The Saprano Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  49

  We need to go riding," Anna insisted.

  "We?" asked Daffyd.

  "I need to go riding, and you need to guide me and keep me out of trouble," Anna said with a laugh, before lowering her voice and adding, "And Dalila needs us out of her hair."

  "Oh…"

  "Is there anything else you need to do with the lutar right now?"

  "The glue has to set."

  "How soon before it's ready to use?" she asked.

  "It needs at least a coat of varnish. Might be as I could get some from Pelnmor. Say… a few days to dry after that."

  "We can't stay much longer." Anna frowned. "Or I can't. Perhaps I can pay my respects to Lord Hryding in the next day or two." She broke off as Dalila carted Ruetha into the main room.

  "Young woman… I cannot set you down for a moment, and you are in the dirt pouring dust in your hair." Dalila set her daughter on the tabletop with a thump.

  Anna wanted to laugh. Mario had been the same way— into everything all the time. It was funny, and it wasn't. Instead, she asked, "We're going out for a while. Is there anything else we could get you?"

  "Lady Anna… you are the guest. You brought so many things yesterday…"

  "You have been kind and hospitable to a stranger in a strange land…" Anna tried to conceal a wince. That phrase—hadn't it been the title of one of those damned science-fiction books Avery had buried his nose in when she'd tried to talk to him? Avery—Antonio Marsali, the great culture king, who read more science fiction than opera librettos, and she was the one living it. The irony was almost too much.

  Dalila shook her head. "If only more ladies were as you—" She lurched for her daughter, who was inching toward the end of the table. "No, Ruetha. You will be the death of me."

  "She is lively," Anna commented.

  "Like the sun is bright." Daffyd laughed.

  Dalila gave a rueful grin as she picked up her daughter again. "We need to make bread. You can make a little loaf all by yourself."

  Anna's mouth watered at the idea of bread. Why was she always thinking about food and eating?

  "Can I?" came the childish question.

  "Yes," answered Dalila.

  "Are you certain we cannot get you anything?" Anna asked.

  "Not today. I must cook what we have." Dalila smiled over her shoulder. "And let Ruetha bake her bread."

  Anna pulled on the now clean floppy-brimmed hat, and the player and the sorceress walked out to the rear stables.

  Again, the late-morning sun had turned Synope into a dry, hot oven.

  Farinelli whinnied as Anna approached.

  "Thirsty? Hungry?" she asked, although there was some grain in his manger. The bucket had some water, but Anna walked to the well for more, which she orderspelled before pouring into the horse bucket.

  "Why must you offer so much to Dalila? Madell has not been kind to you." Daffyd led the gray mare out into the sunlight that seemed unending.

  "I haven't been kind to him, either, I suppose." Anna tightened the second cinch, straightened up, and untied the leads.

  "You cursed him with kindness, did you not?"

  "I forced him to be kind to Dalila."

  "He has not always been kind. So that is good."

  "I don't know." Farinelli whuffled as Anna climbed into the saddle. She patted his shoulder. "Don't be so eager. Before long, you'll get plenty of exercise." Then she turned to Daffyd as they rode out of the yard. "People don't change, and one thing leads to another. I protect myself from Madell, and he gets angry at Dalila and wants to hurt her. I stop that, but that doesn't make him less angry. Will he beat his horse? Someone else?"

  Neither spoke as they rode to the end of the lane, and Anna turned the gelding back toward the center of Synope.

  The fine dust rose with each step the gelding took, rising in the still hot air and hanging for an instant, then clinging to Farinelli's legs, while some rose enough to irritate Anna's nose.

  "Does it ever rain here?"

  "Not unless it comes from the north, or sometimes the south. The rains used to come mostly from the east, and the dark ones—"

  "—stopped that," Anna finished.

  "What do you know about Lord Hryding?" asked Anna.

  "He's supposed to be fair, but he's never gotten along well, so they say, with either Lord Barjim or his uncle who used to be Lord of Defalk."

  "That's a barrel-maker's?" asked Anna as they rode past the shop with the half barrel mounted above the partly open door.

  "That's old Fesrik's. He's some sort of cousin of Madell's. Dalila said he's been the only cooper in town since the drought began."

  As they rode westward, Anna studied the center of Syn-ope, more carefully now that she was more rested. "What's the stone platform for?"

  "Used to be where they made announcements on market day, or where traveling dramaturges performed. Most towns have platzes, but market days haven't been much lately, and no one can spare coppers for a dramaturge or a troupe."

  "And Yuril's? What does he sell?" Anna guessed that the green sign signified something for sale, although she didn't know what the crossed candles meant.

  "Some of just about everything. Most chandleries do. Leather goods, travel food, bedrolls, candles, of course…"

  "What's to the south?" Anna gestured to her left.

  "That leads to the bridge, the one over the Synor River, and the road to Sudwei. Sudwei is at the north entrance to the South Pass. That's the only real trade road left to Ranuak."

  Anna struggled, trying to fit Sudwei into her mental map of Defalk. "You mentioned some lord there once?"

  "Geansor. He was crippled in putting down a peasant uprising. They say the leaders were paid by those women in Ranuak." Daffyd shrugged. "I would not know, but I guess he had to be most careful in balancing between Barjim and the matriarchs, especially since he cannot ride or lead his levies."

  Anna wanted to shake her head. Did it always come down to military ability?

  50

  Just after mid-morning Anna and Daffyd rode west past the center of Synope toward the Synor River—and Lord Hryding's holding. Although it was far earlier in the day than when she and Daffyd had first entered the town, or on their previous rides, the town center still looked nearly deserted.

  A single horse stood outside Yuril's, and two women crossed the square from the Cup and Bowl, wearing hats with brims wider than Anna's as protection against the endless sun. Each step they took raised a puff of the fine red dust.

  Anna patted Farinelli and could feel the long tail swish behind her, seeking one of the infrequent flies that bit hard enough to draw blood. Anna involuntarily raised her hand to brush the unseen insect from the vicinity of the back of her neck.

  She shifted her weight in the saddle. With each hour— or glass—the past days had felt more and more confining, as if an unseen noose, or something, were being tightened around her. The mirror images of the four seeking her hadn't helped that feeling.

  His nose itched, and she rubbed it gently.

  A yellow dog lay in the shade of an empty water barrel beside a vacant dwelling, its shutters askew. The dog barely looked up as the two rode past.

  "Will the lutar be ready tomorrow?" Anna asked.

  "You ask every day, but… yes, it will be ready." Daf-fyd paused. "What it will sound like—that I do not know."

  "I don't, either, but let's hope it's halfway melodic… and loud."

  "Why are you going to see Lord Hryding? I asked before, and you did not say."

  "Call it politics," Anna explained.

  "Is that another one of your strange magics?"

  "I wouldn't call it magic, but it is an art, one at which I haven't been as good as I should have been." She looked westward. "Is that it?"

  From a distance, the building on the low hill overlooking the river resembled an Italian or Mediterranean villa, with blank white walls that appeared to surround a central courtyard.

  "Yes, and the banner s
ays that he is home."

  As they rode nearer, Anna could make out a low wall, slightly less than three yards tall, which circled the hall.

  Less than a dek farther along, a side road led to a gate in the wall—less than a few hundred yards from the main road. The unguarded iron-bound wooden gates were hinged open, and did not look as though they had been closed in years.

  Halfway up the hill on the right side, they passed an orchard similar in layout to that of Brill's except the trees were those Anna had seen on the way into Synope.

  "Olive trees?"

  "That is what Dalila told me."

  On the southern side of the road was a long wooden shed, and in the shade several chickens pecked at the ground. Farinelli whuffed and tossed his head slightly.

  "They're only chickens." Anna patted the gelding.

  About fifty yards short of the white-walled villa, a hitching rail had been provided under a slanted tiled roof, with a stone water trough beneath as well. A curved stone path ran from the roofed area toward the hall or villa.

  Anna reined up, dismounted, and tied up Farinelli near the middle, where it would remain shady as the day progressed. She patted his shoulder. "You stay here. You get water, anyway." After extracting the mandolin from the left saddlebag, Anna started up the walkway, and Daffyd hurried to catch up to her.

  A young and stocky armsman watched from beside the covered archway that was presumably the entrance to the villa. There were no windows on the ground level, and but a few on the second level, all with heavy shutters. The third level had a number of windows, and several were even open.

  The other concessions to defense or the violent nature of Liedwahr were the thick walls and the crenelated parapets above the walls, although the highest point on the villa walls could not have been more than ten yards above the ground in front of the arched entrance.

  The two heavy and iron-banded doors to the archway were open, and the single armsman in a pale green tunic stood in the shade of the curved roof that projected out from the archway that held the doors.

  Anna let Daffyd take the lead.

  "This is the lady Anna. She is a sorceress here to pay her respects to Lord Hryding," Daffyd announced.

  "You don't exactly look like a lady," observed the guard. "These days everyone wants to see Lord Hryding."

  Daffyd frowned. "Give him a spell."

  The armsman did not quite smirk.

  "Are you thirsty?" Anna asked. "Would you like some cold clear water?"

  "Sure, and how will you deliver it? With that little sound box?"

  Anna strummed the mandolin.

  "Since now he's faced this duty's waste without of a taste of cool, clear water, shower him now with water cold and clear…"

  The equivalent of several gallons of freezing water cascaded over the armsman.

  Anna stepped back, and began to sing the repulsion spell even before the guard stepped forward.

  He bounced almost against the stones.

  "Now…" Anna said sweetly, "I could have turned you into a flame, but I didn't. Do you think I'm a sorceress or not?"

  "Calmut!"

  Anna looked up. A silver-headed man, dressed in pale green, with a broad smile on his face, leaned out of the parapet above.

  "Yes, ser?" The guard looked up.

  "I would be most happy to receive the lady. I also think you need to help Sestor muck the stables later. I appreciate your checking on the lady's abilities, but I have to question your brains in trying to attack after she proves them." The green-clad lord added, "And I appreciate your forbearance, lady. Loyalty is hard to find these days."

  Calmut stepped aside, then opened the door, his lips tight. "Take the stairs there, all the way to the top."

  As Anna and Daffyd started up the wide stone stairs, the guard slowly retreated to the front door, shaking his head, and the water from his hair.

  The silver-haired lord waited at the top of the steps, a smile upon his tanned face. "I am Lord Hryding."

  Anna bowed. "I am Anna, and this is Daffyd." She felt that Hryding was honest, though she couldn't have said why.

  "Let us go out to the roof garden, and you can tell me why you have chosen to honor an old man." Hryding gestured down a short arched hallway that showed greenery and sky at the end.

  Anna stepped out of the arched corridor into relative coolness and shade. An awning stretched from above the arched doorway out to the roof garden, and a round-faced woman with frizzy, henna-colored hair sat at the round wooden table under the awning. She was younger than Hryding, in her early thirties, or younger, Anna judged, since life was obviously harder in Liedwahr than on earth.

  The garden behind the table where the woman sat was small, four yards wide and a dozen long, bordered by brick-edged flower boxes filled with red and pink blooms, and containing several small palmlike trees.

  Anna looked around. The third level of the hall consisted of rooms opening onto a tiled terrace that encircled and overlooked the central courtyard. Each room had both shuttered windows and a louvered door—probably for ventilation. Beyond the edge of the garden was a waist-high wall that also followed the terrace all the way around the hall's upper level, providing a barrier between the terrace and the two-story drop-off to the courtyard below. Some trees growing up from the courtyard's lowest level protruded above the wall, and a hint of moisture suggested to Anna that the lower courtyard might have a fountain.

  "This is my consort Anientta. Dear, this is the lady Anna, and her player Daffyd."

  "You are young," said Anientta, nodding her head politely. "What brings you to Flossbend?"

  Hryding picked up a small bell and rang it gently. "Please be seated." He gestured to the chair beside Anientta, then looked at Daffyd and nodded toward the empty seat on his consort's right.

  Anna slipped into the curved wooden armchair, surprisingly comfortable despite its lack of upholstery. "Thank you." She turned to Anientta. "I am new to Liedwahr, and I wanted to pay my respects."

  "New to Liedwahr…" mused Hryding. "Your words do have an odd flavor to them." He took the chair across the table from the three, looking up as a slim youth in a sleeveless pale green tunic and matching trousers appeared. "Nerio… some of the cold berry juice, if you please, for all of us."

  The youth bowed and turned, then headed back through the archway.

  "From where have you come? Far Sturinn? Or the Western Isles? Or cold Pelara? You look Pelaran with that blonde hair." Anientta smiled indulgently.

  Anna forced herself to return the smile, even though she disliked the other woman's condescending tone, "Much farther…"

  "She is a sorceress," suggested Hryding. "I had to laugh when she doused poor Calmut with ice water. He was so angry he tried to jump her, but Lady Anna was merciful. She just bounced him back a few paces."

  Anientta's frown was brief. "A sorceress? Are you perhaps looking for a patron?''

  Anna shook her head. She hadn't even answered the last question. "No. I am very new here. Do most sorcerers or sorceresses have patrons?"

  "Some sorcerers do," Hryding said. "Most sorceresses do. I think the Lady Peuletar was the last independent sorceress, but she died when I wasn't much more than a boy. Lord Brill, the harmonies rest his soul, was independent…" His words stopped, and his eyes sharpened. "I am unintelligent. Are you the sorceress who was at the Sand Pass battle?"

  Anna nodded.

  "Is it true that you were summoned from the mist worlds?"

  "Yes," Anna admitted. "You can see why I am not familiar with the customs of your world."

  "It was said that you perished with Lord Brill."

  "I had some difficulty,'' Anna said, hating to admit the weakness, "and Daffyd carried me out." She paused as the young server Nerio appeared with a tray, a pitcher, and four goblets.

  As Nerio filled the pewterlike goblets, Hryding cleared his throat and lifted a goblet. "Would you honor us with your presence here at Flossbend, Lady Anna, for a few days?"

&nb
sp; "I appreciate the offer, Lord Hryding, but it might be best if I did not impose upon your hospitality—not for long, anyway."

  Hryding's face clouded, and he half lowered the goblet.

  "I do not wish to offend you," Anna said. "But so far almost every lord who has offered me hospitality for any lengthy period is dead." That was true. Although Anna doubted she was exactly the reason, she felt staying at Flossbend would not be a good idea with Anientta's unspoken hostility, although the lord's offer was certainly tempting, especially given the strain created by Madell.

  "Surely, one day would not cause great problems?"

  "For a day or so I would be most pleased and honored," Anna said, "but more than that would trouble my conscience."

  "We should begin with a midday meal, then."

  Anna grinned. "That would be no problem, and I deeply appreciate your warmth and hospitality."

  Again, Anna caught the tinge of irritation or anger from Anientta.

  Hryding lifted the bell, and before the echo had died away, Nerio had reappeared.

  "The midday repast for all of us, and the children, and Gestatr and our guests. Tell Gestatr that I would greatly appreciate his presence. We will use the west awning."

  Nerio nodded and slipped away.

  Anna wondered what other people were hidden away— guards and the like.

  "How do you find our land?" asked Anientta pleasantly.

  "Hot… very dry," Anna said. "I am told that the dark ones have caused the dryness."

  "So say the sorcerers, and, I must admit, I do not recall any years since my boyhood that were as dry as the last four or five," Hryding said slowly. "It is hard to believe that they have such power."

  "They do," replied Anna, thinking of the massive storm clouds and the lightnings that had smashed the fort.

  "How is it—" began Hryding.

  "And the people, what of them?" asked Anientta. "Are we so different?"

  "I have not met that many people besides sorcerers, players, and armsmen, but those I have met seem like people anywhere." Anna turned to Hryding. "You were asking, lord?"

  "Oh… it will wait." The older man smiled pleasantly.