The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  “I don’t, and it’s not,” Gerran said. “Here, Neb, you’re her betrothed, and you’ll be riding with us. The tieryn needs a scribe to write out messages and the like. So she’ll be safe enough, with you and me to look after her.” He glanced at Branna. “I’ll speak with your uncle, if you’d like.”

  “I would.” Branna turned to him and grinned. “My thanks, Gerro. My most sincere and grand thanks.”

  “Welcome, I’m sure. Huh. I never did like Lord Honelg much. Neb, truly, I think it’s best that—”

  “Oh, very well!” Neb’s tone of voice was more frost than graciousness. “As long as I’m riding with her, I suppose I can’t object.”

  “You might have told me that,” Branna snapped.

  “You never gave me a chance,” Neb said.

  Branna set her hands on her hips, and for a long awkward moment the pair scowled each other. Ye gods, Gerran thought, I’m cursed glad I’m not the one marrying her! Aloud, he said, “Let’s go broach this idea to our tieryn.”

  They found Cadryc and Galla as well up in their chamber. The lady was sitting in a chair by the window, and her husband was perched on the windowsill next to her. Judging from Galla’s pale face and the damp handkerchief she was clutching, she’d been weeping, but she put on a brave smile.

  “Aunt Galla?” Branna said. “Grant me a boon. I want to ride with the warband and plead with Honelg to let the women in the dun come out.”

  Galla’s smile disappeared.

  “Absolutely not!” Cadryc snapped. “Your aunt’s distressed quite enough as it is, lass. I’m not letting you ride into danger.”

  “Well, Gerran thinks it’s a good idea,” Branna said.

  “Truly, my lord,” Gerran said. “Her betrothed will be along, and that Westfolk woman, too. We can keep her safe.”

  Galla’s eyes filled with tears. She tried to dab them away, then crumpled the useless handkerchief and hurled it to the floor. Cadryc patted her shoulder.

  “I shan’t allow it, my dear,” the tieryn said. “Don’t trouble your heart.”

  “But, Uncle Cadryc!” Branna’s voice rose to a wail. “What about Adranna?”

  “The gwerbret’s got a perfectly good herald. He can do the pleading.”

  “The herald’s going to be all formal and reasonable. He can’t put the heart into it that I can. After all, I’m her kinswoman.”

  “True enough, and that’s why you’re staying with your aunt.” Cadryc glanced at Neb. “What do you think?”

  Neb hesitated, glancing back and forth between Branna and the tieryn. Gerran found it in his heart to pity him. Finally Neb took a deep breath as if he were summoning courage. “I think,” Neb said, “that she should stay here, my lord, and begging your pardon and all that, Gerran.”

  Branna opened her mouth to speak, but Cadryc crossed his arms over his chest and glared her into silence. “Your betrothed has bade you nay, and I’ve bade you nay,” Cadryc said, “and that’s the end of it.”

  Gerran considered arguing further, but he’d seen Cadryc in this mood before. “Well, our liege lord’s spoken,” he said to Branna. “But it was a generous thing for you to offer.”

  When she glanced Neb’s way, Branna’s expression hovered on the edge of rage. She was most likely thinking up some nasty remark, but Galla got up and walked over to take her hand.

  “Please stay,” Galla said. “I can’t bear to lose both you and Adranna, and who knows what will happen in a siege?”

  Branna let out her breath in a long sigh. “Oh, very well,” she said. “Since you asked.”

  Once again Gerran found himself glad that she’d taken Neb instead of him. A hellcat, sure enough, he thought. I’ll wager our scribe’s in for a long cold night! He decided that he’d best leave the noble-born to sort things out in private.

  “My lord?” Gerran said. “May I have your leave to go?”

  “By all means.” Cadryc managed a ghost of a smile. “There are times when a man needs to retreat, eh? Too bad I can’t go with you.”

  As Gerran went downstairs, he was thinking that Branna could well be right about the herald, and the thought brought him an idea. He found Salamander sitting over on the riders’ side of the hall, drinking ale and flirting with the prettiest of the serving lasses. Gerran unceremoniously sat down beside him and shot the lass a dark look.

  “You’ve got work to do for the feast tonight,” Gerran said. “Go do it.”

  With a scowl and a flounce she hurried off.

  “Here!” Salamander said, grinning. “I was just beginning to scent victory.”

  “You can resume your campaign later. Listen, I’ve been thinking about Honelg. Prince Voran’s trying to make Ridvar see reason and offer Honelg some kind of mercy or compromise for the sake of the women and children in the dun, but I doubt me that Ridvar will. The prince can’t outright order him to. He’s not the high king, Voran, and never will be.”

  “True spoken, but it matters naught. Honelg will never surrender. I’ll wager you coppers to horse apples that he’s prepared to die for his false goddess.”

  “He’s gone daft sure enough, then. When he dies, he’ll be no loss to the rhan, but cursed if I want him to take his wife and daughter with him. We need someone to plead for the safety of the women in the dun. Branna wanted to, but her uncle’s forbidden her to ride with the army.”

  “That’s a pity. I certainly can’t speak to Honelg, being as I’ve betrayed him, his hospitality, and his goddess all three.”

  “But you know a lot about Alshandra, don’t you? How she’s worshipped and all that. I want you to talk to the herald. His name’s Indar. Maybe you can tell him how to convince Honelg that his goddess wants the women safe. Even the daft have reasons for the strange things they do, after all.”

  “Now, that is a most excellent suggestion, Gerro. I’ll ask Oth for an introduction straightaway.”

  Later that afternoon Gerran saw Salamander and Indar, sitting together at a table in the great hall. Gray-haired Indar was a tall, wiry man who habitually sat slouched in chair or saddle. Now, however, he was leaning forward, elbows on the table, his long narrow face propped up in his long bony hands, listening intently as Salamander talked in his usual animated way. Every now and then Indar would nod, as if signaling the gerthddyn to keep talking. Gerran had no doubt that the herald’s trained memory would store every scrap of Salamander’s lore.

  For most of the morning Neb managed to dodge being alone with Branna. He took written notes at the council of war, he found the gwerbret’s scribe and discussed writing materials, he even helped the servants carry the noon meal down to the Red Wolf warband and the Westfolk camped below the dun. Every time he saw Branna during these errands, she would cross her arms over her chest and glare at him. Finally he realized that putting off the inevitable was only making things worse. Just before dinner he gave a serving lass a copper and asked her take a message to Lady Branna, who was in the women’s hall attending upon the gwerbret’s wife.

  “My dearest love,” the note ran, “I know you’re angry, but it truly is for the best that you stay behind. I’ll be in our chamber.”

  The serving lass trotted off with the note, and Neb went upstairs to wait. He sat on the wide windowsill in their bedchamber and looked down at the ward, where servants were sorting out supplies and loading carts in readiness for the march tomorrow. At the thought of the fighting ahead he felt a weary sort of fear—he himself would be safe, but he knew that he was going to see blood-soaked horrors. Will it be worse than what I saw in Trev Hael? he asked himself. He could remember the stench of the sickroom and his father’s face, pale and gaunt, when Da had tried to speak. “Take care of your mother.” That sentence had come out clear enough, but the next was lost in spasms and the choking sound of a man dying.

  “I tried, Da,” Neb whispered aloud. “Forgive me.” Then he shook himself to drive the grief away. He had his answer. The death lying ahead of them all would be neither harder nor easier to see. It
would be a different thing altogether.

  The chamber door opened with a bang against the wall and Branna strode in, her face set and utterly expressionless. She slammed the door shut, then curtsied.

  “And what does my lord and master husband want?” she said.

  “Oh, for the sake of the gods!” Neb stood up to face her. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I? If the tieryn had said you could go, I would have agreed, but he asked me—”

  “Oh, so the men stick together when they’re disposing of their women’s lives?”

  “Who said anything about your life? Except that I’m worried about you losing it.”

  “I wouldn’t have been in any danger.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I know it better than you. I’m a warrior’s daughter. I’ve grown up with feuds and battles and raids, haven’t I?”

  “Oh, and I suppose I’m just a milksop scribe who doesn’t understand such things.”

  “Well, you don’t.” She tossed her head like an angry horse. “But that’s not what matters.”

  “What does, then?”

  “That you’d order me around.”

  “All I did was tell the tieryn my opinion. He’s the one who gave the orders.”

  For a long moment Branna hovered on the edge of rage. Neb could see it in her clenched fists, tight by her sides, and by her eyes, narrowed to slits. With the memories of his family strong in his mind, he suddenly realized what he needed to say.

  “You’re a warrior’s daughter,” he began, “but I’m the son of a man who depended on his wife to run his shop while he did the work of scribing. My mam—ah, gods, I wish you’d known her. She could read and write as well as he did, and keep accounts, and help with making the inks and suchlike he sold, and all the while she was keeping her household running. Our servants loved her, too, she was so fair-minded.”

  Branna started to speak, then said nothing, but her eyes looked less like an angry wolf’s and more like her own.

  “Everyone in town respected her,” Neb said. “After Da died, she took over the shop. If it hadn’t have been for that fever, she could have taken care of us all, on her own, like.”

  Branna’s fists relaxed into hands.

  “Don’t you see, my love?” Neb went on. “I don’t want a wife to breed sons or suchlike. I want a wife like my mam, strong and clever and—well, and all of that. You don’t have a warrior for a husband. That’s true-spoken. Is it a bad thing?”

  “It’s not, but mayhap the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.” Branna’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re right, and I wish I’d known your mother, truly I do.”

  Neb strode over and flung his arms around her. She wept a brief scatter of tears into his shoulder.

  “What’s so wrong?” he whispered.

  “I was thinking of your mother’s death, that’s all.”

  “But will you forgive me?”

  “Oh, of course I will.”

  For a moment she fell silent, then looked up with one of her wicked grins. “We’ve got a while before the feast begins,” she said. “I could hear the cook yelling at the kitchen lads about things not being ready.”

  “Indeed?” Neb answered her grin with one of his own. “Then let’s go lie down for a little while.”

  The thought of another greasy meal in the crowded, smoky, and noisy great hall turned Dallandra’s stomach, wedding feast or no. She found Calonderiel, told him where she was going, then left the dun. It took her some while to make her way through the town. The crowd that filled the streets stank of ale and cooking smoke and sweat. They had come out to discuss the gwerbret’s marriage, and in pairs and families they were drifting uphill, ready to assemble in the ward of the dun to receive largesse and to cheer the gwerbret’s new wife at the conclusion of the feast. Here and there she overheard someone praising the gwerbret for his generosity because he was going to distribute coins to mark the occasion.

  Out through the gates at last—Dallandra sighed in profound relief as she gained the quiet of the open meadow, where the Red Wolf and Westfolk mounts grazed at tether in the long gold sunlight of late afternoon. Two of the Red Wolf riders and two of Calonderiel’s archers were sitting on the grass in front of the pavilion and dicing to pass the time while they, supposedly at least, guarded the horses. When they saw her, they scrambled up and bowed with looks of profound guilt all round.

  “It’s all right,” Dallandra said. “I doubt very much if anyone’s going to try to steal any of them.”

  They grinned, bowed again, and sat back down to continue their game. Not long after, servants came down from the dun, dragging a small cart with them, laden with food from the wedding feast, a better distraction than any dice game could be. Dallandra took a chunk of bread and some of the omnipresent honeycake and ate alone, sitting in front of the prince’s tent. The feasting was going to go on for hours, she supposed, giving her a welcome chance to be alone and think.

  Yet just after she’d finished eating, Dallandra had a visitor. When she saw a woman leave the gates of the town, she stood up, assuming that someone had sent a servant with a note or message for her. Much to her surprise, it was Branna, waving cheerfully as she came trotting across the meadow.

  “I couldn’t stand the noise a moment longer,” Branna said by way of greeting, “and Calonderiel told me that you were down here.”

  “I am, and it gladdens my heart to see you,” Dallandra said. “Is Neb coming down, too?”

  “Alas, he couldn’t sneak away like I did. The tieryn has him writing some sort of fancy letter of congratulations to the gwerbret and his wife. My aunt will give it to them when we leave on the morrow.”

  “The Red Wolf’s leaving so soon?”

  “The army’s riding out tomorrow. My uncle’s sending us women home with an escort.” Branna made a profoundly sour face. “I wanted to ride to Honelg’s with the warbands, but Aunt Galla was truly upset about it, so I agreed not to.”

  “Your aunt’s very fond of you, isn’t she?”

  “She is. You see, over the years she gave birth to four daughters and two sons. One son died when he was but a fortnight old. The other one’s Mirryn. One daughter died of the choking fever when she was but a little lass, another grew up but died in childbirth, and the third married a lord who inherited a demesne down in Pyrdon, too far away for visits. Oh, and then there was the miscarriage Galla had, too. I think there was only the one, anyway, and I don’t remember if it was a lass or a lad that she lost. But all of that trouble means that Adranna’s the only daughter she’s got left. When I was born, I filled a gap in her heart.”

  Branna spoke so calmly about Galla’s domestic tragedies that Dallandra was taken aback. She had to remind herself just how common it was in Deverry for a woman to bear a good many children and then lose most of them.

  “That’s very sad,” Dallandra said. “No wonder she’s so concerned about Adranna.”

  “Truly.” Branna paused, glancing around her as if she were looking for an escape route. She swallowed heavily before she spoke. “I had another one of those dreams last night, but I couldn’t tell you about it in front of Neb.” Her voice turned to a whisper. “Would it be tedious of me to ask you about it now?”

  “Not at all. Here, let’s sit down. I’ll get some cushions from the tent.”

  Dallandra ducked into the tent, grabbed the first cushions she saw, and hurried out again, before Branna’s nerve failed and she ran off. When they sat down, Branna drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them to her, as if she were trying to make herself as small as possible. For a long while Branna stayed silent, staring off into the distance. Dallandra had to force herself to be patient and let her speak first.

  “Well,” Branna said finally. “In the dream—wait! I’d best start admitting the truth. I remembered last night when I was asleep that before he died, Nevyn had lost much of his memory. He’d lived so long and seen so much that everything was jumbled together. At times h
e even had trouble remembering where we were or why we’d gone there. I was wondering if that might be why Neb doesn’t remember things as vividly as I do.”

  “I’d say that it’s entirely possible, even likely.”

  “But is there somewhat of Nevyn left in him?”

  “There is, rather a lot of him, in fact. Neb stands like him, strides along like him, even at times says things that Nevyn always said. And then there’s his dweomer talent. The Wildfolk always recognize it in someone, you know. They flock around him.”

  “True spoken. You Westfolk live so long, how do you keep your memories safe?”

  “We have very different minds from Deverry folk, I suppose.”

  “It’s like carrying things in sacks, then, like you told us.” Branna smiled, but faintly. “Yours must be larger.”

  “Well, we also live simple lives, but truly, before the Horsekin came, we did live complex ones, in the lost cities, that is.” Dallandra paused, struck by a sudden thought. “But they were very rigid lives, from what Meranaldar’s told me. Very ritualized lives, truly—every day of the year had some meaning and some sort of religious rite that had to be performed. I wonder if that came about just because we live so long.”

  “How would that help remember things?”

  “It would be like a skeleton, all those rituals, for us to hang the meat of our lives upon.”

  “Ah. I can see that, truly.”

  “And besides, we could read and write. Writing is really frozen memory, after all. Once you’ve written a thing down, you don’t have to remember it perfectly.”

  “So it is! I’d not thought of it that way before.”

  Branna smiled, then let the smile fade and returned to staring off at the meadow. The sun had sunk low in the sky, and long shadows stretched across the grass and the grazing horses. In the east the twilight was beginning to velvet the sky.

  “Branna?” Dallandra could stand the silence no longer. “Why are you so frightened?”

  Branna hesitated, and for a moment it seemed that she might weep. She arranged an utterly insincere smile instead, a gesture that forcibly reminded Dallandra of her age, a bare fifteen summers, which by elven reckoning meant she was but a little child still.