The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [27]
Fortunately, Branna appeared just as startled. Her smile vanished, her eyes grew wide, and she stared at him unspeaking. He studied her face with a feeling much like hunger: narrow mouth, snub nose, a dusting of freckles over her high cheekbones, dark blue eyes. He had never wanted anything more than to reach out and take her hand, but someone behind them called her name and sharply. Branna flinched and looked away.
“Here, who are you?” The stout woman who’d been driving the cart came striding over. A widow’s black scarf half-covered her gray hair, and she wore gray dresses, much stained. She pointed a callused finger at Neb.
“My name is Nerrobrantos, scribe to Tieryn Cadryc,” Neb said. “And you are?”
“Her ladyship’s servant.”
“More like my guardian dragon,” Branna said, then laughed. Her voice was pleasantly soft. “Don’t be so fierce, Midda. A scribe may speak to a poverty-stricken lady like me.” She turned back to Neb. “Do people really call you Nerrobrantos all the time?”
“They don’t.” Neb at last remembered how to smile. “Do call me Neb, my lady.”
“Gladly, Goodman Neb. Here comes Aunt Galla, but maybe we’ll meet again?”
“I don’t see how we can avoid meeting in a dun this size.”
She laughed, and he’d never heard a laugh as beautiful as hers, far more beautiful than golden bells or a bard’s harp. For a long time after Lady Galla had led her inside, Neb stood in the ward and stared out at nothing. He was trying to understand just what had convinced him that his entire view of the world was about to change.
Mirryn brought him out of this strange reverie when the lord hurried over to the men of the lady’s escort, who were waiting patiently beside their horses.
“What’s this?” Mirryn said. “I see our scribe’s just left you all standing here.”
“My apologies, my lord,” Neb said. “I don’t have the slightest idea of where to take them. I’ve never lived in a dun before.”
Mirryn’s jaw dropped. Neb had never seen anyone look quite so innocently surprised. The lord covered it over with a quick laugh.
“Of course not,” Mirryn said. “You’re a townsman, after all, or you were.”
Neb smiled, bowed, and made his escape. He carried the roll of parchment up to his chamber, where he could cut it into sheets with his new penknife, but even as he worked, he was thinking about Lady Branna.
“Now,here,myladyship,” Midda said. “I’m sure we can make you a better match than a scribe, and besides, you just met the lad.”
“What makes you think I want to marry him?” Branna said.
“The way the pair of you were looking at each other. All cow-eyed, like.”
Branna shrugged and went to perch on the wide windowsill of her new chamber. Lady Galla had given her a decent situation, especially for a destitute extra daughter, unwelcome in her own father’s dun. The sunny chamber had its own hearth, a comfortable-looking bed, and a window that sported proper wooden shutters against possible rain. Branna had brought along her dower chest, made of plain wood and chipped around the lid—the best that her stepmother would part with. Midda was at the moment inspecting its contents to make sure they’d not suffered any damage during the journey. Branna had spent hundreds of hours working on them: two woad-blue blankets in an overshot weave and an embroidered coverlet for the marriage bed, the unassembled pieces of a heavily embroidered wedding shirt for her eventual husband, and various dresses and underclothes for herself. The little gray gnome sat on the bed and concentrated on picking at his long toenails.
“Well, I certainly don’t want to marry Neb,” Branna said. “He