“We really should go,” Branna said. “Everyone will be back from the tourney by now. What if one of the riders goes back to the barracks for somewhat and hears us talking?”
“We can’t have that, truly.” Neb sat up and ran his fingers through his hair to get the straws out. “It’s too hot up here anyway.”
Neb went down the narrow ladder before her to steady it. When she reached the stable floor, Branna paused to look over her dress and pluck a few accusa tory straws from the skirt.
“Are there any on my back?” She turned so he could see.
“Only a few.” Neb’s voice turned mournful. “It’s not as if we were rolling around up there or suchlike.”
“You’re going to have to wait for that till we’re formally betrothed.” She turned back and found him grinning at her. “I like to think ahead, you see.”
“And that gladdens my heart.” Neb made her a bow. “Shall we go, my lady?”
They walked together out of the wide stable doors and stood blinking in the bright sun. Dimly, Branna could see a man striding toward them. “Someone’s coming,” she said. “Oh, by the gods, it’s Gerran!”
“And he looks like he’s been peeling Bardek citrons with his teeth,” Neb said, “and washing them down with vinegar.”
Branna giggled at the turn of phrase, and Gerran heard her. His face turned dark with fury as he strode up, his hand on his sword hilt, his red hair gleaming in the sunlight. Neb stepped smoothly in front of Branna.
“What’s vexing you, Captain?” Neb said.
“You milksop little—” Gerran was struggling to get his words out. “What are you doing with Lady Branna?”
“Naught that concerns you.”
“You—” Gerran stopped, and his face turned so pale that its dusting of freckles stood out like flecks of blood. He jerked his hand away from his sword hilt and stepped back. “Nah, nah, nah,” Gerran said. “What am I doing? You’ve never fought with a sword in your life! Ye gods, I can’t—I won’t—ye gods!”
“Very well,” Neb snarled. “Take the cursed thing off and we’ll settle this with our fists.”
Gerran looked him up and down, then laughed. For a moment Branna feared that Neb would charge him, sword or no, but instead Neb suddenly flung up both arms. Wildfolk rushed into manifestation. Sprites swarmed in the air, an army of gnomes clustered on the cobbles, an undine rose from the water in the horse trough and shook a wet fist in Gerran’s direction.
“Laugh at this,” Neb said, and calmly lowered his arms.
Before Branna could yell and stop them, the gnomes charged. Although Gerran couldn’t see them, he obviously could feel them. He yelped, swatted, cursed, and yelped some more as the squad of gnomes leaped, pinching and flailing. The sprites rushed to the attack, swarming like summer flies around his face, pinching him and pulling his hair. With the press all around him, Gerran tried to step back and tripped over Neb’s fat yellow gnome. He went sprawling onto his back and writhed, while Neb laughed and the gnomes pummeled.
“Neb!” Branna screamed. “All of you! That’s enough! Stop it!”
“As my lady commands.” Neb turned to her and bowed.
The chortling gnomes and sprites had already pulled back at her screamed order. When Neb waved his hands, they vanished, leaving a shaking, swearing Gerran lying on the cobbles.
“You’ve got a sword,” Neb said. “I’ve got other weapons.”
Gerran tried to speak and failed. Neb’s smile was so smug that Branna felt like slapping him herself. Gerran got up, but warily, stepping back, glancing around as if he expected enemies to come from all directions.
“Well, Lady Branna,” Neb said. “Truly you’re a prize beyond price.”
“A prize, is it? Is that supposed to be flattering?” Branna had the satisfaction of seeing his smug smile disappear.
“Uh, well, I—”
“Isn’t it?” Gerran said, and his eyes had grown cold. “Lasses always—”
“I can’t stand either of you!” Branna turned on him. “Do you think I’m a mare in heat? Eager to watch the studs fight over her?”
Both men stared openmouthed. With a last snarl Branna turned away, then ran across the ward. At the broch she ducked inside. In the great hall everyone had assembled for the feast, the riders on their side of the hall, her aunt and uncle and their vassals on the other. Laughter and talk rang out; the mead and ale were flowing. It was easy for her to sidle along the curved wall to the staircase, then run upstairs before anyone noticed her, though she was panting for breath by the time she reached her chamber. She slammed the door shut and barred it for good measure.
Her gray gnome materialized in midair, glanced around, then settled onto the bed.
“Ye gods!” Branna could hear her voice shaking in rage. “I hate them both, I swear it! I’ll never marry anyone. I’d rather spend my life in a temple embroidering altar cloths for the Moon Goddess.”
She strode over to the window and leaned out, twisting to see round the nearest shed. There was no sign of either Neb or Gerran. All at once she realized that she would have to face both of them at the feast.
“Maybe I’ll just stay up here and pretend to be ill,” Branna said to the gnome. “I’m not all that hungry anyway.”
But there was a knock at the door, and Aunt Galla called out. “Branna dear, we’re about to serve the food. Are you in there?”
Branna knew that lying to her aunt’s face lay beyond her. “I am,” she called back. “Just combing my hair, and then I’ll be down.”
As Branna hurried downstairs, she was praying that no one had seen the incident ’twixt Gerran and Neb. It finally occurred to her that her aunt and uncle wouldn’t have believed the tale even if someone had seen and reported it. Their scribe, summon a small army of Wildfolk? And the Wildfolk, knock their captain to the ground? As she picked at her food, she kept glancing over to the servants’ side of the great hall. Gerran did come in to eat with his men, but Neb never appeared.
With so many people and so much food packed into the great hall, the air turned stifling in the afternoon’s heat. Branna nearly fell asleep during the long round of ritual toasts to the company. Just as the men were settling down to some serious drinking, she decided that she had to have fresh air or die. She excused herself and left, but just outside the door Gerran caught up with her.
“I want to apologize,” he said. “I’m the one who started that little brawl, and it was dishonorable of me.”
“Well, it was,” Branna said. “But Neb was no better.”
“True-spoken.” Gerran hesitated for a moment. “What did he do? Did you see?”
Branna felt a brief flash of admiration: she’d not expected him to acknowledge his bizarre defeat. “I’m not really sure,” she said. “It all happened so fast. I thought Neb pushed you, and then you tripped on a loose cob blestone.”
“Truly, somewhat like that must have been it.” Gerran shrugged, looked away, looked at the cobbles, glanced at her face, looked away again. “Uh,” he said finally, “I was wondering if—were you going for a walk or suchlike?”
“I was, truly.”
“I want—I mean, may I walk with you?”
“I’ll have to attend upon my aunt in just a little bit. In fact, I probably should go back in—”
“You don’t truly want my company, you mean. I know I’m just common-born—”
“Oh, do hold your tongue about your stupid rank! I don’t care if you grew up in fosterage. You’re still my cousin, aren’t you? A member of my kin and clan.”
“That’s how you think of me, is it?”
Branna hesitated, but it was time for truth. “It is,” she said finally. “You’ve always been like a brother to me, Gerro, an elder brother I look up to and honor.”
He winced and turned half-away. She risked laying a hand on his arm. “I’ve heard the most wonderful gossip,” she said. “There’s a highborn lady in Cengarn who favors you mightily.”
“Don�
�t be stupid! What would Lady Solla want with the likes of me?”
“Hah! You’ve noticed her interest, have you?”
“I’ve noticed naught. I’d suggest, my lady, that you not listen to gossip.” With that he pulled his arm away from her lax touch and strode off.
The gray gnome popped into manifestation, smiling and dancing back and forth in front of her. “You approve, do you?” Branna whispered. “Well, poor Gerro! Let’s go find my aunt.”
They found Lady Galla readily enough. She was going upstairs to the women’s hall, and Branna joined her. They settled themselves by a window that let in the last of the summer daylight and picked up their sewing, hurrying to get a few more stitches done before dark.
“Where’s Omaena?” Branna said.
“Taken to her bed,” Galla said. “She tires easily these days, or so she says.”
“I see. You know, I’m truly glad now that Solla is coming to stay with us.”
“So am I. I gather you’ve told Gerro that he may as well stop courting you.”
“Did you see us talking?”
“I didn’t. But I saw him follow you out, then come right back glowering like a summer storm.”
“Well, I did tell him it was hopeless. I just can’t marry him. I may be a warrior’s daughter, but I don’t want to marry someone dark and grim. I had enough of that with Da.”
“No doubt, dear. I really do understand.”
“My thanks, then. But what about Solla? Will she be able to marry a man like Gerro? After all, she’s a gwerbret’s sister, and she’s the chatelaine of his dun.”
“She’s chatelaine now, certainly. But Solla’s right: Ridvar will have to marry and quite soon, and no doubt his wife won’t want another woman giving her servants orders and suchlike. As for Gerro’s lack of rank,” Galla hesitated, frowning at her line of stitches, “well, that might present a problem. It would be to Ridvar’s advantage if she married some highly placed lord, someone at court, say, or even our Mirryn.” She looked up, still frowning. “Though, with Gerran captain here—well, she wouldn’t do at all for Mirryn’s wife.”
“True-spoken. But Ridvar’s got two other sisters. Isn’t one of them already married to someone important?”
“She is, indeed.” Galla smiled again. “The high king’s equerry down in Dun Deverry. A very important man, truly. And if young Ridvar should ask the king for an army, no doubt she’ll argue in her brother’s favor. His younger sister’s quite lovely, and in a few years she’ll be able to make a good match, too.”
“So Solla might have more choice than some?”
“Indeed, she might. After all, Gerran won’t be in any position to ask for a dowry.”
The light in the room was fading as the sun sank to the horizon outside. Branna folded her sewing and laid it in her work basket. “Shall I go fetch some fire from the great hall?”
“Please do, dear.” Galla ran her needle into the cloth. “It’s time to light the candles, and that’s quite enough sewing.”
In the great hall the men were still at their drinking, but Neb wasn’t among them. Branna lit her lantern at the servants’ hearth and carried it back upstairs. She saw no sign of Neb on the stairs or in the corridors, either. Now that she knew she’d not have to explain the peculiar fight to her aunt and uncle, her anger had faded, and she could think clearly again. A scribe’s son, but he can command the Wildfolk—do I truly know this man? Yet deep in her soul she felt that she’d never known anyone better.
Eventually Lady Omaena rejoined Galla and Branna in the women’s hall. Since her aunt now had company for the evening, Branna pleaded a headache and left them. As she was approaching the door to her chamber, her gray gnome appeared, grinning and dancing up and down.
“What is it?” Branna whispered.
The gnome turned and walked through the door. First he stuck a skinny little foot into the wood like a swimmer testing the temperature of a pond, then an arm, and finally, grinning at her all the while, he inserted the rest of himself into the wood and disappeared. Branna had seen him do tricks such as this before; she merely rolled her eyes and opened the door to find the room bathed in golden light. With a little gasp she shut the door and leaned back against it.
Neb was waiting for her, perched on the windowsill. The gnome trotted over to him and pointed a bony finger.
“You might as well blow that candle out,” Neb said. “We shan’t need it.”
Branna set the darkened lantern down on the floor, then looked up, gazing at the ceiling, where a glowing ball of gold hung like a tiny sun. She should have been amazed, she knew, but the light seemed the most ordinary thing in the room. Its presence had turned the bed, the walls, her dower chest into strange and unexpected objects, so intensely foreign that for a moment she wondered if she’d gotten into the wrong chamber.
“The light,” Branna whispered. “How did you do that?”
“I didn’t. The Wildfolk did it when I asked them.”
“You shouldn’t be in here.”
“I had to apologize. It was stupid of me, baiting Gerran like that.”
He sounded so contrite that she condescended to look at him. He left the window and walked over, then knelt like a courtier. “Will you forgive me, Branna?”
“Oh, of course. I suppose I could pretend to be haughty and all that, but I can’t say I want to bother.”
At that Neb laughed and got up, dusting off the knees of his brigga. “You’re right enough that I shouldn’t be in here,” he said. “I don’t want to stain your honor. We’d best get rid of that light, too, before someone sees it from the ward.”
“True-spoken.” Branna ignored her heart, pounding in fear, and raised one hand. She had to know, she realized, what she might have the power to do. In the glow small sprites were swirling on translucent wings. “My thanks,” she said and snapped her fingers.
The golden ball vanished. The candle she’d put out earlier bloomed into flame. When she picked it up from the floor, her hands were shaking so badly that it very nearly went out again.
“There is real dweomer in the world,” Neb said, “and we both have the talent for it. It’s time, my lady, that we both thought well on what that means.”
“Apparently so.” Branna crossed the room and set the lantern down on her dower chest. “I wish Salamander would come back. He said some truly odd things to me, and the more I think about them, the more important they seem.”
“He did the same to me. I think me he knows cursed well what it means, and I’ll wager he could answer a question or two for us as well.”
“I hope so. Dweomer can’t be just ordering the Wildfolk around. We must be able—I mean, there must be other things.” She let her voice trail miserably away.
“There must, truly. You’ve dreamed of some of them, from what you told me.”
She nodded, barely aware of his words, barely aware when he turned away and left. She heard the chamber door close, but the noise seemed to happen a long distance away. The gnome leaped onto the bed and sat cross-legged on the coverlet.
“Oh, very well,” Branna snapped. “You were right.”
It bobbed its head, grinned, and vanished. Branna shuddered like a wet dog. For a moment, or so she felt, someone else had looked out from her eyes, and that someone had never seen this chamber before. Someone else. But who?
All that evening, as he drank with the warband, Gerran kept an eye out for Neb, but the scribe never came into the great hall. One of the serving lasses told him, finally, that Neb had begged some dinner from the cook out in the kitchen hut. Gerran tried to convince himself that the scribe was afraid of him, but at root he was too honest a man to believe it. Neb had no reason to fear ordinary men, armed or not. Dweomer? Gerran wondered. Certainly he’d heard plenty of tales about dweomer, even though he tended to discount them. Or maybe I’m just going daft. The latter alternative seemed preferable. He solved the problem, finally, by drinking enough mead to wash away the memory of the clash.
/> On the morrow morning, Neb came whistling into the great hall as brightly as if nothing had happened. Gerran was lingering over a second bowl of porridge; the scribe spotted him and strode over to his table.
“Good morrow, Captain,” Neb said. “It’s a lovely morning.”
“It is,” Gerran said. “Seems like the heat’s finally broken.”
Neb smiled, nodded, and walked on, heading for the table he shared with Lord Veddyn and the head groom’s family. Gerran had a brief thought of heaving the porridge bowl at his retreating head. Instead, he went on eating.
Near the noontide, Gerran saw Branna and Neb walking together toward the garden. He was tempted to rush after them and knock the scribe off his feet with one good punch, but the memory stopped him—an attack, a myriad of little fists, all pummeling him, while he could see not one assailant, not one thing at all. Cursed if I’ll be afraid of a milksop scribe! was his first thought.
But it wasn’t fear that was stopping him, he realized, more a sense that Neb had some sort of prior claim. The thought startled him. It seemed so foreign that he glanced around, half-expecting to find some other person nearby who’d spoken it aloud, but he saw no one. With a toss of his head, he decided that he’d been a fool to even find her interesting. After all, she was right about one thing: she might as well be bloodkin, considering how long they’d known each other.
“It’s much cooler today,” Branna said. “Especially up here.”
“It is,” Neb said, “thanks to all the gods!”
They had climbed the catwalk to the top of the dun wall in search of privacy, because the cook was busy in her garden and the grooms were mucking out the stables. Branna hauled herself up to perch between two merlons, while Neb contented himself with leaning against the cool stone wall.
“Do be careful,” he said. “I keep being afraid you’ll fall.”
“Oh, heights don’t bother me. They never have. I used to love to climb the walls of my father’s dun, too.” And in her dreams, Branna suddenly remembered, she could fly like a falcon, indeed, as a falcon.
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