Spellsong 02 - The Spellsong War

by Modesitt Jr, LE

  She smiled back, checking her gear. The lutar was strapped behind her saddle, and she mounted, with an ease she still found surprising.

  "Where to, Lady Anna?" asked the dark-bearded armsman who had replaced the unfortunate Spirda as the head of her personal guard.

  "Falcor ... the merchants' shops south of the liedburg." She might not be able to shop, but she could look and listen ... if anyone would talk.

  Hoofs clicked on the damp stones of the liedburg courtyard as the group rode out under the raised portcullis.

  Anna nodded to the armsmen at the gate, but neither moved. Hanfor's training—or Alvar's or Himar's, she suspected.

  The flat expanse outside the gates that separated the liedburg from the buildings of Falcor was a good hundred yards square. The damp clay was level with the stones of the roadway that led to the gate, but it had taken most of the winter to remove the piles of dirt and debris that the Evult's flood had swirled through the eastern parts of the town.

  Anna turned Farinelli south. Once past the open space, she rode slowly down the street. Various structures, shops on the lower floors and dwellings above them, filled both sides. Even in the chill, small handfuls of people gathered here and there, talking.

  ". . . still the best spices in Falcor . . ."

  ". . . hot fowl! Hot fowl on a chill day . . ."

  ". . . you sure there's no worms in that flour?"

  Anna wanted to smile when she neared the cloth merchant. In the window were the deep-green velvets she remembered from the hot summer day when she'd taken her first ride through Falcor, young and stiff-necked Spirda beside her. She had wanted to stop, but she'd decided that the Erdean equivalent of shopping wasn't a good idea on her first ride. Now, as regent and sorceress, she actually could afford to shop even less.

  A thin girl, her brown hair braided into a roll at the back of her neck, looked at the sorceress from the cloth merchant's door.

  Anna reined up, then dismounted, and handed Farinelli's reins to Fhurgen. She walked toward the girl, who seemed frozen in place.

  Fhurgen handed the reins to another guard, a blond, and vaulted down to stand just behind and beside Anna.

  "You know," Anna said conversationally, "I've ridden past here many times and I've always wanted to stop. Is this your family's shop?"

  "Yes, lady." The girl's voice quavered.

  A squat figure appeared in the door, that of a gray-haired man with drooping mustaches. "How might I help you, lady?"

  "Is this your daughter?" Anna asked.

  "My niece, my sister's daughter. Sirlina, my sister, she was taken by the fever after the flood last fall." His eyes went to the armsmen and to Skent, all except Fhurgen still mounted in the narrow street, then back to Anna. "Forgive me, my lady. What would you have of us?"

  Anna forced a smile as genuine as she could. "I've often admired your shop, and I just wanted to stop and look. I've never had the time."

  "Everything we have is yours." The shopkeeper's forehead was damp, despite the cold.

  "No. It's yours. When I need something, I'll buy it, just like any other customer." She smiled. "You work for what you earn, and you pay your levies. I'm not about to make your life harder."

  The street darkened as one of the puffy clouds drifted across the sun, and the girl shivered in the slight breeze. Anna found the thin jacket more than warm enough. Winter, even late winter, in Defalk was far warmer than even parts of fall and spring had been in Ames, but not nearly so windy and gray.

  The cloth merchant frowned. "Our velvets and woolens are the finest—"

  "I can see that." Anna took a deep breath and looked toward Fhurgen, fumbling at her belt wallet. She had some silvers and golds that were hers personally, mostly left from the expenses she'd received from Behlem half a year earlier. "I'd like to look here for a moment."

  The black-haired Fhurgen marched past Anna and the merchant, looking around the shop before nodding at Anna.

  The regent stepped inside and turned to the girl. "What's your name?"

  "Kirla, lady."

  "Kirla, can you tell me about the velvets?" Anna gestured toward the bolt of green.

  The girl glanced toward her uncle. The shopkeeper offered a thin smile, then said, "Go ahead, Kirla."

  "Well . . . lady. The green, that's a cotton velvet, and it's from Sylwa. The cotton is pale green, and they dye the threads first before they go on the looms. The red is from the Ostisles, and Uncle says that it's not as good because they dye the fabric after they cut the pile." She glanced back at her uncle again, who nodded.

  "What about the blue?" prompted Anna.

  "The blue is like the green, but the blue dyes don't hold as well because the cotton is dun, not green or blue. I mean, with the green, lady . . ." Kirla opened her mouth, then shut it helplessly.

  "I think I understand. Because the green is dyed over a natural light green cotton, it holds its color better over time. Is that it?"

  The brown-haired girl nodded. "Yes, lady."

  "How much is the green?" Anna turned to the shopkeeper. "Normally, that is?"

  "Ah . . . last year, last year, before the troubles, the green was five silvers a yard."

  Anna managed a nod, even as the cost of the cloth staggered her, momentarily—a yard of velvet more than a half-year's earnings for a peasant. Still, from what history she remembered, before steam looms cloth had been equally expensive on earth.

  Anna glanced to Fhurgen, then to the girl. Neither seemed surprised. "But you haven't sold any since then?"

  The shopkeeper looked down. "No, lady."

  Anna thought. She could use another gown—she only had three, and a regent needed more. Sorcery would turn the cloth into a gown, when she had a moment, and she'd already worked out the spellsong. For what she had in mind, she'd need a good four yards, maybe five.

  "Do you have five yards?" she temporized.

  "Lady, I have ten," the shopkeeper blurted.

  "Ten, I can't use. Two golds for five yards." That would make a serious dent in her personal funds.

  The shopkeeper looked stunned. "I would give you a mere five yards."

  "No. All I ask is that you pay your levies and ... be a good person." She'd wanted to ask him to be a good citizen, but that concept didn't really exist in Liedwahr, not in the way she would have meant it. Anna dug out the two golds and extended them. "If you wouldn't mind cutting the fabric and delivering it to the liedburg . . . ?"

  "Of course, Lady Anna. Of course." He sounded as though he had finally realized exactly who she happened to be, but Anna had to take his hand and actually put the coins there.

  He looked down at the two golds as if he could not believe they were real.

  "They're real. No sorcery." Anna looked to the girl. "Thank you, Kirla."

  Kirla bowed. "Thank you, lady."

  Anna smiled. "I've always wanted to come here. I just never had time."

  She didn't know what else to say. So she inclined her head slightly, still smiling, and left.

  Outside, once she had remounted, Fhurgen leaned toward her.

  "They will tell everyone, and that will be good."

  Good? That she had paid for what she needed, and not taken it? Anna took a deep breath, thinking again about the high cost of the velvet, then waved to Kirla who stood in arch of the doorway. The thin-faced girl returned the wave with a deep bow.

  Anna managed to smiled, even as she thought how much there was to do—in so many ways.

  16

  WEI, NORDWEI

  THE dark-haired spymistress glances from the desk-table where she sits in the black high-backed chair toward the single wide window. Through the open window, Ashtaar notes the rebuilt harbor piers that define the well-dredged juncture of the river Nord with the Vereisen Bay and the two-masted Norweian ships loading at those piers.

  The door opens, and a woman with close-cropped golden hair steps inside, walking slowly toward Ashtaar. She bows.

  "You may sit, Gretslen."


  The seer sits.

  "What have you to report?" Ashtaar's fingers slip around the polished black agate oval on the desk.

  The blonde seer bows her head slightly, then straightens. "The soprano sorceress has finally created a reflecting pool in the liedburg at Falcor."

  "That is worthy of note?"

  "She has begun to gather more players." Gretslen clears her throat almost silently. "We cannot see the pool, nor her when she employs it. It is as if she is not there." Gretslen's green eyes flicker downward. "This has not happened before."

  "Where this sorceress is involved, a great deal seems to have happened that never occurred before." Ashtaar's fingers caress the black agate in her hand.

  "Yes, Ashtaar."

  "What else?"

  "The sorceress re-created the bridge across the Falche at Falcor, so that the city will not be isolated from the fertile lands east of Falcor. A hundred masons would have taken a year to do what she did in an afternoon. Even her it prostrated, but she has recovered. She plucked the very harmonies in doing that."

  Ashtaar's eyes leave Gretslen and go to the unfinished bridge across the Nord, the one being rebuilt to replace what had been destroyed by the Evult's other flood—the one he had loosed on Wei.

  Gretslen waits until Ashtaar's eyes refocus, then continues. "The bridge will outlast Falcor."

  "An eternal bridge?" Ashtaar turns her hand to look at the black agate oval, caresses it a last time one-handed, and then sets it back on the desk. "More, if you please."

  "The Lancers of Mansuur have arrived in Esaria, and the South-Women of the Matriarchy are pushing to isolate Ranuak from the rest of Liedwahr."

  "Again… how droll. The last time that happened in Ranuak most of them died. People never learn. What of Ebra?"

  "The lands in the east around Dolov have sworn to Bertmynn. Hadrenn has asked for no pledges, but many around Synek would follow him because of his lineage."

  "Do we know how much coin the Liedfuhr Konsstin has sent to Ebra?"

  "There have been messengers with heavy purses, going from Mansuur to both Synek and Dolov, but no strongboxes that Kendr or I have scried."

  The spymistress's brows wrinkle for an instant. "You have missed something, Gretslen. I do not know what it may be, but I sense trouble, great trouble, for us." Ashtaar's smile is cold. "I am not a seer, nor have I your talent, nor Kendr's. I only know. Watch the sorceress closely, and Konsstin. They are the great players here."

  Gretslen bows her head. "As you wish, Mightiness."

  "I wish I were," murmurs Ashtaar, in a voice so low that only she can hear the words, before adding in a louder tone, "You may go, Gretslen."

  17

  Anna forced herself to finish the last of the heavy dark bread and the white cheese. The look in the mirror that morning had shown her that some little bit of the sunkenness in her cheeks was beginning to vanish. Lord! How much food did it take?

  She swallowed and glanced across the worktable to Hanfor. "How many armsmen should go with us to Cheor?" She took a long swallow of water from her goblet, then refilled it from the pitcher she'd order-spelled earlier in the day.

  "As many as possible," he answered, running a scarred hand through his gray thatch.

  "You said that before," Anna said with a laugh. "How many is that? Fivescore? Six-?"

  The arms commander fingered his gray-and-white clipped beard. "If I send Alvar with tenscore to accompany you, that will leave sixscore here. That is, sixscore that are trained, with another threescore that I would not trust anywhere—not yet."

  The sorceress and regent wanted to laugh. Her standing army consisted of a few more than three hundred armsmen—not all of them even trained—and Konsstin had just sent a thousand trained lancers to Neserea. "We need more armsmen."

  "We need more armsmen, even more recruits," Hanfor admitted. "And more arms. Konsstin has fiftyscore lancers in Esaria, and I would wager that Nubara will move them to Elioch as soon as possible. That doesn't count the two hundred-score armsmen left in the Prophet's forces. We've barely twenty-five-score everywhere in Defalk. More than a few score of those I wouldn't want anywhere near a fight. Not yet."

  "We're going to need more than three times that, you said."

  "I did." The arms commander fingered his white-and-gray beard. "And I could use fiftyscore—or more. Easily." He laughed harshly. "Except we have no weapons and no weapons smith for that many."

  "No word from Ranuak?"

  Hanfor shook his head. "The roads…"

  Damn the roads!. "What about the levies?"

  "If all the lords honor their commitment to the liedstadt, you could marshal two hundred-score in levies. I wouldn't want even to try to use them in one place."

  "You could put some under Jecks, and some under Firis," Anna suggested. "Aren't there other lords who are trustworthy?"

  Hanfor raised both eyebrows.

  Anna nodded. There might be, but neither of them knew who they might be. Perhaps Jecks did, but right now, they didn't need to know. iet. "Besides the roads, why can't we get more recruits?"

  "You have been too successful, lady."

  Anna looked at her arms commander.

  'When crops are bad, when trade is poor, then the peasants, the farmers, the younger sons, they will accept the risk of arms for food and shelter and the few coppers paid raw recruits." Hanfor offered a wintry smile. There is rain again in Defalk. They hope the crops will sprout and all will be well again in Defalk."

  Another instance where she was a victim of her own success. Anna Wanted to groan. "Don't they see it won't last if we can't protect Defalk?"

  "You are the mighty sorceress. You will protect them." Hanfor's tone was sympathetically ironic.

  "No. You're right. They don't care. No one's ever cared for them." Anna frowned. Where was there adversity?

  "What about Ebra? Could we have Jerat… Has that group left for Mencha? The ones to regarrison the Sand Pass fort?" she asked, remembering that detail inadvertently. "Are you counting them?"

  "They leave the day after tomorrow. Jerat is pleased; his sister lives there." Hanfor smiled. "He knows enough to start training any recruits he may find, and he has some extra coins to pay them. That's another score, and I didn't reckon them in the numbers I told you because half wouldn't be that much good in a battle. They'll be some help in repairing the Sand Pass fort."

  "Do you think Jerat can find some more armsmen or recruits? Across the border in Ebra?"

  "There were more than a few who disappeared after the Sand Pass battle. I told him to be very careful of any men who wanted to join who looked experienced. I will suggest that after he obtains those he can in Defalk, to make inquiries in Ebra." Hanfor laughed harshly. "He will be careful, but I'd wager he can round up a score or more easily." The veteran shrugged. "After that, we will see."

  A score? What was that against the hundreds of scores of Defalk's enemies? Anna wanted to shake her head. Instead, she repressed the gesture… and found she was clicking her nails again. A wry smile crossed her face. The nail-clicking had driven Sandy crazy, she thought, but he'd never said anything before he'd left. Not like Avery who'd given her a lecture on repressed anger.

  She forced her thoughts back to the immediate problem—armsmen. Even if Hanfor could find another fiftyscore armsmen or the equivalent of lancers, how would she pay them?

  "Every score counts, and it is better to build a force slowly, and train them as you wish," pointed out the arms commander. "You can also call on the levies of the Lady Gatrune and of Lord Jecks. They are almost as good as professional armsmen."

  "That's only another thousand."

  "You are their commander, and that counts for far more," Hanfor said. "Far more."

  Perhaps… if everyone doesn't attack at once from every border. "If I can employ sorcery," she answered. "I'd feel better if we had a force that could stand off one enemy without me."

  "Before the end of the year, we will," promised Hanfor.

/>   "I wish I had your confidence, Arms Commander."

  "I have seen what you have done to large forces who opposed you. Men will fight for you who would not have fought for Defalk before."

  "Let's hope so." Anna took another swallow of orderspelled water. Even in the chill of winter, she needed more liquids than others. Then, that had been true on earth as well. She'd always been prone to dehydration.

  The graying veteran took a sip of wine from the goblet Anna had provided, then looked at his empty plate. "I will groan all the way back to the stables, and you ate twice what I did."

  "I wish I didn't have to." Anna smiled. "The stables?"

  "I am leading the lancer training this afternoon."

  Anna felt guilty for keeping him. Like her, he was trying to handle too many things. Except he didn't complain, and she felt she was always complaining, if only to herself.

  "Lady Anna?" Skent stood in the doorway.

  Anna nodded for the page to enter, recognizing somehow that he needed a moment with her. Hanfor stood, but Anna raised her hand, gesturing for him to wait a moment.

  "There is a woman in the courtyard. She has a babe and a child, and she says she is the sister of the player Daffyd." Skent offered a puzzled look.

  Anna's guts churned. Dalila. Daffyd's sister and the woman who had taken her in when no one else would after the Sand Pass battle—and whose consort had tried to rape Anna. Anna shook her head. She'd placed a spell on the man—Madell—and had worried about it ever since.

  Then, while she was recovering from the battle with the Evult, Anna had sent some golds and a message about Daffyd's death, but Dalila wouldn't have traveled to Falcor, not unless something was wrong, terribly wrong.

  "I'll see her. Now."

  "Perhaps I should go," suggested Hanfor.

  "Not yet. Something might have happened in Synope."

  As Anna recalled, Dalila was brunette and stocky and stood barely above Anna's shoulder. The pertness Anna remembered was gone, replaced by hollow eyes and exhaustion. Her face was smudged with dried mud, and her trousers ragged above shoes barely held together with thongs. Dalila cradled an infant, mechanically rocking the child. The dark-eyed, dark-haired Ruetha clung to her mother's dusty and tattered cloak. Ruetha's cheeks were streaked with dirt, a combination of dust and tears, Anna suspected.