P. Power - Knight Esquire

Tor waved as they left, rising into the sky with all the luggage. Then he hugged Trice for a while, using her mainly to hold him up as she laughed about it. But he still didn’t get to sleep. He had to go to class. As it was no one should be cutting him much slack. After all, he’d just been making copies of stuff, not doing novel work. It made a difference. In his mind it did anyway.

It wasn’t until after lunch that they came for him, as he walked to the practice yard to meet with Karen. Kolb led them to him, which Tor accepted as being his duty as a Knight, not him being a traitor.

Freaking Knights and their duty.

The Dean. Proctor Campbell, and two Royal Guards in full livery that wore flight gear on their left hands. Tor slapped the shield amulet on his chest, earning a small smile from Kolb and a worried look from everyone else. The two Royal Guardsmen in particular. Their severe black and purple uniforms looked too warm for the weather, which was just starting to cool enough to be pleasant outside in the weapon court.

Kolb stopped about ten feet away. “There you are Tor! We’d heard that you hadn’t slept in a while, but these men came all the way up from the Capital to be of assistance in our little guard problem here. It seems that everyone is getting uneasy, since half the Prince’s retinue of retultors is vacationing in the holding cells. Plus, you understand… any day now we may need the space for some drunken, malcontented, student. So we need to get that cleared up, don’t you think?” The tone was jovial as if the whole thing was just a lark or something. Then again, they probably would need the cells for drunks soon. Royals did like to drink.

He’d forgotten about the whole situation while he worked, of course. That was kind of a given. If he’d been focused on that, no work would have happened at all. Tor wondered what they expected him to do about it though? They’d make their decisions and he’d deal with the aftermath, no matter what that was. That was just the way things worked, right?

Apparently, for the first time in his life, that was wrong.

They expected him to come up with what was to be done. All on his own. Like that was a wise plan or something. He’d opened his mouth to ask whose brilliant idea it was when one of the guard mentioned that it came directly from the King himself. Tor nearly laughed, but didn’t feel like explaining to these people that could kill him without thinking about it and get no more than a hard look from their superiors for their trouble.

Tor yawned. He couldn’t help it.

“Sorry, I’ve been up for two and a half, nearly three days now. So, I guess we should go and see if we need to kill all those Royal Guards or just Wensa then. Let’s go.” His words probably didn’t thrill the men with him, at least they all looked a little less than pleased with him at the moment, but what did they expect him to do? Give them all hugs and tell them to play nice from now on. He nearly laughed again. If it wouldn’t end in his death, he’d be willing to try it, just for the comedic value if nothing else.

Half an hour later he ended up facing Wensa and the other four Royal Guards through the bars of the cells. One he recognized when his right arm twinged as the Weapons Instructor that had kept hitting him there in a practice session about half a year before. Even back then they’d been gunning for him? Oh, probably not. No need to be paranoid. They didn’t have a reason to back then. Then again, they didn’t know either.

“Alright, you four there, why did you attack me the other night after Wensa tried to kill me?” He leveled the accusation squarely and glared a little, sullenly. They’d had time to get their stories straight, so he doubted that anything they said could be trusted, still, he needed to give them half a chance to prove that they weren’t part of some bigger plot.

One of the men, a man that taught music, of all things, just shrugged and grinned.

“Really, we didn’t know what was going on and just saw you taking out Captain Wensa, so we scrambled. It seems like it was just a misunderstanding as far as I can tell. Conflicting mind sets is all. With a bit of help from someone outside this room, trying to frame Wensa. Well, either that, or you dashed yourself down the stairs to frame her, but… We all agree that probably isn’t too likely. It’s hard to damage yourself like that after all. Reflexes kick in, force you to protect yourself. Still, we’ve all heard about how you climbed into that middens and had them yank you out by your ankle. If anyone here other than one of us could pull a trip down some stone steps off with intent, it would be you.”

Tor answered by lifting his shirt and turning around. He still had the shield on, but Rolph had told him that the painful bruise had made a wonderful boot print outlined in blood blisters; purple on blue-black he’d been assured. None of the people in the cell hissed in shared pain like almost everyone else had, but Kolb stepped over, had him drop the shield and scrubbed at the wound vigorously. It hurt, but Tor got it, he was proving it wasn’t make-up, after a second everyone else got it too.

“OK, so that’s real and you didn’t do it yourself, which lends a bit of credibility to your story…” From the second cell there came a rustling and Wensa held her shoe through the bars. It was flat soled, where the boot print had a heel, at least from what Tor had heard. The Dean put the shoe up to his back and grunted.

“This is considerably smaller than the bruise. We can expect some spread of course, but it would seem that it’s still made by a larger foot.”

Shaking his head Tor let his shirt drop.

“Not really, all that proves it that a bigger boot was worn. If it was smaller, then it would be significant, larger could mean anything from a bigger foot in the boot to just good planning on her part before the attack. Granted, I doubt she did it just to get the lady into bed, but really, who knows what her motives might be? Gold most likely. Let’s beat a confession out of her.” He deadpanned the last bit tiredly.

Oddly enough even though three people in the room other than him had heard that before, Wensa was the only one that laughed. Everyone else looked at her meaningfully as she snorted in an undignified fashion.

“What? It’s funny. All we really have so far though is that someone dressed in a gray skirt, around my height attacked you Baker. Lots of people could fake that. They wouldn’t even have to be as tall as I am, stoop a little and you can shrink by three or four inches without even calling too much attention to yourself. Wear lifts and high heels, which that boot print could be showing, and they look up to three inches taller. That’s a seven inch spread. Really, is that enough to even hold me on?”

The woman didn’t seem smarmy at least, her face, thick with lines and hair a bit greasy made her seem tired, but not like she was being smug. Then again Royal Guard could mean professional liar as well as a lot of other things, thief, assassin, whatever was required. Tor mentioned this casually. The Royal Guards on both sides of the bars looked angry about it, but no one tried to deny it.

“Besides, you’ve already tried to kill me, and threatened to as well, so why should I believe you’re innocence now? And don’t tell me that if you tried to really kill me I’d be dead. Even a Royal Guard can run afoul of poor luck now and then.” He looked into her eyes, which turned out to be a light bluish gray. Not a pretty color at all, but it worked for her face, giving her a half insane look that matched her actions.

Wensa smiled.

“Easy enough. I didn’t try to kill you at all. Ever. Let me list this off for you.” She held up her right hand and started counting from the thumb, a big thing that would have made Tor feel a little inadequate if it weren’t for the fact that he was more than a little pissed at the woman already.