“It wouldn’t be a big deal but my half-sister is in town with her husband and since he’s a sitting Count he’s automatically invited, though I hear that he’s kind of on the outs with Alphonse, because he got the Prince’s fiancee pregnant.” She whispered this as he filled the basket she brought carefully with the pies, adding in a few peach for her as well as the apple raisin for her dad and plain apple for her mother.
It took Tor a few seconds to catch on.
“What!” He said too loudly. She looked at him and nodded.
“I know, it’s a huge scandal, I couldn’t believe it myself, but Maria told me herself. It was a big thing and Alphonse even attacked Count Ward, if you can believe that. No one was hurt though, thank goodness.”
Shaking his head he looked down for a second with a frown on his face. “Sorry, what I meant to say was; what, Maria’s your half sister? I already knew about the rest. I was there.” Standing between the two royal giants as they tried to fight in fact.
“Oh yes. She’s… well, she’s not a very kind person all the time, to tell the truth, not to me at least. It’s not that she’s evil, but if she gets to go to a party and I don’t, she’ll rub it in for weeks and I kind of have to take it, because she’s a Countess now.”
Giving it a few moments thought, Tor stopped, even while the line grew out front, finally she touched his arm making him jump. He made up his mind suddenly and nodded.
“Right, well… My own fiancee is going to be there. Ducherina Morgan? You met her at that party we met at? We got engaged the next day actually. It’s not a real engagement, but we kind of have to fake it for a while for other reasons, as odd as it probably sounds. So, I can’t have you as a real date there, but I think I can get you in, baring incident. Can you be here at, call it, seven? You might end up being turned back at the door, but if so we’ll both leave. I won’t leave you stuck standing there or anything like that.” Especially after it had happened to him. Well, if nothing else it was at least a good learning experience.
Don’t “accidentally” keep your friends out. He’d be sure to remember that if he ever got a palace of his own, or even had a gate to guard.
She clapped her hands and squealed a little, getting attention from the whole room for a few seconds, including Debbie, who looked at him like he’d grown a second head and was carrying on a conversation with it. Collette seemed happy enough when she left at least. After that Tor buried his head and started working non-stop until six, hoping that he had enough product for his boss to keep the place open until nine or ten. All the product racks were full; mainly hand pies, golden brown and flaky looking. Most of those had a soft white hint of sugar glazing on the top. A steady stream of people came in though still, laughing and smiling the whole time.
He scrubbed up again standing in the small yard out back, because the shop, which had running water and a restroom, didn’t have a bathtub. He used a large wooden bucket with black iron bands around it instead. A woman across the way saw him strip down to the waist to wash and made a sharp, festive noise at him. Tor smiled and waved to her, she looked a little plain, and about thirty or so, but had a nice smile. At least she seemed playful in her attentions and hadn’t screamed in fear about a half naked man. In Two Bends it would have been a bit of a scandal, but here it was just… Wednesday. For that matter, Tor kind of thought that if the woman had been the topless person no one but him would have batted an eyelash. Then, given the heat, he kind of wondered why anyone wore clothing here at all.
Changing was a problem. He had clothes, Rolph had sent an outfit for him, just putting it in his trunk, but lacking Burks to help him into it, dressing took a lot longer. It was frustrating, because he couldn’t reach the laces that ran up the back, and in the end he had to break down and ask Debbie to help him. It was a heavy silk and velvet thing, with no color in particular to the whole outfit. Debbie thought it made him look older.
“Good though. Kind of small for a royal, but you could be one of those merchant princes from Tellerand. Not that I’ve seen any, but I hear they have about your size and look. Dark hair, pale and, um, short.” She whipped back to work as if he’d be insulted by the fact that he wasn’t all that tall. He’d lived it his whole life and came from a place where everyone was his size. It was the people in this place that looked too tall to him. He grinned at his boss’s back and finished getting ready.
Tor barely got the chests drug around before Collette showed up, in a very pretty powder blue dress that had more lace on it than could possibly be comfortable. It looked warm, uncomfortably so, and she was trying to cool herself a little when she walked in, with a silk fan that nearly matched the color of the gown.
“Good evening!” The tall blond said when he walked out, doing a double take when his luggage followed him, hovering about a foot in the air.
It was just a simple modification of a basic luggage float. It would go up to the point he lifted it to and then stay there. He had an amulet around his neck that it followed, no matter where he went. It had some issues, for instance, it could be confused by doors and would try to pass through a person if they got in its path, but if you paid attention it was way simpler than trying to carry something that weighed that much. The main chest was just on the edge of what he could pick up on his own. Copper and silver plates and even amulets, added up way faster than it looked like they should and he had a lot with him. Party favors mainly.
About twenty minutes later a carriage pulled up, the wood was polished, a deep, dark color that spoke of taste, and a lot of care, because in the Capital anything that shade would show each speck of dust easily, and that did collect. On everything. It probably had to be cleaned daily to keep it looking like it did, which was virtually spotless.
Tovey stepped out of the back, along with a pretty woman that wore a red dress designed to catch the eye. She was short, and looked different than he’d ever seen her. He realized who she was at least fifteen full seconds before she seemed to recognize him though, so he figured the points had to go to him on that one.
“S’t… Torrence? You look great. Who’s your friend?” She asked this with an accent that sounded a little fake to his ear, but really, if he just listened to her without remembering she was Terlee from Two Bends, she sounded like a royal. Way more than he did. He sounded a bit more like a merchant in accent, at least that’s what Rolph had told him. Then, Tor had learned to speak like he did by copying Rolph’s, which at school was all “Rolph Merchant” his disguise, “Prince Alphonse” sounded different.
Tovey looked puzzled by the addition of Collette to their group as they stood in the store for a few moments. He waited for an explanation apparently, and possibly a bit anxiously, so Tor filled them in. He could get the possible unease. Terlee was from Two Bends, not the Capital. Having an extra girlfriend around might just make her go off. Except that it was Terlee, and Tor knew his sister better than that. She might hide all evening, but she wouldn’t get openly angry.
“Collette is a friend of ours Terlee. She was originally going to go to this with the Count but they decided that wouldn’t work too well, since the situation with you and he has changed? I’ll need to be filled in on that sometime soon I think. Anyway, since she’s a friend of mine too, I’m getting her in to the party. There’s more to it than that, but that should serve for now.” To his amazement Terlee just smiled and took Collette’s hand gently.
“Nice to meet you.” She said, getting something similar back from Collette, who seemed happier and more at ease suddenly. Of course the situation could have been a lot more tense given everything, so that probably made sense. Terlee was a lot of things, but mean wasn’t one of them and apparently, rumors of her not being understanding aside she really was trying to adapt to the new situation at least as hard as Tor was. If anything she fit in better, he decided, feeling proud of his sister again. She’d gone from Two Bends to engaged to a Count in what, a month? A month and a half? Tor had been out of the village for nearly three years now and still wasn’t engaged to a Count at all.