The Gold Falcon (33 page)

What Salamander desperately wanted at the moment was the signal that Rocca was going to lie down and sleep, but that night she seemed to be in a talkative mood. She insisted on drilling him on the lore lists, then talked some about her childhood, growing up a slave in a Horsekin tribe until Alshandra’s religion brought her freedom.

“Anyone that the priests deem fit to serve
her
does gain their freedom, you see.” Rocca paused for a yawn. “So I do count myself blessed.”

“Indeed. What would your life have been like if you’d not been chosen?”

“Naught too horrible. My family did work, and they still do, at the growing of grain for the warhorses. Up on the high plains the summers be short and scant, so down among the valleys there be many a farm that owe the Horsekin dues and taxes. We did live, my kin and me, much like Deverry bondmen, only better, or so Honelg said once, after I did tell him about my early life. We held rights to keep a third of everything we did raise, while bondmen have to hand so much over to the lords that it be a wonder they don’t starve.”

“That’s true.” Salamander feigned a long yawn, which prompted her to yawn herself. “It’s very sad, how the bondmen are treated.”

“Now, I’d not lie to you. Some slaves do lead terrible lives, but the priests and priestesses, we be doing our best to change that. Some of the Horsekin leaders, they do begin to see the light, that all Children of Alshandra be worthy of respect.”

“That’s a noble cause, then.” Salamander yawned again. “My apologies! For some reason I’m weary tonight.”

“Me, too. I’ll just be saying my prayers.” Rocca got up, shaking her head as if she were trying to stay alert.

She trotted off, humming part of a hymn under her breath. Salamander fed their little fire with twigs and sticks until he could be sure she’d taken herself well away. Then he contacted Dallandra and told her what the Horsekin believed about Vandar’s spawn. Her image, floating over the fire, stared at him for a long horrified moment.

“Well,” Dalla said at last. “That’s one up for Cal. He keeps insisting that the Horsekin are planning some evil thing, and they are.”

“They see it as purging the world of a great evil, of course.”

“Of course. Most people who work evil think of it as good in some way. That doesn’t make it any better for those they hate.”

“I’d never deny that.”

“Ebañy, you’re running a huge risk, a much larger risk than either of us realized when you started this journey. Hadn’t you better just abandon this whole thing? You can ride away faster than she can follow on foot.”

“I’ve had that thought.” Salamander paused to glance into the forest, where Rocca still knelt at her prayers. “But it’s more necessary than ever to know where this fort lies, isn’t it?”

“True. But be careful. Be careful every single moment of the day.”

“Fear not, I shall. And we can’t be all that far from the thing by now.”

In the northern stretch of the grasslands, at a place where a traveler coming up from the south would just begin to see the distant mountains of the Roof of the World, a huge outcrop of gray granite hunched like an animal. All around it tiny streams ran, fed by hidden springs. Dallandra and Valandario had decided to meet at this marker, and when Prince Daralanteriel led his alar up to Twenty Streams Rock, they found Val and her people waiting for them. Dalla left the work of setting up her tent to the others and immediately followed Valandario into hers. Val had arranged her piles of bright-colored cushions into seats on either side of her scrying cloth.

“I haven’t told anyone about this yet,” Dalla said. “I don’t want panic. Ebañy’s found out something terrifying.”

“Does it have to do with that new religion you told me about?” Val said.

“Just that. The Horsekin think it’s their sacred duty to wipe the People off the grasslands and the face of the world, just slaughter every last one of us.”

Valandario went very still. Not even her eyelids flickered for a long long moment; then she let out her breath with a little sigh. She raised both hands and ran them through her hair, pushing it back from her face as if the stray golden wisps suddenly bothered her. Dallandra waited patiently.

“I see now,” Val said at last. “Obsidian tumbling over lapis lazuli, fire over water—I see what that signified now. In yesterday’s reading, I mean.” She was silent again for some while. “Death along the water, of course.” Another pause. “Yellow jewels, distance. Not necessarily our deaths, but death at some long distance.”

“War, then?”

Val twisted around where she sat, dug into a small brass coffer, and brought out a pouch of embossed tan leather. She turned back, considered the scrying cloth for a moment, then poured jewels out upon it. A red ruby slid halfway across and came to rest on an embroidered spiral.

“War, yes,” Val said. “With Deverry men.” She touched a purple stone that lay nearby. “In the company of Deverry men, I mean, not against them.”

“Soon?”

“Very. When Ebañy returns with proof of his warning.” Val laid a slender forefinger on a piece of dark jade and moved it along a seam ’twixt two pieces of silk, one yellow, one red. “If he gets back.”

Dallandra shuddered. “I was hoping we could get Ebañy out of this alive.”

“So was I. Nothing I see here discourages me, but the Horsekin—”

They sat in silence for some while with the unfinished words hanging between them, a malediction upon those distant enemies.
Not distant enough,
Dalla thought.
Halfway across the world would be too close still.

“You know,” Val said at last. “I hope you didn’t mind when I handed the job of curing Ebañy over to you. I feel guilty still, but I had no idea of what to do.”

“No need for guilt. I offered, didn’t I?”

“True. But I was afraid that I was failing my apprentice somehow.”

“Not that he’d studied with you in—what?—a hundred and fifty years?”

“Something like that.” Valandario was staring at her gems, sparkling on the silk before her. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten obsessed with my scrying. There are still so many problems, so many things to work out.”

“You should take another apprentice, or no, a jour neyman dweomerworker, to learn it, perfect or not. And I wonder—shouldn’t you write it all down?”

“I suppose so, yes.” Val looked up. “I doubt if I’ll die soon, but these days, well, you never know, what with war in the west and all.”

“I didn’t mean to be morbid—”

“You weren’t. Realistic, perhaps.” Val sighed with a shake of her head. “Do you remember Nevyn? Aderyn’s master in the dweomer?”

“Vividly, yes. I met him ever so long ago, but he was the kind of man who made an impression on people.”

“Indeed.” Val paused for a smile. “We discussed the ancient lore once, the lore of the Seven Cities, I mean, and how so much of it had been lost. They never wrote down the core of their teachings, you see. When Meranaldar first came to us, I had hopes. I thought that maybe the books of the innermost lore were safe in the Southern Isles. But they’re not. There never were any. Meranaldar had read various things that made that clear. They simply didn’t write down the biggest secrets.”

“And that means the lore’s gone forever.”

“Perhaps. We might be able to rediscover it, if we’re lucky, one day. But Nevyn told Aderyn something once, that the loss was the bitter price of secrecy. That phrase has stuck with me now for what is it? Almost two hundred years.”

“The bitter price of secrecy.” Dallandra nodded her agreement. “It’s a very good phrase indeed. And now the Horsekin want to wipe out what lore we do have left.”

“Yes. Well, it’s on the knees of the gods, like the war itself. Let’s assume that Ebañy’s successful, that he finds this fortress or whatever it turns out to be. What, then? Do we ride to Cengarn and ask its child ruler for help?”

“Just that, but afterward, I’ll be traveling south,” Dallandra said. “I very much want to visit Tieryn Cadryc of the Red Wolf. Let me tell you why.”

As the summer days slipped past, Neb found himself keeping an odd sort of watch over the dun. As children, he and the other boys in Trev Hael had played with slings and stones; Neb had had something of a reputation for his keen eye. He made himself a sling from some scrap leather he found in the stables and took to carrying it and a handful of pebbles in his brigga pockets in case the mysterious raven returned. It may have acted like a normal bird, but its size gave it away. When it had hovered over the dun, it had looked as large as a normal raven if that bird had been only some hundred yards up. But at that distance, Neb should have been able to see some details of its head and feathers, while this particular raven had only been a black shape against the sky.

Neb still had his doubts about it being some sort of sorcerer, but no matter what it was, he felt deep in his soul that something so unnatural meant naught but ill. Branna had her fear of that mysterious “other lass,” and he had his suspicions of the raven.
Ye gods!
Neb thought.
What’s happening to us?
The world seemed suddenly larger and stranger than they’d ever dreamed. He longed to bring the raven down, but as if it knew he watched, it stayed away.

Not long after the tourney, news of a second excitement arrived at Tieryn Cadryc’s dun. Everyone was eating dinner in the great hall when Neb heard a horn calling outside, a cascade of three sour notes.

“The gatekeeper.” Gerran rose from his chair at the warband’s head table. “Pages! Go see what he wants.”

Little Lord Ynedd ignored him, but Coryn and Clae both jumped up and ran outside. Across the hall by the honor hearth, Tieryn Cadryc got up and waited standing, staring at the door. In a few moments Clae and Coryn came rushing in from the ward, so eager to get to the tieryn’s side that they tripped over a tan hound, who yelped and scuttled away. No one laughed; everyone fell silent to listen.

“Your Grace,” Coryn said, panting a little, “Messengers from Cengarn.”

Clae ushered in a pair of road-weary men, wearing dust-stained tabards embroidered with the blazing sun of Cengarn over their clothes. When the messengers knelt at the tieryn’s side, one proffered a silver message tube. Neb got up and swung himself free of the bench.

“Scribe!” Cadryc called out.

“I’m on my way, Your Grace.”

Neb trotted over to the honor table and took the silver tube, then pulled the letter free to scan it.

“I hope our gwerbret’s seen reason about those raiders,” Cadryc said.

“Alas, he hasn’t, my lord,” Neb said. “Not in this message, anyway. It’s announcing his betrothal and coming marriage.”

“Well, that’s somewhat to the good. Read it out, lad.”

The message was long, flowery, and full of courtesies, but the gist was simple. Gwerbret Ridvar had betrothed himself to Lady Drwmigga of Trev Hael. The gwerbret would be honored if Tieryn Cadryc and his people would come to the wedding.

“Oh, that’s an excellent choice!” Galla said. “She’s the daughter of Trev Hael’s gwerbret, and her mother was the daughter of the gwerbret of Dun Trebyc.”

“Old Drwmyc, you mean?” Cadryc said. “A good blood-line, then.”

“Isn’t she older than Ridvar, though?” Branna said.

“By a few years, but not too many.” Galla considered for a moment. “I don’t remember when she was born, but if she were too old, she’d have been married already.”

“True spoken, with the alliances she brings,” Cadryc said. “Neb, I’ll need you to write some sort of fancy reply to his grace. Of course we’ll all go. It gladdens my heart that our gwerbret’s doing his duty to rhan and clan.”

“Mine, too,” Mirryn said. “Now let’s hope he gets the lass with child, and quickly.”

“Just that,” Galla put in. “May the gods grant she’s not barren! This
is
exciting, I must say! Branna, just think—mayhap we’ll get to see our Adranna at the wedding.”

“Well, now.” Cadryc raised one hand. “Don’t get your hopes up, my love. Ridvar won’t be able to invite every lord in the rhan. His dun won’t hold that many guests, and ye gods, can you imagine the grumbling if he asked some of them to quarter in the town? He’ll have enough trouble housing all the tierynau as it is, to say naught of Drwmigga’s clan.”