The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [142]
“Of course it has, but—”
“There isn’t any ’but’ about it. I know you’re half a Roundear, but think, you chattering dimwit!”
Salamander flushed scarlet and laid a hand on his dagger’s hilt. Dallandra rose to her knees.
“Enough!” she barked. “Cal, that Roundear remark was quite uncalled for! Tact has never been one of your gifts, has it?”
“Tact? What good is tact?” Calonderiel said. “I’ve tried that on people, and they still don’t do what I want.”
Prince Dar burst out laughing, and in a moment Salamander joined him, simply because the remark was so true to the banadar’s nature. Calonderiel scowled impartially back and forth between them. Dallandra sat back down; she seemed to be suppressing a grin.
“By the Dark Sun herself,” Salamander said when he’d caught his breath, “you are a marvel, banadar.”
“I suppose I deserved that,” Cal said with some asperity. “But listen. You’ve already betrayed Honelg, haven’t you? You sat there at his table in his great hall and let the lies fall as thick as flakes of winter snow. So why are you having scruples now?”
Salamander’s leftover laughter died. He opened his mouth for a retort, then realized that he had none. It’s not Honelg, it’s Rocca, he told himself. She’s the one you’re trying to protect, but she won’t be in his dun when the army arrives.
“You’re right, aren’t you?” Salamander said. “I shall tell the gwerbret everything.”
“Besides—” Cal stopped in midsentence. “Oh. You’re agreeing with me.”
“Yes, O Banadar Most Puissant. No more diatribes needed.”
That night Salamander dreamed that Sidro was stalking him with the silver dagger in one hand and the obsidian pyramid in the other. He woke to a sense of profound relief that the dream had been only that. In the tent the other men were still asleep, and he gathered his clothes and boots and went outside to dress to avoid waking them. Dawn was just silvering the eastern sky. When he glanced around, he saw Dallandra, kneeling beside the stream and gazing into the water. He walked over and joined her.
“Scrying?” he said.
“Yes, actually.” Dallandra sat back on her heels and turned to look at him. “I felt a presence last night, sniffing around the astral dome.”
“Ah. I wondered about that. I did dream of dear little Sidro, but I suspect it was but an ordinary dream, dancing to the harp of a troubled heart.”
“I hope you’re right. Although—” She frowned down at the water again. “If it wasn’t her, who was it?”
“That’s an unpleasant question, but, alas, also pertinent, fitting, and germane.”
“I have the awful feeling that we’re going to find out soon enough.”
“And we won’t like the answer?”
“I’d bet high on it. Oh, well, let’s go get some breakfast. I don’t see any reason to renew the seals now. The tides are still turbulent, and we’ll be leaving soon anyway.”
It was just past noon when the prince’s party came to Cengarn’s river. Through the trees shading the banks, Salamander saw white stones out in shallow water to mark the ford. Dallandra urged her horse up beside Salamander’s.
“This is where Jill died.” Dalla pointed at the ford. “The river ran much deeper that year. There’d been more rain, I suppose. At any rate, the etheric veil destroyed her body of light—and Alshandra’s, too, of course.”
“I see.” Salamander felt his throat tighten. He wiped away a scatter of tears on his shirt sleeve. “My apologies. Hearing the story always grieves me.”
“Me, too, but I’m looking forward to meeting Branna. She won’t be the same, of course, and I wonder if she’ll remember me.”
“Eventually she will.”
“Yes, that’s true. We became so close, working dweomer together, trying to save Cengarn. I suppose in a way we were like a couple of soldiers in a war. When she died—” Dallandra’s voice faltered. “Well, it was hard on all of us there at the time.”
With the prince in the lead, the Westfolk horses splashed across the ford. Once they were free of the trees on the far bank, Salamander could see the familiar cliffs of Cengarn, looming far above them. The meadow below the south gate held