After a long pause Tor took it. Nothing happen, but he knew that it was a trick of some kind. If not one meant for him than for someone else. Probably. Glost Serge… he'd heard the name before. A schoolboy that had tried to kill his mother?
Tor spoke without setting the question up.
“Is that a family thing do you think? Everyone always trying to kill us for stupid reasons?” Rolph sat next to Sara and his sister, Trice next to Kolb and Wensa. Ursala bumped shoulders with Bonita, which was chummier than he'd thought they'd gotten, but then he'd been distracted. Lara tilted her head a little before speaking.
“I sometimes wonder. People have tried to kill me hundreds of times, and I can only think of about four that had valid reasons in the whole bunch. The most common being fear from a person that can't admit they're afraid. Anyway, that's what I want done and why I asked you here. So if that's out of the way, tell me about my daughter. If the letter isn't out of the way, please deal with that now.”
It was his mother’s voice and bossy tone, but magnified over time into something bitchy and off-putting, lacking the basic politeness Tor expected to find there, even as her voice lilted and sounded basically sensible. Not really friendly or playful, but businesslike while, clearly looking down at him for some reason. Burks didn't do that, so it wasn't just an effect of being old, Tor didn't think. No, this was just her.
Right. Well, going to the heart of an enemy power during a war, that seemed reasonable, didn't it? He nodded slowly to show thought, wondering if he'd really do it. It didn't seem likely, but a lot could change in four months.
Nodding again he smiled gently.
“I won't promise it, but if I think it can be done without getting me killed or hurting anyone, I'll try. If that's not good enough, then… I'm sorry?” It was, he hoped, a diplomatic and honest answer.
At least the Ancient woman nodded back.
“That's fine. I'm not trying to send you on a suicide mission. It's just a note that may help my daughter in time. Or not. It's all I have to give in the way of aid to her right now. We don't fight here you know.”
Tor suspected that kind of aggression had been genetically removed from the people. They didn't fight… and they couldn't. What protected them from invaders he wondered? Or Tellerand missionaries. They were legendary for going where they weren't wanted and demanding that other people change their traditions and beliefs to match their own. He didn't have a chance to say anything about it, or ask, because Lara Gray started to ask questions about Laurali one right after the other. Obviously the conversation had changed, even if he wasn't ready to leave the current topic yet.
“Yeah, well if you want to know what she looks like, imagine you about ten years older looking. Or change and go look in a mirror, that should do it. Her hairs short right now though. Personality wise? She’s a bit… darker than you really, seems a little more sane most of the time, but she has her moments, oddball things… She doesn't seem to hate men as much as you do, but she does tend to act like were all a little dumber than we actually are. Is that part of your pattern? Genetics I mean? Eleven kids, which is too many, but seems to be to her personal plan, not an accident. I don't know what to say other than that.” It was his mother. What could he say?
You didn't insult your mother openly, especially to your grandmother.
A lot more could be said, it seemed, because if he wasn't asked three hundred questions in the next three hours… His butt fell asleep on the cushion and his legs started to tingle. It should have been fascinating, but this older version of his mother, with her vast experience was… strange and rude. Off-putting. Not just to him either. That could easily have been expected just based on the resemblance to his own mother. There was a constant feeling that she was just barely able to put up with Tor as a person and the other men clearly angered her even more with their presence. It wasn't anything she said, exactly. Mainly in the tense way she ignored them and seemed irritated by everything they said or did. Even when they had additional information she wanted and asked for.
Rolph jovially recalled speaking to Laurali and Douglass not two weeks before, how pleased Lara's daughter was with Tor and what he'd managed to accomplish, and her other children. How Timon was going to start school the next year at the new Printer Academy, even though he would be only twelve then, and Tiera was to go to Lairdgren the year after.
The Ancient looked like she wanted to backhand the Prince where he sat. It was obvious enough that he gave her a strained smile and stopped speaking after only a minute or so, his words tapering awkwardly. A bit later talking about the river placement, Kolb produced a map and pointed to what he meant in his description of where things were to be placed. Lara sighed loudly, and asked him to stop nattering, because the ladies were trying to discus important matters. Kolb folded up the map and put it away, his ire obviously up at least a bit, easily seen by the tense set of his jaw and shoulders. After that things just kept getting worse.
She kept it up the whole time, not sparing any of the men at all and saying derisive things about them as if they were too dumb to notice it. If she'd been drinking they could have written it off, maybe, but her tea smelled like leaf water, nothing stronger and she didn't slur her words or anything of that nature, she just kept on insulting the men.
Even the women with them started to get worked up after a while, shifting uneasily and going pale several times, like when she implied that the Prince might be mentally defective, or that Kolb's best possible service to the world would be learning to sew and service his wife in bed. Finally Tor knew he had to either leave now and go back to the ship for the night for some sleep, or go and leave, never to come back. Hopefully his own mother aged more… sanely. This woman in front of him seemed almost like she wanted to push them into going to war or at least into killing her.
It was looking close to that really. And she wondered why people always tried to kill her?
No wonder the whole land was messed up, if she'd been riding men like that for millennium non-stop. She wouldn't have been happy breaking their spirits either, she wouldn't rest until she broke their very patterns, which had probably been what happened to them all. Finally, almost reluctantly, Tor had to call her on it. It wasn't polite or kind of him, or very diplomatic, but it needed to be said for his own peace of mind. Besides, She'd basically been declaring war on Noram for over an hour by insulting Rolph like that. Kolb may be mad, and Tor felt a little put out himself, a lot really, but saying things like that about the heir to the throne was insanely stupid. Rolph kept his cool, but it was starting to become difficult to ignore.
“I'm sorry, but you really have some incorrect ideas about men Lara. Real ones I mean, not ones broken by your genetic tampering to sap their will and damage their intelligence so that you can live in your little fantasy world where you and your “daughters” live the perfect life. I have to tell you that if you degrade and deride even ten percent of your population as a culture, then your culture is ill and going to fail in the end.” His voice was, surprisingly enough, calm and matter of fact, not angry or pissy sounding.