The Hero is a mercenary, but he’s their mercenary.
The ball is not in the Hero’s honor, but that does not stop him from being mobbed by well-wishers as he comes down the sweeping staircase. They shake his hand, and pat his back, and ask him to dance, and offer him drinks, all of which he waves away with a good natured laugh. By inches, he makes his way to the dais, where sits the Elector of Asteria, watching the hubbub with a fond eye.
The Hero kisses the Elector’s hand, and is warmly received in return. After he extends his well-wishes on her birthday, he is swept away by the Elector’s Heir to the roulette table, where he puts his fabulous luck to work at winning a large sum of gold. Later he charms the crowd with a vigorous horn-pipe solo, orates a touching toast to the birthday girl, and quickly dispatches a kettle-snake that somehow managed to crawl in through an open door and help itself to the oyster bar.
Later still, when the ball is called closed by the steward, and the rest of the guests have been stuffed, drunken and exhausted, into their carriages, the Hero slips through the darkened hallways of the Elector’s palace, evading the drowsy guards, and climbs the one hundred and fifty steps to the top of the Star Tower. He arrives at the top, puffing and a bit winded, for the steps are steep and very narrow. But the Elector is waiting for him inside, and she doesn’t mind that he’s a bit sweaty, not at all.
Even later, they lie wrapped in fur blankets, before the fire, and look upward, through the glass ceiling at the star-studded sky. The moon has long since set, but to the south, the darkness is slightly washed with green. The comet will be rising soon.
“I’m getting old,” the Hero says with a sigh. “Once this time of night would have felt too early. Now it feels too late.”
“Oh, tut,” says the Elector, who is older than the Hero by at least fifteen years, and still feels in her prime. Their exertions reopened the dragon scratch on the Hero’s thigh, and they are both now liberally streaked with blood, but neither feels like leaving their cocoon to attend to the mess. Their limbs are entangled in the most perfect comfort, and because of the glass above, the room is cold.
“I should retire,” the Hero says, yawning. “I’m thinking of retiring, actually.”
“And what would you do then, I wonder? Take up knitting?” The Elector toys with the scar on his shoulder, received years ago in a fight with an egregore.
“You don’t know how it is, darling,” he complains. “People trying to kill you all the time, facing death, pretending you don’t care—”
“No, I don’t know about any of that,” the Elector answers. She has weathered six assassination attempts, given birth to three children, and faced down two coups, all with a smile on her face. But that’s not heroic, that’s just life.
“I think about it... stopping. Sleeping late in the morning, not being responsible for anyone’s well-being. But then I think: What’s my legacy? What will I have left behind? What will they sing of in the evenings when I’m gone, and the next hero’s come in to slay nameless beasts with his well-named sword…? And I think to myself: one last adventure. One last great adventure to go out on... And then I can buy a small house in the country and grow fat on apple dumplings.”
“Well if that’s really what you want, I may be able to help.” The Elector slithers from the fur blankets, goes to her desk, pawing through the mess. “Are you familiar with Illyria?”
“It’s west, somewhere, isn’t it?”
The Elector has found what she was looking for, and now she turns back to the Hero. The comet has risen fully now, flooding the room with green light, turning her long gray hair silvery, turn the dried blood on her stomach and thighs emerald. “Far west. It’s a small country, not much to commend it. Some decent rubies. A few songs. And this.”
He catches the chain she lobs at him. The pendant hits him square on the chest. He holds it up, sees a dangling gold locket set with a circle of tiny rubies. Inside is a gorgeously rendered portrait of a small pair of bare feet. The feet are young and soft, fragile looking. They are feet that have never walked a mile, or climbed a fence, or worn an ill-fitting shoe.
“Is this a joke?” the Hero asks. He is finding these small feet strangely stirring. They look so defenseless. The toes remind him of little pearls.
“Illyria is a hilly country. They like feet there. Their poets say the feet are the root of the soul. Or something.” She fusses with some papers, not looking at him.“And besides, some people find feet to be very erotic.”
“Some do.” Now he too rises from the fur blankets, to fill his jorum with wine poured from the clay jug warming on the hob. He tosses the wine back, and begins to dress. “But what should I do in Illyria?”
“Along with feet, what Illyria is rich in, is monsters. Strange, complicated, hard-to-kill ones. One monster in particular is causing the King of Illyria a lot of consternation. He has sent out a diplomatic circular seeking a hero to slay this monster.”
“Has he no heroes of his own?”
“Apparently not. But he does have a daughter with beautiful feet.”
“What is wrong with this princess that she cannot slay her own monster?”
“Not everyone is so enamored of swordplay, my love. And anyway, in Illyria they prefer their ladies to be delicate and decorative.” The Elector returns to the snug nest of blankets, watches the Hero as he sits in a chair, pulls on one boot.
He says casually, “You mentioned songs. Is there, perhaps a song in which a hero slays a monster and wins the hand of the princess, and the rights to a kingdom rich in rubies?”
“Now, as to that, you must ask your jongleur. My acquaintance with their legends and art forms extends only as far as that embassy ball I attended, in which feet were greatly celebrated in art and song, but woefully trampled in dance.” The Elector arches one of her own elegant feet, and lays it in his lap. He massages it idly with his large and capable hands. “But I imagine the standard rules apply.”
“It’s a long time,” he says with a roguish grin, “since I was a foot soldier.”
THE HERO HAD started small, the third son of a highborn family in a country far to the north, which he has never cared to name. In that country’s tradition, the third son is the steward of the land, but the Hero did not care to be a steward. His personality was charmingly amoral, and his inclinations were towards flamboyant actions. But those qualities were reserved for the first son, with maybe a bit left over for the second. The third son was to be sober and attentive to the family’s extensive holdings, from which derived most of the family’s income and influence. He saw no heroics in pumpkins or wheat, so he left, leaving behind his family name, taking with him only his ambitions.
He went south, joined the Elector’s army as a private, and rose through the ranks to captain. He fought in her name as she expanded her territories, and in this fighting he made his own name as one who was reckless and bold, who was fair in battle, would honor the terms of a surrender, and who led from in front, not from behind. Then, bored with discipline and taking orders, he resigned his commission, and put together a small hand-picked crew of toughs and renegades, men who would fight to the death for the right price. Together, they embarked upon a glittering career as mercenaries, and with each campaign their fame grew.
But now, almost thirty years later, the Hero is ready to put his sword down. The knee he broke when a wyvern fell on it aches when it rains. The lung-full of dragon smoke he sucked in fifteen years ago still makes him wheeze. He has lost a toe to a shark-shifter, broken his nose in a battle with a catoblepas, and still has nightmares about being trapped for a week in a troll’s nest. His horse seems taller and the ground harder and field rations harder to digest. Wedding a sweet young princess and settling down to rule a small but rich kingdom sounds to him like an excellent retirement plan.