The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 04 - A Foreign Heart Read online

  He saw the clothing boutique just ahead, and noted that only a single candle appeared to be lit within, as the streets of the city settled into twilight. At the window he peered inside, for the door was locked, and he saw the sales girl walking about among the goods carrying a candle with her.

  Kestrel knocked loudly on the door, and the girl came over. “We’re closed,” she called loudly inside, then recognized Kestrel and came right up to the glass in the door, just inches from him. “We’re closed now,” she repeated in a gentler tone.

  “Is Picco still here?” Kestrel asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

  “Your lady friend left right after you did,” the girl spoke through the glass, looking past Kestrel at Dewberry and Stillwater, as they floated behind him.

  “Blast that girl!” Kestrel said in exasperation. “Dewberry, Stillwater, would the two of you go down the road towards the country, go try to find her? Come and get me if you find her,” he said. “I’ll go back to the townhouse just to make sure she hasn’t gone back there.

  “I’ll call you if I find her,” he told them, “Thank you,” he said absently to the entranced sales girl before he turned to go, and then he took off, sprinting at a rapid pace on his route through the city streets to reach the torn and troubled townhouse where he had a faint hope that he might find Picco packing to leave.

  He was surprised when the servants at the house confirmed that Picco had indeed come to the house. She had taken the last horse left in the stables, and told the staff she was on her way to the estate home. Treybon, the butler, gave Kestrel another hat to wear over his ears, and directions on the way he should travel to the estate, Sunny Cliffs, it was named, and then Kestrel was off with thanks from the staff for his efforts to protect the girl.

  “We have not been able to find her,” Stillwater told Kestrel two hours later, as the elf ran through the last outskirts of the city. He had looked carefully along his way as he had passed through the city, but had seen no sign of Picco either.

  “She was riding on a horse, and had at least an hour’s head start before us,” Kestrel tried to calculate, but could reach no conclusions about how far the girl might have gone.

  “She is running from you, Kestrel ravager, and so she would not be likely to stop early in the evening,” Dewberry said helpfully.

  “Did I hear Jonson calling you?” Kestrel asked, knowing that Dewberry was probably right.

  “Can you hear sounds all the way from the Morass?” Stillwater gullibly asked in wonder.

  “I will go,” Dewberry said, “And so you will have neither the human nor me to gaze upon tonight. Call me when you need my charm to brighten your day, Kestrel friend!” the sprite told the grinning Kestrel, and then disappeared.

  “I’ll go a little further and then I’m going to stop for dinner at a tavern,” Kestrel told Stillwater, who remained with him. “If you want to go off on your own for a while, you’re welcome to do so,” he dismissed his companion, then settled into a steady jogging pace that he felt would be faster than a horse’s walking pace. He would make up as much ground as he could in the early evening, and then spend the daylight hours the following day searching for Picco along the road.

  The next stretch of countryside he passed through was an empty one, until nearly an hour after Stillwater’s departure, when he reached a sizable crossroads village, where the inn looked clean and reputable enough for Kestrel to decide to finally eat dinner, his first meal in some time he realized.

  The innkeeper gave him a room, and Kestrel sat by himself in a dim corner of the public room, drawing little attention as he ate two bowls of stew and drank an ale. He heard much laughter from a party in a private room, but paid no attention to it until the end of the meal,

  “No, I can’t drink any more. I can’t play any more games. I just want to go to bed and dream about my elf lover,” he heard Picco’s slurred voice speak from the jovial private party, and he sprang to his feet in astonishment.

  “No my lady, you can stay here and have another round with us, and we’ll find something much better than an elf lover for you,” a man spoke in an equally drunken tone of voice.

  “No, let me go,” Picco’s voice held no panic or fear, but it seemed insistent, and Kestrel heard the sound of chairs pushing back across the wooden floor of the room. He hopped over his table and stepped straight to the closed door of the room, then stopped. He pulled his staff off of his back, and then pushed the door open.

  “Private party – butt out,” a young man, dressed as a commoner, spoke in a peremptory voice to Kestrel.

  “You can keep your private party, but the lady is leaving,” Kestrel said firmly.

  “Oh, how, won-der-ful!” Picco drew out each syllable. “Here’s my elf lover now, come to fulfill my dreams. Thank you for coming Kestrel,” Picco stood and held out her hand to Kestrel. The table in the room was filled with a few empty plates and many empty wine skins.

  The commoner was one of four men in the room with Picco, and they all stood with an air of sullen hostility, displeased by Kestrel’s interference.

  Kestrel placed the end of his staff on the floor in front of him, and positioned his hands to be ready to swing it quickly.

  “Come on Picco,” he said as his eyes scanned all the men, “come around behind me.”

  A man standing next to her, clamped his hand firmly on her shoulder and started to try to force her to sit down, but Kestrel intervened.

  The end of his staff rose from the floor and cracked the bottom of the man’s chin, knocking him unconscious and causing him to fall backwards into his chair. Kestrel’s staff continued on in a swinging motion, flying from its first victim to whack the side of the skull of a second man, then Kestrel drove the other end of the staff into the midriff of the man who had first spoken, knocking the breath from him and leaving him doubled over, soundlessly gasping.

  “Why don’t you keep your health and let the lady depart peacefully?” Kestrel stared into the eyes of the only remaining unharmed drunk.

  The man soundlessly nodded yes, and sat down. Kestrel stepped around the table and took Picco’s hand, then led her out of the room.

  “You’re always around to rescue me, aren’t you Kestrel?” she said dreamily, laying her head upon his shoulder as she walked with him through the public room, where the couple was followed by the eyes of several people who had heard the brief altercation.

  “Not quite always, little mouse,” he said fondly as he led her upstairs. “Let’s go to my room,” he told her.

  “Will we make love?” she asked.

  “Not you and I; not tonight,” he told her. “We’ll just make sure you get a good night’s sleep, and then we’ll spend all day tomorrow lecturing you about not trying to run away from me.

  “Here, take a long drink of this,” he offered her the skin of water from the healing spring when they reached the top of the stairs, in hopes of preventing a hangover.

  “No lectures tonight,” she smiled at him, then yawned after drinking the water and handing the skin back to him.

  They slept together that night in Kestrel’s bed without interruption or trouble, and in the morning they began their journey together to visit Sunny Cliffs.

  Chapter 7 – Interlude at the Seaside

  The next morning Picco awoke with a sense of deep regret, remorse over her actions the night before, as well as some regret over Kestrel having caught her, as she flailed about trying to come to terms with the tragedy and events of recent days. They wordlessly left the inn and traveled in silence as Kestrel waited for the girl to feel ready to unburden her heart, while she failed to feel ready to do so. He notified the imps that he had found Picco, then dismissed them to tend to their own lives, while he and Picco traveled along and she carried out her private grieving.

  The following day, around noon, Picco stopped her horse as they rounded a bend in the road. For the first time, the sea came into view. Kestrel had smelled the faint tang of the wat
ers, but he had never actually seen any of the Inner Seas, the bodies of water that carried commerce, and in these days, war and strife, among the various kingdoms of the humans.

  “There’s the estate,” Picco said, drawing Kestrel’s attention to a low-slung, white home that appeared to sprawl across the top of a seaside cliff. They rode in silence to the empty house, where Picco dismounted in a courtyard, as Kestrel stood by. Kestrel cautiously pulled his knife from his sheath on his hip, and walked alongside Picco as she approached the main door, which stood partially ajar.

  Inside, the main hall and the adjoining rooms looked forlorn and ransacked.

  “Is this new?” Kestrel asked. “Could there be scavengers in the house?”

  “No,” Picco said sadly. “This is the way they left it. Mother is over in the den,” she motioned down the hall, and Kestrel walked with her to a small room that had a wall of windows looking out over the sea. The body of Picco and Creta’s mother sat slumped over in a cushioned chair.

  “Mother used to love to sit here and stare out at the sea. Father died out there in a storm one spring, when I was young, and mother would sit and watch the waves and dream that he was going to come sailing home someday, so they could be together again,” Picco told Kestrel contemplatively.

  “Now they are together again,” Kestrel told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to squeeze her in a comforting hug.

  “Yes, I’m sure they are,” Picco agreed, as she turned her face into Kestrel’s chest. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said softly, and then she began to cry, great gulping sobs that seemed to last for ages, as Kestrel listened to her pour out her pain.

  “I’d give anything in the world to be able to comfort you,” Kestrel said softly.

  “I just wish I could see her and talk to her one more time to tell her that I love her so much,” Picco sobbed.

  Kestrel squeezed her, and closed his eyes as tears of sympathy welled in his own eyes. He thought of his own mother, who had died so young, and then he opened his eyes in surprise as he felt an energy welling up within him, a gentle, pulling energy that felt like a magnet, except a magnet that would draw love and compassion, not metal.

  The body of Picco’s mother glowed with a warm yellow light, and then an ethereal spirit rose from the body and stood up above the flesh, facing Kestrel and Picco. The spirit was a woman, and in the features of the face Kestrel saw the confirmation of what he didn’t doubt, that the spirit was Picco’s mother.

  “Picco dear,” the spirit’s warm voice called softly, making Picco jump against Kestrel in surprise. Her eyes popped open and she whirled in Kestrel’s arms, her back pressed against his chest as she stared at the apparition.

  “Mother? Mother!” she screamed and she ran to the spirit, her arms held wide to grab the spirit, but her arms passed through the outline of the woman without contact.

  She backed against Kestrel again. “Mother, is it you? Are you really here? Mother, I love you so much!”

  “I know you do, sweet heart. I always knew,” the mother said gently. “Your love has always been such a comfort to me,”

  “How are you here?” Picco asked.

  “Your friend brought me here,” the spirit gestured towards Kestrel. “He has great power, and he opened a window for me to come and comfort you.”

  “He is an incredible man! He’s the one I told you about, the one who saved our lives,” Picco’s hand groped for Kestrel’s, then squeezed it.

  “I am at peace, dear. I’m going to go reunite with your father, now that I’ve spoken to you. Thank you for coming for me,” the spirit told Picco.

  “And thank you for enabling this,” she looked up at Kestrel. “My Picco is not the one for your heart, your foreign heart, but you will be the means that will help her to find the one she is meant for, just as I know you will travel a long road to someday find the one you are meant to share life with. I hope you both have a love as wonderful as the romance Anders and I had.

  “Good bye, sweet Picco. I love you and Creata. You have both been such good people and you’ve made me proud,” the spirit said one last time. “Be at peace,” were its final words, as she melted down back into the body in the chair, while Kestrel felt the use of his powers come to an end.

  Picco gave another series of sobs, a combination of pain and joy at having parted in peace with her mother.

  “Thank you Kestrel,” she told the silent, stunned elf. “I didn’t know you planned to do that. I didn’t know you had such abilities! You are an extraordinary person, absolutely unpredictable and extraordinary!”

  “I didn’t know that would happen,” Kestrel said softly. “I don’t understand the powers the goddess has given me; I had no idea that was possible. But I’m glad you are able to find some peace, and to give your mother peace as well.” They stood silent in a tight, emotional hug for several long minutes.

  “I need to prepare mother for burial,” Picco said at last. “Have you ever sailed a ship?” she asked Kestrel, looking up into his face.

  He thought back to the disastrous sojourn he had taken on the Estonian cutter in the north seas two winters previous. “I’ve never done any sailing that returned to land,” he answered, drawing a strange look from Picco.

  “I want to bury her at sea, to help her be with dad,” Picco explained. She went and found clothing and jewelry, then took Kestrel to get a large, beautifully woven tapestry that they lifted her mother’s body upon, then rolled the material around her. Picco led Kestrel as he struggled to carry the load through the house and down a long set of stairs that led to a boathouse on the water.

  “I need to go change into my blue dress now,” Picco told Kestrel. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told him as she started to climb back up the staircase. Minutes later she came down again, and opened the boat house doors, then selected a vessel for their jaunt, and launched the boat after Kestrel and her mother were securely in place.

  “I have been sailing boats since I was six, “she assured Kestrel as they moved away from the shoreline. Several minutes later, when the shore was no longer in sight, they removed some of the boat’s ballast stones and added them to her mother’s wrapping, and after a simple prayer by Picco, Kestrel dropped the body over the side and watched it sink rapidly out of sight into the chilly water of the sea.

  “I know they’re together now,” Picco said as she stared at the water. It was late afternoon when they returned to the boat house and closed it up, then climbed the stairs back to the estate home.

  “We could go back to Graylee right now, couldn’t we?” Picco asked somberly as she stood on the patio and looked out at the sea. “You could call your imps, and we would be gone.

  “I’d rather stay here tonight, if you don’t mind,” she told him.

  “Odare,” Kestrel called softly, “Odare, Odare.”

  “My missing elf hero Kestrel, hello,” the blue imp said as soon as she arrived. “I thought that you had forgotten me,”

  “No, Odare! Of course not; you are unforgettable!” Kestrel replied. “How are things at the palace in Graylee?”

  “It is a happy place,” the imp told him. “Lady Wren and Creata seem most appreciative of one another’s company.”

  “Then they do not need either of us to return to the palace immediately?” Kestrel asked.

  “I have heard no one complain about your absence, my friend,” Odare told him. “They’re busy making everyone drink that water you brought.”

  “That’s all I need to know, my friend. We are going to spend the night here, and we’ll return tomorrow,” Kestrel told the imp. “Would you go back and tell the folks that?”

  “Of course, my demigod leader,” Odare answered. “I will see you tomorrow,” she added, and then was gone.

  “What are you, Kestrel?” Picco asked. “The imp may have had the right of it, calling you a demigod.”

  “I’m not a demigod, I’m just hungry,” he answered, hoping to avoid the topic, one for whic
h he still had no explanation. “Are there pantries we can visit?”

  After Picco changed out of her blue dress, she took Kestrel on a tour of the home. Many rooms remained intact, not bothered by the soldiers who had come and captured Picco and killed her mother. They soon reached the kitchen, where the larder and the pantry produced enough food for Kestrel to cook in the fireplace while Picco straightened up part of the house.

  Picco brought a bottle of wine to the kitchen, and they ate and drank as the room grew dark, except for the flickering illumination of the cooking fire.

  “Will we have time tomorrow for me to go to the village and find servants who can come back to the home and tend to it?” Picco asked Kestrel as they ate the last bites.

  He felt no urgency to return to Graylee. He knew he had more work ahead of him in the battle to defeat the Viathins and Uniontown, but the victory at Graylee had been a tremendous one, and he sensed there was time to relax before preparing for the next phase of the campaign. And Philip’s revelation about Margo had unsettled his desire to hurry up to the manor by the mountains.

  “Who will it be, Kestrel?” Picco asked after a drink of wine and a long silence. “Who will you chose to be my husband?”

  He spit out his own mouthful of wine in surprise. “I’m not going to choose your husband,” he answered. He thought back to the cryptic prediction the spirit of Picco’s mother had made. “I think she said I would help you find your mate, not pick one out.”

  “it’s all been so funny, or maybe sad,” Picco said. She moved around the table and sat on Kestrel’s lap, resting her head against his. “All this time, since we first met, I’ve been pining away for you, while you’ve been pining away for Margo, and neither of us will end up getting the one we thought we wanted.

  “He’s not as good as you, of course, Margo’s betrothed, I mean,” she said. “A nice enough fellow, and absolutely devoted to her. She’ll never have to lift a finger when he’s around if she doesn’t want to.