Anna turned in the saddle and glanced at the white-haired lord, then turned away.
“Lady Anna?”
She turned back. “Yes.”
“Perhaps I should return to Falcor . . . if you find my presence so distasteful.”
“I don’t find your presence distasteful. I’m just tired of being judged when I’m the only one doing anything and everyone else is coming up with reasons not to do things.”
“I did not presume—”
“Lord Jecks . . . you did presume, and you have presumed all along. Not so much as the other lords, but you have judged, and I hate being judged that way.” Anna met his eyes. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I’m sorry I did. But I was tired.” She paused. “I know you were tired, too. Let’s leave it at that. We still have a lot to do.”
“As you wish.”
I don’t wish. I just wish you’d stop silently judging me.
Hanfor finished listening to the scout, then turned his mount and rode back up the road to Anna.
“The scouts can find no bridge, not within fifteen deks north or south of Dumaria,” reported Hanfor. “The river is too high to ford.”
You don’t think I see that? “Then we’ll have to make a bridge,” Anna declared.
Jecks glanced at her through the light rain.
“We’re going to rest, and eat, and then we’re going to build a bridge. I’m not crazy, my dear Lord Jecks.” Anna gestured downhill at the swirling gray-blue water of the Falche where it lapped at the end of the road and the ruins of the old bridge. “We’re going to lose armsmen if we have to ford that.” And my swimming isn’t much better than a dog-paddle for survival.
“We could wait,” suggested Hanfor.
“For what? Rain lasts forever here. Besides, then we’ll have to chase Ehara farther. I want to get this mess over. Lord—the harmonies only know what problems have happened in Defalk.” And whose fault is that, with your chasing Ehara?
Anna ignored the self-recrimination, wiped water off the back of her neck, and turned Farinelli back eastward until she covered the dozen or so yards separating her from the players. Fhurgen, Rickel, and Jecks followed.
Liende inclined her bare head as the regent reined up.
“Liende? Do the players recall the building song, the one we used for the bridge at Cheor?”
“Once we have learned a spell, Lady Anna, we can always recall it.” Liende paused. “But . . . with the rain . . .”
“We have one tent—mine. You’ll have to huddle together, but I trust it can be done.”
Liende nodded. “With cover, we can play.”
“Good.” Anna turned in the saddle. “Fhurgen, we need to set up my tent beside the road, with the front facing where the bridge was.”
“Yes, Lady Anna,” answered the bass-voiced and dark-bearded guard.
“It’s not for me. The players need shelter so that we can sing a spell to build a bridge. That might get us out of this rain.”
“Yes, lady.” The guard grinned. Beside him, so did Lejun. Behind them, Kerhor, bare-headed with black hair plastered against his skull, nodded.
“You would spend sorcery on Dumar?” asked Jecks slowly, evenly.
“Why not? We need the bridge, and I did destroy the one that was here.” Anna laughed, holding it to a chuckle, rather than yielding to the hysterical shriek she felt like loosing. “I said Liedwahr needed better bridges.”
“You did say such,” Jecks admitted.
“I would have liked to do more in Defalk, but things have a way of getting out of hand.” Like life . . . and would you stop questioning everything I do that’s different?
“They do, my lady.”
Anna nodded, then watched as Fhurgen and Rickel quickly began to erect the tent, whose once-white panels now appeared tan-and-pink, depending on which dust from where had worked its way into the fabric. The tanand-pink turned dark where the rain streaked the silk.
Beside her, Jecks watched impassively, his eyes straying toward Anna occasionally.
Once the panels were in place, the players crowded under the silk and began to extract instruments and tune, bumping into each other with almost every movement. Yet no one complained.
Was that because she watched? Or because musicians on Erde were less spoiled than the students of earth?
Fhurgen found another pole and strapped the front flaps to it, creating another oasis free of rain. He gestured, and Anna dismounted.
As the players tuned in the crowded confines of the tent, water dribbling off the silk, Anna stood under the extended front flap and sang the melody, using nonsense syllables, but thinking the words.
As the players completed their warm-up, she cleared her throat gently, eyes on the roiling water at the base of the hill where the road vanished under the muddy torrent. On the far side a causeway began in midair and extended across flooded fields to a gap in the bluff—the same bluff that, some twenty deks south, bordered the upper part of the city of Dumaria.
“We stand ready, Regent,” offered Liende.
“Anytime,” Anna answered.
“On my mark. . . . Mark!”
Anna used full concert voice, helped by the humidity of the gentle rain, letting the words flow forth.
“. . . replicate the blocks and stones.
Place them in their proper zones . . .
Set them firm, and set them square . . .”
The ground on which she stood shifted as she completed the first verse. Strophic spell, the thought came again, and she wondered if she’d always think of versed spells that way. Then, she couldn’t afford the luxury of through-composed spells, with no repetitions of the melody throughout the entire song.
The gray clouds darkened as she wound up the second verse, and the rain began to fall even more heavily. A white-glared bolt of lightning flashed across the blackened western sky, and the very hillside shifted once more, with rumbling from the ground to match the rumbling from the sky. Dust puffed into the rain—momentarily, before it was dampened out of existence.
Another lightning flash seared across the heavens, revealing a shimmering mist that thickened, then cloaked the river where the old bridge had stood. The sorceress, miniature flares exploding across her field of vision, staggered. A chord, then two paired chords, strummed on that unseen gigantic harp, shivered the silver fog covering the Falche, a fog of sorcery, steam, and rock dust.
The river boiled, becoming even more turbulent, and the fog seeped up from the ground where the rain around the tent struck puddles or damp ground. Anna’s eyes burned, although the light flares before her were subsiding. Because you did the spell in the rain . . . ? An archway of gray-and-red stone emerged from the heavy gray fog that the roiling waters of the Falche carried downstream in patches.
Anna staggered and grabbed for one of the poles holding up the flap, and Jecks caught her other arm, supporting her.
“You will need that tent on the other side. And some food and drink.” His voice was slightly hoarse.
“Do we have any?” Anna tried to grit her teeth, tried to ignore the flashes of light before her eyes.
“Enough. No one will gainsay your food or rest when you have ensured none die in crossing the river.”
And who decided they needed to cross the river? “I suppose not.” Anna felt embarrassed that she had to lean on Jecks, but her legs were like water. “I suppose not. Let’s get that tent down and get over the river.”
Jecks practically lifted her into the saddle.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, my lady. I did not relish swimming that river or waiting in the rain.” He flashed a smile, and Anna wondered, again, why things seemed so possible with the handsome lord at times, and so impossible at others.
She pushed away the judgments and urged Farinelli downhill and toward the stone bridge—another structure that would doubtless outlive her, and her name.
Jecks rode beside her, and she was glad he did.
111
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Anna wiped her forehead. The hot midmorning summer sun searing through a clear sky had already turned the rains of the previous days into humidity resembling that in a steambath. “This is worse than summer in Defalk with no rain.”
Absently, she wondered if all went well in Defalk. How could she know, now that the flow of scrolls from Menares and Dythya had stopped? She scarcely had enough energy for the business at hand, let alone scrying Falcor and elsewhere in Defalk for who knew what.
“It’s hot,” she said, realizing she was repeating herself.
“Even my old bones find it hot,” admitted Jecks.
“Your bones aren’t that old,” said Anna. “Not that much older than mine.”
“Yours look to be much younger, much younger,” the white-haired lord pointed out.
“It’s what’s inside that counts.” Anna reached for her water bottle again. The water helped some, but not so much as it had in the drier heat of the Sudbergs.
The road toward Dumaria was empty except for Anna’s force—and the tracks that showed horses, carts, people fleeing the terrible sorceress of Defalk. Then, every road in Dumar had been empty, the same way. Anna wanted to scream—again.
The few farming cots visible from the road were silent, shutters tight.
Anna wondered if poor souls hunkered in fright inside, stifling in the heat. She also wondered what tales had been told about her. Not even a stray dog was in evidence.
Ahead in the distance along the flat road were a pair of white marbled gates, each gate nearly ten yards high. The gates connected to no walls, no ditches, no earthworks. Behind the gates, the road angled to the right and wound up a low slope. On the slope were trees and at least a few large dwellings. On the top of the hill was a line of trees bearing leaves of intense green, and from behind the trees rose the white marbled palace that Anna had scried often enough in seeking Lord Ehara.
“Impressive,” she murmured.
“Lord Ehara and his forbearers were not known to stint on their comforts,” said Hanfor. “But Dumar is a richer land than Defalk, if smaller. The scouts have found no sign of armsmen, and the roads to the city are deserted.”
“Not quite,” said Jecks. “There’s someone waiting up there.”
Anna squinted in the bright light, following Jecks’ gesture.
Three mounted figures under pale blue banners waited on the road, several hundred yards ahead, and a half dek outside the north gates to Dumaria.
“Break out the ensign,” ordered Hanfor. “All guards to the fore! Blades at the ready!”
Anna twisted in the saddle. “Players stand ready.” She eased her lutar out of its case, and held it one handed, across her thighs as she rode south toward Dumar.
“They seem unarmed,” Jecks observed, “and no one is near.”
The Defalkan force rode slowly, easing to a stop a good fifty yards from the trio.
“Lady Anna, Sorceress and Regent of Defalk. Know that we supplicate you.” The words came from the rider on the right, a slender man with a pencil-thin mustache and equally-wispy ginger hair. “Know that we understand that nothing can stand before you should you decide to destroy Dumaria for its error and wickedness in attacking your lands. . . .”
“Who are you,” asked Hanfor brusquely, “to make such an offer?”
“We are of the merchants’ council. All the lords have departed, fearing your wrath. We, alas, dare not depart. Be merciful, we beg of you. The city lies open to you.” The ginger-haired man bowed in the saddle.
“We will see.” Anna’s voice was as cold as the day was hot and steamy. “Dumar brought this upon itself by attempting to create rebellion in Defalk.”
“We had nothing to do with that, lady and sorceress, nothing at all.”
“We’ll see,” Anna repeated, rather than say what was on her mind. No one ever had anything to do with anything when things went wrong. It was never the students’ fault that they didn’t study. It was never the lords’ fault that they plotted. It was never the merchants’ fault that they profited from war.
“Be merciful, we beg,” echoed the merchant on the left, a figure with greasy black hair and oily skin.
“What of Lord Ehara?” asked Jecks.
“He and his armsmen have fled along the Envar River road.” The squat man in the middle, whose face was wreathed in sweat, swallowed. “He said that you would spare the defenseless.”
“As long as they swear allegiance to Defalk and the Regency,” said Anna. “As long as they do not attack me or my armsmen.”
All three men’s heads bobbed. “That will not happen, lady and sorceress. All have seen your might.”
It wouldn’t happen immediately, they meant. Anna didn’t intend for it to happen ever—or not for a long time.
“We will lead you to the palace. It, too, stands open to you.”
“In a moment,” Anna said. “In a moment.” She dismounted and took out the mirror and lutar—letting Jecks help her.
Then she quickly sang the danger spell, accompanying herself with the lutar.
“Show from Dumar, danger to fear,
all the threats to me bright and clear . . .”
The mirror showed a single image, that of the Sea-Priest in white, riding beside Lord Ehara, with the flat silver of a river to their left.
Anna sang the release couplet.
“Still, you must take care,” cautioned Jecks.
“Hanfor?” asked Anna.
“I would that one company precede you and two follow immediately. Put the merchants in the middle, but ahead of you with guards behind them.”
“Set it up the way you think is best.” Anna offered a quick smile.
“Green company! To the fore! Arms ready!”
The three merchants winced nearly simultaneously as the armsmen rode around them and formed up. They winced again to find themselves surrounded by guards.
The column passed through the open gates.
Like the road leading into Dumaria, the winding avenue that climbed to the north side of the palace past large and impressive homes was also empty. Anna looked across a small parklike space, past a fountain where water still jetted from a spray of marble flowers into a scallop-shaped pond. Around the pond was a garden, where small yellow flowers alternated with larger purple blooms. A faint scent of something like lavender reached Anna with a vagrant breeze that died as quickly as it had risen.
The iron gates, bearing some heraldic symbol, were closed, as were those of the houses above and below. Not a soul appeared on any of the well-trimmed grounds.
“Those with coins have left,” said Alvar from where he rode in front of Anna.
“With their coins,” muttered Rickel.
“And everything else,” murmured Fhurgen beneath his breath.
Anna silently agreed, but studied the road, ready to use the lutar at any provocation.
When the road leveled out on the hilltop, the houses ended, and another arched iron gate straddled the road another hundred yards south. The gate was open.
“That is the palace. It is yours. Lady Siobion stands ready to offer every courtesy,” babbled the squat Dumaran. “Anything you desire . . . just spare what remains of Dumaria, we beg of you.”
“It could not hurt to spare the city,” said Hanfor with a wry smile. “If it acknowledges you as sovereign.”
Anna understood. There was nothing to be gained now by sacking Ehara’s city, or what was left of it, except angering the common people. Ehara had certainly taken the majority of armsmen, and probably all the gold he could gather.
She knew she was filthy, tired, hungry, and wanted the damned war to be over, and it didn’t look like it ever would end. First, she’d have to ensure the capital was somehow loyal, and then chase down Ehara, and if they survived that, pacify, through visiting and using the mirror to seek out hostile armsmen, the big port of Narial, and who knew how many other towns.
Then . . . maybe they could head home. Maybe . . . if she could set up
some halfway workable and friendly government in Dumar so that she didn’t have to repeat the current mess in five or ten years.
“Sorceress?” prompted Jecks.
“The palace had better be ready for our forces, and with plenty of food.”
“All awaits you . . . everything. . . .”
Anna wanted to shake her head again as they rode through what had to be the royal park, with trimmed topiary displaying a range of game animals, a low boxwood hedge maze, and two marble fountains. To the south, ahead of them, rose the white building she had seen a time or more in her scrying spells.
Anna gestured to Hanfor and reined up on the well-fitted paved road less than two hundred yards from the palace—or one of its buildings.
“Companies . . . halt!” Hanfor stood in his stirrups and raised his voice.
Anna eased Farinelli back toward the players. “Liende . . . we need one spell before you and the players eat. The armsmen-seeking spell.”
“Here, lady?”
“I’m being cautious. I want no treachery within the palace.” Anna smiled grimly, and Liende nodded.
“After we eat, we’ll repeat the process, say—a half-dozen times—until I’m convinced we’ve located every remaining armsman in Dumaria.”
“Yes, Regent.”
“Some will die rather then pledge to you,” murmured Jecks.
“A lot fewer than if we took the city with fire,” Anna answered. She waited as the players dismounted and began to tune. After going over the seeking spell a dozen times in her mind, she finally dismounted and stepped before the players.
“Now, after this spell, you can eat and rest for a time. For a glass or so. Then we’ll have to go to work again.”
Anna faced the palace, waiting for Liende’s signal.
“Mark!”
Without preamble, the sorceress sang.
“Find, find, any armsman close to here,
who bears his weapons hard and near . . .”
After she finished Anna watched the glass, as did Hanfor, as it split into sections.
“Guards in the palace.” Hanfor nodded. “And some in a barracks.” He looked up. “Purple Company . . . search the palace. Harm none, save those who lift arms against you.”
The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle Page 57