The Guided Journey (Book 6) (28 page)

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?”

“Ripken!” the princess hissed in a low voice.

“I know,” he answered.

Ripken turned to Kestrel again.

“We don’t wish to be seen together,” the nobleman said hastily.  “But we seem to have called trouble in upon ourselves.”

Kestrel’s eyes widened.  The princess was on the eve of her wedding, and he had found her and Ripken meeting covertly in his garden.  Now, because of their startled shouts upon meeting the yeti, they were in danger of being found together.

“How can we help?” Kestrel asked.

“Thank you Kestrel,” Ripken said gratefully.  “I’ll go lead the searchers away from here, if you’ll escort the princess back to the palace.  She knows the way to discreetly reach the back entrance of course.”

Aurelia was wrapping the scarf around her head, covering her face except for her eyes.  It reminded Kestrel of when he had seen her before, during the tournament in the previous summer, when she had strolled about the tourney grounds with Lucretia, disguised with a veil covering her face.

“Such a pretty face to cover up,” he murmured, not meaning to speak aloud.

“I understood that despite your accent,” the princess said.  “Ripken, you’ll need to watch out for our suave young hero; he may steal my heart away!”  She laughed and kissed the nobleman on the cheek, then took Kestrel’s hand and started to lead him through the garden.

“Come on Putty,” Kestrel urged the yeti, wanting it to follow closely.

“I’m here, over here!” they heard Ripken’s voice shout, moving away from them at a quick pace as he starting running towards a far corner of the garden to draw the searchers away from Kestrel and Aurelia.

“Must the yeti come with us?” Aurelia asked as they ducked under branches and wove around flower beds, until they came to a tiny door in a brick wall.

“What choice is there?” Kestrel asked.  “I can’t leave her here; that would raise a ruckus, and she might get hurt, or hurt someone else.”

Aurelia opened the door and passed through, followed by Kestrel, and then by Putty, who ducked and scraped the sides as she squeezed out of the garden.

“We’ll make do with her, I’m sure,” Aurelia said.  She released his hand, and started walking along the wall, in the deep shadows of a row of trees that grew alongside the wall as well.  They came to an alley and turned down it, then froze in place when a boisterous group of people walked past the other end.

Kestrel followed Aurelia silently, anticipating trouble at any moment.  He was ready to call the sprites
instantly to lift them away from being caught.  He wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that he had interrupted a liaison between the soon-to-be-married princess and the high-ranking nobleman who was one of her family’s closest advisors.  They were both people he esteemed highly; the thought of them as a couple made perfect sense, but for the two of them to act illicitly seemed far out of character.

“Did you say you were expecting me?” he asked, as he suddenly recollected her unusual comment earlier in the garden.

“Ssshh,” she said.  She grabbed his hand, and silently led him out into the city street, straight across it, and into an alley on the far side.

“What was that?” a voice called from the streets.

“Squirrel dung,” the princess muttered a mild curse.  She increased her pace, starting to trot with Kestrel’s hand still in her grasp.

There was a scrabbling noise at the end of the alley.  “There it is,” a voice called.

They passed a doorway, and Kestrel jerked Aurelia to a stop.

“In here,” he whispered, as he pressed the door open and ushered Putty in ahead of him.

The room they entered was empty.

“Stillwater, Stillwater, Stillwater,” Kestrel called urgently.

The imp appeared, and Aurelia gave a frightened squeak.

“I need help – immediately,” Kestrel said, “Can you transport us out of here this instant?” he asked before the imp even spoke.

Mulberry, Acanthus, and Odare arrived a moment later.  “We do not have enough on such short notice, my friend,” Stillwater explained.

They heard people outside in the alley.

“Take the princess; take her up to the top of the tower and wait until I call you to return,” Kestrel ordered.

“No,” Aurelia instantly said.  “Don’t let them see the yeti; she’ll be harder to explain and keep this whole affair quiet.”

She looked into Kestrel’s eyes with a pleading expression.   “As a friend, I beg that you stay here with me, and send the yeti to a safe hiding place.”

“Do it, Stillwater,” Kestrel said without hesitation, responding to the plea of a friend.  “Take Putty.”

“You wait for me, and everything will be fine,” Kestrel grabbed the yeti’s cheeks in his hands and spoke directly into her face.  “You’ll be okay, and I’ll be there soon,” he promised, as the imps swarmed around the yeti.

Kestrel stepped back, the large bundle of imps and yeti disappeared, Aurelia grabbed him and pulled him down onto the ground atop her, and the door swung open as a guardsman with a lantern, a member of the city patrol, burst in upon them.

“Thank you Kestrel,” the princess said.  “Everything will be okay now.”