Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson by Greg Bear, Gardner Dozois Read Free Book Online Page A

life goes on wherever one wanders,” Alianora said. “Surely, had you sought, you would have found many, or one at least, not so very different from me.”
    “No way. Not a chance.” Holger had vast reserves of stubbornness. Without them, he never would have won Cortana, never would have had the chance to scatter the host of Chaos before him. Now . . . Now he said, “You’re the one, the only one.”
    “Oh, Holger.” Alianora tried to make him hear what he would not see: “I am no more the lass you wooed.”
    He wasn’t listening. And he had his reasons: his eyes shifted away from her, and his yellow-callused hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. “Who’re these clowns?” he ground out. “They better make tracks, kid. They mess with me, it’s the last dumb stunt they ever pull.”
    Alianora turned to follow his gaze. One of the other women by the well must have hotfooted it back to the smithy. Alianora hadn’t noted anyone leaving, but to say she was distracted only proved the weakness of words. Here came Theodo, a heavy hammer clutched in his fist. Behind him strode Einhard and Nithard, one with an axe, the other with a cleaver.
    “Hold!” Alianora spoke quickly to her kinsmen. “This is the famous Sir Holger, come to call after all these years.”
    Einhard and Nithard broke into delighted grins. They knew she’d been friends with the paladin in the great days before they were born. Now at last they got to meet a hero in the flesh! Theodo’s face was a study. He knew rather more than they did, and liked what he knew rather less. So long as Holger was gone and stayed gone, it didn’t bother him—much. Now that he got to meet the hero in the flesh . . .
    Seeing them lower their weapons, Holger also took his hand away from his sword, though not very far. He asked once more, “Who are these people?” This time, the question sounded cautious and formal rather than ferocious.
    With relief, Alianora too chose formality: “Sir Holger, I have the honor to present to you my sons. The tall one is Einhard; the redhead, Nithard. With them stands my husband, Theodo.”

    Her sons rushed up to clasp the hero’s hand. Theodo hung back a little, but only a little. He also set his hard palm against Holger’s. He didn’t pound the paladin on the back the way Einhard and Nithard did, or help try to lift him off his feet. The gray streaks in his beard excused his lack of youthful enthusiasm. Other things, perhaps, excused his lack of enthusiasm of any sort.
    As for Holger . . . Alianora might have known—hellfire, had known—formality wouldn’t be enough. While the puppies pounded on him and Theodo gave him more restrained greeting, he looked like a man who’d just taken a boot in the belly out of nowhere.
    When the commotion around him eased a little, he stared over at Alianora with that astonished disbelief still all over his face. “Your . . . sons?” he said. He might never have heard the word before.
    “Aye,” Alianora answered stolidly.
    “Your . . . husband?” By the way Holger said it, he had heard that word before, and didn’t fancy it a barleycorn’s worth. Theodo caught the same thing. He unobtrusively shifted the hammer from his left hand back to his right.
    Alianora nodded. “Aye,” she said again. It was the truth. Why should she not repeat it? Why should she want to weep when she did?
    “But how did that happen?” Holger asked, still lost, speaking as if of flood or fire or other natural catastrophe.
    “How do you think?” For the first time, irritation rose against sympathy in Alianora. “You were gone , Holger. Gone off the battlefield. Gone from human ken. Gone from the ken of other folk, too, as I have reason to know. Even smarting from their loss, the Middle Worlders laughed that I should have looked for aught else. So I came hither one day, and I met Theodo, and this is all these years and three grown children later.” She raised her head and looked him full in the face.