Once A Hero (38 page)

I fought to keep a blush from my face. "I tend to dream larger than life."

"What harm fantasy if it gives pleasure?"

"None." I laughed to myself, then rubbed a hand over my face. "So is the ambassador speaking to the emperor about where the ceremony will be held?"

"I do not know, but of what concern it would be to the emperor I don't know."

"Larissa, the emperor owns this city. Everything is his concern."

"Ah," she smiled, "I see your confusion. No, he is not speaking to the emperor about that aspect of the ceremony."

"Then what are they discussing?"

"Among other things, the ambassador is conveying to the emperor a request from the Consilliarii." She innocently tucked a lock of golden hair behind her left ear. "The presence of his Knight-Defender is required in Cygestolia for a ceremony, and Sidalric is requesting permission for you to travel there with us immediately."

Gena watched in stunned silence as Berengar shifted his shoulders to loosen them. "Being an assassin come to slay I' you, uncle, I will cause to be brought here a company of nubile girls who will sorely test your virility. I will give you a week, no two weeks, for you to exhaust yourself."

The old man's jaw gaped open ever so slightly. "Two weeks of wenching would not slay me."

Berengar shook his head. "I know that, uncle, but after the two weeks, when you lay in your bed, I would sneak up and tell you that your wife was again alive."

Atholwin's eyes widened, and Gena thought for a moment that his heart had ceased beating; then he began to laugh aloud. His laughter reminded her of the raven's call, and the black bird joined its master in cold mirth. "Hildegarde! The sight of her alive nearly slew me, so after forty years in a vault she would be my death. You win."

Berengar bowed his head. "I win only because my mother is not here."

"There are many who are not here." The old man's voice drained of pleasure, and he seemed to refocus his eyes on Berengar in a way that made Gena uneasy. "Who is this you have brought with you? Have you a wife now, Berengar?"

"No, uncle, I have no wife, though were I to marry, I could think of worse matches." The count turned and gently guided Gena forward with slight pressure on the back of her elbow. "May I present Lady Genevera of Cygestolia."

"An Elfess?"

Berengar frowned slightly at the use of the clumsy term. "Yes, uncle, she is Sylvan, and a companion in an important quest. We are bound for Jarudin."

The old man nodded for a moment, then his head froze in position and his eyes focused distantly. Gena felt uncomfortable because his eyes looked beyond her, as if into a world she could not sense and could not influence. "Elves have not been about in the land for a long time. Last one I saw was with Neal Elfward."

She started, and Berengar gave her elbow a gentle squeeze. Gena looked up at him and he shook his head slightly. His eyes promised an explanation, so she controlled further reactions to the old man's words.

"Uncle, we have ridden a long way. If you would grant us the hospitality of your home."

"Yes, yes." The old man clapped his hands inaudibly, but the servant who had shown them in appeared as if summoned by magick. "Tobert, take them to rooms. Give my nephew Osberic's room and this Elfess, give her Mildred's room. They will join me for supper, so we will have the best of the house."

"As my lord wishes." The servant bowed toward them. "If my lord and lady would follow me."

"Until this evening, uncle."

The old man nodded, then slipped into another fugue that left him staring at the goblet on the table. The raven cawed defiantly and hopped to the man's shoulder. Gena shivered and gladly left the room.

The upper floor of the main building had not been cluttered with debris and weapons' caches, but it seemed only slightly less forbidding than the hall below. In her room Gena found a layer of dust thicker than that which the road had deposited on her boots. Dust kittens followed in her wake, snatching playfully at her heels before they rolled beneath the bed. The bed itself, with musty sheers and sour straw mattress, creaked horribly when she sat upon it. She imagined the whole thing collapsing, bringing all four posts and the canopy they upheld down on her as if they formed a snare.

Berengar gently knocked on her half-open door. "May I?"

Gena nodded. "Please, and you might want to close the door."

"Agreed." He started to sit in a chair, then tipped it forward and banged it against the floor to knock free most of the dust. "I had heard stories about Atholwin, some of which I related to you, but I did not think things had gotten this much out of hand. His sons' deaths have clearly hurt him, but he's harmless, I'm fairly certain."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Forgive me if the Man hanging in your oak does not reassure me of that. When he asked you to tell him how you would kill him, I started looking for a way out."

"Yes, I can imagine how odd that appeared." Berengar seated himself and slowly stroked his beard. "Uncle Atholwin has forever been obsessed with inheritance, death, and ancestors. I don't know why, he just has been. He used to tease my brother and me with his 'secret knowledge' of our plans to do away with him so we would inherit his holdings. I know he did this with his own sons and grandsons as well, so it was not isolated behavior."

"Nonetheless, it is ghoulish."

"True, though I guess I always just saw it as an eccentricity." He sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "His obsession led to his petitioning the emperor to legitimize our line. I don't think he did that to give him or his descendants a reason to try to overthrow the emperor as much as he wanted it to be part of his legacy. I think he felt our gratitude to him would mean that he would live forever in the annals of his family,"

That made an odd sort of sense to Gena. "But you said before, that his sons had been killed because of throne politics."

"Well, that is the rumor, I don't know that for certain. Still, there are a number of families with imperial holdings that take claims to the throne seriously. The legitimization of our line has effectively distanced older families from the throne, since we descend from one of the more recent emperors."

Gena frowned. "Your uncle seems to think he met Neal and Aarundel."

"Atholwin was a scholar of folktales and legends in his younger days. I learned all that I know of Neal from him during the summers I spent here. Atholwin thought it his duty to keep Neal immortal. Like the emperor, he has sought and cataloged a great deal of information about the history of the empire and its establishment. Since uncle always willingly shared his information, and corresponded voluminously with the current emperor, the emperor looked kindly upon the suit to legitimize our line." Berengar shrugged. "At least, this is my belief."

"So you are suggesting your uncle's mind is failing him?"

"I think he so loved stories of the past that he is now retreating into them. It is a pity, really, because he was quite witty and charming. His wit, for example, spawned the assassination game, which you witnessed. The object was to come up with the most entertaining method for killing him." Berengar chuckled lightly. "My brother Nilus was given to elaborate devices and grand plots. I usually appealed to Atholwin's vanity and had greater success."

Gena walked over to him and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I am sorry the Man you remember is being lost to you. For us, when an Elf reaches an age where he tires of this world, he travels beyond and begins a new life there. We are spared watching our relatives age so severely."

Berengar patted the back of her hand. "What is this 'beyond'. I have heard it mentioned at various times concerning Elves, but I do not understand it."

Gena folded her arms and began to pace as she considered how much she could tell him. "In the time of the gods, when the children opposed their parents and drove them out, the Elves stood by the parents. As a reward we are allowed to pass from this world into the place where the gods have taken up their exile. It is a parting from our kin, but it is not as sorrow filled as death because we all know we will meet again there, when we go beyond ourselves."

"If you are not slain in this world."

"Correct."

Berengar glanced up at her. "Men are barred from this place?"

"That is also correct. I do not know if children of mixed parentage would be allowed to go or forced to stay because none have survived to the point of asking to go beyond."

The count sat back and smiled slightly. "So those Elves who believe Neal's influence has destroyed Sylvankind do have a place where they can retreat from Men after all."

"True, but I do not think Neal would gainsay them that sanctuary." Gena smiled as she remembered something her grandaunt used to say when speaking of Neal. "Neal Elf ward was a hero for this world. Not a hero for Men, but for the world itself. He would be happy nowhere else and would begrudge no one what they had, if they would permit him and his world to remain at peace."

"It sounds as if the world now has not changed much since his time." Berengar stood and headed toward the door. "Let us hope we can change it for the better before his dream dies forever."

Gena used the two hours between Berengar's departure and the call to dinner to rest. Dreams came to her in broken pieces that included a gang of men wearing masks and white robes dancing around the oak tree while a man twitched at the end of a rope. That scene brought her awake in a cold sweat. She tried to sort through the symbolism in the images, for she did not believe the dream prophetic or clairvoyant. She decided she had imagined the scene at the tree in the worst possible way, and clad the men in ghostly white robes because they had to have been vassals of Atholwin, and she already saw him as a living spectre of a man.

She washed up in a basin and changed her clothes, using her old blouse to wipe the dirt from her boots, then went down the stairs. Tobert met her at the bottom floor and conducted her to a dining hall, which, though many times larger than the audience chamber she had first entered, had been illuminated by only four more candles.

He seated her in the middle of a table over two Man-lengths long and a quarter that in width. Berengar sat at the end of the table on her right hand, with Atholwin and his bird taking up the other end. Tobert brought the food in seven courses, though, sum and total, what he served each of them would have filled only two normal plates. Gena thought, at first, that she might have been slighted because of a mistaken belief that she did not eat meat, but she noticed Berengar's rations were as small as hers, and both of them were given food in generous proportion to that which was placed before the master of the house,

While possessed of a healthy appetite normally, Gena did not regret the meager amount of food offered. The soup, a largely vegetable dish, came thin and neither hot nor cold. She understood that its being springtime meant fresh vegetables were rare, but the grit of sand beneath her spoon as she ate made her wonder why the food had not been washed before preparation.

She picked at what was served and largely contented her stomach by consuming some potatoes that were small and odd looking and only slightly mealy. The bread likewise proved edible if bland, but the slatherlard was rancid, so she avoided it. She was offered a tiny cut of a greasy meat that Tobert called "rock rabbit," but she gently refused it, having no desire to learn what rat or squirrel tasted like.

Atholwin hardly ate at all. He spent most of his time talking, and chances were, when he remembered to eat something, the raven had already consumed most of what had been served in that course. The old man showed no affection for the bird, nor gave any sign he even noticed it, yet Gena sensed a bond between them. The old man would stop all speech and movement until the bird shrieked, bringing him back to the present with them.

His nattering proved easy to ignore, primarily because Earl Blackoak's cellars contained superior vintages. A different wine came with each course, and the better ones actually made up for the paucity of food and the state of the cuisine. Gena took care in drinking because she did not want to be drunk when it came time to sleep in this strange place. Berengar and his uncle consumed their wine with much more enthusiasm, and the more intoxicated Atholwin became, the more sensible and coherent was his conversation.

With uncharacteristic strength he hammered his fist against the table, then thrust a finger toward Berengar. "You are here to kill me. You want it all yourself, don't you, boy?"

Berengar smiled at first, then became wary when the angry tone in Athoiwin's voice cut through the wine. "No, uncle, I do not want you dead. I came here to see you because I am traveling north."

"Spying for Hardelwick are you? He doesn't trust me, though I have pledged my fealty to him. I'll see you swing for this betrayal, Berengar."

The vehemence and energy in the old man shocked Gena. "My lord, Berengar speaks truly. He is not here to kill you."

The old man turned on her, his eyes frighteningly clear. "Lies! I have my sources. I know his mind and yours. Betrayers both, now and forever."

"Uncle!" Berengar threw his napkin on the table and came around to Gena's side. "You have had too much to drink."

"I am not powerless, Berengar." The man's eyes widened, and spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth. "You will see. You and the sylvanesti witch. You plot against us and you will pay!"

Tobert stepped from the shadows and helped Atholwin from his chair, then passed him into the keeping of two soldiers. The raven took one last morsel from his plate, then flew off into the shadows in the room's vaults. Tobert shivered and slid his master's chair into place.

"I must apologize for him, my lord and lady."

Berengar straightened up and folded his arms. "Is he normally like this?"

"It has been getting worse, my lord. This outburst, it is not unique. This time he directed it at you, but often he rebukes the shades of his sons Osberic and Analdric for their plots against him. Please, wait here a moment."