The Gold Falcon (4 page)

“My thanks,” Neb said. “Truly, I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for all of this.”

“No payment needed.” Salamander made a little bob of a bow. “Why should I ask for payment, when I never do an honest day’s work?”

Just as twilight was darkening into night, Salamander built up the fire and settled in to tell the promised story, which fascinated Neb as much as it did young Clae. Salamander swept them away to a far-off land where great sorcerers fought with greedy dragons over treasure, then told them of a prince who was questing for a gem that had magic, or dweomer, as Salamander called it. He played all the parts, his voice lilting for the beautiful princess, snarling for the evil sorcerer, rumbling for the mighty king. Every now and then, he sang a song as part of the tale, his beautiful voice harmonizing with the wind in the trees. By the time the stone was found, and the prince and princess safely married, Clae was smiling.

“Oh, I want there to be real dweomer gems,” Clae said. “And real dweomermasters, too.”

“Do you now?” Salamander gave him a grin. “Well, you never know, lad. You think about it when you’re falling asleep.”

Neb found a soft spot in the grass for his brother’s bed. He wrapped Clae up in one of the gerthddyn’s blankets and stayed with him until he was safely asleep, then rejoined Salamander at the fire.

“A thousand thanks for amusing my brother,” Neb said. “I’d gladly shower you with gold if I had any.”

“I only wish it were so easy to soothe your heart,” Salamander said.

“Well, good sir, that will take some doing, truly. First we lost our hearth kin, and now our uncle. It was all so horrible at first, it had me thinking we’d escaped the raiders only to live like beggars in the streets.”

“Now here, the folk in this part of the world aren’t so hardhearted that they’ll let you starve. One way or another, we’ll find some provision for you and the lad.”

“If I can get back to Trev Hael, I can make my own provision. After all, I can read and write. If naught else, I can become a town letter-writer and earn our keep that way.”

“Well, there you go! It’s a valuable skill to have.” Salamander hesitated on the edge of a smile. “Provided that’s the craft you want to follow.”

“Well, I don’t know aught else but writing and suchlike. I’m not strong enough to join a warband, and I wouldn’t want to weave or suchlike, so I don’t know what other craft there’d be for me.”

“You don’t, eh? Well, scribing is an honorable sort of work, and there’s not many who can do it out here in Arcodd.”

Neb considered Salamander for a moment. In the dancing firelight it was hard to be sure, but he could have sworn that the gerthddyn was struggling to keep from laughing.

“Or what about herbcraft?” Salamander went on. “Have you ever thought of trying your hand at that?”

“I did, truly. Fancy you thinking of that! When my da was still alive, I used to help the herbwoman in Trev Hael. I wrote out labels for her and suchlike, and she taught me a fair bit about the four humors and illnesses and the like. Oh, and about the four elements. Is that what you meant by elemental spirits?”

“It is. The different sorts of Wildfolk correspond to different elements. Hmm, the herbwoman must have been surprised at how fast you learned the lore.”

“She was. She told me once that it was like I was remembering it, not learning. How did you—”

“Just a guess. You’re obviously a bright lad.”

Salamander was hiding something—Neb was sure of it—but probing for it might insult their benefactor. “Govylla, her name was,” Neb went on. “She lived through the plague. Huh—I wonder if she’d take us in, Clae and me, as prentices? Well, if I can get back there. Some priests of Bel were traveling out here, you see, and so they took us to our uncle.”

“And some might well be traveling back one fine day. But for now, we need to get the news of raiders to the right ears. I happen to have the very ears in mind. I’ve been traveling along from the east, you see, and the last place I plied my humble trade was the dun of a certain tieryn, Cadryc, noble scion of the ancient and conjoined Red Wolf clan, who’s been grafted upon the root of a new demesne out here. When I left, everyone begged me to come back again soon, so we shall see if they were sincere or merely courteous. I have a great desire to inform the honorable tieryn about these raiders. Oh, that I do, a very great desire, indeed.”

As he stared into the fire, Salamander let his smile fade, his eyes darkening, his slender mouth as harsh as a warrior’s. In that moment Neb saw a different man; cold, ruthless, and frightening. With a laugh the gerthddyn shrugged the mood away and began singing about lasses and spring flowers.

Down the hill behind Tieryn Cadryc’s recently built dun lay a long meadow, where the tieryn’s warband of thirty men were amusing themselves with mock combats in the last glow of a warm afternoon. Two men at a time would pick out wooden swords and wicker shields, then face off in the much-trampled grass. The rest of the troop sat in untidy lines off to either side and yelled comments and insults as the combat progressed. Gerran, the captain of the Red Wolf warband, sat off to one side with Lord Mirryn, Tieryn Cadryc’s son. Brown-haired and blue-eyed, with a liberal dusting of freckles across his broad cheekbones, Mirryn was lounging at full length, propped up on one elbow, and chewing on a long grass stem like a farmer.

“One of these days our miserly gwerbret’s bound to set up a proper tourney,” Mirryn said. “Although everyone knows you’d win it, so I doubt me if I can get anyone to wager against you.”

“Oh, here,” Gerran said. “It’s not that much of a sure thing.”

“Of course it is.” Mirryn grinned at him. “False humility doesn’t become you.”

Gerran allowed himself a brief smile. Out in the meadow a new fight was starting. The rest of the warband called out jests and jeers, teasing Daumyr for his bad luck in drawing his sparring partner. Daumyr, the tallest man in the troop at well over six feet, stood grinning while he swung his wooden sword in lazy circles to limber up his arm. His opponent, Warryc, was skinny and short—but fast.

“Ye gods, Daumyr’s got a long reach!” Mirryn said. “It’s truly amazing, the way Warryc beats him every time. Huh—there must be a way we can use this at the next tourney.”

“Use it for what?” Gerran said.

“Acquiring some hard coin, that’s what, by setting up a wager, getting some poor dolt to bet high on Daumyr.”

“The very soul of honor, that’s you.”

Gerran was about to say more when he heard hoof-beats and shouting. A young page on a bay pony came galloping across the meadow.

“My lord Mirryn! Captain Gerran!” the page called out. “The tieryn wants you straight away. There’s been a raid on the Great West Road.”

Mirryn led the warband back at the run. Up at the top of a hill, new walls of pale stone, built at the high king’s expense, circled the fort to protect the tall stone broch tower and its outbuildings. The men dashed through the great iron-bound gates, stopped in the ward to catch their collective breath, then hurried into the great hall. Sunlight fell in dusty shafts from narrow windows, cut directly into stone, and striped the huge round room with shadows. Gerran paused, letting his eyes adjust, then picked his way through the clutter of tables and benches, dogs and servants. The warband followed him, but Mirryn hurried on ahead to his father’s side. When he saw Gerran lingering behind, Mirryn waved him up with an impatient arm.

By the hearth of honor, Cadryc was pacing back and forth, a tall man, tending toward stout, with a thin band of gray hair clinging to the back of his head and a pair of ratty gray mustaches. Perched on the end of a table was the gerthddyn, Salamander. Mirryn and Gerran exchanged a look of faint disgust at the sight of him, a babbling fool, in their shared opinion, with his tricks and tales. When Gerran started to kneel before the tieryn, Cadryc impatiently waved him to his feet.

“Raiders,” Cadryc said. “Didn’t the page tell you? We’re riding tomorrow at dawn, so get the men ready.”

“Well and good, Your Grace,” Gerran said. “How far are they?”

“Who knows, by now?” Cadryc shook his head in frustrated rage. “Let’s hope they’re still looting the village.”

“Bastards,” Mirryn said. “I hope to all the gods they are. We’ll make them pay high for this.”

“You’re staying here, lad,” Cadryc said. “I’m not risking myself and my heir both.”

Mirryn flushed red, took a step forward, then shoved his hands into his brigga pockets.

“For all we know, the raiders have set up some sort of ruse or trap,” Cadryc went on. “I’ll be leaving you ten men to command on fort guard. Your foster brother here can handle the rest well enough.”

“Far be it from me to argue with you,” Mirryn said. “Your Grace.”

“Just that—don’t argue,” Cadryc snapped. “And don’t sulk either.”

Mirryn spun on his heel and stalked off, heading back outside. Cadryc muttered a few insults under his breath. Gerran decided a distraction was in order and turned to the gerthddyn.

“Little did I dream our paths would cross so soon,” Salamander gave him a fatuous smile. “An honor to see you, Captain.”

“Spare me the horseshit,” Gerran said. “Did you see this raid or only find a burned village or suchlike?”

“Ah, what a soul of courtesy you are.” Salamander rolled his eyes heavenward. “Actually, I found refugees, who escaped by blind luck.”

When Salamander pointed, Gerran noticed for the first time a tattered dirty lad and an equally ragged little boy, kneeling by the corner of the massive stone hearth. Dirt clotted in hair that was most likely mousy brown, and they shared a certain look about their deep-set blue eyes that marked them for close kin. Skinny as a stick, the older lad was, with fine, small hands, but the younger, though half-starved from the look of him, had broad hands and shoulders that promised strong bones and height one day.

“They lost everything in the raid,” Salamander said. “Kin, house, the lot.” He pointed. “Their names are Neb and Clae.”

“We’ll give them a place here.” Tieryn Cadryc beckoned to a page. “Go find my wife and ask her to join us.”

When the page trotted off, Neb, the older lad, watched him go with dead eyes.

“How many of them were there?” Gerran asked him. “The raiders, I mean.”

“I don’t know, sir,” Neb said. “We were a good distance away, up by the waterfall, so we could see down into the valley. We saw the village burning, and our farm, and then a lot of people just running around.”

“Cursed lucky thing you were gone.”

The lad nodded, staring at him, too tired to speak, most likely.

“The raiding party won’t be traveling fast, not with prisoners to drag along,” Cadryc broke in. “I’ve sent a message to Lord Pedrys, telling him to meet us on the road with every man he can muster. I’d summon the other vassals as well, but they live too cursed far east, and we’ve got to make speed.”

“Your Grace?” Gerran said. “Wasn’t there a lord near this village?”

“There was. What I want to know is this: is there still?”

 

Neb watched the captain and the tieryn walk away, talking of their plans, both of them tall men, but red-haired Gerran was as lean as the balding tieryn was stout. Neither would be a good man to cross, Neb decided, nor Lord Mirryn either. Salamander left his perch on the table and joined the two boys.

“Well, there,” the gerthddyn said. “Your uncle will be avenged, and perhaps they’ll even manage to rescue your aunt.”

“If they do,” Clae said, “we won’t have to go back to her, will we?”

“You won’t. Judging from what you told me on our journey here, she doesn’t seem to be a paragon of the female virtues, unlike the tieryn’s good wife.” Salamander glanced over his shoulder. “Who, I might add, is arriving at this very moment.”

Salamander stepped aside and bowed just as the lady hurried up, a stout little woman, her dark hair streaked with gray. She wore a pair of dresses of fine-woven blue linen, caught in at the waist by a plaid kirtle in yellow, white, and green. Two pages trailed after her, a skinny pale boy with a head of golden curls and a brown-haired lad a few years older.

“My lady, this is Neb and Clae,” Salamander said. “Lads, this is the honorable Lady Galla, wife to Tieryn Cadryc.”

Since he was already kneeling, Neb ducked his head in respect and elbowed Clae to make him do the same.

“You may rise, lads,” she said. “I’ve heard your terrible story from young Coryn, here.” She gestured at the older, brown-haired page. “Now don’t you worry, we’ll find a place for you in the dun. The cook and the grooms can always use an extra pair of hands.”

“My thanks, my lady,” Neb said. “We’ll be glad to work for our keep, but we might not be staying—”

“My lady?” Salamander broke in. “Luck has brought you someone more valuable than a mere kitchen lad. Our Neb can read and write.”

“Luck, indeed!” Lady Galla smiled brilliantly. “My husband’s had need of a scribe for ever so long, him and half the noble-born in Arcodd, of course, but what scribe would be wanting to travel all the way out here, anyway, if he could find a better place down in Deverry? Well and good, young Neb, we’ll see how well you form your letters, but first you need to eat, from the look of you, and a bath wouldn’t hurt either.”