Galla reached out and patted her hand. ‘And don’t you worry, we’ll see about finding you a proper husband.’
‘Tell me somewhat. Would it be horribly wrong of a lass like me to marry some common-born man, one who has some standing, I mean, like somebody who’s serving a powerful lord?’
‘Not at all, truly, just so long as he could provide for you properly.’
‘Oh, I’m used to doing without.’
Galla winced and glanced away. ‘Your dear stepmother,’ she said at last. ‘Well, I’m sure she has her virtues.’
‘She popped out two sons in four years. That’s all the virtue Da cares about.’ Branna heard the venom in her voice and tried to speak more calmly. ‘He never much liked me, anyway.’
‘Now, dear, it’s hard for a true-born warrior like him to show tender feelings.’
‘Oh, don’t try to sweeten it! You know that he blames me for my mother’s death. Well, doesn’t he?’
‘It’s a hard situation all round.’ Galla hesitated. ‘He did at the time, dear, but I tried to make him see reason.’ Again the hesitation. ‘Not that he did. Oh, it griped my very soul! You nearly died with her, you know, and your poor mother was never very strong anyway.’ She collected herself with a little sigh. ‘Well, you’re here now, and I’m glad you’ve come to me.’
‘So am I. I truly am.’ Branna crossed to the window and looked out. She could see past the ward and over the dun wall to the green fields and the stream beyond. ‘It’s even a lovely view. At home I could look out over the cook house, and the smoke really was awful.’
‘That woman!’ Galla rolled her eyes heavenward.
Branna sat down on the broad stone windowsill and leaned out, just slightly, to look up at the sky. A solitary raven was hovering over the dun on outstretched wings. As she watched, she realized that while it looked the size of an ordinary bird, it had to be flying extremely high, because she couldn’t see its eyes or the fine points of its wings. The only explanation could be that it was abnormally large. It flapped and circled, then hovered again, as if it were studying the dun below. She waited and watched, as it repeated the manoeuvre, but no other ravens flew up to join it, and it never made a sound. Finally, with one last flurry of black wings, it flew away, heading north.
‘What is it, dear?’ Galla said.
Branna drew her head back inside. ‘Probably naught. A solitary raven, and I thought it was watching us.’
‘It was probably just eyeing the stables in the hopes of stall sweepings. They eat the most disgusting things, ravens.’
‘True spoken, but this one – I don’t know why, but it chilled my heart. It seemed so large, for one thing.’
‘Perhaps it was a rook, not a raven at all.’
‘Well, that could be it. Silly of me, I know.’ Branna arranged a bright smile. In her chilled heart she doubted very much indeed that the bird she’d seen was a rook or any other natural animal. Yet what else would it be? she asked herself.
‘I think we’ve finished here,’ Galla said. ‘Shall we go down to the great hall?’
As they were walking over to the table of honour, Branna noticed Neb, sitting on the servants’ side of the room near a window. In the patch of sunlight that fell onto his table lay sheets of parchment, upon which he was scoring lines with the back of his little penknife against a strip of wood. A fat yellow gnome crouched on the table beside the parchments. It turned its head, leapt to its clawed feet, and began dancing on the parchments. Neb laid down his penknife and swatted at the gnome, who turned and pointed at Branna. Neb raised his head and looked her way. He certainly does see the Folk! she thought. Young, skinny, so completely different from the old man she’d often dreamt about – and yet his ice-blue eyes seemed so familiar that she nearly ran to him, nearly called him by the name she’d given him for her tales: Nevyn.
Neb raised his hand in greeting and smiled at her, as if he were hoping she’d join him, but Aunt Galla beckoned to her, and her cousin Mirryn was already sitting at the honour table. Branna risked a smile Neb’s way, then hurried after her aunt.
Branna passed the afternoon pleasantly, playing carnoic with Mirryn, chatting with Galla. Lord Veddyn joined Neb at his table and began reciting the list of taxes owed, stumbling every now and then over his faulty memory, so that the scribe could write them down. At each lapse, Galla would stand up and shout corrections Veddyn’s way. Once in a while, as casually as she could manage, Branna would steal a look at Neb. Often enough she found him looking back. They would both blush and look away again.
Since she was tired from her journey, Branna went to bed early. Unlike her old bed in her father’s dun, her new mattress was soft and comfortable, and the down pillows smelled fresh, not sour. She lay down, then turned on her side to look at the sliver of starry sky visible through her window. Earlier she’d resolved to give up her strange dreams of dweomer, but as soon as she fell asleep, a dream took her over.
She was standing at another window, looking at the sky. A full moon drifted in the field of stars. As she watched, the moon began to shrink until it turned into a gem, an opal, she thought, but it gleamed just as brightly as before. Suddenly she stood inside a chamber, and an old man, dressed in the brown tattered clothes of a poor farmer, was holding the opal out to her.
Branna woke and sat up. Judging from the wheel of stars outside her window, dawn lay a long way off. Her gnome appeared and flopped down on the bed beside her.
‘Another odd dream,’ she told it. ‘Twice odd, really, because it wasn’t the sort of dream I used to weave into a story, but it truly did seem more important than the usual sort of dream.’
The gnome yawned, then left its mouth half-open and began to pick its teeth with one skinny fingernail.
‘And of no interest to you, obviously. Humph!’
Branna lay back down again, and fell back asleep almost immediately. She had no more dreams that night, or at least, none that she remembered when she woke with the dawn.
On the day after Branna’s arrival, the tieryn and his warband rode back to the dun. From the window of his tower room Neb watched them file through the gates – the horses weary, the men covered with dust from the roads. A provision cart and a couple of mules with empty packsaddles followed them, but no villagers walked behind, not a single man, woman, or child. Neb’s eyes filled with tears as his last shred of hope blew away like the dust in the wind. He and Clae alone had escaped the Horsekin.
In his grief Neb decided against going down to the bustle and confusion of the great hall. He could wait to hear the grim report of what the warbands had found. When the sun had sunk low in the sky, however, Salamander came to his chamber. The gerthddyn had bathed and put on fresh clothes, including a shirt so heavily embroidered that it draped as stiffly as leather.
‘I’ll wager you can guess my news,’ Salamander said. ‘No one was left alive. We buried your uncle. I fear me your aunt’s been taken by the Horsekin.’
‘And the other women, too?’
‘Just that. I’m sorry.’
Neb stared into empty air and fought the memories
