“Oh Kestrel,” she burst into tears seconds after he lifted his head.
“This is a spring, the spring from which the magical healing water comes,” Kestrel released her, then strode over and began picking up the naked imps, who casually acquiesced in his familiar grappling with them, as he began to gently sling their bodies into the water one by one.
“Take your clothes off, Margo,” he said when he was done. He plopped down on the lawn and removed his own boots. “We can soak in the water and talk.”
“I, I can’t, Kestrel,” she demurred. “Look at me,” she said. “You know what my circumstances are.”
“This is not a proposition, Margo,” he told her as he removed his tunic. He walked over to her, and began to unbutton her dress, as she made no effort to stop him. “I know that time is past. I wish I would have tried to do that when I could have,” he added, as she stood still and allowed him to loosen her gown, then shrugged to help let it fall to the ground. She assumed responsibility for her own under garments, as Kestrel removed the last of his own clothes, and then he self-consciously held her hand as she stepped into the water of the spring, and he led her up into the warm eddy among the rocks.
“This feels so extraordinary,” Margo said after five minutes of silence while they sat back against the stones.
“Margo, are you okay with him?” Kestrel asked. “Is he good for you?”
“He’s not usually like the man you saw there just now,” she answered slowly. “You’ve thrown him off his stride, and I didn’t handle your appearance well. I was so startled, so pleased by your appearance!
“Yes, he’s good for me. He loves me, and he keeps the peace in the region, and he’s honored to be a part of our family; he respected our name and title,” she listed a short list of qualities.
“Do you love him?” Kestrel asked.
“Do you love me?” Margo responded.
“I do. You know I do,” he told her.
“Why didn’t you ever say it?” she looked at him.
“I almost did; but I didn’t think the time was right – I admitted I was an elf, and then you were with Clarce. Then I was gone, and things happened so that I couldn’t come back. Even when I came back I was caught up in so many other things, and then I had that time with Picco,” he stopped short.
“What do you mean?” Margo pressed after his silence extended on awkwardly.
“Margo, your brother told me when I first returned to Graylee that he had sent a letter to Huff giving him permission to ask for your hand in marriage,” Kestrel tried to excuse himself. “And then Picco had to be rescued, and she was so overwrought because of her mother’s death,” he went on until Margo interrupted.
“Picco’s mother is dead?” she asked in saddened shock.
“Namber’s forces killed her,” Kestrel answered. “So I went with Picco back to the estate to put her mother’s spirit to rest, but the spirit came and spoke to her, and told her I wasn’t the one for her, and she wasn’t the one for me. But that night we ended up comforting one another. Just that one night; I haven’t even told anyone else.”
“I wish you hadn’t told me,” Margo said. “But I supposed I don’t have any room to talk.”
They talked to one another, about one another, until Kestrel finally stood up. “I ought to take you home,” he said reluctantly. “You stay here and relax while I go lift the imps out of the water. It takes a while for them to awaken.”
“Your baby should be a healthy baby,” he told her. “After the nice soaking you’ve had here, you should be healthy too, for a while.”
“I feel better,” Margo agreed. “I feel very good right now.
“I’m sorry I gave up hope Kestrel. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you’d come back.”
“Life goes on; I didn’t give you any reason to believe I’d come back,” he said without bitterness. “The goddess has told me I have to pursue this Moorin, and so I will. There’s still a war brewing out there against Namber and the forces from Uniontown and the Viathins. And you’ve still got a home to return to, if you want to.”
“I want to. Once you’re gone the men will talk about the great elf who brought his imp warriors, and how they protected the land!” Margo prophesized with a laugh. She rose to her feet and walked over to her clothes, then started getting dressed.
Kestrel pulled his own clothes on, then began to nudge the imps, reawakening them after a nap that they complained bitterly was too short.
“Take the lady back to her home first,” Kestrel told them, “then come and take me back there as well.
“I’ll leave the manor as soon as I return there. I’m going to go up into the mountains to see the gnomes,” Kestrel told Margo, just as she disappeared.
A minute later the imps returned, and gathered around Kestrel without hesitation to take him back to the manor house as well.
When he arrived, Margo and Huff stood together with their arms around each other’s waist. All others had been cleared from the room.
“Welcome back, Lord Kestrel,” Huff said with measured words.
“Thank you Lord Huff, and thank you for allowing me to have a few moments time to recollect the past with your lovely lady,” Kestrel answered mildly. “I must be on my way now.
“Please don’t hesitate to call upon me if you need assistance. I think Philip will be able to reach me through the imps,” Kestrel said. He stepped forward and shook hands with Huff, then embraced Margo once again, and kissed her on the cheek.
He left the room, and shouldered past the numerous men who stood in the hallway, then reached the front door, and stopped for a moment. He thought of the first time he had visited the manor, when he had arrived at the door with Philip and Margo and Picco after battling the highwaymen who had robbed them. And then he thought of the scene in the front yard, when bodies had hung from the tree limbs, and dead guards had laid scattered about following his berserk attack upon the attackers. He closed his eyes to wipe away the memory, then opened them, and stepped down and started running at his fullest elven pace, started running to leave behind everything that haunted him at the manor, and set his sights on the mountains that loomed on the northern horizon.
Margo and Huff looked out a window, and watched the elf streak down the drive of the manor, to quickly disappear from sight. “If you were to take the time to meet him, you’d learn he’s the best man you’re ever going meet, elf or human,” Margo told her fiancé, “but I’m not sure we’re likely to see him back here again for a long time.”
“That suits me,” Huff muttered under his breath, and then they turned away from the window, as Margo continued to stare at the empty road.
Kestrel ran all afternoon and into the evening, then climbed a tree and spent the night in the forested area that rested along the border between the domains of Margo’s family and the wilderness of the mountains. He ate a small portion of the travel bread he had packed for his journey, and he thought about Margo, and Picco, and Moorin. He was lucky, he told himself, to know three such women, or to be destined to meet Moorin, whatever her role was to be in his future. And he found that he regretted his indiscretion with Picco only to the degree that he wanted to not give her any false hopes about their future together; her mother’s spirit seemed to have settled that issue with finality, which he suspected had been a part of what had released the inhibitions for each of them and allowed them to share their heart-felt friendship in a passionate way.
His desires were a tangled mess, so much less clear than the simple directness of warfare. He almost convinced himself that he would rather focus on fighting the fight against Uniontown and the Viathins, and no longer think about the women who absorbed the attention of his heart.
“Dewberry,” he called softly.
He waited for long moments, but there was no response as he sat in the fork of the tree, so he closed his eyes.
“Kestrel lonely one,” Dewberry yawned, “why do you call?” he opened his eyes to see the dark profile o
f his friend just above him in the shadowy darkness of the tree leaves. “I hear you took a pregnant woman to the spring, and did unmentionable things.”
“I did take her to the spring, and we talked,” Kestrel answered. “I thought once upon a time that she would be the one who would give my heart a home, but instead she let another man come to rely upon her, while I was away in the other lands.”
“While you were away rescuing my beloved and me?” Dewberry asked.
“Yes,” Kestrel answered, “but it doesn’t matter why, and rescuing you was worth any price I could pay, you know, since I pine after you as well,” he tried to lighten the mood with a jest.
“How did you know that Jonson was the right mate to select?” he asked. “Were there others who wooed you?”
“Certainly there were,” Dewberry answered. “As you know, I am a great beauty. You yourself were one of those who was entranced by my unforgettable looks, but you came to my attention too late to truly vie for my hand, to your own unending sorrow, I know, Kestrel-dear.
“But I knew Jonson was the special one for me. I knew it because he is the one I always wanted to see. He was the one who always made me smile, who always showed me that he could be kind to those around me, and he could always make me feel as though he wanted to be with me,” she said softly.
“And his father was a king. That helped too,” she added brightly, and they both laughed.
“There is one out there for you, Kestrel friend. There seems to be more than one, goodness knows I’ve seen you with so many of them – humans, elves, gnome maidens, I’m sure,” Dewberry comforted him. “You may have already met the one who is right for you. Or who knows, you may not have yet – you may yet come upon the time when you will suddenly feel your breath taken away and your heart start to pound with excitement when you finally see her for the first time.
“Be patient, my dear. The goddesses care a great deal about you. I know they must plan to give you a love of extraordinary virtue as reward for all the duties you have carried out for them,” the sprite told him, floating down to rest gently upon his chest.
“Couldn’t they give me your twin sister?” Kestrel asked innocently.
“You are a clever one!” Dewberry answered delightedly. “You should ask them. For you, they might create a twin of me, and then there would be two of me to bring joy to everyone we meet.”
“Go home, Dewberry dearest,” Kestrel told her as she yawned again. “Go home to Jonson and let him know how fortunate he is to have you.”
“I reminded him of that before I left, but I will tell him again just for you,” the sprite said earnestly. “Good night dear friend,” she pecked him on the cheek, then disappeared, leaving Kestrel alone in the darkness once again, but comforted by the visit. He soon drifted off to sleep, and remained at rest until the next morning’s sunrise.
He descended from the tree in the early morning, and started towards the mountains. He followed the path of the river, traveling up the reversed course of the same river landmarks he had followed coming down when he had first entered Graylee from the mountains. He hoped that he would be able to find his gnome village, but realistically acknowledged to himself that the odds were long; he expected to reach the point where the river valley provided the entrance deep into the south side of the Water Mountain range, but then he would be relying on luck to try to stumble into the area of his former village, Amethysaquina, where he might get to see Grees and Bolt, the two young gnomes who he had parented for several winter weeks, or other gnomes he would recognize.
If he failed to find any of his friendly gnomes within a week, Kestrel had decided that he would turn himself to the north east, and start looking for river valleys that would take him in that direction. He was going to go on a long, solitary journey in that direction whether he found the gnomes or not, as he headed towards Narrow Bay, the human nation that lay south of the elven kingdom of the North Forest.
There were two destinations he had in mind for the summer’s journey, for he suspected the journey would take all summer long. One destination was solitude; he wanted to spend time by himself – away from the humans, away from the elves. Being with the gnomes would not intrude upon the type of solitude he desired, a solitude that really meant freedom from demands for his attention. The gnomes would demand nothing from him beyond courtesy and friendship.
The other destination was the North Forest. He would start there in his search for the Moorin, as commanded by Kere. And when he found the girl, he would rescue her from whatever beset her, if he even recognized her. He had an image, the image the goddess had used once herself, and the image the Viathins had used to trick him, but whether that image was truly the visage of the Moorin he was supposed to find was still unsettled in Kestrel’s mind. Everything about this journey was unsettled.
Three days later he reached the top of the valley of the river that flowed through the lands of Margo’s family. He stood at the top of a waterfall, and the plains and rolling hills of Graylee were only a misty patch on the horizon from the distance and elevation he looked out from. He turned and looked inward, where the small river flowed along a rocky course that penetrated deeper into the mountains. Tall ridges were dark on the distant horizon to the north, and Kestrel had a rushing memory of the struggles he had undergone two winters before, when he had tried to cross the mountains on his own. The green canopies that dressed the mountainsides were the only relief he saw, a promise that summer would ease the destructive power of the mountains’ environment.
He climbed on for another day, finding and following trails that he hoped might be used by gnomes, might provide clues to the whereabouts of his friends, but he knew by the end of the day that the river valley was turning to the west, heading inward into the mountain range, but away from the gnomes’ village. That night he made a large fire to draw the attention of any gnomes that might occupy that river valley. The next morning he was still alone, so he decided to try to cut back to the northeast, to climb over one mountain ridge at least to see if he could find the range of his friends.
It took all day to reach the high saddle that was the lowest location in sight where he could cross the mountain ridge and go north. He found himself in a cold tangle of boulders, still below the tree line but at the edge of the snow line, and he made another fire, this one from the branches of the smaller, hardier trees that occupied the climate zone he was in, and he slept an uncomfortable night in which he shivered alone as he slept uneasily.
The next day he descended down the north side of the mountain, and started part way up the next mountain to the north, and made his third nightly fire, but again drew no gnomes, only moths and a single wolf. “Corrant! Where are your children?” Kestrel call out loud, using the name of the god of the gnomes. He expected no answer, but he felt the need to vent his frustration.
“They are hiding, elf-friend of the mountain people,” Kestrel jumped in surprise as a stone near his campsite came to life, lifting itself up and revealing a face.
“Why are they hiding? I just want to see my friends again, to say hello,” Kestrel beseeched the god, “my lord,” he hastily added.
“Do you not have eyes, elf-friend?” the stone asked. “Have you not seen the portent in the sky the past three nights?”
Kestrel looked upward, wondering what the god of the gnomes was referring to. “Look low to the west, near the horizon,” Corrant directed.
There was an indistinct streak of light. Kestrel had not noticed it in the past evenings, but he hadn’t been examining the skies with any great interest on recent evenings. The blob was without sharp definition, but Kestrel could see that it was brighter at one end, with a fuzzy skirt that spread out behind it, directed towards the top of the dome of the night sky.
“It is a comet,” Corrant explained. “It is a sign in the heavens that some great change is coming.”
“Something good?” Kestrel asked to clarify, looking from the god to the sky.
“There is no
telling yet. For many people, no change is good,” the god answered, causing Kestrel to look at him, wondering if the comment was intentionally ironic. From Kere it most definitely would have been, but Kestrel couldn’t tell with Corrant.
“I suspect that you are more used to change than most. My people would prefer that there be no change, unless it is to make the winter less cold and the game more plentiful,” Corrant told him. “They have seen the omen in the sky telling of change, and then they have seen your fires in the mountains, and they are afraid to come find the source of these fires. They will not come to you.”
“Can you lead me to them?” Kestrel asked hopefully, appreciative that the god had bothered to explain so much.
“No, I will not,” Corrant said. “You are an agent of change. You are a maker of chaos. Kai and Kere believe that the good of your works outweighs the disruption of your changes, but I would not want to introduce your infection among my people while the comet is in the sky.
“Here Kestrel,” a sliver of stone bent away from the rest of the god’s form and moved towards Kestrel as he watched. It touched his forehead; he felt both the cold of the stone, and the injection of some psychic element that had not existed within his soul before. “Now, when the time comes, you will know what to do,” the god said calmly, as he withdrew his appendage. “Forget about this until the trigger occurs at the proper time,” and Kestrel closed his eyes momentarily as his memory hid away the awareness of the transaction.
“Come back when the comet is gone, and seek to visit them then,” Corrant said. “I will lead you towards your reunion then, and I will join my people in rejoicing to see the beautiful eyes of our race still walking the earth atop that elven body. Go now Kestrel and be careful. The skies tell us that something great is going to change.”
Kestrel watched as the stone sagged back into its prior location and shape, and the animated face disappeared among the usual craggy features of a boulder, as Kestrel sat in confusion, looking up at the eastern horizon. He would not get to see his friends the gnomes, as they hunkered down in fear of the celestial sign of things to come. The gnomes he knew were not timid people, so he knew they had to have real fear of the comet’s meaning if they were cowed by it.
The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 04 - A Foreign Heart Page 16
