The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [124]
The great hall also looked exactly as she’d imagined it, though soot lay thick on the grand dragon sculpture embracing the honor hearth. Another baffling thought invaded her mind: it must have been new when I saw it before. The stairs and halls were so familiar that when servants led her and Galla up to their guest chambers, Branna could have told them the way had they asked her.
The tieryn and the noble-born in his party had been given chambers on the floor directly above the women’s hall, a spacious, beautifully appointed room for Cadryc and Galla and a pleasant if small chamber for Branna. The faded bed hangings seemed familiar, as if perhaps she’d seen a scrap of the design in a peddler’s pattern book.
“Have you seen that pattern of suns and dragons before?” Branna asked her maid. “Somewhere we visited, say.”
“I’ve not,” Midda said. “No one but the gwerbret’s closest kin could use it, I should think. It’s too much like his heraldry.”
Branna sat on the window seat out of the way while Midda made up the bed with the sheets and blankets they’d brought with them. Out on the western border not even a gwerbret could afford to furnish every room in his dun.
“We’re going to have an exciting time of it,” Midda pronounced. “The cook’s lass told me that a pack of Westfolk are coming.”
“I’m not surprised,” Branna said. “They’re sort of vassals to His Grace—well, not vassals, I suppose. Allies.”
“Their prince sent a message ahead of them. He won’t have his wife with him, though. He probably left her behind in his tent or whatever it is they live in. A human woman she is, if you can imagine such a thing!”
“I can. The Westfolk men are awfully handsome.”
“I don’t want to see you flirting with any of them, mind.”
“What? Right in front of Neb? Of course I wouldn’t.”
Midda snorted and scowled. Though she’d never said one word against him, Branna knew from her maid’s dark looks that she considered Neb beneath her lady. Once she finished the bed, Midda trotted off to the servants’ quarters to find a place to sleep and to catch up on the rest of the gwerbretal gossip. Branna went to the window and looked out on a view that seemed entirely too familiar. A thin trickle of fear ran down her back, though she couldn’t have told anyone why.
Neb had more standing than a maidservant, but he was still a common-born servitor, which meant he’d been given a bunk in the barracks along with the Red Wolf riders rather than a chamber in the complex of broch towers. As a peacemaking gesture, Gerran gave him the bunk directly under one of the two small windows, where the fresh air thinned the stink of sweat and horses. Neb thanked him in a way that told Gerran that the gesture had been accepted.
Once everyone was settled, Gerran led his men out, heading for the great hall and, hopefully, a tankard of ale. Neb walked alongside him. As they crossed the ward, they saw Lady Solla coming out of the cookhouse. She paused, waved, and smiled. Since Gerran believed she must be waving at someone behind him, he didn’t respond, but the scribe nudged him with a sharp elbow.
“You could at least greet her,” Neb said.
“How?”
“Smile, you dolt, and wave!”
Gerran followed orders. His reward was another smile from Solla, but just as he considered going over to speak to her, Lord Oth emerged from the cookhouse and began talking to her urgently. As they walked off together, Gerran caught a snatch of their conversation, “better slaughter another hog, then.”
“This wedding seems to be running the poor lass ragged,” Neb remarked.
Gerran grunted to show he’d heard.
“Ye gods, man!” Neb went on. “Surely you’ve noticed how lovely Lady Solla is.”
“I’ve also noticed how much higher than mine her birth is.”
“Oh, come along, Gerro! I’ll wager you’re the only person in Cengarn who cares about your rank.”
“Huh! And I’ll wager that her brother makes two of us. Besides, ye gods, I’ve better things to do with my time than stand around gossiping like a woman.”
“Womanish, is it? Well, I say that only a fool would turn his back on a lovely lass like her. Especially since