The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  Dallandra shuddered. “I was hoping we could get Ebañy out of this alive.”

  “So was I. Nothing I see here discourages me, but the Horsekin—”

  They sat in silence for some while with the unfinished words hanging between them, a malediction upon those distant enemies. Not distant enough, Dalla thought. Halfway across the world would be too close still.

  “You know,” Val said at last. “I hope you didn’t mind when I handed the job of curing Ebañy over to you. I feel guilty still, but I had no idea of what to do.”

  “No need for guilt. I offered, didn’t I?”

  “True. But I was afraid that I was failing my apprentice somehow.”

  “Not that he’d studied with you in—what?—a hundred and fifty years?”

  “Something like that.” Valandario was staring at her gems, sparkling on the silk before her. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten obsessed with my scrying. There are still so many problems, so many things to work out.”

  “You should take another apprentice, or no, a jour neyman dweomerworker, to learn it, perfect or not. And I wonder—shouldn’t you write it all down?”

  “I suppose so, yes.” Val looked up. “I doubt if I’ll die soon, but these days, well, you never know, what with war in the west and all.”

  “I didn’t mean to be morbid—”

  “You weren’t. Realistic, perhaps.” Val sighed with a shake of her head. “Do you remember Nevyn? Aderyn’s master in the dweomer?”

  “Vividly, yes. I met him ever so long ago, but he was the kind of man who made an impression on people.”

  “Indeed.” Val paused for a smile. “We discussed the ancient lore once, the lore of the Seven Cities, I mean, and how so much of it had been lost. They never wrote down the core of their teachings, you see. When Meranaldar first came to us, I had hopes. I thought that maybe the books of the innermost lore were safe in the Southern Isles. But they’re not. There never were any. Meranaldar had read various things that made that clear. They simply didn’t write down the biggest secrets.”

  “And that means the lore’s gone forever.”

  “Perhaps. We might be able to rediscover it, if we’re lucky, one day. But Nevyn told Aderyn something once, that the loss was the bitter price of secrecy. That phrase has stuck with me now for what is it? Almost two hundred years.”

  “The bitter price of secrecy.” Dallandra nodded her agreement. “It’s a very good phrase indeed. And now the Horsekin want to wipe out what lore we do have left.”

  “Yes. Well, it’s on the knees of the gods, like the war itself. Let’s assume that Ebañy’s successful, that he finds this fortress or whatever it turns out to be. What, then? Do we ride to Cengarn and ask its child ruler for help?”

  “Just that, but afterward, I’ll be traveling south,” Dallandra said. “I very much want to visit Tieryn Cadryc of the Red Wolf. Let me tell you why.”

  As the summer days slipped past, Neb found himself keeping an odd sort of watch over the dun. As children, he and the other boys in Trev Hael had played with slings and stones; Neb had had something of a reputation for his keen eye. He made himself a sling from some scrap leather he found in the stables and took to carrying it and a handful of pebbles in his brigga pockets in case the mysterious raven returned. It may have acted like a normal bird, but its size gave it away. When it had hovered over the dun, it had looked as large as a normal raven if that bird had been only some hundred yards up. But at that distance, Neb should have been able to see some details of its head and feathers, while this particular raven had only been a black shape against the sky.

  Neb still had his doubts about it being some sort of sorcerer, but no matter what it was, he felt deep in his soul that something so unnatural meant naught but ill. Branna had her fear of that mysterious “other lass,” and he had his suspicions of the raven. Ye gods! Neb thought. What’s happening to us? The world seemed suddenly larger and stranger than they’d ever dreamed. He longed to bring the raven down, but as if it knew he watched, it stayed away.

  Not long after the tourney, news of a second excitement arrived at Tieryn Cadryc’s dun. Everyone was eating dinner in the great hall when Neb heard a horn calling outside, a cascade of three sour notes.

  “The gatekeeper.” Gerran rose from his chair at the warband’s head table. “Pages! Go see what he wants.”

  Little Lord Ynedd ignored him, but Coryn and Clae both jumped up and ran outside. Across the hall by the honor hearth, Tieryn Cadryc got up and waited standing, staring at the door. In a few moments Clae and Coryn came rushing in from the ward, so eager to get to the tieryn’s side that they tripped over a tan hound, who yelped and scuttled away. No one laughed; everyone fell silent to listen.

  “Your Grace,” Coryn said, panting a little, “Messengers from Cengarn.”

  Clae ushered in a pair of road-weary men, wearing dust-stained tabards embroidered with the blazing sun of Cengarn over their clothes. When the messengers knelt at the tieryn’s side, one proffered a silver message tube. Neb got up and swung himself free of the bench.

  “Scribe!” Cadryc called out.

  “I’m on my way, Your Grace.”

  Neb trotted over to the honor table and took the silver tube, then pulled the letter free to scan it.

  “I hope our gwerbret’s seen reason about those raiders,” Cadryc said.

  “Alas, he hasn’t, my lord,” Neb said. “Not in this message, anyway. It’s announcing his betrothal and coming marriage.”

  “Well, that’s somewhat to the good. Read it out, lad.”

  The message was long, flowery, and full of courtesies, but the gist was simple. Gwerbret Ridvar had betrothed himself to Lady Drwmigga of Trev Hael. The gwerbret would be honored if Tieryn Cadryc and his people would come to the wedding.

  “Oh, that’s an excellent choice!” Galla said. “She’s the daughter of Trev Hael’s gwerbret, and her mother was the daughter of the gwerbret of Dun Trebyc.”

  “Old Drwmyc, you mean?” Cadryc said. “A good blood-line, then.”

  “Isn’t she older than Ridvar, though?” Branna said.

  “By a few years, but not too many.” Galla considered for a moment. “I don’t remember when she was born, but if she were too old, she’d have been married already.”

  “True spoken, with the alliances she brings,” Cadryc said. “Neb, I’ll need you to write some sort of fancy reply to his grace. Of course we’ll all go. It gladdens my heart that our gwerbret’s doing his duty to rhan and clan.”

  “Mine, too,” Mirryn said. “Now let’s hope he gets the lass with child, and quickly.”

  “Just that,” Galla put in. “May the gods grant she’s not barren! This is exciting, I must say! Branna, just think—mayhap we’ll get to see our Adranna at the wedding.”

  “Well, now.” Cadryc raised one hand. “Don’t get your hopes up, my love. Ridvar won’t be able to invite every lord in the rhan. His dun won’t hold that many guests, and ye gods, can you imagine the grumbling if he asked some of them to quarter in the town? He’ll have enough trouble housing all the tierynau as it is, to say naught of Drwmigga’s clan.”

  Galla’s face fell. “You’re doubtless right.” Her voice wavered slightly. “I do hope she’s well.”

  “Well, how about this?” Cadryc said. “We won’t be all that far from her husband’s wretched dun. Mayhap we can ride north after the wedding and pay her a visit.”

  Galla and Branna both beamed at him. “We’ll have Neb write her a letter,” Cadryc said, “once we’re in Cengarn, and it’s a shorter ride for the messenger.”

  “My thanks,” Galla said. “Now I can truly enjoy myself at this wedding.”

  “I suppose,” Mirryn said, “I’ll be left behind here.”

  “Someone has to hold fort guard, lad.” Cadryc paused to smile at him. “Here, you’re the one who’ll be in the most danger this time. I’m entitled to an escort of twenty-five for the wedding, but I think I’ll take fewer men than that, so I can leave you mor
e. I wouldn’t put it past the cursed Horsekin to try to siege the place while I’m gone.”

  Mirryn bit back angry words, took a sip of ale, and then managed a brief smile. “True enough,” he said.

  Still, they glared at each other, and the mood hung over the table like a swarm of angry bees. Branna leaned forward and changed the subject.

  “Ridvar’s betrothed—what’s she like? I’ve never even seen her. Have you, Uncle?”

  “I’ve not.” Cadryc shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t much matter. He can always blow the candle out.”

  The men all laughed, but Lady Galla and Branna exchanged a sour smile.

  “She’s a good-looking lass, actually, my lord,” Neb said. “I used to see her, riding with her father through our town. Eldidd-dark hair and dark blue eyes, and she’s slender though not dainty.”

  “Good.” Cadryc turned to him. “I forgot you come from Trev Hael. Well, it gladdens my heart that the lad’s marrying, but I’ll admit I was hoping for news of that blasted gerthddyn. Call me daft if you want, but I just keep thinking he’s on to some important thing that will help our gwerbret change his mind.”

  “Let’s pray so,” Mirryn said.

  “You don’t sound convinced, lad.”

  “I’m not.” It was Mirryn’s turn to shrug. “But he’s the only hound in our pack that’s picked up any scent at all. Might as well let him follow it down.”

  Salamander may have been on the trail of a metaphoric scent, but he was also hopelessly lost. If Rocca was following any sort of marked trail, he couldn’t tell what it was or if they were on it. He needed to do more than just reach the Horsekin dun. He needed to be able to lead an army back to it. During the odd moments when he could contact Dallandra, he would describe whatever bit of the wilderness they had camped in, but he doubted if anyone was going to be able to tell one clearing among trees from another. Finally, after they’d gone straight west for some hours only to turn south to avoid the evil spirits in a particular ravine, he grew exasperated enough to ask her point blank if she were lost.

  “Lost? Me?” Rocca laughed in her usual merry way. “Your eyes yet cannot find the marks along this trail, Evan, but truly, they be there, blazed by her as plain as Deverry cairns for those with eyes to see.”

  “Well, if you say so,” Salamander said. “I know that I’ve only begun to learn her ways.”

  “There be ahead a stream we call the Galan Targ, the home border. Once we do cross that, our way will lie straight before us. All of Vandar’s evil traps will lie behind us then. And it be not far. Fear not!”

  Indeed, they reached the Galan Targ late that afternoon, a wide but shallow stream running over clean sand. On either bank someone had cleared away the underbrush, and big stones marked out the ford. Salamander offered to let Rocca ride on his horse for the crossing, but she refused.

  “You do ride over, and then I’ll be a-following after,” she said. “There be a need on me to bless the waters as I pass through.”

  Salamander’s horses crossed easily, as the water ran only a few feet deep. On the far bank he dismounted and waited, watching, as Rocca raised her arms into the air and intoned a short prayer. Perhaps the stream wasn’t in the mood for a blessing, however, because as she stepped into it she slipped, falling to her knees. She got to her feet only to stumble again, falling headlong into the water. Her hair lost its bone pins, and the long strands spread out in the water around her head. Salamander started into the stream to help her, but she scrambled up, soaking wet but laughing, to wave him back.

  “Stay dry!” she called out. “I did step on a sharp pebble or suchlike under the sand, but no harm done! Here, there be a need on me to find those hairpins, though. They be all I have.” She knelt in the water and groped around the sand for a moment, then stood up, frowning. “They be gone, sure enough.”

  “I can whittle you some more,” Salamander said.

  “My thanks, then.” Her smile returned in a blaze of good spirits.

  She came splashing up on to the bank and shook herself like a dog, smiling all the while. Her thin linen shift, somewhat cleaner than before, clung to her body, and her wet hair, freed from the pins, draped over her breasts and hung nearly to her waist. Salamander turned away and concentrated on slacking his horse’s bits so they could drink.

  “We shall camp here tonight,” Rocca said. “Safe at last, and your beasts will have good grass as well as sweet water.”

  Salamander busied himself with tending his horses as well as gathering firewood. He’d begun to think like a true neophyte, he realized, a change he’d not noticed until that moment. He was honestly ashamed of himself for looking lustfully upon a priestess, but there was no denying that he was. Her linen dress shrank as it dried, pulling tight across her breasts as she sat cross-legged by their fire, as unself-conscious as a child. She was concentrating on combing out her wet hair, a mass of snarls. Judging by its appearance she’d not washed or combed it in years.

  “I could help you comb that out,” he said. “Round the back, like, where you can’t reach.”

  Rocca burst out laughing. “You be new to our ways, Evan. You know not what you did just say.”

  “My apologies, Your Holiness. Was it a wrong thing?”

  “Not wrong, but unknowing. Among us a man will try to comb a woman’s hair when he wishes to marry her. If she does allow him, then married they are.”

  “Ah, I see.” Salamander had the loathsome feeling that he was blushing—his face burned with embarrassment.

  Rocca cocked her head to one side and considered him for a moment. “There be a need on you to know that never shall I marry,” she said at last, “nor shall I ever have aught to do with a man in matters of love.”

  Salamander made a strangled little noise that might pass for “of course not.”

  “It be a rule of our priestesses, that never shall we lie with a man for fear of getting a child,” Rocca continued. “Why would we wish to bring more souls into Vandar’s evil world? Would that not be cruel, to trap souls here for him to torment?”

  “It would, Your Holiness. I’m truly truly sorry—”

  “Oh, grovel not! Am I not a woman, too, and flattered?” Rocca paused to smile at him. “But I have no wish to leave her service.”

  “What would happen to a woman if she betrayed our goddess with a man?”

  “Naught, but that she would have to take him in marriage, were he able to marry, or go back to her old life with her family were he not. She be a woman, too, and demands no punishment or the like. But a priestess the sinner would never be again.”

  “So a woman who’d been with a man could never become a priestess?”

  “Nah nah nah, naught so harsh, just so long as she were no priestess at the time. No vow taken, no vow broken. She may forswear her love and take then the holy vows.”

  “You know, that seems a truly decent law. In Deverry things are harsher.”

  “I do hear that they bury any priestess alive who does break her vows.”

  “Oh, that’s not true. They make her leave the Moon Temple, that’s all. The man, though, they hang.”

  “That’s a dreadful thing, to punish someone for a thing they can’t help but do! What more can one expect from men, but—ah well, let me not ramble and say mean things. Let us pray together. I promise you, Alshandra will fill your heart with more joy and comfort than ever I could.”

  The threat of hours of prayer would be even better than hanging to prevent men from falling into sin, Salamander decided. Although he tried to pay strict attention to Rocca’s words, he eventually fell asleep where he knelt, sagging over like a half-empty sack of grain. He woke to her gentle laughter and a boyish punch on his shoulder.

  “My apologies,” he stammered.

  “None needed,” Rocca said, smiling. “You be new to the faith and not yet tempered in your soul. Do go to sleep, Evan. Tomorrow we shall reach the holy shrine if naught impede us.”

  The Horsekin had chosen the lo
cation for their new dun well. Thanks to Rocca’s roundabout path, Salamander could only guess at how many miles west of Cengarn they’d traveled—a good long way, he figured, at least a hundred—distant enough to make supplying an army difficult even if the high king should send one. Eventually, they came to a river that led them south into a part of the world he’d never seen before. First they left the hills behind, then the deep forests, until they traveled through scrubby, rocky grasslands, not quite flat and not quite hilly either. Off to the west Salamander saw dark smudges along the horizon—clouds, he thought at first, but when they never rolled in or away he realized that he was seeing the fabled mountains of the far west.

  “Those mountains.” He pointed them out to Rocca. “That’s where Taen—your city, I can’t remember its name—but that’s where it lies, isn’t it?”

  “It does lie in the mountains,” Rocca said, “but you have a fine pair of eyes if you can see them from here.”

  “Oh, I’ve always been gifted that way.”

  Salamander could only be grateful that she lacked concrete information about Vandar’s spawn. From now on, he reminded himself, he would have to be more careful.

  The river cut its channel out of a reddish sandstone. As they followed a well-marked path along its western bank, the cut grew deeper and deeper, until finally it became a canyon. On their last night out, they camped at the top of a thirty-foot cliff while the river rushed by below. And how, he wondered, are we going to get an army across without a bridge?

  “We’ll reach Zakh Gral on the morrow,” Rocca said.

  “Good,” Salamander said. “My heart longs to see our goddess’ holy shrine.”

  On the morrow he caught his first glimpse. They had tramped along the canyon’s western rim all morning when Rocca suddenly laughed and pointed straight ahead.

  “There!” she said. “You can just see the fortress.”