The Gold Falcon

‘Who knows?’ Calonderiel shrugged. ‘But we might as well plan for the worst. Which reminds me. We need to send messengers to Braemel. We’re going to need every ally we have. Huh!’ Cal paused to shake his head and smile. ‘I remember how angry I was, when that Horsekin woman – Zatcheka wasn’t it? – arrived to visit you.’

‘You were even angrier when I went to Braemel to visit her daughter.’

‘Yes, I was. Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?’

‘You?’ Dallandra laid her hand on her forehead and feigned shock. ‘Wrong?’

‘I deserve that, I suppose,’ Cal said, glowering. ‘But I’m glad now that you know the Gel da’Thae and their ugly language, too. Think Braemel will send us aid?’

‘Yes, I do. They’re as afraid of the wild Horsekin as we are. Never forget that. They may all look alike to us, but the Gel da’Thae see themselves as very different from the tribal Horsekin.’

‘Good.’ Calonderiel stared into the fire, his mouth working as he thought things through. Eventually he looked up. ‘Did Ebañy have any other news?’

‘Yes, but only of a personal sort.’

Calonderiel waited expectantly. When she said nothing more, he picked a stick up from the ground and began shredding the bark with a fingernail. Dalla longed to tell him her news, that two powerful dweomermasters had been reborn close at hand, that perhaps they might recover the lore and the power it gave them quickly, in time to aid the People in their battle with the Horsekin. But he knew nothing of the great secret, that souls lived many lives, and she was forbidden by her vows to tell anyone unless they asked her outright.

Eventually Cal tossed the stick onto the fire and looked up.

‘Do you remember Cullyn of Cerrmor?’ he said.

‘Jill’s father? I never met him, but I certainly know who he was. Why?’

‘I was just remembering a time long long ago, when Cullyn was the captain of another lord’s warband, and we were drinking together. I saw an omen, or felt it, or something like that.’

‘And it was?’

‘That someday we’d ride together in a war, an important war, the most significant one we’d ever fight.’ He tossed the stick into the fire and looked at her. ‘When he died, I realized that the omen must have been some silly imagining on my part.’ He paused to glare at the fire as if it had offended him. ‘It’s a pity, too, because I’d love to have his sword on our side now. Ye gods! We’d better go tell the prince.’ Calonderiel stood up. ‘Trust Ebañy to be a bird of ill omen!’

But I’ll wager you were right about Cullyn, Dallandra thought. The pity is that I can’t tell you so. Suddenly she felt so cold, so frail, that she could barely speak. She started to get to her feet, but she staggered and nearly fell. Calonderiel caught her by the shoulders and steadied her.

‘Are you ill?’ he said.

‘No, it’s just the omens. I feel omens around us, thick as winter snow. I’ll be all right in a bit.’

‘Dalla, Dalla, you pour out your life for us, don’t you?’

She could see genuine concern in his dark violet eyes, a compassion far different from his usual romantic longing. When he laid the back of a gentle hand against her cheek, she let it rest there for a moment before she turned away.

‘I’ll be all right,’ she repeated. ‘We have to go tell the prince.’

Ever since his father’s death some three years previously, Daralanteriel was technically a king, the overlord of the legendary Seven Cities of the far west, but since their ruins had lain abandoned for over a thousand years, everyone referred to him as a prince. It seemed more fitting to save the title of king for a man who had something to rule. Even so, Daralanteriel tran Aledeldar, Prince of the Seven Cities and Ranadar’s Heir, travelled with a retinue these days. Along with a hand-picked group of sword warriors, Dallandra with her dweomer and Calonderiel with his band of archers kept the royal family constant company. If the Horsekin should raid, they’d find the prince well guarded.

Daralanteriel’s tent, the largest in the Westlands, dominated the centre of the camp. The deer hides that covered the wood frame had been cut into straight panels, laced together, then painted. On the tent flap and around the opening hung painted garlands of red roses, so realistically portrayed that it seemed one might smell them. The rest of the tent sported views of Rinbaladelan in its days of glory. One panel portrayed the high tower near the harbour, another the observatory with its great stone arcs, a third the temple of the sun, so detailed that it seemed one might walk among them – not, of course, that anyone alive had ever seen the actual city to judge the accuracy of the paintings. The artist had followed the descriptions in a book belonging to Daralanteriel’s scribe, Meranaldar. While the book was a copy of a work saved from the destruction of Rinbaladelan, some twelve hundred years previously, it lacked any actual drawings.

Even though they were royal, Dallandra found Dar’s wife and daughter sitting on the ground in front of their tent like any other Westfolk family would do, sharing a meal of roast rabbit and flatbread. Dressed in a loose tunic over doeskin breeches, Princess Carramaena of the Westlands knelt by the fire and poked at the coals with a green twig. Some few feet away, her eldest daughter, Elessario, sat with her knees drawn up and her arms clasped around them to allow her to rest her head upon them. Superficially the two women looked much alike, both of them blonde, with pretty heart-shaped faces. Their eyes, however, differed greatly. Elessario’s eyes were a dark yellow, and cat-slit like all elven eyes. Her mother, a human, had blue eyes and the round pupils of her kind. At the sight of the banadar, Elessario grinned.

‘Cal!’ Elessario said. ‘Where’s your son?’

‘Maelaber?’ Calonderiel said. ‘Taking his turn on horse guard. Where’s your papa?’

‘Doing the same thing.’ Elessi giggled, then hid her mouth with one hand. She was a changeling, or so the People called the wild children who’d been born to them over the years. Although she was the most normal of them, her mind had stopped developing when she’d been about twelve years old.

‘Then I’d best go fetch him.’ Calonderiel glanced at Carra. ‘We’ve had some bad news.’

‘I’ll come, too!’ Elessario scrambled to her feet.

‘Say please,’ Carra said.

‘Please, Cal? Can I come with you?’

‘You may.’ Calonderiel gave her a smile. ‘But you’ll have to be careful around the horses.’

They hurried off, Elessario talking all the while. Carra shook her head and sighed.

‘My poor little changeling! To think we thought she’d be the queen of the Westlands one fine day.’ Over the years Carra had become fluent in Elvish, though one could still hear Deverry’s rolled R’s and Rh’s in her accent. ‘I’m so glad we’ve had other children.’

‘So am I. You must be looking forward to seeing the girls. I’m assuming they’ll come to the festival.’

‘They’d better, or I’ll have some harsh words for them. Perra must have had her baby by now, too. I can hardly wait to see them both.’

Dallandra smiled and sat down near her. ‘Some news – I’ve heard from Salamander.’

‘Has he found Rhodry?’

‘Not to say found him, but he did see him, flying over the Melyn River. He’s not sure whether or not Rhodry saw him, or heard him, either. Dragons make a lot of noise when they fly.’

‘I remember Arzosah, yes, flapping those huge wings of hers.’ Carra paused, suddenly sad. ‘Dalla, is there anything anyone can do for him? Rhodry, I mean, to change him back again. I can’t bear it, thinking of his being like that forever. He would have died for us, after all.’

‘In a way, he did. Unfortunately I don’t have the dweomer to bring him back. I honestly don’t know if anyone does.’

Carra bit her lip hard.

‘Well, he may be perfectly happy,’ Dalla went on. ‘In a way, he’d stopped being human long before Evandar gave him dragon form. You saw him after battles. That berserker laugh!’

‘I can hear it still, yes, whenever I think of him. If only Evandar were still alive! Do you think he could turn Rori back?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly, but he’s gone. I don’t know if any other dweomermaster will ever match his power.’

‘Probably not.’ Carra reached up and touched her cheek, still as smooth and unlined as a young lass’s. ‘It’s because of Evandar that I’ve not aged, isn’t it? He told me once he’d give me a gift, and it’s this, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, indeed, you’ve guessed his riddle.’ Dallandra felt her voice waver. ‘He did love riddles, and his elaborate jokes.’

‘You still miss him, don’t you?’

Dallandra nodded, fighting back tears. Over the years the true mourning had left her. Whole months would pass with never a thought of Evandar, but now and again, she would remember some detail of their time together, and the grief would stab her to the heart.

Fortunately a distraction arrived in the person of Carra’s youngest child. Followed by a pair of big grey dogs and a stream of Wildfolk, Rodiveriel came running. Laughing, he threw himself into Carra’s lap. The dogs flopped down, panting, displaying wolfish fangs. They had white faces and a black stripe of coarser hair down their grey backs like wolves as well, but they were, or so Carra assured everyone, merely dogs, descendants of the loyal pet that had guarded her when Elessi was an infant.

‘What’s all this, Rori?’ Carra said, smiling.

‘Nothing.’ He slid off to sit on the ground near the dogs. ‘I’m tired, but I don’t want to go to bed yet. It’s not even truly dark.’

‘All right, then, but when it’s truly dark, in you go.’

He made a face at her but said nothing. He’d inherited his father’s raven-dark hair, but his eyes, though a pale grey like Dar’s, were human in shape. His name was a hybrid – Carra had wanted to honour Rhodry, the man who’d saved her life all those years past. And yet he was also the Marked Prince of the Seven Cities, assuming of course, that the kingdom ever came back to life. If the cities did become a prize worth fighting over, would the People accept a man with human blood as their ruler? Dallandra doubted it. There’s trouble enough to worry about without that, she told herself. If the Horsekin murder us all, no one’s going to care about a dead kingdom anyway.

Late into the night the men talked of war. Dalla left them when the stars had completed half their wheel of the sky and went to her tent to sleep. Yet an omen-dream woke her in the grey light of dawn. She sat up and stared at the tent bags hanging on the wall, but in her mind she was seeing the omens.

‘A silver dagger and a bone whistle.’ She spoke aloud to ensure that she’d remember what she’d seen. ‘Someone’s silver dagger and a long bone whistle. Ye gods, what an odd pair of things!’ Yet she’d seen them both before, she realized, and eventually she retrieved the memory. One of Alshandra’s followers had tried to work evil with a dragonbone whistle during the siege of Cengarn, and Yraen’s silver dagger had ended up in the hands of the Horsekin after his death. ‘It was never truly finished, that war,’ Dalla whispered. ‘May the Star Goddesses help us all!’

Neb was quite proud of the letter he wrote for Tieryn Cadryc. Since it was addressed to a gwerbret, he trimmed up the best piece of parchment and chose the Half-inch Royal hand for the script. For good measure he put a line of interlace at the top and a little sketch of a red wolf, the tieryn’s blazon, below the place where Cadryc would make his mark.

Neb had an odd knack when it came to drawing things: he would picture his intended images in his mind, get them clear, and then push the image out through his eyes – or so he thought of the process – onto the parchment or whatever surface he was using. All he had to do then was trace around the image, which he could see as clearly as if it were already drawn. The trick came so naturally to him that he’d never given it much thought, but as he worked, he remembered Lady Galla telling him about Branna’s needlework skills. She can do this too, he thought. We’re alike in this. The words pleased him deeply: we’re alike.

When the ink had dried, Neb took it up to the table of honour, where the noble-born were finishing their breakfast. Cadryc took it from him and glanced at it, then took Neb’s pen and put an X over the Red Wolf.

‘Looks splendid.’ Cadryc handed the sheet back. ‘If it’s dry enough, roll it up.’ He handed Neb a silver message tube, somewhat scratched and dented, but usable. ‘I don’t have a proper seal, so a drop of wax will have to do. If we have any sealing wax, that is.’

‘We don’t, your grace,’ Neb said.

‘Ah. I was afraid of that. Well, the next time I go to Cengarn, you’ll come with me, and I’ll give you some coin to buy what we need. We’ve received the king’s yearly bounty. The messengers rode in not long before you turned up.’ Cadryc stood up and yelled across the hall to Gerran, who was eating with the warband. ‘Gerro, I need a couple of men to take a letter to Cengarn.’

Over the next few days, life in the dun centred around two things: waiting for the gwerbret’s answer and storing the taxes. Grain had to be milled into flour or parched for winter porridge and the brewing of ale; hogs, rabbits, and chickens needed to be sorted out and housed until their eventual slaughtering. Cheeses and butter to be kept cool, fruit dried, beef smoked or pickled – the early taxes provided the dun’s food supply for more than half a year. Lady Galla and Lady Branna put on old shabby dresses and worked alongside the cook and servants. Raised in a town, and a large one at that, Neb had never quite realized that outside of the rich provinces in the heart of Deverry, the noble-born were in their own way farm folk, much closer to the life of the land than craftsmen were.

During the day Neb saw Branna often as she went about her work and he his. At times they had the chance to say a few words together, but at meals and in the evening, they sat at opposite sides of the hall, she with the noble-born, he with the servants. He would nurse a scant tankard of ale and watch her, sitting demurely beside her aunt at the honour table while Salamander earned his keep. So that the entire great hall could see and hear him, the gerthddyn stood on a table, telling tales punctuated with songs and juggling, performing little tricks such as pulling scarves out of thin air or plucking eggs from the hair of a passing servant. At times, when her aunt was engrossed in Salamander’s performance, Neb would catch Branna looking across the great hall to watch him, not the gerthddyn. Yet when the tales ended, the two ladies and their maidservants would retire to the women’s hall upstairs, closed to all men but the tieryn and the aged chamberlain.

One evening, as Neb was going upstairs, he met Branna face to face at a turning of the spiral staircase. She was carrying a candle lantern, and at the sight of him she stopped, smiling. Neb suddenly found that he couldn’t remember her name – worse yet, he wanted to call her by some other name, but he couldn’t remember that one, either. Fortunately he could address her by her title alone.

‘Good evening, my lady,’ he said.

‘Good evening, Goodman Neb.’ She paused, as if waiting for him to speak, then continued. ‘I’m going out to the cook house. We’re dyeing some thread, and we need a bit of salt for a mordant.’

‘Where’s your maidservant?’

‘Off somewhere. By the time I find her, I can fetch it myself.’ She hesitated, then smiled and stepped down past him. ‘I’d best be on my way.’

Neb smiled and bowed, then stood and watched her go, until it dawned on him that he might have asked her if he could escort her. Running after her now would only make him look a fool. He hurried up to his chamber and threw open the shutter at the window. By leaning out at a dangerous angle he could just see the cook house and Branna, walking across the ward with her lantern held high. The candle’s dim glow wrapped her round like a cloak of gold, or so he saw it. In a few moments she came back out with the lantern in one hand and a bowl in the other. Neb waited till she’d gone inside and he could see her no longer before he left the window.

That night he had another dream about the young woman called the most beautiful lass in all Deverry. Once again she was sitting in the rough, smoky great hall, and once again he heard a male voice speaking though he could see no one but the lass. This time the voice said, ‘You should have recognized her. You should have seen her for what she was.’

Neb woke to find himself cold-sick and shaking. He lay in bed and listened to his heart pounding while he wondered if he had caught some fever, maybe the same one that had killed his mother. He felt cold, but the palms of his hands were sweaty, and he was gasping for breath. It took him some time to realize that rather than being ill, he was terrified. The dream and the voice lingered in his mind like an evil omen.

Beside him, Clae slept in motionless peace. Neb slipped out of bed and walked to the window. Beyond it the Snowy Road of stars hung close and bright in the cloudless sky. The most beautiful lass in all Deverry. Who was she? Why do I think I know her? At last the strangest thought of all came to him: why am I so sure she’s dead? He could answer none of these questions, and soon he was tired enough to go back to bed and fall straight asleep.

In the morning, as he was going down the staircase for breakfast, he saw Branna walking across the great hall. The words sounded in his mind again: you should have recognized her. The fear returned, one quick stab of it, like an icicle to the heart, then passed, leaving him bewildered.

Gerran finished his breakfast porridge quickly, his mind full of his duties for the day. As he was heading out the door of the great hall, he met Lady Branna coming in. Technically, thanks to his fostering, she was his cousin. She’d been a frequent visitor to Cadryc’s old dun and demesne back to the east of this new rhan, but then she’d only been a shabby little child in the care of a servant. He’d hardly noticed her. The sight of her now, a young woman, bright and attractive, surprised him every time he saw her. When he started to bow, she laughed at him.

‘What?’ she said, grinning. ‘Am I such a fine lady now? Honestly, Gerro, after all these years!’

‘A very fine lady indeed,’ he said. ‘And a lovely one.’

Branna blushed profoundly and hurried past him, heading for the staircase. Gerran glanced back to see Lady Galla standing halfway up the stairs and watching with a small smile. Rather than blush himself, he went outside to the safety of his men’s company. But as he jogged out to the stables, he was thinking of the truth of his remark. Little Branna had grown into a lovely lass indeed.

‘Well, you know, dear,’ Lady Galla said, ‘for a lass in your position, Gerran wouldn’t be a bad match. He’s our foster-son, after all, and your Uncle Cadryc favours him highly.’

‘So I’ve noticed, my lady.’

‘What do you think of him?’

Branna ran her needle into the cloth and looked at Galla. They were sitting and sewing up in the women’s hall, a half-round room with a polished wood floor, partially covered with a pair of threadbare Bardek carpets, and walls of dressed stone, hung here and there with faded tapestries. The morning light streamed in through the window and fell across the pale linen, stretched in a wooden frame, that eventually would become the first panel of her bed hangings.

‘Gerran’s very handsome,’ Branna said at last. ‘And his heart’s closed up as tight as a miser’s moneybox.’

‘That’s true. He’s had a hard life, losing his mother and father that way.’

‘You know, there’s one thing I’ve never understood. His mother – why did she drown herself? Did she love her man as much as all that?’

‘She did, but truly, I think she would have survived her grief if it weren’t for one thing. The night before the warband left, she told me, she and her man fought about somewhat – I forget what, some little thing – and when the warband rode out, she was still ever so angry. She never got the chance to tell him that she forgave him and end the quarrel. And that’s what tipped the balance.’

‘I see. That’s awfully sad.’

‘It was, and so I felt that the least I could do was care for her little son, but you know, it was odd about Gerran. He was so aware of being different, no matter how welcome I tried to make him feel.’

‘Different? You mean because he’s not noble-born?’

‘Exactly. You know your uncle well enough to know that a man’s skill with a sword means more than rank to him, and certainly Mirryn’s always treated Gerro like a brother.’ Galla paused for a small sigh. ‘It’s a pity that you and Mirryn are bloodkin. Though I suppose no one would frown at a cousin marriage out here on the border.’

‘I’d frown on it. I mean, I hope I’m not being rude, but I know him so well that I’d feel like I was marrying my brother. We even look a fair bit alike.’

‘Not rude at all, dear. I’ll admit that I’d have qualms myself about marrying my cousin.’

‘Besides, I wouldn’t make a good wife for a man of his rank.’

Galla hesitated – weighing words, Branna assumed.

‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ Branna went on. ‘I’d hate to have to entertain emissaries from the gwerbret and suchlike.’ She paused for a smile. ‘My dearest aunt, everyone knows I’m a bit strange. I’m moody and I have a nasty tongue. Isn’t that what they all say?’

‘Well, plain speaking isn’t a good thing in the wife of a high-ranking lord, that’s true.’

Branna smiled and picked up her needle again. ‘What about in the wife of a captain?’

‘You’d need to be courteous in the ordinary sort of way to get along with the other servitors’ wives, but other than that, it wouldn’t matter so much.’

‘I see. Well, I’ll think about it.’

And what if I were the wife of a scribe? Branna kept that thought to herself. Like most Deverry girls, she’d always hoped that someday she’d find a good husband, but given the situation in her father’s dun, she’d never dared hope that she’d have two solid prospects. Neb has a good position here, she thought – and I’ll wager he’ll live a fair bit longer than Gerro, too.

Beyond that practical advantage of being the wife of a scribe, not a warrior, Branna had other reasons for favouring Neb. For as long as she’d known him, Gerran had kept his thoughts to himself so resolutely that he rarely spoke unless spoken to. The way he’d volunteered his opinion of her looks, earlier that day, had taken her utterly by surprise. She didn’t fancy long evenings of silence when she would wonder if her husband were brooding over some deep secret or merely half-asleep. On the other hand, she’d noticed that Neb always had a cheerful word for everyone he met and could be positively chatty when he had a moment to spare. The way he cared for his young brother impressed her as well. He would doubtless take a real interest in any children he might father, whereas for Gerran, children would always be women’s work.

Her gnome certainly favoured Neb. Whenever she met the young scribe, the gnome would materialize, grin at Neb, and clap its bony little hands. Neb would glance around to make sure that no one else could see, then smile back at the little creature. Yet oddly enough, Branna could never quite bring herself to speak to Neb about the Wildfolk. They were always in danger of being overheard, but even more, she was afraid of where such a conversation might lead them – not that she could understand her fear.

Alone, up in her chamber, she could talk openly to the gnome, who did his best to answer her with gestures. Any mention of Gerran brought a sour face and a surly shake of the head. One evening, tired from her day’s work, she took a candle and went up to bed early. As she sat in the window, combing her hair, the gnome appeared to perch on her dower chest.

‘Do you think I should finish the shirt in there to fit Neb?’ Branna said.

It nodded a yes.

‘It’s so odd about his name. I mean, that it’s so, well, familiar. He really is like that ancient sorcerer, isn’t he? He’s got the same blue eyes and everything.’