„Why be a hero when you can be a simple man?"

„Let's go, Bardain!" Brian shouted to the coachman and the carriage hurried away. The two black Arabian horses, that were pulling the carriage, nervously faff feeling the long road.

And Brian felt the same as his horses: nervous and with a burning desire inside to blow flames around, for his visit to Stonebridge's house has ended not as he has expected or as he wanted, for he entered that house with one single purpose in his mind - to finally get what he thought that was his. But he failed again, for he had never expected that at his question: „when will you finally leave this house?" the haughty Alfred Stonebridge will throw a bag of gold toward him.

„There is your damn money, Beneath, and now, get lost from here!” and this amazed him so much, for it was a mystery where Stonebridge took the money from. Everybody in town knew that he was almost broke and the fact he lost the last of his fortune at poker and that nobody in his good senses would have credited a broken farmer. But Brian also knew that he can win that battle so easily, even if he has been the one who took care to spread the gossip of Stonebridge's ruin all around. And he failed again, for he should have thought more about it, for he should have analyzed each step to take, for he should have planned his future movements more, but, being so obsessed with gaining in front of such an idiot, Brian was the one who has been kneeled in the end.

He should have thought about it, over and over again, till he would have finally found out the right answer to his twisted thoughts. That is why he went to the lake, to think. But, in the end, he met her there: a young lady, who so vividly reminded him of somebody whom his father had loved so much - Helen Walker.

And that meeting amazed him so much, for the resemblance between Helen and Eva was absolutely striking: „mother and daughter looking the same? It can't be. Fate couldn't have played such devious shenanigan to him." But Fate was so anxious to play that she sent Eva to meet Brian at the lake.

Suddenly, Brian turned his head to the left, gazing at the pairs of passers-by who were leisurely making their afternoon walk.

„Such a waste of time and such stupidity to watch them," Brian said to himself, but because he knew that it was the only thing he could do while his carriage passed on, he had to give up. But even if the Londoner view was bothering him somehow, Brian kept looking through the window at the passers-by that were hurrying up somewhere past his carriage, and most of those passers-by were people Brian knew, and, namely, because he knew them well, Brian had no good word to say about any of them.

„Look, there is mister Ashton Holmes with his too younger mistress, Nane, and, over there, the one who is over there, is the cigar merchant, Alan Foster with his naughty wife, trying to make their pleasant appearance in front of John Evans, the richest lord of those lands," were the naughty words that were rolling in Brian's mind in that precise moment when he was unwillingly staring toward the entrance in the „Tobacco" store.

„It seems that the Fosters are again in trouble if they are shaking their tails in front of Evans. What is this time? Poker again or maybe a new profitable business that Alan „smelled" in the port?" Brian thought while staring at a too skinny red-haired woman, much taller than her chubby 1.6-meter husband and definitely much more intelligent than him if they were still rounding next to Evans.

„Probably!" Brian said this time in voice while forcing a greeting toward the Fosters, who waved their hands to him as soon as they saw his carriage passing by.

„Alan Foster is a „genius" of finding such businesses, but that is too far from being profitable in most of the cases. The last time when the „genius" Foster made his round in the Port, he found out about importing Cuban tobacco without knowing that that sphere was untouchable since John Evans put his paw on it without any vague hope to involve others in it too. And he was right: why to lose such a hen that makes golden eggs on behalf of a noodle of Foster's type?!"

„Good afternoon, Mister Beneath!" Brian heard, and this woke him up from his reverie, and when he looked back, he could see only Mrs. Evans'back, for John Evans'wife didn't have time to stay and to talk to others, knowing Emma Foster well, who was more than capable of seducing John only to help her husband to succeed. And Beatrice Evans wasn't willing for sure to share her husband with such a shamefully woman as Emma Foster was. So, a lady with such complexion as Beatrice Evans, who has been born and raised in luxury, and married one of the most influential personalities of those times, was somehow forced to protect what was hers by „fighting" with all the hyenas that were so proudly calling themselves ladies of high society.

„But...," Brian tried to say something, but, instead of this, he noticed himself constantly moving in his place. „What can it be? Why am I so nervous?" and that inner bother had definitely nothing to do with the defeat he suffered in front of Stonebridge.

„Something happens, mister Beneath? Is it too cold?" Bardain's voice was heard, who was on the driving box.

„Huh?" was Brian's dumb answer. „Aaa, no, don't worry. It's just...," but Brian knew that he couldn't take the old teamster for a ride, for he saw him growing up since he was a little child, he knew when Brian was in good mood and when he had bad times, or when he was simply out of reality as it was happening at that moment.

Actually, Bardain wasn't a newcomer in that world: he worked for the Beneathes for about 5 decades. He entered the service at the age of ten, as a simple boy from the stables, and, because he was conscious and sturdy, Brian's father, Baron Beneath, hired him as his right hand and they worked this way, side by side, for about 30 years and when Baron died, Bardain, like a faithful dog, continued his „adventures" by Brian's side.

„Tell me, Bardain, how much do you know about Alfred Stonebridge?"

„About Moloch? Not too much! Less than you, sir, for sure".

„What about his daughter?"

„Aaa, you are talking about Miss Stonebridge! To be honest, not also too much. Only that her father hasn't been too careful with her, to say so, and even if she's already about 16, she had never made her entrance into the society".

„Why so? I thought she was his only chance to survive!"

„And she probably still is, but ... I don't know if it's true or not ... what I heard, but ... the wagging tongues say that Moloch tried to marry her with the old Solochar since she was twelve. But Solochar isn't stupid: he preferred to watch his back and chose one of Miller's girls".

„Mmm!

„But ... you probably also noticed it, isn't it?"

„To notice what?"

„That Eva Stonebridge is the vivid copy of Helen Walker. I could have even sworn that it was Miss Walker herself if I didn't know for sure that she died about 16 years ago."

Brian instead didn't say a word. He preferred to immerse more in his thoughts, even if he was still listening to Bardain's chatter: „Like as two peas in a pod, actually. And what I felt now can't be compared with what I felt the first time I saw her,” and Bardain pulled the reins harsher, struggling with them, for Raven, the black horse that was pulling the carriage from the right, was trying to break the rules at that moment and to change places with his partner, Black Sunshine, which so soon felt Raven's teeth biting his ear, and he also rewarded him with a deep bite from Raven's neck, forcing him to return to his place. „Good job, Sunshine. Teach him some manners, to know what is his place in this world! Actually, everybody should know his place in this world," Bardain talked to the old horse, probably the same age as him.

And Bardain's words resounded in Brian's ears like a lesson known for a long time, but that he had forgotten, for an instant.

„Everybody should know his place in this world." But how? When the hatred you feel in your chest since you were 15 only, is increasing - with each step you take, with each breath of fresh air, you deeply breathe in, and more in such moments when Helen Walker is back in your life. And it is even harder now to focus on a single aim only, and Brian has known all this since he was a teenager and his mother died.

He was 12 years old when one winter morning they found her breathless, on the bench next to the small lake, on their property. She has probably felt her end approaching and she preferred to breathe her last breath there, where she loved to spend most of her free time, for she loved to watch the sunshine in the morning and the sunset in the long hot summer evenings. And also on that old pine wood bench was where she fell in love with her husband, where she had whispered the first love whispers as a mother, and then, probably, she had talked to the cold winter wind while she was leaving toward a better life.

Two and a half years later, Baron had told Brian that he had decided to bring a new wife into their home and that he was already dealing with Lyre Walker about marrying his youngest daughter, Helen.

But Baron never took into account the young lady's desire and neither did he ask her if she agrees with that marriage. So, on the morning of their wedding, he found out that Helen ran away, two days ago, with a nobody called Alfred Stonebridge, the only son of a flower farmer, and, this way, Baron Beneath's madness started.

He looked for them in each known place, but nobody could find her, and the feeling of defeat and the bitter taste of shame felt on top of his tongue made him angrier than ever. Till one April morning, when a shot brought Brian into his father's office and he found him breathless, lying on the armchair he used to sit in while being at his writing table, with a bullet in his left temple.

Thus, the father's hatred passed to his son, and Brian sweared that he'll do everything to destroy that Stonebridge, to kneel him down in front of his father's grave, and make him ask for forgiveness for being the miserable person who destroyed Baron Beneath's life.

Years later, when Brian was about 20, Alfred returned to Image. But nobody ever could find out where he has been in those 6 years of absence, and the things were even weirder when they were thinking about why he returned without Helen, but with a 5 years old girl, who was never seen neither playing in the garden like other kids of her age used to do nor in the town or in the village, accompanied by some governess who had taken her there to show the girl how things go in this world or in that crowded small space called Image: the place where even the Gods are playing.

The years thus passed... one after another. Alfred Stonebridge married again ... and again ... and again, and thus, the locals forgot about his daughter. More than that, because Alfred had been married so many times, people hadn't been at all surprised to see one day a 15 years old girl sitting on the wooden bench next to the lake and reading. For many of them, she was only one of many women seen next to Alfred. For people, it wasn't important anymore who that girl really was, and, namely the insensibility of the people, made Eva lonely, private, somehow weird, like a wild bird, just as she has been seen by Brian, for the first time, there, on the Lakeshore.

And he remembered that he first heard her breath while she was running toward him. But because she was looking at the ground while running, she didn't see him, and he also couldn't see her beautiful blue eyes, the color of the sky on a sunny day, in which one could totally lose himself if watching them for long and also feel dizziness because of their pure blue. And namely that dizziness made Brian shudder, from top to toe, feeling a strange thrill crossing throughout his body, as if he was fifteen again and he has met a girl of the same age as he was, for the first time.

„Love at first sight?" Maybe yes. Maybe not, or maybe it was probably just something Brian couldn't ever explain: to fall in love with the enemy's daughter, who could be not only an enemy for him, two times younger than him, it was just an impossible dream, but namely that dream made his heart madly beat into his chest.