“You're Trice's mom?” Tor blurted a little loudly. He surged to his feet, well, tried to surge, it was more of a slow standing up that looked a little awkward. The woman's eyes went a little wide.
“So nice to meet you! I didn't know… didn't make the connection. Duh, Morgan. You just look too young to be her mother, so it threw me off. Sorry.” He bowed to the woman, again a clumsy thing, but the best he could do at the moment.
The Queen chuckled behind her hand, her eyes showing genuine mirth at his reaction.
“Oh ho! Well, that's special!” She turned smoothly to her sister and leaned into her slightly, mock whispering. “You should feel honored, he doesn't even bow to Richard you know. Not in private like this.”
Tor flushed and sat back down. Should he explain the deal with the King, how he'd gotten trapped into being rude all the time to the man, so that he wouldn't think he was mocking him now? He didn't think he could explain it, not and still seem halfway sane. The woman just smiled at him, probably thinking that Connie had been joking with her. Well, good. Who wanted to be known as the ill-mannered guy anyway?
He went back to listening, his mind flying off in a dozen directions as the women spoke. Apple and peach crops, along with some pear… going to waste, flying rivers which brought up flying guardsmen and how Eric, Mercy's husband, the Duke, Patricia's father really wanted to try out flying himself if he could get a hold of one of the devices.
Tor tilted his head.
“Well… I have a couple of spare sets if you'd like to try it, with shields, so it's not even that dangerous. Of course he could borrow Trice's too, I'm sure, but this way you can all go somewhere together, which is more fun…”
The woman's eyes went wide.
“You'd part with them? Patricia can already fly? She has her own Tor-flying rig? How much are you asking for them, even the loan of them must be… pricey right now.”
He waved that away, Connie covering another laugh.
“Not a problem. I brought them as gifts anyway in case someone wanted them. Turns out all the counselors get nervous about the idea of the King flying about for some reason, possibly because they fear he'll escape? Connie won't even try it, being chicken. A sad thing really, since it's a lot of fun. You should work on her there. Trice is a good flyer already and Rolph would be glad to show you how as well I bet, I mean Alphonse, or… Count Thomson, who has to be one of the best flyers I've seen so far. I haven't seen him in a couple of weeks, probably actually working in his off time instead of lazing about like I am, seeing to his district and all that. Though, you know…” Tor, felt awkward suggesting the next bit, not knowing if it was rude or something or if he could even pull it all off, but it seemed like too good a chance to pass up.
Mercy smiled at him encouragingly, as if she suspected he had something good to say. Connie reached out and touched his arm, holding it briefly, not letting go until her sister raised her eyebrows at her, then the Queen patted the arm, signaling him to just rush in and hope it wasn't too bold of him to ask.
“Alright, I guess I should just jump in then. Please excuse me if this is out of turn or rude… I can get you those fast food dryers and, I think, rapid shipping for your fruit to other places. You'll need flyers for that, but I can get that done too… Do you think that you'd be willing to… trade for that? Um, about half of what would have spoiled without it?” He held up his right hand quickly.
“It's not for me personally, or anything like that, county Ford is having a drought that took about half their mid-summer crop, that means lean times even if the irrigation can get the late summer crops in. I was thinking of shipping things there. Well, not by ship, of course — air transport. It should be a lot faster.”
The woman blinked, then smiled and batted her pretty blue eyes at him until the Queen cleared her throat. Trice's mom winked at Connie happily though.
“You can get all that done?” The woman asked, laughing gently. She stopped when the Queen looked at her and gave a single nod of the head, looking very regal.
“Mercy, I think that if Tor says that he can do something, it would be best to just assume it's so. He's rather good at… getting things done. Richard did no more than mention the drought in front of him, and he's already done all this…” The words were soft, but not unkind.
“Oh… Oh! As in that Tor?” This was addressed to Connie not him. That Tor? It sounded like a funny question, he was just a student that had made a few devices that, while interesting and hopefully useful, weren't all that special. Well, the river was impressive he had to admit, but it wasn't like that meant he was anything special.
The Queen just nodded.
The agreement came fast, and even though she claimed that she couldn't make deals for her Duke, she hinted that if he'd be willing to double the deal they might be able to swing a large fall wheat harvest as well. That would only take shipping, so wouldn't be quite as large for Tor's portion, still possibly worth doing, the Baroness said, a little wheedling.
Tor agreed and had to stop himself from just jumping up and going to work right then. Easiest thing to do would be to borrow the template he'd given to Debri house for the dryers. He could rebuild the original field, but that would take extra time. Besides, he really wanted to play with the cold box idea first. It was selfish and silly of him, but sounded like a more interesting way to spend the afternoon. New things usually were more fun to work on, device wise at least.
The women let him go back to his room to rest for the afternoon, Connie telling him that he was expected at dinner later, about nine. As he left she imparted a gentle kiss on the cheek, which made him blush, but her sister didn't blink at it, so it must be a normal thing, he decided. One of those royal things a bumpkin like him just hadn't learned yet.
That gave him hours to work in. Nearly ten, which should be plenty. Back in his room he found a nice cabinet about three feet on a side with walls about four inches thick, it was wood on the outside and silver metal inside. It had a block of fresh ice in it and a pitcher of water. It would do nicely, Tor thought.
He didn't have an oven for the corresponding heat, so he just sunk it into the ground, about a hundred feet under the copper piece he used to hold the field in place. Thinking about it, Tor didn't want to bother going outside to do acid etching, afraid that the Queen may have left orders to stop him from doing something like that. He really didn't want to get nabbed by the Royal Guard. Those guys were nice enough, outwardly at least, but always seemed like they were ready to execute him on a moment's notice with a single word from… anyone really.
Rolph, the King, one of the Princesses, the maid that cleaned the room… Tor really didn't want to push them if he could avoid it.
Instead he used a bit of sharp rock to make a simple design to act as a sigil. It was just a circle with two arrows inside, to represent the heat leaving the box. It took a few hours to make, then an extra few to form a template and make a full set of copies. He put one in the box for testing and waited. And waited.
At first he thought it had failed. That happened sometimes after all. Normally not to him, not with work like this that he had a pretty good grasp on already, but maybe he'd forgotten a step? Sighing he took the pitcher out of the box to get a drink of water.
It was frozen solid.
So was the ice, no melting on it at all, just a frozen puddle at the bottom spreading out gently. Tor smiled. It didn't feel that cold to him, because he was wearing one of the temperature equalizing amulets. Oops.
Laughing he called for Burks, who'd taken the duty of watching after him for some reason. Possibly as a punishment for some transgression that Tor didn't know about, though it was hard to imagine the man ever doing anything wrong. He was incredibly good at his job.