The household was gathered around the long dining table. Egrin filled a mug with the best beer in Daltigoth and handed it to Tol. “To the victor over Tarsis,” he declared.
Tol downed a hearty swallow. “That seems a hundred years ago.”
“You’re much too young to talk like that,” Egrin replied genially. “Wait until you’ve outlived all your enemies, then you’ll miss them.”
Kiya said, “Why should anyone miss their enemies?” She’d grown morose since Miya had left the villa to become Elicarno’s wife.
“For a warrior, life is measured by the enemies you best.” Egrin swirled the remnants of beer in his own mug, watching the foam break on the glazed clay sides. “Or by those who best you.”
Tol arched an eyebrow. “Oho! Are there any foes you’ve never defeated, Egrin?”
“Certainly I’m not invincible. No one is.”
A fresh platter of ribs arrived from the kitchen. Egrin’s men eagerly took the steaming platter from the servants hired for the banquet. Kiya growled a warning that some ribs had better make their way to her end of the table.
“Husband was won all his battles,” she said, when the platter finally reached her. “Monsters, pirates, soldiers-it’s all the same to him.”
Tol insisted he had enemies still. He thought of Mandes, who had disappeared, but particularly of Prince Nazramin, an utterly untouchable foe.
Egrin brought up the question that had begun to dominate Tol’s thoughts of late: What were his plans, now the war was over and the crown rested securely on the emperor’s brow?
Tol had no idea and said so. Egrin spoke of the pirates still active in the southern and western seas, saying Tol might summon Darpo and the fleet and deal with the brigands. Kiya countered with the Silvanesti outposts making incursions into the South Plains, the sparsely populated territory east of the Great Green.
Her comment ignited a long discussion about the elves and their capabilities. Since their plot to arm the forest tribes and block Ergoth’s eastward expansion had been foiled a decade earlier, the Silvanesti had remained remarkably quiet. That alone was grounds to suspect mischief, Egrin intoned darkly. Long-lived and incredibly patient, the elves could wait decades to allow a plot to mature.
The banquet went late, and in true warrior fashion, most of the Juramona men eventually fell asleep at the table. Even Egrin dozed in his chair. Tol scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, rose, and draped a woolen mantle around his old friend’s shoulders.
Egrin shifted slightly and began to mutter. “Killers… Silvanesti…” was all Tol made out before the marshal jerked awake with a gasp.
Tol put a hand on his shoulder.
It took Egrin a moment to recall his surroundings. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You were talking in your sleep.” Tol told what he’d heard, then said, “Reliving an old battle? I guess elves are the one enemy none of us can outlive.”
To his surprise, Egrin stood abruptly and walked out of the room. Tol followed. In a room across the entry hall, on the villa’s north side, Egrin stood before a large window, staring out at the cloudy night. Old Rumbold had been rich enough to afford real glass, and the window opening was filled with individual panes, each no bigger than the palm of Tol’s hand, held together by narrow strips of lead.
Egrin was rubbing one ear absently, a sure sign he was lost in thought. Tol seated himself on the carved arm of a heavy wooden chair, and waited. The villa was so quiet he could hear the faint hiss of the misty rain collecting on the windowpanes, yet he nearly missed Egrin’s first words, so softly were they spoken.
“The harder we run from the past, the closer it comes.” After a moment, he added, “I haven’t had that nightmare in a long time. I must be feeling my age, or perhaps it’s a reminder of my mortality.”
He turned to face Tol at last. “I’m very proud of you, you know. You’ve surpassed any dreams I ever had for you.”
The old warrior had never spoken in such direct terms. Tol was deeply moved, but before he could reply, Egrin went on.
“And because I’m proud of you, because there should be no lies between us, I need to tell you something about myself.”
Slowly, the marshal pushed his thick, gray-streaked auburn hair behind his left ear. Tol frowned. In the dim light it was difficult to make out, but there seemed to be something wrong with the ear. Its top was oddly flat, the skin puckered. A painful wound, Tol was certain, yet he had seen worse battle scars and said so.
“These came from no battle,” Egrin said. Lifting his other hand, he revealed his right ear was identically scarred.
“Then what-?”
“I was born in the forest. When I was very young, my mother was killed. My father, unable or unwilling to care for a small child, left me with a couple in a nearby village. They were kind enough, in their own fashion. They told me this”-Egrin brushed an ear-“was for my own good, to protect me from the kind of people who had attacked our settlement and murdered my mother. It was necessary, they said. A necessary lie.”
Tol sat frozen. Egrin rarely mentioned his past, and Tol was keen to learn whatever he might share. However, the implication of his words suddenly struck like cold water on a chill morning. When Tol spoke, his voice was hoarse with shock.
“You’re a half-elf?”
Egrin’s hazel eyes were direct. “My mother was human; my father Silvanesti.”
Tol’s mind reeled. He had met only two or three half-elves over the years. Shunned and reviled by Silvanesti society, viewed with suspicion by their human families, they lived on society’s margins like the former pirate Wandervere, captain of Quarrel, who’d brought Tol to Daltigoth. For Egrin, a Rider of the Great Horde, discovery of his true roots would mean exile from the Empire, perhaps even death.
Tol had never suspected a thing.
Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, his fists coming up to rest on his hips.
“I knew you didn’t look that much older!” Half-elves aged more slowly than humans, though they were not quite as long-lived as full-blooded Silvanesti.
Egrin blinked in surprise, and Tol grinned suddenly. “Did you honestly think it would matter to me?” he demanded.
Relief coursed through the marshal. He sat heavily on a low table. Tol gripped his shoulder, and Egrin rested his hand briefly on Tol’s.
As they walked back to the banquet room, Tol leaned close. “So,” he whispered, “exactly how old are you, old friend?”
From time to time Tol was summoned to the imperial palace to give advice to the emperor and his councilors. He greatly valued these visits, not only for the access it granted him, but for the chance to glimpse Valaran.
Valaran’s prestige had suffered since Amaltar ascended to the throne. As long she was married to a crown prince, her status depended only on her husband’s interest and goodwill. Now that she was an emperor’s wife what mattered most was child bearing-bringing forth sons and daughters to ensure the continuation of the imperial line. Amaltar had no special love of children, nor was he an especially ardent lover, but all his wives except Valaran had borne him children. She was ostracized by the household, now run with total authority by the emperor’s first wife, Thura. Likewise, Valaran found herself belittled in the Consorts’ Circle; her bookishness as a girl had made her the subject of gossip, but this situation was far more serious: the dire word “barren” was even being whispered.
Tol had thought this would be unimportant to Valaran. He learned the true state of her feelings during a brief conversation in an anteroom of the audience hall.
Seated in an ornately carved chair, she was splendidly attired in a midnight blue gown trimmed at neck and shoulders with lapis lazuli. She’d discarded her fashionable headdress and her chestnut hair was tied back from her face with a simple length of ribbon.