The Gold Falcon (67 page)

“I want to give him a proper burial,” Voran remarked, “but for his wife’s sake, not his. No one’s found his son either.”

“His son’s but seven summers old, Your Highness,” Gerran said.

Voran winced. “Well, then, let’s hope he’s still alive. I begin to think his father must be.”

“Indeed, Your Highness, since no one’s found him. I want a word with his lordship, you see. He stabbed one of my men in the back.”

“Perhaps we won’t bother with the proper burial, then. I wonder where he’s gone to earth?”

Gerran remembered the mysterious light he’d seen and Dallandra’s talk of a shrine to Honelg’s goddess. “I’ve got an idea about that, Your Highness,” he said. “There’s some sort of hidden chamber inside the dun walls. The gerthddyn will know where it is.”

“Your Highness?” One of Voran’s men spoke up. “I saw the gerthddyn helping carry the wounded. He’s doubtless in the great hall.”

Voran took the lead as they strode around the broch. They found Salamander just coming out. Some other man’s blood soaked the front of his shirt.

“Gerro!” Salamander trotted over to him, then saw Prince Voran and started to kneel.

“Stay on your feet, man,” Voran said. “This is no time to worry about courtesies.”

“My humble thanks, Your Highness,” Salamander said. “Gerro, Daumyr told me about Warryc. You must be hunting for Honelg.”

“I am. How did you know?”

“The look on your face. Pure death and twice as cold.”

“Oh. Do you know where the shrine is? I’d wager that he’s in there.”

“A good guess, but if you’re right, getting him out again’s not going to be an easy task. There’s one narrow door, and it’ll be shadowy inside.”

“Just show me where it is. I’ll get him out of it. The prince’s men can handle the rest of the traitors, if there be any with him.”

Salamander led them around the walls to a door made of rough wood planks. Gerran would have thought it the entrance to a storage shed if Salamander hadn’t pointed to it and mouthed the words “in there.”

Gerran strode up to the door and kicked it as hard as he could. With a groan it splintered down the middle. The pieces swung inside to a gloom lit by splinters of sunlight. At the far end, on what appeared to be a stone altar, a man lay sprawled on his back.
Honelg?
Gerran wondered. Someone else, however, knelt before it. When he stood and turned to face the door, Gerran recognized the lord. A pot helm dangled from his left hand.

“Honelg!” Gerran shouted. “I’m challenging you. If you think your lying whore of a goddess will protect you, you’re wrong. Get out here!”

“I’ll take your challenge, Falcon,” Honelg called back, “if you’ll promise me one thing on your word of honor.”

“What it is?”

“That I won’t be mobbed and killed before I can get clear of the door.”

“Fair enough. You have my sworn word that you’ll face me and me alone.”

“Done, then!”

Gerran heard the men behind him begin moving back as Prince Voran gave orders to clear a combat ground. Honelg walked half the distance to the door. When he paused in a shaft of sunlight to toss his helm aside, Gerran could see that the lord was wearing only a linen shirt with his brigga.

“Ye gods!” Gerran said. “Where’s your mail? If you’ve not got a hauberk at least, we’ll lend you one.”

Honelg laughed, and an oddly merry laugh at that. “I have Alshandra, and you have your armor,” he said. “I declare this a fair fight.”

“Well and good, then, but if you won’t wear a helm, then I’ll lay mine aside, too.”

Behind him a babble rose, calling him daft, urging him to keep the helm on. Gerran took it off and held helm and shield both out in Salamander’s general direction. The gerthddyn took them, then darted back out of the way.

“I warn you.” Honelg sounded as calm as if he were discussing some tedious everyday detail. “You’ll never gain this victory. My goddess will either see to it that you’re slain, or else
she
’ll take me to my true home at last.”

“Oh, will she now? Then let’s not keep the lady waiting.”

Honelg drew his sword with his right hand, then pulled his dagger from his belt with his left and walked to the door of the shrine. Gerran stepped back to let Honelg’s eyes grow used to the sunlight.

“On the altar you’ll find one of my servants,” Honelg said. “He was going to surrender to your prince, so I slew him for
her
sake. Hang his corpse for the ravens, will you?”

“I’ll see to it he’s buried decently, more like.” Gerran let his sword lie easy in his hand, point down, as if he were off his guard. “Get out here, you pisspoor excuse for a man!”

Honelg’s face flushed red. With a howl of “Alshandra!” he flung up his sword and charged. Gerran stepped to one side and flicked his blade up, catching the lord high across the ribs. Blood spread through his shirt as Honelg turned, gasping, to face him, only to meet Gerran’s blade on the back swing. Gerran cut him low, this time, splitting his belly like an overripe peach. The force of the blow spun the lord half-around.

Through the slice in Honelg’s shirt guts bulged, blood-streaked gray membranes. Honelg dropped to his knees, and his sword slid from his hand as he clutched the pieces of his blood-soaked shirt to the wound. He threw his head back and gasped open-mouthed, in too much pain to even scream.

“The first was for your servant,” Gerran said, “the second for Warryc. You’re a mad dog, Honelg, not a man at all.”

Gerran set one foot against Honelg’s chest and shoved the dying lord so hard that Honelg buckled sideways, sprawling into the dirt with a twist that laid him on his back. Honelg moaned, and he seemed to be looking at the sky, his eyes flickering this way and that.

“Where are you?” Honelg whispered. “My lady! Too dark.”

He caught his breath with one last ghastly rattle and died.

For a long moment no one moved or spoke. Prince Voran was the first to shudder; he cursed softly under his breath. As if at a signal the other men began to mutter among themselves, but not at the mere sight of death. Gerran turned to a white-faced Salamander and retrieved his helm and shield.

“Tell me somewhat, gerthddyn,” Gerran said. “Was he calling for his lying whore of a demoness?”

“He was,” Salamander said. “She’s supposed to come meet her faithful when they die. I wish he’d seen the truth before he died, but then, if he’d seen the truth, he wouldn’t have died.”

“As if I give a pig’s fart!” Gerran said. “The Lord of Hell’s welcome to him.”

Salamander looked inclined to argue. Rather than curse at the gerthddyn, Gerran turned away. Movement caught his gaze, and he glanced at the broch. Someone was standing on the roof, someone too short and slender to be a warrior from either side.

“Is that Honelg’s son?” Gerran said, pointing with his sword.

“It looks like it, truly,” Salamander said. “And it looks like others have seen the lad as well. Come on!” He took off running for the broch.

A little clot of Westfolk and Deverry men, Tieryn Cadryc and Gwerbret Ridvar among them, stood in the ward and craned their necks to look up. By the time that Gerran and Salamander joined them, the skinny little lad had gone over the side in a futile attempt to escape. He was clinging to the outer wall of the broch, a few feet down from the roof and a good long way above the ward.

“We’ve got him now,” Ridvar said.

“Got him?” Prince Daralanteriel said. “It seems to me that he’s a fair bit higher than we can reach.”

“I meant, Your Highness, that one of the archers can strike the lad down easily enough.”

“What?” Calonderiel stepped forward and set his hands on his hips. “Do I have this right? You want one of my men to kill a frightened child for you, and in cold blood? How old is he? Eight summers? Seven?”

“It’s not his age that matters,” Ridvar said. “He’s Honelg’s heir, the heir of a rebel against my rule. When he comes of age, he’ll swear vengeance for this, and that makes him a threat. It’s not like I want to kill him.” Ridvar’s voice carried little conviction on this last. “But I can’t tolerate rebels and keep the respect of my men.”

“Indeed?” Calonderiel paused to let his lip curl in contempt. “Well, if that matters so much to you, fetch him down yourself.”

Ridvar’s face flushed red, and he set his lips together hard. He turned his gaze to Daralanteriel and raised one eyebrow in a silent question.

“The banadar’s men are his to command,” Dar said, “not mine.”

“Now here!” Cadryc shoved himself between Calonderiel and Ridvar. “Your Grace, that lad is my grandson.”

Ridvar began to speak, then hesitated. Cadryc crossed his arms over his chest and stared the young gwerbret full in the face. For a long moment the impasse held.

“I can’t have heard you a-right, Gwerbret Ridvar,” Prince Voran came striding over. “Come now! If we can take the child alive, I can send him back to Dun Deverry as a hostage. He’ll be no threat there.”

“Not until he grows up, anyway,” Ridvar said, “uh, Your Highness.”

“I take it, Your Grace,” Cadryc was speaking only to Ridvar, and his voice had grown tight as a strung bow, “that my word of honor’s not enough for you. One of my men died in that fight, just by the by, and now you’re insulting—”

“Naught of the sort!” Voran grabbed Cadryc’s arm before he could finish speaking and start a second rebellion on the spot. “Think, man! Having bloodkin at court will be of great advantage to the Red Wolf.”

Gerran had heard enough. He left them wrangling and ran into the broch. On tables in the middle of the great hall the chirurgeons were working frantically. Over by the honor hearth the dead were laid out, and the wounded or dying lay across from them on the commoners’ side. The hall reeked of blood-soaked straw, vomit, and the excrement of the dying. At the foot of the staircase, Neb stood washing his red-stained hands in a bucket of water.

“Gerro!” Neb hailed him. “Has anyone found Honelg’s son?”

“He’s stuck partway down the outside of the broch,” Gerran said, “and our ever so noble gwerbret wants one of the archers to kill the lad in cold blood. I thought I’d have a try at saving him.”

“Oh, ye gods!” Dallandra turned from her work to join the talk. “Gerro, the archers aren’t going to do it, are they?”

“Not while the banadar’s there.”

“Good. Please, do try to save the lad!”

“I will, my lady. If I can get onto the roof, maybe I can reach him.”

“He’s not going to trust you.” Neb shook red-stained water from his hands, then wiped them on his shirt. “You’re the man who killed his father.”

“I—” Gerran paused in mid-sentence, struck by a thought as painful as an arrow wound.
At least I didn’t have to watch when the Horsekin killed my Da.

“Let me try,” Neb went on. “These stairs, do they go all the way up to the roof?”

“It looks that way.” Gerran gladly turned away from his thoughts. “Here, I’ll go ahead of you, just in case there’s someone hiding up there, someone with a sword, I mean.”

 

As he followed Gerran up to the top floor of the broch, Neb was hoping that any possible swordsmen were long gone, and his hope was realized. The trapdoor to the roof already stood open, with the ladder in readiness. As Neb climbed up and out, he heard the distant voices of the noble-born, loud and angry in two languages. Apparently the banadar was invoking Elvish gods as well as arguing with the gwerbret in Deverrian.

Above the clouds were thickening in the gray sky. He’d have to work fast, Neb realized. Once the stones were rain-slick, the boy could slip and fall to his death whether he wanted to die or not.

“There’s some rope.” Gerran was standing on the ladder with only his head and shoulders out of the trapdoor. “I figured there’d be a coil or two lying about up here, just in case the defenders had a chance to escape over the side. The lad probably didn’t think to use it.”

“Most likely,” Neb said. “You’d best not be here when I get the lad to safety.”

“True spoken. I’ll go down and leave the broch.”

Neb picked up the longest rope and walked across to the edge, some ten feet above Matto, who was clinging spread-eagled and trembling against the rough stones of his dead father’s broch. Neb tied one end of the rope around a crenel and tested the strength of his knot with a good hard pull. It held, and he turned the other end into a noose.

“Matto!” Neb called out. “There’s no use in dying. A royal prince is here, and he’s offering you mercy.”

The arguing far below suddenly stopped. Apparently the noble-born had heard him. What counted, however, was the lad’s reaction, not theirs. When he leaned through the crenelation, Neb saw a dark-haired little boy looking back at him, his mouth half-open, his face streaked with tears.

“You’re stuck, aren’t you?” Neb said, and he smiled.

“Who are you?” Matto’s young voice was steady, but just barely so. “You don’t look like one of the prince’s men.”

“I’m a scribe who’s been helping the chirurgeons. Look—I’m not armed.”

Matto didn’t answer, but neither did he throw himself down.

“Come to think of it,” Neb went on. “I’m one of your kinfolk. I just got betrothed to your mother’s cousin, Lady Branna.”

For a moment Matto looked as if he’d speak, but he kept silent.

“I’ve come to get you up safely,” Neb continued. “I’ll swear it on my honor, I mean you no harm.” With that he lowered the rope. “Slip that loop around you. Lift one arm at a time, then snug the rope up—under your shoulders, like. Then hang on for all you’re worth.”

“Matto!” Cadryc’s shout drifted up to them. “Don’t be a fool, lad. Do what he asks.”

For a moment the rope and young Matyc’s wyrd both dangled uselessly in front of the boy. Neb was just about to coax him further when Matyc reached out with one hand and caught the rope.

“Good lad!” Neb called down to him. “Now, over your head and under your arms, one at a time. Good—get a hold on a stone with that hand now and use the other to—right! Snug up that noose a bit. Splendid! Now, hang on, and up we go!”