clothes. This will be a surprise at first for her, but not a shock. She won’t scream like Merilla did.”
“Which of us do you like better without clothes? You’ve seen me, the elf, and the human — which of us is most beautiful?” she seemed sincere in her question.
Kestrel paused and looked at Dewberry, realizing that she had a serious interest in his answer, that she needed to feel her beauty affirmed. Her groom’s choice to ignore her was hurting her, he could tell. “You are the bluest,” he grinned as she stuck her tongue out at him, “and blue is my favorite color. So you are the most beautiful to me. If you weren’t already married, I might try to ravish you myself right now!”
“I knew it!” Dewberry said triumphantly. “You did unclothe me the first time we met, simply out of desire!” She darted in close to him, grabbed his face with both her hands, and kissed him soundly upon the lips.
“I’ll go to the less beautiful Alicia, tell her that her beauty pales in comparison to my own, and ask for a skin of healing water,” Dewberry recited her plan.
“Wait! Wait,” Kestrel hastily interjected. “First, tell her that I have two wounded elves who need help, then ask for the skin of water. Then, after you have the water, then you can tell her that you are most beautiful to me.”
“Okay, Kestrel, elf lover-friend, that is what I will do. Then I will bring the water back to you. Then I will go tell Jonson that you are madly in love with me,” she listed her objectives and disappeared within seconds.
Kestrel sat down against the side of the barn, closed his eyes, and smiled at the memory of Dewberry’s infectious good humor and enthusiasm. He sat silently as the minutes passed, then opened his eyes when Dewberry called his name.
She stood on the ground before him, at eye level as he sat, and proudly held a skin out before her.
“She was glad to see me visit, once she got over the fright,” Dewberry narrated. “She was worried that you needed the skin, and wanted to come take care of you herself, but I explained that you were fine, and that this water was for other elves you had met.
“So she gave me a skin, and told me to tell you that she is thinking about you,” Dewberry continued, then gave a devilish grin. “That’s when I told her that you had selected me as more beautiful than her or the human! She scowled, and said, ‘Go away blue pest! Don’t come back for his sake any more’, and so I came back here!
“It was a triumph!” Dewberry concluded.
“Yes it was,” Kestrel agreed, reaching for the water skin. He stood up. “I have to go treat my men,” he told her. “And you need to go tell Jonson about your conquests today.”
“I will, friend Kestrel. Thank you so much for cheering me up today!” Dewberry said brightly, and then disappeared.
Kestrel strolled back to the smithy, water skin hanging from his hand, and entered the building to find one elf already unshackled, and the other nearly so. “Here, have a drink of this,” Kestrel instructed them in Elvish, handing the skin over as the smith looked up at the strange language.
“I’ll tell my boy to get some food for your slaves,” the smith said, “as soon as I finish this,” he grunted the last word as he swung his hammer to strike a link in the shackle around one of the ankles of the elf at the anvil.
There was a mighty crack, and the shackle fell away. The smith motioned for the elf to switch locations of his feet, and the still shackled leg rose to the anvil in place of the freed one. The smith placed the chisel on the link he selected to break, then lifted the hammer and swung it to a crashing explosion, removing that shackle as well, so that the chains fell from the elf, and both former slaves were free.
The smith stood and stretched his back, and Kestrel took the water skin from the elf who held it, and offered it to the human. “Have a drink if you want. It’s good water; it’ll make you feel better.”
The smith took the bag without comment and squirted a stream down his throat then handed the skin back to Kestrel and bellowed for his boy. “Bring a feast for these three — whatever’s available in the larder,” he told the youth.
“Your slaves are free now. So you intend to set them free in the forest?” he turned to Kestrel.
“Yes. I’ll take the long way about to get to back to Estone city,” Kestrel replied.
“And you were able to go into town and just buy them from a gambling hall?” the smith asked, as his servant arrived with a bag of foods.
“I won a lot of money playing their games, and it was cheaper for them to give me the slaves than my winnings,” Kestrel simplified what had happened. “We’ll just take the bag and be on our way, if you don’t mind,” Kestrel told the smith.
He didn’t distrust the human, but he had no feeling that he could completely trust him either, and he needed to start the journey back, knowing that it would be slowed down by the weakened and crippled condition of his new acquaintances.
“Go right ahead; for what you’ve paid today, you can keep the sack,” the smith grinned. “Here’s your own staff back too,” he pulled it off a table top and tossed it to Kestrel.
“Can you bring our horse out from the stable?” Kestrel asked the boy, who immediately ran to do so.
“He’s obedient; you need to keep him around,” Kestrel grinned at the smith.
“He’s my own son; he listens better than I did at that age,” the man agreed.
Kestrel switched languages, as he spoke to the two elves whose heads had turned back and forth, following the conversation. “We’re going to start back home now. I have a horse, and I want you two to ride it today, and maybe for a few days,” he instructed them. “I know you don’t like the idea, but I want to get away from here as fast as we can, just to be safe, and the horse will help speed our departure.”
They looked at him, then looked at each other. “We understand. We don’t like it, I’m sure you know, but we’ll do it,” one of the two answered.
They walked out into the yard, where Kestrel helped both men climb atop the saddle, and he instructed them to hold on.
“I’ve got one question,” the smith said as they readied to leave. “Are you human or elf? I know I shouldn’t have to ask, but you almost seem like one of them somehow.”
“I am human,” Kestrel said, then turned away and started the horse in motion with him. “And elf too,” he added softly as they left the yard.
He led the horse to walk at his pace for several minutes until they were safely away from the blacksmith shop and moving out towards the farms along the road. “Hold on tight,” he spoke up to the elves, “we’re going to pick up the pace.” He broke from his walk into a full Elven running stride, and the horse immediately began to move at a brisk trot beside him, as the riders exclaimed and grabbed on tightly to the saddle and each other.
For the rest of the day, until sunset was nearly complete, they continued to pass rapidly away from Green Water, passing along the shore of the North Sea, and finally turning inland to settle in for the night in a camping spot.
“Let’s stop here,” Kestrel said at last, breathing hard as he reined the horse to a stop beside him. “You can climb down. You’ll be sore,” Kestrel advised as he helped the former slaves off the horse.
“Here,” he tossed them the water skin. “Both of you take a drink from this, but not a lot. It comes from a special spring, and if we give you some each day for the next few days, plus feed you some food, you’ll be nothing but better.”
“Master, who are you?” the taller of the two elves asked.
“I am an elf, made to look like a human,” he replied. “I’ll tell you more after I tend to the horse and we set up camp. If you can gather some wood, we’ll start a small fire.”
They went about their tasks, and several minutes later they sat down together in the darkness, illuminated only by the small fire and the stars overhead, unaware that the guards from the gambling hall had visited the blacksmith with a band of supporters, seeking information about the whereabouts of Kestrel and the elves, intending to take the slaves back and to slay Kestrel for his humiliation of the manager.
“Who are you?” Termine, the taller of the two asked.
Kestrel talked about himself in a limited way, hiding much, but revealing enough to provide a plausible tale for the two former slaves to understand how he had come to be in Green Water. “And then the goddess blessed the cubes I tossed, so that I won every time, and soon the gamblers owed me more than they could pay, so I took you two as payment, and here we are,” he concluded.
“Now, tell me your story, how you came to be slaves, and how you came to be in Green Water,” Kestrel
