Free Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson by Greg Bear, Gardner Dozois

better than well enough.
    When you got right down to it, what more could you want?
    “’Scuse me.” Holger brushed past her to get to the beer barrel. He’d poured down a lot, and showed it very little. Well, there was a lot of him to soak up beer, and he’d always had that knack. Still, when he raised the stoup in salute, Alianora thought tears glittered for a moment in his eyes. “Here’s to all of you,” he said, and drank.
    “To you, Sir Holger . . . dear Holger.” Alianora returned the salute. “Without you, Chaos would have rolled over this land and swept all we have, all we’ve built, away for aye.” She drank to him. Theodo and the children followed her lead.
    “Yeah, well . . . ” A sigh gusted from Holger. “I wonder if the Powers here didn’t finally let me come back to rub my nose in what a useless thing a hero is a generation after his war ends. The world goes on without him. What was the point to any of it?”
    Alianora glanced at the kettle of pease porridge above the fire on the hearth. She took half a step toward Theodo, though she knew the motion would wound Holger. “This was the point,” she answered.
    “I guess it was.” Holger sounded unconvinced, and who could blame him? Hero he might be—hero he was—but he had none of what Alianora enjoyed. He stared out through the doorway. Sunset reddened the light coming in. So too, perhaps, did escaping smoke from the cookfire. More got out through the hole in the roof above the hearth, but enough did linger to sting eyes and throats. Holger said, “I could show you a way to make all your smoke go outside: a chimney , it’s called.”
    “Another day, sir knight,” Theodo said, his eyebrows coming down and together at the strange word.
    Holger looked towards Alianora. She said, “Is it that you came here for?”
    “You know bloody well it isn’t.” He bared his teeth in another humorless smile. “But it seems to be about what I’m good for, doesn’t it?”
    Since Alianora had no answer to that, she spooned up some more porridge. The hard moment passed. Holger launched into another tale with the air of a man determined to push pain aside. Sunset gave way to twilight, which dwindled toward darkness. Shadows from the dying fire swooped around the walls.
    Alianora lit a fine beeswax candle, and then, after a little thought, a second. Hang the cost tonight! The tilt of her chin defied Theodo to say anything. He was a bold man, but—wisely—not so bold as that. Even the candles’ mellow glow could not come close to matching daylight, but it did help the red embers on the hearth.
    Holger got to the end of his story. He blinked, maybe noticing the darkness for the first time. A cricket chirped outside. “Well,” Holger said, as if it were a complete sentence. He blinked again. “We did walk past that tavern, right? You said a guy called . . . Gerold runs it.” He grinned, pleased he’d come up with the name.
    “Have we drunk the barrel dry?” Alianora squeaked in surprise. They’d applied themselves to it, aye, but that was a lot of beer.
    “I don’t think so,” Holger said. “But the tavern’ll have wine, won’t it? Other stuff folks here don’t fix for themselves, too. Gerold wouldn’t make his living if it didn’t.”
    “Well, aye. That’s so.” Theodo sounded grudging, and had his reasons: “Not the best crowd there—men who’d sooner guzzle than work, most of ’em. And always ’tis dearer to pay the taverner’s scot than to brew for yourself. Wine may be sweet, but beer does well enough.”
    “Don’t worry about that.” Holger slapped one of the cleverly made pockets on his blue trousers. Whatever was inside clinked sweetly. “I’m buying.”
    “Mrmm.” Theodo still hesitated.
    “We thank you, Sir Holger.” Alianora didn’t. “If you’re fain to fare to the tavern, thither we shall fare.” They all walked out into the night together.

    The tavern wasn’t far. Nothing in the village was far