The Gold Falcon (30 page)

“If I don’t fall asleep, I’ll come back for that, then.” Before Galla could answer, Lady Omaena launched into another complicated question about babies. With smiles all round, Branna left. She walked sedately across the meadow until she could be sure that no one was watching her, then ran the rest of the way.

With the sun low in the sky, the little bench in the herb garden sat in shade from the wall, a welcome relief. Winded from her fast climb, Branna sank onto it and let out her breath in a long sigh. Her gray gnome materialized to sit beside her and dangle its spindly legs over the side.

“It’s too hot,” she said.

It nodded, then popped a finger into its mouth and began to suck on it. With almost everyone down at the tourney, the dun was abnormally quiet, except for the occasional cluck of a chicken or honk of a goose. Now and then the breeze brought her a snatch of conversation from the cook house, where the cook and the scullery maids were putting the last touches on the feast ahead.

While she waited, Branna thought over her last night’s dream, one that grew in significance the more she contemplated it.
She was waiting for Nevyn in an underground chamber lit only by firelight. Around the top of the walls ran a strange frieze, a pattern made of circles and triangles, that stopped abruptly in the middle of one wall. She recognized the pattern, she knew she did, but she couldn’t read it, no matter how hard she tried.
The sound of footsteps on the gravel path of the garden pulled her away from the dream, but when she looked up, she was half-expecting to see the old man rather than Neb.

“Wretchedly hot!” Neb sat down beside her and pulled at the open throat of his shirt. “I suppose we could go into the great hall. No one else is there.”

“In just a little bit the serving lasses will be in and out,” Branna said. “They need to ready everything for the feast.”

“That’s true. Well, at least there’s a bit of shade here.”

“There is, and I’m glad of it.” Branna paused, then decided she’d best blurt out what she had to say. “I had another of those dreams last night, the ones about Nevyn. He could light a candle by snapping his fingers, too.”

Neb slewed round on the bench and stared at her. He had gone so pale that she could see the blood pulsing in its vessels at his temples.

“Are you afraid?” she said.

“Somewhat. I had a dream, myself, although truly, it wasn’t a dream in the usual way. I’d woken up and gone to the window for the air, and as I was sitting there, I thought that your name should be some other thing than Branna.”

“Truly? What was it?”

“I don’t remember.” Neb smiled in a twisted sort of way. “In the dream, it seemed like you had several names, but I could remember none of them.”

“How very odd! The old man only has the one name.” She stopped, caught by a rise of images in her mind. “Well, perhaps there was one other.”

“What?”

“I don’t remember. Neb, all of this is so frightening!”

“Truly? Why?”

“I feel like there’s another lass inside me. She’s both me and not me, and she’s struggling to—to—to be remembered, I suppose I mean. But if I do remember her, I shan’t be who I am anymore. I’ll be her.” She paused, then took a deep breath. “Or even if I’m not truly her, I’ll not be Branna, not the lass I am now, but sort of a mixture, like wine and water in the same goblet.”

Neb considered, nodding a little.

“Do you think I’m daft?” Branna said.

“I don’t. I feel somewhat the same, truly, but the man inside me—” He paused for a long moment. “I think I’d rather be him than me.”

“Oh, here, there’s naught wrong with you.”

“My thanks, but that’s not what I meant. It’s so hard to put all this into words.”

“That’s certainly true.”

Neb smiled, then went on. “Wait, I know! I feel like a man who’s been ill for months and months, then begins to mend. He can remember being strong and doing all sorts of fine things, but now he can barely pull himself out of bed. There’s part of me that knows somehow that once I was truly strong, but now—” He let his voice trail off. “Well, maybe that’s not what I mean, either. I don’t know, Branna. I can’t make out the sense of all this, but it will make sense, I’m sure of it, if I could only learn one thing. There’s somewhat, that one thing, that’s going to make everything clear, if only I can find it.”

“I think you should find it. I mean, you should be the one to find it, not me, since you want to be that other man.”

“Probably so. After all, what am I now? A scribe for a border lord, that’s all.”

“That’s good enough for me.” She’d blurted it out before she could stop herself, and she felt her face burn with a blush.

“Truly?” Neb reached over and caught her hands in his, and he was smiling with such a pure joy that she felt her embarrassment ease. “Do you truly mean that?”

“I do. I truly do.”

Neb pulled her close, then let go her hands and put his on either side of her face. “I love you,” he said and kissed her.

Branna threw her arms around him and took another kiss. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “That at least is one thing I do know.”

“Then will you marry me?”

“Of course. I’ve been hoping you’d ask.”

Neb laughed and let her go, then turned thoughtful. “What about your uncle?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll wager Aunt Galla can talk him around.”

“If she approves.”

“She’s already called you a fine young man who’ll doubtless end up as the councillor of some important lord someday.”

“Well! That’s promising, then!”

“Indeed. But I shan’t be able to talk with her until after the guests leave.”

“Ye gods! I hope I can stand to wait that long.”

“It’s only till tomorrow.”

“An eternity, my love, of worrying, and all on account of the love I bear you.”

“I do like it when you talk like that. But I like your kisses even better.”

“Then far be it from me to deprive you of them. Although, you know, I think we’d best go somewhere else.”

“That’s true.” Branna glanced around the garden. “Anyone could walk out and see us.”

All at once they heard a shout, carried on the wind from some distance away, the sound of a good many men, yelling and laughing together.

“The tourney’s over.” Neb stood up and held out his hand. “Curse it, everyone’s going to come trooping right back to the dun.”

“Just so.” Branna rose and took his hand. “Is there somewhere more private we could go?”

“I do know an empty storeroom, but it reeks of onions.”

“That won’t do. If there are going to be tears in your eyes, I want them to spring from the depths of love.”

“Quite so. Well, let me think.”

 

Since Gerran and Mirryn usually put on an exhibition at tourneys, they had worked out a way of sparring without dishonoring either of them. Gerran always scored the first touch because it was expected of him by the onlookers. From there they sparred naturally, but they took care to score the third touch upon each other simultaneously, thus ending the match in a draw, not a humiliating defeat. The afternoon was so hot and sticky on this particular day that they made sure they scored the touches quickly. No one noticed their ruse.

“Well played, lads!” Cadryc said. “Both of you, but Gerran’s a marvel and a half with that blade.”

“He is,” Mirryn said, grinning, “but then, we knew that even before I faced him.”

Gerran ducked his head and looked away. He could feel that he was blushing, and he hated that as much as he loved hearing the praise.

“Let’s go in,” Cadryc said. “Have a goblet of mead all round. My wife’s got the cook working on a roast hog, she tells me, and we’ll give both Gerro and Mirro here a slice off the thigh.”

Everyone within earshot cheered. As the crowd got up and started swirling around, ready to go uphill to the dun, Gerran looked for Branna. He was expecting to find her watching him, smiling, no doubt, in awe of his skill with a sword or perhaps the tieryn’s praise. He saw Lady Galla, giving orders to the maidservants for the meal to come, but not Branna. Worse yet, he saw no sign of Neb, either.

“Captain?” Little Lord Ynedd came trotting up to him. “Are you looking for someone?”

“I am. You’ve not happened to see Lady Branna, have you?”

“Oh, she left and went back to the dun. Right after Clae and Coryn got to fight.”

“I see.”

Gerran glanced around. No one else seemed in a hurry to leave the tourney ground. The lords stood talking, the ladies still sat in their chairs, while the riders and servants milled around, discussing the fine points of this fight or that. With a muffled curse, Gerran took off for the dun at a jog. When he reached the ward, it stood empty and silent. He ran into the great hall in hopes of finding Branna there—no sign of her. For a moment Gerran stood by the honor table and swore; then he hailed a serving lass.

“Have you seen Lady Branna?”

“I have. She went off with the scribe some while ago.”

Gerran felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. “How long ago?”

The lass shrugged.

“Before or after the last combats?” Gerran said.

“Oh, long before that, truly. I was walking back here to start my work and saw them in the garden.”

Gerran muttered a few more foul things, then strode out of the hall. Yet, as he’d half-expected, when he reached the garden, Branna and Neb had already left. He stood on a graveled path and kicked aimlessly at a cabbage with the toe of his boot while he let the truth sink in: Branna hadn’t stayed to see him spar. She hadn’t cared enough about him to watch, not with her wretched scribe hanging around her.
Hopeless
, he thought.
Besides, if she’d want a man like that, what would I want with her, anyway? She’s no fit wife for a fighting man.

Gerran’s newfound contempt lasted until he looked up, glancing around the ward, and saw the stables.
Hayloft.
The thought struck him like a blow, that Branna and Neb might well have taken refuge in one of the few places in the dun that offered privacy to a courting couple. He growled under his breath like a dog and strode off, heading for the stable.

 

The hayloft smelled of new-mown hay, and dust motes danced in the sunbeams that came through the tiny windows. Neb lounged on his back on a great drift of hay, while Branna sat demurely by his side.

“We really should go,” Branna said. “Everyone will be back from the tourney by now. What if one of the riders goes back to the barracks for somewhat and hears us talking?”

“We can’t have that, truly.” Neb sat up and ran his fingers through his hair to get the straws out. “It’s too hot up here anyway.”

Neb went down the narrow ladder before her to steady it. When she reached the stable floor, Branna paused to look over her dress and pluck a few accusa tory straws from the skirt.

“Are there any on my back?” She turned so he could see.

“Only a few.” Neb’s voice turned mournful. “It’s not as if we were rolling around up there or suchlike.”

“You’re going to have to wait for that till we’re formally betrothed.” She turned back and found him grinning at her. “I like to think ahead, you see.”

“And that gladdens my heart.” Neb made her a bow. “Shall we go, my lady?”

They walked together out of the wide stable doors and stood blinking in the bright sun. Dimly, Branna could see a man striding toward them. “Someone’s coming,” she said. “Oh, by the gods, it’s Gerran!”

“And he looks like he’s been peeling Bardek citrons with his teeth,” Neb said, “and washing them down with vinegar.”

Branna giggled at the turn of phrase, and Gerran heard her. His face turned dark with fury as he strode up, his hand on his sword hilt, his red hair gleaming in the sunlight. Neb stepped smoothly in front of Branna.

“What’s vexing you, Captain?” Neb said.

“You milksop little—” Gerran was struggling to get his words out. “What are you doing with Lady Branna?”

“Naught that concerns you.”

“You—” Gerran stopped, and his face turned so pale that its dusting of freckles stood out like flecks of blood. He jerked his hand away from his sword hilt and stepped back. “Nah, nah, nah,” Gerran said. “What am
I
doing? You’ve never fought with a sword in your life! Ye gods, I can’t—I won’t—ye gods!”

“Very well,” Neb snarled. “Take the cursed thing off and we’ll settle this with our fists.”

Gerran looked him up and down, then laughed. For a moment Branna feared that Neb would charge him, sword or no, but instead Neb suddenly flung up both arms. Wildfolk rushed into manifestation. Sprites swarmed in the air, an army of gnomes clustered on the cobbles, an undine rose from the water in the horse trough and shook a wet fist in Gerran’s direction.

“Laugh at this,” Neb said, and calmly lowered his arms.

Before Branna could yell and stop them, the gnomes charged. Although Gerran couldn’t see them, he obviously could feel them. He yelped, swatted, cursed, and yelped some more as the squad of gnomes leaped, pinching and flailing. The sprites rushed to the attack, swarming like summer flies around his face, pinching him and pulling his hair. With the press all around him, Gerran tried to step back and tripped over Neb’s fat yellow gnome. He went sprawling onto his back and writhed, while Neb laughed and the gnomes pummeled.

“Neb!” Branna screamed. “All of you! That’s enough! Stop it!”

“As my lady commands.” Neb turned to her and bowed.

The chortling gnomes and sprites had already pulled back at her screamed order. When Neb waved his hands, they vanished, leaving a shaking, swearing Gerran lying on the cobbles.

“You’ve got a sword,” Neb said. “I’ve got other weapons.”

Gerran tried to speak and failed. Neb’s smile was so smug that Branna felt like slapping him herself. Gerran got up, but warily, stepping back, glancing around as if he expected enemies to come from all directions.