The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [139]
For a moment Branna was tempted to lie out of an odd sort of fear, as if she stood on the edge of some high cliff and was about to leap off into a chasm that plunged down beyond her sight. Either she would find wings and soar, or she would fall to her death. For the briefest of moments, she remembered how it felt to fly. Seeing his face, shadowed in the flickering candlelight, made her remember another face, that of the old man who’d held out the glowing gem, a gift beyond price. Your dreams are memories, the white spirit had told her, not ghosts.
“I do,” she said, “I do feel like I’ve loved you forever.”
When he held out his hand, she clasped it in both of hers.
“We’ve found the way,” Neb said, “the path to someplace grand. Or I should say, the spirit gave it to us. Seeing her, hearing her—I remembered. I’m still not sure exactly what I remember, mind, but I suddenly saw that I have things to remember. Don’t you see that, too?”
“If you mean, that we’ve got another life to remember, then truly, I do see it.”
“Exactly that. And that’s the key. Now all I have to do is find the lock it fits in. You’ve got your lock—those dreams you told me about.” He laughed softly under his breath. “Don’t you see, my love? There’s a treasure laid up for us somewhere. I know it in my very soul.”
The eagerness in his voice, the joy, really, seemed to crackle around them both like the warmth of a fire, but still she felt fear like a sliver of ice in her heart.
“It’s not going to be easy,” she said. “It’s going to be dangerous, remembering.”
“Oh, no doubt.” Neb shrugged the warning away. “I wish to every god that Salamander would get himself back here,” he went on. “I’ve got a few questions for him, and he cursed well better have the answers.”
“I wager he will. Some of the things he told me were—well—” Branna paused, trying to think of some grand word, but her stomach growled as loud as speech.
Neb’s answered. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Get dressed, my love,” Neb said. “Let’s go down to the great hall. I’m hungry enough to eat a wolf, pelt and all.”
When he left the Westlands, Prince Daralanteriel took with him his scribe, his warleader, his dweomermaster, fifty archers for a royal escort, packhorses laden with supplies, extra mounts, and of course Salamander. The prince planned on traveling fast, but he’d sent Maelaber ahead with two archers for an escort and the extra horses that allowed them to travel even faster. The royal retinue wasn’t far from Cengarn when the returning messengers met up with them. They had important news: the gwerbret was holding his wedding celebration.
“When we told him you were on your way, Ridvar just assumed that you’d received his invitation,” Maelaber said. “He sent a herald with an escort, but they must have missed us.”
“I hope they’re not still wandering around the grasslands,” Prince Daralanteriel said. “What did you think of Cengarn, by the way?”
“It’s a splendid sort of place from the outside, but I didn’t think much of it once we got through the gates. Ye gods, the stink! Maybe my father’s right about my mother’s folk.”
“Only when it comes to cleanliness,” Daralanteriel tried to sound stern, but he was grinning. “Let’s not judge others too harshly.”
“It’s a good thing you sent off messengers.” Salamander joined the conversation. “If we’d come blundering in without even realizing that the gwerbret’s getting married—”
“Yes, it would have been awkward, to say the least.” Daralanteriel finished the thought for him. “Well, fortunately we’ve brought along the perfect horse for a wedding present, that gold gelding I’ve been training. I can decorate his halter with wildflowers, and he’ll look festive enough.”
“A splendid gift, yes. Better than our gwerbret deserves.”
“I’d better tend my horse,” Maelaber said.
“Do that,” Dar said. “Because on the morrow I’m sending you back to the grass with messages and orders