The Gold Falcon

by Katharine Kerr

  “I’ll get it. Hang on a moment.”

  The sheets were neatly stacked on a rickety chair in the curve of the wall. Branna fetched them, then unbarred the door and opened it just wide enough to slip the sheets into Midda’s hands. Midda was glowering at her.

  “I suppose your wretched betrothed is in there with you,” Midda said.

  “You’ve heard about our betrothal?”

  “News travels fast in a dun like this.” Midda snorted profoundly. “Well, I’d hoped for better for you, but you never would listen to your elders.”

  “True enough.” Branna paused for a smile. “I can’t deny it.”

  Midda snorted and slammed the door. Branna replaced the bar and hurried back to join Neb on the edge of the bed.

  “You were saying?” She grinned at him.

  They shared a laugh; then he caught her by the shoulders. She slipped her arms around his waist and drew him close as he kissed her. They lay down together, sprawled across the bed. In her mind ran words like the best music in the world: at last, at last we’re together!

  “Gerran!” Lord Blethry hailed him. “Captain! Wait up!”

  Gerran, who was on his way to the barracks, stopped walking and turned to wait. The equerry dodged his way through a mob of horses and servants and reached him at last. His heavy squarish face was flushed from mead and exertion both.

  “I want to thank you for agreeing to take your men down to the meadow,” Blethry said. “The chamberlain’s sent a squad of servants down with the largest pavilion. It’s a wretchedly clumsy thing to set up, so there’ll be a bit of a wait.”

  “There’s no hurry, my lord,” Gerran said. “I’ve got to collect my men and horses, and that’ll take me a fair while, too.”

  “True-spoken. The pages you brought with you—how good are they around horses?”

  “Coryn’s a good rider, but Clae’s just learning. Ynedd’s too young and scrawny to control a warhorse.”

  “Can he lead a haltered horse? I don’t have enough grooms to tend all these cursed mounts, even with the Red Wolf horses gone.”

  “Ah, I see. All three lads are good enough at raking hay and watering stock. Tell your head groom to come to me if there’s any trouble with them.”

  “I shall, and my thanks.”

  By the time that the Red Wolf warband was settled in their improvised new quarters, down by the ford across the river, the afternoon was turning toward evening. Out in the meadows a breeze sprang up to blow the flies away, and the hobbled horses grazed peacefully among the long shadows of the trees. As the sun sank low, it gilded the dun, towering over them on its cliff.

  “It’s a long way to walk for dinner,” Daumyr said. “But aside from that, this is a good bit better than being crammed into the barracks with everyone else.”

  “It is at that,” Gerran said. “Have you finished digging that latrine?”

  “I have, and well downstream. I’ve stowed the shovel in the pavilion.”

  “Good.” Gerran hesitated, considering. “We’d best leave someone here to watch over the horses. You never know who might take a fancy to them.”

  Sorting out who would stand guard duty took a great deal of furious dicing among the men, but eventually they left two men on armed guard with the promise of having food brought to them by whatever servant Gerran could round up to run the errand. With their captain at their head, the rest of the warband strolled through the south gate and panted up the steep hill to the dun.

  Despite the evening breeze beyond the walls, inside them the windless humid air draped itself over Gerran like a winter cloak. Men and horses stood so thick in the ward that pushing through them reminded Gerran of trying to walk through a flock of sheep. Inevitably the Red Wolf warband split up into twos and threes as they tried to follow their captain. Some of the men in his path tried to move out of Gerran’s way at once. Others merely stared at him with eyes turned witless by the gwerbret’s ale until one of their fellows said, “It’s the Falcon. Move, lad! Haven’t you seen him fight?” Then they’d step out of his way, and fast. Gerran thus reached the hall before the rest of his men.

  On the top step of the doorway he turned and looked over the ward just as shouting erupted some twenty yards back toward the gates. The mob swirled and swelled as some men tried to get away from what appeared to be a fistfight. As man pushed against man, apologies met curses. Raised voices and clenched fists threatened to spread the trouble further. The horses nearest to the disturbance began pulling at their tethers and trying to rear; grooms began yelling as they worked their way through the clotted crowd. The inadvertent shoves and curses increased. The men hung at the edge of a cliff over chaos, Gerran realized. Drawing his sword would only make them drop. Fortunately a groom stood nearby, a heavy quirt dangling from his lax grasp. Gerran snatched it from him and plunged into the mob.

  “It’s the Falcon!” someone yelled. “Ware, lads!”

  Men tried to part and let him through, but Gerran ended up brandishing the quirt and even using it on a few of the slower-moving lads before he finally got himself to the edge of the brawl. Perhaps half a dozen men were throwing punches, and three or four more were wrestling on the cobbles, all of them yelling insults and threats. By then, only a last few bystanders blocked his path.

  “Move back!” Gerran held up the quirt. “Get away, all of you! Now!”

  Those who could followed orders; those at the edge of the mob began to fall back as well; grooms grabbed whatever tether ropes they could reach and began leading horses away. Although the ward was quieting down, the original brawlers went on fighting in a moving tangle of men.

  Gerran dodged into the melee and swung the quirt to good purpose, yelling “hold and stand!” the entire time. The Red Wolf men among the miscreants followed his orders straightaway, more afraid of him than of their temporary enemies. The other men, too, began to devote themselves to ducking under Gerran’s blows rather than continuing to fight. A few lucky ones even managed to run out of range.

  Behind them more shouting erupted, but of a very different sort. “It’s His Grace! He’s trying to get through. And ye gods, the prince is with him! Make way!”

  The last of the brawl stopped cold. The rest of the watching mob found it could indeed move and quickly at that. The ward cleared remarkably easily as Gwerbret Ridvar elbowed his way to Gerran’s side. Right behind him came Prince Voran. Ridvar crossed his arms over his chest, and stood scowling at the cowed brawlers. The ward grew oddly silent; even the remaining horses stopped their stamping and snorting.

  “I’m cursed glad that this didn’t happen on the morrow,” Ridvar said, and his voice brimmed with fury ready to spill. “It’s bad enough that one prince of the blood royal has had to see this! I’ll remind you all that another’s on his way here. If anyone dares break the peace in front of them again—” He let the thought sizzle unfinished on the humid air.

  Apologies came as fast as summer rain. When Ridvar said nothing more, the men slunk away, heading to the barracks, the hall, the stables—anywhere out of the gwerbret’s sight. Gerran started to kneel to the prince and gwerbret, but Voran stopped him with a wave of his hand.

  “No need,” the prince said. “Good job, Captain.”

  “My thanks, Your Highness. I’m honored you’d think so.”

  Voran smiled, Ridvar smiled; then they turned and strolled back to the great hall. Over by the dun gates a subdued Warryc crawled out from under a wagon and stood up, brushing horseshit and mud off his clothes. Gerran walked over to him.

  “And what was all that?” Gerran said. “Were you in the middle of it?”

  “I was not, Captain,” Warryc said. “But one of the Stag clan riders, a burly fellow with a red beard, grabbed young Clae and smacked him in the face, and him three times the lad’s size. He claimed the lad had dropped somewhat or other on his foot or suchlike. Cursed if we were going to let some stranger harm one of the Red Wolf pages.”

  “So you were in the middle of it.
”

  “Not to say the middle.” Warryc paused for a grin. “Out toward the edge, mayhap.”

  Gerran rolled his eyes, considered a reprimand, then merely shrugged. “Well,” Gerran said, “I’m glad enough that someone defended the lad. Just don’t let it happen again, will you? It would ache my heart to have one of my men flogged for causing trouble in a gwerbret’s dun.”

  “It would ache a fair bit more of the fellow being flogged than his heart. Warning taken, Captain.”

  “Good. Don’t forget it. Now, let’s go in. I need to find a servant to take some food down to our lads. Better yet, help me find Clae. We’ll send him down where that piss-proud bully can’t find him.”

  “What’sallthatnoise,I wonder?” Branna sat up on the bed. “It sounds like fighting in the ward.”

  Neb murmured a few incomprehensible words, then turned over and went back to sleep. Branna got out of bed, then picked her underdress up off the floor and put it on before she went to the window. When she looked out, she could see the brawl in progress, though the ward was darkening with evening shadows and far too crowded for her to identify the fighters. The sight below reminded her of a pot of oatmeal on a fire, pulsing and bubbling. Like a cooking spoon stirring the porridge, one man cleared his way through only to have the mob close behind him. His red hair made her wonder if it were Gerran, and sure enough, once the mob began to disperse, she recognized him. He’ll get the matter settled, then, she thought. No need to worry.

  She lay down again, hoping that Neb would wake up for still more lovemaking, but he slept stubbornly on. Soon enough she fell asleep herself, only to wake suddenly to a night-dark room.

  Through the open window she could see the Snowy Road, bright against the sky, and hear the noise from the great hall like a river rushing over stones. She could smell dinner, as well. Her stomach growled and rumbled. She was about to get up when she realized that the chamber was full of Wildfolk. She could hear them rustling, see shapes like living shadows flitting back and forth in the air. She prodded Neb in the ribs.

  “Wake up,” she murmured. “Somewhat’s going to happen.”

  “Imph.” He sat up in bed, yawned, then glanced around him. “Ye gods, I’ve never seen so many Wildfolk!”

  “No more I,” Branna said. “We should make a dweomer light.”

  “No need. Look.”

  In the center of the chamber a point of silvery glow appeared and began to expand. It turned first into a gleaming sphere, then a cylinder. It hovered, glowing as brightly as twenty lanterns, then lengthened into a pillar of silver light that stretched nearly floor-to-ceiling. All of the Wildfolk skittered to the edges of the chamber and arranged themselves around the walls. Within the pillar the light seemed as solid as smoke, flowing and ebbing only to brighten again in long streamers.

  Branna’s gray gnome suddenly materialized on the bed between her and Neb. It did a little dance, laughing soundlessly and pointing at the shimmering pillar.

  “Did you bring this?” Branna whispered.

  The gnome nodded a yes and sat down, wrapping its skinny arms tight around its bony knees as it stared into the silver light. Inside the pillar two figures began to form. At first they were only the sort of misty shapes one sees in clouds or smoke; then they became solid and defined themselves into two vaguely human bodies. After some moments one form stepped out of the pillar and floated some inches above the floor.

  Although still human in shape, she was far too slender to be an ordinary woman, and her skin, if one could call that tenuous membrane skin, was dead-white. Her hair, eyes, and lips shared the same shade of woad-blue, as did the suggestion of a tattered dress that she wore, but they glowed in a way that dyed cloth could never match. When she opened her mouth to speak, she revealed needle-sharp teeth.

  “Jill.” Her voice sounded with the hoarse rasp of ocean waves. It was one voice, yet echoed with many voices. “You saved me long years past, and now I’ve come to repay. Your little one brought me here because I have speech.”

  The gnome jumped up and clapped its hands. Branna tried to speak but could manage only a soft sigh. Neb caught his breath with a gasp and laid a hand on her arm.

  “Don’t you know me, Master of the Aethyr?” the spirit said to him.

  The figure still half-seen inside the pillar pulsed with light and seemed to speak—perhaps it was a he. Branna sensed his speaking rather than heard him. The white spirit, however, nodded as if she understood.

  “You don’t remember,” she said to Branna, then glanced at Neb. “Nor do you.”

  “Remember what?” Neb said.

  “Who you are.” The spirit raised her illusion of hands and pointed at each of them. “Remember who you are and who you were once.” She turned to Branna. “There are no ghosts, only memories, in your dreams.”

  “You’re saying that my dreams are true?” Branna whispered.

  The spirit smiled, but her form was turning translucent. Her hair, her hands frayed into strands of silver light. “Remember!” she repeated. “You died at the ford. Don’t you remember?”

  The light in the pillar began to swirl, and the male form within swirled with it. The white spirit was nearly transparent, and her hands and hair were indistinguishable from the light. With a last smile she stepped back into the pillar and became only a drifting form seen through a glowing haze.

  “Jill.” Her last words seemed to ring through the chamber. “Remember.”

  The silver light was fading, the pillar shrinking. It seemed to turn inside itself; suddenly it disappeared, leaving the chamber wreathed in a faint glow. The Wildfolk swarmed into the middle of the room, then flew this way and that, soaring up high, dropping down, dashing this way and that, only to disappear themselves, winking out like the last coals of a fire. The gray gnome turned to Branna, bowed like a tiny lord, and vanished, taking the last of the silver light with him.

  Neb rolled off the bed and, still naked, strode over to the chest in the curve of the wall. He picked up a candle lantern and lit it with a snap of his fingers. As the golden light brightened, Branna could see him grinning like a madman.

  “That priest of Bel,” he said, “the one I spoke with this afternoon—he said that the witch woman had a bond-woman’s name. Jill certainly would fit that.”

  “It would, truly.” Branna still found it hard to speak. “The name just means ‘lass,’ doesn’t it?”

  “Somewhat like that, I think.”

  Neb set the lantern down on the windowsill, then came back to the bed. He picked up his brigga from the floor and put them on.

  “I still don’t understand,” Branna said. “How could I have died at the ford all those years ago and still be alive now?”

  “It should be obvious.” Neb was peering at the floor. Abruptly he stooped and came back up with his shirt. “There’s only one thing it can mean.”

  “What? Don’t tease me!”

  “I’m not.” He paused to pull the shirt over his head. “Remember what we discussed at the ford, all those old tales about how dweomerfolk can come back to life as birds and suchlike? Well, they must be able to come back as people, too, born in the usual way and all that.”

  “You’re saying that I’ve lived another life before this one.”

  “Not precisely. I’m saying we both did.” Neb sat down on the edge of the bed. “I feel like I’ve loved you forever, but we only met a few months ago. Don’t you feel the same?”

  For a moment Branna was tempted to lie out of an odd sort of fear, as if she stood on the edge of some high cliff and was about to leap off into a chasm that plunged down beyond her sight. Either she would find wings and soar, or she would fall to her death. For the briefest of moments, she remembered how it felt to fly. Seeing his face, shadowed in the flickering candlelight, made her remember another face, that of the old man who’d held out the glowing gem, a gift beyond price. Your dreams are memories, the white spirit had told her, not ghosts.

  “I do,” she said, “I do
feel like I’ve loved you forever.”

  When he held out his hand, she clasped it in both of hers.

  “We’ve found the way,” Neb said, “the path to someplace grand. Or I should say, the spirit gave it to us. Seeing her, hearing her—I remembered. I’m still not sure exactly what I remember, mind, but I suddenly saw that I have things to remember. Don’t you see that, too?”

  “If you mean, that we’ve got another life to remember, then truly, I do see it.”

  “Exactly that. And that’s the key. Now all I have to do is find the lock it fits in. You’ve got your lock—those dreams you told me about.” He laughed softly under his breath. “Don’t you see, my love? There’s a treasure laid up for us somewhere. I know it in my very soul.”

  The eagerness in his voice, the joy, really, seemed to crackle around them both like the warmth of a fire, but still she felt fear like a sliver of ice in her heart.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” she said. “It’s going to be dangerous, remembering.”

  “Oh, no doubt.” Neb shrugged the warning away. “I wish to every god that Salamander would get himself back here,” he went on. “I’ve got a few questions for him, and he cursed well better have the answers.”

  “I wager he will. Some of the things he told me were—well—” Branna paused, trying to think of some grand word, but her stomach growled as loud as speech.

  Neb’s answered. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  “Get dressed, my love,” Neb said. “Let’s go down to the great hall. I’m hungry enough to eat a wolf, pelt and all.”

  When he left the Westlands, Prince Daralanteriel took with him his scribe, his warleader, his dweomermaster, fifty archers for a royal escort, packhorses laden with supplies, extra mounts, and of course Salamander. The prince planned on traveling fast, but he’d sent Maelaber ahead with two archers for an escort and the extra horses that allowed them to travel even faster. The royal retinue wasn’t far from Cengarn when the returning messengers met up with them. They had important news: the gwerbret was holding his wedding celebration.