“Show me where this tavern is I’ve heard so much about.”
After a few moments, he was able to walk without her assistance.
“What came over you back there?” she asked.
“I’ve never seen you like that before. It was like Michael’s divine wrath.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have that blood ability. I don’t know what came over me. Pure rage, I guess.” He told her about the visions he had started having on his way through the artists’ quarter, and how he had become confused and taken a wrong turn somewhere, gone down the alley to reach the right street, and encountered the three thugs.
“That last one was a former soldier,” he said. “He wore the style of chain mail we use in the army I don’t know, perhaps he bought it somewhere, but I doubt it. He had the look of a soldier about him. I thought of all the men we’d lost, fighting for the empire while that bastard remained home, preying on the citizens, and I just went mad.”
“A delayed reaction,” she said. “It happens sometimes, after a long period of combat. It’s difficult to leave all that behind.”
He nodded. “I know. I just can’t stop thinking about it,” he said.
“And if it weighs on me so much, I can only wonder what Michael must be going through right now.”
“At least he’s safe back at the palace, and not wandering the streets at night, looking for another war.”
Aedan snorted. “I fear you’ve been among us humans too long,” he said.
“You’re developing a sense of humor. I sometimes think I’ve lost mine.
Well, this is it.”
He pointed to the entrance of the tavern, marked by a wooden sign above the door with a green basilisk painted on it. They went inside.
Aedan had not been to this place for a long time, ever since he’d assumed his duties as lord high chamberlain. He had stopped going because he did not think it fitting for the emperor’s first minister to frequent taverns and drink with the lower classes.
But in the years since he’d first assumed his post, especially after so much time spent in the field with the troops, he’d lost that old rigidity of opinions.
Still, he had not returned. This place had seemed like a part of his past best left behind. Even then, as Lord Tieran’s son, he had never really been accepted as one of the crowd. As lord high chamberlain, he thought he’d only make the other patrons feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Tonight, however, he simply didn’t care. Even the lord high chamberlain was entitled to a drink or two or ten, especially after the nightmare he had just survived.
The place hadn’t changed at all. He even saw a few familiar faces, though they were older now, of course. It was still the same dark, windowless rectangular room with stone walls on which the shadows danced in the flickering of candles and oil lamps. Still the same rough-hewn wooden tables and benches with rushes on the floor, the same long wooden bar stained with rings of countless goblets.
Bards still sang their songs upon the tiny stage while girls passed the hat for them … and the Fatalists were still holding court.
“Well, well, look what the wind blew in.”
He recognized Vaesil at once, even though the years had not been kind to him. Or perhaps more accurately, Aedan thought, the drink had not.
He had put on weight, and his once flowing, lustrous hair now hung limp and oily on his shoulders. His angular features and high cheekbones, which had once given him a dashing predatory look, had a rounded softness now, and his eyes had the glazed and red-rimmed look of a dissipated drinker.
“To your feet, my friends,” he said, lurching up, “for we are singularly honored by a most stellar presence on this night, or do you not recognize Lord Aedan Dosiere, the emperor’s high chamberlain?”
The others at the table turned toward him, and Aedan saw a few more familiar faces, but mostly new ones. He did not see Caitlin. Strange, but until that moment, he had not thought of her in years. As the others rose to their feet, Aedan waved them back down.
“No, no, resume your seats, please,” he said. “I am not here in my official capacity tonight. I just came to get drunk.”
“Well, you have come to the right place then,” Vaesil said, sitting down heavily. His speech was only slightly slurred. He still had the hard’s voice, and a control over it that only a man long in his cups could exercise despite the drink. “And who is that with you?” He squinted.
“By the long-dead gods, is that an elf?”
“Her name is Sylvanna,” Aedan said.
“So, you’ve turned your back on your human friends and taken up with elves now, have you?”
Vaesil commented. The others sat in shocked silence, amazed that he should address the lord high chamberlain in so familiar-and so rude-a manner. “I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised,” continued Vaesil.
“You’ve both butchered your share of humans.”
“Vaesil! Have you lost your senses?” one of the others at the table said in a shocked voice. “Remember whom you are speaking to!”
“It’s all right,” Vaesil said. “Lord Aedan and I are old friends, are we not? True, it has been years since we have drunk together, but then he’s been a very busy man of late. Sit down and join us, Aedan, and your elf girl, too. You can regale us all with tales of your last campaign. I understand the body count on this occasion was particularly high, and you did not even encounter Arwyn’s army. Just a sort of lethal training exercise, was it?”
Several of those present got up from the table and left
