Chapter 6 #2
“Goodness,” Carissa murmured.
“Well,” Serra said and smiled. “I suppose I stand corrected. It looks like we have plenty for the journey.”
Yori gave the silver-blonde woman a smug smile and held the bowl of nuts out to Serra.
“Thank you,” Serra said, and she took a small handful.
“What should we do to pass the time?” Yori asked.
“I brought some cards,” Carissa offered. “But we don’t have a table, so it might be tricky to play…”
“Actually…” I grinned and reached under the bench seat I was sitting on in search of a hidden design feature that had been my idea. “Ah ha!”
I shot the women a victorious look as I pulled out a small folding table that I’d helped create.
I’d taken inspiration from the old TV dinner tables my grandmother used to have, and with the help of my Master of Architecture’s best carpenters, we’d created a sturdy little table that could collapse flat and be tucked away under the seat.
“What is that?” Tanell eyed the folded table like it might bite her.
“It’s a table,” I said, and I unfolded it.
The table was only about two square feet, but it fit perfectly between the two benches and had plenty of space for us to place cards.
“Oh, my goodness!” Tanell laughed in delight. “That’s incredible.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It was my idea.”
“Incredible,” Carissa murmured as she leaned down to look under the table at its legs. “What a clever design.”
“I can’t take all the credit,” I said. “I just had the idea. It was Roland who made it into this reality.”
“The idea is the most important part,” Serra pointed out. “Without it, Roland never could have created something so clever.”
“Don’t lessen your contributions, darling,” Tanell said.
I smiled at her while Carissa took the cards out of the box and began to shuffle them.
“What should we play?” she asked. “Five Card? Twenty-Swords? Jester’s Delight?”
“I don’t know how to play any of those games,” I laughed.
“They didn’t have card games in your realm?” Yori asked.
“No, we did,” I said. “But our cards were different from these. Instead of Crowns, Swords, and Leaves, the suits are Hearts, Spades, and Clubs.”
“What about diamonds?” Serra asked.
“The fourth suit is diamonds,” I said. “And there are thirteen of each suit. The one is called an Ace, and it acts as either the lowest or the highest in the suit, sometimes both, depending on the game. Then after the ten card, there’s the Jack, that’s eleven, the Queen, which is twelve, and the King is thirteen. ”
“Interesting,” Carissa murmured. “Are there any games you know that we could play with these cards?”
“Um…” I thought for a moment.
The playing cards in Nalatria had four suits, like modern Earth cards, but there were only ten in each suit, so most forms of poker wouldn’t work. Then I ran through some of the more child-friendly card games, and I realized we could make some of them work.
“Okay, yeah.” I grinned. “I know of at least two games we can make work. One is called Go Fish, and the other is called Uno. Well, actually, we don’t have enough cards to make it work, but we could play a simpler version called Crazy Eights. Which one do you ladies want to try?”
“Where do the fish come from?” Yori asked with a furrowed brow.
“What does Uno mean?” Tanell asked.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“There aren’t any actual fish,” I said, and I started to explain the rules of the two games.
After some back and forth between the women and me, they decided to try both games, and I was happy to oblige. We began with Go Fish because it was a slightly easier game to convert into the different deck of cards we had to play with.
I shuffled the cards and dealt while Serra poured glasses of water for everyone, and Yori plucked a good helping of grapes from the bunch for us to enjoy after the salty nuts.
The first round was played slowly and interrupted by several questions about the rules and game play. I won the first round, and Yori immediately demanded a rematch.
“I think I get it now,” she said. “I’m going to win this time. I just know it.”
She grinned at me as I collected the cards, shuffled, and dealt a new hand. I held back a little as they each learned the rules and techniques to figure out how to tell who had which cards, and by the end of our second game, everyone was laughing.
I won the second game, too, but then Yori made good on her prediction and kicked butt in the third one. We played another four rounds of Go Fish before Carissa asked if we could move on to playing Uno.
We played the Crazy Eights version since we didn’t have a good way to replicate the Skip, Reverse, and Draw cards from Uno.
I included the rule about calling out Uno when we only had one card left, as well as the penalty of drawing two more cards, because that was one of my favorite rules in the game.
I didn’t realize how competitive Serra was, but the game really drew out her desire to win. By the time we’d started our third round of Crazy Eights, she was pink in the cheeks and slapping the cards down on the table hard enough that I knew her palm must be stinging.
“Uno!” she shouted with laughter.
“Shit,” Tanell chuckled and looked down at the two cards in her hand. “Can anyone change the suit before her turn?”
“But how do we know what to change it to?” Yori asked in frustration.
“Ah,” Serra almost gloated. “I’m pretty sure that’s the whole point of the game. You can’t know what I have. It’s all a risk at this point.”
“That’s pretty much it,” I laughed as I changed the suit from Diamonds to Leaves.
I watched Serra’s face closely as she looked at my play, and while she tried to hide it, I didn’t miss the slight tightening of her lips.
“Mmm,” I hummed in satisfaction.
Tanell had watched the exchange, and she must have noticed what I had because she played another Leaf card.
Serra sighed through her nose and picked up a card from the draw pile. Then she took another, and another, until finally, after six drawn cards, she was able to play a card.
“Ugh,” Serra grumbled. “I was so close to winning.”
“That’s how it goes,” I laughed.
Carissa and Yori made their plays, and then it was my turn again. The game went on for another five minutes before Carissa and Serra finally both had one card left, and then it was a race to see who could get rid of their card first.
Serra eventually won by playing a Three of Swords, and she grinned in victory.
“I win!” she announced.
“Aw,” Carissa groaned with a light-hearted smile. “Good game.”
“Shall we go again?” Serra asked.
“I’ll play again,” Carissa agreed.
“Me, too,” Yori added.
Tanell nodded, and I picked up the cards and began to shuffle once more.
We played a few more rounds before Yori insisted she was absolutely wasting away from hunger. I let my eyes roam over her fit physique with one eyebrow raised in disbelief.
“Mmmhmm,” I hummed my skepticism.
“Fine,” Yori laughed. “But I am hungry.”
“It is about midday,” Serra pointed out.
“Yeah,” I chuckled and rapped my knuckles on the roof of the carriage. “We’ll stop for lunch. I’m hungry, too.”
The driver shouted at one of the horse-mounted soldiers, who must have ridden ahead to the front of the line to alert everyone that we were going to stop. A moment later, the driver shouted to our horses, and the carriage came to a relatively graceful stop.
I’d come to realize there was no way to stop a horse-drawn carriage without at least some lurching, but the new carriage had much better suspension than the last one.
The women smiled at me as we stopped, and Tanell nodded with approval.
“This is quite an improvement on the old carriage,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s really nice,” I agreed.
A footman opened the door and popped out the little steps that tucked up under the carriage floor. He braced one arm out to help Carissa and my queens to the ground, and we climbed out one by one.
We’d stopped along the side of the road in between wide pastures on one side and a thin forest on the other.
There were plenty of trees, but there was a fair amount of space between them, and the forest floor was covered in lush grass and wildflowers.
The trees all looked to be around the same age, and I wondered if something had wiped out the land at one point or another.
“Your majesty,” the footman, whose name I remembered was Roald, said. “Would you care to picnic for your luncheon?”
“Yes, that sounds good,” I said. “Thank you.”
He gave me a brisk bow and hurried to the storage compartment at the back of the carriage. The women stood with me while we watched him throw out a wide wool blanket. Then he pulled out a large wicker basket that was stuffed with delicious picnic-style foods.
Once it was set up, he returned to my side and bowed once more.
“Thanks, Roald,” I said. “Now, make sure you eat, too.”
“My thanks, sire,” he said with a friendly smile.
I gestured for the women to settle on the blanket as I spotted Palchur walking over.
“Everything to your liking thus far, sire?” he asked.
“Yes, Palchur,” I said. “Thank you. The ride has been very comfortable. Please make sure everyone has their lunch, too. I don’t want anyone going hungry.”
“Certainly, sire.” He nodded and then headed out to make sure everyone was taken care of.
“He really does a lot of things beyond overseeing war,” Serra remarked as I settled on the blanket.
“He does,” I agreed. “I wonder if I should make a new title for him that reflects the full scope of his skills and responsibilities.”
“What would you call it?” Yori asked.
“Master of Handling Things,” Carissa joked.
“Master of All Things King Ken Needs,” Yori laughed.
“Master of Managing,” Serra said, and her tone suggested she was sincere.
“It may be a good idea to appoint someone specifically,” Tanell said.
“You’re not wrong,” I said. “I do rely on him for more than issues of war.”
“I’m not so sure this falls outside of his duties,” Carissa spoke up.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, his duties also include security,” she said. “Right?”
I nodded.