The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [159]
“Oh, and I suppose I’m just a milksop scribe who doesn’t understand such things.”
“Well, you don’t.” She tossed her head like an angry horse. “But that’s not what matters.”
“What does, then?”
“That you’d order me around.”
“All I did was tell the tieryn my opinion. He’s the one who gave the orders.”
For a long moment Branna hovered on the edge of rage. Neb could see it in her clenched fists, tight by her sides, and by her eyes, narrowed to slits. With the memories of his family strong in his mind, he suddenly realized what he needed to say.
“You’re a warrior’s daughter,” he began, “but I’m the son of a man who depended on his wife to run his shop while he did the work of scribing. My mam—ah, gods, I wish you’d known her. She could read and write as well as he did, and keep accounts, and help with making the inks and suchlike he sold, and all the while she was keeping her household running. Our servants loved her, too, she was so fair-minded.”
Branna started to speak, then said nothing, but her eyes looked less like an angry wolf’s and more like her own.
“Everyone in town respected her,” Neb said. “After Da died, she took over the shop. If it hadn’t have been for that fever, she could have taken care of us all, on her own, like.”
Branna’s fists relaxed into hands.
“Don’t you see, my love?” Neb went on. “I don’t want a wife to breed sons or suchlike. I want a wife like my mam, strong and clever and—well, and all of that. You don’t have a warrior for a husband. That’s true-spoken. Is it a bad thing?”
“It’s not, but mayhap the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.” Branna’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re right, and I wish I’d known your mother, truly I do.”
Neb strode over and flung his arms around her. She wept a brief scatter of tears into his shoulder.
“What’s so wrong?” he whispered.
“I was thinking of your mother’s death, that’s all.”
“But will you forgive me?”
“Oh, of course I will.”
For a moment she fell silent, then looked up with one of her wicked grins. “We’ve got a while before the feast begins,” she said. “I could hear the cook yelling at the kitchen lads about things not being ready.”
“Indeed?” Neb answered her grin with one of his own. “Then let’s go lie down for a little while.”
The thought of another greasy meal in the crowded, smoky, and noisy great hall turned Dallandra’s stomach, wedding feast or no. She found Calonderiel, told him where she was going, then left the dun. It took her some while to make her way through the town. The crowd that filled the streets stank of ale and cooking smoke and sweat. They had come out to discuss the gwerbret’s marriage, and in pairs and families they were drifting uphill, ready to assemble in the ward of the dun to receive largesse and to cheer the gwerbret’s new wife at the conclusion of the feast. Here and there she overheard someone praising the gwerbret for his generosity because he was going to distribute coins to mark the occasion.
Out through the gates at last—Dallandra sighed in profound relief as she gained the quiet of the open meadow, where the Red Wolf and Westfolk mounts grazed at tether in the long gold sunlight of late afternoon. Two of the Red Wolf riders and two of Calonderiel’s archers were sitting on the grass in front of the pavilion and dicing to pass the time while they, supposedly at least, guarded the horses. When they saw her, they scrambled up and bowed with looks of profound guilt all round.
“It’s all right,” Dallandra said. “I doubt very much if anyone’s going to try to steal any of them.”
They grinned, bowed again, and sat back down to continue their game. Not long after, servants came down from the dun, dragging a small cart with them, laden with food from the wedding feast, a better distraction than any dice game could be. Dallandra took a chunk of bread and some of the omnipresent honeycake and ate alone, sitting in front of the prince’s tent. The feasting was going to go on for hours, she supposed, giving her