The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  “Are you tired, dear?” Galla said. “You seem a bit pale.”

  “No doubt I do.” Omaena paused for a smile. “Soon I’ll be having to wear my kirtle high, you see.”

  “Oh, how wonderful!” Branna said. “Your first child!”

  Omaena, a limp little person despite her flaming red hair, smiled daintily. “I’m so pleased. Of course, we’re both hoping that the goddess will bless us with a son.”

  “Of course.” Branna managed to suppress the irritation, bordering on anger, that she felt every time she heard this conventional sentiment. “But a daughter later, I hope.”

  “Oh, so do I,” Omaena said, “I should love to have a daughter after I’ve done my duty to my lord.”

  With a quick knock on the door, Midda came bustling in, leading a procession of servants with various refreshments, a flagon of Bardek wine, a pitcher of spring water, little cakes, and cheeses. After they left, Branna busied herself with organizing the food on a narrow table, then poured wine and water for the two ladies.

  “Won’t you have some, dear?” Galla said.

  “Water’s enough for me. Wine makes me feel so hot, and it’s quite hot enough already.”

  In truth, Branna disliked the muddled feeling wine induced, but the excuse satisfied her aunt. Branna brought over her workbasket and mended various rips in one of Mirryn’s shirts while the older women chatted about babies, their delivery and care, until, soon enough, the topic shifted to gossip.

  “I had a rather sad letter from Solla of Cengarn,” Galla said. “It’s really time for her brother to marry, and she was wondering if she could have a place here as one of my servingwomen after he did. She seems convinced that she’ll be unwelcome in his dun.”

  “Oh, please!” Omaena rolled her eyes. “She probably will be, but I’ll wager that’s not why she wrote to you.”

  “What?”

  Omaena smirked, then helped herself to more watered wine before she continued. “It’s your husband’s captain,” Omaena said. “The poor lass is absolutely besotted with Gerran, common-born or not.”

  “She is?” Branna could feel herself grinning. “How wonderful!”

  Omaena turned in her chair and gave her a puzzled look while Galla stifled a laugh.

  “It seemed to me,” Omaena said, rather stiffly, “that the situation was more difficult than wonderful.”

  “Truly?” Branna arranged her best vacuous expression. “I was just thinking that true love’s always so splendid.”

  “I suppose that at your age I would have thought the same,” Omaena said. “May I have another of those little cakes, Galla dear? I seem to be so hungry these days.”

  Branna returned to her mending with a sense of deep relief. She had never wanted to break anyone’s heart, much less Gerran’s, whom she’d known and liked all her life. With a beauty like Solla to console him, his heart would doubtless remain in one piece. I want to marry Neb, she thought. There! I’ve put it into words.

  The morning of the tourney dawned clear and hot. Servants carried benches and chairs for the ladies and Tieryn Cadryc down to the meadow behind the dun and set them up at the head of the marked contest ground. The men in the warbands sat on the ground along the sides, though well back from the ribands in case one of the fighters came crashing through. Thanks to Lord Veddyn’s great age, his bench had a back, and Neb had brought a cushion for the chamberlain to sit upon.

  When Neb sat down next to Veddyn, Branna made sure to get her chair placed beside his bench and on his side of it, too. Omaena sat next to her, but fortunately she was in the middle of an earnest conversation with Galla about, of course, babies. Neb grinned at Branna and slid over until they were but a few feet apart.

  Branna had seen so many of these mock combats over the years that they profoundly bored her. They all followed the same pattern: the men of the warband would pair off, then fight, one pair at a time, with wooden sword and wicker shield till one combatant made three touches on the other. The winners of the first round formed new pairs and so on until only one pair was left for the final round. During this predictable course of action, the riders wagered furiously before each combat, then yelled and cheered their favorites on during them.

  After the first round had run its course, Gerran brought out his pages and introduced them to the assembled warbands. While the men who were going to fight in the second round rested, the two older pages, Coryn and Clae, showed off what they’d been learning. The boys carried small wooden swords and cut down wicker shields, and each wore a little helm, again made of wicker, to protect their young heads.

  The lads faced off, then began to spar, though they swung and banged on each other with a lot more enthusiasm than skill. The men in the warbands laughed and jeered, but always in the most friendly way possible. Branna noticed Neb watching with real interest and cheering his brother on. The two lads seemed evenly matched, and they also seemed ready to lunge and swing all afternoon. Gerran, however, decided when they’d had enough and stepped in between them.

  “I declare the match a draw,” Gerran said. “Well done, lads!”

  When the warbands cheered them, they both blushed and ran off the field. Branna watched them for a moment as they pulled off their helms and piled them up with their swords and shields. Gerran strolled over to Neb.

  “Your brother’s doing well,” Gerran said.

  “Splendid!” Neb said. “I’ve not seen him this happy in some years. He never wanted to take up our father’s craft. I’m not sure where Da would have found a prenticeship that would have suited him.”

  “Well, he’s found one now.” Gerran turned to Branna and bowed. “My lady, I hope you find the tourney to your liking.”

  Branna decided that this was one of those situations when lying was a necessity rather than a vice. “Of course, I certainly do,” she said, but she was aware of Neb quirking one eyebrow and smiling as if to accuse her of the lie. Gerran shot the scribe a foul glance, then wandered away to confer with Pedrys’ captain.

  Once the second round of combats began, the careful ordering of rank broke down. Tieryn Cadryc and Lord Pedrys both deserted their chairs to pace the sidelines and yell, encouraging their own men and making wa gers on one fighter or another. Money changed hands among the warbands, as well as insults, cheers, and friendly banter. Branna risked looking at Neb and was pleased to see elderly Lord Veddyn slumped against the back of his bench, sound asleep and snoring, in the midst of the general din and clamor. Neb winked at her.

  “Branna?” Neb slid over to the end of the bench. “No one’s looking our way.”

  “So they’re not.” Branna dropped her voice. “If I slip away, you could follow in a bit.”

  “To the roof, then?” he whispered.

  “It’ll be too hot with all this sun.”

  “The garden?”

  She nodded her agreement, and he moved back next to Lord Veddyn.

  Branna waited until the current combat came to an end. She got up, stretching, then went round behind Galla’s chair. “Aunt Galla? I’m absolutely roasting in this sun. I’m going to go back to the broch for a little while and rest.”

  “Very well, dear,” Galla said. “But you won’t want to miss seeing Gerran and Mirryn spar. They really are quite good, both of them.”

  “If I don’t fall asleep, I’ll come back for that, then.” Before Galla could answer, Lady Omaena launched into another complicated question about babies. With smiles all round, Branna left. She walked sedately across the meadow until she could be sure that no one was watching her, then ran the rest of the way.

  With the sun low in the sky, the little bench in the herb garden sat in shade from the wall, a welcome relief. Winded from her fast climb, Branna sank onto it and let out her breath in a long sigh. Her gray gnome materialized to sit beside her and dangle its spindly legs over the side.

  “It’s too hot,” she said.

  It nodded, then popped a finger into its mouth and began to suck on it. With almost
everyone down at the tourney, the dun was abnormally quiet, except for the occasional cluck of a chicken or honk of a goose. Now and then the breeze brought her a snatch of conversation from the cook house, where the cook and the scullery maids were putting the last touches on the feast ahead.

  While she waited, Branna thought over her last night’s dream, one that grew in significance the more she contemplated it. She was waiting for Nevyn in an underground chamber lit only by firelight. Around the top of the walls ran a strange frieze, a pattern made of circles and triangles, that stopped abruptly in the middle of one wall. She recognized the pattern, she knew she did, but she couldn’t read it, no matter how hard she tried. The sound of footsteps on the gravel path of the garden pulled her away from the dream, but when she looked up, she was half-expecting to see the old man rather than Neb.

  “Wretchedly hot!” Neb sat down beside her and pulled at the open throat of his shirt. “I suppose we could go into the great hall. No one else is there.”

  “In just a little bit the serving lasses will be in and out,” Branna said. “They need to ready everything for the feast.”

  “That’s true. Well, at least there’s a bit of shade here.”

  “There is, and I’m glad of it.” Branna paused, then decided she’d best blurt out what she had to say. “I had another of those dreams last night, the ones about Nevyn. He could light a candle by snapping his fingers, too.”

  Neb slewed round on the bench and stared at her. He had gone so pale that she could see the blood pulsing in its vessels at his temples.

  “Are you afraid?” she said.

  “Somewhat. I had a dream, myself, although truly, it wasn’t a dream in the usual way. I’d woken up and gone to the window for the air, and as I was sitting there, I thought that your name should be some other thing than Branna.”

  “Truly? What was it?”

  “I don’t remember.” Neb smiled in a twisted sort of way. “In the dream, it seemed like you had several names, but I could remember none of them.”

  “How very odd! The old man only has the one name.” She stopped, caught by a rise of images in her mind. “Well, perhaps there was one other.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t remember. Neb, all of this is so frightening!”

  “Truly? Why?”

  “I feel like there’s another lass inside me. She’s both me and not me, and she’s struggling to—to—to be remembered, I suppose I mean. But if I do remember her, I shan’t be who I am anymore. I’ll be her.” She paused, then took a deep breath. “Or even if I’m not truly her, I’ll not be Branna, not the lass I am now, but sort of a mixture, like wine and water in the same goblet.”

  Neb considered, nodding a little.

  “Do you think I’m daft?” Branna said.

  “I don’t. I feel somewhat the same, truly, but the man inside me—” He paused for a long moment. “I think I’d rather be him than me.”

  “Oh, here, there’s naught wrong with you.”

  “My thanks, but that’s not what I meant. It’s so hard to put all this into words.”

  “That’s certainly true.”

  Neb smiled, then went on. “Wait, I know! I feel like a man who’s been ill for months and months, then begins to mend. He can remember being strong and doing all sorts of fine things, but now he can barely pull himself out of bed. There’s part of me that knows somehow that once I was truly strong, but now—” He let his voice trail off. “Well, maybe that’s not what I mean, either. I don’t know, Branna. I can’t make out the sense of all this, but it will make sense, I’m sure of it, if I could only learn one thing. There’s somewhat, that one thing, that’s going to make everything clear, if only I can find it.”

  “I think you should find it. I mean, you should be the one to find it, not me, since you want to be that other man.”

  “Probably so. After all, what am I now? A scribe for a border lord, that’s all.”

  “That’s good enough for me.” She’d blurted it out before she could stop herself, and she felt her face burn with a blush.

  “Truly?” Neb reached over and caught her hands in his, and he was smiling with such a pure joy that she felt her embarrassment ease. “Do you truly mean that?”

  “I do. I truly do.”

  Neb pulled her close, then let go her hands and put his on either side of her face. “I love you,” he said and kissed her.

  Branna threw her arms around him and took another kiss. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “That at least is one thing I do know.”

  “Then will you marry me?”

  “Of course. I’ve been hoping you’d ask.”

  Neb laughed and let her go, then turned thoughtful. “What about your uncle?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll wager Aunt Galla can talk him around.”

  “If she approves.”

  “She’s already called you a fine young man who’ll doubtless end up as the councillor of some important lord someday.”

  “Well! That’s promising, then!”

  “Indeed. But I shan’t be able to talk with her until after the guests leave.”

  “Ye gods! I hope I can stand to wait that long.”

  “It’s only till tomorrow.”

  “An eternity, my love, of worrying, and all on account of the love I bear you.”

  “I do like it when you talk like that. But I like your kisses even better.”

  “Then far be it from me to deprive you of them. Although, you know, I think we’d best go somewhere else.”

  “That’s true.” Branna glanced around the garden. “Anyone could walk out and see us.”

  All at once they heard a shout, carried on the wind from some distance away, the sound of a good many men, yelling and laughing together.

  “The tourney’s over.” Neb stood up and held out his hand. “Curse it, everyone’s going to come trooping right back to the dun.”

  “Just so.” Branna rose and took his hand. “Is there somewhere more private we could go?”

  “I do know an empty storeroom, but it reeks of onions.”

  “That won’t do. If there are going to be tears in your eyes, I want them to spring from the depths of love.”

  “Quite so. Well, let me think.”

  Since Gerran and Mirryn usually put on an exhibition at tourneys, they had worked out a way of sparring without dishonoring either of them. Gerran always scored the first touch because it was expected of him by the onlookers. From there they sparred naturally, but they took care to score the third touch upon each other simultaneously, thus ending the match in a draw, not a humiliating defeat. The afternoon was so hot and sticky on this particular day that they made sure they scored the touches quickly. No one noticed their ruse.

  “Well played, lads!” Cadryc said. “Both of you, but Gerran’s a marvel and a half with that blade.”

  “He is,” Mirryn said, grinning, “but then, we knew that even before I faced him.”

  Gerran ducked his head and looked away. He could feel that he was blushing, and he hated that as much as he loved hearing the praise.

  “Let’s go in,” Cadryc said. “Have a goblet of mead all round. My wife’s got the cook working on a roast hog, she tells me, and we’ll give both Gerro and Mirro here a slice off the thigh.”

  Everyone within earshot cheered. As the crowd got up and started swirling around, ready to go uphill to the dun, Gerran looked for Branna. He was expecting to find her watching him, smiling, no doubt, in awe of his skill with a sword or perhaps the tieryn’s praise. He saw Lady Galla, giving orders to the maidservants for the meal to come, but not Branna. Worse yet, he saw no sign of Neb, either.

  “Captain?” Little Lord Ynedd came trotting up to him. “Are you looking for someone?”

  “I am. You’ve not happened to see Lady Branna, have you?”

  “Oh, she left and went back to the dun. Right after Clae and Coryn got to fight.”

  “I see.”

  Gerran glanced around. No
one else seemed in a hurry to leave the tourney ground. The lords stood talking, the ladies still sat in their chairs, while the riders and servants milled around, discussing the fine points of this fight or that. With a muffled curse, Gerran took off for the dun at a jog. When he reached the ward, it stood empty and silent. He ran into the great hall in hopes of finding Branna there—no sign of her. For a moment Gerran stood by the honor table and swore; then he hailed a serving lass.

  “Have you seen Lady Branna?”

  “I have. She went off with the scribe some while ago.”

  Gerran felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. “How long ago?”

  The lass shrugged.

  “Before or after the last combats?” Gerran said.

  “Oh, long before that, truly. I was walking back here to start my work and saw them in the garden.”

  Gerran muttered a few more foul things, then strode out of the hall. Yet, as he’d half-expected, when he reached the garden, Branna and Neb had already left. He stood on a graveled path and kicked aimlessly at a cabbage with the toe of his boot while he let the truth sink in: Branna hadn’t stayed to see him spar. She hadn’t cared enough about him to watch, not with her wretched scribe hanging around her. Hopeless, he thought. Besides, if she’d want a man like that, what would I want with her, anyway? She’s no fit wife for a fighting man.

  Gerran’s newfound contempt lasted until he looked up, glancing around the ward, and saw the stables. Hayloft. The thought struck him like a blow, that Branna and Neb might well have taken refuge in one of the few places in the dun that offered privacy to a courting couple. He growled under his breath like a dog and strode off, heading for the stable.

  The hayloft smelled of new-mown hay, and dust motes danced in the sunbeams that came through the tiny windows. Neb lounged on his back on a great drift of hay, while Branna sat demurely by his side.