The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [224]
“What a decent man!” Adranna said, and for a moment a few tears ran. She irritably wiped them away on the back of her hand.
“He is that,” Branna said. “It gladdens my heart that you’ll get your jewelry back.”
“Such as it is.” Adranna smiled briefly. “But it has meaning for me.”
Branna stopped herself from asking the question that nearly forced itself out of her mouth, is it a symbol of your goddess? So far they’d managed to avoid the subject of Alshandra, and Branna decided that they’d best continue to do so until Adranna had recovered further. She busied herself with rolling up the letter and slipping it back into its silver tube.
“Do you want to sleep, dearest?” Galla said.
“I do,” Adranna said. “But, Mama, can I sleep here in your chamber?” Her voice sounded like a child’s, high and weak.
“Of course you may! And I’ll sit here with you, too.”
Branna laid the message tube onto the table, then left them alone.
It was much later when Lady Galla came to Branna’s chamber with the news that Adranna had woken from her nap and seemed more her old self again. She’d gone to her own chamber, where she and Trenni were having a long talk.
“That’s the best thing for the child,” Galla said. “There’s little that you or I can do. Her comfort has to come from her mother.”
“It seems to me, Aunt Galla,” Branna said, “that Trenni doesn’t truly need comforting.”
“Not about her father, certainly. What a sensible child she is! But they did lose everything else they had, except, of course, for what dear Prince Daralanteriel is bringing them. How kind of him!”
“In his note Neb said that he’d snagged more of the booty, too. He’s got a plate of colored glass and a silver cup he’s bringing for Adranna.”
“Excellent! If the plate is the one I think it is, that was a gift upon their wedding from the old gwerbret, Ridvar’s father.” Galla sighed, then suddenly smiled. “But I must say, the news about our Gerran warmed my heart!”
“All your scheming’s finally borne fruit, has it?”
Galla laughed. “How perceptive you are, dear,” she said. “So. There’ll be a new clan, the Gold Falcon. Or wait, not a new one—there must have been another Falcon clan at one time, if Gerran needs to distinguish his with the ‘gold’ in the name.”
“There was,” Branna said. “My father’s bard sang a ballad about them now and then. It’s about a brother and sister who were far too fond of each other, if you take my meaning.”
“There’s rather a lot of ballads about that. In the old days duns were so far apart. I don’t suppose you could find a lot of men of your own rank to fall in love with.”
“Most likely not,” Branna went on. “According to the ballad, this particular pair were named Brangwen and Gerraent. How odd! It almost sounds like me and Gerran, and here I never noticed that before! But anyway she was supposed to marry a prince of the realm. Her brother dishonored her first, so she drowned herself.”
“What happened to the brother?”
“The prince killed him in single combat, and so the clan died for want of more heirs.” All at once Branna felt oddly puzzled. “That’s not right. I mean, I must be remembering some other song. I thought that Gerraent killed his friend over the sister, and then his friend’s brother killed him. Or suchlike. Blast! These old songs all start sounding alike when you’re trying to remember them.”
“So many of them share the same tune, is why. Well, either way, let’s hope that the new Falcon clan has a better wyrd than the old one did.”
“Oh, I’m sure it will. That ghastly tale happened long long ago, after all. I’m just so pleased for our Gerran.” Branna paused to give her aunt a grin. “Now we need to get him the right wife, and I think that she just might be your new serving woman.”
“You know, how odd!” Galla returned the smile. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
The army rode back to Dun Cengarn around noon on yet another rainy day. The summer storms so common in the northlands