The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  “You’re right, aren’t you?” She felt suddenly cold, utterly exhausted. “I hate to say it, but you’re right.”

  All that evening, Prince Daralanteriel held a council in front of his tent. Men from the alar came to ask questions or to listen to Calonderiel’s plans for the coming war; after a short while, they pledged their support and left again. Princess Carra sat on the ground next to her husband and occasionally made a comment or explained a fine point of the various treaty ties between Cengarn and the Westfolk. Dallandra merely listened. As the most competent healer in camp, she would no doubt have to ride with the war party when the time came, and she was dreading the job—not the danger to herself, but the sights and stench of the wounds, the deaths, and the pain of those she considered her kin.

  That night, when Calonderiel escorted her to her tent as usual, she succumbed to her dread enough to avoid being alone for as long as possible. She invited him to sit down in the soft grass and talk.

  “You scared poor Meranaldar today,” Dalla said. “He actually thought you were going to hit him.”

  “I had thoughts that way.” Cal tossed his head in a defiant gesture. “He gripes my soul, with all his fancy talk about kings and the like. I—” He paused for a smile. “I suppose I’m just turning into a crabby old man.”

  “Oh, come now, you’re not old.”

  “Of course I am, or getting that way. We were born under the same moon, Dalla, but while you were off with Evandar, I was still here in this world. I must be well over five hundred years old by now, even if you’re practically still a girl.”

  “Hardly a girl! But you’re right about the flow of Time.”

  He nodded, looking a little away, out to the grasslands where everything they’d known was changing, their old ways slipping away as fast as Time itself. Dalla felt such an odd tangle of emotion that at first she couldn’t put a name to any of it. Sympathy for him, perhaps, and sorrow, a melancholy to match his—but among them, half-hidden by her love of solitude, lay something finer.

  “Ah, well,” Cal said at last. “I’d best be getting back.”

  “Must you?” Dalla said.

  He turned his head sharply to look at her. Unsmiling, for she felt as solemn as a priestess, Dalla held out her hand. When he clasped it, the comfort of his warmth, the touch of another hand on hers, gave her such an intense pleasure that she couldn’t speak. How lonely had she grown, she wondered, that a simple touch could move her so? When he leaned forward to kiss her, she slipped her arms around his neck with a sigh of profound relief.

  Yet much later, when she woke in her tent to find him still asleep beside her, she wondered what she’d done. There’s going to be a war, she thought. You fool! Why do you always fall in love with men who are likely to get themselves killed? She could wonder all she wanted, but it was too late to turn aside her feelings for him now.

  The Westfolk camps usually woke right at dawn, and since the prince’s alar had a long journey ahead of it, most of its members got up at the first sign of gray light in the east. Salamander woke a fair bit later to find everyone bustling around, cooking breakfast, loading horses, sorting out who would ride with Daralanteriel and who would stay under Princess Carra’s command. The sun still touched the eastern horizon, but already a windless heat lay over the grasslands.

  Salamander cadged some griddle bread and honey from his father, then stood to eat it while he contemplated poverty. His escape from Zakh Gral had left him his life but little else, not a horse, not a blanket, none of his usual traveling gear.

  “I suppose,” Devaberiel said, “you’ll need a horse since you’re going to Cengarn.”

  “I was thinking of asking the prince for one,” Salamander said. “And a saddle and bridle.”

  “And some tether ropes and saddlebags and a blanket for you, and so on and so forth.”

  “That, too, alas.”

  “Well, fortunately I have enough to spare. Let’s see. You’ve always liked that roan gelding. You can take him. And yesternight I sorted out some gear for you.” Devaberiel waved one hand at a neat stack beside his tent.

  Salamander nearly choked on the last remnant of bread. He’d been expecting a long lecture before he got so much as a rope halter out of his father. Devaberiel was grinning, well aware of the effect he was having.

  “What did you think?” Dev went on. “That I was going to berate you after you risked your life to save us all?” The grin disappeared, replaced by mournful eyes and a hand to his brow. “I know I’ve been a terrible father to you, but not so bad as all that.”

  “Da, please, I don’t want to listen to you berate either yourself or me.” Salamander managed a smile. “Not first thing in the morning.”

  “Agreed. Besides, no doubt you’ll be able to tell a few tales in the Cengarn market and end up burdened with more gear than before.”

  “I have hopes that way, truly, though my sleight-of-hand tricks will have to wait for a new performing shirt. A thousand thanks for the horse and everything else.”

  While he sorted out his new possessions, Salamander was thinking of Zakh Gral. He would have to tell his story to the gwerbret with the utmost care, he knew, both to convince Ridvar of what he’d seen and to protect Rocca. He wondered if she were really going to keep his shirt on the altar along with those other holy relics. Odd lot that they were, no doubt the shirt wouldn’t look out of place among them. And if he convinced the gwerbret to attack Zakh Gral, what would happen to Rocca then? That he might be responsible for her death—the thought turned him sick and cold. You’ll think of something then, he told himself. You always do.

  Although her father’s dun stood no more than twenty miles from Cengarn, Branna had never seen the city before. Tieryn Gwivyr was not the sort of man to take a daughter traveling with him, no matter how hard she begged to go. She’d had to be content with descriptions of the place from the servants who did accompany their lord when he paid his duty visits to the gwerbret. From those she’d built up a good many mental images of the city—not that she expected them to be accurate.

  “It gladdens my heart,” she remarked to Neb. “Finally I get to see what Cengarn really looks like.”

  Yet once the Red Wolf contingent rode up to Cengarn, perched so high on its cliffs, Branna was shocked to find that her imaginings did indeed match the reality. As they rode in the south gate, she kept looking around her, goggling like a peasant with her mouth half-open. Ahead rose the green market hill she’d seen in her mind; cut into the hillside stood the entrance to the dwarven inn, exactly as she’d imagined it. Near the gates to the dun itself stood the little hill with the spring on top, bubbling away so abundantly despite its location that everyone assumed it drew on magic as well as underground water. I’ve been here before. The thought intruded itself on her consciousness and would not go away, no matter how many times she told herself that such was impossible.

  The great hall also looked exactly as she’d imagined it, though soot lay thick on the grand dragon sculpture embracing the honor hearth. Another baffling thought invaded her mind: it must have been new when I saw it before. The stairs and halls were so familiar that when servants led her and Galla up to their guest chambers, Branna could have told them the way had they asked her.

  The tieryn and the noble-born in his party had been given chambers on the floor directly above the women’s hall, a spacious, beautifully appointed room for Cadryc and Galla and a pleasant if small chamber for Branna. The faded bed hangings seemed familiar, as if perhaps she’d seen a scrap of the design in a peddler’s pattern book.

  “Have you seen that pattern of suns and dragons before?” Branna asked her maid. “Somewhere we visited, say.”

  “I’ve not,” Midda said. “No one but the gwerbret’s closest kin could use it, I should think. It’s too much like his heraldry.”

  Branna sat on the window seat out of the way while Midda made up the bed with the sheets and blankets they’d brought with them. Out on the western border not even
a gwerbret could afford to furnish every room in his dun.

  “We’re going to have an exciting time of it,” Midda pronounced. “The cook’s lass told me that a pack of Westfolk are coming.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Branna said. “They’re sort of vassals to His Grace—well, not vassals, I suppose. Allies.”

  “Their prince sent a message ahead of them. He won’t have his wife with him, though. He probably left her behind in his tent or whatever it is they live in. A human woman she is, if you can imagine such a thing!”

  “I can. The Westfolk men are awfully handsome.”

  “I don’t want to see you flirting with any of them, mind.”

  “What? Right in front of Neb? Of course I wouldn’t.”

  Midda snorted and scowled. Though she’d never said one word against him, Branna knew from her maid’s dark looks that she considered Neb beneath her lady. Once she finished the bed, Midda trotted off to the servants’ quarters to find a place to sleep and to catch up on the rest of the gwerbretal gossip. Branna went to the window and looked out on a view that seemed entirely too familiar. A thin trickle of fear ran down her back, though she couldn’t have told anyone why.

  Neb had more standing than a maidservant, but he was still a common-born servitor, which meant he’d been given a bunk in the barracks along with the Red Wolf riders rather than a chamber in the complex of broch towers. As a peacemaking gesture, Gerran gave him the bunk directly under one of the two small windows, where the fresh air thinned the stink of sweat and horses. Neb thanked him in a way that told Gerran that the gesture had been accepted.

  Once everyone was settled, Gerran led his men out, heading for the great hall and, hopefully, a tankard of ale. Neb walked alongside him. As they crossed the ward, they saw Lady Solla coming out of the cookhouse. She paused, waved, and smiled. Since Gerran believed she must be waving at someone behind him, he didn’t respond, but the scribe nudged him with a sharp elbow.

  “You could at least greet her,” Neb said.

  “How?”

  “Smile, you dolt, and wave!”

  Gerran followed orders. His reward was another smile from Solla, but just as he considered going over to speak to her, Lord Oth emerged from the cookhouse and began talking to her urgently. As they walked off together, Gerran caught a snatch of their conversation, “better slaughter another hog, then.”

  “This wedding seems to be running the poor lass ragged,” Neb remarked.

  Gerran grunted to show he’d heard.

  “Ye gods, man!” Neb went on. “Surely you’ve noticed how lovely Lady Solla is.”

  “I’ve also noticed how much higher than mine her birth is.”

  “Oh, come along, Gerro! I’ll wager you’re the only person in Cengarn who cares about your rank.”

  “Huh! And I’ll wager that her brother makes two of us. Besides, ye gods, I’ve better things to do with my time than stand around gossiping like a woman.”

  “Womanish, is it? Well, I say that only a fool would turn his back on a lovely lass like her. Especially since she’s so well-disposed to you.”

  “How she feels isn’t worth a pig’s fart if her brother’s ill-disposed. He can gain an alliance by marrying Solla to the right lord. Women like her marry to please their clan, not themselves.”

  Neb started to reply, then paused, his mouth half-open, his eyes narrow, as if something had startled him. Gerran caught his mood—he assumed, at least, that he’d been affected by Neb’s mood. That old proverb, so common, suddenly seemed to hold a grave meaning, to resonate in the warm summer air like an omen of wyrd. Neb shrugged with a twitch like a fly-stung horse, and the moment passed.

  “If Ridvar were so eager to gain an alliance,” Neb continued, “he’d have made her a good match years ago. There’s ill feeling between the pair of them. Why else does he treat her like a servant in her father’s dun? I’ve no idea what caused it, but you can see it between them, and her with no one to lean on or to protect her.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly. Why else, or so Branna tells me,” Neb went on, “would Solla appeal to our lady Galla to give her a place as a servingwoman? It doesn’t sound to me like she’s got some grand match in the offing.”

  “Huh. It doesn’t to me either.”

  “Why, just the other day I saw her working in the dun garden, down on her knees like a servant.”

  “What? You mean the kitchen garden?”

  “Well, nearly that bad. She’s planted some roses, and she was tending them. But still, it’s a sad thing to see such a lovely lass so unhappy!”

  “It is, truly. Huh. Well, scribe, you know, I’ll have to think about all of this.”

  Neb smiled, well-pleased and a bit sly. With a wave of his hand he hurried off, heading to the broch, which he entered by the door on the honor side. He’s bold as brass! Gerran thought. Gerran followed more slowly, and he went in by the commoners’ door. He still came face-to-face with Lady Solla, however, over by the servants’ hearth, where she was giving a pair of kitchen lasses complicated orders about a barrel of dark ale.

  As he watched, Gerran realized that first, her hazel eyes were indeed beautiful, and second, that they had dark smudges under them. Her flawless skin was more than a little pale. She’s been working too hard, he thought, and all for that ingrate’s wedding. When he bowed to her, she tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear before she spoke.

  “Good morrow, Captain,” Solla said.

  “And a good morrow to you, my lady,” Gerran said. “I’ve heard that you’ll be riding back with us.”

  “I will, indeed. I’ll be staying for some while.” Solla pushed out a brave little smile.

  “Only for a while?”

  “Well, mayhap my brother might consider finding a marriage for me once he’s less distracted.” The smile wavered, but she managed to keep it. “I’m quite pleased that Galla’s willing to shelter me in the meanwhile.”

  “I’m getting above myself, no doubt, but I’m pleased as well. Forgive me if I’ve offended you.”

  “Offended me?” The smile turned genuine. “Why would that offend me?”

  She started to say more, then blushed. Gerran realized that no one had ever looked at him before with the intensity she was displaying, all wide eyes and soft smile, a gentle flattery that warmed his blood like mead. Ye gods, he thought. That cursed scribe was right!

  “I’ve been told that I fret too much about my birth,” Gerran went on. “It’s far below yours.”

  “I’ve always seen you as Tieryn Cadryc’s foster son. I don’t mean to dishonor your real father’s memory, but he matters not to me.”

  “No insult taken, I assure you.”

  She smiled again, and he was shocked to realize that suddenly he could think of things to say, as if she were an entirely different kind of female than any he’d ever encountered before.

  “It’s a pleasant afternoon,” Gerran said. “I hear that there’s a garden in this dun, and that you planted roses in it.”

  “So I did. Would you like to see them?”

  “I would, my lady, if you’d not mind showing them to me.”

  “I should like to.”

  When she stood still rather than heading for the door, Gerran realized that there was something more that he was supposed to do at this point. Solla ended the awkward moment with another smile.

  “You might hold out your arm like this.” Solla crooked hers at the elbow.

  “Oh. My thanks.”

  When he offered her his arm, she took it, and together they walked out into the ward.

  Since her father had yet to arrive, Branna had an idle afternoon ahead of her and went to look for Neb. She found him seated at a table near the servants’ hearth, writing on a scrap of parchment while some young lord, a man she didn’t recognize, hovered nearby. Neb finished writing, sprinkled the note with sand, then shook it clean and handed it to the lordling, who gave him some coins in return.

  “My thanks,
my lord,” Neb said.

  The lordling hurried off. Neb jingled the coppers in his hand.

  “Not bad for a few moments’ work,” Neb announced, then slipped the coppers into the pouch that hung inside his shirt. “Not a lot of people can write out here, or so it seems.”

  “Was that a love note?” Branna said.

  “It wasn’t, but a promise to pay off a gambling debt. Huh! Love’s always on a lass’s mind.”

  “As if it weren’t on yours. I was thinking. Shall we ride out to see the sights?”

  “Splendid idea! We can have a bit of a talk that way. For that matter, I’ve heard that the cliff’s rather spectacular on the west side, so we’ve got a good excuse.”

  A page fetched their horses for them in return for one of Neb’s coppers. They rode out from the south gate and then turned west, letting their palfreys amble slowly along in the warmth of the sunny day. All round the dun the summer grass stretched green and soft, a marked contrast to the dour gray stone of the town and the cliff both. Not far from the gate a narrow stream trickled out from under the walls.

  “That must be from the well on top of the hill,” Branna said.

  “Probably,” Neb said. “The townsfolk must dump their leavings in the run-off. It’s more than a bit foul smelling.” He turned in the saddle to point to the south. “Now, just down there it joins up with the bigger stream. Let’s cross there at the ford. I don’t want the horses splashing through this filth.”

  Branna let him lead the way. She could see a stream running roughly north to south, the ford glinting in the sun. That ford, she thought. There’s just somewhat about a ford, somewhat ominous. As they rode up to it, she saw a line of white stones marking out the shallow water, pale against the sandy bottom. She caught her breath with a gasp. She knew this ford. She had seen this place at some important crux, some terrible point in—not in her life. She’d never been here before. How could it seem so familiar, so dreadful, and yet remind her of danger and security both at once? How could it give her a feeling that she was utterly helpless and yet utterly in command, both at once?