The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [222]
“I found a couple of coppers on the ground, Your Highness,” Gerran said, grinning. “I’ll gladly hand them over if you’d like.”
“Oh, I think me you can keep them,” Voran said. “Though you deserve a better reward than that. You know, it would gladden my heart to have the letters patent written out right here to give you a demesne down in Deverry, but of course—” He paused to give Ridvar a significant look, “—of course, the gwerbret needs men like you on the border.”
Ridvar roused himself from his sulk. He let his arms relax to his sides, glanced with a nod at the prince, then turned to Gerran. When he spoke, his voice held steady, though sounding gracious was apparently beyond him.
“Gerran, or should I say Lord Gerran?” he said. “I’d be honored if you’d take over Honelg’s lands and dun. I think me you’re one of the few men in the kingdom who can hold them loyal to me.”
“Your Grace.” Gerran swallowed heavily before he went on. “I’m honored beyond deserving.”
“Not truly. Just as you deserve, I’d say. Get up, Lord Gerran.”
Gerran never moved, merely stared open-mouthed.
“Excellent!” Voran rubbed his hands together like a merchant. “I’ll send a messenger down to Dun Deverry with instructions for the College of Heralds. They’ll draw up the necessary documents with the proper seals and suchlike. Um, you can get up now, Gerran.”
“My thanks, Your Highness, for your excellent suggestion.” Gwerbret Ridvar managed a smile at last. “I wager I can guess what name Gerran’s going to choose for his new clan.”
Still kneeling, Gerran stared at him with stunned eyes. Cadryc stepped forward to break the moment.
“We all can, eh?” Cadryc grabbed Gerran’s hand to yank him up. “The Falcon, isn’t it, lad?”
“It is.” Gerran staggered to his feet, but he continued to look as dazed as if the gwerbret had struck him on the side of the head rather than ennobled him. “Unless there’s already a clan by that name down in Deverry.”
“You know, I think there was once,” Prince Voran said, “and it came to some sort of bad end. The heralds will know, of course. But there’s naught wrong with using the Red Falcon, for instance, or what about the Gold Falcon? The latter has a better ring to it.”
“So it does,” Gerran was whispering like a man who’s just woken up from a sound sleep. “I—I—ye gods!”
“But curse it all!” Cadryc mugged a long face. “This means I’ll have to get myself a new captain, doesn’t it? Ah, well, there’s no spring rain without mud, eh?”
This time even Ridvar joined in the general round of laughter. Salamander, however, found himself thinking of Lady Adranna. He was the only man there, he supposed, who was wondering how she’d take the news that she’d lost not only her husband, but her home.
Men on horseback instead of a dragon brought a report of the battle to Cengarn. When everyone had assembled in the great hall, Lord Oth told Drwmigga, and thus the other women as well, that apparently the dragons had gone off on some business of their own.
“They are beasts, after all,” Oth said. “I’d imagine they’ve gone back to the wild. They may have a nest to tend or suchlike.”
Perhaps, Branna thought, but they’re not as beastlike as all that.
Besides the official reports, there were letters for Adranna and Branna, but while Branna pulled the seal off her note from Neb and read it eagerly, Adranna let hers lie unread in her lap and watched Oth, who was mumbling a word here and there as he scanned through a long missive from the gwerbret. Finally, he looked up with a smile.
“Good news, my lady!” he said to Adranna. “Your son is alive and well and riding home with your father.”
Adranna allowed herself a quick smile and a flash of joy in her eyes. “And my husband?” she said calmly.
Oth arranged