The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [55]
No more words, and their footsteps moved away. I’d best get dressed, Salamander told himself. Today’s the day we ride to Cengarn. When he went to the window and looked down, he could see the groom and the pages leading out horses for the men of the warband to saddle. Tieryn Cadryc was striding around the ward, giving orders and organizing the line of march.
Salamander was just finishing a hasty breakfast in the great hall when Lady Branna came downstairs. He started to rise to go meet her, but instead she came over to speak to him.
“Midda told me that you’re going to Cengarn with my uncle,” Branna said.
“I am.” Salamander laid his spoon down in his empty porridge bowl. “I’m like a gleaner, always scavenging bits of other men’s lives to bake into the bread of my tales.”
“Oh, I like that fancy way of putting it! What sort of bits will you be looking for?”
“Tales of the Horsekin raiders, for one, and then information about the dragons. You know about the dragons, surely?”
“I’ve heard about them. The farmers on my father’s lands were always afraid that they’d take their cows or their lambs.”
“It’s a justified fear, no doubt.” Salamander glanced out the door, but the warband was still readying itself to ride. “Did you ever see them?”
“I think I saw the silver wyrm once, but it was just at twilight, and it was hard to tell.” Branna’s expression turned sour. “My dearest stepmother told me I’d seen naught but an owl flying high. She made fun of me for days over it, too, but truly, I’d know an owl if I should see one.”
“I’m sure you would.” Salamander found himself thinking of Aderyn and suppressed a laugh with difficulty.
He was about to say more when Neb came hurrying downstairs, a bedroll slung over one shoulder. Branna smiled at the sight of him and left to join him without another word to Salamander. Together, talking softly, they went outside. Salamander followed, but he went to the stables, where he found Clae saddling his gray riding horse. His packhorse stood nearby, already loaded with his gear. Someone had made the boy a better shirt by cutting down an old one and resewing it to fit. On its yokes were faded blazons, the tieryn’s Red Wolf.
“My thanks,” Salamander said.
“Most welcome.” Clae grinned at him. “You saved our lives and got us here, and I’m truly grateful, and so I thought I should tend your horses at least.”
“A very courtly gesture, indeed. Well, lad, I may not see you for a while now, but I’ll hope things work out well for you.”
“And I’ll do the same for you.”
Salamander mounted, took the lead rope for the packhorse when Clae tossed it up to him, and headed out. He caught up with the rest of the riders just as they were clattering out of the gates. Neb was riding just behind the tieryn. I should get the chance to talk with him on this ride, Salamander thought, and make some of those portentous hints Dalla agreed to. The thought of finally being able to lord it over Nevyn, after all the times that the old man had reproached, rebuked, and generally reviled him, was so cheering that he broke into song as the troop headed for the north-running road.
The gwerbret’s city of Cengarn lay two days’ ride to the northeast of Cadryc’s dun, at a spot where the tableland turned into hills on its rise toward the northern mountains. It was a strange sort of place, Cengarn, situated on three hills, surrounded on three sides by stone walls. On the fourth side, the western, a smooth-faced cliff provided a better fortification than any that hands might build. Even the approach to the southern gates was steep enough that the warband had to dismount and lead their horses up a winding path.
Inside the walls, however, the town sported as much greenery as it did stone. Among the thatched round houses, set along curving streets, grew trees and gardens—practical vegetables, mostly, but here and there they passed patches of flowers, blooming around cottage doors. In the middle of town, on the crest of a roundish hill, lay the grassy commons. Judging from the number of people and wagons clustered