The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [101]
“Was it just circling like this?”
“It was.”
Neb climbed to the top of the wall and knelt between two merlons. Suddenly the raven squawked in alarm. With the dip of a wing it turned and flew off fast, heading north.
“It knew we were watching it,” Neb said. “I don’t like this, not in the least.”
“No more do I. Let’s hope it’s not an ill omen.”
“True spoken.” Neb smiled at her, a forced gesture as if he were trying to lighten the mood. “Especially not about our marriage.”
“Especially not that. Let’s go down to the great hall, shall we? I don’t want to be up here, all of a sudden. I hope that beastly thing doesn’t come back.”
They climbed down, but as they walked across the ward, Branna kept glancing at the sky. All that day the image of the raven circling above the dun returned to her, as troubling as rumors of war.
As the summer afternoon stretched out long shadows, and the smell of cooking filled the ward, the warband and servitors, the servants and the noble-born all began to gather in the great hall. Neb took his usual place at Lord Veddyn’s table, though the old man had yet to appear.
At the other end the head groom’s wife was cutting up peaches and handing out the pieces to her brood of five children. Long streaks of sunlight, turned gold with dust, poured in through the west-facing windows. At the honor table Branna and Lord Mirryn were playing Carnoic while Tieryn Cadryc leaned back in his chair and watched, a tankard of ale in his hand. The dun’s dogs ambled in to flop into the straw on the floor near the warband—the messiest eaters and the most likely to toss them a bone or two. Serving lasses wandered around, handing out baskets of bread and tankards of ale.
Neb sipped his ale and considered how the raven, flying so silently over the dun, had ruined the peaceful ease of a summer’s day. Ravens, the largest of the carrion crows, were generally birds of ill omen, but this particular bird seemed something more. Neb remembered bits of Salamander’s fanciful tales, which often included sorcerers who could turn themselves into birds. Neb could imagine his mother heaping scorn on the very idea. She would have been right, too, he decided, but the image of the raven kept hovering around his mind as the bird itself had hovered over the dun.
Still, Neb refused to let it spoil his happiness. Branna had agreed to marry him. Neb smiled out at nothing while he wondered what it would be like to spend the rest of his life in this dun. Pleasant in the spring and summer, no doubt, and cramped and vexing in the winter, but bearable if Branna were his wife. Where else could we live? he asked himself. She’ll not want to travel the roads as the wife of a wandering letter-writer or suchlike. Perhaps they could go back to Trev Hael, where he might set up shop as his father had, a scribe and dealer in parchments and inks. He decided that worrying about this decision now was a waste of time. Everything depended on winning approval for their marriage.
And that approval depended on Lady Galla. By the time she and Lord Veddyn finally came in to take their usual places, the serving lasses were beginning to bring platters of cold pork, left from yesterday’s feast, and still more fresh-picked peaches to go with it. Branna wouldn’t be able to discuss the matter with her aunt at table. The evening passed in a slow agony. First Lady Galla and Branna lingered over their meal; then they retreated to the women’s hall. Were they talking about him? Neb could only wait and see.
By the time that Branna came back down, Neb was half-asleep and alone at the table. Cadryc and Mirryn had retired upstairs, and most of the warband had left the great hall as well, including—thankfully—Gerran. As Branna walked downstairs, she looked so solemn that Neb feared the worst, but she sat down next to him, a gesture she’d not have made if her aunt was refusing to consider such a marriage.
“We’ve had quite the clan parley,” Branna said, “out in the corridor in front of the women’s hall.”
“And?” Neb said.
“It