The Saprano Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  "Cyndyth? I beg your pardon… but I am new…"

  Gatrune laughed ruefully. "I apologize. Even in this time of sadness, it is refreshing to talk to a woman who doesn't look over her shoulder for her lord, and I forget that you do not know everyone. Cyndyth is Lord Behlem's consort, and she is also the daughter of the Liedfuhr of Mansuur." With a look at Anna's face, she continued. "Mansuur is the westernmost country in Liedwahr, well beyond the Great Western Forest, and about the size of Ebra, Nordwei, Defalk, Ranuak, and Neserea all together."

  "Oh…"

  "It's not exactly a great holding, but almost a confederation. I think that by joining Cyndyth to Behlem he was hoping to induce young Behlem to join Mansuur. Either that, or have him assassinated, and then move to annex Neserea in the guise of protecting Rabyn—that's his grandson, Cyndyth's only child. Something like that. The Norweians oppose Mansuur, and they've offered some support to Neserea. Even the Matriarch of Ranuak has been warmer to Neserea—with some caution."

  Anna tried to concentrate on Gatrune's words, but she was tired, and some seemed to slip through her brain without totally registering.

  "You're still hungry and tired, and I'm prattling on. It's lonely here, and Kysar was really the only one I ever could talk to. For all his bluffness, he was a good sort, and I never thought I'd find a consort." For a moment, wetness clouded Gatrune's bright eyes—but only for a moment. The older woman stood. "You need to wash up, and then we'll eat, and you can tell me about the mist worlds."

  Anna had to struggle to her feet as she followed the taller lady from the salon. She hoped she would last until dinner. Starving? How could she force herself to eat more? It seemed as though all she did was eat… eat and ride… and watch her back. She almost tripped as her boot caught the edge of a floor tile, but she caught herself and continued after Gatrune.

  57

  As she stood by the arched doorway, her stomach full from the warm bread and hot spiced apples, Anna wanted to yawn. She did not want to climb on Farinelli and ride for another two or three days. She just wanted to go back to bed… almost any bed. How long had it been since she had really been able to sleep? Even in Ames, if it hadn't been teaching, or rehearsals, or the job at the Lutheran Church, or…

  Gatrune, in garb similar to Anna's brushed and washed riding clothes, was bright-eyed and smiling, as though she had been awake for hours—glasses, Anna corrected herself—and the lady of Pamr probably had. Everyone in Liedwahr rose at ungodly hours-—or should she try to think of them as dissonant glasses? Either way…

  "Here are two scrolls—one's for Nelmor, just in case you run into him before my messages reach him, and the other is for Lady Essan. You remember, you were sleepy last night, but she is Lord Donjim's widow, and she still has friends and influence in Falcor. Don't seek her out at first, though, because that would set Behlem to worrying, and there's nothing worse than the suspicions of a young and insecure Prophet." Gatrune extended the scrolls to Anna, who balanced the saddlebags across her thigh and slipped them inside.

  "I appreciate your kindness, and I will do what I can when I get to Falcor." Anna glanced toward the shadowed entry hall behind the lady of Pamr, "I did enjoy sleeping in a real bed, and eating hot food. Inns are not exactly plentiful on the roads."

  "The inn in Zechis is good. Kysar and I stayed there. It is the Black Pony, and Visula runs it. You might try it." suggested Gatrune, "although it is a long day's ride."

  "A very long day's ride," added Herene. The younger blonde woman offered a wry smile.

  "Thank you. There's a lot I have to learn about Defalk."

  "That is true of all of us," replied Gatrune, ruffling Kyrun's hair. The boy, already tall for his age, stood beside his mother, wearing a sleeveless tunic and shorts. He was barefoot, and a cowlick gave his short blonde hair a tousled appearance. He shifted his weight from-one foot to the other, as though he wished he were someplace else.

  Anna grinned down at him. "I'll be gone in a bit, and then you can go play or do whatever you do."

  "Lessons, first," Gatrune said, "then play."

  "Do I have to?"

  "Yes." Gatrune and Herene spoke simultaneously.

  "Yes, Mother." Kyrun's tone was polite, but resigned, without being pouty.

  "What you learn in your lessons can be useful later in life." Anna paused, then added. "Especially when you have to act before you have the time to learn what you should have learned as a child."

  "Remember that," suggested Herene. "Great sorceresses do not come along often."

  A great sorceress? Anna had more than a few doubts about that.

  "You are. You will see," predicted Gatrune. "But you need to begin your journey, and my talking will only make it longer." She nodded toward the door, and the stable across the expanse of packed earth.

  "Thank you… again," Anna said.

  "No thanks for what best be done. Don't forget Lady Essan."

  "I won't." Anna hefted her saddlebags and headed toward the stable.

  Daffyd was leading the gray mare out of the cracked-walled stable that seemed far older than the hall itself as Anna crossed the packed earth from the hall. Markan looked up from securing the saddlebags behind his saddle.

  "How did you sleep?" she asked.

  "Well enough," answered Markan.

  "Better than on the road," Daffyd agreed. "Hot food was good, too."

  "Better than travel bread or cheese," added Stepan, bringing out one of the pack mares.

  As usual, Farinelli was unsaddled, and whuffed as Anna neared.

  "I can't believe you ride that beast, lady," offered the stablehand as Anna slipped the saddle blanket in place."He like as chased Greize right out of the stall last night."

  "We get along," Anna said, trying to stifle a yawn. "We're both temperamental." She eased the saddle in place, half realizing that it no longer felt particularly heavy, then went to work positioning it and tightening the cinches. Farinelli edged sideways a fraction, then planted himself as though in resignation. "It's not that bad, old fellow."

  As usual, by the time she was ready and had led the gelding out into the too-early morning sun, everyone else was outside and mounted. Two brown-and-gold dogs sat by the corner of the stable, both already panting, with long pink tongues lolling from the corners of their muzzles.

  Whhhhunnnnnn… Anna glanced toward the whinny from the stable, but could see no one and guessed that some mount wanted to say something to another, or something. With the sun falling on her uncovered forehead, she found her hand feeling for the floppy hat tucked into her belt.

  "Lady Anna." Firis had arrived as well and bowed.

  "Captain Firis." Anna returned the bow. "We appreciate your hospitality, and I wish you well here in Pamr."

  "I wish myself well, also," responded Firis, his hand smoothing the salt-and-pepper beard that made him look . older than his years. "It was good to see you, lady, and may your journey to Falcor be speedy and free of difficulty."

  "Thank you." Anna looked around. Only she was unmounted. She climbed into the saddle, with a great deal more ease and skill than just a few weeks previously.

  "Ready, lady?" asked Markan.

  "Yes."

  Firis offered a half salute as they rode across the packed yard toward the road leading downhill to the gates.

  Anna glanced around. She did not see Meris, but realized Gatrune still stood by the hall entrance. Anna waved and got a wave in response.

  No one spoke for a time as they rode south into Pamr and turned westward into the center of the town. As the five passed down the main street, the handful of men standing outside the chandlery, where a grimy white bow had been placed in the front window, turned toward the horses.

  "That's her!" someone shouted.

  Three of the men stiffened and glanced toward Anna, as if to step into the packed dirt of the street, then paused as they saw the armsmen.

  "Hail the sorceress!" cried an unseen feminine voice.

  The face of the
tall, bearded man in the center of the three clouded, and he raised a clenched fist, looking around quickly for the woman who had shouted.

  Anna turned Farinelli toward him, then reined up. Farinelli snorted loudly, as if to warn the townsman.

  "Don't curse me," Anna said. "And don't raise your hand against me, or any woman. Your lord is now Lady Gatrune, and her captains will support her to your death. She was ill pleased with Forse. So was I. Why would you seek your own death to avenge someone so cruel?" The sorceress waited.

  "No woman should raise her hand to a man," sputtered the bearded man.

  "Then… no man should raise his hand against a woman. After all, a woman bore him, and another will bear his children." Anna waited, then added, "Times are changing, and you should change with them." She flicked the reins, and Farinelli carried her westward past the chandlery.

  "… arrogant bitch!"

  Anna ignored the words, much as she would have liked to do more, but some men would never change, and she couldn't do more for the local women—not yet. Still, it continued to irk her that what would have been sternness in a man was considered bitchiness in her.

  "… you believe that stuff about her flaying the dark ones with fire whips now?" whispered Fridric to Stepan.

  "… don't understand sorceresses… burned that chandler to a crisp, and she was crying. Here she's telling them to shape up, or mayhap die."

  Put in Stepan's terms, Anna thought, some of her actions were strange, but how could she explain what she felt without appearing a total emotion-driven idiot? When she didn't have time to think things out, she had to go by what she felt. When she didn't, she got into even more trouble.

  "Lady!"

  Anna looked up to see a small girl scurrying from a small house toward her. The barefoot brunette carried a basket and lifted it up to Anna, even as the girl's eyes flicked back toward the center of town.

  Almost instinctively, Anna bent to take the basket.

  "Thank you… My mother thanks you, too," whispered the child before she raced back away from the riders.

  Anna's mouth opened, but the girl was gone behind a dusty hedge, and Anna found herself looking at a dirty gray cat that also immediately vanished into the roots of the hedge.

  "I don't think the chandler was well liked by the women of Pamr," said Daffyd.

  "It would not seem so," agreed Markan.

  As she rode, Anna lifted the cloth covering the rush basket. Within were two round cakes, a coarse weave bag that appeared filled with nuts, and a waxed wedge of cheese.

  What could she do with the basket?

  "There's room in the provisions bag," suggested Daffyd. "What's in it?"

  "Cakes, cheese, nuts."

  Markan helped bring the piebald mare up beside Farinelli, and held open the provisions sack while Anna eased the basket in place. She slipped the flowers under the leather strap of her own saddlebags, wishing that she had a better place to put them.

  Between the flowers and the dust, her nose itched again, and they hadn't even left Pamr.

  A quick glance back reassured her that no one was following, but Stepan shook his head. "No one be following you, lady, not from here."

  Was she that fearsome?

  Her eyes went to the road ahead as they neared the bridge over the Chean. Despite the length of the stone span—more than two hundred yards, the river itself was a narrow strip of brownish water between dry mud flats, weeds, and sun-dried water plants. A nondescript brown duck paddled toward the reeds of a small marshy span north of the bridge.

  Farinelli's hoofs clacked loudly on the stones of the bridge, and Anna felt as though she were leaving more than a town where she had spent but a single night, as though the unknown she had already faced were the familiar compared to what lay ahead.

  58

  The sun was still above the western horizon when the five riders passed the roadstone that declared Zechis a mere two deks ahead.

  Daffyd's lips were clamped tightly together, and he swayed in the saddle of the gray mare. Fridric's and Ste-pan's conversation had died away. Anna's legs were sore, and the thigh muscles above her knees threatened to cramp. Her hair felt like it had crawled through a swamp, then been powdered with dust, and her eyes burned from the road grit.

  "A good day's ride, indeed," Markan declared. "We'll like as to be at the inn before sunset, well before sunset."

  Anna pulled her sweat-dampened hat farther down on her forehead to shield her eyes against the sun as they neared the town. Unlike Pamr, the only large trees visible in Zechis were those to the north of the town proper that outlined the banks of the Chean.

  Anna glanced at the house nearest the road, shutters askew, walls brown-splotched and dusty. Nothing moved, except a chicken pecking at the ground on the west side.

  The five rode quietly, the only sounds those of hoofs, harnesses, and horses occasionally snorting.

  Another hundred yards farther into the town, Farinelli danced sideways as a gray dog growled, straining at a rusted chain that held him close to the door of a small hut with cracked and dust-smeared plastered walls that once might have been white.

  "Easy, Farinelli… easy." Anna patted the gelding's shoulder.

  The dog growled once more, then sank back onto his haunches as the travelers passed, their dust subsiding in the hot stillness of late afternoon.

  The inn dominated the central square of Zechis. Perched above a roofed front porch, the sign alone was distinctive, with a painted border of intertwined black and gold triangles, and an enormous black pony. The outside walls had been recently whitewashed, and a youth in rags swept the front steps.

  Markan reined up at the railing beside the front steps, and Anna followed his example, conscious that a quiet had fallen across the handful of men standing in the shade of the east-facing porch. A heavy man in a gray leather vest and a shirt that once could have been white openly leered, while a younger, trimmer man in a sleeveless tunic merely looked.

  Anna bowed to the inevitable, and snapped firmly, but not sharply, "Markan… you and Daffyd come with me."

  The player appeared puzzled, but Markan answered crisply, "Yes, Lady Anna."

  The heavy man in gray looked away. Markan's eyes twinkled, but his face remained stern as the three dismounted and tied their mounts.

  Anna let Markan and Daffyd flank her on the way into the inn. Inside, the main floor was warmer than the porch, and Anna removed the soggy hat. Behind a narrow counter at the end of the entry way stood a narrow-faced woman in a brown shirt.

  "Looking for lodging?"

  "What have you for a party of five?'' Anna asked.

  The woman glanced from Anna, then to the armsman and the player. "And who else?"

  "Two more armsmen," Markan said. "My lady travels light."

  "You can have the corner place, lady. That's a gold, for the private bed and the common room. You get a basin and a towel, and common fare for all."

  The no-nonsense manner indicated that was to be expected, but Anna paused.

  "Our mounts?" asked Markan. "The usual copper each?"

  "For five? That's for hay. If you want grain, say an extra two coppers. Visula might ask four, but it's late." The innkeeper paused. "That's a gold and seven coppers… if you want the grain."

  Anna managed not to fumble with the wallet, and laid a gold and a silver on the counter, waiting.

  The three coppers came back slowly, as if the innkeeper were expecting some largess.

  The sorceress smiled. "Extra service is paid for after it is rendered… if it's merited."

  Markan's lips stiffened momentarily.

  "You won't find better on the whole highway to Falcor, lady. No you won't!"

  "Then I'm sure we'll both be satisfied," Anna answered with a smile.

  "You want I should show you the room?"

  "Daffyd… you come with me. Will you take care of the mounts and baggage, Markan?" Anna asked.

  "We'll stable them and bring things up." Markan tur
ned to the woman keeper. "The front comer or the back?''

  "Back, a'course. Quieter for a lady."

  Anna followed the older woman up stairs barely wide enough for the innkeeper's broad hips, and down a narrow hall where every plank creaked.

  "Here you be."

  The room directly off the hall held six pallets of a dubious nature, an oil lamp on a wall sconce, and a single narrow window.

  Through the door from the outer room, Anna stepped into the corner room. Small, not much more than three yards square, it had a window with the two-shutter arrangement—-louvers on the inside and heavy open shutters on the outside. A single worn towel lay folded across the base on the lumpy narrow double bed that had no pillows. A nightstand containing a basin and pitcher on one side and a single squat lamp with a sooty mantle stood between the bed and the window. Two wooden chairs and a cracked and battered chamberpot completed the furnishings.

  "Be bringing up the water soon as I leave."

  "I'd appreciate that," Anna said.

  The woman sniffed and headed back down the dim hall, the floorboards creaking under her weight.

  "It's not much better than the tents in Pamr," Daffyd observed sourly, massaging his thighs.

  Anna refrained from shaking her head. Compared to the Black Pony, the El Reno Motel she'd stayed in for Irenia's senior recital had been a palace—if only she'd known! If the Black Pony happened to be better than most, Anna wasn't sure she wouldn't prefer a bedroll in the open air to the rest of the inns. Of course, inns probably had greater appeal before the dark ones had cut off all the rain and snow.

  Markan clumped down the hall and into the room, handing Anna her saddlebags and lutar case. "Lady… the way you handled Quisa… even Lady Anientta couldn't have done that." The armsman shook his head and surveyed the room with a laugh. "Hasn't changed much. It's still better than most."

  Anna carried the saddlebags back into her room and set them in the wooden chair closest to the window.

  "Here's a good solid bucket of water!" announced Quisa.