“Thank you, I will,” he answered leadenly, without any intention of speaking to her or anyone about the sudden disappointment.
Gail sighed and slowly turned away. “I’m so sorry it happened like this, Kestrel,” she said with her back to him. “You deserve so much better,” she added, then walked away.
“Stillwater,” Kestrel called loudly a few minutes later, after the shock of Lark’s announcement wore away. The imp came flying down from the roof of the manor, where he often sat to watch the people of the city.
“Stillwater, I think it’s time to leave Uniontown,” he spoke to the imp. He walked out and sat on a bench. The spring time air was warm and the sun was shining.
“The Rishiare Estelle will end within the fortnight, Kestrel wounded heart. Should we not stay here until the terrible limits of travel come to an end?” the imp asked.
“I would like to start the journey on foot, and then we can travel by the other ways when the times allow,” Kestrel rebutted. “I do not wish to be here any longer. I have no joy here.”
“I am ready to go whenever you are,” Stillwater loyally said.
“Thank you, my friend,” Kestrel said gratefully. “I’ll pack my things,” he explained, and went into the cottage. Minutes later, he emerged with his pack, his walking staff, and his pack slung over his shoulder
“We will bid farewell?” Stillwater asked tentatively.
“Yes, we owe the duchess thanks for her hospitality,” Kestrel agreed. He pulled his hood up, and clutched it closed to cover the scars on his lower face, as he and Stillwater proceeded to the manor house and startled the servants by inquiring for the duchess.
Tyle met him in a parlor five minutes later, a sad expression on her face.
“It is time for us to return to our home,” Kestrel announced to the duchess. “We owe you a debt of thanks for your generosity and kindness,” Kestrel told her.
“You do not have to leave this home for any reason, my lord,” the duchess replied softly. “This may be your home away from home for as long as you want.
“Gail spoke to me this morning, and I hope you do not move hastily for the wrong reasons,” she counseled. “Stay a few more days, and let your spirits heal.”
“Thank you,” Kestrel replied immediately, “but it is time. We are ready.”
“Please allow me to call Gail, and let her tell you farewell too,” the duchess conceded. “She would be heartbroken to miss you.”
Kestrel nodded, and the duchess sent a servant to fetch Gail, who arrived immediately.
“You called, Aunt?” the girl said obediently. “Oh, Kestrel!” she was startled to see him as she entered the room.
“His lordship is leaving us, Gail,” the duchess said. “He is ready to return home, but he specifically asked to see you and say farewell,” the duchess said.
“Kestrel? You’re leaving us?” Gail’s voice quivered.
He felt a pang of remorse at causing pain to the girl.
“It’s time for Stillwater and I to start our journey,” Kestrel told her. He walked over and held her hands. “Thank you for your care and devotion and friendship. I feel extremely lucky to have met you. Marquise Thuringa did me the greatest favor in the world when she placed us in the carriage together.”
“Kestrel, Uniontown won’t be the same without you here,” Gail protested. “Please don’t go!”
“He’s ready, child,“ the duchess spoke up. “Bid him thanks, and go tell the cook to pack a sack of food for him to eat.
“Shall I have a carriage brought around for you?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” Kestrel grinned. “I may be out of shape, but I still have elven legs. I’ll run my way back to fitness,” he said firmly.
Gail started to cry. She removed her hands from Kestrel’s. “Good bye,” she said the words between tears, then turned and fled the room.
“Still Kestrel the heart breaker,” Stillwater said after moments of awkward silence. A moment later, a servant appeared with a sack that he handed to Kestrel.
“Thank you again, my lady,” Kestrel said, feeling miserable about Gail’s unhappy exit.
“Kestrel, come back some day and visit again,” the duchess answered, with warmth and sincerity. She gave him a sad smile, and then he and Stillwater were on their way.
“We are leaving good friends behind, are we not, friend Kestrel?” Stillwater asked.
“We are,” Kestrel agreed. “We are fortunate to have friends behind us and friends before us. Just think of what we will find when we reunite with those we have not seen in such a long time.”
He ran at his fastest rate, which was slightly slower than he had accomplished before his long period of recuperation, and he grew winded sooner than usual. He slowed to a walk to catch his breath, but otherwise he exceeded the speed of the others on the Uniontown highway to Lakeview.
The two of them traveled for days. They passed through the village of redheaded people, but Kestrel did not stop to discover how they all had adjusted to their new features, though he observed that the few people he saw in the streets of the village wore hats and cowls to cover their heads, even though spring time warmth had removed the need for any such articles.
Kestrel ate his food provided by the duchess’s larder, sharing a breakfast and an evening meal with Stillwater, as they spent their nights in the countryside, in trees if Kestrel could find any at all. He wished to avoid people; he didn’t want to display his scars, or even his elven features. He just ran along the road, interacted with no one but the imp who flew overhead, and let his soul slowly begin to heal from the pain of Lark’s unexpected rejection.
Stillwater watched the sun anxiously, noting to Kestrel several times each day that the red spots on the sun seemed duller and smaller than they had before. Kestrel thought the imp was engaging in wishful thinking.
Then, early on a cloudy day when the two of them were not far outside of Lakeview, Kestrel heard a distant whoop shouted overhead. He placed his hand above his eyes to shade them from the sunlight that did filter through the clouds, and he observed a tiny blue speck that gyrated wildly overhead, doing barrel rolls and somersaults and loops. Then, suddenly, there were multiple blue dots – three, then five, then too many to count. They were flying and maneuvering and passing one another with a speed and vigor he could not follow.
The imps were traveling once again! He realized that Stillwater had been joined by a host of fellow imps, members of his race who he had not seen in a year. They all were celebrating – not only celebrating the reunion, but celebrating the restoration of their ability to travel. They had regained the ability that they considered a birthright.
The blue figures in the sky drew close to one another for two long breaths, and then suddenly began to grow in size. They were diving down towards him, Kestrel realized, diving with an amazing speed, coming so fast he was afraid they would be unable to stop and would crash into the ground.
Kestrel broke to his right, off the road, getting away from the other travelers who walked or rode on their way to or from Lakeview. He didn’t want any of them to be bothered by the imminent arrival of the flock of imps.
He looked upwards over his shoulder, and saw Dewberry, Acanthus, Jonson, Mulberry, Killcen, and all the others he had known and traveled with. They were rapidly drawing closer, their voices distinguishable just seconds before they reached him and circled around him. He was buffeted, knocked off balance, left spinning and stumbling and then was pressed upon on all sides by imps, and their travel began.
Chapter 26
As he had known they would, the imps carried him to the shore of the healing spring. The air was slightly cooler than it had been in Lakeview, but the sun was shining brightly, and the warm water of the spring created a warmth in the surroundings that was comfortable.
Kestrel noticed none of this for the first minute he was at the spring. He was pummeled, hugged, kissed, pinched, and otherwise subject to the affections of his imp companions.
The physical display of affection and happiness dwindled away suddenly, and Kestrel was able to sit up.
“So, are you ready to take me back to my home now?” he asked innocently. A fresh round of pummeling began, as the imps swarmed him and shouted at him in mock anger.
“Kestrel friend has had his heart broken by a human girl again,” Stillwater loudly announced to the others. “And at the same time, he broke the heart of a different human girl.
“His actions are still perhaps misguided by the strange play of affections,” the imp solemnly offered.
“My memory seems to be fading,” Kestrel replied. “I cannot remember what purpose there is in coming to this spring. Perhaps I should leave.”
The imps proceeded to pummel him again, pressing him backwards towards the edge of the water.
“I recollect now,” he cried in surrender. “But I see no imps preparing themselves for immersion in the spring.”
His companions leapt into the air and crossed the stream to the usual bank where Kestrel delivered them to the water, and they began to carelessly shed their clothing.
Kestrel quickly pulled his own clothes and belongings off, then dove into the warm water of the spring. It felt wonderful and energizing. He stroked deep down into the bottom of the pool, letting the water flow along every inch of skin he had, then he surfaced, feeling as though he had been ritually cleansed, and proceeded over to where the imps impatiently waited.
“My faithful friend Stillwater,” Kestrel called.
“I know that any one of you, had you been with me, would have served just as faithfully as this imp has. His loyalty is a credit to all of you,” Kestrel pronounced, as he held his friend over the water. “And so I give him the first touch of the water and the first dreams since the end of the Rishiare Estelle.” He promptly lowered the small blue body into the spring, and laid him atop the shallow, sandy bottom of the cove.
He proceeded then to pick up imps and lay them in the water as quickly as he could, until, after a few minutes, he discovered that Dewberry remained as the last imp on land.
“Kestrel friend, what troubles you?” she asked sincerely. “I see the pain in your heart, coming out through the expressions in your eyes sometimes.”
“I thought there was a woman who was the right one for me to perhaps love and marry,” Kestrel answered. “But after I went to her and helped her, and was hurt doing it,” he waved his hands along the length of his scars, “she did not find me to be the right person for her, just because of my appearance.
“And there is another girl who is the friend of Lark, the first girl, and she is very kind to me, even though I have these scars, and even though she is destined to marry Lark’s brother.”
“Kestrel, how many times have you fallen in love with some girl you met in your adventures?” Dewberry asked. She placed her small hands on either side of his face and stared at him fondly. “You want to love someone. There is a perfect person out there for you; don’t rush towards her – let fate bring you two together in the proper time and proper place.”
“How will I know? This felt like the proper person,” Kestrel said, though as he said it, he began to wonder what made him so determined to believe that Lark was the perfect person for him.
“That is something I cannot answer. Now, rest your heart and put me in the water. Then, when we all awaken, I’ll introduce you to my son, the new heir to the throne,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose, and he lowered her into the water, immediately adjacent to Jonson.
Kestrel gave a sigh, then turned and swam through the waters of the spring, back to the bank of smooth stones that he always rested on in the spring water, usually in the company of someone else. He was back in the Eastern Forest, he belatedly realized.
He slumped down into the water, letting it flow and soak liberally on as much of his chest and neck and jaw as he could manage, to help speed the healing process on the injured skin.
He was back in the Eastern Forest. He was relatively close to home. He hoped that Hampus and Miskel were successful in their governance of the Forest so far. He hoped that the recovery was underway in the Marches, that Whyte was ably running the manor and the community and the mushroom marketplace – he would have to ask the imps about it when they awoke.
He was able to call upon them to travel again, he grinned at the realization. He could go to Seafare and see Merea and Picco. He could go to the Northern Forest, or Firheng, or anywhere he could persuade the imps to take him, and he knew that with their exuberance over the restoration of their travel abilities, they would be eager to travel anywhere and everywhere.
The water was warm and relaxing, so much so that he easily closed his eyes and began to waver between sleepiness and wakefulness.
“Well this is a fine thing – the Rishiare Estelle is finally at an end, and what’s the first thing you do? Is it call upon the goddesses who have meant so much to you? No, you come splashing and cavorting about with your little blue friends,” Kere was sitting in the water next to him; he suddenly woke with a start and realization.
He opened his eyes and turned his head, to see the grandmotherly-appearing goddess stretched out on the rocks as well, soaking in the water beside him.
Kestrel felt an upwelling of affection, and some guilt. He was happy to see the goddess, after the long year of virtually no contact with her. And he felt the truth of her comment, that he had not called to her when the ability to reach her once again had been restored.
“My goddess,” he sat up straight, then awkwardly tried to maneuver so that he could bow to her, but she would have none of it, reaching out a hand to grab his shoulder and hold him still.
“Lay back down, Kestrel,” she said, as she also lay back among the stones.
He accepted the advice, realizing that the goddess was there to chat with him, not to be worshipped. He felt pleased and honored, taking her arrival as a sign that she had sought his company out.
“So you set your father free, and you worked with him to defeat the Viathins. You came back here and you fought against the eastern heresy on behalf of the Eastern Forest. And now you’re just back from fighting among the humans,” she summed up what she knew.
“You need to stop trying to save the world, Kestrel,” she told him.
“The world needs to stop having so many emergencies,” Kestrel said in a relaxed tone, his eyes closed once again as he lay back. “Do you always have some mortal that the gods send rushing around from problem to problem trying to set things right?”
“We haven’t had a string of disasters like this since the formation,” Kere said thoughtfully, “now that you bring it up.
“And that father of yours is taking credit, says he produced the heroic son that is so vital to the Inner Seas. I thought Tamson was going to take out his frustrations on Morph, but of course he could never catch him,” Kere laughed lightly at the memory. “We were all growing short-tempered from the effects of the Rishiare Estelle.
“Thank goodness we’re free again!” she sounded exuberant, so much so that Kestrel opened one eye to look at her. She was youthful-looking, a glorious beauty, forgetting to maintain her grandmotherly appearance as she thought about the other gods. It was, Kestrel thought, perhaps another sign of how comfortable she had grown in his company, treating him as more of a contemporary than a subject.
“Kestrel, I want you to know that the waters of the healing spring have some limits, and treating the worst of the damage from the sorceress’s fire is beyond those limits. Much of your damage will heal, the natural burns, but the spot where the deadly energy directly struck you will remain marked. It’s a small spot, there’s no reason to worry about it. But I just want you to know that it will remain in place,” she explained.
“I must be moving on – I haven’t been in the Eastern Forest for a year now, and there are so many things I need to do
, but I wanted to see you first. Even if you hadn’t been here at my spring, I would have come to see you. Farewell, and start to enjoy life. As far as I know, there are no more emergencies due to be fixed,” she told him.
“For a while,” she added, and then she disappeared.
Kestrel laid back and closed his eyes again. He rested and smiled at the goddess’s visit, then concluded that the time had come to awaken his imps and return to Oaktown.
“Has it been a week already?” Jonson asked as he shook off his dreamy state, moments after Kestrel had withdrawn him from the water.
“Why yes, it’s been a full week,” Kestrel said mockingly, as he lifted other imps out of the water.
“We’ll come back here tomorrow, won’t we?” Mulberry asked plaintively as she pulled her blouse over her head.
“We will certainly come back here tomorrow, if there are any volunteers to carry me here,” Kestrel said mildly.
“Pick me, Kestrel friend,” Acanthus shouted.
“I’ll carry you, Kestrel the wise,” Killcen chimed in.
“I’ll let you hold my baby,” Dewberry offered.
“There seems to be enough interest,” Kestrel said. “Shall we return to Oaktown?” he asked as he placed the last of the sleeping imps on the grass.
A quartet of imps swarmed around him, and he felt the familiar displacement begin, as they took him from the healing spring and carried him to his office in Oaktown.
“You’ll call us when it’s time?” Mulberry asked anxiously.
“I will call you, be sure. I’ll need time in the morning to check on the arrangements for the mushroom market,” he commented.
The mention of the market set off an explosive round of comments.
“We made arrangements for a first mushroom market,” Jonson spoke, as those around him began to exclaim to one another.
“But the messages took a week to travel from Blackfriars to Oaktown and back again. It was a terrible way to make arrangements,” the imp king complained.
“But it was better than not doing it,” Dewberry added complacently.
A Marriage of Friends Page 31
