The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  “Are you all right?” Neb said sharply.

  “I’m not.”

  Branna twitched the reins to make her palfrey halt. When she leaned forward in her saddle to get a better look at the ford, she felt that she was looking out of someone else’s eyes.

  “It’s that other lass,” she whispered. “She died here.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Oh, don’t ask!”

  Branna dismounted, dropped the horse’s reins, then walked to the river’s edge. She was aware of Neb doing the same, but the water captured her entire attention. It swarmed with Wildfolk, sleek silver undines rising up as thick as foam, holding out their little hands to her in welcome. Sprites appeared to hover around her and Neb. They bobbed and dipped in the air like flashes of light from a hundred silver mirrors. Neb caught his breath with an audible gasp.

  “This place,” he said, “it’s brimming with dweomer.”

  “Overflowing its banks, I’d say. Remember that other lass, the one who seems to be inside my mind or suchlike? She died here. I don’t know how I know, but I do, and if she’s dead, she must be a ghost. She must be trying to possess me.”

  Neb threw one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “We don’t know that,” he said. “She may just have some sort of message or somewhat that’s keeping her from her rest.”

  “They do say that’s all that ghosts want, someone to ease a trouble for them.” Branna did her best to sound brave, but she could hear her voice shake.

  “And besides, she shan’t harm you. I won’t let her. Here, let’s go back to the dun. She won’t follow us there.”

  “But she will! I mean—earlier, I felt her there. It was like I was looking out of her eyes, not mine. I even felt taller, somehow, like my body had changed, too.”

  “I can’t make sense out of this, and no more can you, from the sound of it.”

  “Of course I can’t! If I could, I wouldn’t be frightened.”

  “Well, true spoken. But here, let’s go back to the dun. You can find your aunt and keep to her company. Now, either the ghost will shun a crowded place like that, in which case, you’ll be safe, or else, she’ll appear there, and others will see her, and then you’ll know that, truly, she’s a ghost.”

  “Well reasoned, indeed.” Branna managed to smile. “No wonder my aunt thinks you’ll be an asset to a lord’s court.”

  “Let’s hope she’s right, so I’ll be able to keep you in the luxury you deserve. Now let’s get back, shall we?”

  Branna shamelessly ran back to her horse. She was mounted and ready to ride before he even reached his, but she was afraid to ride away without him. He mounted up and urged his horse up next to hers.

  “I’ve had an idea,” Neb said. “There’s a temple of Bel in town. I’ll get you back, then walk down and consult with the priests.”

  “Of course!” Branna said. “They should know the local lore about ghosts.”

  “Just that. But it might be hard to sort out. After all, a lot of people died here during the Horsekin War.”

  “But none of the women. According to the tales I’ve heard, the siege didn’t last that long.”

  “I heard that, too. Well, I’ll see what the priests have to say.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you. They’ll only make you wait outside the gates.”

  “True-spoken. I keep forgetting that I’m an unclean female thing in their eyes.”

  Once they’d ridden safely inside the gates of the gwerbret’s dun, Branna began to feel more than a little foolish. Everything seemed too busy, too normal, for ghosts to be lurking about. Servants bustled around the crowded ward, carrying firewood and supplies to the cookhouse or lugging heaps of bedding and clothes into the dun. Pages trotted back and forth on errands. A pair of joking, laughing grooms took Neb and Branna’s horses and led them off to join others tied up outside for want of room in the stables.

  “I’ll be back in a bit,” Neb told her.

  “My thanks,” Branna said. “I’ll be down in the great hall by then.”

  Up in her chamber, Branna found a pitcher of water and a basin waiting for her. She washed her face and hands, then changed her dusty riding clothes for a pair of blue dresses. To comb out her hair she sat on the windowsill and looked down into the ward. The sight of other people comforted her, as did the warm breeze and the gleaming sunlight. Ghosts seemed very far away. The gray gnome appeared and hopped up onto the broad stone sill to sit opposite her. When she told him about her reaction to the sight of the ford, he clutched his head in both hands and scowled at her.

  “What’s this? Are you saying I’ve not understood her?”

  He nodded his head yes.

  “Well, if she’s not a ghost, then what is she?”

  The gnome pointed at her.

  “She can’t be me. I’m me, and she’s—well, she’s her.”

  Once again it clutched its head, then with a last scowl disappeared.

  There’s no understanding them sometimes, Branna thought. The Wildfolk! She left the chamber and headed for the great hall. About halfway down the curving stone staircase, she hesitated, caught by her fears, until she spotted her aunt, standing by the hearth and greeting the various lords and ladies who came up to her. The sight of the one person in her childhood who’d always loved her gave her the courage to continue down the stairs and plunge into the crowd. Dodging people and dogs alike, she made her way to Galla and sat down beside her to wait for Neb to return.

  The temple of Bel stood on the other side of Cengarn from the gwerbret’s dun. As Neb made his way there, he saw a row of squat clay ovens outside a solid-looking round house with new thatch—the town’s baker. He spent two of the coppers he’d earned by writing the lordling’s promissory note to buy a big round loaf, made with clean white flour and still warm.

  At the brass-bound gates of the temple complex a young priest leaned against the wall, yawning in the sun. He was a neophyte from the look of him, a skinny lad, his head shaved, and dressed only in a long tunic bound at the waist with a bit of rope. Had he been formally accepted into the god’s service, a small golden sickle would have dangled from his belt, but as it was, the rope lacked any adornment. At the sight of Neb, he stood up straight and clapped his hands together.

  “Are you bringing that as an offering for the god?” the lad said. From the way he was eyeing the loaf Neb could guess that the god wouldn’t get more than a slice out of it.

  “I am,” Neb said, “and I need to ask one of the priests here a question. It’s about a thing that happened in the past.”

  “Very well. Come in, and I’ll carry that bread for you.”

  Neb handed over the loaf and followed him into the compound. In the middle of a cobbled ward stood the round temple, an imposing building made of solid oak and roofed with slate. The double doors, gleaming with bronze, stood half-open. The neophyte ducked inside with the loaf. Neb heard murmuring voices; then the lad reappeared.

  “You’re in luck,” he said. “His Holiness Lallyn’s awake, and he can see you now. I’ll just take this bread off to the refectory.”

  It struck Neb as odd to mention the priest’s being awake, but when he stepped into the cool shadows of the temple, he understood.

  At first the big round room seemed empty, lit only by two shafts of sunlight from narrow windows at either side of the door. Once Neb’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw the statue of the god directly across from the entrance in the far curve of the wall. Some twenty feet high, Bel loomed in the shadows, the king of the world and lord of the sun, carved from the entire trunk of an oak that had been ancient, judging from its size, when it was honored by being cut down to serve the gods. Bel stood with his arms raised to shoulder-height and thrust at the observer in order to display the human heads, carved of a paler wood, dangling from his hands.

  Nearby, in a three-legged half-round of a chair, sat a priest who seemed nearly
as old as the tree. His wrinkled, frog-spotted skin stretched tight over his skull and his bony frame. Not only was he egg-bald, but he lacked eyelashes as well, and when he smiled, he revealed a single brown tooth off to one side of his mouth.

  “Good morrow, lad.” The priest’s voice rasped and quavered. “Your name is?”

  “Nerrobrantos, Your Holiness, scribe to Tieryn Cadryc of the Red Wolf.”

  “Ah. Come closer, lad. I can hardly hear you.”

  Neb hurried over and knelt before him.

  “And what’s this question you have?” the priest said.

  “Well, Your Holiness, I’ve heard tales from the local farmers about the ford west of the dun.”

  “Ah.” The elderly priest interrupted with a smile. “The haunted ford, most like.”

  “That was the tale, indeed, Your Holiness. Someone told me that at times the ghost of a lass appears. She seems to have a message for someone or some urgent task at hand. I was wondering if you knew who she might be.”

  “Now that’s a new turn of the tale! I know of only one woman who died at the ford.” The old priest paused to suck his tooth. “A great many men and Horsekin did, however, in the general rout. I remember it well, seeing the river run red with blood.”

  “It’s a grim tale, then.”

  “It is.” Lallyn nodded slowly. “Now, the woman who died wasn’t a lass, but a white-haired female nearly as old as I am now. She was a witch, I suppose. How else could she have destroyed the demoness?”

  “Demoness?”

  “The one the Horsekin thought a goddess.”

  “Alshandra?”

  “That was the foul thing’s name, truly.” Lallyn paused again, this time to look away with rheumy eyes. “The witch had a bondwoman’s name. I’ve forgotten it. She and the demoness destroyed each other. Witches can call up demons, you know, but they always come to a bad end, the witches, that is. The demons too, I suppose. This one certainly did.” He sighed, nodding to himself. “Just as well, too. Just as well.” He let his chin rest upon his chest. In a few moments he’d fallen asleep.

  Neb heard someone walk in behind him and turned to see the neophyte, no longer burdened with the loaf, gesturing at the door. The audience was at an end.

  During his steep walk back up to the dun, Neb thought over the priest’s answer. The priests of Bel would see all dweomer as evil witchcraft, he knew. Some witches were reputed to survive their deaths in one form or another, either as haunts or as magical birds who could speak to the living under certain circumstances. Like that raven? he wondered. Perhaps the bird wasn’t an evil omen, but merely a ghost who wanted to tell Branna some secret or other. There was no doubt that his beloved had talent for dweomer. He had come to accept that fact, just as he had come to realize that he, too, was marked for a stranger craft than letter-writing.

  If only I could find the room with the tapestries. In his mind Neb had the image of a suite of rooms in a tower. In the largest, fine Bardek tapestries decorated the stone walls. Between two of the hangings a shelf of seven books waited for him, seven priceless books that stood between a pair of bronze wyverns. But he’d lost the way. He’d forgotten how to reach his rooms. As he puffed up the last hill to the gates of the dun, it occurred to him that Branna somehow knew where those rooms were. All at once he saw it with a strange cold certainty. If he could solve the puzzle of this ghost or this “other lass” or whatever was haunting her mind, he would solve his own riddle as well.

  By the time he returned to the dun, noble-born lords and their honor escorts thronged the great hall. Servants brought the men ale in tankards and the noble-born, mead in goblets. Talk and laughter boomed under the high ceiling and reverberated across tables set so close that the serving lasses could barely edge through. The womenfolk of higher rank had retreated upstairs, but after some searching Neb found Branna, waiting at the top of the curving staircase.

  “There you are!” Branna said. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”

  “It all took a fair bit of time,” Neb said. “I did speak with the high priest. He’s immensely old. Why, he must be near seventy! His memory’s not what it was either, but he did know somewhat about the siege of Cengarn. That’s when a woman died at the ford, a witch woman, he called her. She somehow or other saved the city from the demoness Alshandra, destroyed her somehow, but it cost her own life.”

  “Calling her a witch strikes me as a nasty way of speaking, then.”

  “It struck me the same, truly, but what else can you expect from Bel’s priests?”

  “Naught, I suppose.”

  “She does seem to be the sort of woman who could come back as a haunt, doesn’t she? And maybe have a message for someone?”

  Instead of answering, Branna half-turned and looked away down the corridor, but Neb doubted if she was truly seeing the view of doors and the far stone wall. All at once she shuddered, then turned back with a brittle smile. “I’ve got to rush off to the women’s hall. I should have been there ages ago, you see, to be presented to the gwerbret’s betrothed.”

  Before Neb could say anything, she hurried off. About halfway down the corridor she opened a door and slipped into one of the few places in the entire dun where he was forbidden to go. The idea of witchery scared her good and proper, he thought. Later, he supposed, he’d be able to discuss it with her, once she’d had a chance to think it over.

  The proper term for Lady Drwmigga, the gwerbret’s new wife, was bovine, Branna decided. Oh, she was pretty enough, with her long dark hair and dark blue eyes, and she wore a beautiful overdress, a gift from the queen herself down in Deverry—blue Bardek silk embroidered about the neck and down the sleeves with floral garlands in the Westfolk style. As she half-reclined in a cushioned chair, her pale hands flaccid in her lap, she smiled at the ladies of the her new rhan as if everything pleased her impartially, whether it was a honeyed apricot or a fulsome compliment. When she spoke, her voice was low and even, and she tended to let her words trail away to a whisper rather than finishing them smartly off. Gwerbret Ridvar’s going to have some stupid sons, Branna thought to herself, but I’ll wager she gives him a lot of them.

  The talk in the women’s hall centered around gossip and children, drifting now and then to the price of Bardek silk and glass drinking vessels and other such luxuries. Branna did her best to pay attention, but she was wishing she’d brought a piece of embroidery from home to work upon during these duty stints in attendance upon the new lady of Dun Cengarn. Still, the boredom was preferable to letting her mind wander to the tale of the witch—or dweomerwoman—who had died at the ford.

  Thinking about that woman made her feel as if the room had filled with a sudden icy mist. Yet try as she might to keep her mind on the present conversation, Neb’s words kept creeping back. Release came at last in the person of a young maidservant, who slipped into the chamber with a curtsy for Drwmigga, then curtsied again to Branna.

  “My lady,” she said, “your father rode in a little while ago.”

  “My thanks for telling me!” Branna got up and curtsied to Drwmigga. “My lady, if you’ll excuse me?”

  “Of course.” Drwmigga favored her with a good-natured smile. “Kin come before all else, I always say.”

  The great hall seemed a good bit quieter, and a little less crowded, than it had been earlier—the effects of the generous servings of ale, no doubt. Here and there at one of the tables on the commoners’ side of the hall, a rider or manservant slept with his head pillowed on his arms. A pair of serving lasses wandered around, picking up tankards from the floor.

  On the honor side, Tieryn Gwivyr stood near the doorway as he gave orders to his manservant. Gwivyr was a big man even for a Deverry lord, tall, barrel-chested, sporting a full mustache and a head of pale golden hair, dusted with silver. As Branna made her way down the stairs, she could feel her heart pounding in something like fear, but when she curtsied in front of him, Gwivyr smiled at her. With a flick of one hand he dismissed the servant.
/>   “Good morrow, Father,” Branna said. “I hope you had a pleasant journey.”

  “Pleasant enough.” His dark voice suited his build. “You look well, lass.”

  “My thanks. I’ve been having a splendid time at Aunt Galla’s.”

  “Good.”

  “Father, I’ve somewhat to ask you. I’ve met the man I want to marry, and he wants to marry me.”

  “You have, eh? And what does your uncle think of that?”

  “He approves of him, and so does Aunt Galla. But, uh—well, uh—he’s common-born.”

  “What?” Gwivyr wrinkled his nose. “Not a farmer or suchlike?”

  “Not at all. He’s Uncle Cadryc’s scribe, and Aunt Galla says he has a great future ahead of him. She thinks he’ll make a councillor at some great lord’s court.”

  “Oh.” Gwivyr turned a little away and looked across the hall. “Your stepmother’s not down yet, I see. We might as well settle this now. About your scribe, if Cadryc approves, I don’t see why I should argue. Marry to suit yourself, lass.” He paused for a laugh. “He won’t be demanding much of a dowry, will he now?”

  “He’s not so much as mentioned a dowry.”

  “Good. Let’s see, when you left for Galla’s, I gave you a riding horse and its tack, a cart horse and cart, and then you’ve got your dower chest. If he’ll take that, by all means marry him.”

  “I’m sure that’ll be quite enough.”

  “Good.” Gwivyr paused to look at the staircase. “Here comes your stepmother, and I’d best go join her before she starts her cursed complaining again.” With a last smile her way, he strode to the foot of the staircase, then greeted his wife with a bellow and a wave. The lady came down and hurried off without so much as a glance Branna’s way.