Ancient Kings (The Young Ancients) (28 page)

"There's more to that than was apparent at the time Tiera. The King needs to have control over County Morris, since it borders his personal territory on the East. Just like he has to have Ford on the West. The Wildlands are a good buffer on the north, but he has to know that he's already lost Rodriguez on the south. His heir has sworn fealty, but who knows what the old Count had in place before he surrendered?"

It was, Tor decided, that his brother was both brilliant
and
liked to speak in code. It had to be that, since he didn't have a clue what the boy meant about Count Rodriguez. Tor knew the man, and had kind of a rocky past with him, but hadn't heard about a surrender of any kind. True, he'd been gone for a while, but that kind of thing should have been a topic of conversation as soon as he was back, shouldn't it?

Petra walked up and fairly tackled him into a hug, her fighting leathers made to look a pale salmon color that contrasted nicely with her evenly dark skin. Her hair was short still, but longer than what Tiera had going on. Next to them Timon looked almost like a girl, which meant Tor probably looked more like one. Leaning in, his feet still off the ground, he kissed his tall friend on the cheek, which got her to return the move with a solid and very warm, kiss on the lips.

"There you are! We need to get together soon. I was talking to Sara yesterday, Debri, and she said you haven't had anything to do with her in nearly a year. Is that a personal thing or just happenstance? I'd normally ask in a more controlled and polite fashion, but I'm supposed to let her know when I next see her, which should be early tomorrow. We have to run, Tim and I, as soon as this beast gets loaded. Off to Two Bends for delivery." She kissed him again, as if to prevent him from speaking at all. "Oh! Gold. How do we arrange that? I hear everyone is planning to rob you to pay for things again?"

Tor tilted his head and waited until she set him down, smiling at her. She was very pretty. Strong too. In a lot of ways she was one of his favorite people. That probably meant they were brother and sister or something, as different as they looked. His lips were still tingling from the contact too, which made him feel a bit sour at the thought.

"I'm not avoiding Sara at all." He ticked the things off, counting them out on his fingers, one by one. "So I'd love to see her. I can visit there or she could come and stay here maybe? We should set that up. As to the coin... Get with Collette or Gerent. They should have enough. I want a receipt for it though. Not that I think anyone is going to cheat me, but my business practices have been kind of lazy and Alphonse is going to yell at me one of these days if I don't fix it."

He turned back to his little brother and resisted putting his hands on his hips like a farm wife. It took some work though, since he was a bit frustrated at his own lack of information. Tiera was looking away at the large bodies moving the bundles again.

"Now, what the heck? I was gone a couple of months, was there a war in Rodriguez? Who with and what kind of surrender did the Count put forth?" There were a lot of different ways that could happen, but none of them were all that good.

Petra gasped slightly and the others looked at her, as if something was horribly wrong.

"No one told you... That's... I guess you were gone and the whole 'protect the soft and innocent Tor' thing is still in effect, isn't it?" She said the words out loud, but let her eyes go wide, as if she'd let some kind of deep secret out.

For his part, Tor lied. It took some real acting, but he managed to read her field enough to get at a bit of the information she was supposed to be hiding from him.

"No, that's done. I've just been out of the information circuit for a while and some other things have come up. Family matters. Fill me in?" He managed to sound credibly matter of fact about the whole thing, even if he didn't really understand what he was being protected from, exactly.

"Right. That makes sense, I guess." Pet put her arm around him and then didn't speak for a while, her mind racing, half filled with panic, even though she sounded calm when the words finally came out.

"I... You know that I was engaged to get married to Will, don't you? I never mentioned it, because I know that you and he had that duel and there might be hard feelings. Anyway, the last time I went down to visit with him... We were bathing, so I, you know, took off my amulets. They're expensive and I don't like to get them wet. Anyway, his men grabbed me and they... He had me tortured. Trying to get at information, to help with the rebellion. They didn't get anything, but I was there for three weeks. They did horrible things. No rape, but that was the only mercy." She shrugged, fearing that he'd pity her. That or blame her for having been taken. She felt so bad about that it nearly took him from his feet as Tor read her field.

"Then some people came and got me. Timon and some others. After that, Tim and Judith Kerry kidnapped Will and a couple of his people, and made them confess."

Tor was able to actually understand what that meant, since the tall girl wasn't really hiding it internally. It was more clear than if she'd said the words actually.

His brother had taken the man by trickery, and horribly tortured him. Not just to get information, but in retaliation. It wasn't a thing that he could have done, Tor knew. It was the
right
thing though. That...
thing
, Count Rodriguez had hurt his Petra. His
friend
.

"I see... But he's still alive?"

His brother nodded, his face set, clearly waiting for judgment to come about what he'd done.

"Yes, held at the Palace. The Council of Counts has to meet on it, but they're waiting to execute him, since doing that will pretty much mean that everyone will know about the takeover attempts openly. That will pretty much announce to everyone that hostilities are going to start openly. I figure that we have less than a month for that. In a week the trials will start, which is why," Tim glanced at Tiera. "The King needs a strong alliance with Morris. That's going to be hard, since he's leaving the decision in the hands of the man's fellow Counts."

Tiera glared at him a bit, then included Tor in the mix. She
didn't
include Petra though, which was a good sign. That probably meant she wasn't really mad at the world, just the situation.

"So? They're all nobles. They'll let Sandra go to placate her father and then she'll probably come for me again, since she failed the last time." At least she choked the words off after that, instead of going on about how she'd kill them all first, even if it was the plan.

The one that Tor had just told her to see to. Or at least Cordes had. He always seemed so nice too, other than that bit of political murder he'd suggested.

Looking around and seeing that the craft behind them was nearly full, Timon shook his head slowly.

"Tiera... I don't think so. I've been talking to people, getting a sense of things... The block of people supporting your side in this is huge. It was an accident... Everyone knows that. They aren't even really considering that part of things you know. Regina... That shouldn't have happened, but no one thinks of it as murder. No, this is about the duel. That and the fact that Sandra broke the surrender treaty, twice. She was clearly being given soft treatment after her first misstep, but it seemed to most people that you'd dealt with it." He looked at Tor and explained, since he hadn't been there.

"It was... At the duel, which was to the death, but done with clubs, since the Count couldn't manage to match her magically, even with Sandra providing him new gear, Tiera won. She was about to kill the man when Conserina Morris attacked her with a magical weapon from behind. Then four military men did the same. That was an act of war, so after things had calmed down Tiera went off and took out a big part of their economy in the County, to punish them.
Most
of the higher ranking nobles supported her in that. The fact that she did it without killing anyone seemed more than honorable to them too. Then she didn't even insist on them being put to death when they surrendered, even though she could have. It should have ended there."

He took a step away, toward his craft, clearly getting ready to go.

"The rest of it you all know, but the whole thing is exactly the opposite of what you think Tiera. The King needs Morris, so can't act too much against him, but everyone involved is on your side. It just doesn't seem like it to you, because the politics are muddling things. We need to go, I think this is the last load. Get the funds from Gerent?" The boy grinned, which was charming, but not, Tor realized, having been reading him the whole time, real.

"Him or Collette." He noticed that the others all felt like that was more than a little odd for some reason, though his brother and sister a lot less so than Petra did for some reason.

She actually frowned over it.

"Isn't that... A little strange? He's just some guy that Trice found, and suddenly you're sharing all your gold with him? How good is the blackmail he has over you all?"

Tor laughed, taken off guard by the words.

"What? No, it isn't anything like that. He's just had some hard knocks, and is family now. That's all. I trust him not to abuse the situation. Besides that, I can't spend things fast enough and it's been hurting the economy for a while now. If he goes wild and spends it all... Well, that's all to the good, isn't it? I'd do the same for the rest of my family, but
he's
the only one I trust not to become entitled and spoiled over it.
Maybe
Taler, but I doubt he'd spend anything at all." His oldest brother lived pretty simply. It had been a huge deal that he'd gone to that party earlier in the week. Over a week before now, Tor realized.

The tall girl just shook her head and laughed a little.

"See, I should have taken you up on that marriage proposal instead of sticking with Will. He was a Count though, and at the time it sounded like a good idea. Too late now."

Tor nodded, since it was true and he was already married.

"On the good side you can get all that free gold though, since we're friends and I can count on you not to let it go to your head. Actually I owe you a lot already, don't I? Half of all those clothing amulet sales..."

She snapped her fingers and chuckled a bit evilly, then hugged him again and did a little dance with his feet off the ground.

"I forgot about that. I'm rich." She was clearly kidding, but Tor nodded somberly.

"It's true. Those are a good selling item. I have no clue how to account for them all at this point. We'll have to just guess at how many have sold."

That got the girl to make a face, but Timon seemed to be taking him seriously enough, and explained it to her.

"He isn't joking with you Petra. I can see that you expect that, but he's just trying to settle up with you. We'll deal with it later though, if that's alright? We really need to get things moving on the healing amulets. Every minute we delay, lives are going to be lost." Without saying more he walked quickly to the back of the craft and slammed the doors as soon as the large woman that was loading the last bit of things stepped back. Petra kissed Tor on the cheek and then ran to the front passenger's side.

A few seconds later they were gone, headed almost due south.

Tor turned to his sister.

"So, baked goods? After that... I need to sleep, but I'm spending time with you each afternoon for a while. Maybe part of the mornings too, after I get my daily work finished. I'm thinking we can set up our own little baking school." He looked around and nodded, knowing that there was a lot to do, but that it also wasn't all his responsibility. It seemed to him that Count Lairdgren had mentioned something like that to him once.

"Right now though, if you can handle this here, I'm going to go to the Palace and kick Will Rodriguez's ass. Want to help? We need to leave Sandra alone for the time being though." He meant it, but almost as if their roles had suddenly reversed, his little sister just shook her head.

"No. I know what Timon did to the man. It was nearly enough to repay what he did to Petra. It has to be enough that he's put to death for his crimes." Then she gave him a tiny hug, her breath catching in what was an almost subliminal sob. "It just hurts so much. All of it. I'm so angry, all the time. I know that you're right... I just..."

He actually understood. All of it. Even the desire to kill some people. It wasn't his way, if he could help it, but that didn't mean he couldn't get the idea.

"Baking then. Help me find a way to tell that poor girl she needs to redo all her hard work."

"Coward. You should tell her yourself. Oh well, she probably already hates me, so I'll do it, this time. The next one is all yours though."

That sounded fair, but it wasn't needed at all, since the girls in the kitchen were all sitting at a shining black table, in very nice chairs that weren't real, all looking a bit miserable, the girl in question actually looking near tears as she poked at the product that was sitting in the middle of the top surface and frowned.

"This isn't good, is it? I worked so hard on it too. I swear I'm really trying..." There was no complaint about grades though, just that the sweet rolls weren't up to standards.

Tor waved at them and shrugged.

"Don't worry. You can make a new batch. We should have the materials for that here. If not there should still be time for a run into town before all the shops close, so hop to. Tiera will make certain you get it right. Listen to her. She's very good at this sort of thing." It was true, but one of the other girls made a face and then blushed when she realized that Tor saw her do it.