The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [168]
“Me, too. Dalla says it was a dweomer warning. You see, we can’t get away from it.”
“I don’t even want to.”
The noise in the ward grew louder. They could hear Ridvar yelling orders and men answering him.
“I’ll walk with you down to the muster, my love,” Branna said. “That way we won’t be parted quite as long.”
“Good.” Neb grinned at her, then glanced out of the window. His grin abruptly disappeared. “Better take your cloak. On top of everything else, it looks like it’s going to rain.”
The weather had held gloriously fair for the gwerbret’s wedding celebration, but that night clouds had ridden in on a north wind, and by dawn a dark mass of them covered the sky. On the eastern horizon the sun made a brave stand, turning the storm’s edge silver, but in the end, it fled in defeat.
“Cursed nuisance,” Cadryc said. “We’ll be riding wet by noon, lad.”
“Most likely,” Gerran said. “A bit of rotten luck, Your Grace.”
In the meadow below Cengarn, the men of the Red Wolf and the Westfolk were waiting for the rest of the army to join them. The Red Wolf warband had already chosen up pairs and were organizing themselves and their horses into an untidy line of march. The Westfolk were still saddling up and sorting out weapons. Their longbows would travel on a pack animal, but each man carried a short hunting bow in a leather sling across his back. These they could shoot from horseback. Two of the archers stood off to one side, arguing with Calonderiel over some detail or other. Since they were speaking in Elvish, Gerran understood none of it.
Servants from the dun were taking down the pavilion. As Gerran watched, they pulled the guy ropes free of their pegs, and the canvas structure collapsed inward. It fell in white billows, and as they settled to the ground, Gerran saw Neb and Branna, who’d apparently been standing on the far side of the pavilion. They were enjoying a long and passionate farewell in each other’s arms. Gerran felt a brief contempt—the scribe was obviously no honor-bound fighting man, if he’d make such a fuss about leaving his woman.
“I wonder where the blasted gwerbret and the rest of them are,” Cadryc remarked. “I want to get everyone mounted up before the cursed rains come. Don’t want to be riding on wet saddles, do we?”
“We don’t, Your Grace.”
“His men should have gotten their gear together last night. Humph! The longer we sit here, the longer Honelg has to prepare for a siege.”
“True spoken. But you know, Ridvar promised to have his dun and town searched for Alshandra’s people. We don’t need any more spies trotting off north with news. I’ll wager he’s setting the hunt in motion right now.”
“I’d forgotten about that. And good thing it is, though a bit like setting dogs round the sheep fold after the wolves have been and gone. Which reminds me, I’ve got to thank Lady Dallandra.” Cadryc made a sour face. “I feel like a fool, I tell you, for not seeing the danger to our womenfolk. Ah, well, mayhap I’ll be in a position to do her a favor one day.”
Gerran found Dallandra something of a puzzle, simply because the prince treated her with such deference. Some of the other Westfolk referred to her as “wise one,” as well. He wasn’t sure if the term were some kind of official title or merely a compliment. In her doeskin leggings and tunic, with her hair severely braided, she looked more like a lad to him than a lady, but as with all the Westfolk, with their smooth beauty he couldn’t tell if she were young or aging.
Dallandra took the tieryn’s thanks graciously indeed.
“It was truly Calonderiel who realized what might happen,” she said. “I only had the strangest feeling about trouble coming.”
“Well, you women have a way about you, eh?” Cadryc said. “Intuition, I suppose you’d call it, seeing the things we men overlook. You have my thanks twice over.”
Dallandra smiled in acknowledgment, then looked Gerran’s way. Her steel-gray glance seemed