P. Power - Knight of the Realm

“See, Holly? It's easy to get side tracked and blame the wrong people. Now, I'm not saying this means that Martin and Maria are innocent, but…”

Petra interrupted him.

“Marvin.”

“What?”

“My brother, his names Marvin, not Martin. Kolb's name is Martin.” She grinned at him, even while he felt like burying his head in his hands.

Crap! He'd called the man Martin to his face at least six times when he'd been there. Well, if that didn't make him feel stupid… So obviously he wasn't the one to run an investigation into this, was he? Not if he couldn't even get the names right. Instead he nodded and committed the name to memory. Marvin Ward.

Who ran investigations like this for the kingdom anyway? When he asked everyone looked down at the table for a while without speaking, it was Countess Printer that finally answered him with a bit of a shrug. The answer was, that for the last ten years or so, when such things became needed for upper level nobles, William Smythe had run the investigations.

Smythe of Westend.

Supposedly he was even good at it, the best in fact, though the idea didn't fill Tor with any kind of confidence. The man had tried to kill him and would have if he hadn't been able to get that weapon away from him and blind him in return.

Kolb, bald head shining a little in the evening light that came through the window, smiled, one of his wintry ones that always made Tor wonder if he planned to kill someone.

“He's out of commission for now. Luckily for him. I suppose we could let him investigate himself first… Not that we really need to. It was a clear act of treason trying to kill Tor. If he'd managed it, our military would be crippled for months. In the palace even… Actually I'm kind of surprised he's still alive. A bit of an oversight on your part Tor.”

Tor stuck his tongue out.

“What do you expect? You trained me to run away. The only reason I didn't there was because I was blind already. Even at that I tried to crawl away to avoid him. “Crawl away slowly” just isn't a very good battle cry. I…” Sigh. Why did everything have to be so difficult all the time? He knew what had to be done, but it seriously wasn't fair. Not at all.

“I… suppose I could fix his eyes. His hand is gone, I don't think I can get it to regrow or anything…” That was true, he'd looked into the idea for Trice, but so far nothing seemed like it would work. “Really though, if I do that, what are the odds that he'd just try to kill me again? Are there any other investigators available?”

If there were, Smythe was in charge of them.

The rationale everyone explained to him made good enough sense from a royal perspective. Smythe ran the military, so if a Count had to be called on their behavior, the guy running the investigation needed as much protection as possible, or else they could be intimidated into buckling under due to threats, or possibly be bribed. Smythe was, apparently, known for a lot of things, which included having been a powerful warrior in his youth, a good military strategist and also, apparently, un-bribable. He lived in the palace for free, in a simple servants room, didn't have a family to threaten, and his only “vice” if it could be said to be one, was his penchant for wearing those cream and yellow robes of his. Apparently that wasn't the uniform for the position, it was just what he liked. Well, that and a spot of Tor killing now and again.

He was even known for being friendly and kind in general. Fatherly even. Everyone agreed on that point. Even the ones that had seen the man blind him.

That earned the room a snort from Tor, but he didn't comment. The first time he'd met the guy he'd seemed nice enough, but then the next he set a commando squad after him who tried to capture and/or kill Tor. The time after that they didn't speak and this last time… Well, obviously the guy had issues somewhere in his head.

What got Tor was that, while everyone else in the room, except for Kevin, the man in black that had opened the door, seemed to feel that Smythe should be put to death for attacking him, they also thought that Tor should fix his eyes and get him to investigate the Wards. Kevin stayed out of it, looking pale and a bit frightened by the day’s events. He stood near the back of the room and had started shaking more than a little. Finally Tor got up and went to him, gently placing his hand on the older and larger mans arm.

“Alright there Kevin?”

“I… well, this has been a lot to take in. It's not what I expected at all for today. I just answer the door and make sure the staff does their jobs, set schedules and deliver ma'am her meals. And then suddenly, rooms are flying around and the crown is demanding millions of golds from us. People are sitting around talking about killing a man and at the same time saying you should fix his blind eyes first with magics that would probably cost more than any one person holds? That's… It's not sane is it? You don't heal a man, just to kill him later or…” The man kept shaking and looked down.

Right. Good point, that wasn't sane. For his part, Tor had mainly been avoiding even thinking about the issue. He wasn't going to kill Smythe himself, but didn't want to be killed either. Fixing his eyes felt like a bad plan for that very reason. He'd taken off the man's hand, which had to mean that if the guy could, once he'd healed, he'd be coming after him again, right? The Counselor was a warrior after all, old as he was. And deadly clever. He'd nearly managed to kill Tor while he was wearing the best shield available.

True, Tor didn't have a lot of choice at the time, but anger wasn't very rational, not as a rule. As to the rest he just didn't know. Obviously County Printer wouldn't be paying him millions of golds. For one thing, he didn't know what he'd do with it even if he had it. He literally didn't have a place for it. Not at all.

What should he do?

“OK…” He said, not really thinking first, the words just tumbling out like they sometimes did. “The gold… Well, instead of paying that all at once Holly, how about you set up a small delivery of it for me at need? I don't need to have it all at once or even really at all, unless you won't give me the gold I have in my trunks? Then you have to pay up!” He smiled at her and winked. “But really, I don't need that much. How about we…”

What? He didn't have a clue. What did he think they should do with the money? If he'd been able to finish school, he probably would have eventually learned about economics. How to run a building shop if nothing else. He kind of wished Rolph, with his accounting skills, was there to help him. He'd know what to do. School? Could he finish that? Only if he had one to go too.

“Right, so, why don't we support the Lairdgren School, since we both went there, scholarships and stuff and, maybe… Start another one here in Printer?” Tor looked around expecting people to tell him it was a stupid idea, but he'd learned a lot in school, and while it wasn't all good, there was value in learning.

Holly stood and bowed.

“As you wish. How much do you want annually? For your personal draw?” She said, sounding slightly cold.

“I… I don't know. Maybe five hundred gold? I probably won't need that all the time though and I may not need it each year at all, honestly I probably won't, could you keep it for me, until I need it? Is that all right?” Tor hated how meek he sounded, but she looked angry. Well, she had until he spoke the amount, then she suddenly smiled.

“Really?” Holly ran around the table and hugged him in a less than dignified fashion, picking him up off the floor. “We can do that! I thought you'd want a million a year or something. God Tor… you could break us forever if you took it all at once. The interest could sink us even this way. Not that I don't deserve it, but the County doesn't. My wrong doing shouldn't hurt them. What do you want for the schools?”