“I’ll have them free in an hour. You’re overpaying five times the cost for this, you know,” the smith reached for and took the chain, so that he could lead the elves to his tools.
“Then feed them and give them decent clothes too, if you have any,” Kestrel said. “I’m going to run an errand. I’ll be back in an hour for my staff, my horse, and my elves.
“I’ll be back soon. Go with the smith,” he added in Elvish to the slaves, then walked towards the city and out of sight of the observers in the yard.
“Dewberry, Dewberry, Dewberry,” he called three time, reaching out with voice, heart and mind to summon his sprite friend, as he hid behind a small barn.
“Kestrel-elf, what place have you called me to in such chilly weather?” Dewberry appeared and asked.
“This is the land of the humans, a place called Green Water,” Kestrel answered. “I have a favor to ask.”
“You have two formal favors left to request; this shall be one of them,” Dewberry told him. “What would you have me do?”
“I have found two elves here, who have been held as slaves by humans, badly hurt and mistreated. I ask that this evening either you carry all three of us to the healing spring so that they may be made better, or that you bring some of the water of that spring back to me,” Kestrel answered.
“It would take many sprites to carry three elves, and that would take much effort. But you know I cannot touch the water myself to fill a bucket or skin to bring it back to you,” she said. “I’ll fall asleep. Is there something else we can do?”
Kestrel thought through the problems. “What if you just held the strap of a water skin and dipped it in the water, so that you never touched the water or the skin, but just the strap?” he suggested.
“That should work; you are such a bright boy! Do you have a water skin for me?” she asked, satisfied with Kestrel’s solution.
“I didn’t bring one with me, but come to me when the moon rises tonight, and I’ll have a skin or two ready,” he assured her.
“Where is Jonson?” he asked the small blue figure.
“Busy,” Dewberry said petulantly. “Ever since the honeymoon ended, he’s always busy. I get so bored sometimes.”
“Where is your human lover, or your elf lover?” she asked in return.
“I have no lover that I can call my own,” Kestrel replied, “not yet.
“Or wait!” he exclaimed. “Do you remember the elf woman we took to the spring with us? Alicia?”
“The one you undressed and laid with in the pool? I don’t know what the two of you did while we slept the wonderful sleep in the water,” she added.
“We didn’t do anything improper,” Kestrel insisted. “But that’s not the point,” he tried to redirect the conversation. “And besides, she’s married to an officer, and she betrayed me,” he re-interrupted himself.
“Do you love her?” Dewberry asked, reclining in the air and resting her head on her fists in a pose that Kestrel found fetching.
“How could Jonson stay away from anyone who looks as endearing as you do right now?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said emphatically. “I wish you would ask him that!
“But you haven’t answered my question,” she said.
“We are on friendly terms, but I do not love her,” Kestrel said.
“But the point is, she has several skins of water from the healing spring. If you can go to her right now and tell her that I have two injured elves who need the water, she could give you a skin, nice and dried and sealed, that you could bring to me right now,” he directed. “Her name is Alicia,” he reminded her.
“You want me to expose myself to this elf woman for you?” Dewberry asked.
“She’s already seen you,” Kestrel pointed out. “She’s seen you without clothes; you’ve seen her without 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.