Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [27]
As Gerraent walked over, Dwen raised his head and searched for him with rheumy eyes. Dwen tried to speak, then coughed, spitting up a slime of blood-tinged phlegm, slipping and glistening as his head fell back. He was dead. Gerraent wiped the spittle off his father’s mouth with the edge of the blanket, then closed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. The chamberlain came in, glanced at the bed, then flung himself down to kneel at Gerraent’s feet—at the feet of the new Falcon, head of the clan and its only hope.
“My lord, I’d best send a page to the King straightaway. We’ve got to catch the wedding party before it leaves.”
“So we do. Get him on the way at dawn.”
It would take three days to get the message to Dun Deverry that Brangwen’s wedding would have to wait for a time of mourning. All at once, as he looked at his father’s face, Gerraent turned sick with self-loathing. He would have given anything to stop that marriage, anything but this. He threw his head back and keened, cry after wordless cry, as if he could drive his thoughts away with the sound.
In the morning, the priests of Bel came from the temple to preside over the burial. Under their direction, Brangwen and her serving maid washed the body, dressed it in Dwen’s best court clothes, and laid it on a litter. While the servants dug the grave, Gerraent groomed and saddled his father’s best horse. The procession assembled out in the ward, servants carrying the litter, the priests just behind, then Gerraent, leading the horse. Supported by her maid and the chamberlain, Brangwen brought up the rear. The head priest gave Gerraent a cold smile, then pointed to the lintel of the door.
“That head comes down today, or I won’t bury your father.”
Since he refused to order a servant to do such a hideous task, Gerraent climbed the broch, working his way up the rough stone while the priest waited below with a basket. When Gerraent reached the door, he clung to the lintel and examined the head. There was little left, a stretch of blackening skin over a skull, shreds of hair, a few cracked teeth.
“Well and good, Samoryc. Both you and your old enemy are going to be buried today.”
Gerraent pulled his dagger and pried out the crumbling nails until the head dropped into the priest’s basket with a sickening little thud. The maidservant screamed; then the ward was silent except for the stamp and snort of the restless horse.
The priests led the procession out and down around the hill to the small grove, the burial ground of the Falcon clan. At the sight of their mother’s grave, Brangwen began to weep. The fresh grave lay beside it, a deep trench, some eight feet wide and ten long. When Gerraent let the horse up, it pulled at the reins and danced in fear, as if it knew the Wyrd in store for it. Gerraent threw the reins to a waiting servant. As the horse tossed up its head, Gerraent drew his sword and struck, killing it cleanly with one blow to the throat. With a gush of blood, the horse staggered forward, its legs buckling, and fell headlong into the grave. Gerraent stepped back and unthinkingly wiped the sword blade clean on his brigga. For the rest of the ceremony, he stood there with the sword in his hand, because he never thought to sheathe it.
At first Gerraent managed to cling to his warrior’s calm, even when a sobbing Brangwen poured milk and honey over their father’s body. But the first spadeful of earth, the dark mud settling over his father’s face, broke him. Keening, he fell to his knees, tossed his head back and sobbed that high strange note over and over. Dimly he felt Brangwen’s hands on his shoulders.
“Gerro! Gerro, Gerro, please stop, please.”
Gerraent let her lead him away, leaning on her as if she were the warrior and he the lass. She took him back to the hall and shoved him into a chair by the hearth. He saw the priests come back, saw them fussing around Brangwen and talking in low voices. She came over to him with a tankard of ale in her hand. Reflexively Gerraent took it, sipped from it, then nearly threw it in her