The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  “Quite lovely,” she announced. “Very well, young Neb. As provision for you and your brother, you shall have a chamber of your own, meals in the great hall, and a set of new clothing each year. Will that be adequate?”

  Neb had to steel himself to bargain with the noble-born, but he reminded himself that without tools, he couldn’t practice his craft. “I’ll need coin as well, for the preparing of the inks and suchlike. I could just mix up soot and oak gall, but an important lord like your husband should have better. A silver penny a year should be enough. I hope I can find proper ink cakes and a mixing stone out here.”

  “The coin we have, thanks to the high king’s bounty.” Galla thought for a moment. “Now, I think you might find what you need in Cengarn. His grace my husband has been talking about riding to the gwerbret there, and so if he does, you can go with him.”

  “Splendid, my lady, and my thanks. But then there’s the matter of what I’m going to write upon. Fine parchments cost ever so much if you buy them, and I don’t know how to make my own. Even if I did, could you spare the hides? You can only get two good sheets from a calfskin, and then scraps like these.”

  “Oh.” Galla paused, chewing on her lower lip. “Well, I’d not thought of that, but if you can find parchment for sale, I’m sure we can squeeze out the coin to buy some, at least for legal judgments and the like.”

  “We can use wax-covered tablets for ordinary messages, if you have candle wax to spare. I can write with a stylus as well as a pen.”

  “Now that I can give you, and a good knife, too, for cutting your pens.” Much relieved, Galla smiled at him. “I’ve got a very important letter to write, you see. My brother has a daughter by his first wife, who died years and years ago. So he remarried, and now he and his second wife have sons and daughters of their own. The wife—well. Let’s just say that she’s never cared for her stepdaughter. There’s only so much coin at my brother’s disposal, and she wants to spend it on her own lasses. The wife wants to, I mean, not little Branna. That’s my brother’s daughter, you see, Lady Branna, my niece. So I’m offering to take the lass in, and if we can’t find her a husband, then she can live here as my servingwoman.” Lady Galla paused for a small frown. “She’s rather an odd lass, you see, so suitors might be a bit hard to find. But she does splendid needlework, so I’ll be glad to have her. It’s truly a marvel, the way she can take a bit of charcoal and sketch out patterns. You’d swear she was seeing them on the cloth and just following along the lines, they’re so smooth and even. And—oh here, listen to me! A lad like you won’t be caring about needlework. You run along now and make those tablets. I’ll have Coryn bring you wax and knives and suchlike.”

  “Very well, my lady, and my thanks. I’ll go hunt up some wood.”

  Neb took Clae with him when he went out to the ward, which, with the dun so newly built, lacked much of the clutter and confusion of most strongholds. Behind the main broch tower stood the round, thatched kitchen hut, the well, and some storage sheds. Across an open space stood the smithy, some pigsties and chicken coops, and beyond them the dung heap. A third of the high outer wall supported the stables, built right into the stones, with the ground level for horses and an upper barracks for the warband and the servants.

  “Neb?” Clae said. “We’ve found a good place, haven’t we?”

  “We have.” Neb looked at him and found him smiling. “I think we’ll do well here.”

  “Good. I want to train for a rider.”

  “You what?”

  “I want to learn swordcraft and join the tieryn’s warband.”

  Neb stopped walking and put his hands on his hips. Clae looked up defiantly.

  “Whatever for?” Neb said at last.

  “Because.”

  “Because what?”

  “You know.” Clae shrugged and began scuffing at one of the cobbles with his bare toes. “Because they killed everyone.”

  “Ah. Because the raiders destroyed our village?”

  Clae nodded, staring at the ground. Ye gods! Neb thought. What would Mam say to this?

  “Well, I can understand that,” Neb said. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’m going to do it.”

  “Listen, I’m the head of our clan now, and you won’t do one wretched thing unless I say you may.”

  Clae’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Oh, ye gods!” Neb snapped. “Don’t cry! Here, it’s all up to the captain, anyway. The Falcon. What’s-his-name.”

  “Gerran.” Clae wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “He’s too busy now. I’ll ask him when they get back.”

  “Very well, but if he says you nay, there’s naught I can do about it.”

  “I know. But he lost his mam and da, didn’t he? I bet he’ll understand.”

  “We’ll see about that. Now help me find the woodpile and an ax.”

  They found the woodshed behind the cookhouse and an ax as well, hanging inside the door. Neb took the ax down and gave it an experimental swing. In one corner lay some pieces of rough-hewn planks, all of them too wide and most too thick, but Neb couldn’t find a saw. He did find a short chunk of log, some ten inches in diameter, that had the beginnings of a split along the grain.

  “Here!” A man’s voice called out. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Neb turned around and saw a skinny fellow, egg bald, hurrying toward them. Above his bushy gray beard his pale blue eyes were narrowed and grim.

  “My apologies, sir,” Neb said. “But I’m about Lady Galla’s business.”

  “If she wanted a fire,” the fellow said, “she could have sent a servant to ask me. My name is Horza, by the by, woodcutter to this dun.”

  “And a good morrow to you, sir. I’m Neb, and this is my brother, Clae. I’m the new scribe, and I need wood for tablets. Writing tablets, I mean. They need to be about so long and—”

  “I know what writing tablets look like, my fine lad. Hand me my ax, and don’t you go touching it again, hear me?”

  “I do. My apologies.”

  Horza snorted and grabbed the ax from Neb’s lax grasp. For a moment he looked over the wood stacked in the shed, then picked up a short, thin wedge of stout oak in one hand. He set the thin wedge against the crack in the log and began tapping it in with the blunt back of the ax head. His last tap split the dry pine lengthwise. He let one half fall, then flipped the ax over to the sharpened edge and went to work on the other half. A few cuts turned it into oblongs of the proper length and thickness.

  “I’ll make you two sets, lad.” Horza picked up the remainder of the log. He treated it the same while Neb watched in honest awe at his skill.

  “These’ll have to be smoothed off and then scoured down with sand,” Horza said. “That’s your doing.”

  “It is, and a thousand thanks!” Neb took the panels with a little bow. “You’re a grand man with an ax.”

  “Imph.” Horza tipped his head to one side and looked the boys over. “Scribe, are you? What sort of name is Neb, anyway? Never heard it before.”

  “Well, it’s short for somewhat. My father was a man of grand ideas. He named me Nerrobrantos, for some Dawntime hero or other. And my brother’s name is truly Caliomagos.”

  “Or Neb and Clae, and the shorters are the betters, true enough. Now run along, lads. I’ve got work to do.”

  “My thanks. I’ll take these back to the great hall and work on them there.”

  As soon as Horza was out of earshot, Clae turned to Neb. “He’s got his gall talking about our names,” he said. “What kind of a name is Horza, anyway?”

  “A very old one,” Neb said, smiling. “His ancestors must have been some of the Old Ones, the people who already lived here when our ancestors arrived.”

  “Well, it sounds like a lass’s name.”

  “Their language must have been a fair bit different from ours, that’s all.”

  “Oh.” Clae considered this information for a moment, then shrugged. “Can I go play White Crow with the
pages? Coryn asked me.”

  “By all means. I’ll not need any help with this, anyway.”

  Neb took his tablets to a table by the servants’ hearth, where a bucket of sand stood ready to smother any sparks that found their way onto the straw-covered floor. He fetched some water in a pottery stoup, helped himself to a handful of sand, grabbed some straw from the floor, and set to work. He sprinkled the sand on the wood, then wet down the straw and used it to scour the splinters away.

  As he worked, he found himself wondering about this lass, Branna, whose life was going to be decided by the letter he would write on these tablets. Would anyone ask her opinion about being packed off to the rough border country? No doubt she’d have no more choice about it than he and Clae had had about Uncle Brwn’s farm. He felt a sudden sympathy for her, this lass he didn’t know, and found himself wondering if she were pretty.

  That night Neb and Clae shared a comfortable bed in a wedge-shaped room high up in the broch tower. They also had a wobbly table and two stools, a carved wooden chest to store whatever possessions they might someday have, and a brass charcoal brazier for the winter to come. The curved arc of the stone outer wall sported a narrow window, covered by a wooden shutter. In Arcodd at that time, these furnishings all added up to a nicely appointed chamber, suitable for an honored servitor to the noble-born.

  Although Clae fell asleep immediately, Neb lay awake for a little while and considered this sudden truth: he was indeed a tieryn’s servitor now, the head of what was left of their family and a man who could provide for that family, as well. He only wished that Uncle Brwn’s death hadn’t been the price. If they rescue Mauva, he thought, I’ll see if I can get her a place in the kitchen. Brwn would like that, knowing I’d taken care of her.

  When he fell asleep, he dreamed of Lady Branna, or rather, of a beautiful lass that his dream labeled Lady Branna. He could see her clearly, it seemed, in the great hall of some rough, poor dun. She sat in a carved chair near a smoky hearth, her feet up on a little stool to keep them from the damp straw covering the floor. A little gray gnome crouched by her chair. In the dream some man he couldn’t see announced, “the most beautiful lass in all Deverry.” Neb moved closer, smiling at her. She looked up, saw him, and smiled in return.

  “My prince, is it you?”

  Her voice sounded so real that he woke, half sitting up in bed. In the darkness Clae muttered to himself and turned over, sighing. Neb lay down again, and this time when he slept, he dreamed of nothing at all.

  Gerran woke well before dawn. Since he’d laid out his clothing the night before, he could dress by the faint starlight coming through the window. Even though he would have preferred sleeping out in the barracks with the other common-born riders, Tieryn Cadryc had insisted on giving him a chamber in the broch tower. Gerran was just buckling on his sword belt when he saw a crack of light beneath his door. Someone knocked.

  “Gerro?” Mirryn said.

  “I’m awake, truly.” Gerran swung the door open. “I wondered if you’d be up and about.”

  Mirryn gave him a sour smile. He carried a pierced tin candle lantern inside, then put it down on top of the wooden chest that held the few things Gerran owned. Neither of them spoke until Gerran had shut the door again.

  “I know it aches your heart,” Gerran said. “But I can understand why your father’s making you stay behind.”

  “Oh, so can I, but it doesn’t lessen the ache any.” Mirryn leaned against the curve of the wall. “The men are going to start thinking I’m a coward.”

  “Oh, here, of course they won’t! They heard your father give the order.”

  Mirryn cocked his head and considered him for a moment. “It’s an odd thing, the way you say that. Your father. He’s yours, too, a foster father truly, but—”

  “I’m not noble-born, and that makes all the difference in the world. It was an honorable fancy of the tieryn to treat me like one of his own when I was a lad, but I’m grown now.”

  “You’re still my brother in my eyes.”

  “And you in mine.” Gerran hesitated, then merely shrugged. “I’m grateful for that, but—”

  “But in the eyes of everyone else,” Mirryn said, “you’re not?”

  “Just that. Which is why your father will risk my life but not yours.”

  “I know that, and I suppose everyone else does, too, but ye gods, Gerro! What’s going to happen when I inherit the rhan? If I’ve never ridden to war, who’s going to honor me?”

  “It’s too cursed bad the gods saw fit to give you naught but sisters.”

  Mirryn laughed with a shake of his head. “I’ve never known anyone who could parry questions like you can.” He glanced out of the window. “Sky’s getting gray.”

  “I’d best get down to the stables. It’s not truly my place, but if I’m given the chance, maybe I can have a few words with his grace.”

  “Talk some sense into him.” Mirryn looked away with a sigh. “I might as well be another useless daughter if he’s going to keep me shut up in the dun.”

  By the time that Gerran saddled his horse, twenty men from the warband had begun to assemble in a ward flaring with torchlight. Gerran rode through the mass of men and horses, sorted out the riding order, and decided which men would lead the packhorses with the supplies. Behind them would come oxcarts with full provisions, but the carts traveled so slowly that they would doubtless only catch up to the troop in time to provision their ride home. Gerran was just telling the head carter about the route ahead when he saw the gerthddyn, mounted up and walking his horse into line. Gerran assigned him a place at the end of the riding order, and Salamander took it cheerfully with a small bow from the saddle. Gerran jogged back up the line and fell in next to Cadryc.

  “Your Grace?” Gerran said. “What’s that magpie of a minstrel doing along?”

  “Cursed if I know,” Cadryc said. “He begged me to let him ride with us for vengeance. Must be a good heart in the lad, for all he dresses like a stinking Deverry courtier.”

  “Vengeance? For what?”

  “Now, that’s a good question.” Cadryc paused, chewing on his mustaches. “He must have lost kin or suchlike to the raiders.” He shrugged the problem away. “I don’t see your foster brother anywhere. I thought he’d have the decency to come see us off at least.”

  “Well, your Grace,” Gerran said, “suppose he’d been happy to stay behind? Wouldn’t that have ached your heart?”

  Cadryc turned in the saddle, stared at him for a moment, then laughed, a rueful sort of mutter under his breath. “Right you are, Gerro,” the tieryn said. “Let’s get up to the head of the line. Sun’s rising.”

  Panting, swearing, the ten men left behind on fort guard hauled on the chains that opened the heavy gates. With one last heave and a curse, they swung them ajar, then dropped the chains and ran out of the way. Cadryc yelled out a command and waved his men forward at the trot.

  The warband traveled south through the tieryn’s rhan, that is, the vast tract of half-wild country under his jurisdiction, within which he could bestow parcels of land in return for fealty and taxes. Near the dun, the freeholds of the local farmers stood pale green with wheat, but ahead lay the pine forests, covering the broken tablelands of Arcodd province and beyond. The plateau itself stretched for nearly two hundred miles. To the west, it sloped down into lands marked on no Deverry map. To the north it steadily rose until it became the foothills of the Roof of the World.

  To the south, where the warband was heading, lay the rich farmland of the Melyn Valley, but once the men reached the edge of the forest cover, they turned west onto the dirt road that had so surprised Neb. Cadryc had levied a labor tax on his farmers to hack it out of the forest. No one had grumbled. They could see that its purpose was their safety.

  A few hours before sunset, the warband rode up to an open meadow. Cadryc called a halt, then leaned over his saddle peak to stare at the trampled grass.

  “Someone’s been here recently,” the tier
yn said. “Ye gods! If the raiders have found this road—”

  “Your Grace?” Salamander trotted his horse up to join them. “Allow me to put your mind at rest. I’m the culprit. It was on this very spot, it was, that Neb and Clae found me.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s a relief!” Cadryc turned in the saddle. “Gerran, have the men make camp.”

  They’d just gotten settled when Lord Pedrys, one of Cadryc’s vassals, rode in to join them. He brought ten men and supplies with him, and as usual, the young lord was game for any fight going. When Cadryc, Pedrys, and Gerran gathered around the tieryn’s fire to discuss plans, Pedrys had an inappropriate grin on his blandly blond face.

  “I wonder if we’ll catch them?” Pedrys said. “If the bastards are this bold, we’ve got a chance.”

  “Just so,” Cadryc said. “If nothing else, we can see if Lord Samyc’s still alive. He’s only got five riders in his warband, but I can’t see him sitting snug in his dun while scum raid his lands.”

  “True spoken,” Pedrys said. “Five riders! And you’ve got thirty all told, and me fifteen, and we can’t even spare all of them for rides like this. How, by the black hairy arse of the Lord of Hell, does our gwerbret expect us to defend the valley?”

  Cadryc shrugged and began chewing on the edge of his mustache. “We’re going to have to ask him just that. We need help, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “It’s all well and good to say that, Your Grace, but what can he do without an army?”

  “He’s going to cursed well have to send messengers down to Dun Deverry and beg the high king for more men.” Cadryc slammed one fist into the palm of his other hand. “I don’t give a pig’s fart if it aches his heart or not.”

  “I don’t understand why it does.” Pedrys sounded more than a little angry. “Ye gods, his own father was killed by Horsekin!”

  “True spoken. But the gwerbrets of Cengarn used to rule Arcodd like kings, didn’t they? Oh, they sent taxes to the high king’s chamberlain, and they made a ritual visit to court once a year, but still—” Cadryc shrugged. “The king never cared what they did out here. Now—well, by the hells! Everything’s changed.”