Chapter 20

Homecoming

The slowly dying sun set the ancient stones of Amsara Castle ablaze with crimson light. Long, dark shadows of towers and walls stretched like questing fingers across the plain below.

Magnes looked skyward to where the fortress squatted atop its rocky perch and felt a sharp twinge of anxiety deep in his gut. The first lamps of evening flared to life on the walls above, shining like stars drawn down from the heavens. Below, at the base of the hill, people made their way home to Amsara village after a long day in the fields. Herdsmen drove cattle into milking sheds and sheep into pens. Their shouts and whistled signals to their dogs pierced the still, sweet air.

Magnes drummed his heels against the flanks of his horse but the animal—weary from the trek south out of Alasiri—stubbornly refused to walk any faster. And so, slowly, but steadily, the elf-bred horse carried Magnes back to his father’s house.

He knew the castle guard would have already spotted him some time ago, before the light of day had failed completely, but in the twilight of evening, they would be unable to identify him until he arrived at the gates. He had changed back into the clothes he had worn out of Amsara, so as to give no clue to where he had been these past weeks. Castle folk would be curious enough about his sudden return.

After riding up a series of switchbacks, Magnes reined in the horse at the main gates, which were shut tight for the night. The animal blew noisily and shook its head, then heaved a sigh. Magnes patted its sweat-darkened neck and waited.

A few moments passed before a small square hole opened up in the center of a door set within the gate itself. A pale blur flashed across the opening, and Magnes heard a startled exclamation, followed by loud exhortations to open the door and be quick about it.

The portal swung inward. Magnes dismounted and led the horse through, only to find himself surrounded by excited guardsmen, all talking at once. Someone took the reins from his hand and led the horse away. Another man asked if he wanted a drink. All welcomed him home, and none asked where he had been. They knew better.

“I think I should go to my father now,” he said, and the men respectfully fell back.

~~~

At the entrance to the keep, Magnes paused for a moment, then pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold. His eyes immediately swung left to scan the great hearth. The flickering light of the lamps cast dancing shadows across the cold stones of the dead fireplace. The hearth lay bare.

Ghost was not in his usual place.

Magnes swallowed hard and decided that he would deal with that later. For now, he had to stay totally focused on how he planned to handle his father.

It’s dinner time, you idiot, Magnes chided himself. Father won’t be here in the keep.

Duke Teodorus always insisted that the family gather together this one time during the day to eat and discuss family business. Magnes pulled the keep door closed and headed for the great hall.

The sound of multiple voices alerted him to the presence of guests in the great hall this night. Magnes halted just outside the door to gather his wits. He had no wish to face his father in front of an audience, but this particular confrontation could not wait. The door stood slightly ajar. He put an eye to the crack and surveyed the room.

Duke Teodorus occupied his rightful place at the head of the main table. Thessalina sat to his left, dressed in her usual brown and black leathers. To her left sat Father Nath, Amsara’s resident priest. To the duke’s right, in the chair usually reserved for Magnes, slouched the corpulent Lord Taceo, a minor noble and one of Duke Teodorus’s vassals. Taceo’s equally rotund wife had wedged herself into the chair on her husband’s right.

Father Nath had just made a comment about the divisions in the Soldaran Imperial Council over the empress’s plans for war, when Magnes pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

All conversation ceased. Everything, including the very air itself, seemed frozen, as if time had stopped. The sound of his own heartbeat roared thunderously in Magnes’s ears.

“Gods…Magnes, you’re back!” Thessalina exclaimed, shattering the spell.

“Hello, Father,” Magnes said. His feet had mysteriously grown roots that now anchored him to the rush-strewn floor. He could not move.

Duke Teodorus slowly lowered his wine goblet and wiped his mouth on a cloth. His face was still, as inscrutable as that of a stone sphinx guarding a desert temple. His icy blue stare fastened onto his son with chilling intensity.

The tension in the room hung as thick as congealed blood. Nobody dared move or speak, not even Thessalina, whose quick eyes darted from her father’s face to her brother’s, then back again.

At last, when Magnes thought he could bear it no longer, the duke spoke.

“Tell me, Daughter,” he drawled. “What should be done with a son who steals another man’s property, runs out on a legal marriage contract, and brings disgrace to himself and his family?”

“Father, I…I,” Thessalina stammered, for once at a loss for words.

The roots loosened their hold, and Magnes took a step forward. “Father, please just listen to…”

“Shut your mouth!”roared the duke, launching himself from his chair with such violence that it flipped over backward. Lady Taceo screamed in panic and plopped to the floor as her husband, letting out a startled yelp, threw himself sideways to avoid Duke Teodorus’s flying wine goblet.

The duke rounded the table and advanced on Magnes like an enraged bear. Magnes stood his ground, and braced himself.  Radiating white-hot fury, the duke halted before Magnes and raised his fist. Unflinchingly, Magnes held his breath and waited for the blow that would surely knock him senseless. He prayed that, when he awoke, his father would be calm enough to listen.

He was vaguely aware of panicky voices raised in alarm, but they did not matter. His entire focus had centered, with the crystal clarity that comes with extreme danger, upon one point. He saw—really saw—for the first time, the sheer size of his father’s hand—the back of it crisscrossed by an intricate roping of veins, the whitened knuckles dusted with coarse, black hair. The heavy gold signet ring the duke wore on his middle finger would surely leave an interesting mark.

The blow never came.

Slowly, Duke Teodorus lowered his hand. Thessalina stood behind him, gripping his shoulder.

Magnes started breathing again.

A muscle in the duke’s jaw twitched, like a little worm jumping under the skin. “We will speak tomorrow. You will tell me everything. Now go!” he growled. Magnes looked beyond his father to Thessalina, whose eyes implored him to obey.

He turned and fled through the door out into the night, feeling like a coward. He should have somehow made his father listen. Instead, he had tucked his tail in and had slunk away like a whipped dog.

Slowly, he walked back to the keep. The vacant hearth caused his gut to clench as he crossed the ground floor chamber and made his way upstairs to his apartments. Pain rapidly filled the hollow space that had opened up in his heart.

Snagging a small lamp out of its niche in the wall beside the door to his rooms, he entered and made his way over to the fireplace, where he lit two larger lamps. Slowly, his eyes wandered over the familiar space.

A fine layer of dust coated the mantle. The chamber had a forlorn, abandoned quality to it, as if its occupant had had to vacate in haste, leaving almost everything behind, which, in fact, was what had happened. He sat down at his writing table and trailed a finger through the dust on its surface.

The gurgling pangs in his stomach reminded him that he had eaten nothing since morning. He thought about going down to the kitchen, then decided against it. He could not face anyone else tonight, not even the servants.

Weariness descended on him with the swiftness of a dark winter fog. His arms and legs felt weighted down with rocks as he struggled toward the bedchamber. Somehow, he managed to dredge up enough energy to pull off his boots before he collapsed across the bed, fully clothed. He plunged into sleep before his head hit the coverlet.

~~~

Magnes awoke to the sounds of someone moving about in the outer chamber. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, yawning. He looked down at his rumpled clothing, then cautiously sniffed at his armpits and wrinkled his nose in distaste. He wondered, with wry amusement, what the fastidious and ever impeccably groomed Ashinji would make of him. No doubt his elven friend’s perfectly shaped nose would be offended, but he would be too polite to say so directly.

Magnes rolled off the bed and stumped out into the front room, startling the servant who had just finished laying out a meal.

“Ai, gods! Ye nearly scared me out o’ me skin, m’lord,” the man exclaimed. The delightful aroma of fried bacon and fresh baked bread filled the room. Magnes’s stomach rumbled fiercely. “Lady Thessalina told me t’ bring ye up sommat to eat,” the servant explained. “I hope yer hungry.”

“I am ravenous! Thank you, Conrad,” Magnes replied. He sat down and began to eat, stopping only briefly to allow the servant to pour him a mug of hot cider.

“Welcome home, sir,” Conrad said with affection. “We all missed ye.”

“It’s good to be back,” Magnes answered around a mouthful of bread and apple butter. I think. 

The servant departed with a promise to send a maid up later to clean and air out Magnes’s rooms. Taking a hunk of butter-slathered bread and his mug of cider with him, Magnes moved to sit in one of the sunny, eastward facing window enclosures. He pushed open the pane and drew in a deep breath. The smells of home were wonderfully intoxicating.

From his vantage point, he could look out over a part of the kitchen yard and observe the servants going about their chores. A familiar, stout figure sallied forth from the kitchen, wisps of gray hair straggling down around her ears from underneath her white cap—Claudia, on her way to the laundry. Magnes almost called out to her but then decided against it. He would wait to speak to her in private. She, of all people, deserved to know how Jelena fared.

Magnes licked the last crumbs of bread from his fingers and tossed off the rest of the cider in a single gulp. He ran his hand across the three day old stubble on his chin and grimaced. Now that he was back home, he would be able to shave with a proper razor. Elf males grew no beards, and so, back at Kerala, when he had requested a shaving kit, he had been met with blank stares. Ashinji had finally provided him with a small knife with which to do the job, but it just hadn’t been the same.

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of the maid. Magnes opened the door to reveal a young woman in an apron, rags and broom in hand.

“Mornin’, sir. Come to clean yer chambers, sir,” the maid said with a quick curtsy.

“Um, yes. Well, there’s something I need before you can start, and that is a bath,” Magnes replied.

The maid looked puzzled. “A bath, sir?” she repeated. Magnes nodded.

“But, it’s not ev’n a holiday, sir, leastways, not any I know of. Beggin’ yer pardon, sir.”

“Yes, right you are, but nevertheless, I want and need a bath. As a matter of fact, from now on, I plan to bathe every day. What d’you think of that?” The maid shook her head, jaw hanging open in complete bewilderment. Magnes burst out laughing at the expression on the young woman’s face, convinced that she now believed that he had gone mad while away. “Go and tell Conrad that I need a tub, some hot water, and soap.” The maid gulped and nodded, then scurried off.

Some time later, after considerable effort on the part of Conrad and several other servants, Magnes sat in a laundry basin half full of tepid water, scrubbing three days worth of dirt from his body. He sincerely missed the bath house at Kerala, with its deep soaking tub full of hot, herb-scented water. The harsh laundry soap he had to make do with stung and reddened his skin, and even after he had dumped two pitchers of clean water over his head, he still felt a little grimy.

After finishing his less than satisfactory wash, he dressed in clean clothes and left his chambers to the servants. He could delay no longer.

The time had come to face his father.