After the woman left he almost melted out of his chair, the soft red cushion on the seat holding him in just enough. That had been too close. What would he have said if he hadn't come up with that bit about Trice? The audacity of the claim, even just as a ruse to throw off Sorvee was incredible. Now they just had to make it look good in public. He could only hope that Trice wouldn't be so insulted that she killed him.
Mercy, not even seeming angry with him about saying those things involving her daughter, left at the same time that the go between did. Trice's mom seemed amused by him at least and didn't even wait to scream at him or anything. Good enough.
Connie sent him off to his room to work on something, anything he wanted, but asked him not to leave the palace for a bit. Tor didn't have anywhere to go anyway, and no money to spend in town even if he went, so told her that he'd be running up some new specs for flying devices, there were some things that needed to be fixed on the original design anyway.
For instance, if he could figure out how to let people breathe at best speed, they could go a lot faster without too much trouble. The field itself just had to allow for greater organization along the path of movement to increase that without stress on the field. That should keep it from heating the amulet uncomfortably. Having enough air to breathe easily was really the big limiting factor right now. He also needed a left hand control unit. They were all minor things, but it could make a big difference in flight, especially against the Austrans, who had machines that could fly so fast they roared like thunder as they traveled. Tor had never seen one, but Kolb had told him about them.
It sounded scary.
Using the field on his current flight gear as a guide, he was able to make up the new template inside a day. He hadn't meant to take that long, but the idea caught his interest and he figured out that he didn't have to do all the work over again, just make one simple change, the controls being on the left, and add a field that would catch air as it passed and funnel it to the mouth and nose, while allowing the air to be constantly refreshed. That way the exhalations of the person flying wouldn't foul the air around them too much to breathe after a couple of minutes. Add a slightly stronger basic field and boom, faster flying. Fix the turning controls so they weren't as sensitive… Then, just because he didn't want to risk Sorvee rage yet, he made up a hundred copies of the new field.
No one could fault him for dodging the problem if he was actively working could they?
Of course they could, but he doubted that merchants would. Product meant money in their minds, they probably put that poor woman, Meredith, up to it just in order to steal his working contracts with Debri house anyway.
Really, it was a good plan.
Dorgal had probably told them how Tor couldn't get a girl on his own, and that he'd probably be willing to take anyone offered without thinking about it. Then, after he did, well, of course he'd have backed his new family first. That was just normal and polite. Luckily for him Meredith didn't have a different last name. If not for the connection to Dorgal he probably would have just said yes. Just having someone make the offer was flattering enough that he would have taken it, most likely.
Then Tor turned around and spent half a week designing the cargo floats, and making a hundred copies of those as well. After that… Well, he had some drying units to make and nearly five days left before he and Rolph could escape back to school. To safety.
Rolph, naturally, had been spending almost all his time with Sara, and who could blame him? The girl was great after all and did things with Rolph that Tor didn't even know about exactly, except what he'd seen animals doing out in the fields. It surprised him a little bit when his big friend popped in at lunch the day he finished everything he could figure out to do for the time being and sat down, with a huge grin on his face.
“So, have you finished saving the kingdom by yourself for now? A few people want to see you, you know. Prime among them your new potential in-laws. I told them I'd have you there tomorrow night at nine for dinner. Don't worry, it's just a planning and strategy session. No Tor torture on the menu at all. At least not the one they showed me.”
Tor grinned and asked Rolph if he'd ferry the dryer template for him, getting it from Debri house, since the Queen still wouldn't let him go out of the palace, due to his ankle. Or possibly to prevent kidnapping… she hadn't said why actually, now that he thought about it, just asked him to stay there.
His friend had it back to him before dinner. By the next night he had another fifty cargo haulers and a hundred dryer plates ready. It had taken all night, but he managed to get a nap early in the morning, until nearly noon. Lazy of him, but hey, it was a vacation, he could afford one or two days like that, right? Sleeping late felt weird though and he decided not to make a habit of it. It just seemed wrong and put everything a little out of balance.
Rolph came to get him at seven for the carriage ride to the Morgans, since they'd be going the slow way. Why that was he didn't know and Rolph wouldn't tell him. They chatted about stuff, the new fields he'd been making and how Rolph wanted one of the newest flying rigs if he could get it. Tor had gotten Burks and another man to help him load all the fields going with them that night in a single heavy chest. It was a sturdy, but beautiful thing, dark stained wood with carnations and owls carved on the top. Carnations had all those little petals, so someone had done a lot of work to make them look so real, he could tell, even if he wasn't really savvy about art most of the time.
He knew effort when he saw it.
Tor had fifty cargo hauling fields, each device the size of his palm, that many food dryers and an equal number of the new flight devices, which were smaller in physical size and tidier in appearance than the old ones he'd made. The hand controls had nice leather thongs that looped around the wrist and two fingers for stability too. It just looked sharper, less like a little kid just tied something on with string while playing make-believe. Burks had arranged for those, not even blinking oddly when Tor had asked, even though it wasn't his job at all.
Thankfully for him, Rolph was a royal, which meant giant. That meant Tor didn't have to try and carry the chest himself or even take one of the handles, his friend doing all the heavy lifting. Otherwise it would have taken half the night, with him limping out of the carriage like he was, dragging the chest behind him on the ground. The box wasn't that big, two foot long, half that wide and about that tall. It weighed in at about a hundred pounds, a lot for Tor right now, not so much for his friend.
At the door a man he didn't know escorted them in to the “sitting room” which seemed a place to keep guests out of the way until dinner. It had a green and cream flower patterned padded bench to sit on, which was pretty soft, but lost his attention when he heard a noise to his right and turned halfway around to see who, or what, it was.
A purple flash came towards him, moving fast and hard, which made him jump slightly in fear. The face on top of the blur looked like Trice, but strange, like she'd been crying. Bizarre for her really, she wasn't one of those weepy girls as far as he knew. Sara was a bit, but not the curly haired girl. Not that he'd noticed.
Her parents had probably been teasing her about him. Sigh. Normally fine, except that she might take his head off now for it. He felt himself lifted off his feet and flung back on a padded bench with a back, which slid a little when he hit it, Trice ending up on top of him. He got ready for the beating, figuring that he kind of deserved it, after dragging her into his problems without permission, so he was shocked when she started kissing him instead.