The Gold Falcon (28 page)

She was a pretty thing, dark-haired Palla, wearing only a single gray dress, torn at the neckline. She was alternately giggling and simpering as Neb told her some long involved tale. Branna walked a little closer, but before she could hear what they were saying, the geese saw her and gave the alarm. One old gander charged her, his head low, his clipped wings flapping. Branna stepped to one side and gave him a kick that sent him tumbling.

“You’d better tend your charges, lass,” Branna snapped. “They’re getting a bit above themselves.”

Palla blushed scarlet. She mumbled something conciliatory, but the look in her eyes flashed pure anger. Branna glanced Neb’s way, then walked off, heading toward the broch. In a few moments Neb caught up with her.

“Now who’s jealous?” Neb said with a smug smile.

“Huh,” Branna said. “I suppose you think I care about that flea-bitten lass. Talk with her all you want.”

“I was just telling her the sort of feathers I need for my pens.” Neb held them up. “It’s the ones with a good stout shaft. The thin ones don’t hold up well when you cut all the feathering off them.” He grinned again. “You looked jealous to me.”

“And what if I was?”

“Well, what indeed?”

“Oh, this is silly! Of course I was jealous. A bit. Just a little bit, mind. Well, actually, I wanted to slap her dirty face, and I was surprised I felt that way. I suppose you think it was stupid of me.”

“I don’t.”

“Then my thanks.”

“Most welcome, and don’t trouble your heart about the lass.” Neb hesitated for a long moment, then glanced away. “There’s somewhat I’ve been wanting to ask you, and now’s as good a time as any. Do you think you could ever stoop to marrying a common-born man? Just as a matter of general principle, like.”

Branna wanted to blurt “I would if it was you.” Instead, she reminded herself that she was supposed to show her good breeding, which most definitely did not include being forward with possible suitors.

“Oh, I’ve naught against the idea on principle,” she said. “After all, it’s not like I’ve got land in my dowry.”

“That makes a difference, doesn’t it?” Neb suddenly grinned, then wiped the grin away in what was most likely his own attempt at good manners.

“Quite a difference,” Branna said. “My kin couldn’t have any objections based on a demesne passing out of noble hands.”

“Might they have other objections, do you think? Just as a matter of interest.”

“My father was glad to get rid of me. Why would he object?”

“But your uncle?”

It was Branna’s turn to hesitate. She was wondering if she should just tell Neb outright that Aunt Galla approved and would work her husband round to her point of view, but Neb took her silence wrong.

“I see I’ve gotten above myself.” His voice turned stiff and cold. “My apologies for troubling—”

“Oh, don’t be silly! You’ve not done anything of the sort. I was just wondering what Uncle Cadryc would say, is all.”

Neb started to speak, but their eyes met, and all at once they both burst out laughing.

“You’re being so formal,” Branna said, “but your hands are full of goose feathers.”

“So they are.” Neb held the bundle out. “May I offer my lady a token of my esteem?”

“Why, my thanks, good scribe!” Branna plucked out a feather and held it up. “I shall cherish this in honor of you.”

Neb started to laugh again, glanced over her shoulder, and abruptly fell silent. Branna turned and saw Gerran, standing some fifteen feet away, glaring at her with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Neb!” Gerran called out. “The tieryn needs you to write a message.”

“He’s right.” Branna felt herself blushing. “I was supposed to tell you.”

“Then I’d best go in,” Neb said. “Will you accompany me?”

Gerran remained where he stood, scowling, between them and the broch.

“I won’t,” Branna said. “I need to talk with Midda.”

She turned and strode away, then glanced back to see that Gerran and Neb were heading in the opposite direction. She shamelessly ran for the servants’ quarters, but before she reached them, she hid the goose feather in her kirtle.

Midda and the other maidservants shared a long loft, spread with straw and scattered with mattresses and blankets. The younger lasses shared mattresses, two and three at a time, but Midda, the cook, and a few other privileged servants had a mattress apiece, and wicker screens to set off little areas they could call their own. At one end of the loft, near the only window, stood a wobbly plank table with benches on either side. At the moment shorn fleeces lay strewn on the table. Midda and three other women sat pulling them apart into fist-sized chunks with formidable bone combs. Before it could be spun, all this wool would need carding, using finer combs.

When Branna came in, the women started to rise, but she gestured at them to stay sitting. “Our lady wanted to know how you’re coming along,” Branna said.

“Not too badly,” Midda said. She laid down her comb and stood up, stretching her back. “We’ve done a good half of them.”

“Splendid! If you’ve got some ready for spinning, give it to me, and I’ll get a start on that.”

“I can give you a sackful, at least, my lady. I’ll fetch it.”

While Branna waited, the other women went on with their work. So many odd tufts of wool flecked their clothes that they looked as if they’d just come in from the snow. Fibers drifted lazily in the air, picked out by the sun coming through the window. Branna sneezed, thrice.

“I’ll wait on the stairs,” she called out.

In but a few moments Midda joined her in the cooler air outside. The maid handed over a pillow-sized sack, carefully packed to avoid tangling the fibers all over again.

“Ah, my poor lady!” Midda said. “I hate seeing you like this, having to spin like one of the servants.”

“Oh, come now! It’s not that bad. Even Aunt Galla takes a hand with the spinning now and again.”

“Still, you deserve better.” Midda set her lips tight—a sure sign that she was thinking of Branna’s stepmother.

“Actually, Midda,” Branna said, “I think I do, too. I’m just not sure what that may be. And speaking of better things, why aren’t you all working outside, where it’s cooler?”

“Because it keeps threatening rain. It’s a fair job to haul everything out just to haul it back again.”

“Oh, of course. I should have thought of that.”

As she went back to the broch, Branna kept watch for Gerran, but since the men were planning their tourney, she managed to avoid him for the rest of the day. She did see Neb, however, as she was carrying a tin candle lantern up to her chamber after dinner. She’d just gained the second floor when Neb came down from his chamber on the floor above.

“We meet again, my lady,” Neb said.

The words were utterly simple and ordinary, yet Branna felt as cold as if she were standing in a winter doorway. Neb took a step back, began to speak, then merely stared at her. All around them Wildfolk materialized, solemn gnomes clustering upon the floor, sylphs flickering in the dappled light from the lantern.

“There’s somewhat we need to talk about.” Branna pointed at the Wildfolk with her free hand.

“There is, truly. I don’t know why we haven’t.”

“I was frightened. Were you?”

“Somewhat. I don’t suppose it would be seemly for me to come to your chamber.”

“It certainly wouldn’t! We could go up to the roof.”

Like most Deverry duns, the main tower had a flat roof, reachable from the top floor. Neb went up the ladder and through the trapdoor first. Branna handed him the candle lantern, then followed, scrambling up to find herself in the midst of pyramids of heavy stones, stored there in case of attack.

“Oh!” she said. “The air’s so lovely and cool!”

After the heat of the day the night breeze felt like a caress. In the clear air the stars hung close and thick, as if the sky were a pierced lantern, and the stars’ light shining through from the home of the gods. They picked their way through the heaps of stones to the edge of the roof, guarded by a waist-high crenellated wall. In its shelter Branna found a wooden chest, wrapped in oiled leather and no doubt containing bundles of arrows. She perched upon it, and Neb sat down on the roof facing her.

“Here,” Neb said, “you’d best blow that candle out. Someone might think the broch’s on fire or suchlike.”

Branna opened the lantern’s little door, blew out the candle, then put the lantern down beside her feet. Gnomes materialized to join them, and sylphs, glowing like moonlight, gathered in the air and gave them enough light to see each other. Branna’s gray gnome climbed into her lap, squirmed like a child, then leaned against her whilst it sucked one of its bony fingers.

“Very well,” Neb said. “We both see the Wildfolk, even though we’ve always been told that they don’t exist. It must mean somewhat, somewhat beyond our seeing of them, that is. Do you think so, too?”

“I do,” Branna said. “I keep feeling like there’s a secret I know, or I should know, but I’ve forgotten it.”

“I keep hearing riddles in my dreams, and they always seem to have you for an answer.”

Once again Branna felt the peculiar cold, sheeting down her back. She shuddered with a toss of her head.

“Have you ever dreamed about me?” Neb leaned forward.

“Well, not precisely.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Oh, well, you see.” Branna let her voice trail away. “It’ll sound so foolish.”

“Naught that you’d say could ever sound foolish to me.”

He sounded, he looked so urgently sincere that for a moment Branna couldn’t speak. Her heart was pounding, and she felt her face burning with a blush.

“My thanks,” she said at last. “All my life, I’ve had such vivid dreams. They carried over from night to night, too. I’d go to the same places and talk with the same people. And one of them was an old man with your eyes, and his name’s much like yours. Nevyn, it was.”

“But that means ‘no one.’ ” Neb started to laugh, then let his voice trail away.

“It means somewhat to you?”

“It does, but cursed if I know how or why.”

By sylph light she could see him frowning; then he shrugged the problem away.

“Are your dreams like that?” Branna said. “Like tales, mine were, or even more like memories. I was so lonely, you see, and so I used to work them up like embroideries. I’d have a hazy little dream—that would be like the drawing on the cloth. Then when I’d wake up, I’d fill it in. Then the next night, the dream would be like the tale I’d made out of it, and go on from there.”

“What sort of things did you dream of? Besides the old man, I mean.”

“Oh, well, childish things, I suppose. Like dweomer. I could work dweomer in my dreams, and even turn myself into a bird and fly.”

“I wish I had dreams like that. Most of mine are dull. That’s why I can remember the ones with you in them. They stand out, like.”

“What are—” She broke off, turning to listen, and Neb rose to his knees.

Down in the ward someone was calling for Neb—a high-pitched boy’s voice.

“My brother,” Neb said wearily. “Here, we’d best go down.”

“I suppose so, but can we talk more some other time?”

“My lady, I’d like naught better.”

They stood up, and Branna retrieved the lantern, its candle dead and cold. “I shouldn’t have blown that out,” she said. “It’s going to take a bit of doing, getting down that rickety ladder in the dark.”

Neb held out his hand and snapped his fingers. The candle wick glowed, then caught, leaping into golden light. Branna gasped aloud.

“How did you do that?” she said.

“Ye gods.” Neb sounded terrified. “I don’t know.”

In the lantern’s dappled light they stared at each other. Branna wanted to speak, to acknowledge and discuss what had happened, but she could see the raw fear in Neb’s eyes.

“Neb!” It was Clae’s voice again, yelling at the top of his lungs. “There you are! What are you doing on the roof?”

Neb trotted over to the edge and held the lantern up high. “Just getting a little air,” he bellowed. “Oh, very well, I’ll come down.”

 

Neb helped Branna down the ladder from the roof, escorted her to her chamber, then took the lantern and hurried down the stone staircase to the great hall. He was wondering if Clae would tell everyone that he’d seen his brother with Lady Branna, but Clae was so full of his own news that it seemed he’d never noticed. He came running over the moment Neb stepped off the stairs.

“Guess what?” Clae was grinning, his eyes bright and wide. “It’s about the tourney.”

Neb could have cheerfully strangled him. “The tourney?” he snapped. “You brought me all the way down here for some news about the stupid tourney?”

Clae shrank back, the smile gone, and raised a hand as if he feared Neb would slap him.

“Well?” Neb snapped. “What is it?”

“I’m going to get to be in it, that’s all. I suppose it doesn’t seem like much to you.”

His voice ached with so much hurt that Neb’s anger turned to shame. “Oh, here, I’m sorry,” Neb said. “It’s the wretched hot weather. It’s making me as nasty as a springtime bear.”

Clae shrugged and looked down at the floor.

“Tell me more,” Neb said. “Surely Gerran’s not going to have you facing off with the warband.”

“He’s not.” Clae looked up. “Coryn and I are going to get to fight. Coryn’s been practicing for years, and I’ve only just started, but the captain says that I’m good enough already that we can fight in the tourney.”

“Ye gods! Well, that’s an honor, indeed.” Neb thought of their father and of what he would have said. “You must be blasted proud. I know I am.”

The grin returned like a blaze of sunlight. “I sort of am.” Clae’s voice trembled against this forced modesty. “The captain says I’ve got a cursed lot left to learn.”