The Gold Falcon (5 page)

“Thank you, my lady.” Clae looked up with wide eyes. “We’ve been so hungry for so long.”

“Food first, then. Coryn, take them to the cookhouse and tell Cook I said to feed them well. Then do what you can about getting them clean. Clothes—well, I’ll see what I can find.”

The food turned out to be generous scraps of roast pork, bread with butter, and some dried apples to chew on for a sweet. The cook let them sit in the straw by the door while she went back to work at her high table, cracking dried oats with a stone roller in a big stone quern. Coryn helped himself to a handful of apples and sat down with them. He seemed a pleasant sort, chatting to the brothers as they wolfed down the meal.

“I do like our lady,” Coryn said. “She’s ever so kind and cheerful. And our lord’s noble and honorable, too. But watch your step around Gerran. He’s a touchy sort of man, the Falcon, and he’ll slap you daft if you cross him.”

“The Falcon?” Neb said with his mouth full. “What—”

“Oh, everyone calls him that. He’s got a falcon device stamped on his gear and suchlike.”

“Is it his clan mark?”

“It’s not, because he’s not noble-born.” Coryn frowned in thought. “I don’t know why he carries it, and he probably shouldn’t, ’cause he’s a commoner.”

The cook turned their way and shoved her sweaty dark hair back from her face with a crooked little finger. “The mark’s just a fancy of Gerran’s,” she said. “After all, he was an orphan, and it’s a comfort, like, to pretend he’s got a family.”

“Still,” Coryn said, “it’s giving himself airs.”

“Oh, get along with you!” The cook rolled her eyes. “It comes to him natural, like. He was raised in the dun like Lord Mirryn’s brother, wasn’t he now?”

“Why?” Clae said with his mouth half full.

The cook glared, narrow-eyed.

“Say please,” Neb muttered.

“Please, good dame,” Clae said. “Why?”

“That’s better.” The cook smiled at him. “When Gerran was but a little lad, his father was killed in battle saving the tieryn’s life, and the shock drove his poor mother mad. She drowned herself not long after. So our Cadryc took the lad and raised him with his own son, because he’s as generous as a lord should be and as honorable, too.”

“That’s truly splendid of him,” Neb said. “But I can see why Gerran’s a bit touchy.” He wiped his greasy mouth on his sleeve. “I’ll do my best to stay out of his way.”

“Now you’ve got dirt smeared in the grease.” Coryn grinned at him. “We’d better get you that bath.”

Rather than haul water inside to heat at the hearth, they filled one of the horse troughs and let it warm in the hot sun while Coryn pointed out the various buildings in the fort. Eventually Neb and Clae stripped off their clothes and climbed into the water. Neb knelt on the bottom and kept ducking his head under while he tried to comb the worst of the dirt and leaves out of his hair. They were still splashing around when Salamander came strolling out of the broch with clothing draped over his arm.

“Well, you look a fair sight more courtly,” the gerthddyn said, grinning. “Lady Galla’s servant lass has turned up these.” He held up a pair of plain linen shirts, both worn but not too badly stained, and two pair of faded gray brigga. “She says you’re to give her the old ones to boil for rags.”

“My thanks,” Neb said. “Our lady’s being as generous as the noble-born should be, but truly, I’d rather go back to Trev Hael.”

“Ah, but here is where your wyrd led you. Who can argue with their wyrd?”

“But—”

“Or truly, wyrd led you to me, and I led you here, but it’s all the same thing.” Salamander gave him a sunny smile. “Please, lad, stay here for a while, no more than a year and a day, say. And then if you want to move on, move on.”

“Well and good, then. You saved our lives, and I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“No need for eternal gratitude. Just stay here for a little while. You’ll know when it’s time to leave.”

“Will I?” Neb hesitated, wondering if his benefactor were a bit daft. “You know, I just thought of somewhat. The lady wants to see my writing, but I’ve got no ink and no pens either. I saw some geese over by the stables, but the quills will take a while to cure.”

“So they will, but I’ve got some reed pens and a bit of ink cake, too.”

“Splendid! You can write, too?”

“Oh, a bit, but don’t tell anyone. I don’t fancy having some lord demand I stay and serve him as a scribe. Me for the open road.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you a question, truly. Why have you come all the way to Arcodd? There’s not a lot of folk out here, and most of them are too poor to pay you to tell them tales.”

“Sharp lad, aren’t you?” Salamander grinned at him. “Well, in truth, I’m looking for my brother, who seems to have got himself lost.”

“Lost?”

“Just that. He was a silver dagger, you see.”

“A what?” Clae broke in. “What’s that?”

“A mercenary soldier of a sort,” Salamander said. “They ride the countryside, looking for a lord who needs extra fighting men badly enough to pay them by the battle.”

Clae wrinkled his nose in disgust, but Neb leaned forward and grabbed his arm before he could say something rude. “Your hair’s still filthy,” Neb snapped. “Wash it out.” He turned to Salamander. “I’ll pray your brother still rides on the earth and not in the Otherlands.”

“My thanks, but I truly do believe he’s still alive. I had a report of him, you see, that he’d been seen up this way.”

Neb found himself wondering if Salamander were lying. The gerthddyn was studying the distant view with a little too much attention and a fixed smile. He refused to challenge the man who’d saved his life. Besides, having a silver dagger for a brother was such a shameful thing that he couldn’t begrudge Salamander his embarrassment.

“I’ll just be getting out,” Neb said. “Come on, Clae. We’ll have to help the stableman empty this trough. Horses can’t drink dirty water.”

Neb hoisted himself over the edge and dropped to the ground. He shook himself to get the worst of the water off, then, still damp, put on the clothes Salamander handed him. The baggy wool brigga fit well enough, but when he pulled the shirt over his head, it billowed around him. The long sleeves draped over his hands. He began rolling them up.

“We can find you a bit of rope or suchlike for a belt,” Salamander said. “And, eventually, a better shirt.”

Later that afternoon, with pen and ink in hand, Neb went into the great hall and found Lady Galla waiting, sitting alone at the table of honor. She’d gathered a heap of parchment scraps, splitting into translucent layers from hard use. A good many messages had been written upon them, then scraped off to allow for a new one.

“Will these do?” Galla was peering at them. “I looked all over, because I did remember that I had the accounts from our old demesne in a sack or suchlike, but I couldn’t find it. These turned up lining a wooden chest.”

“I’m sure they’ll do, my lady.” Neb searched through them and found at last a scrap with a reasonably smooth surface. “Now, what would you like me to write?”

“Oh, some simple thing. Our names, say.”

Neb picked the script his father had always used for important documents, called Half-inch Royal because the scribes of the high king’s court had invented it. Although she couldn’t read in any true sense of the word, Galla did know her letters, and she could spell out her name and Tieryn Cadryc’s when he wrote them.

“Quite lovely,” she announced. “Very well, young Neb. As provision for you and your brother, you shall have a chamber of your own, meals in the great hall, and a set of new clothing each year. Will that be adequate?”

Neb had to steel himself to bargain with the noble-born, but he reminded himself that without tools, he couldn’t practice his craft. “I’ll need coin as well, for the preparing of the inks and suchlike. I could just mix up soot and oak gall, but an important lord like your husband should have better. A silver penny a year should be enough. I hope I can find proper ink cakes and a mixing stone out here.”

“The coin we have, thanks to the high king’s bounty.” Galla thought for a moment. “Now, I think you might find what you need in Cengarn. His grace my husband has been talking about riding to the gwerbret there, and so if he does, you can go with him.”

“Splendid, my lady, and my thanks. But then there’s the matter of what I’m going to write upon. Fine parchments cost ever so much if you buy them, and I don’t know how to make my own. Even if I did, could you spare the hides? You can only get two good sheets from a calfskin, and then scraps like these.”

“Oh.” Galla paused, chewing on her lower lip. “Well, I’d not thought of that, but if you can find parchment for sale, I’m sure we can squeeze out the coin to buy some, at least for legal judgments and the like.”

“We can use wax-covered tablets for ordinary messages, if you have candle wax to spare. I can write with a stylus as well as a pen.”

“Now that I can give you, and a good knife, too, for cutting your pens.” Much relieved, Galla smiled at him. “I’ve got a very important letter to write, you see. My brother has a daughter by his first wife, who died years and years ago. So he remarried, and now he and his second wife have sons and daughters of their own. The wife—well. Let’s just say that she’s never cared for her stepdaughter. There’s only so much coin at my brother’s disposal, and she wants to spend it on her own lasses. The wife wants to, I mean, not little Branna. That’s my brother’s daughter, you see, Lady Branna, my niece. So I’m offering to take the lass in, and if we can’t find her a husband, then she can live here as my servingwoman.” Lady Galla paused for a small frown. “She’s rather an odd lass, you see, so suitors might be a bit hard to find. But she does splendid needlework, so I’ll be glad to have her. It’s truly a marvel, the way she can take a bit of charcoal and sketch out patterns. You’d swear she was seeing them on the cloth and just following along the lines, they’re so smooth and even. And—oh here, listen to me! A lad like you won’t be caring about needlework. You run along now and make those tablets. I’ll have Coryn bring you wax and knives and suchlike.”

“Very well, my lady, and my thanks. I’ll go hunt up some wood.”

Neb took Clae with him when he went out to the ward, which, with the dun so newly built, lacked much of the clutter and confusion of most strongholds. Behind the main broch tower stood the round, thatched kitchen hut, the well, and some storage sheds. Across an open space stood the smithy, some pigsties and chicken coops, and beyond them the dung heap. A third of the high outer wall supported the stables, built right into the stones, with the ground level for horses and an upper barracks for the warband and the servants.

“Neb?” Clae said. “We’ve found a good place, haven’t we?”

“We have.” Neb looked at him and found him smiling. “I think we’ll do well here.”

“Good. I want to train for a rider.”

“You what?”

“I want to learn swordcraft and join the tieryn’s warband.”

Neb stopped walking and put his hands on his hips. Clae looked up defiantly.

“Whatever for?” Neb said at last.

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“You know.” Clae shrugged and began scuffing at one of the cobbles with his bare toes. “Because they killed everyone.”

“Ah. Because the raiders destroyed our village?”

Clae nodded, staring at the ground.
Ye gods!
Neb thought.
What would Mam say to this?

“Well, I can understand that,” Neb said. “I’ll think about it.”

“I’m going to do it.”

“Listen, I’m the head of our clan now, and you won’t do one wretched thing unless I say you may.”

Clae’s eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, ye gods!” Neb snapped. “Don’t cry! Here, it’s all up to the captain, anyway. The Falcon. What’s-his-name.”

“Gerran.” Clae wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “He’s too busy now. I’ll ask him when they get back.”

“Very well, but if he says you nay, there’s naught I can do about it.”

“I know. But he lost his mam and da, didn’t he? I bet he’ll understand.”

“We’ll see about that. Now help me find the woodpile and an ax.”

They found the woodshed behind the cookhouse and an ax as well, hanging inside the door. Neb took the ax down and gave it an experimental swing. In one corner lay some pieces of rough-hewn planks, all of them too wide and most too thick, but Neb couldn’t find a saw. He did find a short chunk of log, some ten inches in diameter, that had the beginnings of a split along the grain.

“Here!” A man’s voice called out. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Neb turned around and saw a skinny fellow, egg bald, hurrying toward them. Above his bushy gray beard his pale blue eyes were narrowed and grim.

“My apologies, sir,” Neb said. “But I’m about Lady Galla’s business.”

“If she wanted a fire,” the fellow said, “she could have sent a servant to ask me. My name is Horza, by the by, woodcutter to this dun.”

“And a good morrow to you, sir. I’m Neb, and this is my brother, Clae. I’m the new scribe, and I need wood for tablets. Writing tablets, I mean. They need to be about so long and—”

“I know what writing tablets look like, my fine lad. Hand me my ax, and don’t you go touching it again, hear me?”

“I do. My apologies.”

Horza snorted and grabbed the ax from Neb’s lax grasp. For a moment he looked over the wood stacked in the shed, then picked up a short, thin wedge of stout oak in one hand. He set the thin wedge against the crack in the log and began tapping it in with the blunt back of the ax head. His last tap split the dry pine lengthwise. He let one half fall, then flipped the ax over to the sharpened edge and went to work on the other half. A few cuts turned it into oblongs of the proper length and thickness.

“I’ll make you two sets, lad.” Horza picked up the remainder of the log. He treated it the same while Neb watched in honest awe at his skill.