But like water, sometimes he could be useful, couldn’t he? Water, as much as anything, common as it was, made the world work.
The first person to be brought in was Ambassador Mutta who smiled when she saw him and gave a small wave. He winked back, knowing from what the strange woman had said that she was nearly as out of place here as he was and could probably use a friend about now.
Couldn’t they all?
It was interesting, watching them all dance politically, and the delicate interplay of words, that Mutta stumbled over and that nearly put Rolph to sleep. The Queen, oddly enough, handled almost all of the discussion, which alternately seemed to amuse and displease her husband. Finally, a little abruptly for the room apparently, Mutta held up her hand and smiled.
“What I really want is one of your above ground desalination systems. I know that my people can’t make one, the best we can do is a small trickle compared to what I saw on the tour last week and how it floats in the air like that… Well, what would it take to get you to part with it?”
The King smiled and flatly refused.
“It’s too valuable to us, even if it’s only needed every few years. Perhaps we could loan it to you part time?”
After about ten minutes of this Tor started shaking his head, which got the Queen’s attention.
“Tor… Something?”
“Yes, that won’t work. It’s like I said at dinner Ambassador, you need a lot more water than that, and a drainage system in place on the ground or, well I suppose an overflow system could be built to take things back to the ocean in the air, but that kind of defeats the purpose. You really want irrigation that will run constantly. The distances are too great anyway. The falcon wouldn’t even reach half way for what you need, not from what you said and if you’re going to do it right you need a much higher volume of clean water.”
The woman’s face fell.
“I see. So there’s no hope of this working for us?”
“Not that way. I’ll have to build all new field devices to get the work done; it will take a couple months. Well, that’s not really honest, I could do it faster, but I’ve got a wall to build first, and a few other small things to take care of and I don’t want to neglect my other promises. Also, you know, I don’t really have a home right now, being an itinerant wonderer wasn’t really a joke, so I need to get that together. But I think I can get the work done in two or three months baring emergencies. I…”
Across from the Queen the small, very brown, woman goggled at him, her mouth coming open a little. Then finally she smiled and nodded.
“Ah! A joke I see? You are the jester then? I haven’t been clear on that. I really expected more singing. That and bells. The description in the packet spoke of bright colors and little shoe bells. Though there was some confusion as to if that is a Tellerand thing or not.”
Laughing he shook his he’d. “Oh god no. You really don’t want me to sing. No, it’s not a joke, the thing is, I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this for you. Can I deal with a foreign power on my own? That seems a little like overreaching on my part. So you have to go through the King on that. If they,” he gestured at the royals as a group. “Say it’s all right, then I think I can get the rest done. Well, the equipment side at least. Your people will have to do the actual work and get the seeds in the ground, then tend and monitor the whole thing. I’ll really just do the easy part.”
For some reason Mutta kept acting like the whole thing was a joke, even after both the monarchs assured her that not only could he do the work he promised, but was allowed too. After a few minutes the Queen looked at the ambassador and explained again in a fairly forceful voice. A little snappish really, considering she was dealing with the Ambassador of another land.
“Mutta. I know that Afrak is run and controlled by women, but here in Noram we don’t have such artificial restrictions. Tor isn’t the court jester, as funny as he’s been tonight. He’s… a builder, a wizard. Young, but one of the greatest in our land. He makes field devices, magic we call it. The flying river you so covet? He built it. By himself, alone. In less than two weeks. While lying in a bed with a broken ankle he got saving two poor children from a collapsed well. He nearly died in that event, but he didn’t allow that to prevent him from saving a portion of this land from drought. I assure you, if he says that he can do this for you, man or not, you’d best believe it will be done.”
The Ambassador stood suddenly and bowed to the Queen. Then as an afterthought to the King. At least now that bit of interplay made sense to Tor. In her world a man just couldn’t be in charge, so she had to make herself remember to take the King seriously. Or at least pretend to. It hadn’t come in to play much with Tor, because he just wasn’t in charge of anything. Even him running off to help with the baking had probably seemed normal to her. It was the kind of non-important thing that people that weren’t leaders did, right?
As if seeing to the food wasn’t important.
Tor had gotten along perfectly well without having a King or Queen handy most of his life and had never needed a doctor at all, but he ate several times every day. People really needed to get their priorities straight. Farmers, cooks and craftsmen were at least as important as a King. Not that he’d tell the royals that. That would be stupid.
They had armies, so everyone had to pretend they were important.
After that though, the strange woman took the idea seriously, even if she did keep giving Tor funny looks. Incredulous glances that spoke of her not really believing it all. Oh, well. Maybe she’d change her mind when she saw the rivers flowing into the desert? Possibly not. Cultural expectations could be hard to change, and Tor would still be a man, no matter what he did.
Mutta didn’t have a specific price in mind, but certainly seemed willing to offer recompense for the work to be done. The King informed her that the kingdom itself would allow it without cost as a sign of good faith and peace, but that she still had to contract the work with Tor himself. The serious tone he used made Tor laugh out loud, which made everyone in the room stare at him for a second as he clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Oh, sorry. It’s just… Been a hard month. Tell you what Ambassador, good faith dealing here all around. I’ll deliver all the things I said I would, make sure it’s up and working and then you can pay me whatever you and your people think it’s worth, alright? You don’t like the work, you don’t have to pay anything. You can’t get a better deal than that, can you? You can all decide to pay with some chickens and a slap on the back if that suits you.”
At that the woman stood, smiled hugely, and bowed to the Queen again, nearly prostrating herself on the floor. Rolph had to hide a laugh himself when he saw the look on the King’s face. When the woman went back to the party, less than half an hour had passed. The King smiled then clearly relieved.
“Well, she’s not good for the ego, not mine at least, but I have to hand it to her, she didn’t stretch things out overly. I half expected us to be in negotiations for months on this one. Can you… really do the work though Tor?” For all that he’d seemed confident a few moments before, now the King looked worried.
It occurred to Tor that these people had to worry about a lot of things, didn’t they? Sure, everyone did, but the King seemed to feel responsible for everything. Kind of the job though, wasn’t it?
“Oh, well, yes. Really telling her that it would take months was kind of a lie. I explained that though… I could have it all to her in a few weeks, I just kind of wanted to have a little time to work on some other things like I said. It’s selfish of me, but there you have it. Especially since I doubt I’ll get paid for it anyway. Still, it really is worth doing. Just to help turn a dessert into something green like that. How could I not help?”