“I will mother, I will,” Merilla said. “I’ll be up in a couple of minutes.”
With a last suspicious look, the mother left the shop, and Merilla gave a sigh of relief. “What should I wear?” she asked Kestrel rhetorically, as she looked around the shop at the bolts of cloth. “I’ll bet you’d like to see me wear this, wouldn’t you?” she asked as she stepped to the far wall and pulled a white bundle of fabric out of its slot. She pulled the cloth away from the bolt and held it in front of her face, a sheer fabric that Kestrel could easily see through. He imagined momentarily what she would look like dressed in such a design, her body visible beneath the covering.
“Merilla! Can you make a shirt for me using that fabric?” he asked, his mind jumping from her clothing question to his own.
“Really? That’s how enticing I am to you?” she replied in exasperation. “Just good old Merilla! Maybe she’ll be my seamstress. No excitement there; going to marry the leathermonger, ho hum?”
“No, no, that’s not it,” Kestrel replied. “I did think about you in a dress of your see-through fabric; I imagined being able to see that freckle on your lower back, just below your waist, or those curves you have that are so inviting, or the mole just above your navel, or,” he was ready to name something else when she cut him off.
“That’s enough, Kestrel. My mother may be listening, you know,” she blushed as she lowered the cloth.
“But the Doge said that everyone at court will want to see the mark the goddess implanted on my chest; I’ve already taken my shirt off three times this morning,” he explained.
“So if you wore a transparent shirt at the reception,” Merilla followed his logic, “everyone could see the mark and you wouldn’t have to do anything to show it.
“Alright, I’ll make a shirt for you, my Champion!” she laughed.
“Now, I have to go upstairs,” she placed the cloth back in its spot on the wall and rejoined Kestrel. I’ll be at my house tonight, if you have time to come visit,” she added, as Kestrel placed an arm around her waist.
“I can’t help myself; I’ve thought about you so much, lately,” he told her as he kissed her.
“Can you stay; can you settle down here, Kestrel? I can tell Hammon and my mother ‘no’ if you tell me you’ll come back,” she answered.
He shook his head. “I’ll be gone a long time this time, I’m afraid,” he told her as he released her.
Her hopeful smile turned downward. “Go on now,” she responded. “I’ll see you tonight.” And then she was through the shop door and gone from view, giving Kestrel a reason to leave the shop and return to Castona’s trading place.
He felt remorseful as he walked through the streets to Castona’s shop. He shouldn’t have reinserted himself back into Merilla’s life, he knew, especially as she was settling into a life that would be fixed and solid and reliable here in her home city. But he also knew that he would go to see her that evening, after dark, after the leather shop was closed and after her boys were asleep.
When he reached the trader’s shop Castona wasn’t present, but the assistant at the counter told him to go wait in any of the rooms in the back, knowing as they did of Kestrel’s close relationship to Castona and his special status. Kestrel sat in the room for an hour, glad for the warmth inside, and thought about his visit to the palace earlier in the morning. He had questions for Castona, he knew.
“Well, you’re back sooner than I expected. I thought you might spend all day at the palace,” the merchant said as he returned and entered the office.
“I was taken in to see the Doge right away,” Kestrel replied. “And there will be a reception tomorrow evening at the palace.”
“I knew there would be!” Castona replied.
“When I entered the court, the ambassador from Uniontown was leaving,” Kestrel said, and he watched Castona make an unpleasant face. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He seems evil,” Castona said, making one of the rare statements Kestrel could remember from him that judged the values of someone or something. Castona usually weighed things in his merchant’s manner and delivered an evaluation, but this ambassador drove the trader to a simpler, more direct conclusion.
“He arrived on one of their ships a couple of weeks ago, and acquired one of the largest estates in the city, one that I didn’t even know was available to be had. He and his group have remained largely within it, coming out rarely, except when they tell the gullible people how strong and wonderful their new gods are. He’s gotten some locals to listen to him already!”
“They say, and I know such rumors are the food of fools,” he commented, “but I almost believe this — they say there are strange lights at night, and screams that are terrible.”
“Where is Uniontown?” Kestrel asked. “I thought I had learned the cities of the north and the Inner Seas, but I never heard of it.”
“It’s not properly a part of the Inner Seas Kingdoms,” Castona answered. “It’s much further south, along the Gamble River, near the Western Mountains. It’s grown in profile in the past few years, starting to sell more goods along the Inner Seas and sending ambassadors to some of the kingdoms there.
“Why they have an ambassador here is beyond me. There’s no trade between the two nations at all,” Castona mused. “But they’ve gone to court and presented their credentials, you say? Then they’re here, for whatever reason, and the Doge can’t have been happy to have to recognize someone who is stirring sedition among the lower classes.”
“That’s not the topic I thought we’d talk about though,” Castona moved on. “I’ve found a berth for you on a ship. There’s a naval cutter that’s headed to North Harbor in two days, and as a Captain of the Fleet you’re entitled to a berth onboard. It won’t be comfortable, but it will be fast; with the right winds you could be in North Harbor in just five days sailing time.”
“What would I do from North Harbor?” Kestrel asked.
“It’s an open port,” Castona answered, meaning that it wouldn’t freeze shut the way Estone would in the winter time, “so you’ll be able to purchase a ride aboard a merchantman from there to take you south, at least to Seafare, and from there you’ll be able to find your way anywhere in the Inner Seas.”
“You’ll be a bit of a curiosity aboard the cutter, The Seagull,” Castona told Kestrel. “This honor of being a Captain of the Fleet is usually given to retired naval officers of distinction. The use of its privileges is very rare, unknown for a landsman.”
“Well, this is probably my one and only time to use the honor, so they shouldn’t worry about abuse,” Kestrel laughed.
He parted soon after, and returned to his room at his inn, where he restlessly waited the remainder of the afternoon, until the early nightfall of the season. Kestrel ate a simple meal at the tavern next to his inn, and waited impatiently for time to pass, until he judged that Merilla would be alone in her home, and he started through the streets to visit her.
There was a cold wind blowing from the North Sea, sweeping debris along the city ways, and it caught Kestrel full in the face from time to time, making him wince as he pulled his hood tight and bent forward. The walk seemed to take forever, but in time he reached the corner he had visited the night before. In Merilla’s house there was only one window lit, and a figure stood at the window looking out, serving as a confirmation that Kestrel was welcome to come in out of the cold.
He opened the door and climbed the stairs, then knocked softly and pushed the door open. He saw Merilla walking towards him, carrying a candle that lit the front of her in a warm glow. She was wearing black underclothes, small scraps of cloth that served mostly to accentuate her curves rather than hide them, and that drew more attention to her flesh by its stark contrast with her pale skin. Kestrel could see such details clearly, even in the dim light, because she wore a diaphanous wrap of material around her body, the sheer white material they had looked at in the shop.
“Let’s go someplace warm,” he sai
d huskily, as she came to him and kissed him, a light cloud of a delicate fragrance enveloping him as she arrived, an expensive perfume, he was sure.
“Wait,” she said, and unwrapped her wispy covering. “No reason to take this in,” she told him, as he pulled off his hood and cape, and set his staff aside. They went into the bedroom and Kestrel removed his boots as Merilla pushed the door closed, and then they laid down together and started to kiss, when a shrill voice cried out.
“Kestrel! Human-friend! I need you! Jonson is hurt, badly, and I’m afraid he will die! Please come take him to the healing spring!” Dewberry was in the air above them, hovering and darting wildly in the dim light of the candle, and Kestrel could see tears rolling down her cheeks, glistening like blue crystals.
Merilla stifled a shriek, as Kestrel looked up at Dewberry’s heart-wrenching distress, then looked down at Merilla’s expression of disbelief beneath him.
“I have to try to help,” he told Merilla, then looked up. “Dewberry get the help you need to carry me.”
Dewberry disappeared without response, as Kestrel sat up. “I’m sorry, my love.”
“We are truly forbidden to be together, aren’t we?” Merilla asked in an emotionless voice. “The gods do not want us to couple.”
“It seems like it, for now,” Kestrel answered as he pulled his pants back on and stuffed his feet into his boots. He went back out to the front room, where he was surrounded by Dewberry and three other sprites.
“We’re going,” Dewberry shouted, as Kestrel reached for his staff, and felt his fingers clasp the wooden shaft a fraction of a second before he left Merilla’s dark apartment and entered the momentary, disquieting transition of chill and darkness that the sprites’ translocation created, then re-materialized in a dark, cool swamp. There was fetid water up to his knees, spilling over the tops of his boots to fill them inside.
“Where are we? Where’s Jonson?” Kestrel asked. He could see virtually nothing in the blackness.
“Reasion,” Dewberry called, “go home and get a lantern. Jonson’s must have burned out.”
Seconds later, a light appeared, and Kestrel instantly saw a horrific sight; Jonson floated atop the scummy water of the swamp, his legs gone, a dark stain spreading out around him. Next to his body floated a huge, toothy lizard-like monster, twice as long as Kestrel was tall. It was dead, a shaft driven through its skull.
Kestrel picked up Jonson’s body. “Take us to the spring!” he cried out, and multiple small bodies embraced him, then deposited him on the lawn next to the spring, where the warm water of the pool was covered in mists. Kestrel plunged Jonson’s body down into the water, laying him on the sandy shelf that was the usual place he rested the sprites.
“Now, Dewberry, take me to Alicia, the elf-woman who came here with us before! Hurry!” Kestrel called. “We may need her to save him!”
The bodies surrounded Kestrel again, and suddenly they were all in a room, where Alicia slept alone in a narrow bed. The lantern in Reasion’s hand illuminated the scene, as Kestrel knelt next to the bed and shook Alicia’s shoulder. “Alicia! Wake up. We need a doctor,” Kestrel said loudly.
The woman’s eyes sprang open, and she looked at Kestrel without comprehension for only a half second, then sat up and looked around the room at the floating crowd of blue bodies. “Gods above! Kestrel, what are you doing here?” she pulled her sheet up over her torso.
“We need you. Our friend, Jonson, the water imp, he had his legs bit off by a monster creature. He’s at the healing spring now. Please come look at him,” Kestrel said, shaking his head slightly as he tried to remove the untimely comparison his mind was making even now between Alicia’s sleek elven body and Merilla’s soft and shapely human one.
“I need, I need my tools,” Alicia replied, climbing out of bed and hurriedly wrapping a robe around her body. “Let’s go,” she darted out a doorway and down the hall. They were in the very building where she had operated on him, Kestrel realized, and he wondered where Silvan was sleeping.
“Take her first, and take the light,” Kestrel instructed Dewberry, “explain to her what has happened, then come back and get me.”
“Kestrel?” Alicia asked, looking at him as small blue bodies wrapped around her, just before she disappeared.
Kestrel left the room and left the building, then went trotting down the dark, deserted road of the base towards the supply building. There was no one present, and he threw his shoulder against the door, crashing it open. Someone was sure to hear and come investigate, but he hoped to be gone before they found him.
Inside the dark front room Kestrel fumbled with objects on the counter until he felt the lantern that he thought he remembered. “Friend Kestrel?” Dewberry’s voice called him. “Why are you here?”
“Dewberry, I’ve got a lantern. Take it and light it, then bring it back here,” Kestrel instructed.
“I will,” she replied. He couldn’t see her, but he felt the lantern disappear from his hands, and within thirty seconds Dewberry and the other sprites were with her, the lantern providing illumination.
“Good, let’s go get some water skins, so that you can use them for Jonson,” he said, grabbing the lantern and walking into the warehouse in the back of the building. Weapons were to the left, food in the center, clothing on the right. Kestrel guessed that the water skins would be with the clothing, and went down that aisle. He walked its full length and halfway back up the next aisle before he saw the supply of empty skins, piled in a large wooden crate.
There was a sound at the front of the warehouse. “Who’s in here?” a voice called.
Kestrel reached out and grabbed as many as he could, slung them over his shoulder, then grabbed more. “Take me to the spring!” he commanded, as a guard’s lantern light came into view, and the blue bodies carried him away, back to the spring.
Alicia was kneeling in the waters of the spring, next to Jonson, her robe lying abandoned in a white puddle on the ground next to where he stood.
The doctor looked up and saw Kestrel, and he read a sense of comfort in the light that reflected back from her eyes. “Kestrel come here,” she told him.
“No! Wait, I forgot about your ears. Stay there; it’s not important,” she stopped him from advancing. “What do you have?” she asked.
“I brought water skins,” he explained, making a heap on the ground next to her robe. “How is he?”
“He’s alive,” she replied. “And he’s in this water. The immediate danger was loss of blood, but the spring water has sealed off the veins, so he’s not losing any more right now.” She rose and stepped up onto the shore line, then pulled her robe over her shoulders.
“You must have acted quickly. Where were you hunting this monster?” she asked as she stood next to Kestrel shivering slightly in the chill air.
Kestrel pulled her body up against his in a hug that allowed them to warm one another. “I wasn’t with him. I was up in Estone when Dewberry came and got me, and took me to wherever he has attacked. I picked him up and brought him here, then we came to see you. Everything has happened in the last ten minutes or less, I’d guess,” he said, then was silent, as he thought about the fact that ten minutes ago he had been with Merilla.
“What is that fragrance?” Alicia asked, sniffing his shoulder. “It’s delightful.”
Kestrel was glad she couldn’t see his face, as he blushed at the thought of Merilla’s perfume clinging to his body.
“Here, why don’t you get back in the water to warm up, and you can fill the water skins,” he suggested.
She stepped back, then hesitated. “I guess you’ve seen me before; no reason to be shy now, is there?” she spoke more to herself than to him as she dropped her robe and picked up several skins.
“He ought to stay here as long as we can arrange,” Alicia said as she started to fill the water skins and toss them up on the shore. “Given what we’ve seen the water do for you, he should grow his legs back with enough time and enough exposur
e to the water.”
“Have you received the two elves from Green Water?” Kestrel asked, thinking of the men he had sent hobbling towards Center Trunk from Firheng only days before.
“Who? Where’s Green Water?” Alicia asked.
Kestrel tossed her more of the empty water skins as she finished filling those she had with her, then he told her an abbreviated version of his story about saving the elves from slavery.
“Silvan will be beside himself at the opportunity to question them about the humans,” Alicia commented when the story was over. “You did a wonderful thing to give them their freedom back.”
She looked up at him and saw his eyes studying her closely. “I guess you noticed I was sleeping alone,” she said as she finished filling the last of the skins.
“I did,” Kestrel commented.
“We are husband and wife, and we do sleep together from time to time,” she told him. “I love him so much, but perhaps I was too young and ignorant when I set my sights on him. He’s a very good man, and a very brilliant one, you know,” she spoke in a defensive tone. “I’d do anything to help him.”
“Even seduce another man, get him drunk, and operate on his body without his agreement,” Kestrel said grimly.
“Oh Kestrel, I know. I’m guilty, and it wasn’t fair to you, but it was for a bigger cause. I’m sorry; that’s the worst thing I’ve ever done,” she spoke in a pleading tone. “I wouldn’t do it again, knowing how you think of me because of it,” she added in a lower voice.
“I’m sorry, Alicia, I’ve forgiven you, mostly, and when Termine and Hinger arrive in Center Trunk you can treat their feet with some of this water so that they recover completely, and we’ll all agree that it was worth chopping my ears to set them free,” he leaned back on the grass, starting to feel exhausted. All the sprites but Dewberry had curled up asleep on the lawn, he realized, while the worried bride sat, and looked down at her injured husband.
“He’s going to be okay, Dewberry,” Kestrel told her. “Alicia thinks he’ll just need to soak in the spring water a lot for a while,” he said, as the elf maiden climbed up out of the water and put her robe on again.
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