The worst he'd ever done was tell a man to go fuck himself. That person being Countier first Scotty Ross, a man that was perhaps the single biggest human being Tor had ever seen. Even other royal giants called him a giant. Easily ten feet tall. Muscled too, like Count Ford, it wasn't just the thin tall build of the King or Rolph. Tor thought about this at that exact moment because the man himself stepped up behind the loud and rude drunk, placed his right hand on the top of the others head, and picked him up by it. The man kicked and flailed for a second, but then stopped, realizing perhaps that twisting around by his head might not be the best idea in the world.
The voice was deep and calm sounding this time, instead of all tense and angry sounding like it had been every time he'd spoken to Tor.
“That's rather a lot to ask of a woman you're assaulting at the moment, even if you can't manage to hurt her. That should be a signal to stop, don't you think? I'm pretty sure she's wearing a shield and the way she was just moving, I'm pretty sure she's about to kick your ass if you don't stop, even if she doesn’t have one.” Without any perceivable effort Ross turned and looked at Collette.
“Excuse me please, my lady…”
“Coltress. Collette Coltress. May I help you?” She said with a genuine smile. Of course reeking of liquor or not, her antagonist was still dangling from the larger man’s hand, which had to be uplifting, given everything.
Tor liked it.
“Perhaps… Do you have a room? I have my family with me, four of us, but we can share, this year a lot more people have come down it seems and we were told we should try here, but that nothing is guaranteed. Obviously we'll understand if there's no room left.”
Tor walked towards the man who's face fell a bit when he found out it was Tor’s house. He went still when Tor bowed humbly at the waist and apologized for what he'd said and done the last time they'd met. He didn't bother with a truth device, because he wasn't certain at all that he really didn't think the man kind of deserved being intimidated by a young man literally half his size and a sixth his weight. The guy had kind of asked for it. That didn't mean it had been right of him to act that way himself though.
Scotty looked at the man he was holding up, “I can't really bow back at the moment, not without falling over…”
Ah, that made sense.
“Well… I think for my part, that if you say, took that man and set him down outside, I wouldn't be displease with that at all instead. I don't know what the rules are for drunken nobles… Prince Alphonse, could you help me with this? I'm lost here.”
That didn't take him, it turned out, just Rolph and a few of the Ward people, so he showed the Ross family to not one but two rooms. Then he fixed the beds so that Scotty and his eight foot tall son, Gary, wouldn't hang over the end. It was the work of a few moments to make the beds extend, the sheets and blankets with them. They both thanked him as if that were special. Before he left Scotty's room the giant bowed.
“I pushed you. Back then. At the fire. I was wrong. I apologize.” It wasn't a good one compared to his, but Tor had probably had more practice lately. A lot more. He bowed back.
“Well, it was a tense thing, with the fire and all that. I hope we can be friends in the future? Generally more fun over all, Don't you think?”
“We're friends now? Good, I won't have to feel bad about staying at your place uninvited and eating up all your food then.” The tone was jovial so Tor winked and left them all to settle in.
As he walked away Tor seriously decided to get Collette to order in extra food. Those guys were huge and Gary was looking to end up at least as big as his father. Larger probably if he kept growing into his twenties like most of the nobles did. Maybe a few whole cows would be good? Or a dozen pigs? They could get the Warden people to help them dig pits to roast them. Tor wondered if it would work in the dry soil around the Capital.
The whole thing was a mad house, but the drunk was gone when Tor got back to the foyer, which calmed the tone down a lot. About twenty minutes later Tor happened outside to see how the set up was going, and found the drunkard sitting on the bench of the ducking booth, which was filled with ice water already. It seemed to be a test run, though a small crowd was gathering. Collette had donated several hundred pounds of ice for it. Wise, since they needed to make sure any problems were fixed as fast as possible.
The whole thing looked good, very festive Tor thought. Brightly colored in purple and gold, with a green border, since Lairdgren was sponsoring the event. It had a clear front that was probably a shield, not glass, but not one he'd made personally. The effect was good, you'd be able to see the desperate and cold nobles as they sank. A rather angry looking Collette was hurling balls at a red and white target, each one getting closer as she got a little practice. On the seventh one the ball did its job and the man dropped, submerged in the water, going wide eyed for all to see, and then came back up, screeching.
Heh. Cold water was cold. Go figure? It served the man right though. Who treated someone as nice like Collette in such a fashion? As it was Tor wondered if he should kick the man out anyway, for having assaulted his friend like that. He decided to, then and there, making a point of telling everyone that could hear, including Collette. When the noble climbed out of the water, a hard task without help, the booth designed to make it so it seemed, he pulled the man aside.
“Right. You're not welcome in my home any more. If you have people with you, they can stay, but you have to go and find other accommodations. If you can't, you can sleep behind the main building, but if I catch you accosting any of my friends, or guests, in any way, I won't be nearly as polite and forgiving as this, do you understand? As it is you can bet that the Queen will hear about this. We’ll try to avoid telling the King, because Richard would likely come and kick your behind himself if he heard. Consider yourself lucky.” The part about the King wasn’t true, but it made for a nice counterpoint to just “telling” on him.
The man blanched and cursed a little, but didn't try to hit him or anything, which he'd half expected really.
Tor went back to work and wondered what the next day would bring. He really kind of hoped it would just be easy for once. Eventually something had to be, right?
Right.
Chapter six
Someone was wrapped around him when he woke up, a tall someone who smelled nice. Like jasmine and mint. The false dawn gave enough light through the large window that he could see it was Petra when his eyes cleared enough to make anything out. Karina and he had work, so he needed to go find her he decided, wondering if she was at the palace still. Just showing up there to grab her for the day sounded like less than fun. It could take hours just to get in, and if she was hung-over, well that didn't sound much like a vacation to him.
Locating her wasn't all that hard it turned out. As soon as Tor stood up and actually looked around. She was in bed with them, sleeping well out of touching distance, but clothed, which Petra wasn't. Well over on the other side of the huge thing Rolph was curled around a smaller form, Bonita? They were both naked and it seemed like they'd been more than a little friendly at some point. Well, that was good. It had to have been freaky for poor Karina, but she kind of deserved it.