Margo and Nelly ran up to distract Otto while Genevieve went away and Amphitrite took her place. The old soldier saw anyway, not being so easily distracted. Amphitrite reached out to the shuttle pilot and showed him where she was. She helped guide the shuttle safely to the riverbank, where it set down and took a minute to shut down before opening the door. In that time, Amphitrite reached out to the Ape ship and reviewed the repairs. She let Martok, her mathematical engineer lifetime from the far future look through her eyes. He was not sure one relay on the navigation coupling would hold up under use. Amphitrite held out her hand, and with Martok directing her thoughts, she fabricated the part out of nothing. When the shuttle door opened, Genevieve was back, holding the delicate relay.

Captain Grawl exited the shuttle as Otto came to stand beside Genevieve. Margo, Nelly, and the two soldiers stood behind, the soldiers in particular not knowing what else to do.

“Captain Grawl,” Genevieve identified the Captain for Otto and had to wait a few seconds for the translator to work. “Your relay on the navigation coupling does not look very good. It might burn out under pressure. You might try this one. Hopefully it will work better.”

“Yes, thank you,” Captain Grawl said and carefully handed the relay to the soldier that stood behind him.

“I see you have finished the repairs to your ship. I wish you the best of luck in your struggle against the Flesh Eaters, but now you must leave this world and hopefully not come back. The chances of messing something up that I can’t fix are too great.”

“I understand.” Captain Grawl offered a bow. “Thank you for all you have done.” He turned and went back into his shuttle and closed the door. It rose slowly at first, without too much wind in the faces of those watching. When it got high enough, it shot off toward the horizon.

Otto had to sit down.

Genevieve’s worry caught up with her at that point, and she sat carefully, wondering what she could say. Otto spoke first.

“Leibulf told me you are friends with the elves and fairies. Of course, I did not believe him.”

“It is true,” Genevieve said softly, her voice full of uncertainty. She took a deep breath. “I am responsible for many of the little spirits of the earth, not just elves and fairies. I also watch over the little ones in the air, the water, and the fire.”

“Fire?”

“Mostly the fire beneath the earth where the rocks themselves melt and run in red rivers of lava and only occasionally pour out of the tops of mountains, like Mount Etna or Pompeii.”

“I have read about such things, er, volcanoes I believe.” Genevieve nodded to say that word was correct, but kept her mouth closed until Otto had another question. “In what way are you responsible for these spirits?”

Genevieve first took another deep breath, glad that Otto did not immediately declare her insane. “In the old days, when they messed up like the flowers came up wrong, the trees did not bloom right, the fruit turned sour, the fox got in the hen house, or something, I got yelled at and told to fix it. Let me tell you, escorting the spirits of the dead to the right holding place was a hard one. The cathartic gods as a class had no tolerance and no patience for screw-ups.” She looked at Otto and felt emotional wreckage coming on.

“How old are you?” he asked.

Genevieve raised her eyebrows at that question. She had to think about what he was asking. “I am an ordinary mortal human girl of eighteen years who did not know I had any other lifetimes until a few years ago, when I was fifteen.” She paused to count and hear from the Storyteller. “According to the Storyteller, I am the one hundred and second life since the beginning. My first life was roughly five thousand two hundred and seventy-three years ago. Nimrod was building a tower in an effort to reach the throne of God. But my life—my lives don’t add up that way. I am eighteen, not five thousand years old.”

“I see,” Otto said. “You realize I would not believe a word of it if I had not just seen that you are friends with strange beast creatures.”

“They are people,” Genevieve corrected him. “They are just Ape people, not human people.”

“And the Flesh Eaters?”

“They are people, too, but I try not to think of them. Their name says exactly what kind of people they are.”

“I see,” he repeated himself. “I must say, not exactly what I had in mind when the Lord said you must be born again,” he smiled, and that helped calm Genevieve a bit. “So, it seems you can bring a past person into the present at will. That was the case with the woman I saw that you briefly became, is it not so?”

Genevieve nodded and sniffed. “The Storyteller keeps track, but I don’t remember most of my lives, past or future. And the ones I do remember won’t trade places—I call it trading places—unless there is some immediate need for the person’s skills or training, or whatever that might be.”

“Future lives?”

Genevieve nodded again. “Apparently, my main job is to watch over history and make sure it comes out the way it has been written.”

“How do you know? Of course, future lives.” Otto understood immediately, and Genevieve kept nodding.

“Don’t misunderstand. The next fifty to a hundred years are just as much a mystery to me as they are to anyone else. That is because they are not written yet. But I know when something comes along that threatens to throw everything off track. And I can always look back on these days from further in the future and get a general idea of how things go. Like I know Charles—Charlemagne is destined for great things and making sure he is not assassinated in imperative. Him being killed at this relatively young age would ruin the future.”

“Charles the Great?”

“That is how the future knows him.” She smiled.

Otto nodded that time, but then he got serious. “But say, in order to be reborn, don’t you have to die? I thought when we die we go to heaven. Is this not so?”

Genevieve frowned again. “Once to die and after this the judgment. It is so as far as I know. And I do die, or at least I feel all the pain and loss and separation from everything dear to me, but I am not allowed to go to heaven.” She sniffed again. “I keep getting shoved back into a new womb of a new mother and get born nine months later in a new world as a know-nothing baby. It is years and I become my own person before I have any inkling that I lived before, and even that only happens when something important rears its head.”

“I see,” he said again as Genevieve began to cry softy.

“I am sure Heaven must be wonderful.” She wept. “Sometimes, I get so tired.”

“There, there.” He held her and comforted her.

They truly slept together for the first time that night. Genevieve thought it was good. She was happy. She hoped he was happy, though she certainly gave him a lot to think about.

Three days later, they headed out for Lausanne and Geneva, where Bernard picked up his army, including the men of Provence. The most difficult thing for Genevieve was saying good-bye to Margo, Nelly, and Edelweiss. Edelweiss chose to stay with her flower and the fairies in the mountains around Basel. Margo and Nelly decided they needed to stay with their families and the elves in the Black Forest where they could keep one eye on her home and the county of Breisach. There were plenty of tears, but they were not unhappy. Margo and Nelly said that now, since Genevieve married and had a son and would soon have a baby of her own they knew she would be happy. Genevieve blessed them and could not thank them enough for being there when she so desperately needed someone. After that, Captain Hector loaded Otto, Genevieve, and Leibulf with their men on three barges near the edge of the lake of Geneva, and they floated all the way down the Rhone River, mostly through Burgundian territory, to Arles where they received a hero’s welcome.

“Like Constantine returned,” Genevieve said as she got into the carriage.

“Any reason to celebrate these days is taken full advantage of,” Otto explained as he waved to the crowd.

“I can see that,” she said. “Provence is not exactly rolling in riches.” She practiced her own Queen Elizabeth sort-of-a-wave.

“The ground is difficult soil,” he continued to explain. “And the maritime trade that once made the county rich is all but dried up. Between the Vandals at first, and now the Saracens and pirates, there is not much room for legitimate merchants.”

“Then that is what we need to work on,” she said. “We strengthen the ports, get city walls started where needed, and build up the fleet. Then get Charles to take Corsica, and maybe Sardinia, assuming he will be successful against the Lombards.”

“What you say sounds very expensive,” Otto fretted for a minute.

“Think positive,” she said. “People will contribute to defending and protecting their own homes. Local men build city walls and fortify ports, and they will even build ships if there is a real chance for trade. I am not suggesting building a series of fortifications along the coast, and manning them with soldiers, all of which we would have to pay for. We may have to raise the taxes a bit, but people don’t mind paying taxes when they can see the money being used for their own benefit.”

Otto looked skeptical, but by then they arrived at the Archbishop’s palace where they would sup and stay the night before heading out for Aix in the morning. Aquae or Aix as Genevieve called it was roughly three days to Avignon, four days to Nice, two days to Arles or Toulon in opposite directions, and one day due north of Marseille. As such, it was about as centrally located as could be found in Provence. Otto could send troops to wherever there might be trouble on the coast within a few days, that is, if his troops were not all presently in Lombardy.

Otto, who could sit a horse just fine, rode the two days to Aix. Genevieve and Leibulf had to ride in the wagon. The Roman roads were well kept, but even so, they both got banged up traveling the road over those two days and agreed to get horses and learn to ride as soon as possible.

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MONDAY

Provence faces external attacks. This is why Provence was made a Mach on the southern end of the Frankish Kingdom. Until Monday, Happy Reading.

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