Her guide led her through the bailey and to one of the towers. They climbed a broad stone staircase. Near the top, her escort stopped before a door fashioned of stout oak planks banded with iron.
"This is Hronulf's chamber. He should be finished with his devotions by now." With that, the paladin turned and left Bronwyn alone in the hall.
This was it. She had waited for this moment for over twenty years-longed for it, worked for it. Suddenly she felt strangely reluctant to proceed. Muttering an imprecation, she lifted a hand and knocked.
Almost at once, the door swung open. A tall man, taller than Bronwyn by at least a head, stood in the portal. Although he was of an age when most men would be accounted elderly, he was still in fine trim, and he stood with the balanced poise of a warrior. Broad shoulders and powerful arms declared his prowess with the sword that hung at his hip, and he wore a tabard of white linen emblazoned in blue with the symbol of Tyr-a balanced scale, set upon the head of an upright warhammer. His hair was thick and iron gray, as were his mustache and neatly trimmed beard. Keen silver-gray eyes peered kindly at her from a ruddy, comely visage that wore its years exceedingly well.
Before Bronwyn could speak, the color drained from the paladin's face. He sagged and grasped the door lintel. Instinctively, Bronwyn reached out to steady him, but he quickly recovered himself, shaking off the moment of shock.
"Forgive me, child. For a moment you reminded me of someone I once knew."
"Who?" she asked. The word spilled out before she had time to consider.
"My wife," he said simply.
My mother, she thought.
The silence stretched between them as the paladin waited courteously for her to state her business. But Bronwyn's facile speech utterly deserted her. Finally the paladin spoke. "Surely, you did not come to listen to an old man's tales of the past. How may I help you, child?"
Bronwyn took a long breath. "Sir, I came from Waterdeep to speak with you. I have gone over what I wished to say many times in my mind, but that didn't seem to help. I don't know quite how to tell you…"
"Simple words are best," he said. "A straight arrow flies truest."
The words stirred a memory in some distant corner of her mind. She had heard them before, and others like them. "I was raised in Amn as a slave, taken there when I was very young. I do not remember my age, or my village, or even my family's names. All that I carried with me was my given name and a small birthmark on my lower back that looks a bit like a red oak leaf. My name is Bronwyn."
The paladin turned so pale that for a moment Bronwyn thought he might collapse. She gently, but firmly pushed him back into the room and into a chair.
He gazed up at her for a long moment, his expression utterly incomprehensible. It occurred to Bronwyn that he might be testing her, as the guard at the fortress gate had done-the man who had found "no real evil" in her. Bronwyn decided that she could not bear and would not abide another such grudging acceptance.
Her chin came up and her shoulders squared. "I am told that you lost a child of my age, a child who bore a similar name and birthmark. I am told that I am she. If this is so, I will be content to leave this place with the truth; If I have been misinformed, I will seek my family elsewhere. Either way, I ask nothing from you. If you have any doubts about my intent, test me in whatever manner you see fit. Take the truth from my heart in fair exchange, for the truth I ask."
As she spoke, she studied the old knight's face. She might not have a paladin's god-given insight into the minds and hearts of others, but she possessed finely honed powers of observation and instincts that had been right more often than not. So she noted the slow return of color to Hronulf's face, and the return of light to his eyes. She dared to hope that simple shock, not suspicion, colored his silence.
Hronulf slowly rose to his feet. Bronwyn noticed that though his face was composed and his bearing tall and proud, one white-knuckled hand gripped the back of the chair as if for support-or, perhaps, as a tangible sign that he was not yet ready to let go of the "truth" he had believed for twenty years.
"Of your own will, you would step into the scales of Tyr's justice?" he murmured.
"I will."
He nodded thoughtfully and his grip on the chair eased a little. "None but the righteous would make such bold claims. I do not require such tests."
"But I do," Bronwyn said urgently. Until this moment, she had not fully realized how desperately she needed to know. "I have long heard that a paladin can discern truth. Will your god tell you if there is truth in the story that brought me here?"
"I can but ask." The paladin's eyes grew distant once more, as he sought in prayer a level of insight and enlightenment that only his god could give him.
Moments passed, long moments that were heavy with the weight of Bronwyn's twenty years of exile. She waited, scarcely breathing, until the unseen vision faded from Hronulf's eyes, and his gaze once again focused upon her. Bronwyn knew, before a word was spoken, what Tyr's answer had been.
"Little Bronwyn," Hronulf murmured, studying her with desperately hungry eyes. "Now that I see the truth of it, I understand that my heart knew you at once. You are the very image of… of your mother."
This both pleased and saddened Bronwyn. She lifted one hand to her cheek, as if seeking in her own face what she had lost. "I do not remember her."
Hronulf took a step forward, both hands outstretched. "My poor child. Can you ever forgive me for what you have endured?" he asked, his voice quavering, pleading. "The fault is mine, though I did not lightly let you go. When you were not found among the slain, I… I sought you for many months. I would never have given up… until the day I wept over the remains of a girl child that I believed to be my own."
His terrible guilt smote her heart, and she took both his hands in hers. "I don't blame you," she said hastily. "For many years I've been trying to find the truth of my past. There weren't many paths to follow, and every one ended against an alley wall. I make a living finding lost things, things that most people despair of finding. If I could not fmd my way back to my own past, how could you, who had every reason to believe your quest had ended, be expected to do better?"
Hronulf smiled faintly. "You have a good heart, child, your mother's heart."
"Tell me of her," she urged.
They sat down together, and the paladin began to speak of the past, slowly and with strange awkwardness. At first Bronwyn thought the source of the difficulty was the barrier formed by lost years, but soon she realized that the reason ran deeper still. Hronulf had been seldom at home, and thus he had few memories of her in the scant time they had been a family. He did not know her. She wondered if he could ever have known her better, even if the raid had never occurred.
Not much time passed before he ran out of remembrances. He rose, looking relieved to have some plan of action in mind. "Come," he said. "I will show you the castle."
Ebenezer's luck, which had been notably bad of late, took a happy turn. At just the right time, he had met up with a southbound caravan and arranged with its master to have the paladin's horse returned to the Halls of Justice at Waterdeep. It took some talking and some coin, but the dwarf parted company with the merchant satisfied that all would be done as he had asked. Ebenezer headed north with a clear conscience, his debt discharged. It seemed likely that sooner or later, the young man who was so all-fired fond of Tyr would end up at that god's temple and would there reunite with his lost steed. No harm done him, other than a bit of wear to his boot soles.