The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  “Oh, do you now?” Cadryc sounded amused. “And why should the captain let you do that?”

  “It was us that Honelg lied to, Your Grace, about there being illness in his dun, I mean. We don’t want to miss the fight.”

  “So he did. I’d forgotten that.” Cadryc glanced at Gerran. “You get the last word on this.”

  “What makes you think you’re going to miss anything?” Gerran said. “We could be here for the rest of the summer.”

  “Well, true-spoken.” Warryc paused to turn uphill and look at the dun. “But he’s sent his women out, hasn’t it? I’d wager that’s a sign of change.”

  “Oh, very well, then.” Gerran scowled at him, but he knew that the scowl couldn’t hide his respect for them. “Turn those horses over to young Allo and Bryn and tell them to join the escort.”

  “My thanks!” Warryc made a bob of a bow in Cadryc’s direction. “And my thanks to you, too, my lord.”

  Still grinning, the pair of them led the horses away.

  “I hope five men will be enough,” Cadryc said. “I keep wondering if Honelg has allies somewhere close by, someone who might want to take my daughter for a hostage.”

  “If he does have allies,” Gerran said, “they’re not Deverry men.”

  “That’s what’s troubling me the most.”

  “True spoken, but if Horsekin were lying in ambush, the dragon would have smelled them even if she couldn’t see them.”

  “I keep forgetting about that blasted creature. Imph, I must be getting old, seeing enemies everywhere.”

  Yet the tieryn wasn’t the only person who worried about Adranna’s safety. With the escort settled, Gerran went out to the pasture where the Red Wolf horses were tethered to pick out the most tractable mounts for the women. Prince Daralanteriel and Dallandra came down to join him there.

  “A request of you, Captain,” the prince said. “The Wise One here has asked me to send four archers back to Cengarn with the escort.”

  “That’s a generous offer, Your Highness,” Gerran said. “I’ll accept it gladly.”

  “You’re going to ask me why,” Dallandra said with a good-humored smile. “Not all the dragons in this part of the world are friendly, and so I thought archers might come in handy, as it were. I asked the prince to send some of our men along.”

  And what good, Gerran thought to himself, are hunting bows going to be against dragons? Yet he merely smiled and bowed to her, because he could guess that Dallandra in truth had another sort of enemy in mind. Of what sort, he had no idea, but he also had no doubt that she knew, and that was what mattered.

  After he chose the horses, Gerran delegated servants to saddle them. There were provisions to be packed and loaded onto a mule, too, since the trip would take two days. During these preparations Lady Adranna sat on an empty barrel turned on its side, with Trenni sitting cross-legged in front of her to lean back between her mother’s knees. The servants knelt on the grass behind them. Gerran wanted to say something comforting to the lady, but he could think of nothing. The army was here to kill her lord and husband, and she knew it as well as anyone.

  Once everything was ready for the journey, Cadryc knelt down in front of his daughter. “What about Matto?” he said.

  “What do you think?” Adranna said. “Honelg wouldn’t let him go.” Her voice snapped with rage like green wood hissing and sparking on a fire. “No matter how hard I begged.”

  “Imph.” Cadryc paused for a long moment. “I see. Well, here, we’ll do what we can to get him out alive for you. Matto, I mean.”

  “Da, if you could!” Adranna caught her breath with a gasp and choked back tears. “Mayhap my goddess—”

  “Hush!” Cadryc snapped. “I’d have you keep silence about that lying demoness where the men can hear you.”

  Adranna crossed her arms over her chest, then set her jaw and stared him in the eye. “And I’d have you not call her that.”

  For a moment they glared at each other in silence. Adranna had never looked more like her father than at that moment, Gerran decided. Trenni sat stone-still between them, her pinched little face pale, her eyes wide. Abruptly, Adranna broke the impasse. She stroked her daughter’s hair and bent forward to murmur to her until her stiff little shoulders relaxed.

  “Oh, very well, Da,” Adranna said. “I doubt me if I’d get anything but curses if I did say her name.” She paused, drawing a long breath. “Soon enough I’ll be a widow, anyway, and I’m minded to go to the temple of the Moon once I am, but I plan on going with a lying heart, to worship my own goddess under their guise.”

  “What? Ye gods, it’s a bit soon to make that decision. This blasted siege could last for months.”

  “Nah nah nah! You don’t understand us, and you don’t understand her ways. Although—” Her voice turned hesitant. “Although I don’t truly know what my lord will do. He’s been so strange lately. When he sent us out, he was talking about bearing the last witness, but I don’t know if he can go through with it or not.”

  “The what? What in the icy hells is that?”

  Adranna shook her head and silently mouthed “not where the child can hear.” Cadryc nodded to show he’d understood. “Ask that snake-tongued betrayer of a gerthddyn what it means,” Adranna said. “He seems to know enough about us, judging from the way he’s brought ruin upon us all.”

  When the women rode out, Cadryc rode with them, though he announced that he’d turn back after a mile or so. Gerran walked down to the road to see them off, then went to the Westfolk’s encampment to look for Neb. He found him and Salamander both kneeling on the ground in front of Dallandra’s tent. With a clean doeskin to lay their work upon, they were folding bandages out of linen rags. Gerran hunkered down across from them.

  “Tell me somewhat,” Gerran said. “Why did the prince give us those archers?”

  “Swear to me you won’t repeat a word of this,” Neb said, “and I’ll tell you.”

  “Done, then.”

  “Dalla thinks there may be a shape-changer dogging our heels, one who can fly. If she’s right, he’s up to no good.”

  Gerran had the distinct sensation that he was going to choke. He managed a cough, took a deep breath, and finally found his voice. “Shape-changer?” he said. “Ah by the black hairy arse of the Lord of Hell! There is such a thing, then?”

  “There is.” Neb sounded so grim that Gerran believed him without hesitation. “It’s not just some fancy tale like Salamander tells in the marketplace.”

  “Indeed,” Salamander put in. “Gerro, if you see a bird, particularly a raven, who looks far too big to be a normal bird, as it were, then come tell Dalla or me straightaway.”

  “I will. You can rest assured about that. Another question. Lady Adranna told her father that Honelg was planning on bearing the last witness. She said to ask you what that meant.”

  Salamander winced, then frowned down at the bandage in his hands. “I’m not absolutely sure,” he said at last. “But I do know it bodes ill. ’Witnessing’ to these people always seems to mean dying in some form or another. So I’d guess it means fighting to the death.”

  “Honelg would do that anyway,” Gerran said. “He can hardly surrender. Ridvar will hang him if he does. Now that he’s let Lady Adranna go, he’s got naught to bargain with.”

  “What about the lives of his men?” Neb said. “And the men from his village, too.”

  “His men have sworn to die with him, if need be,” Gerran said. “And they will. His villagers—I’d suppose that any who wanted to leave would have left with the women. Ridvar wouldn’t have harmed them. In his eyes, they don’t matter.”

  “Huh.” Neb snorted profoundly. “No doubt.”

  When Cadryc returned, Gerran told him what Salamander had said about bearing the last witness, but he kept Neb’s talk of shape-changers to himself. If Cadryc believed it, then he’d be sorely troubled about a threat he could do nothing to turn aside, and if he disbelieved, then he’d think that his scribe
and his captain had both gone daft. Neither seemed like a reasonable risk to run, especially since the only two people in the encampment who could defeat that sort of enemy were already on their guard.

  Late that night, Gerran was standing watch at the edge of the Red Wolf camp when he saw a dim light flickering in an upper window of the otherwise dark dun. Someone who couldn’t sleep had lit a candle lantern, he supposed. In a moment the light disappeared, only to reappear briefly through an arrow-slit on the floor below, then disappear once more. In a short while he spotted the light again, and for a moment he thought the dun was on fire, because it gleamed through chinks in the loosely set stones of the outer wall.

  The light, however, never spread further. A lantern, then, Gerran thought. But why would someone be sitting outside next to the wall like that? Any sentries should have been up on the catwalks, and indeed, occasionally in the starlight he could discern men, walking back and forth at the top of the walls. Eventually, toward the end of his watch, the lantern light disappeared and stayed gone.

  In the morning Gerran mentioned the mysterious light to Dallandra, who thanked him but seemed untroubled by the news—much to Gerran’s relief. He’d been afraid that the light meant some sort of evil dweomer at work.

  “I doubt it,” Dallandra said. “More likely Honelg just couldn’t sleep, as you suspected. Salamander mentioned that he’s got a shrine to his goddess somewhere in the dun, and he could well have gone there to pray.”

  “Ah,” Gerran said. “That makes sense.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Dallandra continued, “if you think Honelg will sally soon—or at all.”

  “I’ve no idea, my lady. The man’s obviously daft, and so who knows what he’ll do? And that means we can do naught but sit and wait.”

  Those left behind in Cengarn were just as impatient for news of the siege, but their curiosity was the more easily slaked. The afternoon was just turning to a long summer evening when Arzosah appeared over Dun Cengarn for a second time. Branna was sitting in the women’s hall working on Neb’s wedding shirt. At the sound of shouting in the ward she laid the shirt into her workbasket just as Midda came rushing in.

  “She’s back,” Midda said, gasping for breath. “The dragon, I mean. Lord Oth wants you to go talk with her.”

  “What?” Lady Galla practically bounced out of her chair. “How dare he! Branna, I don’t want you doing any such thing.”

  “Aunt Galla, I’ll be very careful, I promise,” Branna said. “Since she knows me now, it’ll be safer for me than anyone else.”

  “Apparently Oth thinks so.” Galla paused for a scowl. “He obviously doesn’t have the courage to go himself, and I shall tell him so at dinner tonight.”

  Branna made her escape from the women’s hall before Galla could argue further and hurried upstairs. As she climbed the ladder to the roof, she could smell the dragon’s spoilt-wine scent. She scrambled out onto the sunny roof where Arzosah sat comfortably coiled, waiting for her. Branna curtsied, a gesture that brought a rumble of approval from the wyrm.

  “And a good evening to you,” Arzosah said. “Is all well here?”

  “It is, truly,” Branna said. “I see you’ve brought us more messages.”

  “I have, and some good news. Your cousin and her daughter are safe and on their way here. They should arrive soon, in fact, well before sunset. I overflew them not long ago at all.”

  “Thank every true goddess for that!” Branna felt like howling in sheer joy. “I can’t even say how much it gladdens my heart.”

  “I thought it might.” Arzosah raised her head to reveal the dangling sack of messages. “If you could relieve me of this unseemly pouch, I’ll be off to hunt.”

  “Gladly. Did you hear that Oth found Alshandra worshippers in the dun? We don’t know, though, if there are any down in town.”

  “I did hear that. While I hunt and suchlike, I’ve been keeping an eye out for anyone who might have left town and ridden west.” The dragon curled one paw and contemplated her claws. “The prince personally asked me to do so.”

  “Which one?”

  “Voran. For a human being he’s unusually clever. We don’t want anyone trying to warn Zakh Gral.”

  Once she had the pouch, Branna tossed it through the trapdoor, then climbed down after it as fast as she could. From above, she could hear Arzosah take flight with the slap and drumming of her enormous wings. Branna scooped up the messages and ran downstairs. On the landing she hesitated, then decided that Oth could wait a moment or ten. With a fling of the heavy door, she burst into the women’s hall.

  “Aunt Galla!” Branna called out. “He’s let her go. Honelg, I mean. Adranna and Trenni are nearly here.”

  Galla looked at her, smiled, hesitated, then wept in the flooding relief of tears, though she kept smiling the entire time. Solla hurried to her side and put an arm around her shoulders.

  “I’ll just take these messages to Lord Oth,” Branna said. “I’ll come back as soon as he gives me leave.”

  “Better yet,” Drwmigga said, “we’ll all go down to the great hall as soon as Galla’s composed herself. We’ll all want to go out to the ward to greet Lady Adranna.”

  Just as the dragon predicted, Adranna, Trenni, and their escort reached Cengarn well before sunset. A fort guard on duty above the north gate saw their tiny procession straggling down the road and shouted the news to one of his fellows, who ran up to the dun with it. With Drwmigga at their head, as befitted her rank as the lady of the dun, the women left the great hall and waited by the open gates. Thanks to the steepness of the hill and the twists in Cengarn’s streets, they had something of a wait before they finally saw Adranna. She and little Treniffa were still on horseback, but the servant lasses and the men of the escort had dismounted to spare their horses during the steep climb up. Those pages left behind in the dun hurried forward to help the ladies, and the two remaining grooms came for the horses.

  Once they’d dismounted, Adranna and Treniffa made no move to come forward. They stood together, Adranna’s arm around her daughter’s shoulders, as if they expected to be arrested rather than welcomed. The servant lasses huddled behind them. It was Drwmigga’s place to say a few words, but she seemed to have forgotten this particular courtesy. Branna felt like kicking her, but instead she strode over to her cousins.

  “It gladdens my heart to see you safe,” Branna said. “Addi, you can’t imagine how worried we’ve been.”

  At that Adranna managed a smile, but she was looking over Branna’s shoulder at her mother. Lady Galla wiped a few tears away with the back of her hand.

  “You’ve been very naughty, Addi,” Galla said, “but I never wanted you to marry that awful man in the first place, and so it’s no wonder, I suppose.”

  “Oh, Mama!” Adranna’s reserve broke at last. She ran to Galla and threw her arms around her. “It gladdens my heart to see you.” Her voice cracked, but she managed to choke back any tears. “I’m so tired.”

  “Let’s all go inside,” Drwmigga said, “and take you up to the women’s hall. It will be nicer there.”

  The women ate in their own hall that night, leaving the great hall to the men of the fort guard under the command of Lord Oth. Everyone but Adranna talked bravely about all sorts of things, none of which truly mattered except for Branna’s betrothal. Yet, even though her cousin did show some pleasure at the news and ask for some details about Neb, Branna changed the subject as soon as she could. Adranna was about to become a widow, and Branna refused to dwell on her own happiness. She did wonder, though, if Adranna would mourn her lord. She had accepted the marriage freely enough, Branna knew from the talk of the older women in her clan, but had she come to love him or hate him during those years shut up with him on the edge of the wild forest? Adranna gave no sign either way as the talk flowed around her like water around a rock in a stream.

  It was late that evening before Branna had a moment alone with her niece. Since there were no other noble-born childr
en in the dun, and thus no nursemaid, Treniffa would sleep on a trundle bed in her mother’s chamber, but exhausted though she was, she was afraid to go to sleep alone. Branna lit candle lanterns, gave one to Trenni to carry and took the other, then led her up to the room. Midda had already laid clean linen sheets and a blanket on the narrow little bed’s straw mattress. Branna set the lanterns down where there was no danger of tipping them onto the braided rushes covering the floor. Shadows danced in the curve of the wall and made Trenni flinch.

  “It’s too hot tonight for a blanket,” Branna said, “so we’ll fold that up and make you a pillow instead.”

  Trenni nodded. She was looking around the chamber wide-eyed, staring at the shadows and the flickering light. “You’ll stay till I go to sleep?” she said at last.

  “I will.”

  “Will you leave the candles burning?”

  “I will indeed.”

  “Will Mama be up soon?”

  “I’m sure of that. She’s very tired too.”

  “Then will you stay till she comes?”

  “I will, love. Don’t you trouble your heart. You’re safe now.”

  Branna helped her take off her dress, torn in places and filthy from the trip to Cengarn. Underneath she was wearing a thin shift of linen that was yellow and shiny with age.

  “Do you have another dress with you?” Branna said.

  “I don’t,” Trenni said. “We didn’t bring much. Mama was afraid Da would change his mind and not let us go. So we just grabbed some things and ran downstairs.”

  “I see. Well, on the morrow we can sew you a new one.”

  Trenni sat down on the edge of the bed. “Aunt Branna?” she said. “Will they kill Matto when they take our dun?”

  Branna hesitated. She wanted to say neither the truth nor the lie. The truth would hurt the child now, but a lie would wound her more deeply later.

  “They will, won’t they?” Trenni’s thin voice went flat. “I don’t want him to die.”

  “Neither do I,” Branna said. “My Neb promised me he’d try to save him, and he’s got some very important friends there with him.”