The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [202]
Salamander winced, then frowned down at the bandage in his hands. “I’m not absolutely sure,” he said at last. “But I do know it bodes ill. ’Witnessing’ to these people always seems to mean dying in some form or another. So I’d guess it means fighting to the death.”
“Honelg would do that anyway,” Gerran said. “He can hardly surrender. Ridvar will hang him if he does. Now that he’s let Lady Adranna go, he’s got naught to bargain with.”
“What about the lives of his men?” Neb said. “And the men from his village, too.”
“His men have sworn to die with him, if need be,” Gerran said. “And they will. His villagers—I’d suppose that any who wanted to leave would have left with the women. Ridvar wouldn’t have harmed them. In his eyes, they don’t matter.”
“Huh.” Neb snorted profoundly. “No doubt.”
When Cadryc returned, Gerran told him what Salamander had said about bearing the last witness, but he kept Neb’s talk of shape-changers to himself. If Cadryc believed it, then he’d be sorely troubled about a threat he could do nothing to turn aside, and if he disbelieved, then he’d think that his scribe and his captain had both gone daft. Neither seemed like a reasonable risk to run, especially since the only two people in the encampment who could defeat that sort of enemy were already on their guard.
Late that night, Gerran was standing watch at the edge of the Red Wolf camp when he saw a dim light flickering in an upper window of the otherwise dark dun. Someone who couldn’t sleep had lit a candle lantern, he supposed. In a moment the light disappeared, only to reappear briefly through an arrow-slit on the floor below, then disappear once more. In a short while he spotted the light again, and for a moment he thought the dun was on fire, because it gleamed through chinks in the loosely set stones of the outer wall.
The light, however, never spread further. A lantern, then, Gerran thought. But why would someone be sitting outside next to the wall like that? Any sentries should have been up on the catwalks, and indeed, occasionally in the starlight he could discern men, walking back and forth at the top of the walls. Eventually, toward the end of his watch, the lantern light disappeared and stayed gone.
In the morning Gerran mentioned the mysterious light to Dallandra, who thanked him but seemed untroubled by the news—much to Gerran’s relief. He’d been afraid that the light meant some sort of evil dweomer at work.
“I doubt it,” Dallandra said. “More likely Honelg just couldn’t sleep, as you suspected. Salamander mentioned that he’s got a shrine to his goddess somewhere in the dun, and he could well have gone there to pray.”
“Ah,” Gerran said. “That makes sense.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Dallandra continued, “if you think Honelg will sally soon—or at all.”
“I’ve no idea, my lady. The man’s obviously daft, and so who knows what he’ll do? And that means we can do naught but sit and wait.”
Those left behind in Cengarn were just as impatient for news of the siege, but their curiosity was the more easily slaked. The afternoon was just turning to a long summer evening when Arzosah appeared over Dun Cengarn for a second time. Branna was sitting in the women’s hall working on Neb’s wedding shirt. At the sound of shouting in the ward she laid the shirt into her workbasket just as Midda came rushing in.
“She’s back,” Midda said, gasping for breath. “The dragon, I mean. Lord Oth wants you to go talk with her.”
“What?” Lady Galla practically bounced out of her chair. “How dare he! Branna, I don’t want you doing any such thing.”
“Aunt Galla, I’ll be very careful, I promise,” Branna said. “Since she knows me now, it’ll be safer for me than anyone else.”
“Apparently Oth thinks so.” Galla paused for a scowl. “He obviously doesn’t have the courage to go himself, and I shall tell him so at dinner tonight.”
Branna made her escape from the women’s hall before Galla could argue further and hurried upstairs. As she climbed