The Gold Falcon (16 page)

“Alshandra again?” Salamander said. “Huntress of Souls?”

“The same one, truly. Like that gold arrow we found in the burned village.”

“Indeed. Do go on. This is most fascinating, engrossing, mesmerizing, and the like.”

“All of that, eh? Well, now, this priest fellow refused to eat. Said he’d starve himself to death rather than put up with being our prisoner. A lot of gall, if you ask me, since his cursed Horsekin had been taking our folk prisoner! We thought about killing him, of course, but it’s risky, killing priests. What if their god decides to take a little vengeance, eh?”

“Quite right. You can’t be too careful.”

“So anyway, we lords got together and talked about forcing him to eat. But I spoke up and said let him do what he wanted, if he was so blasted keen on dying. I could see the indignity of it, being tied up and having gruel poured down your throat or suchlike, and so the other lords agreed. And the scabby fellow thanked me, if you can imagine it! Thanked me for letting him starve to death! In return, says he, I’ll give you a prophecy. Keep your son safe till his nineteenth summer begins. Do that and he’ll live a fair long time. Let him fight before that, and he’ll die young.” Cadryc looked down at the ground and shrugged again. “No doubt you think me a fool for believing the filthy bastard.”

“I don’t,” Salamander said. “I can see where a prophecy like that would chill a father’s heart. What happened to the priest?”

“He starved, just like he wanted. Took him a long time, but he went happily enough at the end.”

“Do you remember his name, by any chance?”

“I don’t, though I can still see his face clear as clear in my mind.”

“And how old is Mirryn?”

“Eighteen summers now.” Cadryc looked up. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve been keeping track. Every Beltane I put a mark on my saddle peak, just a little nick in the leather.”

“You know, I can’t say why, but I have this feeling that you’re right to keep him out of the fighting.”

“Do you now? Then my thanks. I just can’t bring myself to ignore it, and ye gods, his nineteenth summer will start next year anyway. He’s the only son I have.”

The thing that Salamander couldn’t admit to the tieryn was that he’d received an omen of his own. When he was listening to Cadryc describe the prophecy, he felt an icy cold ripple down his back, a warning from the dweomer that indeed, it had been a true speaking.
Too bad that wretched priest died
, he thought.
He must have had dweomer, and I would have loved to have asked him a few questions.

“What about those rescued farm women?” Salamander said. “Are any of them still with us?”

“As far as I know. They were all young women then. Why?”

“Because I love a good tale. Indeed, my very living depends upon my having a store of good tales. ‘Lasses captured by Horsekin but saved in the nick of time!’ That should extract a few coins from those who lead safe but dull lives.”

“You could be right about that, indeed. Well, my thanks for listening, gerthddyn, but I’ll ask you not to spread my part of the tale around.”

“Don’t worry, Your Grace, I’d never presume. I have a son of my own, you see, and I can sympathize.”

That son was very much on Salamander’s mind when he contacted Dallandra again, late that evening when he could be alone to scry her out. First he told her what he’d gleaned about the situation in the dun, including Branna’s tales.

“Well,” Dallandra thought to him. “I’d say that she’s ready to remember, and doubtless Neb is, too, with her there in the same dun, but you can’t force such things upon people. If they’re not ready to ask on their own, their minds will shy away like frightened horses, and then they might never come to the point of asking.”

“Yes, that’s very true. May I drop portentous hints?”

“Knowing you, you probably won’t be able to stop yourself. Just make them hard to understand, will you?”

“Fear not. I shall do just that. Mystery, mazelike and mind-fooling, shall be my mode.”

Dallandra set her lips together and glared at him.

“One thing I wanted to ask you,” Salamander said hurriedly. “Have you seen my Zan recently?”

“No. When the winter camps broke up, he went with your father’s alar. They’ll be at the summer festival, though, and I’ll have news for you then.”

“Good, and thank you. Soon, I hope, I’m going to Cengarn with the tieryn and his men. I’ll take my leave of them there and start traveling around, plying the inhabitants with questions as I go. I have hopes of catching up with Rhodry as well as gleaning information about the Horsekin.”

“Good. Just be very careful, will you? And stay in contact with me. I’ll talk to Dar, but I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t lead the alar north. At some point we can meet up.”

“A most excellent plan, Oh princess of powers perilous! And fear not, I shan’t be silent. Being silent goes against my nature.”

T
he summer festival took place during the days surrounding the longest day of the year. Prince Dar’s scribe, Meranaldar, told Dallandra that in ancient times, when the great observatory at Rinbaladelan still stood, the festival had begun at noon on the longest day, but out in the grass no one bothered to measure time so precisely. Some alarli rode in early, others late, and no one stayed long before they were forced to ride out to find better pasture for their stock. By custom, however, the prince’s alar always arrived first. By counting days, Meranaldar did his best to keep track of the sun’s position in the sky in order to determine what he called the “real” start of the festival. At times he would thrust a wooden pole into the ground and study its shadow at noon—why, Dallandra didn’t know.

They held the festival at the Lake of the Leaping Trout, the northernmost of the chain that Deverry folk call Peddroloc, the four lakes, all of which lay in steep valleys. To the north of Leaping Trout the land flattened, but rather than grass, trees grew there, an orchard of pines, pruned and planted in straight rows for fuel.

The People cremated their dead. Whenever a person died, his kin took the seasoned wood waiting in one of the stone sheds near the lakeshore. After the cremation ritual, a tree was cut to replace the firewood, and a new tree planted in its stead. Thus the summer festival, held in the shadow of the death ground, tended to be a solemn affair, a time to remember those who had died in recent years, an appropriate sentiment since the longest day marked the turning of the year, when summer itself would begin to fade and die.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” Dallandra said to Meranaldar. “The way the trees are cut and planted. Is that an old custom?”

“Ancient,” the scribe said. “It goes back to the Seven Cities, most certainly. It sprang from a very odd belief, that every person lives multiple lives. Nothing but superstition, of course, but a persistent one.”

“Indeed?” Dallandra managed to suppress her sudden urge to laugh. “I suppose then that the planting of the new tree was symbolic.”

“Yes, of the person’s supposed new life. That’s what the priests of the Star Goddesses taught, at any rate. A number of texts survive. A bad lot, those priests, or so history tells us. Some survived the Great Burning, but they were thrown overboard somewhere in the journey across the Southern Sea.”

“They were? By the Dark Sun herself! I never knew that.”

“You didn’t?” Meranaldar frowned in thought. “Oh, yes, of course. It was Princess Carra whom I told, and I don’t remember you being there at the time. The refugees ran dangerously short of water, you see, and the priests claimed a greater share. They based their reasoning, if one can call it that, on doctrine. Since they’d been born into the religious elite, they claimed, then in a previous life they’d done something to accrue great merit, and thus they deserved more of everything in this life.”

“What a pernicious idea! I’ll wager there was a corollary, too, that the common people deserved whatever ill luck came their way.”

“Exactly. The reasoning had ceased to be compelling, with Rinbaladelan in ruins behind them and so many people dead. The soldiers on the ship tossed the priests overboard, where they could have all the water they wanted.” Meranaldar paused for a smile. “That very evening it rained, and the barrels they’d brought along for drinking water were filled to overflowing. The soldiers took this as a sign of the gods’ approval. Thus are new doctrines born.”

They shared a laugh as they walked on. Dallandra had often wondered why the dweomermasters insisted that their belief in multiple lives be kept secret. She was beginning to understand.

They were walking together in the forest, following one of the cool, shaded lanes between the trees. When he’d first come to the Westlands, Meranaldar had been a thin man, hollow-chested and stoop-shouldered, but forty years of riding with the royal alar had strengthened him. Now, no one would ever have confused him with a warrior, not with his slender arms and soft hands, but he stood straight and moved with the graceful ease of someone who knows his own strength.

“Tomorrow the first alarli should arrive,” Dallandra said. “I’ll be interested to see how many new babies we have, if any.”

“There will be some,” Meranaldar said. “At the Day of Remembrance, I noticed that a good many women were pregnant. What we need to do is tally up the number of our changelings.”

“That’s true. We were up to forty-seven of them this spring. I’m particularly wondering about Carra’s new granddaughter.”

“Indeed. So far, the changelings seem to have very kindly spread themselves around, one to a family. It’s a good thing, since they can be such a burden.”

“Yes. The gods must be taking a hand.”

Meranaldar smiled, a bit too indulgently in her opinion. He could be condescending, the scribe, but she was too grateful for the knowledge he’d brought with him to hold it against him. Besides, she knew better than he did that it wasn’t the gods who were lending their aid, but a once-human man: Aderyn.

Whenever she attended the birth of a wild child or held a newborn in her arms, she could feel Aderyn’s presence—naught so perceptible as a ghost, but rather a touch of mind on mind, a sense that he was reaching out to her across the planes. To fulfill his wyrd, Aderyn in his last life should have helped her heal the Guardians and the flock of half-formed souls that followed them. He’d shirked that duty. Now, while he still existed in the state that ordinary mortals call death, he was carrying it out as best he could, guiding their souls to birth and physical life.

The first alar to appear at the festival brought with it the oldest wild child, Zandro, Salamander’s grown son, who lived with Salamander’s father, Devaberiel Silver-hand, the most famous bard in the Westlands. The other men in their alar set up the bard’s tent next to the prince’s, a sign of rank as well as a convenience. Dallandra strolled over to greet them. Devaberiel seemed thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and his moonbeam-pale hair had turned completely white. His eyes, the dark blue of the night sky in moonlight, still snapped with life and good humor, and his face, though finely drawn, showed none of the folds and gouges of old age that signaled, among the People, approaching death.

His grandson couldn’t have looked more different. Short and stocky, Zandro had pale brown skin and brown hair that he wore in a mop of curls. His eyes had changed color since childhood; they were now a deep sunset orange, not quite as red as blood. When he saw Dalla, he turned his head to look at her sideways and grinned, revealing his mouthful of sharply pointed teeth.

“Dalla,” he said.

It was the first time Dalla had ever heard Zandro say anyone’s name, and Devaberiel smiled as proudly as if his grandson had just rattled off “The Burning of the Vale of Roses” or some other equally long and complex poem.

“Yes,” Dallandra said, “I’m Dalla. You’re Zandro.”

Zandro flicked his eyes his grandfather’s way, then giggled and trotted off, heading for the pack of children and dogs playing on the lakeshore.

“He’s got a long way to go yet,” Devaberiel said, “but we make progress.”

“You certainly do. I’ll admit to being surprised.”

“Valandario’s been helping me, actually.” Dev glanced around. “I don’t see her. She’s probably setting up her tent.”

“I’d best go greet her.”

Dallandra picked her way through the growing encampment. She had so many people to greet that she made slow progress, but at last she reached the edge of the camp. For the festival, she’d had some of the men position her tent away from the crowd, where she could find some quiet for her workings. As she’d expected, Valandario had done the same, picking a spot near but not too near to Dallandra’s own.

Val’s tent, so plain and gray on the outside, inside gleamed with color—elaborately woven panels and embroidered tent bags, mostly blue and green, touched here and there with gold, hung on the walls, while red, silver, and purple Bardek carpets and cushions lay strewn over the floor cloth. Sunlight from outside glowed through the walls. Entering the tent made Dalla think of walking into a giant jewelry box. Valandario herself sat on a red-and-gold carpet with jewels and gemstones spread out in front of her. She’d strewn them onto a scrying cloth, patched from Bardek silks. Some squares and triangles were plain, others embroidered with symbols, and here and there larger embroideries overlapped two squares. What they all meant only Valandario knew. She had derived this scrying system herself over a hundred years of hard work.