Kestrel held the clay jar before him in both hands, and as he reached the bottom of the platform, a staff person nearby subtly signaled for him to stop and kneel.
Kestrel went down on one knee, then rose, and as the staff member approached, he held out the jar.
“What is it?” the man whispered.
“It’s yeti blood,” Kestrel whispered back.
The man’s eye’s widened. “Remove your hat when I hand it to the Doge, and remain silent. If the Doge wants to hear from you, he’ll motion for you to approach.”
Kestrel nodded, then stood and watched as the man, dressed all in black, stepped up to the Doge’s throne, and whispered briefly in the leader’s ear, then stepped back and spoke aloud, in a voice that surprised Kestrel with its volume and ability to carry to seemingly every attendee in the facility.
“The great hunter, Kestrel, returns from the Water Mountains, where he has faced a yeti in mortal combat and emerged as the victor. He humbly offers this gift of precious blood from his vanquished foe as a token of his regard for your great leadership of the nation,” the man announced.
“Come forward Kestrel, and be recognized,” the man turned and spoke to Kestrel. “Doge Deloco wishes to thank you for fulfilling his command to rid the land of the yeti threat, and helping to protect his people.”
Kestrel climbed the steps, and came to a stop just a few feet from where the Doge sat on his throne, a solemn expression on the big man’s florid face. He rose when Kestrel stopped, and shuffled forward, his ornate robes restricting his movements. Out of the corner of his eye Kestrel saw the black-robed attendant frantically motioning for him to remove his hat, and he hastily snatched his headpiece off his skull, revealing the phony bandaging that was wrapped around his head.
There was a murmur of sympathy from the crowd as they saw what they presumed was evidence of the wounds Kestrel had suffered in battle with the yeti. Kestrel saw a flicker of concern in the Doge’s eyes as well, as he noted the bandages, and then before the crowd’s gentle sighing had ceased, the noise from the observers changed to gasps and cheers as the Doge reached out and drew Kestrel into a supportive embrace.
Kestrel uncomfortably wrapped his own arms around the Doge’s bulk, uncertain of the protocol regarding how a commoner responded to the ruler’s personal touch. The Doge stood motionless and silent for a handful of seconds, then broke the clinch. “Your gift is a priceless one, young hunter, and much appreciated.
“I want to reward you for your heroism and valor, and today I do so by naming you as a Captain of the Fleet of Estone, entitled to the rewards and privileges that accrue to the position. And I also name you to be the People’s Champion should the need for single battle arise again,” the Doge told Kestrel in a deep, resonant voice. “Kneel before me now,” he commanded discreetly.
Kestrel dropped to his knees, and bowed his head, then heard the sound of a sword being drawn nearby. There was a light tap on his right shoulder. “By the power of Shaish, goddess of water,” the Doge said. There was a light tap on his left shoulder. “By the power of Kusima, god of the land,” the leader intoned. Then Kestrel felt the Doge place his hand lightly on the top of Kestrel’s head. “By the power of Kai and Growelk, air and fire, I name you the People’s Champion, give you the freedom and honor the title carries, and oblige you to serve the men and women of Estone in times of need.
“Rise and face your people,” he said last, as he stepped back from Kestrel and resumed his seat.
Kestrel stood, dumbfounded by the ceremonial honor he had received, and by the boisterous applause that began to thunder from the crowd.
“Thank you, my lord. You have been far more generous than I deserve,” Kestrel said in amazement.
“I think not,” the Doge replied. “In a dream last night Kai showed me your face, and said you would be a hero for your people. I am only doing what the goddess wants. Now go and receive your rewards and accolades,” he motioned Kestrel towards the side.
“The audience of the court is at an end for today. All hail the Doge of Estone, ruler of the Northern Seas and Lands,” the black garbed herald proclaimed in his extraordinary voice, as Kestrel strode over to the beribboned stall where the other recognized individuals were waiting, clapping enthusiastically along with the rest of the audience.
Chapter 20 — Sprites in Estone
Nightfall arrived before Kestrel finally left the environs of the palace. He was befuddled by the incredible series of events that had befallen him, and felt even more strongly his discomfort with the city setting as he eventually evaded all the supporters and hangers-on in the palace, and slipped away to begin his walk back to the hotel. Castona’s shop was surely closed, Kestrel concluded, so there was no reason to return there in the evening, and he simply wanted to find the comfort of the hotel room and Merilla’s company so that he could relax.
The palace had showered attention upon him once the Doge’s audience had ended. The daughter of the country earl who had been recognized by the Doge just before him, the girl who paid no attention to him before the ceremony, even when they were the only two in the waiting room together, had hung on his arm for over an hour, attaching herself with a persistence that Kestrel found almost admirable in one sense. Only going to the bathroom had at last freed him from her clutches, but many others had wanted to bask in his reflected glory immediately thereafter, and the experience had been smothering.
He didn’t find his way through the maze of streets and canals easily, and finally gave a coin to a street urchin to lead him to his inn, and was full of relief when he saw the front of the inn come into view.
Merilla and her sons were sitting in the dining room. “Kestrel!” she called and waved wildly to draw his attention, as if he might not see her otherwise.
He walked over to their table and sat down, as Jacob immediately crawled into his lap, and he left out a noisy sigh of relief. “I am so glad to see all of you,” he told her.
“Where have you been?” she asked, and then without taking a breath immediately blurted out her news. “We picked our new house today! It’s just around the corner from my parents. I want you to come see it tomorrow.”
“What time?” Kestrel asked, thinking of the other obligations that had been heaped upon him at the palace. “I’d love to come see your new home,” he added.
“Any time,” Merilla replied as she focused on cutting food for Marco. The waiter came and took Kestrel’s food order, then left them alone. “Do you have an errand tomorrow?”
“A couple; a few,” Kestrel acknowledged. “But not much in the morning,” he thought about his discovery that little happened at the palace before noon, as the inhabitants slept late into the morning, recovering from their apparently regular habit of revelry during the evening.
“That’s it then. We’ll go take a look in the morning. It has a shop on the street floor, and then our rooms will be on the three floors above the shop, a small leather goods shop,” she told him, then proceeded to enthusiastically describe her proposed home.
“How did you find it?” Kestrel asked as his food arrived, and he began to share it with Jacob.
“My mother has an old friend whose son is the leathermonger in the shop on the street level,” Merilla replied. “So she told my mother, and my mother told me. I’ll be able to buy it and collect rent from the shop, so it will have an income too,” she looked at Kestrel with an expression that was a mixture of pride and hope and something else that Kestrel couldn’t identify.
“So how was the palace? Do you have details you can tell momma? After the palace did you go to Castona’s shop?” she asked, ready to hear about Kestrel, and truly interested in his day as well, despite her excitement over her prospective home.
“I’ll tell you about it when we get upstairs,” Kestrel said as he took his last bite of food.
Merilla raised her eyebrows, and for just a fleeting moment, to Kestrel’s eye she looked vaguely elvish, and more appealing than ever before. “Well
then, upstairs it is,” she said, placing Marco on the floor and standing up, as Kestrel raised Jacob to his shoulder and stood as well.
Kestrel gratefully flopped across the full length of the mattress once they were upstairs, as Merilla took her boys into the other room. He felt fully relaxed at last, the door shutting out the world of cities and humans. He closed his eyes and gave a heavy sigh, then started to fall asleep until he felt Merilla pulling his boots from his feet, startling him awake.
“Don’t think you’re going to just fall asleep now and leave me hanging with your mysterious day-at-the-palace story waiting to be told,” she mockingly growled. She pulled her skirts up around her thighs, then crawled upon the bed, and settled in to straddle Kestrel’s stomach. “So let’s hear what you have to say,” she shook a threatening finger in his face, “or else!”
“Who could withstand the fearful threats of the mighty Merilla?” Kestrel laughingly asked. “Not me, and I’m now Champion of the People.”
Merilla laughed, then looked at him, and her face grew puzzled. “Okay, so what’s the joke?” she asked.
“Well,” Kestrel drawled, “the thing is, there is no joke. The Doge gave me titles today in the ceremony at the palace. I get an annual salary, I can sail aboard any ship of the navy, and I am expected to fight on behalf of the people of Estone in the event my strength is needed.”
Merilla’s eyes darted wildly all about his face, studying his eyes, then his mouth, then the white bandages, before they drilled into his eyes again. “You’re serious!” she exclaimed. “The Doge has made you a member of the nobility, Kestrel! That’s fantastic!” she shouted, and leaned down. She placed her lips against his to kiss him in celebration, but seconds passed, and passion overtook them both. The kiss became a long lusty one, one without the fuel of alcohol, but only the compatibility and companionship the two had discovered during their long time spent so close to one another.
Kestrel’s hands stroked Merilla’s flesh as they kissed, and when at last she raised up, and looked down at him with smoldering eyes, he softly said, “I know it seems wrong, but it feels so perfect for us. May the gods of two races send me a sign if this is not what we should do.”
“Hello friend Kestrel!” Dewberry said brightly in the Elven language as she suddenly appeared on the bed beside them. “I think I’ve seen you with three different females the last three times I’ve seen you. You’re a busy one, aren’t you?”
Merilla screamed so loudly at the sudden appearance of the sprite that Dewberry instantly fled in fear, and doors opened in the hallway, followed by the sound of boots and bare feet striding about, trying to locate the source of the bloodcurdling shout.
“What in blazes?!” Merilla asked Kestrel. She scrambled off of him and off the mattress altogether. “Was that a sprite? Aren’t you concerned?” she asked.
“That,” Kestrel said, then paused. “That — I’m sure — was a sign,” he paused.
“That was my friend, Dewberry, the sprite,” he said. “But I don’t know why she showed up here; she’s supposed to be on her honeymoon. She married a water imp.”
Merilla turned at the sound of her own boys moving about in the connected room, and moments later they appeared at the doorway. She scooped them up in her arms, just as there was a knock at the front door.
“Is everything okay in there?” a masculine voice asked. “We heard a scream somewhere up around here.”
“Everything’s okay in here,” Kestrel called as he sat up. He walked over to the door and threw it wide open, so that the visitor could see Merilla and the boys standing nearby. “Thank you for checking,” he added as he closed the door.
“You’re friends with a sprite?” Merilla stuttered, so stunned by the event. “I’ve never seen one before; I didn’t think they were real, to be honest.”
Kestrel sighed, frustrated by the turn of events. He had asked for a sign, never expecting something so obvious. Clearly, if the gods would so clearly send a sign, he and Merilla could have no immediate future together. The dreams that had pecked at the back of his brain during the day, the dreams of being a nobleman, the dreams of living in Estone with Merilla, settling down to live a blissful, domestic, human life, they were empty, they were only dreams, not what the gods had planned for him.
“Take the boys and try to settle them back into bed,” he directed Merilla. “I’d like to call Dewberry to find out why she came.”
“Can I watch?” Merilla asked in a small voice.
“Will you promise not to scream at the top of your lungs?” Kestrel asked with a crooked smile.
“You would have screamed to if you didn’t know what was happening,” the young mother defensively said.
“Go on,” Kestrel laughingly said, “and come back quietly.”
“Dewberry!” he called. “It’s okay to come back now,” he spoke in the Elvish language.
“Dewberry, my friend. She’s sorry she shouted,” he added moments later.
“’Shouted’ doesn’t begin to describe it,” the blue sprite was suddenly sitting in the chair in the corner of the room. “I thought the world was coming to an end.”
“You surprised her,” Kestrel explained. “We were, you know, alone together, and then suddenly you were with us.
“Why were you with us? Is everything okay?” he asked, pausing for a moment to find his vocabulary in the language he had left behind for several weeks. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”
There was a noise at the door, and Merilla slid silently in though the opening, focusing on making no noise to disturb her boys, and not aware that Dewberry had returned. “So, do you think?” Merilla cut her question off as she turned and spotted the sprite.
Dewberry rose in the air and floated over to Kestrel, then sat down in his lap. “What did she say?” Dewberry asked in Elvish.
“She said she’s very sorry she screamed so loudly,” Kestrel lied.
“Merilla, this is my friend Dewberry. Please come have a seat while I find out what is happening,” Kestrel had a premonition that something bad would happen before the evening was over.
“So tell me why you’re here?” Kestrel repeated to Dewberry.
“Well, we are on our honeymoon, as you say, and we thought we’d like to soak in the spring by the moonlight,” Dewberry explained. “So I came to see if my very favorite elf in all the world would give us a wedding gift and watch over us while we enjoy the water?”
“Where’s Jonson?” Kestrel asked. “You can’t carry me alone, can you?” he held up a finger to Merilla, indicating he was about to tell her something.
“He’s shy; he didn’t think we should drop in to visit you unannounced, but I knew you wouldn’t mind. He’ll be here any second,” Dewberry answered airily.
“We’re going to have another visitor, and then the three of us are going to go away for a little while,” Kestrel turned to Merilla and spoke in the Human language.
“Where are you going? Are you going to come back?” she asked immediately, then gave a gasp as Jonson arrived.
“My apologies if we have disturbed your evening,” Jonson said solemnly to Kestrel. He turned and bowed to Merilla. “You friend is quite lovely, for a human, I’m sure,” he spoke in a tone that cast doubt on his sincerity.
“These two are going to take me someplace to do a favor for them,” Kestrel told Merilla in a resigned tone, as he gently nudged Dewberry aside, ignoring the nasty face she made to show her displeasure. He walked over to the befuddled human woman. “You go on to bed. I’ll be gone a bit, and then I’ll be back.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then walked to another corner of the room where his belongings were piled, and picked up a pair of waterskins.
“I’m ready,” he announced, inviting Dewberry and Jonson to come envelope him in their hug, their small blue hands linked as they created a circle around him while his eyes met Merilla’s astonished eyes, and all three were momentarily transported through space, and then stood upon th
e bank of the healing spring.
Dewberry and Jonson disrobed immediately, while Kestrel stood on the bank of the spring and considered his situation. He had no wish to cause his ears and eyebrows to grow more elf-like yet, not while he still anticipated that he might be expected to pass for human, and therefore he concluded he should avoid contact with the water as much as possible.
“Why are you waiting, Kestrel?” Dewberry asked him as she and Jonson stood expectantly on the bank.
“Here, come over here,” Kestrel directed them, leading the way to the sandy shelf in shallow water that was the usual resting place for soaking sprites. He lifted Jonson and placed him in the water, then turned to Dewberry.
“Won’t you get in the water too?” she asked.
“The water makes my ears change back to their elf shapes, and I don’t want that just yet,” he explained briefly. “But here, let me place you in the spring so that you can enjoy!”
“I’m sorry to bring you here if it brings you no profit,” the small sprite said contritely.
“You’ve done me no harm,” Kestrel assured her. “Your appearance was a sign, I think, that I need to focus on my intended mission, and stop making something more out of my visit to the humans than it was intended to be.
“And I’m always glad to see you!” he added brightly, then lifted her into the water beside Jonson, and sat down upon the grass. He got up to find a stick in the nearby trees, then used it to push his water skins underneath the surface of the spring, immersing and filling them with the valuable water before he pulled the skins out and secured their stoppers. He would give one to Merilla as a farewell gift, a token of his friendship, he planned, and the other would go back with him to Firheng where one skin of the water still remained waiting, or perhaps he would carry it down to Center Trunk.
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