“So, has anything gone forward with the County Ford relief effort?” Tor knew he was casting around for a topic other than “hey, did you have me poisoned by chance?” but the fact that they’d show up was a good enough sign that they hadn’t. As good a one as he was going to get. It wasn’t like they’d admit to doing it if they had, right?
The relief effort had gone forward, in fact they’d even expanded the project, offering the loan of food driers and shipping in return for half the difference in what would have been lost otherwise. The same deal Tor had made with them. That left the accounting to the honesty of the farmer or his lord, of course, but so far the returns were pretty good. If anything, Eric told him gently, people were erring on the side of giving too much, not less.
“They know that it’s not greed on our part, but a humanitarian effort, I think. Given they still gain from it, most want to do what they can to help.”
It had to be scheduled carefully, because there was a limited number of food driers, and they were using half their shipping containers to turn a profit at any one time, ferrying goods cross the kingdom, but it was coming together well enough that Count Ford was nearly certain that no one would starve when winter came.
Slowly, like an old man, Tor got up and opened his trunk. Buried under the clothing he had about fifty more of the food driers, which he matched with cargo hauling plates, shields and flying rigs. It came to just slightly less than that number for each, because he saved a few back for use specifically in Two Bends. The farmers in that area could use them to preserve a few more things than they’d manage otherwise. Plus, a few of the neighbor kids had apparently expressed interest in working for Two Bends delivery, but needed the gear for it. Why not? It cost him only a tiny bit and would help out his old friends. If need be he’d make rigs for the whole town. Oddly, not everyone wanted to try flying though.
Mercy started crying.
Not little tears or just quiet sobs, but big wracking things that, almost unbelievably, put Trice to shame. The girl looked to be tearing up herself, so Tor tried to head that off.
“Well, I see which side of the family you got that crying from. Oh… wait.” He pulled out a set of ten lights that he’d made and turned one of them on. It matched the one that Rolph had hung on the wall. It made a glow that wasn’t as bright as sunlight, about half that really, which still almost blinded you if you looked at it for too long. There was a nimbus of light around the device that made an aura up to about a foot away. Holding up a finger he showed them how, by tapping the difference sigils on it, they could control how bright the light was. It was new, he told them, but not all that difficult to make.
“But…” Mercy sobbed loudly, a hiccup in the middle of the word. “Don’t you think we tried to kill you?”
Did he? Tor shook his head slowly.
“Not really. Why would you? To get your daughter out of an unsuitable marriage? If that’s all you wanted you’d send a go between or just come and tell me “no thank you” yourselves, not send a barrel of tasty poison. It really was good by the way, until the horrible pain part, then it kind of sucked. Anyway, back to the question. Honestly? I don’t know. How could I? I can’t see a good reason for it, but then I can’t ever see a reason for that kind of thing, so maybe I’m just too stupid to get it? As for this,” he gestured at the pile of stuff in front of him. “Either you’re perfectly innocent and someone wants me to think you’re guilty, which this should thwart pretty well, showing I won’t be swayed that easily, or you’re secretly criminal masterminds, in which case, please consider this a bribe towards my continuing survival. I’ll send more if you want. Really. Much more profitable by far to keep me alive. Yep. Definitely worth doing. I’ll kiss you all too, if that will help?” He’d liked it well enough when Petra had done it.
He smiled at them, chin coming up in a nod that was almost a tick, but wondered if the smile reached his eyes. It didn’t feel like it, but then he was only partly kidding.
“For that matter if you see them, please tell the King and Queen that whatever I’ve done to anger them, if anything, I’m sorry and won’t bother them anymore. Honest.”
They solemnly said that they’d see the message delivered if they could. It seemed that they didn’t think their own reception in the Capital would be all that warm either. Well, Tor told them, at least if they got turned away from the palace they had their own place to go to there. Stopping them before they left, he asked if they could deliver something for them, if they were going that way anyway.
“These lights are for Debbie, who runs the bakery by the south wall near the Cartwright. Please tell her that I’m sorry for leaving half way through the festival like that. Thanks. Oh… um, if you’re willing to play delivery people for me?” Tor gave then a nervous smile, but the Morgans both nodded a bit, looking nervous.
Tor made up a large sack of devices for Debbie on a whim. It got rid of some of the things and cleared space up, so why not? Hopefully she’d be able to give it away or something. It was a lot more than she needed just for herself. Maybe she could sell some of it? If nothing else it was on copper and that had some value.
Trice gave him a little hug on the way out.
It wasn’t lost on him that she’d almost stopped touching him since everything had happened. Probably getting ready to cut ties, but not wanting to do it while the whole poisoning thing hung over her family’s heads like it did. That plus the fact that he still looked like crud. His face, not normally meaty anyway, looked even thinner and more pale than he’d ever been before. If this kept up he’d end up a walking skeleton. Not that it mattered overly. It wasn’t like his looks had ever gotten him women before.
He did manage to finally get back to work and make a new, decently complex, device that didn’t have any use he could think of, but that still got him a good mark in his novel build class. He needed to get back to working on useful things though. A device like the one he just made, that did nothing but listen to a sound and then regenerate it when the plate was activated properly, probably wouldn’t have any purpose at all. It was a fun toy, allowing people to talk and then repeat things perfectly later, but that wouldn’t help a real person, would it?
After lunch, about three weeks later, he decided that it was time to at least make a showing at the weapons practice sessions, even if he wasn’t up to working yet. The truth was that he’d run out of copper for templates a few days before and couldn’t make copies of anything. That had been about his only recreation for a while, so he really missed having something useful to do when it suddenly ended. Plus, the room was filled with enough devices at the moment that he could very possibly open up his own little store if he wanted.
Sara had laughed at him when he mentioned that.
“You’re kidding right? You have more inventory than most device shops in the entire kingdom here. Plus it’s all Tor stuff, so you know its quality. All you need is a shop front…” Her look went calculating, but she’d stopped talking. So if she had an idea, Tor didn’t know about it. It was an idea though, if he got stuck for money, he could always open his own little shop and sell his junk to unsuspecting people.
That’s what he was thinking about when he walked into the training square. No one was retuleing, instead they were all trying to shift around a half dozen stone squares that must have weighed about five tons each, easy. Kolb saw him and smiled, waving him over.
“Tor! Just the man I need. We’re finally paving the upper right corner here, but we have to get these stones cut into one inch thick slabs. Apparently thanks to your new cargo plates, it was cheaper to ship these uncut, but right now, we can’t move them, and none of our cutters have a long enough sweep to do the job, miss by about a foot and a double cut never works with those things. If you’re off at all the stones come out uneven or break. I’m going to go to the Dean and complain about this right now, but we still have to do something about it. Can you take care of it? Don’t just build a cutter, and definitely don’t try to move the stones yourself! I don’t have to be a doctor to see you’re still not a hundred percent.”