"Dalila," the sorceress began, "what happened?"
"Lady…" Dalila sank to the polished stone floor and bent her head, as if unable to speak.
"Dalila," Anna said slowly, "you're welcome here. You welcomed me, when I had nowhere to turn, and you'll always be welcome. I don't know what happened, but you are welcome."
Only the faint shudders betrayed the silent sobs.
After a moment, Anna spoke again. "Is there… trouble in Synope? Because of Lord Hryding's death?"
A choked "No," was the only answer, followed by more sobs. Dalila did not look up.
Anna lifted the bell, rang it, and waited for Skent, then addressed the dark-haired page.
"Skent… Dalila and her children need food. They'll be staying with us. For the moment, after they eat, put them in one of the larger rooms in the players' quarters for now. And make sure they have some water and some towels to get cleaned up." Anna paused, and added, "Dalila took me in when no one else did. I'd like you to take care of all of this personally."
Skent nodded, his face impassive.
The sorceress stepped forward and reached down, slowly helping Dalila rise.
"Lady… I… be… so… No one else…"
"Dalila… I told you, and I meant it. You are welcome here." Anna squeezed the too-thin shoulder gently. "When you are fed and rested, we'll talk some more. Now you and Ruetha and the child need food and rest."
Dalila began to sob again.
Anna hugged her. "You'll be all right. You'll be safe." What else could she say? "Now, go with Skent. He'll make sure you get fed, and you have a room to rest and recover." Her eyes went to the page, fixing him. "They'll need to eat regularly. Make sure they get fed with the players for now. But they must eat. All right?"
"I understand, Lady Anna." Skent's eyes went to the pair, softening as they rested on Ruetha.
Anna helped Dalila to the door, and Ruetha tottered beside her mother, one hand still holding the tattered cloak. "And see that they have some clean clothing, too." Skent nodded again.
When the door closed, Anna found Hanfor smiling. Anna raised her eyebrows in inquiry.
"You do not forget kindnesses, lady, and you repay your debts. I am glad I decided to remain in Defalk."
"So am I," Anna said. "But I'm not sure I've repaid all the kindnesses I've received."
"You will."
Anna wondered. "Will you make the arrangements for which armsmen will accompany us?" She paused. "Lord Jecks and Jimbob will be going with me."
"Twelvescore, then," Hanfor said firmly. "I held back some to protect the young lord."
"I'll be taking the players. I hope I can do some repairs along the way."
"You are still determined to travel to Synope after Cheor?" Hanfor asked.
"If I don't have too much trouble. I'd thought about stopping at Arien to see Lord Tybel, but Jecks thought that might not be a good idea, not after dealing with Arkad."
"He suspects you will have to use sorcery on Arkad."
"I hope I don't."
"If you really believed that, Regent Anna, you would not have to undertake this journey." A faint smile creased Hanfor's lips as he stood.
Anna grinned sheepishly.
"I will talk to Mies, to make sure you have two good supply wagons." Hanfor inclined his head before he left.
Alone, Anna walked to the window and looked down on the courtyard. Didn't the paving stones ever dry in the winter?
Had Madell driven Dalila out? Why hadn't anyone been willing to help her? Synope had to be three weeks by foot, if not longer with two children. Anna could feel herself seething. Every time she thought she'd come to understand and accept Erde, something like this reminded her how much women were looked down upon and abused.
"It's still that way on earth," she murmured to herself. Some places were worse than Defalk, although she didn't recall anywhere as bad as— where was it?—Sturinn? Where they still chained women? She shivered, hoping that she didn't have to deal with those people anytime soon. That would take more than simple sorcery.
Sorcery… that reminded her. She'd need players if she meant to do road and bridge work on the trip to Cheor. She hurried out of the receiving room, this time with Giellum and Lejun following her.
Anna crossed the courtyard, placing her boots carefully on the damp stones. Had she really understood how much rain Defalk had gotten before the Evult's sorcery had created the drought? Defalk in winter seemed more like… parts of Oregon, perhaps? Except it had more sunlight. Already the water level of the Falche where the Fal and the Chean met was two-thirds of what the older armsmen said was normal, and, based on the shape of the banks and the traces of old river beaches and the dried-up oxbow lake to the northwest of Falcor, they seemed to be right.
Liende wasn't in the rehearsal room, nor in her own room. Anna finally caught up to her on the top of the north tower.
The player looked out on the grayness that was Falcor in winter, with thin trails of smoke rising from scattered chimneys. Liende turned at Anna's boots—or Lejun's—on the stones.
"Regent…"
"I wanted to talk to you." Anna turned to her guard. "Lejun… if you would wait at the foot of the top stairs."
Lejun nodded stiffly and eased out of sight.
The sorceress had begun to understand why public figures became recluses, especially those who were more than figureheads. Then, sometimes, when so many things seemed beyond her control, she felt more like a figurehead than a real ruler.
Anna stepped toward the red-and-white-haired player.
"Your wish, Lady Anna?"
At times, especially in dealing with players, Anna wished for a little less deference and a bit more warmth. You'll have to get used to it, she told herself, forcing a smile. "We will be traveling to Cheor in several days. I would like you and the players to accompany us."
"I can only vouch for the two building spells right now. We might have the third one ready by then." Liende did not meet Anna's eyes.
"It's harder than you thought," Anna said.
Liende looked down.
"It's hard because I'm asking more than Brill did," Anna said quietly. "I'm asking you to use harmonies, and that makes it a lot harder. It makes stronger spells, but it's not easy."
"You are not saying that to ease my fears?"
The sorceress shook her head. "I mean it. I talked to Brill about harmony, but he wouldn't consider it. He said it was too dangerous, but I think that's because he wasn't trained with harmonies. He didn't understand harmony."
Anna had realized that for most people on Erde, even players, the term harmony had a far more general meaning in Liedwahr—something akin to "not creating dissonance" rather than the earthly technical musical meaning of parallel chords or supporting lines of music distinct from the melody line. Then, she supposed a lot of people on earth thought of the word in the same way.
"He did understand much," said Liende. "And he would use Darksong. Mayhap he had reason to distrust this… use of harmony."
The sorceress had to remind herself that Brill had been Liende's lover, and that Liende would hear little about his shortcomings. She paused, then spoke carefully. "Any sorcerer can only do so much. Lord Brill could do many spells I have not even tried. I have been trained in some he did not know. All the spells I have used with the lutar are based on chorded harmony."
Liende nodded slowly. "You risk more than your players."
"Can you have your players ready?"
"We will be ready with those spells, lady."
"That's all I ask." That was all she could ask, Anna reflected, and, as usual, it wasn't really as much as she needed. "Thank you."
She headed back down the tower stairs.
Instead of remaining in her office in the receiving hall, she stopped there only long enough to reclaim the lutar. She carried it up the main stairs. She felt strong enough to engage in some limited sorcery, although she wanted to be at full physical strength when she began the jo
urney to Cheor.
The smooth waters of the reflecting pool confirmed that she had gained back some weight. Her eyes were no longer sunken, nor her cheeks so hollow.
She took the lutar from its case, fingers caressing the smooth wood. Her eyes burned momentarily as she thought of its maker, poor Daffyd, entombed in lava in the valley of Vult—all because he'd summoned her to revenge his father's death.
With the grease marker, she made the changes to the mirror spell, then hummed through them—without the words. Then she strummed through the chords. Finally, she put it together.
"Water, water, in this my hall,
Show me now that Konsstin who seeks my fall,
Show him bright, and show him fast,
and make that strong view well last."
Konsstin still wore the sky-blue tunic, but no cloak. The Liedfuhr sat behind a dark wooden desk, outlined by the light from windows behind him. A map—what appeared to be Liedwahr—was spread before him. As he studied the map, he frowned, but his lips did not move.
Anna strummed the lutar again, singing the brief couplet to end the view in the pool.
Konsstin apparently remained where he had been, Mansuus, presumably, but was studying a map. In preparation for what? Anna wished she knew.
She checked the lutar—it still had a tendency to slip out of tune—and changed the spell for Dencer.
Dencer was riding, wearing a breastplate and carrying a lance. Anna watched the image in the pool only long enough to see that he was practicing thrusting the lance at a target as he rode by it. He'd been working hard. That was obvious from the red face and the shimmer that indicated sweat.
The sorceress released the image with the couplet and exhaled. One was studying maps and the other improving warlike skills. Not conclusive, but not exactly reassuring. But unless she wanted to spell all her strength all the time following them in the pool, it was about as good an indication as she was likely to get at the moment.
Wasn't anything easy?
For you, of course not. She immediately felt ashamed of the thought. Lots of people had it far harder than she had. Like poor Dalila, exhausted, with nowhere to turn, and ashamed of having to prostrate herself at Anna's feet.
The sorceress pursed her lips. What else had she meant to check? Oh, the question of harmony. She looked at the books on the shelf—the ones she'd moved in right after she'd finished the reflecting pool. The first handful of the leatherbound books were those Brill had let her use in the workroom he'd lent her at Loiseau—Boke of Liedwahr, The Naturale Philosophie, Proverbes of Neserea, Donnermusik.
She pulled out Donnermusik, searching for the sections that had alluded to harmony, hoping her memory had been correct, but worried about Liende's dubious looks.
… harmonic variants be most important as a musical consideration, for they must in truthe effect a change of musical resemblement through the constant repetition, with most suitable variants, of the bass pattern… through trommel…
… the relationship between the thunder, and that needs must be represented by the falk horn, supplemented by a continuous bass provided by a trommel, and the lightning… must be joined by a melodic line of the violincello…
She remembered those lines and skipped ahead to another section. Nothing there, except more discourses on storms. Another few pages… Where was it?
Anna took a deep breath. You've got to slow down. You won't find anything just flipping through pages that are half Old English and half bastard German.
Another breath, and she forced herself to read more deliberately. Ten pages farther on, she found what she thought she'd remembered.
… in truthe the greatest of sorceries shulde result from dissonant clothing played with gewalt equal to that gewalt of the spell melodic… The players of each parte needs must kraft their resemblements… Any endliche resolution… must needs embodye harmonic consonance…
Her head aching from puzzling through the archaic language, she slowly closed the book.
Leaving the lutar in the scrying room, she slowly walked back along the corridor toward Lady Essan's room, trying to ignore the guards that followed her.
"So… another venture you be off on," said the white-haired widow, even before Anna settled into the chair across the low table from Essan.
"Why do you say that?" Anna took a handful of the sugared nuts from the dish, then another, realizing that, again, she was hungry.
"Synondra told me that you rush hither and yon, back and forth. That stern arms commander works with Mies to make sure of the finest wagons and teams, and blades clash all the time on the practice quarter. My ears are still sharp, would-be daughter."
Anna laughed. "Just like a mother. You know what I'm about even if I haven't told you."
"And you were saying, sorceress-girl, my daughter you'd be." Essan grinned over the brandy goblet.
"So I did."
"What be on your mind, seeing as much there'd be you would be doing?"
"What do you know about Lord Arkad?" Anna asked.
"He was a problem for Donjim, and he must be one for you, too. You asked about him a time back." Lady Essan sipped her brandy.
"He hasn't paid his liedgeld," Anna admitted.
"If any lord could afford liedgeld, Arkad could. Donjim envied those lands, you know, but Arkad always supported him. He even sent more levies than he had to for the second peasant uprising. I didn't ride with Donjim then. I should have, broken leg or not. Donjim wasn't ever the same after that. He died right after he returned." Essan fussed the embroidered pillow behind her back.
"I'm sorry."
"You had nothing to do with it. Long before your time, sorceress-woman. You were having your own children then, like as not, never dreaming you'd be here."
Anna certainly hadn't ever expected she'd end up on a world she once would have regarded as a total fantasy.
"He couldn't understand it. No, he couldn't, my poor Donjim. Twenty years of peace, prosperity, and the very peasants he'd supported rebelled." Essan snorted. "Some foolishness about land reverting to the lord if a man had no direct heirs. All stirred up by those high and mighty women in Encora, I thought."
"Do you still think so?"
Essan laughed, more a cackle than a true laugh. "I was right, and I was wrong. It was women from Encora, but not the Matriarch, or the traders, but those crazy ones, the Sisters of the South. They were so crazy their own Matriarch had to turn her own guards on them. The Sturinn thing, you know. Did I tell you about that?" Her eyes glazed over momentarily. "That be the problem with growing old. You talk, and you don't remember."
"You said that some group… the Sisters of something… stormed a ship from Sturinn…"
"Sisters of the South—they were the ones. They sent blades to the women of Stromwer and Sudwei and Lerona. Terrible mess, it was. Now, some say, the crazy women have a new name, the South Women, excepting they're still the same, not even remembering what happened to the last bunch." Essan took a hefty belt to drain the apple brandy in the goblet, then refilled it from the crystal decanter without looking at Anna. "Terrible, it was, back then, and old Wassir's son used those very blades to try to overthrow his father. That was Aaslin, not Geansor. Blood everywhere, Donjim said. Wassir died, and Donjim killed Aaslin himself, and Geansor near died. Might have been better had he. Geansor's other brother, the youngest one, he was killed by raiders, but that came later."
The more Anna heard, the worse it got. If Lady Essan were right, then all her consort had gotten out of twenty years of decent rule was heartbreak and revolt. If she were wrong, then Defalk had been in turmoil for far longer than the past decade. Neither thought was exactly comforting.
18
DUMARIA, DUMAR
THREE men enter the audience chamber, led by a tall and rangy man in a heavy brown woolen jacket. Under the open jacket, he wears a short-sleeved white tunic, and white trousers. His face is tanned. The two men who accompany him are also rangy and tanned.
Ehara st
ands before the gilt chair upholstered in red velvet. "Greetings! Welcome to Dumaria."
"We are pleased to be here." The tall man answers in a heavily accented voice, bowing. "I am Sea-Marshal jerRestin." He gestures to the two who flank him. "Sea-Captain jerKillek and Sea-Captain jerHallin."
"A small token for the warm welcome we have received." The Sea-Marshal lifts the small chest he carries and offers it to Ehara. "From Sturinn to Dumar."
Ehara, looking burly before the rangy Sturinnese, accepts the chest, a wooden box no more than two spans long and one wide that is almost lost in his overlarge hands. The sides of the chest are carved with intertwined serpents rising out of a mother-of-pearl surf, and the top bears the crest of Dumar—the mountain ram on a tor, wrought in rubies and gold. "You are welcome, and my thanks for such an artistic treasure."
"Please open it."
Ehara does, and glances at the unset rubies, diamonds, and pearls in the small container. "A most generous and artistic treasure." He closes the case gently. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company and such a small token of appreciation?"
"We merely wished to meet the famous Lord Ehara."
"My fame as ruler of the smallest nation in Liedwahr has carried all the way to the lands and isles of far Sturinn?" Ehara laughs self-deprecatingly.
"Your fame has carried farther than you would have imagined, Lord Ehara," returned jerRestin.
"What have I done that merits such notice?" Ehara's eyes narrow ever so slightly.
"We understand that you are considering efforts to strengthen your northern border, Lord Ehara," suggests the Sea-Marshal, the accent in his voice stronger.
"I've never mentioned such an action to anyone." Ehara smiles easily-"Are you Sea-Priests able to read the tides of the future?"
"When the tides run strongly and pluck at the very harmonies of Erde, then anyone who stops to look can see where they will take the unwary." The Sea-Marshal offers a bland smile.
Spellsong 02 - The Spellsong War Page 13