The Gold Falcon (63 page)

“Next letter you write,” Cadryc said, “tell my lady that we’ve had no word from our daughter, but that I still have hope.” He paused, chewing on the edge of his mustache. “I’m afraid that bastard’s not going to let our Adranna go, but don’t tell her that, of course.”

Yet it was the very next morning, when the cool dawn was brightening into a hot day, that Lord Honelg’s herald finally appeared again on his lord’s walls. He blew three notes on his horn and waved his staff, making the bright ribands dance in the pale light. The shout went round Ridvar’s camp to summon Indar.

Neb—and everyone else in the Westfolk camp—hurried up the hill to join the gwerbret’s men, who had gathered some fifty yards from the entrance to the dun’s earthworks to wait during the parley. Speculations multiplied in whispers and murmurs, ranging from the extravagant hope that Honelg would surrender to the grim thought that he was merely going to order the princes and the gwerbret off his lands once again.

In the event, the outcome fell between the two. When Indar returned, he sported a thin smile of satisfaction. He knelt before Ridvar, then spoke as loudly as he could to make his voice carry to all his anxious listeners.

“Lord Honelg wants to send the womenfolk out, Your Grace,” Indar said. “He wishes to know if you’ll guarantee their safety.”

“The gall of the man!” Ridvar snarled. “As if I’d do aught else! Besides, Lady Adranna’s father is here.”

“Cursed right I am!” Cadryc shoved his way through the throng to join the gwerbret. “If anyone tries to harm my daughter or any of her women, then he’ll have me to answer to.”

“And that should provide all the reassurance he needs,” Ridvar said.

Indar rose, bowed to the noble-born, and trotted back to the dun, his staff held high, to disappear into the maze of earthworks. While this second parley continued, Ridvar and Cadryc’s men hurriedly armed, just in case Honelg was trying to work a ruse. In the past, a few dishonorable lords had used a call for parley to mount a surprise sally once the gates were open.

“Let’s move closer,” Salamander said to Neb. “I want to be right at hand when the lady comes out.”

“I take it you think we’ll be safe.”

“I do. I truly can’t see a devotee of Alshandra risking his women to trick an enemy.”

With some fancy maneuvering and a bevy of apologies, Salamander and Neb managed to work their way forward till they could stand beside Gerran, who had put on his mail shirt, though he carried his pot helm tucked under his left arm. He acknowledged the pair with a nod, then went back to watching the dun.

Both heralds’ horns rang out. Indar walked out of the maze, and right behind him came a woman who looked so much like Galla that Neb knew it had to be Adranna. She was leading a little girl along by the hand, and right behind her came three women wearing the stained and faded dresses that marked them as servants. The servants carried bundles wrapped in blankets, the lady’s possessions, no doubt, as well as the few things they themselves owned.

“The lass is Treniffa,” Salamander whispered to Neb. “I don’t know the servants’ names. My heart’s beginning to be troubled, though, because I don’t see Lady Varigga, Honelg’s mother.”

Tieryn Cadryc started forward to go meet them, but Ridvar caught his sleeve.

“You’d better stay back,” Ridvar said, “in case one of those archers decides you’re too valuable a target to ignore. They’re commoners, after all. We can’t expect them to behave honorably.”

“True spoken, Your Grace.” Cadryc stayed among his men.

Adranna hesitated at the sight of the army, then continued on, walking at a measured pace with her head held high across that last stretch of uneven ground. The servants trailed miserably after, and little Treniffa looked frankly terrified.

“Still no sign of Varigga,” Salamander said. “I fear the worst. The gates are closing now.”

“How can you tell?” Neb said. “I can’t see a cursed thing from here.”

Salamander gave him a weary smile, and Neb suddenly realized that the gerthddyn had just scryed out the dun. Adranna hesitated again, looking over the waiting men, then came straight for Salamander.

“You!” Adranna stopped in front of him and considered him for a long moment. “Raldd told us of your treachery. You—after we fed you at our table.”

“It aches my heart,” Salamander began, “but—”

Adranna spat full into his face. With a toss of her head she walked past him, head held high. Neb pulled an ink-stained rag out of his pocket and handed it to Salamander, who took it with a murmur of thanks.

Tieryn Cadryc was hurrying forward to meet Adranna when Treniffa spotted him. With a howl of “Gran, Gran!” she broke away from her mother’s grasp and ran weeping to his outspread arms. At the sight Adranna began to weep as well. For a moment she stood trembling and alone, watching her father as if she feared a blow.

“Addi!” Cadryc bellowed. “Thanks be to every god! Er, or every goddess, I suppose I should say, eh? Your mother’s been worried half out of her mind, and I don’t mind admitting that I’m cursed glad to see you out of that dun.”

“I—” Adranna was weeping too hard to finish. She ran the last few yards with the servants hurrying after. The Red Wolf warband closed around them all and swept them downhill to safety.

 

After a brief discussion with his daughter and his captain, Cadryc decided to send the women back to Cengarn immediately. Gerran picked out five men for an escort and gave them their orders—get the women to safety, then return to the army. Two of those he picked, Warryc and Daumyr, decided to argue about it.

“Your Grace, and you, too, Captain,” Warryc said, “we respectfully request that you let us stay with the army and send someone else to Cengarn instead.”

“Oh, do you now?” Cadryc sounded amused. “And why should the captain let you do that?”

“It was us that Honelg lied to, Your Grace, about there being illness in his dun, I mean. We don’t want to miss the fight.”

“So he did. I’d forgotten that.” Cadryc glanced at Gerran. “You get the last word on this.”

“What makes you think you’re going to miss anything?” Gerran said. “We could be here for the rest of the summer.”

“Well, true-spoken.” Warryc paused to turn uphill and look at the dun. “But he’s sent his women out, hasn’t it? I’d wager that’s a sign of change.”

“Oh, very well, then.” Gerran scowled at him, but he knew that the scowl couldn’t hide his respect for them. “Turn those horses over to young Allo and Bryn and tell them to join the escort.”

“My thanks!” Warryc made a bob of a bow in Cadryc’s direction. “And my thanks to you, too, my lord.”

Still grinning, the pair of them led the horses away.

“I hope five men will be enough,” Cadryc said. “I keep wondering if Honelg has allies somewhere close by, someone who might want to take my daughter for a hostage.”

“If he does have allies,” Gerran said, “they’re not Deverry men.”

“That’s what’s troubling me the most.”

“True spoken, but if Horsekin were lying in ambush, the dragon would have smelled them even if she couldn’t see them.”

“I keep forgetting about that blasted creature. Imph, I must be getting old, seeing enemies everywhere.”

Yet the tieryn wasn’t the only person who worried about Adranna’s safety. With the escort settled, Gerran went out to the pasture where the Red Wolf horses were tethered to pick out the most tractable mounts for the women. Prince Daralanteriel and Dallandra came down to join him there.

“A request of you, Captain,” the prince said. “The Wise One here has asked me to send four archers back to Cengarn with the escort.”

“That’s a generous offer, Your Highness,” Gerran said. “I’ll accept it gladly.”

“You’re going to ask me why,” Dallandra said with a good-humored smile. “Not all the dragons in this part of the world are friendly, and so I thought archers might come in handy, as it were. I asked the prince to send some of our men along.”

And what good
, Gerran thought to himself,
are hunting bows going to be against dragons?
Yet he merely smiled and bowed to her, because he could guess that Dallandra in truth had another sort of enemy in mind. Of what sort, he had no idea, but he also had no doubt that she knew, and that was what mattered.

After he chose the horses, Gerran delegated servants to saddle them. There were provisions to be packed and loaded onto a mule, too, since the trip would take two days. During these preparations Lady Adranna sat on an empty barrel turned on its side, with Trenni sitting cross-legged in front of her to lean back between her mother’s knees. The servants knelt on the grass behind them. Gerran wanted to say something comforting to the lady, but he could think of nothing. The army was here to kill her lord and husband, and she knew it as well as anyone.

Once everything was ready for the journey, Cadryc knelt down in front of his daughter. “What about Matto?” he said.

“What do you think?” Adranna said. “Honelg wouldn’t let him go.” Her voice snapped with rage like green wood hissing and sparking on a fire. “No matter how hard I begged.”

“Imph.” Cadryc paused for a long moment. “I see. Well, here, we’ll do what we can to get him out alive for you. Matto, I mean.”

“Da, if you could!” Adranna caught her breath with a gasp and choked back tears. “Mayhap my goddess—”

“Hush!” Cadryc snapped. “I’d have you keep silence about that lying demoness where the men can hear you.”

Adranna crossed her arms over her chest, then set her jaw and stared him in the eye. “And I’d have you not call
her
that.”

For a moment they glared at each other in silence. Adranna had never looked more like her father than at that moment, Gerran decided. Trenni sat stone-still between them, her pinched little face pale, her eyes wide. Abruptly, Adranna broke the impasse. She stroked her daughter’s hair and bent forward to murmur to her until her stiff little shoulders relaxed.

“Oh, very well, Da,” Adranna said. “I doubt me if I’d get anything but curses if I did say her name.” She paused, drawing a long breath. “Soon enough I’ll be a widow, anyway, and I’m minded to go to the temple of the Moon once I am, but I plan on going with a lying heart, to worship my own goddess under their guise.”

“What? Ye gods, it’s a bit soon to make that decision. This blasted siege could last for months.”

“Nah nah nah! You don’t understand us, and you don’t understand
her
ways. Although—” Her voice turned hesitant. “Although I don’t truly know what my lord will do. He’s been so strange lately. When he sent us out, he was talking about bearing the last witness, but I don’t know if he can go through with it or not.”

“The what? What in the icy hells is that?”

Adranna shook her head and silently mouthed “not where the child can hear.” Cadryc nodded to show he’d understood. “Ask that snake-tongued betrayer of a gerthddyn what it means,” Adranna said. “He seems to know enough about us, judging from the way he’s brought ruin upon us all.”

When the women rode out, Cadryc rode with them, though he announced that he’d turn back after a mile or so. Gerran walked down to the road to see them off, then went to the Westfolk’s encampment to look for Neb. He found him and Salamander both kneeling on the ground in front of Dallandra’s tent. With a clean doeskin to lay their work upon, they were folding bandages out of linen rags. Gerran hunkered down across from them.

“Tell me somewhat,” Gerran said. “Why did the prince give us those archers?”

“Swear to me you won’t repeat a word of this,” Neb said, “and I’ll tell you.”

“Done, then.”

“Dalla thinks there may be a shape-changer dogging our heels, one who can fly. If she’s right, he’s up to no good.”

Gerran had the distinct sensation that he was going to choke. He managed a cough, took a deep breath, and finally found his voice. “Shape-changer?” he said. “Ah by the black hairy arse of the Lord of Hell! There is such a thing, then?”

“There is.” Neb sounded so grim that Gerran believed him without hesitation. “It’s not just some fancy tale like Salamander tells in the marketplace.”

“Indeed,” Salamander put in. “Gerro, if you see a bird, particularly a raven, who looks far too big to be a normal bird, as it were, then come tell Dalla or me straightaway.”

“I will. You can rest assured about that. Another question. Lady Adranna told her father that Honelg was planning on bearing the last witness. She said to ask you what that meant.”

Salamander winced, then frowned down at the bandage in his hands. “I’m not absolutely sure,” he said at last. “But I do know it bodes ill. ’Witnessing’ to these people always seems to mean dying in some form or another. So I’d guess it means fighting to the death.”

“Honelg would do that anyway,” Gerran said. “He can hardly surrender. Ridvar will hang him if he does. Now that he’s let Lady Adranna go, he’s got naught to bargain with.”

“What about the lives of his men?” Neb said. “And the men from his village, too.”

“His men have sworn to die with him, if need be,” Gerran said. “And they will. His villagers—I’d suppose that any who wanted to leave would have left with the women. Ridvar wouldn’t have harmed them. In his eyes, they don’t matter.”

“Huh.” Neb snorted profoundly. “No doubt.”

When Cadryc returned, Gerran told him what Salamander had said about bearing the last witness, but he kept Neb’s talk of shape-changers to himself. If Cadryc believed it, then he’d be sorely troubled about a threat he could do nothing to turn aside, and if he disbelieved, then he’d think that his scribe and his captain had both gone daft. Neither seemed like a reasonable risk to run, especially since the only two people in the encampment who could defeat that sort of enemy were already on their guard.

Late that night, Gerran was standing watch at the edge of the Red Wolf camp when he saw a dim light flickering in an upper window of the otherwise dark dun. Someone who couldn’t sleep had lit a candle lantern, he supposed. In a moment the light disappeared, only to reappear briefly through an arrow-slit on the floor below, then disappear once more. In a short while he spotted the light again, and for a moment he thought the dun was on fire, because it gleamed through chinks in the loosely set stones of the outer wall.