Once A Hero (64 page)

"Your point is well-taken."

Gena looked out at the couples filling the dance floor. "Would you care to dance?"

Something painful flashed through Neal's eyes before he forced a smile onto his face. "I am afraid the only Elven dance I know is the torris, and I doubt it is seen as suitable for display outside Cygestolia."

"I am well versed in all sorts of the dances found among Men." She reached for his goblet to set it on a table beside hers, but he kept it out of her grasp.

"Please, Genevera, do not take this wrong but"—he looked down—"the last time I danced, it was with Larissa. Yesterday, in recovering the sword, I saw her again. My past and the present are slamming together here, which means that while I would love to dance with you, I would feel awkward doing so."

Gena sensed his withdrawal and decided not to let him get away. "Are you saying, Neal, that you think my grandaunt would have begrudged me this dance? Are you thinking she would have denied you a chance to dance with her grandniece?"

"No, but . . ."

She snatched away his goblet with her left hand, then took his left hand in her right. "You remember Larissa well, Neal Roclawzi. She would smile to see us like this, and for my part, I want to see if you actually are as good a dancer as she said you were."

One turn on the floor led to another, so the memory of that night's dancing managed to bring a smile to Gena's face even to the point when their journey south had brought them within sight of Aurdon. The emperor had reluctantly allowed them to leave on the promise that Neal would return to Jarudin to help fill in the gaps in the history of how the empire was won. Neal agreed and even allowed the emperor to reinvest him as Knight-Defender of the Empire in a ceremony that included the Steel Pack presenting him with a pair of gloves in which the left hand had been branded with the mountain rune.

A company of the Steel Pack had ridden with them to the borders of Ispar, then turned back before entering Centisian territory. The three weeks spent traveling with them had proved beneficial for keeping Neal's spirits up. The experienced swordsmen among the imperial soldiers took great delight in sparring with Neal and Berengar. While Hardelwick's men were good, and displayed a number of different fencing styles, Neal and Berengar clearly had an edge over all of them. Numerous promises of return matches were shouted back and forth when the Steel Pack departed for the capital.

She found the remaining ten days between the border and Aurdon entertaining. As they rode through territory Berengar knew well, he felt constrained to point out things of interest. His pride in Centisia became evident in his voice and, when they had stopped for breaks, in the way he paced back and forth. Neal tolerated being lectured, but the Dreel took to aping Berengar's strutting in a comical and decidedly unflattering manner, which set Berengar off.

Berengar and Neal began to fence a great deal more earnestly. Berengar still had an edge over Neal, but the gap between them closed quickly. Gena saw more of the unusual and odd moves from the imperial soldiers show up in Neal's repertoire. Berengar managed to counter most all of the ploys Neal used, but he had to work harder at it than he ever had before.

Just outside Aurdon they met a patrol of the Aurdon Rangers. Gena recognized Captain Floris, but had remembered him as a more carefree sort of individual. In the six months since she had last seen him, he had lost weight and had added a scar along his jawline. Even so the Man remained gracious and greeted their party warmly.

"Welcome home. Count Berengar. I am very glad to see you here again. How went your quest?"

Berengar looked over at Neal. "We succeeded. This is Neal Roclawzi and he bears Cleaveheart."

Floris's jaw dropped. "But, but, Neal Roclawzi died five hundred years ago." He shivered. "His ghost has . . ."

"Yes, yes, Floris, this is true. But it is also true that, thanks to Lady Genevera, he lives again." Berengar smiled carefully. "He was told of our plight and has come to set it to rights."

Neal reined Scurra up and offered Floris his hand.

"Pleased to meet you. Captain Floris, is it?"

"Yes, sir."

Neal smiled warmly at the soldier and at his men. "A fine group of soldiers you have here, Captain. I gather from what I have been told and your relief at seeing Count Berengar here, that the Haladina have continued to harass caravans coming into Aurdon."

"More than that, sir, they have burned a number of farms. The panic is forcing the price of grain up, which is causing a great deal of unrest in the city." He looked over at Berengar. "Half the Rangers are deployed to guard the warehouses to prevent people from looting them."

"This is most serious, but now we can deal with it appropriately. The treachery that has culminated in this series of events will soon have its own reward." Berengar pointed at one of the soldiers. "Ride back into the city and inform my family that I am returned successful."

Neal frowned. "We could ride on in just as easily as he can. I'm certain Captain Floris has his patrol to continue."

Berengar waved that idea off with a flick of his right hand. "Hardly, he is escorting us into the city. It is his duty and his honor."

"It is an honor, my Lord."

Neal shook his head. "I hated parades, and I'd rather be out killing Haladina than riding with us back into Aurium."

"Aurdon, Neal, it has changed since you were last here." Berengar laughed and started to ride toward the city. "You will find yourself most welcome among my people. Come, we will prepare for a ceremony tomorrow night in which you can undo the curse beneath which you placed us, and true justice can again determine the course of events in Aurdon. And then we will celebrate this new freedom with a festival the like of which you have never seen."

Gena fell in beside Neal as they rode into the city. Floris and Berengar preceded them and the other Rangers rode behind them, but they had enough room from either group to be able to converse without being overheard. A wave of weariness washed over Gena, but she forced it away with a laugh until she saw Neal's dour expression.

"What is the matter? This is almost finished."

Neal shook his head. "Nothing, really, though I should have expected it. I'm thinking that Berengar reminds me of your grandfather when he was in the company of other Elves. On the road we have been of equal importance, all of us. Now, because we are going into his city, he eclipses us."

Gena raised an eyebrow. "I'd not thought Neal Custos Sylvanii would be jealous of anyone."

"Jealous?" Neal frowned, then laughed. "I don't think I'm jealous. I have never wanted what Berengar has."

"You don't find his notoriety vexing?"

"Is that inquiry serious?" Neal watched her carefully, and she sensed she had asked something that lessened her in his eyes. "I have never been one to imagine another person's being praised in any way diminished me. If anything, I can now enjoy an anonymity that eluded me for a long time."

"Forgive me, Custos Sylvanii, I did not mean to presume."

He nodded. "I know." He reached out and touched her lightly on the shoulder, then quickly withdrew his hand. "There is much of your grandaunt in you, and sometimes I forget that you do not know everything she did about me. How she understood me, I do not know, but why, I do."

"Vitamorii."

Neal pounded his right fist against his chest. "She still lives in there, and I'm not of a mind to evict her. But she knew that it would take ambition for me to be jealous of Berengar."

"And you have no ambition."

"Not exactly." His smile returned in full force and made Gena feel better. "It's just that my ambition is to avoid being ambitious."

As they entered the city, Gena watched Neal as he saw what Aurium had become. The shock remained evident on his face throughout the journey. He sat tall in his saddle as he rode through the Haladin district, but the stern expression he had adopted softened when he saw children playing with dogs in the streets. He stood in the stirrups to peer deep into the open market, then waved at the troopers as they rode to their barracks.

Finally they arrived at the Fisher mansion. Berengar dismounted and helped Gena down, then looked up at Neal. "Come, they will want to see you, too."

Neal shook his head. "If you do not mind, my lord, I think I would like to travel through your city. Many are the changes since I was last here."

"I have no objection, Neal, but I would be upset if your sword were to fall into the wrong hands."

Neat nodded and pulled the scabbard with Cleaveheart in it from his belt. He handed it to Gena. "If you will safeguard this as well as your grandaunt did, I will be in your debt."

Gena accepted the weapon, but something in the stiff formality of Neal's tone bothered her. "Are you certain you will not stay with us?"

"Please, I will return and relax here, but this is the first opportunity I have had to be alone in a town. It has been a long time—longer even than you think, really. I just feel a need to hide myself in a crowd."

Berengar nodded and plucked a pouch of coins from Floris's belt. He tossed it to Neal. "Here, this should see to your entertainment without compromising your identity."

Neal deftly caught it. "My thanks. Count Berengar. If you will excuse me."

Gena smiled hopefully at him. "Are you certain you do not want any company?"

"I am certain, thank you." Neal winked at her, but she caught no warmth from the act. He reined his horse around and rode back out through the gate.

Gena watched him go, all the while feeling smaller and smaller inside. A month before, beginning with the dance at the emperor's celebration, she had felt as if they were growing closer. Even on the road they had maintained a new openness, but their arrival in Aurdon appeared to have cut off any further chance to get to know Neal better. If she took what he said to her as the truth, she found herself in competition with her grandaunt, an idea she hated because she knew, ultimately, she would lose in that comparison. Neal idolized Larissa as Gena had once idolized him.

Berengar settled his arm around her shoulder. "Don't worry, Lady Genevera, he will come back."

She looked up at Berengar as they mounted the steps to the front of the mansion. "What makes you so certain of that?"

"It's easy." He nodded at her. "He'll come back because we have his sword."

I returned to the Fisher domain rather late in the day, or early, depending upon whether you accounted days by midnight or dawn. Five hundred years had changed Aurdon considerably, and that included a great advance in the brewer's art. Each of the taverns I visited brewed its own ale, and I enjoyed making my survey of their wares. One, an especially crisp, very amber brew lacked the sort of aftertaste I remember from when I was last alive, so I found one more reason to be happy that I had returned to life.

My wanderings had also uncovered for me a number of other reasons to regret my resurrection. Coaxing a full litany of crimes visited by the Fishers upon the Riverens and vice versa had not taken much effort—and it included a complete and detailed chronology of my ghost's intervention in their relations. Of course, I didn't bother to mention I was the Neal who had beset the families so. Despite that omission on my part, I got the distinct impression that keeping track of family fortunes within Aurdon was a sport that amused and delighted a great number of people—especially those with ties to neither clan.

Other things I had learned, things hinted at and rumors whispered, obliquely suggested to me that intrigue rivaled commerce as the primary occupation in Aurdon. Frustrated in their attempts to destroy each other, the Fisher and Riveren families had succeeded in crushing any other merchant house in the city. Normal citizens said they could feel the pressure building to some sort of climax, and already rumors of Berengar's return brought with it speculation ranging from an Elven invasion of the city to mercenaries using flashdrakes to slaughter the citified Haladina wholesale.

I found the room to which the night porter guided me as spartan as it was small, which I really didn't mind. Before my death I had spent months living in a canvas tent, and since then I had fared little better, so the room I had been given appeared opulent. I closed my door and began to shuck my clothes when I heard a light knock from the door leading to the adjoining room.

Bare-chested and barefooted, I opened the door. "Gena. I hope I did not wake you."

Standing there in a long bedgown, with her golden hair gathered into one thick braid, she looked chillingly like her grandaunt had when I reclaimed Cleaveheart. Only Gena's violet eye color marked her as physically different from Larissa, yet in her eyes I saw much more that separated them. The expression on her face told me she had been sleeping, but not well.

"I heard your door close, and I wanted to see if you had survived your peregrinations." She forced a smile on her face and waved a hand through the air between us. "You've been drinking."

I nodded as I backed away from the door and retreated into the room. "That I have, Gena."

"And wenching as well?" She kept her voice light, but I caught a hurt note in her question.

"Wenching, me? In fact, I have not." I shrugged, the ale making the motion sloppier than I wanted. "What woman would be interested in a man old enough to be potting soil?"

"My lord underestimates how well he has been preserved."

"My lady forgets that I remember an Aurium where the Fishers lived in a longhouse with floors of dirt and someone who was likely Berengar's great, great, great, great, great"—I tried to keep track of greats on my fingers, but failed—"grandmother expressed a willingness to lie with me. And I remember Larissa."

I felt my face getting hot and my anger rising, but I could not figure out why, so I tamped the emotion down. "I have not had a chance, in five centuries and more, just to sit in a tavern and watch and listen to people. Traveling with you and Berengar, I have been out of touch with normal people—except at the emperor's festivities and on the road with the Steel Pack."