Before he could finished the thought the next group of people was ushered in. His chair wasn’t moved at all, and no one asked him to leave, so he just sat as the people bowed to the King and Queen. For the first time he could remember they all bowed to Rolph to, if not as deeply and even gave him small half bows, looking a little uncertain of his place. Apparently they were important people, because no one bothered to introduce anyone to him, or him to them. That last part made sense, because he intended to just sit and listen anyway. Perhaps they were supposed to be known on sight?
It grabbed his attention when he realized that the people on the right hand side of the row of chairs appeared to badly desire to go to war with the people on the left.
“We demand satisfaction!” The older man on the far right fumed, his face going red.
Then white.
Chapter nine
Tor, wisely, decided to keep his mouth shut. The situation was pretty serious and the angry man that wanted to be satisfied was already half way to combat rage. Stupid ultimately, but that didn’t mean that people wouldn’t end up dying over it. Possibly in that room, within the hour, if it was played wrong. Tor was glad he had his shield on, but as he felt around mentally, he noticed that no one else did. Connie and Rich weren’t wearing theirs at all.
Even if they secretly didn’t like him, they should have worn the shields. Maybe they weren’t nice enough looking? He could, probably, work something into stone or crystal that would work better for them. Rich people did that sometimes. It was harder to do, but fields on stone just lasted longer, sometimes ten times or more. He’d look into it. They were supposed to be friends after all, so if he saw a way to help them, he had to. It was a rule.
The dispute was between a Baron and a Duchess, who were supposed to have been married at one point, but the situation had fallen through when the Duchess decided that she loved someone else instead. Or possibly just thought she had a better business deal set up. Not a good thing, but it sounded like it was handled well enough at the time, go betweens used, and egos soothed enough that no one had been overly angry.
No one had spoken loudly in negative terms about the other in public for instance. No screaming drunkenly in restaurants or anything.
Over the five years since though, things had gotten strained between them, the Baron refusing right of transit across his lands for instance, which was inconvenient for the Duchess and the man she’d finally married, who turned out to be the head of the Lintel Merchant house, since they’d recently set up a new manufacturing concern to replace their lost military shield contracts. Water pumps and temperature equalizers. They needed the route for rapid shipping.
Tor blinked.
Well.
Apparently Sara had actually been busy at least. Maybe he’d been hasty in lumping her and Debri in with how Trice felt about him? The girl wasn’t the one that had said those things, even if Trice was her best friend.
Tor took a deep breath, which made the Baron snap at him. The man was so enraged that he clearly wanted an excuse to lash out.
“What you think that I shouldn’t have the right to manage my own lands?” The tone was angry and sullen and the words clearly directed directly at Tor, which made the entire royal family stiffen in response. Tor shook his head.
“It’s not that, not at all. I was just thinking about a personal matter that, well… your own situation just pointed out to me that I may have lumped someone else in to a personal matter of my own, unfairly. I guess I have to see to fixing that before I hurt people that aren’t involved in other matters.”
“What?” The Baron asked, his face showing that what Tor had just said didn’t make any sense at all.
Right. Why would he know anything about it?
Tor explained the whole thing, knowing that it made him look foolish and stupid, weak and undesirable, but not wanting the Baron to feel like he was being made fun of. When he came to the end of it he had tears in his eyes, and the room was silent, probably wondering how this half mad midget had gotten into the room. The Queen handed him a light pink handkerchief to blot his eyes with, which had to look ridiculous, but at least his nose wasn’t running from it yet.
The Baron looked at the others in the room, the woman next to him, a fairly young and pretty person that turned out to be his wife, now looked at Tor with tears in her own eyes. Was he so pitiful that even strangers felt sorry for him? It almost made him laugh, but he didn’t want the situation to be misunderstood. Laughing at the already stressed out Baron would end badly. If nothing else the giant man would probably challenge him to a duel. If he didn’t just pull a weapon and attack. The man had three of them. A knife hidden in his jacket, a force lance of indifferent quality and a cutter that had about a two foot sweep on it. Nothing he had would touch Tor, sure, but that didn’t mean an attack wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Instead of anything like that the whole room just stayed quiet for a long time.
“Fine. I’ll allow passage through my lands.” The Baron said gruffly, biting the words as he spoke, not looking at anyone at all. The King looked at the Duchess, who’d grinned suddenly, but hadn’t said anything. The gaze didn’t waiver and after a while seemed to pin the woman in place, she went still. After nearly a minute, her face frozen into blankness, she spoke.
“I apologize for trying to force my way through. It was high handed and unnecessary. Please accept my apology and promise to not do so again.” Her words didn’t have a truly sincere ring to them as far as Tor could tell and her face didn’t look like the matter was really settled either, but the King seemed satisfied with her response and had them all shown the door with a strong suggestion that they not come back to him on related issues for at least another five years.
Connie reached over and patted at his right hand lightly, forcing herself to comfort him, Tor guessed. He was fine though. Embarrassed about what he’d said, but that was all. It didn’t really matter. No woman wanted him anyway, so if they all learned what Trice thought of him, well that wouldn’t change their minds anyway. If you were an ugly little troll, that was hard to hide, right? All he could do was try to be a good person and hope that would be enough in the end.
The chairs were rearranged and only one was left in front of the group of four this time. An older woman came in, tall, like all the nobles were of course, but this one looked tired and care worn. Her clothing was of fine quality, but looked old and had some spots on it. She was quite about it, but it was pretty obvious after a few minutes that the woman didn’t live in the same reality that the rest of them did at all. Her mind was gone and seemed to have been for a long time.
The scary thing was that the woman was a sitting Countess. Unmarried and childless, she had complete control of an entire County, one of the northern ones that used to be rich, until she’d gained power some fifty years before. County Cannor. They hadn’t exactly suffered under her, but she wasn’t a good leader either from what Tor could glean. Distracted at times if nothing else.
She just seemed to want to visit though, and didn’t have a real issue at all. Not even an imaginary one, which was kind of a relief. What would they have done if she announced herself under attack by forces no one else could see or hear? The King was required to give a certain amount of aid in case of unlawful attack, and honestly, imaginary foes had no lawful reason for attack, did they? It would have been an almost impossible fight to win too. Worse, Tor had a strong feeling that if it came to it, he’d have been the one ordered into battle. Rolph too probably. The woman couldn’t argue that the heir and his best friend going to her aid was less than the King really taking notice, even if she was a little off.