A Nameless Day

     The old man sitting asleep in the ratty armchair woke with a start at the sound of quick tramping feet.  He sat still for a long moment listening silently to the noise, remembering where and when he was.  The laugh and chatter outside made him smile to himself, and he looked around in satisfaction, the tired worry draining from his face.
     “Must be midmorning,” he said aloud, inspecting his surroundings out of habit.  The thump and chatter of kids at play outside agreed with him, and he set himself to the long task of rising with a sigh.  “Fallen asleep in the chair again you old fool.  Whenever will you learn what beds are for?”
     The bed in question waited unused in the corner, woolen blankets tucked military-tight and dusty.  Other things waited similarly: books unopened, letters unread, bound chests full of mystery untouched since their placement against the back wall.  The old man levered himself upright, painfully straightening his tall frame to stretch until a loud crack jerked him back into his customary stoop.
     A soft grumble was all he gave to answer the pain, and his ritual complete he turned to poke hopefully at the cold ashes of the previous night’s fire.  When this produced nothing he sighed, rubbing his hand across the stubble of a three day beard.  “Hmmm.  Gettin’ kind of long me boy.  What would the Commandant say...?” A craggy smile and a rough guffaw later, the old man turned to limp across the room to the single plank door.
     He threw the latch with a clumsy hand and pulled the portal open, fighting both stiff hinges and joints until at last he was able to shuffle out into the bright light of another nameless day.  Squinting, shielding his face with an upraised hand, he took another step onto the creaking boards of the shaded porch, and found himself buffeted by young bodies, their voices raised in high-pitched laughter.
     “Ord! Ord!” They called to him, hugging his knees and dancing around him in circles to the rules of some unknown game.  “Old man Ord!” They called him, and he covered small soft hands with his large calloused palms and turned circles to their happy laughter.  A bright-eyed urchin asked, “Did we wake you?”  And he shook his head no as he always did.  Let them have their fun and laughter, he always said.  Life was short and precious.
     Small hands patted with familiar praise.  He didn’t worry about pickpockets, for it had been a long time since he’d had pockets full of worth to pick.  The thought of a silver haired scamp in days long gone always made him smile; she’d have given them a run for their money.
     “Tell him about the stranger!”  His brows rose at the child’s call; it seemed something new would pass today.  A flurry of words erupted so that he had to raise his hands to calm their excitement.
     “One at a time, one at a time,” he told them, and immediately they fell over themselves to decide who would be the first to speak.  He could tell by their manner that this stranger was indeed out of the ordinary.  As the oldest started, the younger tots were nearly dancing with impatience.
     “She has a horse,” the first one declared.  “And she’s riding it here,” added a second with a high cry.  A girl said, “She rides like a lady.”  And a boy told him the rider had a ‘big bow’.  He learned she was blonde haired and green eyed, and that she was tall.  She hadn’t asked for him by his name, and he said nothing to the children about this, though he had to hide his concern when they told of the rider’s asking of him by physical description.  Whoever it was, she was obviously seeking him out.  He was about to send them on when the youngest gave him the most important information of all.
     “She’s an elf!”  The old man leaned against a porch post and called to the boy.
     “You’re sure of that?”
     The little one nodded assuredly and touched his ears.  “Yes sir.  I saw them through her long hair.  They’re pointy, like this.”
     The man the children called Ord smiled and ruffled his informant’s hair.  “Alright then.  You’d all best go and tell her where I am. I’d never make it down the hill.”  He called after them as they ran off.  “Don’t get under-foot now!  And stay well away from the hooves of horses!”  
     He watched the children dwindle to small specks amid the ramble buildings.  “Was a time I could count the freckles on their faces from here.” He laughed at his lamentation, while watching intently down the lane.  He knew who the stranger had to be and wondered at her coming, even as he watched the horse and rider grow solid in his vision.
     From ten lengths out he knew her, this elf, and there was a touch of disappointment in his breast.  Had he hoped not to see her again perhaps?  Or was it the knowledge of how life had passed between them?  Or more likely, he thought to himself, that there was at that distance no recognition of him in her eyes.  He had become but another spent old man.
     Of course he had changed.  He was only human, half her age if even that.  And she would go on unchanging, until at some far off time her years should make her look as him.  And even then, he thought she would carry the same grace and unearthly aura that dwarfed the race of men.
     There were differences though.  As she closed the distance he noted how the world events had marked her.  Her hair was longer, braided and thrown across one shoulder.  She sat easy astride her mount, one knee cocked about the saddle horn and the cut of her leathers were much finer than they once had been.  Her bow he remembered, iron bound yew claimed in the hills of a far off land.  And her skin was tanned as ever.  No life of shade and shelter for her.  But of all the little details he noted of her person, it was her eyes that had changed the most.
     Those deep green orbs held a shadow of hurt that had not been there to be seen in the years before.  It was to be expected, knowing what she had lost.  But too she was tempered.  Her horse well trained knew not to trod or panic over the youths that ran about its feet.  And he was surprised at the easy smile she returned for their free laughter.  Only human children...
     His eyes met hers and he gave her a craggy smile of his own.  He saw the moment she recognized him, the shock turning to sadness flitting across her face before the warmth of her expression returned to grace him.  Before she could speak he saluted her.  But as he went to say her name she silenced him with a sharp wave of her hand.
     “No title, no naming.  Friends as we need not speak such trivial formalities.”  She dismounted and turned to the children.  “Ord is my friend whom I have not seen in ages.  You need not worry about the things we’ll speak of, such memories that old people tell.  Yet my horse Canticle won’t suffer strange attention.  You may pet her, but if she stamps, back away.”
     The children were caught between pout at dismissal and pleasure at being allowed to pet the steed.  The old man turned to give them a look. “Is she battle trained?”  The elven woman nodded.
     “She is an archer’s war mount.  And she knows friend from foe.” As the children piped up to assure none were enemies she clapped her hands sharply.  With measured footsteps the horse made its way to a patch of grass beside the road, taking her admirers with her.
     The old man laughed as he watched the eager children but turned at the elf’s quiet stare.  She looked him over intently and then turned to the shack to peer through the still open door.  He waited in silence until she finally turned back to face him.
     “Why here?” She asked him.
     “It’s all I need.” He said simply.
     She gave him a long measured look through narrowed eyes and then said; “I thought they’d treat you better than this.  I thought they’d have learned...”
     He shook his head. “Who says they didn’t try?”
     The elf gave him an arch look.  “General Ordanus Longsight, hero of the ages, Savior of The Seven, dressed in rags and living in a beggar’s hovel?”
     He did not even break a smile, seeming to ignore her outburst completely.  He had returned to watching the children. Without looking to her he asked, “What of it?  I did not hear the heralds trumpeting your name.”
     “That’s different,” she said bitterly.
     “Is it?”  He did not turn from watching the children.
     “You know it is,” she hissed. “These people would not hesitate to tear me apart if they knew.”  He turned to her then with one brow raised.  She gave him an exasperated look and threw up her hands.  “Not the children!  That doesn’t count.  Their parents... they would be mortified.  They’d be racing up here with pitchforks and torches.”
     “You sound certain.  You think they hate you so?”
     “They do.  But it is hatred earned.”
     “Not by you.  Besides, it is not hate.”  She laughed at him humorlessly, but he insisted. “People hate that which they fear.  They will do anything to destroy such things.  Does that not sound familiar?”
     The elven woman stood staring into the street for a long time before sighing.  “She gave them plenty of that.”
     “She gave back what she was given.”
     She turned toward him in curiosity.  “You believe that?”
     He nodded.  “I do.  Neither of you struck me as the type to lie.”
     “It doesn’t make it better.”
     “No.” He agreed.  “But she paid the price for it.  It’s a shame that you should too.”  Silence was her only answer, and he shrugged.  “Have you seen the girl?”
     “Not since she took to traveling.”
     “And is she hiding too?”
     The elf turned hotly.  “I am not hiding.”
     It was his turn to laugh sarcastically.  “Running away from the world, never telling your name; you don’t call that hiding?  I wonder which of you started that first?”
     Her eyes narrowed.  “Meeriel isn’t running away from anything.  She’s been seeking ruins in the low kingdoms.”
     Ord smiled, turning to regard his visitor again.  “Finally, the old Seret looks out.”  His smile faltered when she jerked as if he’d slapped her. “Who’s going to...”
     She silenced him with a sharp motion.  “I’ve been spit on, attacked, berated, turned away as ‘one of those faithless damnable dead-raising folk’.  It’s easier to avoid it altogether.”
     “So you’re running away from it all?”
     Again she gave him the raised eyebrow.  “What is that saying about the pot and the kettle?”
     He laughed.  “Touché.” He limped across the porch to a high bench that had been built just for him.  Lowering himself down with a grunt, he motioned for her to sit.  She shook her head to decline.
     “I’ll be sitting enough.  I’m leaving The Seven Ord.  Everywhere I go I see hatred.  She left your people with little sympathy for my kind.”
     “They’re not my people...”  He started to call her by given name again and stopped.  To steer the conversation in another direction he asked, “Back to Andovar then?”
     Forest green eyes could not close fast enough to hide deep pain.  “No.  Too many memories.  Even if I could go back.  Besides, the Lunar Council struck a deal with Cargad.”
     “The peninsula for the great forest?”
     “You know?”
     “I’m not without ears here you know.  It suits the Cargs.  They get lumber and a route around the Golden Sands.”
     “Humans have been pouring into Andovar for years.  The war was but a temporary pause.”
     “Seems a stiff payment for peace.”
     She laughed bitterly.  “It brings the Lunar Council together.  The Eastern Elves have been bargaining toward that end for centuries.  Why shouldn’t they?  The spit has always been their land.  The Western families were left to hang.”
     “Your family?”  The question was asked very quietly.
     Her eyes stayed closed. “My line is dead.”
     He made a sound of disapproval.  “Not as long as the two of you live.  Your blood still runs; you shouldn’t forsake your name.”
     “Oh really?  And you?  Names are human things.  I need attach no single word to my life.  Nothing that you could call me could adequately encompass all that I am.”
     “Friend?”  When that gave her pause he carried on. “It is true that most men need a name to be called by.  They need a last word to tell the ages that they were here.  Glory to their name and honor, and something to write upon their tombstones.  Such men cannot bear to part from this world without leaving their mark upon it.”
     “Most men?”  The question was more a joke than anything.
     “The rest of us just need names to call those we wish to speak with.  Mind you, it differs by the person.”
     Despite her earlier assertion the elf put her back to a porch post and slid down it until she was seated on the rough planks, legs cocked to one side.  She made an expansive gesture to include the sky.  “An elf needs no such connection to the world.  He knows his place is never forgotten while his name is lost to history.  Men and elves alike touch the world regardless of who knows their name or not.”
     “I cannot disagree.  And it would not matter anyway.”
     Something in his tone got her attention. “Giving up?  How very unlike you.  So spill it.  I mean, you were never like most men.  But if humans need their names, why have you seemingly given yours up?”
     He smiled at her tiredly.  “I told you I don’t need it.”
     She shifted.  “That’s not an answer.  I gave you my reasons.”
     He sighed deeply and waved his hand dismissively.  “Look at them.  They play at battle and dream of the future.  They don’t worry about what tomorrow will bring.  They don’t fear the things that could kill them.  They have no need to appreciate today because they’ve never known the threat of losing their tomorrow.”
     She sat in silence, waiting for him to make his point.  His mouth set in a grim line when he saw she did not yet understand.  “These people, the farmers and townsmen here, they’re good people.  They lived through the war.  They survived it.  But they did more than just survive.  They took up arms and fought our enemies, and then they fought down the horror of their own turning against them, and they did it all without commanders or soldiers or any direction but their own desire to live.
     They did all of that here, just like it was done in a hundred other little villages, and once it was over they reburied their dead and went back to the work of living.  They didn’t ask to be recognized.  They didn’t get a parade.  They’re not wearing any medals for bravery and valor.  They simply did what they had to do, without being told, without a reward.
     Those people... these people, are the real heroes.  They don’t need to know my name.  I don’t need them bowing and scraping every time I walk by.  If anything, I should be bowing to them.  They were the ones that fed us, kept us clothed, got us paid... they were the ones to send their sons to war and never see them return...”
     A hand touched his face, and he looked up in surprise.  He’d not seen her move, nor heard her shifting silently.  But when he looked into the depths of those green eyes he could see that she finally understood.  He gave her a grateful smile.  She turned and watched the children play.
     “I didn’t think humans could feel that way.”  The admission was quietly spoken.
     Ord rubbed his pate; a shrug of confusion without the shrug.  “Zahash?”  He threw the name in a gentle, probing tone.
     She laughed, both in gleeful memory and sadness.  “Only half a human, that one.  But to be fair, he was only half an elf too.”  She saw his growing frown and swatted his knee playfully even as the last of her smile faded.  “Blood is less than nothing.  He was one hell of a man.  Loyal till the end, which is something not many of the most noble of either race would have been.”
     Ord nodded appeased.  “He loved her.”
     The delicate elven lips set hard for a moment before she slumped against his leg with a heart-rending sigh.  “How could she?  How could she cast that away?”
     “She lost her mind and gave her soul away.  Love won’t live under those conditions.”
     The elf did not answer.  There was nothing that could be said or done to ease her greatest pain.  The pair sat in silence for a time, watching the town’s children at their play.  Finally she sat up, stiffer, in control of her emotions once again.  But when she spoke once more it was softer, and he marveled inwardly, for in the old days she would have been done and never asked.  “Do you have any regrets?”
     He took his time.  “Some.”
     “What?  The arena?”
     He shifted to look at her, cocking his head.  “What makes you say that?”
     She lifted her hands as if to shrug but dropped them at his expression.  “Black Thorn’s regiment wasn’t going to win.  Everyone knew it.  You didn’t have to take up his challenge.  Your hip...  You nearly lost.  And his men had no intention of surrendering.  We killed a lot of them to hold them to it.”
     Ord pursed his lips and then grimly asked, “And why did you do that?”
     She turned to him somewhat mystified. “To save your life.  They were going to kill you.”
     He nodded once. “I thought so.  Honor means little to such men.”  He raised one finger before she could comment and continued with a smile.  “Be that as it may, his men did not fare so well without him.  I like to believe that many of our men were spared a senseless fight.  And in the end the Black Thorns stood fast where our soldiers failed.  You cannot tell me they too did not face their former brethren.
     No, the arena is not a thing I regret.  These broken bones were nothing compared to the lives they saved.”
     She could not argue his logic. “I suppose you did what you had to; what you saw as best, need or no.  So, if not the arena, what?”
     It was the children he stared at as he answered her.  “I regret Dollendell.”  She waited silently, patiently until he carried on.
     “When the Sard gave us the death blow, I fought for the kingdom.  Prince Ryleck commanded from Cortiers, and it was his decision that we would hold the line from there.  The silly ass gave his orders from town, and I carried out his wishes from the front.  We were to uphold his honor, and against all odds and common sense, we did.
     War Chief Wrast was smart, powerful, loyally supported by his troops, and entirely determined to carry out his mission.  I killed him myself on the battlefield.”
     The elf smiled grimly at the recounting, believing him, admiring him for the lack of pride in his voice even without understanding why he regretted what most men would see as accomplishment.  And she told him so saying, “That was before we met.  Some of the war council lauded it your mettle-test and finest hour, but even then I could see you felt differently.  Why?”
     “Because that was a battle that made no difference.  I lost over half of my command.  And while we were regrouping at Cortiers around Ryleck, the Shadowlord broke through the pass at Ketchaka and tore through the swardland.  The Sard lost many good fighters, noble and true to their cause, but the black hearted and cowardly among them rejoined their main column to the north.  And I had killed the one man best suited to keep the Shadowlord’s drive in check.  Wrast was the last voice of reason the horde had against marching south.
     When they came again there was less than nothing to stop them.  As our support broke around us the ‘noble’ Prince decreed we should abandon our position.  And even then, we had to endure a slow march for his dignity, to save his foolish pride.
     Beset on either side, fending off the attacks upon our rear guard, I still stood by my Lord and Kingdom.  I spared no thought for the capitol, gave no heed to the intelligence we had gotten, and sent no message of our predicament, even knowing that my wife and child yet resided there.”
     He had her rapt attention, for despite their shared history she had never heard this part of his tale before.  She knew that Dollendell had fallen even before Redonven, but not the details of it.  The northernmost Kingdoms had been reduced to ruin well before her visit to Cargad, and there had been no time for history lessons in the hectic days of their first meeting.
     When he continued, it was with the same bitter quiet that had possessed him when they’d first become acquainted.  And more than ever she felt and understood his pain, reaching out to rest her hand upon his arm in sympathy.
     “By the time we brought Ryleck to understand the situation it was already too late.  We’d lost more men and horses, finally fleeing in earnest to Dollen to find the capitol in disarray.  The walls were breached and the eastern half of the city had been burned to the ground.  The Prince would be King; our sire was lost with the refugee columns that were caught and massacred on the field.
     We gathered what we could and retreated south to the border, closely followed by horde scouts the whole way.  My home destroyed in Dollen, my wife and son among the missing or fallen, I clung to my country, my honor and that of the Prince.  We regrouped behind the walls of Tiertarga, within sight of the fields of upper Rivenda.  Prince Ryleck told us of our duty: to avenge the fallen, to hold our position, and survive the last of the season till the horde would draw back.
     I made my peace and set myself to sell my life dearly.  And when the horde came to the city walls I felt no fear of their number.  I had my honor.  I would die before I let them take my country unanswered.”
     A long moment of silence followed until she asked, “What happened?”
     “The ‘noble’ Prince surrendered in answer to the Shadowlord’s demands.  He slew the night watch commander and opened the gates of the city himself.  Ryleck walked out into their lines with his head held high and trumpets blaring. I never saw the bastard again.
     We were given three days to leave the city, to go where we would and regroup as whipped dogs or lay down our arms and live as a conquered people subject to slavery.  Many of my men gave their word and bowed their necks to Cargish rule.  But I had no desire to subject myself to the whims of yet another craven lord.
     Instead I rode south and west, seeking to leave it all behind me.  There was nothing left to fight for.”
     “And yet you returned with us.”
     He nodded and smiled.  “Sometimes foolish men do foolish things.”
     “You were never a fool.  I don’t understand why, but you aren’t a fool.”
     He grunted and rolled his eyes.  “After all of it, you don’t understand?”
     “No!”  Her outburst was apologetic.  “I understand them. I understand your feelings.  But you’ve lived your life and fought your battles!  And now you’re just going to die here, too stiff to start a fire, buried as an unknown?  Why won’t you go to the council, the capitol...”
     “There’s more than one way to die unknown.”  The directness of his quiet statement silenced her. “When I left the healer’s hall that’s exactly where I went.  The councilors lauded my recovery.  They gave me a parade.  Me!  And when it was over they sat me behind a desk and asked me to shuffle papers.  I signed roll call logs and matched them with burial tickets.  I found the same names again and again, and when I asked them if there was something I could do ...”
     He had shown sadness when he spoke of his lost family, his honor and his ruined kingdom.  He had shown anger when speaking of wars past and comrades departed.  But at his recounting of the Council and their meeting after the war, the life in his eyes died.  The fire and emotion in his heart went out like a snuffed candle.
     “... ‘The world’s moved on’, they said.  ‘Let these younger heroes have the glory.’  As if I wanted another command.  As if I needed their adoration.”  He shook his head and sighed, and she sat looking at him funny, as though she wondered if he was simply jealous.
     He gave her a look of disgust in reply and she laughed when he chuckled and went on.
     “I went back to their papers for a while.  Life in the capitol went on.  Petty lordlings had old monuments torn down to put up statues of themselves.  They asked me to take a desk in a drafty corner.  I did so.  They asked me to donate my ‘hero’s pension’.  I didn’t even know there was one.
     Then one day in the admin hall I came face to face with a strutting peacock that was two feet shorter than I, three feet wider, and twenty years younger.  I gave the man a nod, even stepped to the side for him.  I don’t know girl, maybe he’d found a burr in his breeches that morning.  But he stopped in midstride to dress me down and berate me for my failure to ‘properly salute and recognize’ a superior officer.”
     The elf’s gasp of astonishment was genuine.  But her excitement while supposing his reaction faded in sympathy when he told her what came to pass.
     “I drew myself up to give the miscreant a good accounting.  I was ready to show him what a real soldier was when an armsman stepped between us.  He apologized between us, stroking the ego and saying how it would ‘never happen again’.  And I was ready to speak up in polite apology when the young man turned to me and said, ‘Come with me gramps.  I’ll show you the proper entry for the public.’
     I was thunderstruck to the point that he was able to get me as far as the front before I spluttered to halt him.  I was trying to tell him how he was mistaken about me and how I was working for the ministry when he shushed me.
     ‘Listen old man’, he said. ‘That was Dios MacGivern.  I’m sure you had some fights in your day, but Master MacGivern fought in the Dead War.  He bested a whole regiment himself; killed the mage master with a kitchen knife when his unit was set upon in a sneak attack.  He’s a real hero.’
     A real hero, he called him.  Major Dios MacGivern, whose men called him ‘quiverin MacGivern’, who liked to give his orders from the commissary, and lost his command when his unit was attacked by a roving patrol of undead.  He was under a kitchen table, sleeping off a bottle of brandy, in a camp where he hadn’t even ordered sentries set.
     The fat slob rolled out and skewered the patrol’s death mage from behind, when he was about to kill the only other survivor.  I guess that part of the story is true at least.  The mage was raising the bodies of the slain troopers when he found the private in the kitchen wagon.  Private Dillon Halvers.  Now that was a hero.  He verified the loss of his comrades on my rolls in person stone faced the entire time.
     Well, I heard that armsman call that man a real hero, looking at me as though I weren’t fit to clean mud from his Lordship’s boots.  And I thought back on that thankless job at that rickety desk, and I asked myself what it was I was fighting to go back for?  Did I really want to shuffle papers for a lying load of popinjays who couldn’t care less where I expired?
     You know the answer as well as I.  I thanked that young soldier for setting an old fool straight.  I packed the last of my things, bought myself an old nag and let her wander as far as she could take me.”
     “And here you’ll sit.”
     “And here I’ll sit.  Let them grow up as they will.  I’ll take my name and stories with me, and that’s something I’ll never regret.”  He gave an easy wave to the children passing on their way home to mid-day meals.  He then turned to see his companion lost in thought, and touched her shoulder to recapture her attention.  He smiled gently.  “You’re young in spirit yet.  There’s a vast world out there you barely got a chance to see.”
     She chuckled. “It makes as good a reason as any.”
     He snorted.  “It’s a damn better one than that which you gave me.  So, tell me.  Have you regrets of your own?”  Her face fell into unreadable shadow, but he knew.
     “I wish I’d done better.  I don’t know how or when, but if I could only have protected her better, somehow...”
     “If only was a noble man, who lived his life the best he can, If only all the times he’d bawl, he’d never lived his life at all...”
     She scowled and rolled her eyes.  “If only old men weren’t so quippy with their wisdom...” He laughed and she followed suit.  “I understand you.  But she was my twin.  Why shouldn’t I feel I failed her somehow?”
     The old man nodded sagely.  “She was your twin.  But you did not fail her.  You did what you had to, and even she could rightfully ask no more.”
     “Rightfully... you know...”
     “I know humans hold no monopoly on acting foolish out of grief.  A parent can fail as siblings can, but both must one day allow their charge to go out on their own.  It’s a hard thing when it happens, for both of them.  And the survivors will always wonder if they did right or wrong.  Did you ever ask how Meeriel copes with it?”
     “She carries a locket with Sereena’s picture next to her heart.”
     “And she would.  That’s not a sacrifice to be forgotten.  But I meant how she copes with her mother.”
     The elven woman paused, looking inward before quietly answering, “She keeps her in her heart as well.”
     “There you go.  Maybe that’s a human trick.  We don’t choose to dwell on the bad memories, and you elves shouldn’t either.  You had a lot of good times with your sister, and she depended on you to be her sword-arm through all of them.”
     She was leaning her chin against her hands and made no reply as she sat staring moodily into space.  He understood, and sat just as quietly.  When she finally stood up, face set just so, he knew the visit was over.  She gave a whistle; her horse looked over a shoulder and turned quickly to plod up to the porch.  She laid a hand on the saddle but turned at his stare.
     He expected the hard look she had; Seret had never been inclined to share her deepest emotions.  But after a moment she softened.  She sighed deeply and a moment later was standing before him, hands on his shoulders and wetness in her eyes. “I can’t stay here.” She told him.
     He tried to laugh and could not, wiping at his eyes with the back of a gnarled hand.  “I never asked you to.”
     After a moment’s hesitation she wiped at his cheek with a thumb that came away damp.  Softly she asked him, “Comrades parting once again?”
     He swallowed thickly and nodded.  She squeezed his shoulder, then turned and walked away, mounting her horse with one fluid motion.  She turned its head to start down the path, and he called her name once more.
     “Seret?”
     She stiffened for a moment but turned back to face him questioningly.
     “Do you think we’ll meet again somewhere?”
     She read his tone correctly and her face melted.  He was too far to see the tear fall, but he heard it in her reply. “Somewhere on the nameless shore, on a distant nameless day.  I’ll look for you there.”
     “I’ll be waiting to welcome you home.”  He did not call her name again as she left him, though he stood as straight as he could in the shadow of the porch to salute her a final time.  He stood so until he could no longer, long after she was out of sight.
     It was the children that found him, lying crumpled on the porch where he had fallen.  And though they cried with him, pulling him upright as the eldest went for help, the young ones did not understand as he told them.
     “I’ll be waiting to welcome you home.”