Less than an hour later...
"What a pleasant surprise." Teric muttered darkly.
The mercenary stood before a doorway he had not entered in decades - this time staring up at the stone arch over the double doors shackled in irons, a prisoner in his own homeland. It was both an abrupt and rude awakening of sorts, for not twenty minutes earlier he had been sitting in his dark, dank cell contemplating whether or not he would ever see the outside of his prison again. He'd been sitting there, that is, until a visibly frustrated Charles Bancroft and several guards had hauled him bodily from his prison, bound him in metal cuffs, and half dragged, half carried his old bones to this doorstep.
"Recognize this place?" One of the guards holding Teric under his armpit tried to joke, obviously aware of the significance of the moment. All of the guards seemed aware of it, as if every one of them were clued into the old mercenary's past.
"Is that supposed to be cute?" Teric shot back at the guard gruffly. "I'm old, not senile."
"Shutup." Charles' Bancroft's voice was gruffer, tinged with an ugly frustration that sullied Teric's impression of the young man. Something, or someone, has certainly ruffled his feathers. The veteran thought quietly, ignoring the scowl on the face of the guard next to him, as well as the passive-aggressive way the guard tried to tighten his grip on his arm. What is it that's missing? His swagger? The big, self-assured grin that Bancroft had worn in all their previous encounters was missing tonight - replaced by a stiff lower lip.
The big wooden doors, twin pine portals bound with iron bands Teric knew so well, swung open from the inside. The guards moved to push the veteran indoors, but Teric's mind was already inside, racing up the central staircase and recollecting every room. To the left of the entranceway was the main sitting room, a well furnished room reserved for greeting guests as they arrived at the manor. To the right of the entranceway, across the flagstone floor from the sitting room was the dining room, and behind that the kitchen. From the top of the central stairway, which rose directly from in front of the main entrance, branched two halls - one continuing on straight past the top of the stairs, while the other crossed perpendicular to them. The three bedrooms and the bathroom were accessible off this perpendicular hall, while continuing towards the back of the small Barton Manor led one to the library. Even before the guards finished hauling him up the stairs, Teric knew where they were headed. He could almost see the ghosts of his past, his parents and their servants milling about the manor as they did every day - his mother on her way to the sitting room to sew while his father moved towards the library to read, govern, or relax with a snifter of brandy...
"Brings back memories." Teric muttered more to himself than anyone else, his iron-shod boots silent on the plush carpeting in the hall. The smell of cinnamon bread - a familiar, phantom odor that always used to fill the manor from the kitchen flooded his nostrils. The tips of Teric's fingers could almost feel the smoothly sanded surface of the oak paneling that lined the walls. The hinges on the library's double doors squeaked as they swung open, just as they had all those years before...
"Welcome home, Mr. Barton." A beautiful voice intoned, pulling Teric's head above the floodwaters of his memories.