The Tyrant by Eric Flint and David Drake

Ashen-faced, Adrian lifted his head and smiled weakly. Then, seeing the child, his eyes grew vague and unfocused. Helga remembered that weird expression, and almost shivered. Adrian’s spirits were communing with him.

“He is your son,” she said, softly but firmly. “I know it, even if I can’t prove it.”

The color was returning to Adrian’s face. His smile grew firmer. “No need, Helga. He’s my child, I’m quite certain of it.”

Adrian used the word certain in a way which Helga had never heard any other man use it. Always, as if he were—certain. That was those mysterious “spirits” again. Somehow, in a manner which Helga did not understand, they had examined the boy and told Adrian that he was surely his own offspring.

Jessep came over and handed Adrian a rag, which he’d obtained somewhere in the apartment. Then, with several others, began cleaning up the mess on the floor. The former First Spear was no stranger to cleaning up vomit, clearly enough.

Adrian gave him a nod of thanks and wiped his mouth. Then, his eyes moving back and forth from Helga to the baby, asked in a still stronger voice: “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. I never named him. I thought that since you were the father, you’d want to have a say in the matter. And—” She took a deep breath. “I always knew I’d see you again.” The last statement sounded more like a plea than a statement.

Adrian’s eyes were now focused entirely on her. She remembered those bright blue eyes. Could remember drowning in them at night and warming in them at dawn. She almost uttered the word please!—but managed to retain enough dignity not to say it aloud.

“Me too,” he whispered. “The gods only know how much I’ve missed you.”

Now she was laughing again, and it felt like all the tension of the past year was pouring out of her in the laughter itself—like water storming through a broken dike. And Jessep was laughing, and Adrian—Ilset too, with her own baby gurgling happily.

Only the child of Adrian Gellert and Helga Demansk was silent, staring wide-eyed at this strange new apparition in his young life. Wondering, perhaps, how anything in the world could be so blue.

* * *

A bit later, after Adrian and Jessep had finished cleaning up, Helga shooed everyone else out of the apartment. She handed the baby to Ilset on the way out. That had been prearranged between the two of them. By now, Ilset had nursed Helga’s baby as well as her own any number of times, and she would have no trouble taking care of the infant until the following morning.

“Bet you won’t have to fake it, either,” murmured Ilset slyly, as she passed through the door. Helga’s riposte came immediately to her lips, but before she could utter it, Adrian was closing the door and had her in his embrace.

A minute or two later, Helga murmured it in his ear. “That’s one advantage to a man in a savage’s loincloth. I don’t have to wonder if he’s faking his affection.”

Adrian chuckled, but said nothing. By now, Helga was delighted to note, his normally fluent language had degenerated entirely into a series of growls.

The other advantage to a loincloth, she quickly discovered, was how easily it came off. The rest of it gave her no surprises, except that it was even better than she remembered.

* * *

Trae and Thicelt left a week later. Only Jessep and the hundred remained behind. On the morning that they left, Trae was quietly taken aside by Helga and handed a sealed and bound codex.

“Give this letter to Father,” she said.

Trae hefted the packet. “Letter? This weighs as much as an Emerald tome.”

Helga smiled. “Well . . . I guess it is, in a way. Adrian wrote most of it. He even gave the thing a title, believe it or not.” She shook her head fondly, the way a woman will do at the antics of a man she loves but finds often eccentric.

“A title?” Trae stared down at the package. “I won’t read it, of course. But I’m curious. What’s the title?”

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