“He may not be the best spokesman to put forward,” Hampus said dryly.
“Let me go see them. How do I get out of here?” Tewks ignored the comment.
“Go over there,” Kestrel answered. He pointed to his right, then focused his attention, and caused the dome to dissolve across an arc of its coverage.
Tewks darted past Putty and the humans, then went out into the open air and yelped in surprise as a wayward arrow deflected off the dome and struck the paving stones at his feet.
“Stop! It’s me, Tewks, of Lord Ripken’s household!” the boy shouted, dancing to and fro as he approached the main gate, while Kestrel restored the integrity of the protective dome, and rubbed Putty’s shoulder where the first arrow had bounced off her impenetrable hide.
Tewks wove a path up to the actual gate, waving his arms – unnecessarily, for all eyes were on him. The arrows ceased to fly, as Kestrel and the yeti and the others remained still, not moving from their location, and not suffering any harm from the arrows that failed to touch them thanks to the extraordinary blue dome.
“Don’t shoot at them!” Tewks screamed so loudly that Kestrel easily heard him.
“It’s a monster!” two of the guards shouted back simultaneously.
“It’s a friend. It’s a friendly yeti. Do you see it attacking any of the people standing with it? Do you know who that is? That’s the mighty Kestrel, the one who won the tournament last year, the one who healed Princess Aurelia, the one who chased Exmoor from the palace. Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Do you see the magic powers he has?
“Now stop shooting and let us go on to Lord Ripken’s manor,” Tewks spoke in a pre-emptory tone. “Or do you want me to report you to him so that your discipline can be the first topic he addresses when he returns from his honeymoon?” Tewks threatened. “You know he listens to me – all I have to do is tell him and,” the boy snapped his fingers.
Tewks stood in his spot, his posture confident, and waited until the lead guard at the gate waved, then lowered his arm. “Thank you,” Tewks said. “We’ll be on our way, and I won’t mention this to his lordship at all.”
The boy turned and trotted back to the edge of Kestrel’s shield. “You can put this down and quit showing off,” he said airily, “We can be on our way.”
Kestrel looked over at the guards, whose bows were pointed down at the ground. No one had an arrow strung, ready to shoot, and some were even placing the bows back over their shoulders. He focused inward, and released the energy that maintained the shield, giving a sigh of relief at the removal of the strain.
“Have you always been able to do that?” Tewks looked up at Kestrel as they resumed walking. “Is that how you made all those arrow shots last year? Is that how you control the imps?”
“Don’t let the imps hear you say that anyone controls them!” Kestrel laughed.
“No, they voluntarily assist me,” Kestrel answered. “They have been my best allies since my adventures began.
“As for those arrow shots, you’re the one who handed me the enchanted bow from Kere’s temple, aren’t you? You know that the bow made those shots easy,” Kestrel said.
“When I was here last time, I didn’t know how to use my powers. I’m still learning,” he added. He looked back at Putienne to make sure that the mighty creature was still following, and he noticed the sky above, over the yeti’s head. The red and blue stars were visible once again – faint, but visible, though he had been sure he hadn’t seen them when he’d first arrived in Kirevee.
“That’s odd,” he said quietly, then focused again on the walk to Ripken’s manor.
Minutes later they arrived, after sending Tewks darting in to warn the staff that a yeti was about to enter the hall.
Targus, the able and trusted assistant to Ripken, stood in the door with Tewks as Kestrel’s band approached.
“My lord,” he said formally, bowing to Kestrel, “It’s so good to see you, and so timely that you have arrived on the eve of our festive event. I know that Lord Ripken will be most pleased to know that you’ve finally arrived. He’s been expecting you for several days now.”
“That’s surprising,” Kestrel said, perplexed by the comment. “How did he know to expect me?”
“The princess mentioned it, I believe. We’ll have to ask her after all the wedding activities are over,” Targus answered.
“In the meantime, why don’t you and your companions wait in the parlor while I arrange lodgings. Will your yeti require any special accommodations?”
“We will share a room,” Kestrel answered. “Nothing too fancy, please. We’re just glad to have a place to stay. The journey has been a long one.”
Targus and Tewks showed them to the parlor, then left them alone.
“This is a magnificent palace!” Orren exclaimed as he looked at the furnishings. “I thought elves just lived in trees!”
“Not many live in trees all the time, though we all probably sleep in them from time to time,” Kestrel answered.
The members of the group wandered about the room, looking at the furniture and objects on display.
“We’ve got a suite for all of you to stay together,” Tewks said excitedly, moments later. “A dowager aunt was complaining about being so close to the ground; the suite’s only on the second floor,” he apologized. “Targus is moving her into a small gable room on the fourth floor, and she’s happy with that.”
They followed Tewks to the staircase, then up to the suite of rooms, a small hallway with its own door to separate it from the main hall, with three rooms clustered together.
“I’m supposed to have some food sent up for all of you,” he said. “And if you want to take the yeti down to the kitchen, I’ve warned them you’ll come down soon,” he said to Kestrel.
“Thank you Tewks,” Kestrel said. “You’ve been very helpful tonight.”
“I’ve got to go now,” the boy responded. “There’s a chambermaid who said she’d meet me soon.” He left them at the entrance to their suite.
“Let’s check on the rooms,” Hampus said.
“These rooms are for us,” Kestrel explained to the humans, as he opened the closest door and saw a small room with a single, small bed in it. He left the door open to walk to the next room, where he opened the door and saw that was also a single small bed in a small room. The last door opened onto a large room that contained a large single bed.
“How are we going to arrange this?” Raines asked in a flat tone of voice.
Kestrel stood in the doorway and scratched his head.
“You can have one of the small rooms to yourself,’ he said. He looked at Orren, then looked at Hampus.
“Orren, you take the other small room. Hampus and Putty and I will share the big room, somehow,” he decided.
“I’ll take the room on the left,” Orren said.
“Then I’ll take the one on the right,” Raines agreed.
As Kestrel finished the assignments, a servant arrived carrying a large tray. The elf’s eyes grew large as he looked at the yeti standing in the hallway, and he stopped his progress.
“Everyone head into the large room, and we’ll all eat there,” Kestrel proposed, ushering the group into the largest room, and taking Putty by the hand to lead the yeti into a far corner.
The servant hesitantly entered the room and placed the tray on a table near the door, then hastily retreated without comment.
The folks in the room gathered around the tray and uncovered a variety of items.
“Cake!” Raines said with pleasure.
“Bread!” Orren was happy to see.
“Acorns!” Hampus identified his own favorite food.
Kestrel took one of the acorn flour rolls, secretly wishing that the northern elves ate crickets the way the eastern elves did. He’d discovered otherwise on his first trip to the kingdom.
Kestrel took a piece of meat, and tossed it to Putty, who was anxiously crowding in behind the others. “Let us all get something
for ourselves, and then you can have the rest,” he told the animal, who sniffed the food he gave her, then swallowed it in three bites.
After ten minutes of browsing and snacking, the humans and elves settled into seats on the floor, and began to talk as they ate.
“What happens now, Kestrel?” Orren asked.
“We’ll all stay here for a few days as guests of Lord Ripken. The palace is going to be busy with the royal wedding, and so we can rest and get our bearings,” Kestrel answered. “Then, Hampus is going to begin his mission,” Kestrel explained. “He’ll begin the process of setting up relations between the two elven kingdoms.
“And then he’ll go home to the Eastern Kingdom,” Kestrel said. “I plan to go south to Seafare. My daughter lives with her mother there,” he explained, then watched as their eyes widened.
“I didn’t know elves lived in Seafare,” Raines said at last.
“They don’t. My daughter’s mother is a human,” Kestrel decided to end the suspense. “And after that, I may go further south, before I go home,” he concluded.
“I suppose we have to make up our minds about what to do too,” Orren said slowly. “If you want to travel to North Harbor, to a human city, I’ll go with you, to protect you along the way,” he offered to Raines.
“Thank you Orren. You’ve been very nice,” she answered.
“I think I’ll go to bed now,” Orren told the group, apparently satisfied that he’d made some progress with Raines. “Wake me in the morning in time for breakfast,” he grinned after he stood up, and then left the room.
“What should I do, Kestrel?” Raines asked after the miner was gone.
“You probably don’t want to stay here,” he answered, and watched her shake her head. “And I don’t think you want to go back to Narrow Bay,” he suggested, and she confirmed.
“So if you’re going to start a new life somewhere, you can travel alone, or travel with someone. Hampus is going to sail to Estone to go home, I’m going to sail to Seafare, and Orren is willing to travel with you to North Harbor. Those are your choices,” he summed up.
“Orren’s not a bad man,” she said, looking to Kestrel with a look in her eyes that pleaded for confirmation.
“He’s seemed pretty steady so far,” Kestrel agreed.
“What are you talking about?” Hampus asked.
“We were discussing Raines’s options,” Kestrel explained. “You and I are going to leave Kirevee when you have your paperwork signed by the king. We were discussing where Raines should go when we’re ready to leave.
“We decided she can travel to Estone by ship with you,” he said, keeping a straight face.
“What?” Hampus said. “What does that mean? Why would she go to Estone with us?” he asked.
“Not us; just you,” Kestrel clarified. “I’m not going back to the Eastern Forest, not right away,” he explained. “You will be able to take the fast and easy route home, back to Center Trunk, and return to the court as the conquering heroic diplomat.”
“If you two don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed now,” Raines said, standing up. She walked out the door, and they heard the faint sound of a door closing seconds later.
“Why aren’t you going back to the Eastern Forest with me?” Hampus asked. “How will I get back on my own?”
Just then they heard a scream, and they bolted out of their room. They opened one of the doorways to the small rooms, and found Orren lying in bed, while Raines stood beside the bed, holding her dress in front of her.
“I thought you were going to be in the room on the left!” she exclaimed.
“I am. This is the room on the left, from when we came in,” he answered, looking from her to the elves and back to her.
“Oh!” she placed her hand to her mouth. “I was thinking about the left side as I came back out, not the left as we were coming in. I’m so sorry.” Even in the dim light of the small room they could see her blush down to her shoulders.
Kestrel backed out of the doorway and closed the door, then returned with Hampus to the big room.
“They’re a lot like us, aren’t they?” Hampus said. “The humans, I mean,” he added. “I thought they were so different, and sure the ears and some other things are different, but they don’t necessarily have to be bad, do they?” he mused rhetorically.
“So why aren’t you returning to the Eastern Forest?” he asked Kestrel again.
Kestrel listened to Hampus; his traveling companion had opened his eyes dramatically over the course of the trip. Hampus had not just become more physically proficient, he’d become more aware of the world, and all its complexity and richness. Kestrel’s goal had been given to him by Elder Miskel – to prevent Hampus from becoming the next member of the ruling family. And, in reality, Kestrel could say he had been successful in reaching that goal. He would send Hampus back with his reputation enhanced, but the elf who went back would not be the same parochial, closed-minded elf who had left Center Trunk. The Hampus who returned would be a much different, and better person, one who would bring an understanding to the palace of things beyond the narrow view of the Eastern Forest.
Kestrel felt a gentle smile on his lips. Miskel would be unhappy at first, but he’d come to realize that this was a better outcome.
“I’m going to go to another human land, a place called Seafare,” Kestrel answered Hampus’s question. “My daughter lives there, and I want to go see her. She’s mostly human, but partly elf, and I’d like her to know me and know that elves and humans aren’t so different,” he said.
They talked for nearly an hour after that, then spent another half hour debating who would sleep in the bed and who would sleep on the floor, because both were willing to let the other have the large, soft mattress. In the end, they decided they would let Putty have the bed, after Kestrel took the yeti out into the garden to allow her to attend to any needs she might have outdoors.
The halls of the manor house were dark at that hour, but Kestrel’s elven vision allowed him to maneuver around through the darkness, to find a side door that provided access to a large garden space on the side of the house. He led Putienne into the garden.
“Take a few minutes and make yourself comfortable before we go to bed for the night,” he told the yeti, as he yawned and settled into a seat on a small bench set between two rose bushes.
Putty looked at him inquisitively, but he made a waving motion with his hands that set her off in the direction of a thick-grown planting of shrubberies. The yeti had not proven to be an impossible companion to travel with so far in the first few hours of his stay in Kirevee. Whether the humans of Seafare and elsewhere would be so accommodating was an unanswerable question though.
Taking Putty with him beyond Seafare, on his potential visit to Moorin and the Southern Elves and gnomes, seemed even more problematic in all likelihood. Just finding a reliable source of food for the growing creature would be a challenge, beyond the issues of how she was accepted by those who saw her.
He spotted a cricket crawling among the detritus of the garden floor, and fell to his knees to trap the tasty morsel. At that moment there was a scream and a shout from the shrubbery when Putty had gone, and then Kestrel heard the monster howl in response.
He jumped to his feet and ran in the direction that his yeti had disappeared. He placed his hand on his hip to pull his knife free, then found that in the comfort and security of Lord Ripken’s Kirevee manor, he had left it in the room, while he walked Putty down to the garden unarmed.
“Lucretia!” he summoned the knife as he ran, and faintly heard a pane of glass shatter a second later.
He rounded a corner, heard a scuffling noise, and dove through the bushes of the shrubbery planting to reach Putienne before trouble broke loose. He landed on his hands and rolled forward in a somersault, letting his momentum bring him to his feet, as he gathered his wits and looked around at the scene in front of him.
He had come to stop in a spot that was halfway between Putty on his
left, and a pair of people on his right. He had a sense of impending action, and raised his hand, fingers extended, just in time to catch his arriving knife.
“Goddess above!” he heard a man’s voice exclaim.
There were sounds of feet running somewhere in the distance.
“Everything’s okay Putty; don’t worry,” Kestrel told his friend, then he looked at the two elves who stood just feet away from him.
They were familiar faces, people who he knew – and knew well – from his last visit to the Northern Elves. One was Lord Ripken, his unknowing host. And the other was the Princess Aurelia.
Chapter 26 – Flight with the Princess
My Lord!” Kestrel exclaimed. “It’s good to see you my lord. Please don’t be frightened – this is my yeti, my friend. I just brought her out here before we went to bed for the night,” he explained.
“This thing is safe? Who in the name of the first tree are you?” Ripken asked. He maneuvered to place himself in front of the princess, who was hastily wrapping a scarf around her head.
“I am Kestrel,” Kestrel replied simply. “Your visitor from last year.”
“I knew I recognized that accent!” the princess exclaimed. She stepped back in front of Ripken. “Kestrel! My second favorite elf!” she laughed, then stepped forward and hugged him tightly. “I knew you were on your way here. I just didn’t know when; I’m so glad you made it here in time for the wedding.
“Is it safe to be so close to this thing?” Ripken asked, glancing at Putty.
“Your highness,” Kestrel spoke moments later, separating himself from the princess, “may I introduce Putienne, my friend the yeti, who has traveled here from the Water Mountains with me.
“Putty, this is the princess Aurelia,” Kestrel introduced. “And that man is Lord Ripken. These are my friends. Be nice to them and help them.”
Ripken stepped forward. “Just like that! You show up, and introduce us to the tame yeti you’re traveling with! Any other surprises?”
“Hello? Who’s out there?” a voice called from somewhere in the garden. Another voice called from the other side of the garden at the same time, “Is there someone out there?”
The Guided Journey (Book 6) Page 27