LITMIR.BIZ

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that he’d been stripped of kin the way he stripped a quill of feathers when he made a pen.

      But it’s better than starving, Neb would forcibly remind himself. It was also better than being enslaved by Horsekin, but Neb did his best to keep from thinking about that. In the farming village he’d had two friends, boys his own age who were most likely dead now, and their 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 mould. 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 grey 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 grey 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 mouth, snub nose, a dusting of freckles over her high cheekbones, dark blue eyes. He had never wanted anything more than to reach out and take her hand, but someone behind them called her name and sharply. Branna flinched and looked away.

      ‘Here, who are you?’ The stout woman who’d been driving the cart came striding over. A widow’s black scarf half-covered her grey hair, and she wore grey dresses, much stained. She pointed a calloused finger at Neb.

      ‘My name is Nerrobrantos, scribe to Tieryn Cadryc,’ Neb said. ‘And you are?’

      ‘Her ladyship’s servant.’

      ‘More like my guardian dragon,’ Branna said, then laughed. Her voice was pleasantly soft. ‘Don’t be so fierce, Midda. A scribe may speak to a poverty-stricken lady like me.’ She turned back to Neb. ‘Do people really call you Nerrobrantos all the time?’

      ‘They don’t.’ Neb at last remembered how to smile. ‘Do call me Neb, my lady.’

      ‘Gladly, Goodman Neb. Here comes Aunt Galla, but maybe we’ll meet again?’

      ‘I don’t see how we can avoid meeting in a dun this size.’

      She laughed, and he’d never heard a laugh as beautiful as hers, far more beautiful than golden bells or a bard’s harp. For a long time after Lady Galla had led her inside, Neb stood in the ward and stared out at nothing. He was trying to understand just what had convinced him that his entire view of the world was about to change.

      Mirryn brought him out of this strange reverie when the lord hurried over to the men of the lady’s escort, who were waiting patiently beside their horses.

      ‘What’s this?’ Mirryn said. ‘I see our scribe’s just left you all standing here.’

      ‘My apologies, my lord,’ Neb said. ‘I don’t have the slightest idea of where to take them. I’ve never lived in a dun before.’

      Mirryn’s jaw dropped. Neb had never seen anyone look quite so innocently surprised. The lord covered it over with a quick laugh.

      ‘Of course not,’ Mirryn said. ‘You’re a townsman, after all, or you were.’

      Neb smiled, bowed, and made his escape. He carried the roll of parchment up to his chamber, where he could cut it into sheets with his new penknife, but even as he worked, he was thinking about Lady Branna.

      ‘Now, here, my ladyship,’ Midda said. ‘I’m sure we can make you a better match than a scribe, and besides, you just met the lad.’

      ‘What makes you think I want to marry him?’ Branna said.

      ‘The way the pair of you were looking at each other. All cow-eyed, like.’

      Branna shrugged and went to perch on the wide windowsill of her new chamber. Lady Galla had given her a decent situation, especially for a destitute extra daughter, unwelcome in her own father’s dun. The sunny chamber had its own hearth, a comfortable-looking bed, and a window that sported proper wooden shutters against possible rain. Branna had brought along her dower chest, made of plain wood and chipped around the lid – the best that her stepmother would part with. Midda was at the moment inspecting its contents to make sure they’d not suffered any damage during the journey. Branna had spent hundreds of hours working on them: two woad-blue blankets in an overshot weave and an embroidered coverlet for the marriage bed, the unassembled pieces of a heavily embroidered wedding shirt for her eventual husband, and various dresses and underclothes for herself. The little grey gnome sat on the bed and concentrated on picking at his long toenails.

      ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to marry Neb,’ Branna said. ‘He just reminds me of someone I saw once. I was surprised, is all.’

      ‘And

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