The Gold Falcon (18 page)

“Yes, smashing flesh into stone means one thing only,” Salamander said in Elvish. “The stone wins.”

With the Wildfolk trailing after, he climbed down from the wall and headed for the broch. Thinking about his childhood always filled him with melancholy, and he was considering drowning the feeling with some good dark ale. He reached the door of the great hall just as Branna was coming out of it, a candle lantern in her hand. The light coming through the pierced tin dappled her face in a pattern like stars.

“Good evening to you, my lady,” Salamander said. “Have you come out to enjoy the night air?”

“I have, truly,” Branna said. “It gets stuffy up in my chamber.”

“Hum, I find myself wondering if perhaps Neb’s chamber grows just as stuffy. Could it be that he’s out here as well, just by coincidence of course, out in the herb garden, say?”

“And would it be any of your affair if he was?”

“None, of course. But if I were you, I’d make sure Gerran didn’t know what you were up to.”

“Gerran is drinking with his men. They won’t stop till they’re all staggering.”

“Love can make a man as drunk as ale does.”

“True spoken, but when he’s drunk on ale, he can’t lift his sword.”

“Nor can he lift much else. I trust Neb is the sober sort?”

“Oh!” Branna caught her breath and blushed. “Do hold your tongue, you chattering elf!”

“Now I wonder,” Salamander said, grinning, “where you got that turn of phrase. That I chatter is a point beyond disputing, but someone else used to call me that, and I think me we both knew her well.”

Branna stared at him for a long moment, then turned in a swirl of dresses and rushed across the ward, heading for the herb garden. Salamander stepped inside the great hall and saw Gerran and his men clustered around a table, wagering furiously on some game or other. Salamander considered joining them, then climbed the staircase instead. Behind him more Wildfolk materialized to follow in a silvery, translucent parade.

In his little chamber Salamander sat on the wide windowsill and looked out over the nighttime dun. Here and there points of light gleamed in a window or bobbed along, a lantern held in someone’s hand. He could distantly hear, like the murmur of a river, the sounds from the great hall. A dog barked out by the stables, then fell silent.

“This could turn nasty,” he remarked to the Wildfolk. “Neb, Branna, and Gerran, I mean.”

The Wildfolk all nodded their agreement.

“But yet I have hope. From everything Dalla’s told me, Cullyn well and truly broke that particular chain of wyrd in the last life he shared with Branna. If Gerran remembers—not that he’ll know he’s remembering, of course—but if he does remember, deep in his mind somewhere, then mayhap the outcome will be a fair one. And if the outcome is foul, then we’ll know that he doesn’t remember Cullyn of Cerrmor’s wisdom.”

The Wildfolk stared at him and solemnly scratched their heads, miming confusion.

“I could have put that more clearly, truly,” Salamander said. “Mayhap it’s time for me to get some sleep.”

The Wildfolk all nodded vigorously, then one at a time, disappeared. Yawning, he took off all his clothes but his loin-wrap and lay down on the mattress. He considered a blanket, but the summer night was still hot. Wrapped in its warmth, he fell asleep.

Salamander woke to the sound of furious words outside his chamber and the pink light of a cloudy dawn beyond his window. He sat up and listened till he could place the voices: Gerran and Mirryn, arguing over Cadryc’s predictable orders to his son and heir.

“You’ve got to rein that temper in,” Gerran was saying. “You cannot challenge your own father to an honor duel, and you know it.”

“It’s all very well for you to talk, Gerro.” Mirryn’s voice shook with rage. “No one’s going to think you’re a coward. Now get your hands off me! I want to go back and tell Father—”

“You’re not going to tell him one word more.”

A pause, a long pause that brought Salamander to his feet, ready to intervene if things turned nasty. He took a few barefoot steps toward the door.

“Oh, very well,” Mirryn said at last. “You’re right, aren’t you? My apologies.”

“I knew you’d see reason eventually.” Gerran sounded vastly relieved that his foreknowledge had proved true. “There’s naught cowardly or womanish about keeping fort guard, not when the valley’s crawling with Horsekin raiders.”

No more words, and their footsteps moved away.
I’d best get dressed,
Salamander told himself.
Today’s the day we ride to Cengarn.
When he went to the window and looked down, he could see the groom and the pages leading out horses for the men of the warband to saddle. Tieryn Cadryc was striding around the ward, giving orders and organizing the line of march.

Salamander was just finishing a hasty breakfast in the great hall when Lady Branna came downstairs. He started to rise to go meet her, but instead she came over to speak to him.

“Midda told me that you’re going to Cengarn with my uncle,” Branna said.

“I am.” Salamander laid his spoon down in his empty porridge bowl. “I’m like a gleaner, always scavenging bits of other men’s lives to bake into the bread of my tales.”

“Oh, I like that fancy way of putting it! What sort of bits will you be looking for?”

“Tales of the Horsekin raiders, for one, and then information about the dragons. You know about the dragons, surely?”

“I’ve heard about them. The farmers on my father’s lands were always afraid that they’d take their cows or their lambs.”

“It’s a justified fear, no doubt.” Salamander glanced out the door, but the warband was still readying itself to ride. “Did you ever see them?”

“I think I saw the silver wyrm once, but it was just at twilight, and it was hard to tell.” Branna’s expression turned sour. “My dearest stepmother told me I’d seen naught but an owl flying high. She made fun of me for days over it, too, but truly, I’d know an owl if I should see one.”

“I’m sure you would.” Salamander found himself thinking of Aderyn and suppressed a laugh with difficulty.

He was about to say more when Neb came hurrying downstairs, a bedroll slung over one shoulder. Branna smiled at the sight of him and left to join him without another word to Salamander. Together, talking softly, they went outside. Salamander followed, but he went to the stables, where he found Clae saddling his gray riding horse. His packhorse stood nearby, already loaded with his gear. Someone had made the boy a better shirt by cutting down an old one and resewing it to fit. On its yokes were faded blazons, the tieryn’s Red Wolf.

“My thanks,” Salamander said.

“Most welcome.” Clae grinned at him. “You saved our lives and got us here, and I’m truly grateful, and so I thought I should tend your horses at least.”

“A very courtly gesture, indeed. Well, lad, I may not see you for a while now, but I’ll hope things work out well for you.”

“And I’ll do the same for you.”

Salamander mounted, took the lead rope for the packhorse when Clae tossed it up to him, and headed out. He caught up with the rest of the riders just as they were clattering out of the gates. Neb was riding just behind the tieryn.
I should get the chance to talk with him on this ride,
Salamander thought,
and make some of those portentous hints Dalla agreed to.
The thought of finally being able to lord it over Nevyn, after all the times that the old man had reproached, rebuked, and generally reviled him, was so cheering that he broke into song as the troop headed for the north-running road.

T
he gwerbret’s city of Cengarn lay two days’ ride to the northeast of Cadryc’s dun, at a spot where the tableland turned into hills on its rise toward the northern mountains. It was a strange sort of place, Cengarn, situated on three hills, surrounded on three sides by stone walls. On the fourth side, the western, a smooth-faced cliff provided a better fortification than any that hands might build. Even the approach to the southern gates was steep enough that the warband had to dismount and lead their horses up a winding path.

Inside the walls, however, the town sported as much greenery as it did stone. Among the thatched round houses, set along curving streets, grew trees and gardens—practical vegetables, mostly, but here and there they passed patches of flowers, blooming around cottage doors. In the middle of town, on the crest of a roundish hill, lay the grassy commons. Judging from the number of people and wagons clustered upon it, the town was setting up for a market fair. As they walked their horses round the hill, Gerran spotted a pair of wooden doors built right into the hillside—a dwarven inn, run by and for merchants from the Roof of the World. Gerran knew the town and the dun well. He and Lord Mirryn had been pages together in the household of Gwerbret Daen, the now-dead father of the current gwerbret.

On the highest hill, perched above the sheer western cliff, stood the dun of the gwerbrets of Cengarn. Behind yet another wall the towers of a multiple broch complex loomed. The guards at the great iron-bound gates recognized Cadryc immediately and bowed, ushering him in to the crowded ward, which held the usual jumble of stables, storage sheds, pigsties, and the like. Pages and grooms came running across the ward to greet the tieryn and take the horses from him and his men. A councilor hurried out to lead him into the great hall.

While the tieryn was presenting himself to the gwerbret, Gerran made arrangements with the gwerbret’s captain for sheltering his men. Almost absentmindedly, he included the gerthddyn. The escort received bunks together at one end of the best barracks, up above the stables but near the broch complex. In the warmth of a summer afternoon, the stables below stank, and the stink rose through the rough wood floor.

“By your leave, Captain,” Salamander said in a strangled sort of voice. “I think I’ll find myself shelter in an inn.”

“Oh, you get used to the smell after a while.”

“A long while in my case.” Salamander dropped his voice to a whisper. “Besides, I want to ask around about the silver wyrm. Some of the farmers might have seen him fly, and maybe they’ll have some ideas about where he might lair.”

“Ah.” Gerran glanced around and saw that members of the warband stood close enough to hear. He decided to spare them Salamander’s crazed belief that the dragon was his long-lost brother. “Well, suit yourself, gerthddyn.”

“My thanks. Although—” Salamander hesitated. “I wouldn’t mind eavesdropping on our Cadryc’s conversation with the gwerbret.”

“Well, then, leave your gear on my bunk, and let’s go.”

Gwerbret Ridvar had inherited a splendid great hall, with room for enough tables and benches to seat his warband of a hundred men and nearly as many visitors. Neatly twined rushes covered the floor, and the pale tan stone of the walls sported carvings of various animals between each pair of windows. At the honor hearth, an enormous stone dragon embraced the fireplace, hind legs on one side, front legs and head on the other, with its back and folded wings forming the mantel. Years of smoky fires had darkened the carving. In those same years assorted maidservants had made desultory attempts at cleaning it, with the result that the most deeply carved lines were black, but the raised portions a dirty sort of gray. This contrast gave the sculpture so much depth that in dim light, the dragon seemed to stir and stretch as if it were waking from a long sleep. Five polished wood tables, all of them surrounded with chairs instead of benches, stood before it.

“The gwerbret must be a wealthy man,” Salamander remarked.

“He is,” Gerran said. “A lot of trade comes through here.” He paused, looking around the riders’ tables, which stood in profusion across the hall from the dragon hearth. “Let’s sit up front. I want to keep an eye on our lord.”

Gerran pointed Salamander to a battered plank table, then turned back to collect his men and get them seated. As he was doing so, one of the gwerbret’s sisters, Lady Solla, came hurrying to greet him. She was a slender woman, with dark brown hair caught back in a gold clasp, and wide hazel eyes that seemed to dance with life and good cheer. Most men found her beautiful; so did Gerran, but abstractly, thinking her not half so interesting as Branna.

“Good morrow, Gerro,” she said. “Have your men been looked after?”

“We have, my lady. We’ve been given a decent barracks to sleep in, certainly. It’s kind of you to ask.”

“Oh, it’s part of my duties here, truly. But why haven’t you been given a chamber in the broch?”

“It’s not my place, my lady. I’m as common-born as the rest of them.”

Solla winced, then smiled in a vague sort of way. “Well,” she said at last, “let’s get your men fed.” She turned away and signaled to one of the servant lasses. “Bread and ale for the tieryn’s men. And tell Cook about our visitors.”

Gerran joined Salamander, who had managed to acquire a pair of full tankards ahead of everyone else. He handed one to Gerran.