"You could have run out the door."
"The other one had a knife, and he was in the way." Anna straightened in the saddle. "Besides, I've run too many times, and I'm not running now. But I'm angry. Are those my choices? Kill someone or run? Submit to some dirty beast or kill him? Or scream for armed men so that they can use force?"
"All men are not like that," Markan said.
Anna sighed. "No. You're right. They aren't, but there are a lot who are. Too damned many."
"There are too many women who lie and scheme, I'd wager," Markan said softly.
"No more than—" Anna stopped. What was the point of arguing about it? Some men were violent. Some women schemed. Both lied, and it seemed as though they all responded only to force, and she felt trapped between them. She shook her head. "We need to find Lord Kysar's hall."
She turned Farinelli onto the road that led toward the river, and before long they were on' the outskirts of Pamr, headed toward a stone-pillared bridge. Anna saw no sign of a hall or extensive tended grounds, only an older woman carrying two heavy bundles who trudged along the road. The woman looked up warily as Anna slowed Farinelli.
"Where would I find Lord Kysar's hall?" .
"You're headed in the wrong direction, girl. He's out the north road. Best be careful. There's a bunch of armsmen and some levies gathered there." She looked at the arms-men. "You going to join them?"
"Not that we know of," Anna answered.
"That be good. Wish the old lord had returned. None of this nonsense. Well, girl… don't just look at an old woman. You got places to go. So do I."
"Thank you." Anna laughed, much preferring the older woman's approach to that of the late Forse. She turned Farinelli, and they headed back through Pamr, avoiding the chandlery. There was no smoke rising, and that meant at least she hadn't destroyed the building with its chandler.
Lord Kysar's hall was more like Hryding's than Brill's, white-walled and austere from without, with a lower wall around the immediate grounds. Even from the road, it was clear that the hall was larger, with more than a dozen outbuildings. The biggest differences were the dozens of tents and the camped levies arrayed on each side of the road from. the wall gate to the hall proper.
A sole sentry stood by the gate, a bow leaning against the dusty stucco-plaster wall.
Anna rode up to the guard. "I'm the lady Anna. Could you tell me who the captain is here?"
The soldier looked from Anna, then to Daffyd, and then to the three armsmen and the pale green banner that Fridric bore. "What business is it of yours? Whose banner is that?"
"The banner is Lord Hryding's," Anna said firmly.
The soldier looked doubtful.
"Your captain should be the one to deal with the lady Anna," suggested Markan.
"That's right, boy," said a deeper voice. A grizzled armsman stepped out of the shade of the gate arch and nodded to Anna, and then to Markan and Daffyd. "This here sorceress killed a dozen score or more of them dissonant Ebrans. I was in the fort tower, and I saw it all." The older man bowed to Anna. "Not as I know your name, lady, but I owe you my life. So's a lot of us. Captain Firis, he'll be glad to see you."
Anna wondered, but she only said, "Thank you. I don't know your name, either. You may recall Daffyd. He was one of the players who helped destroy some of the dark ones. Markan here is a senior armsman from Lord Hryding in Synope."
The young guard still looked doubtful, his eyes traveling between the older armsman and Anna.
"Look at the banner, lad." The older man turned back to Anna. "I'm Meris, lady. You would be wanting to see the captain, would ye not?"
"I had thought it would be useful."
"Aye, and it might, with what we don't know, and all the tales that are flying about. Follow me. His tent's up yonder. You keep the gate, lad."
The young sentry opened his mouth, and Anna glared at him. If one poor sorceress and four men could disrupt a small army, then the army wasn't worth much anyway. She guided Farinelli through the archway and after Meris who strode briskly along the narrow rutted road.
A small awninglike tent stood beside the road leading up to an ancient white-walled hall on a hill so slight it was barely a knoll.
"You wait here. I'll be announcing you," Meris stated.
As he marched toward the pair of guards outside the tent, Fridric murmured to Stepan. "People know her."
"Would you forget her?" Stepan whispered back. Anna tried not to flush.
The young captain with the salt-and-pepper beard practically rushed from the tent. Then he stood and looked at her. "Lady Anna… more beautiful than ever." Firis bowed. "And more deadly, I wager."
"Angrier, anyway," Anna said, feeling somehow ashamed as she did.
"I had heard so many stories—that you had escaped, that you had fallen on the wall holding back the Ebrans, that you had turned half their forces into charred corpses…"
"Actually," the sorceress said, "in a way, all of those are true. I've been recovering in Synope as the guest of Daffyd's family"—she gestured toward the young violist— "and of Lord Hryding. Captain Firis, this is Markan, representing Lord Hryding."
"You must be tired. At least, you could join me for some refreshments. We do not have much, but you are more than welcome to what we have."
"Thank you." Anna swung off Farinelli and held on to the saddle for a moment while her legs readjusted.
"You still have that beast?"
"He lets me keep him around." Anna smiled, then led the gelding a dozen paces to the rough hitching rail, glancing up at the afternoon sun.
"I'll have water brought for your mounts." Firis turned to Meris. "Could you see that the water detail brings some buckets here?"
"Yes, captain." "And thank you for escorting the lady Anna. Your name is…?"
"Meris, ser."
"I'll remember that." Firis laughed. "And not the way most captains do, armsman."
Meris smiled faintly.
"So will I, Meris," Anna added. "You've been helpful when many would not be."
"Thank you, lady."
The armsman turned and left, not before a broad smile crossed his lips.
"You two fellows can refresh yourselves here." Firis gestured to Stepan and Fridric, then led Anna, Markan, and Daffyd through the lower front of the tent to a portico at the rear, open to a faint breeze on three sides, where a portable table and a half dozen stools stood.
"I would offer you water, lady, but…"
"Bring some," Anna suggested, "and I'll cool it and purify it. Tired or not, that I can do." She stood behind one of the stools, not ready to sit again quite yet.
Firis motioned to a youth. "Some water and two clean pitchers. Also, a jug of the better wine and some bread." He turned back to the three. "It will be a moment."
After a moment of silence, Daffyd spoke. "Why would you say Lady Anna is more deadly?''
"I saw what she did to the Ebrans." Firis tightened his lips and turned back to Anna. "I am glad you were kind to me. You know, you are being sought by the Prophet."
"I know. I don't like it. Lord Hryding showed me the proclamation."
"Yet you appear to be headed to Falcor." Firis stopped as the young orderly reappeared with a grimy-looking bucket and two pitchers.
Anna winced. "Fill the pitchers first."
After the youthful armsman did, she sang the water spell, and immediately moisture beaded on the outside of both the battered metal pitchers. Anna's head pounded with the effort, but she said nothing.
"You amaze me," offered the captain, handing the first goblet to Anna, who drank it all, then perched on the stool.
She waited for the others to drink before she refilled her battered goblet and took several more sips. With the water alone she felt refreshed, but her mouth still watered when the orderly reappeared with two long loaves of bread.
None of the travelers said much until everyone had at least one good-sized chunk of the bread.
"Would you be willing to tell
me why you are here?" Firis finally asked.
"I felt that I needed to go to Falcor. I understood that the Ebrans are in Mencha—"
"They are. They now hold the walled camp that Lord Brill created for Lord Barjim." The captain shook his head. "What a waste."
"Then Lord Hryding received that scroll." Anna shrugged. "If I remain long with anyone, they risk angering Lord Behlem. So… I thought it best to go meet him. He says he'll oppose the Ebrans."
"I am certain he will." Firis snorted. "And how will we be any better off under him than under the Evult of the dark ones?"
"From what very little I have seen," Anna said, "almost any ruler would be preferable to the dark ones."
"Unhappily, you are on the mark." Firis sighed. "But choosing one's slavemaster is not the best of situations."
Anna didn't have an answer for that. "What are you doing here?"
"I have been asked to support Lady Gatrune and Lord Kysar's son and heir, young Lord Kyrun, and Lord Barjim was no longer available…" Firis shrugged. "We all do what we must." He smiled. "I can offer you supper, and I am sure that we can find a better place for you to rest here than in Pamr. I suspect Lady Gatrune would be pleased to guest you, and I can offer food and shelter to the rest of your party."
"That would be welcome," Anna said slowly. "Very welcome." She didn't like separating from Daffyd and Markan, but if she didn't use and develop any possible political advantages, her career and life in Liedwahr might be very short—short indeed.
56
As the sun hung above the western horizon, the distant trees that bordered the Chean River were black outlines above the fields of a green so dark that they also appeared black from the low hill. Anna carried her saddlebags and walked beside Firis.
"You know, Lady Anna, I owe you something, but bright as I am, I cannot tell you what it is. I can only tell you how it came to be."
"I'm a little too tired for puzzles or riddles, captain, although I hope I may have been helpful in some way." Anna's legs and feet hurt, and despite the bread and water, and some cheese, her head still ached. Her shoulders were as tight as an overtightened timpani, and her neck felt worse.
"Bear with me, lady. You could have destroyed me, and no one would have gainsayed your right to do so." Firis laughed softly. "I saw what you did to my goblet, and the Ebrans, and you could have done that to me. You did not. You apologized, and you said that Barjim needed all his captains. I was angry. Though I jested, I was angry. Then I saw you give all that you had to save people you scarcely knew, and I was one of them, and I had wanted to slay you." The captain paused short of the tiles of the small covered archway before the door where another sentry stood. "As the walls were falling, the black ones advancing, you remained, and I thought. Rather than flee as so many had, as I had every right to do, because you stood fast, I gathered all those I could, and I held them together, and brought them here because most of those I gathered were levies from Pamr. They—and the lady Gatrune—made me their captain. I accepted, since with Lord Barjim dead, and my company destroyed, I had nowhere else to be welcomed." Firis shrugged. "That is why I owe you."
"Captain, I am flattered, and I admit I'm pleased that whatever I did inspired you, but you had the courage and the abilities to undertake those duties. No one can take that from you, and they shouldn't." Anna smiled. "I am glad you are here."
Firis bowed. "If ever I can offer aid, you know where I am."
"You already have. Thank you." She lowered her voice. "Thank you very much."
The captain stepped up to the sentry. "I am escorting the lady Anna to see the lady Gatrune."
"She is expecting you, ser." The blonde sentry opened the wide louvered door that stood behind the open, iron-banded main door^
A young, white-capped woman stood in the small entry hall. "If you would follow me, captain and lady…"
The serving maid led them down the narrow corridor to a wide set of brick steps and then up two flights and along another hallway to a room resembling a salon—except that the northern side was open to the courtyard below, the only barrier being a waist-high, wrought-iron railing.
A big-boned woman with white-and-blonde hair stood from the padded leather chair and stepped forward, the first woman the sorceress had seen in Liedwahr who was both substantially taller and bigger than Anna was.
"This is the lady Anna," Firis said. "Lady Gatrune."
"Thank you, captain." Gatrune's eyes studied Anna for a moment. "We are indebted to you, and I am pleased to meet you.'*
"If you do not need me…" Firis said quietly.
"You may go. Thank you."
As Firis slipped away, Gatrune gestured to the leather chair that faced and matched hers. "You look tired. Please be seated. I would like to talk with you for a bit. Then you can wash up and change—do not worry. There are plenty of gowns in your room. And then we will have something to eat. You look as though you have been starving.''
Anna did not stand on ceremony, but dropped into the chair, easing the saddlebags to the floor by her feet. Starving? Did she look that bad?
"Would you like some mulled cider?" asked the aging blonde.
"Yes, if you wouldn't mind."
Gatrune poured the amber liquid from the pitcher into an empty goblet sitting on the low table between the two chairs. Then she refilled the other goblet and took a deep swallow.
Anna sipped hers, enjoying the faint bite, but fearing that too much too soon would leave her on the floor.
"I had heard that there was a sorceress at the battle, but until Captain Firis introduced you, I never would have guessed. You look so young…" Gatrune extended the enameled wooden tray that held sliced apples.
"I'm not." Anna took several of the apple sliees, eating them between words as she summarized and sanitized her long tale, beginning with her arrival and ending with a shrug. "It's proved very disconcerting, and provided more than a little trouble." Should she tell Gatrune of her encounter with the chandler? She frowned.
"Your frown says there is more to your tale, and it is not pleasant. I would not impose."
Anna smiled ruefully. "One lord's consort was convinced I was going after him, and your local chandler attempted to rape me. I was successful in defusing the issue with the consort."
" 'Defusing'… a strange word…"
"We reached a rough understanding," Anna amplified. "The chandler was not so… reasonable. When I stopped him gently—the spell was to keep him from touching me— he tried to kill me with a bow, since he couldn't touch me."
"That would have been Forse, no doubt. I won't let any of the serving girls go near the chandlery." Gatrune frowned. "So what did you do?"
Anna sighed. "I turned him into a bonfire. It was the only way I had left to protect myself after he and his friend barred the door."
"Kysar had always told me that Forse was to be watched, but I had thought of that in terms of the serving girls or Herene—she is my younger sister, and ward, now that our father has passed on."
"I'm sorry," Anna said automatically, even as she wondered exactly why she was sorry.
"You are dangerous." The widow laughed. "So Forse received his due, even after a warning." She took a sip from her crystal glass. "Many of the men in Pamr will be distressed, I'm sure. I cannot think of a single woman who would be."
"But it's sad," Anna said. "Why is it that some people only respect force?" And why do I have to be the one to apply that force?
"Most of them are men," Gatrune said.
"Is that because they're men, or because they're powerful and don't want to give up any power? If women were as powerful, would they be any different?'' Am I any different? If sorcery makes me more powerful, will I turn out like them?
"I think I might like to find out. Even now, strong as I am, I must rely on a strong captain, and the fact that I have a brother who is a lord. That's Nelmor—he holds the estates at Dubaria—they're a good two days' ride north of Denguic, and the ground is rocky enough that our
next ruler, that so-called Prophet of Music, hasn't bothered even to seek fealty. The ground won't support much except goats and sheep, but those in Denguic and Elioch and even Falcor will pay for good goat cheese." Gatrune laughed. "I prefer cow cheese, personally. That comes from all the years of making the goat cheese."
"I'm not much for goat cheese." Anna shifted position in the leather chair. Comfortable as the chair was, every part of her body seemed sore.
"Anyway, with my next dispatch, thanking him for the cheese, and it is useful, especially for feeding the staff, I will tell him of you, and that you are to be trusted." Gatrune lifted her goblet. "I can tell who is and who isn't. Kysar was always surprised, but I've never been wrong yet, and it's been years." She shrugged. "What good our support will do, one never knows, dear, these days, but…"
Anna felt dazed by the outpouring, but she nodded. "You trust your feelings."
"Exactly. Too many people rely on proofs or words. Words are spoken on the wind; feelings are rooted in the soil and the harmonies." Gatrune refilled the goblet. "Then there's Firis. He is convinced that he owes you." Gatrune smiled. "Because he does, and because he returned with enough levies to protect the hall and holding, Kyrun and I owe you."
"Kyrun is your son?"
Gatrune nodded. "You will meet him later, but don't expect much. He's but five." The lady of the hall took a long pull from her goblet, then looked at Anna. "Will you serve Lord Behlem?"
"You must have read his proclamation." Anna was taken slightly aback by Gatrune's directness.
"I did. I also agreed to his terms, as you will, if I'm not mistaken."
"I am new to this world," Anna said slowly, taking another sip of the strong spiced cider. "But it would appear that Lord Behlem might be preferred over the dark ones."
"He doubtless is, but—" Gatrune shrugged. "It won't be easy, especially for you. No matter how old you really are, and it is hard to believe you have children as old as my younger sister, you look young, and you are beautiful, and that will have Cyndyth ready to have you killed, if she can manage it. If you don't help Behlem, they'll both want you out of the way. I don't envy you."
The Saprano Sorceress Page 28