“You’ve never been in Vincennes before?” Alec asked Arden as they sat at a table.
“No, never,” Arden replied, as he ordered a pint of ale. “Valeriane’s the biggest city I’d ever been in. I’ve mostly stayed in Valer, or gone hunting in the mountains.”
He drank his ale hurriedly as soon as it was delivered, while Alec sipped redberry juice, and promptly ordered a second ale.
“Tomorrow, we’ll sneak into the palace, and go down to the prison cells in the basement. I don’t suspect that they’re keeping a captive prince in a dungeon cell, but we need to make sure. We can question the guards and find out where the prince is being held, then go find him,” Alec explained a few minutes later.
“You know the palace well enough to find your way around?” Arden asked owlishly, sloppily slamming his mug down on the table as he finished the third pint as quickly as the first two.
Alec looked at the boy and shook his head, knowing that the boy was learning a lesson the hard way. He stopped talking, and watched as Arden slumped forward, and folded his arms on the table in front of him as his eyes closed.
“Come on, let’s get you up to your room,” Alec said, sliding an arm around Arden’s shoulders and raising him out of his seat; he regretted that he hadn’t said something to stop the boy. He guided the young Ajax to the front desk and got the key to his room, then took him upstairs and put him in bed, lending a touch of healing energy so that the boy would not waken with too terrible a headache.
As he left the room, the door across the hall opened, and Availlie stepped out. She’d managed to shed her military appearance to a degree that astounded Alec. Her hair was unbound for the first time since he’d met her, and sprung out from her scalp. She wore no sword or knives, nor even a jacket over her blouse.
“I have to tell you, that bath was amazingly relaxing,” Availlie spoke. She reached over and gently took Alec’s arm. “Since you’ve made the innkeeper believe I’m something that I’m not – a lady, the type of woman who would certainly carry no weapons! – you’ll have to continue the charade and escort me to the table.”
Alec grinned at the Ajax maiden. “A lady is certainly capable of wielding weapons, and I suspect that there’s no charade involved in your case. You strike me as a noble person, whether you have the title of nobility or not.”
They walked downstairs and into the dining room, taking their seats at the table. Availlie raised her eyebrows. “Where is our young companion?”
“He is indisposed this evening, and went to bed early,” Alec said without offering any clue about the self-imposed nature of the indisposition Arden suffered.
Availlie ordered white wine, while Alec continued with his redberry, and they dined on savory dishes cooked in the Vincennes way, with heavy use of seasonings and herbs.
“You know the palace well,” Availlie stated. “What will be the most elegant part we pass through?”
Alec looked at her, thankful that she had broached a simple subject, one that would allow him to talk with confidecet in his facts. He was feeling tongue-tied in a way he hadn’t felt in centuries, not since he was a young boy, as he looked at the beauty Availlie was displaying.
“We’ll not see many of the best features of the palace if we find the prince in the dungeons,” Alec replied.
“The stories in Valer say that you were married to the empress a century ago, and were ancient when you married her. You look younger than I do. What is the truth? Is it the Sleagh Maith blood that you carry?” she asked.
“I have lived many lifetimes of men,” Alec agreed, not wanting to say that he believed he was over four hundred years old, not while talking to this woman tonight. He’d not felt any interest in a woman since Caitlen’s death. “My body does heal itself, as the Sleagh Maith do,” he agreed.
“Would you like a sip of my wine? It’s very good. It goes well with the fish,” Availlie held her flagon towards Alec, so that the impression of her lips upon the glass rim was poised closest to him, and gently caressed his lips as she slid the vessel to his mouth and tilted a refreshing stream between his lips.
“Let me order a glass for you to enjoy on your own,” she motioned for the waiter, and held her glass up for him to see the need. “So you do not dispute that you look younger than I do?” she gave Alec an arch smile.
“I would say that your beauty is timeless,” Alec tried to find a gallant answer, knowing that he had fallen into a trap. He recollected an experience with Caitlen, when he had changed her hair color to make her look more mature, then heard her complain that people thought she was older than him. Alec reached over to place his hand on Availlie’s forearm, letting a particular stream of his healing energy remove the delicate wrinkles from her face, as well as darken her hair, unbeknownst to her, restoring the color of her youth, which he discovered to be a rich chestnut.
“Let’s ask the waiter who looks older,” he suggested, and motioned the man over again.
The waiter did a double-take at the sudden appearance of the dark-haired lady who sat where the silver-haired woman had sat before.
“Tell us, who looks older,” Alec asked the man. “And be honest. There will be no hard feelings.”
“Clearly my lord, this young woman is not as old as you, not that you look more than hale and in your prime,” the waiter said. Alec flipped a coin to the man. “Well stated. You’re a natural diplomat, I can tell.”
“He’s a clever man, there’s no doubt,” Availlie agreed, “though truth isn’t necessarily a part of any man’s composition.”
The waiter bowed and departed. “Such a cynic!” Alec stated as he sipped the wine the waiter had brought for him. “What experience have you lived through to give you such a sour taste for men?”
“Only life,” Availlie answered, holding her own glass in front of her mouth, showing no evidence of her feelings.
Her right hand left the glass to swat at something that distracted her from the corner of her eye, and her fingers drifted through the air, then drifted back. She swatted again, her fingers again stirring through empty air, then returning. A third time she sought to dismiss the dark movement in the corner of her eye, and her fingers came to pinch a strand of her newly darkened hair, pulling it forward into her field of vision.
Her left hand continued to hold the wine glass in the air in front of her face, slowly drifting downward as she focused all her attention on the long tress of brown hair that her fingers caressed above her shoulder. After several long seconds, the left hand brought the wine glass back to her mouth as she continued to stare at the hair, and she unknowingly gulped down the contents of the glass.
“How did that happen? How did this happen? Did you do this?” she asked, without looking at Alec.
“When I was younger, when my hair was still dark, I had suitors. I had many suitors. I was considered something of a catch. I was sure that I was better than all of them, and sometimes I proved it on the practice mats,” she seemed to be speaking to herself.
“Then my hair started to change, and it happened quite rapidly – just a couple of months was all it took. And when I woke up in the morning and looked at my silver hair I didn’t feel any different; I was still the very same person. I liked the same flowers and ate the same cake for dessert, and I treated everyone else just the same,” she let the hair drop, and turned to look at Alec again.
“But the men who had followed me no longer came to see me. Not the same men. Not the men I secretly wanted to come see me. Instead they stayed acquaintances, when we happened to see each other, and other men started coming more often, men who I thought I was too good for.
“And after a while, as I refused them and waited for the right men to approach me, it came to happen that no men came any more. So then, left without a mate, all my time and all my attention was focused on being the captain of the Select.”
Alec listened to the wistfulness in her voice, and he reached out with his Spiritual energy to feel the loneliness in her soul, an
d the embarrassment she felt in revealing herself to him.
I think we are all lonely sometimes, and as you suspect, it is only because we lock ourselves away from the companions that await us in this world, he spoke from his soul to hers, without touching her, sharing his sympathy. The wine, he realized, had made him less inhibited about expressing himself to her, and had led him to reveal the Spiritual ability to communicate under circumstances in which he ordinarily wouldn’t do so.
“It truly was you, wasn’t it?” Availlie asked out loud. “You are the one who had all the talents needed to defeat Hellmann, I forgot. You can change my hair, my very body, you can place yourself inside my mind. I’m just a puppet for you to play with, aren’t I?”
“I apologize for entering your mind,” Alec spoke. “You are the farthest thing from a puppet; on the contrary, you are one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a long, long time.”
They each picked at the food in front of them as the waiter came back to their table and poured more wine in their empty glasses.
“It is just as you said a minute ago. You are still the same person you were before, regardless of the color of your hair. You are a lonely but very self-sufficient person. All those men who stopped following you because your hair color changed – the greater loss was theirs for not having you as a part of their lives.
“I’ll be happy to change your hair color back if you like,” he said, and raised his hand to touch her, to make the switch. “It looks nice with the way you’ve loosened it, instead of keeping it bound so tightly.”
“Not so fast,” Availlie said, with a smile, a warmer smile than Alec had seen before. For the first time her smile had laughter in it, in this case, laughter at herself. “There’s no reason to be hasty. I’m certainly comfortable with my natural hair, but we don’t need to rush the change back.
“Tell me about yourself, Alec,” she said, and he noted that she called him Alec for the first time. “I’ve told you about myself, more than I expected to.”
“You’ve had more to tell than I have in the past several years,” Alec answered. “I’ve lived quietly at Ridgeclimb and tried to make the caravan road a better place for the people who use it.”
“You are the master of Ridgeclimb? That makes perfect sense,” Availlie said. “We wondered about the emergence of an island of peace in the middle of the mountains. We’ve heard about it in recent years, but never thought about who made it happen so improbably.
“That tells me the what; won’t you tell me the why? Why did you send yourself off into exile to build a new home in the mountains?” she asked.
“It wasn’t going to be fair to the emperor,” Alec stood and laid coins on the table, their meal finished. “Come, let’s go for a walk,” he said.
“I was always going to be the alternative to the emperor, any emperor, as long as I staying within the bounds of the Avonellene Empire. Those who were dissatisfied would come to me, and the emperor had to look over his shoulder. I didn’t think it was fair, so I left the empire, and went someplace where I could start a new life, and create something good.”
“Would we have to be here now, if you had stayed in Valeriane?” Availlie asked. “Would this emperor have started his foolish wars, or been as profligate, or tried to usurp the rights of Valeriane, if you had stayed? Perhaps having a Godkiller looking over one’s shoulder is better.”
“I’m not a Godkiller,” Alec protested. “Hellmann wasn’t a God, only a very powerful mortal.”
“For you it may look that way, but for the rest of us, all the powers he has make him the same as a God. And besides, that’s just a quibble. Shouldn’t there be someone to look over the shoulder of the powerful?” Availlie argued.
“Well, there is God. I always feel that my God looks upon my world and observes what I do,” Alec responded.
Availlie digested the answer, and Alec sensed that she wanted to argue, but refrained from giving a rebuttal that reflected what she truly felt. “Not everyone is apparently as scrupulous as you are about pleasing their god, or else they have gods that are much less ethical than yours.”
Alec thought about the temples in Michian, where the gods had been a conduit to demons and unthinkable carnage.
“So it comes back to having someone like you, so perfect,” Availlie spoke.
“Not I, my lady. I’m hardly perfect. I’ve made so many mistakes in my life that there isn’t enough time tonight to begin to tell them all. I tried to use two powers at the same time a long time ago, back when all the ingenairii were taught that only one power could be used, back before I knew how to do it properly; I was cavalier about the rule, forgetting it and paying little heed because I was so sure of my superiority. It crippled me badly, to the point that not only couldn’t I use my powers at all, but I almost couldn’t function in life at all,” Alec recounted.
“And how did you recover?” his companion asked as they strolled along the nearly empty street.
“My God healed me. I went to a holy place, a place hidden in the middle of the desert, and a saint, a messenger from God, came and healed me. He even gave me direction so that I had a task to fulfill,” Alec recounted.
“And you’ve never made another mistake since then,” Availlie spoke, and Alec sensed that her gently sardonic sense of humor had returned, as she had regained her self-confidence and accepted the change in her hair color.
“No, there have been many mistakes,” he answered slightly annoyed by the mocking comment. “I tried to raise the dead. I did raise the dead, and then I tried to bring her back to life in the new body I created for her,” he answered grimly. “God did not tolerate that,” he paused, “error in judgment… more than error – mortal sin. I wasn’t punished, but I had my memories removed and was sent to Avonellene to essentially start life all over again.”
His harsh comment had its desired effect, causing Availlie’s face to grow pale, and she said no more. He regretted his comment. “You must be feeling cold, Availlie,” he said, noting the chill in the air and the thin material in the dress she wore. He reached over and used his Healing energy to suffuse her body with warmth. “Let’s return to the inn and call it a night,” he suggested, taking her arm to turn them around, and they strolled in silence back to their residence.
They stopped at the top of the stairs.
“My lord,” Availlie braced herself to say something, Alec could tell. “Would you like to come to my chambers for the evening?”
She had made herself vulnerable, risked asking him to join her, and Alec felt great sadness in his heart. He stepped up to her, and re-engaged his Spiritual energy, then placed his arms around her. I am tempted by you more than by any woman I’ve known in many, many years. You are beautiful and strong and intelligent, with a good and thoughtful soul. But you are not asking because you love me, or even out of lust. You are too determined to think of me only as a hero, Availlie.
Not tonight, but maybe someday, if we both have hearts that are ready, he transmitted his thoughts, along with a feeling of affection and confident hope.
“I need to go check on young Arden, to make sure he will be able to wake up in a useful state for us tomorrow,” Alec said aloud. “I’ll see you at the breakfast table, and then we’ll go visit the palace.” He removed his arms from around her, and left her to go into Arden’s room. When he finished giving the boy a trace of healing energy and came back out into the hallway, she was gone.
Chapter 9 – The Palace at Vincennes
The next morning Alec was the first of the three to take a seat at a table in the inn’s meal room, where he waited until Arden and Availlie came down the stairs together. He resolved to not use his Spiritual powers to examine Availlie; he wanted to know if he had settled her spirit peacefully the evening before, but he had over the long years of his life come to look upon the uninvited use of Spiritual energies as intrusive, except when Caitlen had pressed him, or when he had so wanted to play matchmaker for Charls and Carla. The fact that Avai
llie had caused him to resort twice to its use was an indication of the impact she was having upon him.
“How are you each this morning?” he asked as they arrived at the table. With Arden, he had no real need to ask, and had no need to call upon his Spirit powers to judge the young man’s condition; his eyes alone, in addition to his Healer powers, told him that Arden needed a touch of help, and Alec obliged him by reaching and placing his hand over the boy’s, letting his healing ability remove the hangover that weighed on the Ajax.
“Must you be so kind so early?” Availlie asked, and in her tone and expression Alec detected that she held no ill will towards him. “The boy needs to learn some lessons on his own, such as the consequences of drinking too much ale.”
“He’s learned,” Alec answered, and Arden nodded his head. “He may learn again, but the lesson has begun. We need him to be alert and aware today; we’re going to go to the palace, and there’s no reason to leave any of his ability behind.”
As they ate, Alec outlined his plan. “I will cloak us in invisibility, so that we may enter the palace grounds. Once we’re inside, we will stroll about; the palace is so large that three strangers don’t need to be invisible to be able to walk unmolested.
“We’ll find out where the prince is being held, and we’ll go set him free, as bloodlessly as possible,” he looked at Arden to emphasize that part of the goal. “If we judge that he can be relied on to rightly rule the empire, we will place him on the throne, and remove the present emperor.”
“Ah, so simple - a quick coup against an empire in the morning. What shall we do this afternoon?” Availlie asked brightly.
“What did you do to your hair?” Arden asked Availlie, who he had studied intently during their conversation.
“What do you mean?” Availlie asked innocently.
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