A trumpet fanfare echoed across the twilight, then repeated.
“I suppose they want to announce to all the dark ones that our lord and master has arrived … .”
Anna held back an ironic smile at Daffyd’s hissed comment to Palian, the only other woman player besides Liende, then guided Farinelli to her right, easing him behind Barjim’s guards as the column narrowed to enter the gates.
The inside courtyard—or open space—of the fort was no more than twice that of Brill’s hall. At first, Anna thought that the structure was only a set of walls. Then she squinted through the darkness, broken in patches by the intermittent light cast from the watchfires and the torches mounted on brackets at regular intervals along the walls.
The quarters, stables, armories, whatever buildings there were, were extensions from the outer walls toward the center courtyard.
“Our quarters here are not large,” apologized Brill. “We have two rooms in the quarters section, but they are on the upper level. That should be quieter and afford more privacy. You and Liende and Palian will share the smaller one, and the other players and I will share the large one.”
Anna nodded, wondering how much privacy there was with so many people together. She also hoped her legs would bear her weight when she dismounted—and that there was something to sleep upon besides the floor—or hard ground. Her stomach growled, and her head ached.
Brill eased his mare around Barjim’s guards, and toward the low structure on the southwest side of the fort. “The stables are there.”
Anna followed numbly, her face burning, and her neck, shoulder, back, and legs all aching.
“Oh, ser sorcerer …” said a round-faced young man as they neared the low building.
Anna could tell from the odors they had reached the stable, and she reined up.
“This is the lady Anna,” Brill explained as he dismounted. “She’s a sorceress from the mist worlds, come to help us.”
Anna didn’t feel like a sorceress, but like ground beef or the Erdean equivalent, and her legs shook after she dismounted. Slowly, she led Farinelli into the stable, where, surprisingly, the light was provided by candles with glass mantles.
Somehow, she did get the gelding unsaddled and rubbed down, before staggering up two flights of brick stairs after the sorcerer, carrying her gear—gear that felt like lead weights.
Liende and Palian followed her.
The end room was narrow and held six pallets, raised off the floor on brick pedestals no more than a foot high—or was that two spans? Anna wondered. However it was measured, the pallets were low, and narrow—and they looked wonderful. There were two small high windows, both unglazed and unshuttered, on the north wall.
“It’s not much,” Brill said, “but better than the barracks.”
“Is there anywhere to wash up?” she asked tiredly as she dumped the saddlebags and bedroll on the pallet under the back window. Then she stripped off the floppy hat, trying to ignore the dust that came with it.
“There’s a washhouse in the western corner,” Brill explained, leading her back to the doorway and pointing toward a pair of torches. “There.”
Anna took a deep breath and started back down the steps while Liende and Palian arranged their gear.
“So … what captain do you belong to?” leered the armsman by the door to the washhouse.
Anna looked at the youth. She needed spells to shut up idiots like the armsman. “I came with Lord Brill and Lord Barjim.” That was the best she could do, but it seemed to be enough as she stepped by him and into the room. For a washroom it wasn’t much, just two awkward-looking pumps, with spouts and tubs beneath. Each small tub had a lever device that was probably a drain.
Anna stepped to the far tub and began to pump. A reddish stream of water poured out. “Damn …” she muttered.
At least, she had the water spell. As she pumped she sang, and the cold clear water flowed.
There was a gulp from the door that she ignored as she splashed away the dust and grime from her face and arms as well as she could. She had to repeat the spell once before she felt halfway refreshed, and she felt like she’d drunk as much as she’d washed with.
“Lady Anna?”
She looked up to see Brill standing there. Behind him stood Liende, Palian, and Daffyd. She thought she could see the shadows of the others out in the courtyard.
“Yes?”
“The water’s not that …”
“I took care of it.” She lowered the handle again and a stream of clear icy water gushed out.
Brill moistened his lips, then added, “We’re to join Lord Barjim for dinner. As soon as we can.”
She looked down at herself. “Like this?”
“You look better than most of us.”
She waited while Brill splashed the worst of the road grime off himself, and then they walked toward the center section of the eastern wall.
Two guards stood by the closed wooden door.
“Lord Brill and Lady Anna,” said Brill.
The older guard nodded and opened the door.
As they stepped through the door, Anna’s mouth watered at the smell of bread, and some form of cooked food, a stew, she thought, and she swallowed.
The low-ceilinged room held a trestle table and benches. The only light came from four individual candles spaced down the table. Barjim sat at the only chair at the head of the table. Alasia, dusty and as hard-looking as any soldier, sat on his left. Seven men sat at the benches. Anna recognized Sepko and Dekas. There were two empty places across from Alasia.
“Sit down, sorcerer, lady sorceress.” The Lord of Defalk gestured but did not rise.
“Thank you,” Brill said.
Anna forced a smile, and she tried not to slump onto the bench.
“ … sorcerers … useless … better cold iron …”
Anna turned to the man with the salt-and-pepper beard at the end of the table, catching his eyes. She held them, saying nothing, until the man looked down. She hadn’t realized just how angry she was until that moment.
“One moment, Lady Anna,” said Alasia, turning her head toward the foot of the table. “Captain Firis, apologize to Lady Anna. I won’t bother to explain. I would suggest you talk to Captain Sepko after you leave tonight, and I suggest you offer thanks to the harmonies for my intervention.”
Firis opened his mouth, then looked at Barjim’s hooded eyes, then back at Anna.
Anna saw the contempt there, and began to think about spells. She could substitute the word “captain” for “armsman” in the variation on the candle spell. She hummed slightly, trying to get the pitch right.
Dekas looked at Firis and shook his head sadly. Sepko opened his mouth.
At the sound of the humming, Firis paled. “I apologize, Lady Anna. I apologize.”
“Very wise, Firis.” Barjim turned to Anna and Brill. “The stew’s rather good.”
Firis looked down, but Anna could sense his anger. At the moment she didn’t care, not after having spent two days riding in dust out of obligation to Brill … and then to have some … medieval … idiot … insult her almost before she’d seated herself.
“You might try the wine,” Alasia suggested. “It’s not quite vinegar.” Barjim’s consort smiled.
Brill took the flagon and poured some for Anna and then himself, while Anna broke off a chunk of bread and ladled the stew across it.
She looked back at Firis. He was still seething, and he glared at her, his dark eyes burning. She thought she caught the word “Bitch …”
Anna looked at his goblet which was wooden, like hers and the others, and concentrated on holding image, words, and melody.
“Goblet there, goblet fair,
flame bright in this air.”
The goblet blazed into a pillar of fire, illuminating the entire room.
Firis fell backward over the bench, carrying Dekas and Sepko with him.
“Lady Anna … was that not a bit … much?” asked Barjim, standing
.
“No.” Anna almost didn’t care. “This isn’t my world. I’ve ridden across a damned desert for two days because—” She broke off. No sense in admitting her obligations. “I’ve been shot because I support you, and I don’t have to take insults from half-educated idiots who don’t even know me.” She glared at Firis. “You have no right to be angry at me, and you have no right to insult me or Lord Brill.”
“If you were a man, I’d challenge you,” hissed Firis, scrambling off the floor as the light from the burning goblet died down into a low flame, his hand on the hilt of his blade.
“Well … Lady Anna?” asked Barjim.
Anna rose. “Perhaps I should go. By your leave?”
Alasia looked at Barjim, mouthing no.
“I think not.” Barjim turned to Firis. “I’m not the brightest lord who ever lived. You know that.” He laughed. “You all know that.” His face turned somber. “Whose side are you on, Firis? It’s strange. I finally get a sorceress with power, and she’s not in the fort a glass, and you want to kill her.”
“You know, she could have turned you into flame as quickly as that cup,” Alasia added.
Anna bowed to the captain. “I apologize, Captain Firis. I am tired. I am not used to riding so far, and the past weeks have been hard. Very hard.”
Firis’s eyes flicked from Barjim to Anna to Alasia and back to Anna. “You obviously need not apologize, Lady Anna.”
“Lord Barjim needs all his captains,” Anna said. “And I am truly sorry to have upset … this group.”
“I would like to point out one matter,” Alasia added, turning to Firis. “When you were wounded at Cheor a spring ago, how would you have felt if Captain Dekas there had suggested you were useless?”
Firis frowned.
“It is not obvious, but Lady Anna took a full war arrow through both shoulder and hand less than three weeks ago, from the dark ones. She has made quite an effort to be here.” Alasia spread her hands.
“The dark ones?” asked Firis.
“They are dead,” Brill said. “Lady Anna also deflected that arrow barehanded, or she would be dead.”
That was an exaggeration, but it would serve, and Anna did not think a correction was in order.
Firis bowed his head. “I apologize.”
“I am sorry,” Anna said. “I really am.”
“Sit down, both of you, and eat,” ordered Barjim. “I need you both, and half the problem is you’re both starving.”
“Might I ask for another cup?” asked Firis sheepishly, with a grin.
Anna avoided a deep sigh of relief as she sat, her legs trembling. She’d botched that, and without Alasia and Barjim, she’d have been in real trouble.
“Eat,” commanded Brill quietly, “or you’ll fall over. You’re pale as snow.”
Her head was pounding, and her vision was almost double, but she managed to take one mouthful, then another. Before she was quite sure how it had happened, her wooden platter was empty, and she found herself reaching for the bread.
Brill passed the stew kettle back to her.
While she couldn’t quite believe she was still hungry, Anna took seconds, trying to listen as she did.
“We’re still not at full strength,” offered the thin, almost dapper man across from Sepko. His iron-gray hair glinted in the candlelight.
“We had a messenger from Lord Jecks this afternoon, Rohar,” replied Barjim. “He will be here with his levies in less than two days.”
“Will the dark ones wait that long, ser?” asked Dekas, after taking a deep swallow of the amber wine.
“Oh, they will wait. They will.” The Lord of Defalk refilled his goblet.
“How many does Jecks have?”
“Twentyscore, or more, and some good archers.”
“Solid man, Jecks is.”
Anna began to have trouble listening after that, just trying to keep from yawning and falling asleep at the table. She shouldn’t have had the goblet of wine, not as tired as she was.
By the time she and Brill returned to the upper level, both Palian and Liende were asleep and snoring.
“Good night, Lady Anna. You made quite an impression.”
“Not a good one, I’m afraid.” Anna yawned in spite of herself.
“Quite good, I think. It will help morale.”
“What?” She yawned again. “That I insulted a captain, flamed a goblet, and made an ass out of myself?”
“You showed spirit, and they need that more than anything.”
“Good night,” Anna said, closing the door. She managed to get her trousers and boots off, but that was all, before she sank onto the pallet.
33
Anna stepped around a clump of manure as she followed Brill through and around the groups of armsmen and toward the steps leading up to the northeast corner watchtower. Despite the dust and dry climate, the fort was beginning to smell—the result of too many animals, too many people, and inadequate sanitation.
The smells didn’t help her throbbing head, probably the result of bad wine, sorcery the night before on an empty stomach, and exhaustion. Sleeping on the raised pallet had been better than on the ground, but not much. A breakfast of bread, hard cheese, and dried apples had helped, but not enough. So had nearly a bottle of cold water, but the spell to clean and chill it had renewed her headache.
“You need to see how this battle will develop,” Brill said over his shoulder as he trudged up the narrow steps. Carrying the mandolin, she followed. Somewhere, she needed to find a corner to practice, even to run through some vocalises. Could she sing separate lines of a spell without triggering the effect? … How far apart?
There was still so much she didn’t know … so much.
As she reached the top of the steps, she stopped by the weathered, iron-bound door in the side of the tower and asked, “Can you practice a spell in phrases—without creating something?”
“Serento used to do that. I never have. I’ll speak the words, or sing the pitches with nonsense syllables.”
Anna pursed her lips. “Could we try that with harmony?”
“Not now.” He shook his head. “If you had come sooner …”
Anna doubted that somehow.
“The players will be here.” The sorcerer gestured to a space no more than five yards square on the western side of the watchtower, protected by the tower itself on the east, and the crenelated wall on the north. There were no protecting walls or rails on the inside, and the drop-off was more than twenty feet. “And I’ll stand here.”
Anna nodded. Where should she stand? She still didn’t exactly know what she was going to do, even though Brill acted as though she did, and she needed to practice, especially given his clear aversion to considering anything resembling harmony or joint spellsinging.
After easing toward the outside parapet and stepping into the shade of the tower, Anna took off her hat, blotting away the sweat that had collected where the leather inside band had pressed against her hair and skin.
“See anything?” The low voice came from above, and Anna looked up, but could see nothing except the crenelations of the watchtower.
“Nothing, except some dust on the road to Mencha.” A laugh followed. “I’m in no hurry to see anything coming down from Ebra.”
“You said it.”
Anna’s lips quirked. Like the sentries above her, she wasn’t in any hurry for the Ebrans, or whoever, to show up.
“Where would be best for you?” asked the sorcerer.
“I don’t know. I need to practice.”
He nodded, and half turned to the west, almost as though he had not heard her, slowly walking along the parapet, then stopping, and leaning forward on the bricks of the wall, his eyes turned to the west.
Anna put on her hat and followed him out of the tower’s shadow, slowly, halting beside him.
“Less than ten leagues, and Loiseau might be a world away.”
She looked westward, the morning sun at her back. The road climbed
up the low hill they had come down the night before and then seemed to vanish.
“Sometimes it seems that way with lots of things,” she answered.
“Sometimes.”
They stood silently for a time, and Anna could feel the sweat beginning to collect under the brim of her hat again, and her hand went to the water bottle at her belt as her eyes studied the barren terrain. Only a few stunted and twisted pines, scattered cactus, some sagebrushlike bushes in the hills, and a few patches of browned grass. Everything else was rock, sand, or bare dirt.
The fort seemed to be almost in the middle of nowhere. The last hut or hovel Anna had seen had to have been a league back toward Mencha. The thinnest of dry streambeds ran along one side of the road that twisted into the mountains.
The eastern gates of the fort were closed, and the wooden span removed, so that the. road ended on the eastern side of the dry moat that encircled the entire fort. The western gates were closed, but the bridge spans were in place. The moat was wider on the north and south sides of the fort, nearly a hundred yards, and much deeper on the eastern side, with precisely fitted brick or stone walls.
Anna studied the approach to the pass again. “Why didn’t you build the fort farther uphill? It looks like this ridge wouldn’t be that hard to ride up and circle away from the fort.”
“The slopes are sandy, and they slow down mounts.” Brill said. “The ramparts are here because the ground seems solid, and because there aren’t any higher cliffs that the dark ones could shake down on the walls. Or use to fire arrows into the fort.”
Anna supposed everything was a compromise, even warfare, and she nodded slowly as she looked farther to the northwest, catching sight of a patch of blue, a small lake that seemed so incongruous in the red-soiled and dry hills, nestled almost at the northern base of the long ridgelike hill that ran to within a hundred yards of the fort’s walls.
A lake? Why in the middle of nowhere?
Then she recalled the comments about water gates, and studied the regularity of the moat on the east side. She studied the moat more closely, finally discovering a circular stone opening, more than ten feet high, on the south side of the northwest corner. She pointed. “How well will it work?”
The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle Page 17