When she spoke her words slurred a little bit.
“Don't worry Tor. Not all women are like Maria. Most aren't even. Be willing to give some of us others a chance and you might be surprised…”
Then she made her way to the room she and Sara were sharing. His room was first, so at least he didn't have to grope as far along the hall. He undressed, down to underclothes, some nice things that Rolph had gotten him for the trip, in case they went swimming in them. It was that or skinny dip, the Prince had told him. So far they hadn't swum, the others splashing and playing in the water near the shore while he worked. Tor knew he'd been less than fun or interesting, but it was an important problem he was trying to work on, and the King had asked him to, right? That meant he kind of had to pay attention and work fast.
Five minutes later the door opened slowly, then closed with a firm, sudden bump. A form crawled into the bed and tucked under the covers next to him. Tor was half asleep, so didn't think anything of it, drifting off easily, hoping to get up early, so that he could try to build a new water transfer field that wouldn't kill thousands of people if it shut off.
Rolph was unusually cuddly, so he had to keep throwing the other boy's arms and legs off of him as he slept, but at least the amulet he wore kept things from getting too warm, or later when all the covers got stolen in the middle of the night, too cold.
The morning light came through the curtained window waking him up slowly, over the course of minutes, rather than all at once. That was fine, he needed to get up before everyone else to work anyway, so that he could make breakfast in a few hours for the others. They were going to leave in the afternoon, late though, since they could be back in the Capital pretty quickly.
If nothing else the flying devices were good for vacations. He probably wouldn't have gotten to go back home even, with only a month for him to travel, and Two Bends was only five hundred miles from the school. It had taken half a month nearly to get to school by wagon, so he only went home on the long breaks so far, spending a month home and traveling for a month. Now he could make the same trip in a few hours.
While he'd slept Rolph had wrapped an arm over his shoulder, and pressed up against him from behind. Looking away at the wall he raised his eyebrows, or at least tried to. Laughing he pushed the arm off and slipped out of bed. Something he'd learned from growing up in his house, when you shared a bed with other people, you couldn't get overly sensitive about personal space issues. People did strange things in their sleep and really, they couldn't help it. They weren't even aware of what they were doing.
It wasn't until he was half dressed that he noticed it wasn't Rolph in the bed at all, but someone with long brown curly hair. Who snored softly. He blinked. Rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. She must have gotten confused and found the wrong bed. Well, that happened sometimes. More than once his own sisters had ended up sleeping in a pile of their brothers when they were little and they hadn't even been drunk. No harm done. It wasn't like he'd touched her or anything. Except to push her off.
Of course if her parents found out they'd probably insist that he and Trice get married, or at least that Tor be beaten publicly. He chuckled to himself then sobered, remembering they were royals. From what he'd been told the day before, they might not care if he had slept with their daughter. Even having sex, not just sleeping like they had.
Either that or they'd call for his death. It was still a gray area for him, really. Did their strange rules apply to him or was it just something they thought he needed to know about for the future, since he was in the Capital and all? Near the Prince and the girls, who those things did apply to?
He took an unmarked copper plate from his trunk and worked his way outside, trying to be silent. He'd planned to do the work in the bedroom, but the sand would be comfortable enough for him, so Tor didn't bother with a blanket, just sitting down on the beach, well away from the water line.
The work was easy, compared to the day before, but when he opened his eyes the water had moved. The tide, he remembered having been told about the phenomenon. How the ocean, vast as it was, shifted around twice a day. Right. So the field would need to stretch far enough out into the ocean so that it never ran dry. How far out did it need to go, he wondered? An extra five miles should do, he guessed. It really didn't seem to have moved too much today, if this was normal that should be fine. If not… well, he'd make it ten just to be certain.
That was just extra work and good placement of the final field, which he could trust to someone else, probably. If not he could fly in and do it himself, he guessed. No big thing. He had time for now and after break, well, by then someone else would have taken over or, if no one else cared to, he could fly down to check on things every week or two on his off days. For now he had to walk nearly to the water to try the field out. A simple half loop of salt water since it didn't need purification to test this, it was just a flow test after all. The line formed easily coming out of the water about five feet above the shore line, just hanging in the air like it was supposed to and looping around to spray back in the ocean about two hundred feet further down. Holding his breath he tapped the plate, causing the whole thing to stop, but only after emptying everything at the far end first.
He checked it a few times just to make sure it worked right, but it did, thankfully. He headed back to the house with a grin. Now he could get cleaned up and make breakfast.
Yay.
This was real progress, now all he had to do was manage things well enough to not die while trying to make the super-massive field and this might even work.
He'd planned on corn bread, but found sugar and a large jar of honey as well as soft wheat flour and rising agent. He collected a little salt water to use instead of granules, since there was an awful lot of it outside, right there in that giant puddle called the ocean, and made sweet fried corn cakes instead as a special treat. A bit of jam on each and they'd have half of a meal.
The rest would be pan fried potted meat, of course. He was a Baker, after all, not Tor Cook. Luckily he had a bit of skill there too, because in a family the size of his, everyone had to pitch in where needed. He could chop down trees, build a house or barn, tend chickens and change a baby's nappie at need. True, half of what he knew how to do was “woman's work” but it was, oddly enough, proving useful anyway.
On this trip he'd had to cook twice, but hadn't cut down a single tree yet at all for instance, or had to hunt wild animals for food either.
He just had the corn cakes coming out of the pot of oil when everyone started emerging from the bedrooms. Perfect timing. They were best warm.
Rolph needed to shave still, so did Tor come to that, but Sara emerged looking fresh and lovely. Tor kind of thought she'd gone to the bathing room to clean up already. He'd heard something, but didn't check closely, in case it was something he wasn't supposed to notice. Girls had rules about that kind of thing and he didn't really know them all. Even his own sisters were like that. Better to be careful with these highborn ladies.
Patricia came out looking tousled and disheveled, her eyes half closed still, stumbling a little bit, like the floor still moved under her feet or the room spun. Tor noticed that she looked cute in a grumpy way, sort of like a sleepy child. She shook her head, and walked to the table, plunking down in a fairly unladylike fashion.
“Morning.” She yawned making Tor and Sara both yawn as well. He laughed about it and smiled at Trice, glad for about the six hundredth time that he didn't drink. She looked like she felt awful. How people could wake up the next day and think they'd had fun, feeling like that, Tor didn't know. Did they rationalize it into being different than reality or something?