“Kestrel, I didn’t have just a few short years with him,” she replied, leaving off her tasks to come sit beside him. “Even when he’s been in a coma, I’ve had the memories and the knowledge of the love and the bliss of those years. They weren’t perfect by any means, but they were the best of my life, and I still feed off the love of them.”
She stood up. “I’m sure you’ll find that out for yourself someday, maybe someday soon.” She returned to her desk, and got there just as the door opened and Cosima and Gion entered the office.
“Well, look at who has come back again! He’s like that magpie you shoo away every morning, and every night he’s back to chatter and do mischief,” Cosima said. “Welcome back Kestrel. I see you’ve changed your looks once again. Are you going back out into the field?”
Kestrel held out his message tube and delivered it to the commander. “Hello Gion,” he said in a friendly tone to the guard who stood nearby.
“Hello Kestrel. Good to see you again,” Gion said heartily.
“I’ll go take a look at this, and then we can talk, if you don’t mind,” Cosima said, holding the tube. “Just remain here and keep Belinda company, but don’t disrupt her routine!” He spoke over his shoulder as he headed into his office and pulled the door closed behind him.
Kestrel returned to his seat and watched Belinda, as he thought about her answer to his question. He was haunted by the thought that in a few days he would be passing back through Estone again, with another chance to see Merilla, much sooner than he had expected. Was she his chance to find happiness? They’d really only spent a few days together, he realized, but the days had been intensive, constant exposure to one another, day and night, through their most intimate moments, and he’d found nothing about her that worried him, other than the fact that the goddess had sent Dewberry to keep them apart one time.
“Kestrel,” Cosima called as he opened his door, interrupting Kestrel’s musing, “come in here and we’ll talk.”
When Kestrel was settled into a seat in the office, Cosima began talking. “According to Silvan, you’re going out on a mission, and we need to sharpen your skills before you go, especially with horses. So I’m going to send you out on a horse to Green Water. It’s a small human harbor on the North Sea, at the foot of the Water Mountains. They ship mining goods out of there.
“Ride your horse to Green Water. Find out anything you think is interesting, then ride back here. That should be eight or nine days each way — plenty of riding. That’ll give Silvan time to send another message with further instructions. Did you know about that?” Cosima asked.
“He told me about it,” Kestrel affirmed.
“Good. Go tell Arlen what you’re going to do, and get on a horse as soon as possible,” Cosima ordered. “Any questions?”
“No,” Kestrel said after a moment’s thought. Within three hours, after a long, friendly reunion with Arlen, Kestrel was in the saddle and traveling alone to Green Water.
The journey was simple at first. He rode through the forest, past the nut gatherers, into more sparsely populated parts of the forest, and then into parts where there seemed to be virtually no one at all except the occasional settler. The forest switched to a large marsh, and he rode around the north end of that, taking a day of riding in the rain just to get past the bog. By then he was in an open country, with few trees and open plains which stretched without interruption until he reached the coast. He was eight days into his trip by then, and he and his horse were partners that understood one another very well.
For two more days he rode along the coastline, captivated by the beauty and the smell and the birds and animals that inhabited it. On the second day along the coast he rode through rain until he smelled smoke, and he came to farms and then his narrow road merged with a larger, busier one that came down out of the mountains that he could barely see through the misty rains, a road that led him directly into Green Water within another hour.
The town was both old and raw, it seemed. There were some structures that were aged and solid, such as the temple to Shaish, the goddess of the water. But most of the buildings were raw wood, looking cheap and temporary. Some were burnt shells, sitting empty along the main road that led from the south straight to the docks in the small harbor. The road was a busy one, with constant traffic, consisting mostly of mules carrying cargo towards the seafront.
“Come in, come in handsome man. We’ve got the best-looking women in the town. Come in while you’re still good-looking and you can have a discount,” a man called from a balcony where he stood above the street, sheltered from rain by a canvas awning, while a number of women sat idly by, paying attention to nothing in particular.
Kestrel rode on by, trying to figure out what the barker was selling. “How much for the horse?” another man asked as Kestrel continued down the road. “I’ll give you top dollar. You’ll have enough to outfit yourself for a good gold stake in the mountains,” he called as Kestrel passed. “Or enough to gamble for a week, longer if you’re good!” the horse-buyer offered.
Two men came stumbling out of a bar, walking into the road directly in front of his horse. Kestrel pulled up the reins to prevent an accident, and as he did, one of the men suddenly grabbed the halter, while another man came from behind Kestrel and tried to pull him out of the saddle.
Kestrel started to fall backwards. He flailed his left hand out wide, and grabbed hold of his staff. In one fluid motion he lifted it and swung it in a wide arc that struck solidly on the head of the man behind his back, who was trying to pull him down. The man let go and Kestrel struggled up, then swung his staff again, aiming for the man at the halter, and rapping his knuckles sharply.
He dug his heels into his horse’s ribs, not caring if he trampled the hijackers he had encountered, and swung his staff wide on each side as his horse jumped in response to his command. The trio around him scattered in self-preservation, and Kestrel reined his horse around, and rode carefully back away from the center of town, past the places that he had seen.
After fifteen minutes he came back to the quieter part of the city, the eastern edge, away from the mountain road, and away from the dockyard. He saw a blacksmith shop that appeared to have a stable, and he rode into the yard, where he dismounted.
“Can I leave my horse here in your stables?” he asked a boy who was crossing the yard with a pail of water in each hand.
“Hold on!” the boy shouted as he hurried on his way into the forge. He came back out two minutes later, as Kestrel dismounted and waited with his horse.
“Here he is,” the boy called over his shoulder, and a large man came out behind him.
“What do you need?” the apparent blacksmith asked.
“I wondered if I could stable my horse here while I go into the town,” Kestrel restated his intention.
“Why?” the blacksmith asked simply.
Kestrel told his tale. “So it seems safer on foot, maybe,” he ended, suddenly wondering if he had any cause at all to really go into the city. His test had been to ride and bond with the horse, he felt, not to brawl and get robbed pointlessly.
“You fought off three of them?” the blacksmith asked.
“With my staff,” Kestrel reached back and rested his hand on the length of wood demonstrably.
“I tell you what,” the blacksmith said. “I won’t rent a stall in my stables,” he saw the look of disappointment on Kestrel’s face, and held a hand up. “But for a customer I would let your horse stay here at no charge while I do a job for you.”
“I have no work I need done,” Kestrel protested.
“Sure you do,” the blacksmith said. “In Green Water you need to have metal caps on the ends of your staff. It’s a much more effective tool. I’ll fabricate and install ends on your staff for you for five silvers, while your horse stays here, and you can borrow one of my staffs to carry into town. How does that sound?”