The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [68]
But the memory of his reaction stayed with him. All during that day and on into the evening he felt as if he were struggling to remember some important thing or event, yet he couldn’t say what it was. Trying to recover it frightened him, not that the fear made him stop trying. Finally he realized that he was sure she’d drowned, even though that was impossible.
The fear clung to him until he went into the great hall for dinner. As he walked over to his usual table on the servants’ side of the hall, he saw Branna, sitting at the honor table and chatting with her aunt. There she is, you dolt! he told himself, and she’s not drowned, has she now? He’d just sat down when Gerran strolled over with a nod of greeting.
“A good evening to you, Captain,” Neb said.
“Same to you,” Gerran said. “My thanks for cutting Ynedd’s hair, and for pulling our other lads off him.”
“Most welcome. Seeing Clae acting the bully—I’ve not been that angry in a long time.”
“So he told me.” Gerran paused for a smile. “He said that when you get angry, ‘it’s like dragons.’ But I’ve got a favor to ask you. Clae’s doing well with his swordcraft, and he really should be sleeping out in the barracks with Coryn and Ynedd. A lad who’s going to be a rider, he’s got to get used to living in a warband.”
“I see.” Neb felt an odd coldness around his heart. “Well, he certainly may, if you think it best.”
“I do. My thanks. I’ll get him some blankets and the like. He might as well move over there today.”
The captain strode off, heading outside. Well, that’s that, Neb thought. My brother’s gone for a rider. He had the distinct sensation that some mental door had slammed shut on his boyhood. He also knew, though he could find no words to express how, that meeting Branna had led him to another door somewhere deep in his very soul. What lay behind it, he couldn’t quite see, yet he realized that soon, very soon, he would have to get up the courage to unlock the door and walk in to have a look.
Branna herself made the matter more urgent. At the end of the meal, she hurried over and sat down on the bench beside Neb. The very easiness of her gesture made his heart pound.
“I wanted to ask you somewhat,” Branna said. “About the gerthddyn. Uncle tells me that you were the last person to speak to him in Cengarn, the last of our people, I mean.”
“Most likely I was, truly,” Neb said. “I was coming back to the gwerbret’s dun just as he was leaving it.”
“Did he say when he’d come back? Or, come to think of it, if he was coming back at all?”
“And just why do you want to know?” Neb heard a snarl crack his voice like a whip. He clasped a hand over his mouth as if he could stuff the words back in.
Branna laughed at him, then risked laying her fingers on his arm, just lightly and quickly. “You’re jealous,” she whispered.
“Am not!”
“Are, too!”
She continued smiling at him in such honest delight that he relented and returned the smile.
“Well, maybe I am,” Neb said. “Salamander’s a good-looking man.”
“Huh! To some, maybe.” She wrinkled her nose in mock disgust. “I just miss his tales of an evening, that’s all. I wish my uncle had a bard, but he’s never found one willing to move all the way out here.”
“They were good tales, truly. All Salamander told me was that he was going to stay in Cengarn when the rest of us rode home.”
“That’s a pity, then. I did love it when he’d talk about dweomer. Did you?”
Her voice was just a little too casual, her words a little too careful. Neb abruptly realized that she was afraid of voicing some question.
“It was amusing,” Neb said. “Overblown, but amusing. I doubt if anyone could really do the things he talked about.”
“I suppose not.” She looked away, suddenly sad. “Truly, I suppose not.”
Before he could speak again, she got up and, with a little