The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I had figured on that.” Anna coughed again. “Let’s think about that. I need to take care of some things. How about in another glass or so?”

  After they left, she looked at the closed door, wondering once more how she’d ever gotten into the mess, or how everything she did seemed to hurt the best people.

  Life wasn’t ever fair. By all rights, Daffyd, who’d been loyal, supportive, and talented, should have been in charge of her players. He and the players who had supported her early on were all dead. Jecks’ daughter Alasia should have been planning the campaign that lay ahead, but she was dead. Lord Hryding should still have held Flossbend, and Anna didn’t dare take the time even to investigate that mess.

  In the meantime, at least, she could send a scroll to Flossbend, reserving her right to name another administrator in place of the bitchy Anientta for her spoiled son Jeron. That would keep Anientta from causing too much trouble, for now, anyway. She sighed, reaching for the parchment. At least, she could do that.

  38

  MANSUUS, MANSUUR

  I have scrolls from both Nubara and from Rabyn,” Konsstin says wearily, his large right hand pushing a lock of brown-and-silver hair off his forehead. “Would that Kestrin were older.”

  Bassil nods.

  “I found Jyrllar too late, after Kandeth, and so my heir is younger than Rabyn. Would that he will be more perceptive and less vicious.”

  The younger man nods once more.

  “What do you think they say?” Konsstin leans back in the heavy silver chair, his eyes flicking toward the window to his right, and the gray clouds that seem to hover not far beyond the balcony.

  “Neither is happy with the other?” suggests the raven-haired officer in the lancer’s maroon uniform.

  “Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant.” The Liedfuhr stands and lifts a scroll from the slightly smeared polish of the walnut surface. “The snake and the lizard, and they do not like each other.”

  “You feared this,” Bassil says quietly.

  “I feared it, and what we fear too often comes to pass. Is that because we fear it, and that fear becomes embodied in our lives?”

  “That I could not say, sire.”

  “You repeat my words and refuse to offer judgment. How judicious of you. Are you, too, becoming a courtier?”

  “I would hope not, sire.”

  “You would hope not?” Konsstin laughs harshly. “What would you advise, my dear advisor Bassil?” asks the Liedfuhr. “My own sworn agent, the good Nubara, advises me, most delicately, that my grandson is indeed the viper that his mother was, except worse. My loving grandson informs me, most properly, that his guardian is intent on assuming full rule in his own name in Neserea, and that Nubara is a scaly lizard who oozes oily charm to disguise his claws.”

  Bassil swallows.

  “So what should I do?” Konsstin’s voice is level. “What do you advise, oh, forthright Bassil who would not hope to be a courtier?”

  After a long moment, the officer answers. “Let the two of them make enough of a stew that the Neserean people will welcome your presence.”

  “You would advise me to let the situation worsen?” Konsstin sets down the scroll, and it rerolls itself and skitters off the desk. The Liedfuhr ignores it, and his eyes burn down at the lancer officer. “To let a poor situation worsen?”

  A faint sheen coats Bassil’s forehead, and he swallows. “Yes, sire. If you take sides now, you are seen as interfering, and the Neserean people will oppose you, as will either Nubara or Rabyn, depending upon whom you back and how.”

  “So . . . I should do nothing for now?”

  “Send each scrolls telling them that you believe that they should work together to ensure the continuity of the line and the stability of Neserea. Suggest that the growing presence of the Sea-Priests means they should cooperate.”

  “You are more devious than Rabyn, Bassil,” says Konsstin almost lazily, glancing toward the drizzle outside for a moment. “And what of Dumar in this dissonant mess?”

  Bassil swallows again. “Ah . . . I would let the sorceress deal with that.”

  “She lies wounded, and you would have her be our shield against the Sea-Priests?”

  “If you order the lancers south now, will they go? If they are loyal to Rabyn, he would not wish that. Nor would Nubara, if they are loyal to him. I have no better answer, sire.”

  “Nor I, Bassil.” Konsstin smiles wickedly. “We will have to move quickly, and before long. Convey my order to the third and fifth lancers to be ready to leave Mansuus within the next three weeks. Send a scroll to the eighth and tenth in Deleator requesting that they stand ready.”

  “And the scrolls to the sorceress, the Council of Wei, and the Matriarchy?”

  “We will wait a little longer. Timing is everything, Bassil. Everything.” The Liedfuhr nods.

  Bassil bows and departs.

  In the growing dimness of his study, Konsstin turns back to view the darkening storm.

  39

  Anna wanted to wipe her forehead in the heat of the shuttered quarters at Synfal. With the shutters closed, she got a brighter image in the wall mirror, but she wished she had a reflecting pool.

  Stop wishing for what you don’t have, and keep your thoughts on the spell.

  She and Jecks studied the image in the wall mirror. Hanfor held a grease marker over a large section of heavy brown paper on the table. The arms commander sketched rapidly, his eyes darting from the mirror to the paper and back again.

  “There is the mound where they would use their evil weapon,” the white-haired lord pointed out.

  “We’re not going to get that close again.” Anna’s chest still throbbed at times.

  “What if we marched down this side road?” Jecks asked. “We could come up on the flat here. The ground rises here, it looks like.”

  “We would do well to stay farther north. I would not want to have the horse too close to the ditches and the creek there,” Hanfor pointed with his left hand momentarily, before he continued sketching. Despite the heavy tunic, he looked cool and composed.

  Anna envied him. She felt overheated, sweaty, and bedraggled, and it was barely midmorning.

  “Then we could move across the lower side of the field,” Jecks suggested, as he glanced toward Hanfor.

  The gray-haired veteran armsman nodded. “There would be room to wheel, even if we were surprised.”

  “We’d better not be surprised,” Anna interjected.

  “It can happen,” Jecks cautioned.

  Anna supposed it could, but the idea behind using the mirror as an aerial observer was to avoid such unpleasant surprises. She held out a hand, feeling the heat building in the dense wooden frame. “That’s enough for now.” She released the spell after she spoke.

  “I have much, but I have not all of it,” Hanfor said.

  “Later,” she promised, opening the shutters, and standing in front of the light breeze, then turning to let the air dry the sweat-soaked back of her shirt.

  “I am glad you thought of showing such an image on the glass,” Hanfor said. “Is it possible to do that in the field? Can you do that without straining too much?”

  “I would think so,” Anna said, “if I don’t have to hold the image long. I’d be closer to what the mirror displays.”

  “She must use such skills far enough from the traitors that she can regain her full strength before . . . confronting them.” Jecks coughed once, then turned to study what Hanfor had drawn.

  Anna frowned as she realized that none of them had even mentioned negotiating with Sargol, Gylaron, or Dencer. Her eyes dropped to her linen shirt and the thin dressing beneath. She didn’t feel like negotiating or being charitable. She’d been charitable to begin with, and it had gotten her nowhere with the rebels.

  She laughed, thinking that she sounded like one of the Vietnam warhawks that Avery had been so opposed to back in their student days. Somehow, your perspective changed when you were the target.

  J
ecks lifted his eyebrows, but Anna didn’t enlighten him. She didn’t want to try to explain hawks or doves or Vietnam, even in general terms. How could she explain a war where the generals weren’t allowed to be generals, where the side that won lost almost all the battles, and how people Jecks would have regarded as peasants forced an end to the fighting.

  “How long before Herstat arrives?” she asked.

  “Another few days. He will hasten.”

  Anna hoped so. There were too many things still left undone. “Jimbob can remain here with Herstat and a small detachment.”

  Jecks frowned, then rubbed his chin. The hazel eyes grew distant, almost glazed over as they did when he disapproved of something but would not voice his disagreement.

  “I did spell the entire hold for loyalty to the Regency,” she pointed out. “And it’s farther from Neserea and Nordwei.”

  “It is closer to Sargol.”

  “None of them have armsmen beyond their own lands.” Anna shrugged. “If I fail, you can get to him sooner. If we both fail, distance won’t save him.”

  Hanfor continued to sketch from memory, not looking at the lord and the regent.

  After a silence, the hazel eyes refocused on Anna. “That is true.”

  Anna refrained from telling him that was what she’d said to begin with. Why antagonize him? Besides, he was doing better than most in accepting her as a person of intelligence in a culture that automatically devalued women. She frowned momentarily. Actually, over time, she hadn’t done that badly with those lords she’d been able to meet with, although she had her doubts about Birfels and Nelmor. Then, that was always the problem with prejudice. It was based on stereotypes, and women were certainly stereotyped in Defalk, and kept out of decision-making. Stereotyping was always easier when you didn’t work with people. Most of the people she’d had trouble with in academia were those who’d never come to her recitals or seen her direct her operas.

  “How are we doing for bows and arrows?” Anna directed the question at Hanfor.

  “If we strip the armory here at Synfal, we can raise fivescore uncertain bows,” said Hanfor. “Very uncertain bows.”

  “Just so they can get the arrows into the air strongly on command. I hope that will be enough for Sargol. We’ll need more for Dencer.” Anna stretched slightly, trying to lift the damp cloth away from her skin.

  “I would that we had a source for more blades.” Hanfor paused, as if he wished to ask a question.

  “Yes?”

  “I did wonder. You built a bridge . . .”

  “Whether I could create blades through spells?” Anna frowned. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that. I was worried more about Dencer.”

  “Dencer?” Jecks frowned.

  “We have to find a way to take Stromwer quickly,” Anna answered. “There’s no point in waiting. Dumar can pour more than ten times the armsmen we can raise into Defalk,” Anna pointed out. “They’re less likely to do that if we hold the rebel keeps and lands.”

  “And others will think twice about revolting,” said Hanfor.

  “That is true,” Jecks mused. “Still . . .”

  “I know. It’s foolhardy,” Anna answered. “Everything I do is foolhardy. Attacking the Evult was foolish. It’s just that everything else would have been more foolish.” Even as she said the words, she wondered. Are you right about that, really? There’s so much you still don’t know. So much. . . . As events kept proving. She shrugged, trying to shift the slow-drying linen-cotton shirt away from her skin, away from her shoulders and back. The breeze helped, although it was moister than in Falcor or Mencha.

  “About the blades?” Hanfor suggested.

  “I’ll see what I might be able to do.” That was all Anna could promise. Theoretically, she could see no problem—but no one else was creating blades through sorcery, that she knew of, or that there was any record of, and when people didn’t do things that seemed obvious, there was usually a reason. Unless it’s something no one thought of . . . or thought possible. But she didn’t know.

  Anna moistened her lips. Another thing to add to her endless lists—try to create swords.

  Hanfor stood and carefully rolled up his de facto map, then bowed. “Have you any other need for me at the moment, Lady Anna, Lord Jecks?”

  “Not right now,” Anna said.

  Jecks shook his head.

  With a last nod, Hanfor closed the heavy door behind him.

  “Are you worried about this?” Anna gestured toward the blank mirror that showed only a reflection of her quarters at Synfal—the writing table, the chairs, the bed she’d rid of vermin with sorcery. “Sargol, I mean?”

  “I do not worry about Sargol. Nor even about Gylaron or Dencer. Lord Ehara and the Sea-Priests, they concern me.” Jecks scratched the back of his head momentarily.

  “What about them?” Anna pursued.

  “Your former lords, they do not understand your power. They deceive themselves. Even so, they do not wish to destroy Defalk. Or Liedwahr.” Jecks’ lips turned into a crooked smile. “The Sea-Priests would see as much destruction and death as possible.”

  “I doubt they want to spend too many golds,” Anna suggested.

  “That does stand between us and all their ships and armsmen,” Jecks admitted.

  “I understood that they worry about Mansuur and Nordwei.”

  “Not about Mansuur. They could not conquer the Liedfuhr, but he has few ships and less trade. The traders of the north have all too many ships, and their council is mostly of women.”

  “So . . . the Sea-Priests can’t afford to spend too many ships on poor Dumar and Defalk?” questioned Anna.

  “I do not know. I would think not. Have you any spell that would show such?”

  “No.” Anna shook her head. “Getting a spell to show something is still partly a matter of luck. I’m just trying to get a better feel for things.” Feel was about all she had sometimes.

  “If you do not need me . . .”

  “Not right now. I need to think.”

  For a time after Jecks left, Anna sat at the writing table, looking vacantly first at the empty sheets of brown writing paper and then at the window, and the shutters. The shutters reminded her of the house in Richmond, the one that had been perfect—for all of three months—until Avery had decided they needed to move so that he could be closer to New York. He’d only gotten one role with the New York City Opera, not even the Met, but that meant that the whole family had to move, and that had meant she’d left the job with Eastern, one of the few places that had treated her well.

  Irenia had been eight then. Lord, had it been that long ago? Now . . . she was dead; Mario was in Texas, and Elizabetta at school in Atlanta. At least, she hoped her littlest redhead had gone back to Emory—as her only letter across the worlds had indicated.

  Anna’s eyes burned, and through the tears she saw the black-edged rectangle on the stone wall of her quarters at Falcor, the rectangle that proclaimed that even the most powerful sorceress in Defalk couldn’t see her daughter. Not even as an image in a mirror or reflecting pool.

  Maybe later . . . Brill said. . . . But Brill was dead, too.

  “Enough.” She shook her head, and blotted her eyes. “I can do this. I can.”

  She looked at the paper and lifted the grease marker.

  Almost a glass later—and with one new spell roughed out—there was a thrap on the door.

  “The player Liende,” announced Rickel, inclining his head. The heavy strawberry-blond thatch did not move.

  Anna inclined her head and rose, waiting by the writing table.

  The chief player stepped into the quarters and walked toward Anna, then stopped and bowed. “Lady Anna.”

  “Liende.” Anna smiled. “Thank you again. I’m almost fully healed, and there won’t be that much of a scar.”

  “You healed yourself.”

  “I know who helped.” Anna shook her head. “Again.”

  “Alvar says that you ride again
to battle. We would ride with you.” Liende’s voice was firm, if soft. “You are proud, lady. Often too proud to ask.”

  That came of her French and Indian forebears, Anna suspected, although her Irish ancestors hadn’t been known for their humility. “I told you I wouldn’t ask that of you. Alseta—”

  “Without you, Alseta will have no future. Nor will I.” The player smiled apologetically. “If you fail, she will wear chains, or her daughters will.”

  “Chains?” Anna murmured.

  “All Liedwahr must know by now that Lord Ehara backs the insurgent lords, and the golds of the Sea-Priests are behind Ehara.”

  “And what does all Liedwahr know about Lord Ehara?” Anna asked, adding quickly, “Remember I’m not from Liedwahr, and people always think I know more than I do about things.”

  “Lady Siobion is his third consort, and his favorite for now. Lady Gestorn he joined for her coins, and she perished of the flux.” Liende snorted softly. “Lady Eligne—she had two daughters. She drowned in a boating accident. Lady Siobion bore him five sons in twice that many years, and all are healthy.”

  How healthy is Lady Siobion? “He sounds charming.”

  “By all accounts he is handsome and charming.”

  Anna nodded. “His image gives that impression.”

  “He is strong, and he would have Dumar be more than it has been.”

  Another conqueror, another male ruler who thought that more force would make things better. “There seem to be a lot of lords like him in Liedwahr.”

  “There have been many.” Liende’s lips quirked momentarily. “But few rulers like you willing to stop such. What would you have of your players?”

  Anna forced a smile in return. “I’d have nothing, if it were my choice. It isn’t. I’m going to try some things less catastrophic than in the past. Some songs against spelled weapons and some spells to make ours more effective. The tunes are simpler than the building spells.”

  “That is good.”

  Anna wasn’t sure. She’d have liked more harmony—it was stronger, but she was no composer, and tunes that she had to create from scratch were simpler, much simpler than those she had been able to adapt. “Are you sure, Liende?”