An avid light came into Seila’s eyes at the mention of a hearty meal and a warm bath. “The sooner, the better,” she agreed. “Now where in Raven’s Bluff are we?”
Jack looked around, taking in his surroundings. None of the buildings seemed familiar … but the shape of the street was much as he remembered. “This is Olorin’s Lane, isn’t it? In Burnt Gables?”
Seila smiled at him. “There you go again. The neighborhood is called Sindlecross these days.”
“Ah, well. I hope you’ll forgive a gap of a hundred years.” Jack grinned at her, finding himself almost giddy from relief. Escaping captivity and torment in the hands of the drow, surviving the monster-haunted halls of Sarbreen, and rescuing a noble-born lass in the bargain … this was shaping up as one of his greatest exploits. “Clearly, I have much to relearn about Raven’s Bluff.”
Seila reached out and grasped Jack’s hand. “Leave that to me,” she said. “You’ve rescued me from toil and misery in the Underdark, Jack. Showing you around Raven’s Bluff is the least I can do.”
Together, they ventured out into morning.
CHAPTER FIVE
Norwood Manor was much as Jack remembered it from his long-ago visit. Most of the furnishings were different, but a few pieces of decor remained after a century of absence-the great chandelier in the foyer was still there, the coats of arms in the upper hallway seemed the same, and even a couple of portraits in the parlor remained. Seila and her mother were delighted when he mentioned the similarities to them, but he carefully omitted sharing many details of his previous visit. It was only about three years ago by his reckoning (since, after all, a hundred years of slumber had passed as little more than a single night’s sleep). On a snowy evening in the Year of Rogue Dragons he’d slipped into an elegant midwinter’s ball at Sarpentar House by posing as a caterer, and he had spent a very profitable evening working the glittering crowd of guests as a pickpocket before seducing a rather intoxicated noble lass who’d mistaken a careless pat for attention of a different sort. In fact, Jack had very pleasant memories of the third-floor linen closet … but Seila and the Norwoods didn’t need to know that, thank you.
For two full days, Jack did nothing but bask in the gratitude of Seila’s family and retainers. After three months of captivity, Seila had been given up for lost. As her rescuer, Jack was treated very well indeed in Norwood Manor. He slept as long as he liked, bathed in steaming hot baths until he finally eradicated the lingering aroma of the rothe paddocks, ate like a king, and refined the dramatic tale of his rescue of the beautiful Seila until he even impressed himself with his bravery, wit, and resourcefulness. He was introduced to a bewildering array of noble Ravenaars, beginning with Seila’s mother Idril, a dozen aunts and uncles and cousins, and then scores of nobles of other families who flocked to Norwood Manor on hearing of Seila’s return from the Underdark. Her father Marden was away in Tantras on family business, but Idril Norwood dispatched a courier at once to summon him back.
On the morning of the third day since their escape from Sarbreen, Jack was roused from his luxurious bed in one of the manor’s guestrooms by Seila, who wore a green riding-dress that matched her striking green eyes (a charming feature of hers he hadn’t noticed in the gloom of the Underdark). “Up and out of bed, Jack,” she said. “It’s a fine spring day without a cloud in the sky, and I have an open carriage waiting in the drive. I think it’s time to give you the grand tour of Raven’s Bluff.”
Despite the fact that he was really quite comfortable in the great feather bed, Jack’s curiosity asserted itself. He was not yet fully recovered from his toils in Tower Chumavhraele-he could stand to regain another ten pounds or so, in his judgment-but his curiosity about this new age in which he found himself had been growing each day. “An excellent suggestion, my dear,” he said. He threw off the coverlets and climbed to his feet; Seila obligingly turned her back while he changed from his sleeping robe into the borrowed clothes the Norwoods had found for him, pulling on warm gray woolen breeches and a padded vest of fine blue velvet over a cream-colored shirt. He paused at the washbasin to splash some water on his face and quickly check the trim of the neat goatee that had replaced months’ worth of scraggly beard growth, then threw a heavy scarlet cape over his shoulders and selected a feathered cap.
When he was ready, he followed Seila down to the manor’s foyer and out to the waiting buggy, where a liveried driver waited with a dapple-gray mare in harness. They climbed into the seat and spread a blanket over their laps before the driver clucked to his horse and set off at an easy trot.
Norwood Manor stood about five miles north of the city, on a fine piece of land that stretched all the way to the bluffs overlooking the Dragon Reach. Jack settled in to enjoy the ride, taking in the scattered estates, manor houses, and country homes of the Ravenaar nobility, broken up by small farmsteads and wide swaths of woodland. “So far it seems much the same,” he said to Seila after a mile or so. “Most of these grand old houses were here back in my day. That one there is Daradusk Hall, is it not?”
“It is. Baron Ostin Daradusk is the head of the family these days.” Seila tapped the side of her head. “A very eccentric fellow by most accounts. The man is terrified of vampires and never ventures from his house after sundown.”
“Have he or his family suffered from a vampire’s attack?”
“Not that anyone knows of, but Baron Daradusk claims that only proves that his methods are effective.”
Jack chuckled. “I suppose he also takes credit for keeping away the elephants, too.” He pointed at another manor, this one a lofty house on a high knoll of the mountain that crowded in on Raven’s Bluff from the northeast. “And that is Daltabria, isn’t it? One of the De Sheers’s estates?”
“No longer. It belongs to the Hawkynfleur family now. The De Sheers died out thirty or forty years ago when old Lady Niune passed without children.”
“Niune, really?” Jack shook his head. “I knew her. Not well, mind you, but I could pick her out of a crowd even if she wouldn’t have known me.” Strange to think that a young noblewoman with scarcely twenty-five winters to her had lived out her entire life and died as an old woman in Seila’s time-well, the time of Seila’s parents, anyway. He wouldn’t be surprised if Idril Norwood or her husband had met Niune when they were younger, because they were practically neighbors. Why, there might be very old people today who’d been babes when he was so strangely imprisoned. “Or, for that matter, any number of dwarves or elves,” he murmured aloud.
“What was that?”
“It just occurred to me that while there are probably no humans alive who knew me before, there might be some nonhumans who remember me. Dwarves and elves and other such folk live much longer than we do, after all.”
“Did you know many?”
“Only a handful, really. Still, we should try to look up one or two.” Jack grinned at her. “If nothing else, I would dearly love to offer some proof of my outrageous claims.”
“I believe you, Jack.”
“Which I greatly appreciate, my dear, but I suspect that many others will find my story harder to credit.” He leaned forward to address the driver. “My good fellow, by any chance do you know where a taphouse called the Smoke Wyrm stands? It used to lie on an alley off Vesper Way, in Torchtown.”
“It’s still there, sir. They brew a very good stout, but one to be enjoyed in moderation.”
“Drive us there when we enter the city. If I recall, it’s hard by the north gate, anyway.”
“Do you think someone you know might still be found there?” Seila asked.
“It seems unlikely, but one never knows. If nothing else, the current owners might know what became of him.”