Free The Gold Falcon by Katharine Kerr Page B

mothers and sisters enslaved. At times, memories crept into his mind like weevils into grain, but he picked them out again. Now and then he indulged himself with the hope that at least one friend had managed to escape, but he never allowed the hope to blossom into a full-fledged wish.
    To distract him, he also had work to do. With the winter wheat almost ripe for harvest, the tieryn’s farmer vassals would soon owe him taxes in kind—foodstuffs, mostly, but also some oddments such as rendered tallow for candles and soap. The elderly chamberlain, Lord Veddyn, took Neb out to the storehouses, built of stone right into the dun’s walls.
    “I must admit that it gladdens my heart you’re here,” Veddyn said. “I used to be able to remember all the dues and taxes, store them up in my mind, like, but it gets harder and harder every year. I’ve been wishing I knew a bit of writing myself, these past few months.”
    “I see,” Neb said. “Well, we can set up a tally system easily enough, if you’ve got somewhat for me to write upon. Wax on wood won’t do.”
    “I’ve got a bit of parchment laid by. It’s not the best in the kingdom, though.”
    In a cool stone room that smelled of onions, Veddyn showed him a wooden chest. Neb kicked it a couple of times to scare any mice or spiders away, then opened it to find a long roll of old vellum, once of a good quality, now a much-scraped palimpsest.
    “It’s cracking a bit, isn’t it?” Veddyn said. “My apologies. I thought it would store better than this.”
    “We can split it into sheets along the cracks. It’ll do.”
    Out in the sun Neb unrolled about a foot of the scroll and released a cloud of dust and ancient mold. He sneezed and wiped his nose on his sleeve, then held the roll up to the light.
    “This must have been a set of tax tallies,” Neb said. “I can just make out a few words. Fine linen cloth, six ells. Someone someone ninety-five bushels of somesort barley.”
    “It’s from our old demesne—what’s that noise?”
    Neb cocked his head to listen. “Riders coming in the gates,” he said. “I wonder if his grace has ridden home.”
    “Not already, surely!”
    They hurried around the broch to find a small procession entering the ward. Four armed men with oak leaf blazons on their shirts escorted a heavily laden horse cart, driven by a stout middle-aged woman, while behind them came a person riding a gray palfrey. Taxes, Neb thought at first, here early .
    As the pages and a groom ran out to take the horses, the rider dismounted with a toss of her long blonde hair, caught back in a silver clasp. A pretty lass, though not the great beauty he’d seen in his earlier dream, she was wearing a faded blue dress, caught up at her kirtled waist, over a pair of old torn brigga. The Wildfolk of Air, sylphs and sprites both, flocked around her, and perched behind her saddle was a little gray gnome, who looked straight at Neb, grinned, and waved a skinny clawed paw. The gnome looked exactly like the little creature in Neb’s dream.
    “It’s Lady Branna!” Veddyn said. “Here, greet her and her escort, will you? Where’s Lord Mirryn, I wonder? He’s always off somewhere when you need him! And the pages have their hands full. I’d better go tell Lady Galla her niece has arrived.”
    When Neb walked up, the lady turned around and smiled at him, a distant but friendly sort of smile such as she doubtless would give to any stranger, but Neb felt his heart start pounding. Instantly he knew two things so crucial that he felt as if he had waited his entire life for this lass to appear. One, he loved her, and two, she shared all his secrets, perhaps even secrets he hadn’t realized he was keeping. He tried to speak but felt that he was gasping like a caught fish on a riverbank.
    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