason.
Smiling, Tor offered his hand to the King like he would to Tom, the mayor of Two Bends if they'd just met, and he'd been ten years older. To his surprise the man reached down and took the hand solemnly, shaking it gently. “Nice to meet you Rich. Connie.” He turned and bowed slightly to the Queen then to Ursala, like he would any “proper” woman in Two Bends.
“Don't worry too much. With all of us working on this, we'll come up with something.” He told her, looking straight into her eyes.
Rolph smiled and clapped him on the shoulder, then walked him out to a small building where a glossy brown carriage pulled by four horses waited for them. As they walked his large friend noticed out loud how well the new amulet worked. He nodded, trying to hold himself together until they were alone. Tor wasn't mad. Not really. After all Rolph had been ordered to not say anything by the King, what else could he do but comply? That the man was also his father made the whole thing worse for his friend, not better. If his da said to lie about who he was, then that's what he'd had to do.
No, he was freaked.
In the carriage once they started to move, he hyperventilated.
“Rolph! I know you couldn't say anything before, but... I was just sassing the King to his face! “Hey Rich, let's get together and talk about what a jerk you are later”. What the hell? I'm surprised he didn't have me put to death or at least kicked out after that! They're royals! They eat little people like me for breakfast to warm up for their real work destroying more important people. Hell Rolph, if I tried to talk to my own father like that I'd be beaten! How could you let me do that? Couldn't you have, I don't know, knocked me out and carried me off or something?”
A large hand found his shoulder and he chuckled gently.
“Easy now. He gave you permission to be mad at him, remember? I'm sure Dad was just pleased that you didn't start cursing and hitting him. He won't go back on his word, not on something like this. He probably didn't even notice, honestly, after all, mom already said you were practically family and it was kind of funny, so he has to kind of put up with your idiosyncrasies right? And on top of that, you gave him a present first. Kind of softens the blow. No, the hard part's going to be acting like you meant it later. Can't go all servile on him now, or he'll think you're mocking him.” Rolph laughed and grinned, but then told him he was serious.
Perfect.
Because growing up in Two Bends totally prepared him for this. He didn't even know enough to guess his best friend was the freaking Prince. The idea made him uneasy. Not that Rolph was someone else too, that would be silly, of course he was. Even Tor was, inside. No, it was that he'd missed it, even though there had been signs all around him the whole time.
Shaking in place he had to drop into a trance to collect himself as they pulled up to the front gate of Debri house. He closed his eyes and relaxed, letting his mind pull deep into his head, then opened his eyes and, unlike what he did while working, poured his focus into everything going on around him and like he'd been taught in meditation class, simply accepted it all. No judgment, no bias. It is and the self observes, that's all.
Rolph was still his friend, the same man he'd known for years and lived with closely. The King didn't hate him, or at least hadn't acted like it. If anything he seemed slightly amused by him. Connie even seemed to like him. Ursala had hugged him and thought his being willing to marry her was cute or something. Probably like a five year old telling her that he wanted to marry her when he grew up, but she didn't take it as an insult as far as he could tell. Things were fine. Really.
He smiled at Rolph as they got out, knowing he'd seem a little strange, but also knowing that his friend would also get it. Rolph knew what he looked like in all his various trance states by now. Calmly he stepped from the carriage and waited to see what would happen.
Sara ran out of the house calling to them, a smile on her face, but one that looked a little strained. Maybe she didn't always get along with her mother? If that was the case, Tor could sympathize. His own mother was a good person, but was a little hard on the boys in the family. On men in general. Bossy and holding them to a much higher standard, even though she denied it.
“Rolph! Tor! In here. We have everything set up...”
The outside of the house looked nice, not as big as the palace, but larger than the guest house he'd been staying in. The inside was at least as nice, if done with more wood tones and less stone. It was very tasteful, he thought. Two days before he would have thought it the nicest place in the whole world. Of course, he'd only seen the hallway so far. Following Sara, who wore a much skimpier dress than anyone at the guest house had so far, which hugged her backside a good bit more than was strictly proper, but was interesting to look at. They found themselves entering a room with a giant table, ringed with people. About half were men, the rest women. None of whom were anyone he recognized at all.
Gah. A people ambush!
Tor hated those. Worse, they were all looking at him and Rolph. Tor wondered if running away would be considered impolite. Probably.
Sigh.
Sara walked them to the front of the table, where a trim and good looking woman sat wearing dark clothes that looked too warm, a bit of perspiration on her forehead. Everyone in the room looked a little uncomfortable except for Rolph. Tor knew he did, but that was because he'd thought he was just meeting Sara's mom for lunch or something so they could meet and chat. This seemed a lot more serious than that. He had to fight the urge to trigger his shield amulet.
The woman, who he knew from Sara was named Heather Debri, her mother, stood and bowed to Rolph, which made Sara's eyes go wide. Before she could say anything the woman, still looking down murmured softly.
“Prince Alphonse. Thank you for coming. Please, be seated, if you will.” The woman spoke softly, but smoothly, a professional voice of a kind that Tor had rarely heard.
Sara's eyes went wild suddenly, but she calmed down after a minute and turned to smile at Tor a little and shrugged. When Rolph sat the woman turned to Tor herself and gave a bow nearly as deep as the one she'd given the Prince.
“Mr. Baker? I can't tell you how happy and proud we are to have you here. It's an honor and a privilege to put a face to the name. Would you like a beverage, gentleman, before we begin? We have cold drinks ready. I'm afraid we haven't been able to put any of the cooling devices in here yet. Believe it or not, we don't have any extra available even now that we're nearing capacity on manufacturing. Sorry to make you both suffer this heat...”
Tor reached into his pocket and pulled out the remaining four equilibrium units and looked down.
“I... didn't know that there would be this many people. Here though, at least a couple people can be comfortable for now. Um, sorry everyone else.”
Rolph explained the devices for him his tone serious and businesslike. Sara grabbed one and looked ready to fight anyone that tried to take it from her. It was cute and looked feisty. The good looking woman in front of him took one and sighed; closing her eyes for a second, then activated the other two and asked them to be passed around the table. It took a while since no one wanted to give them up once they had them.
The older blond looked at him and smiled, then shook her head. She waited for everyone to get a chance to hold the new devices for a while before speaking.
“This is, of course, amazing. We'd love to carry this and do the manufacturing as well, if you're interested? It's... Well, this is more than a little embarrassing, and hard to explain, but we don't actually have all the money we owe you so far from the sales made.” Her hand shot up as if to hold him back, or to stave off anger. “It's just that we've had to rush into some massive military contracts and we don't get paid for those until we deliver product. If we could have another six months, it shouldn't be a problem.” Her voice died off as Rolph stared at her.
His look surprised Tor. It wasn't angry as much as ironic. He asked if Debri house made a habit of trying to withhold payments to people for sales already made. He hadn't heard of any complaints, he told the room, looking around coolly, but it would make him sad to learn that this was the case. The woman sputtered and looked panicked.
“No! We hold to the highest standards, we really just don't have the funds. We were given vast orders by your father and really have no time to get the work done without huge expense. It's one of the largest projects we've ever handled and frankly, I don't think that anyone else in the kingdom could manage it right now at all. Who are you going to get, Sorvee? Lintel? They wouldn't pay out anything if they could help it and simply couldn't handle half of what we're doing on their best day, even if they threw in with Nox and all worked together. We just need a little more time.”
Tor fought a yawn. Not that this was boring, but he really needed to get some sleep as soon as possible. He looked around the table and saw that most of the people were still sweating a lot. Sara didn't, but the cute blond looked down at the table, her small dress hardly covering her at all. He didn't disapprove, different ways and all that, plus it was her body and not over dressing made a lot of sense for this climate.