Page 28 of Alien Orc's Prize

“Smell it? Oh, God, stop reminding me.”

“I’m sorry too.”

I stilled. He pulled his face up until it was just above mine.

“I realized after you were asleep I hadn’t asked you how your journey was. Or if you were tired. And I’m sorry for snapping at you before when I asked you to call me Galbrath.” He sighed, and his face was suddenly etched all over with lines of exhaustion and worry. “There have been… a great many things on my mind as of late.”

“Like what?”

He eyed me as if he wasn’t sure if he was going to tell me or not. He found an escaped strand of my damp hair and caught it between his finger and thumb, rubbing slowly, as if luxuriating in the feel of it.

“Crops are failing,” he suddenly said. “Wheat. Slow at first, but steadier now. All over the kingdom. My scientists can’t figure out why. We can’t even figure out how it’s spreading. I was just out at a field, down by a nearby inn. Nothing around it isaffected, but out of nowhere the wheat there is suddenly dying away.”

Frustration tore at his words. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to be so big, so powerful, responsible for so much and so many, and not be able to fix something like this.

“Oh, no. I’m…” I almost said, “I’m sorry,” again. I swallowed back the reflex. “How big of a problem is that?”

“Huge. Nothing else grows as abundantly or easily to feed as many people as is required. Trade isn’t an easy answer, as the other regions are already growing concerned about spread, as am I, and they’re now wary even of shipping or travelling here. I could try negotiating to import food from other worlds, but the cost would be astronomical. I’d sell and trade and finance everything in the kingdom if I had to, put us into inescapable debt if it would keep everyone fed, but I’m not even sure that would be enough.”

“Jesus. What about meat? Or fishing? Could that tide everyone over until this gets fixed?”

He shook his head. “It may not look like it based on the current weather, but our winters are very harsh. Even with technological advancements, fishing enterprises would be a very risky undertaking during half the year. And we don’t have the space or structures in place to house that many meat-giving animals over winter.”

“Not an easy way out, is there?”

No wonder the man was so freaking crabby. I couldn’t imagine the stress he must be under right now.

“I’ll fix it,” he growled. “Stop letting your scent get all out of sorts over it. You won’t go hungry.”

“I wasn’t worried about myself. I was worried about, well, everyone! And you. That’s a lot of stress!” I leaned my face against his chest, turning my cheek to rest against the smooth solidity of him. “Humans have gone through so many faminesI can’t even keep track of them all. My ancestors came from a place on Earth called Ireland. They had a terrible potato famine.”

I paused, the loose and rippling edges of a thought slowly coming together. Something about Ireland, and… and…

“Do you eat seaweed?”

Galbrath frowned down at me and tucked the loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“No. Who in their right mind would eat that?”

“Well, humans, for one thing,” I said tartly. I was tempted to flick him again, but restrained myself. “There’s an old Irish saying: look after the potatoes, then the children, then the seaweed. It was a pretty important sea vegetable. I saw how much of it was growing here when I was wading around at the beach. Is it edible?”

“Yes,” he conceded, giving me an odd look. “But we mostly feed it to pigs.”

I shrugged. “Maybe start feeding it to people, too.”

Galbrath looked like he wanted to argue, but couldn’t think of a rational reason to reject my idea. “It all grows relatively close to shore, so we could harvest it more easily than deep-sea fishing during the dangerous weather,” he said slowly. “And some species are invasive, growing non-stop, even in the winter…”

“Well, there you go, then!” I grinned up at him. “Problem solved!”

“The idea has merit,” he said at length. “But I still need to find out what’s happening with the wheat, too.”

I nodded.

“I understand. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Distract me.”

My pulse leaped.

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