The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [94]
“Truly? What was it?”
“I don’t remember.” Neb smiled in a twisted sort of way. “In the dream, it seemed like you had several names, but I could remember none of them.”
“How very odd! The old man only has the one name.” She stopped, caught by a rise of images in her mind. “Well, perhaps there was one other.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember. Neb, all of this is so frightening!”
“Truly? Why?”
“I feel like there’s another lass inside me. She’s both me and not me, and she’s struggling to—to—to be remembered, I suppose I mean. But if I do remember her, I shan’t be who I am anymore. I’ll be her.” She paused, then took a deep breath. “Or even if I’m not truly her, I’ll not be Branna, not the lass I am now, but sort of a mixture, like wine and water in the same goblet.”
Neb considered, nodding a little.
“Do you think I’m daft?” Branna said.
“I don’t. I feel somewhat the same, truly, but the man inside me—” He paused for a long moment. “I think I’d rather be him than me.”
“Oh, here, there’s naught wrong with you.”
“My thanks, but that’s not what I meant. It’s so hard to put all this into words.”
“That’s certainly true.”
Neb smiled, then went on. “Wait, I know! I feel like a man who’s been ill for months and months, then begins to mend. He can remember being strong and doing all sorts of fine things, but now he can barely pull himself out of bed. There’s part of me that knows somehow that once I was truly strong, but now—” He let his voice trail off. “Well, maybe that’s not what I mean, either. I don’t know, Branna. I can’t make out the sense of all this, but it will make sense, I’m sure of it, if I could only learn one thing. There’s somewhat, that one thing, that’s going to make everything clear, if only I can find it.”
“I think you should find it. I mean, you should be the one to find it, not me, since you want to be that other man.”
“Probably so. After all, what am I now? A scribe for a border lord, that’s all.”
“That’s good enough for me.” She’d blurted it out before she could stop herself, and she felt her face burn with a blush.
“Truly?” Neb reached over and caught her hands in his, and he was smiling with such a pure joy that she felt her embarrassment ease. “Do you truly mean that?”
“I do. I truly do.”
Neb pulled her close, then let go her hands and put his on either side of her face. “I love you,” he said and kissed her.
Branna threw her arms around him and took another kiss. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “That at least is one thing I do know.”
“Then will you marry me?”
“Of course. I’ve been hoping you’d ask.”
Neb laughed and let her go, then turned thoughtful. “What about your uncle?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll wager Aunt Galla can talk him around.”
“If she approves.”
“She’s already called you a fine young man who’ll doubtless end up as the councillor of some important lord someday.”
“Well! That’s promising, then!”
“Indeed. But I shan’t be able to talk with her until after the guests leave.”
“Ye gods! I hope I can stand to wait that long.”
“It’s only till tomorrow.”
“An eternity, my love, of worrying, and all on account of the love I bear you.”
“I do like it when you talk like that. But I like your kisses even better.”
“Then far be it from me to deprive you of them. Although, you know, I think we’d best go somewhere else.”
“That’s true.” Branna glanced around the garden. “Anyone could walk out and see us.”
All at once they heard a shout, carried on the wind from some distance away, the sound of a good many men, yelling and laughing together.
“The tourney’s over.” Neb stood up and held out his hand. “Curse it, everyone’s going to come trooping right back to the dun.”
“Just so.” Branna rose and took his hand. “Is there somewhere more private we could go?”
“I do know an empty storeroom, but it reeks of onions.”
“That won’t do. If there are going to be tears in your eyes, I want