They had a plan at least. It wasn’t a good plan, as far as finding who had kicked him down the stairs, because they all knew Duke Winchester probably hadn’t even thought about the events of that night after he’d made his apologies. From what Rolph said the guy was normally pretty even headed and nice, not the kind of person that would hold a major grudge over a fight that he’d gotten into with a stranger that was helping him and who’d allowed him to save face, even though he didn’t have too.
The next week was spent largely working, locked in his room. The water heaters for baths didn’t take that long, because he already knew how to pull heat from the ground. It just took figuring out how to localize it in space, so that it would only heat water outside the body, but inside a specific space, big enough to heat even a very large tub. It wouldn’t do to cook people from the inside out after all. The unit was built to allow for temperature control of the water, just by hitting one of the five sigils on the hand sized silver plate.
It cost a lot more to do the work in silver, especially since he made six of them for the gift, but it was a present for the King specifically. The rest of the copies he made in copper like usual. Trice told him to make up about a hundred of them and took off with one of the first ones for herself just after he finished them. That left him with four days in which to do school work. Thank goodness Sara brought him the first of the supplies from Debri house or he wouldn’t have had any material to work on at all. She assured him that it was all his to use however he wanted, not just on house projects.
Tor made up some things that he thought people might like at the palace, complicated devices that he turned in for class credit with his novel build instructor. Fines smiled when he showed them to him and told him to keep up the good work with a pat on the back.
He didn’t know if anyone would really like them or not, but they seemed like fun to him and gave him something to hand out that would probably never be sold anyway. Just little doodads with no market value. Plus, if it helped get him a good mark in class…
On the morning they were set to leave, actually a day before classes were officially released for the holiday, but a fairly useless day anyway, since most of the students wouldn’t be concentrating on work at all, but rather on parties and getting drunk for the next week or whatever useless things that the real kids did when no one else was looking. It meant that all the instructors, except Dorris, the meditation teacher, had been willing to let him out of lessons early. For some reason she seemed to feel that such distractions, and striving to overcome them, would be beneficial to her students. She was probably right of course, which was why she had the job. They left just after that, so he felt pretty centered and relaxed while they flew along headed south.
He actually had two chests this time. The one Rolph had lent him before and a new one that Debri house had sent with the work materials. He’d had to off load most of that in his room, but kept a few things just in case he needed to make copies of anything for someone, or, just as likely, he had an idea and managed to get a little time to work on it.
It was chilly aloft as they flew, thousands of feet off the ground like they were, but not so bad he needed to use an equalizer or anything. Even moving as fast as they were the ground moved slowly enough under them, a bare crawl it seemed. The forest finally gave way after the first two hours in the air and Rolph gestured for them to land in a city that Tor had never been to before. It was big. Not as big as the Capital, but large enough that it had its own wall around it. That was a mud brown, but it had a crisp feel to it, like it had been built either a short time before or that it was cared for religiously. The sides were shear and smooth and reached at least twenty feet high.
There wasn’t a good place to land near one of the gates, so they used a central courtyard area. One that as they descended seemed to be nearly as big as the whole school campus, which meant his sense of scale had been way off as to how big the place must be. Youch. It was a lot closer to the Capital in size then, if with a lot fewer people about. The cobblestones were flattened on the top, an almost polished looking shine that meant a cutter had been used on them at some point and then weather and years of walking feet had dinged them up a little. They were pretty, marble or something that reminded him a little of a gem, sitting in the mortar. Impressive and expensive to use as paving material.
The scent in the air, cinnamon, clove, and anise seed all mixed together hit him as they touched down. Some kind of sweet confection? To let his nose lead towards an outdoor stand that seemed to be serving something that looked like festival food. Maybe they had a big King’s week celebration here? People certainly looked happy enough. Rolph smiled and headed over to the stand, coming back a few minutes later with a small tray that held four giant sized rolls, each bigger than both of Tor’s hands put together and smothered in rich looking white frosting.
They sat on the edge of a fountain near the center of the space, sitting on the edge of the pool. It had a statue of a man in the center, but Tor didn’t bother looking at it other than to note it was there. After all, he’d never had a festival cake like this before and he wanted to analyze it. The anise seed was the principle flavoring, though otherwise it was a cinnamon roll like he’d learned to make as a child. It had a sugary caramel on the bottom, which meant that they hadn’t stinted on the filling for it. The frosting was too much, and he had to covertly scrape most of it off onto the serving tray. It was good, very much so, he just didn’t want to make himself sick on the sweetness of it. Just the little he’d gotten was pushing it already. He smiled and leaned in to Trice gently, bumping her arm with his shoulder.
“A little strong on the licorice flavor, but other than that these aren’t bad. Is this an annual thing, do you think? For King’s week?”
“I don’t know… If it is these people certainly have a love of Uncle Richard. It looks like they have jugglers and singers coming out over there… We probably need to be going soon, but…”
Rolph winked.
“Hey, we can stay for a bit, an hour or so anyway. After all, we’re making really good time thanks to the new flying rigs. I don’t want to leave the luggage just sitting, but…”
Just then a group of people, all dressed in finery and looking more than a little nervous, walked over to where they sat. At first Tor wondered if the festival was supposed to be a private thing. If it was they could leave of course. He didn’t want to mess up their tradition or whatever. The man in front, a slightly older man with blond hair and eyebrows with a square jaw that made him look important, wore three different colors of mustard yellow. The shirt was a little poufy but had a good solid looking workman’s vest over it. The covering made sense for this time of year. It wasn’t cold out, most likely, not that Tor could tell, but it wasn’t the heat of summer anymore either.
The man smiled and bowed to everyone.
“Hello! I’m Baron second Ferdinand Gala. Thank you all for coming to join us for our celebration! We weren’t expecting any important guests, but everyone is welcome…” The man seemed to run out of things to say, allowing an older woman that looked vaguely familiar to Tor to step forward.
She wasn’t pretty, a little broad faced and slightly hard lived, but her smile grew wide making her face seem alive. Light blue eyes glinting over her own red outfit that, other than the color, looked a lot like what the Baron second Gala wore, except that the vest was a tasteful brown, which worked well with the almost burgundy colored shirt under it.
She bowed towards Rolph and held it. It was a long enough action that everyone else followed suit after about ten seconds, eyes going wide.