Secca didn’t see much difference between the lords of most lands and the Sturinnese in that respect, but she merely said, “Sturinn would not be good for Dumar or any land in Liedwahr.”
"That is most true. Lord Clehar was a good ruler, and his sons would have been as well,” Sylonn continued.
"Would have been? asked Secca, with a sinking feeling as she realized what was coming.
“You did not know?" Sylonn blinked several times, then shook his head. “Perhaps there would have been no way for you to know.” He shook his head once more.
"If I understand you,” Secca said, “his sons and daughter...?"
“They were found dead in the palace at Dumaria after Clehar died in battle,” Sylonn said. “Many suspected Lord Fehern, but now . . . who can tell?’
“Did not Lord Fehern have sons from his first consort?” Secca recalled Clayre mentioning that one of Clehar’s brothers had sons. At the thought of Clayre, even though they had not been that close, Secca felt a rush of regret and sadness.
“He had two. That is true, Lady Sorceress, but they have vanished. None can find them. Likewise, Lord Eryhal was in Neserea with his consort . . .”
“You’d like to know who will be the next Lord High Counselor?” asked Secca, keeping her voice mild and level. “Ah . . .“ Sylonn glanced away from Secca, toward Alcaren, and then back toward Delcetta, who had also remained mounted and close. “Ah . . . my holdings are not far from here, and when I heard you were traveling . . . well I thought it likely that if anyone knew . . . that would be you, Great Sorceress.”
Secca managed neither to frown nor to snort at Sylonn’s not-so-veiled ambition. “I appreciate your interest, Lord Sylonn, but I am not the one who will make that decision. It is Lord Robero’s prerogative to name the next Lord High Counselor. I am most certain that he will act as quickly as he can. I will certainly convey your concerns to him as I can . . . and I thank you for being forthright enough to approach me.”
“Oh . . . that is all that I can ask.” Sylonn bowed quickly.
"It is just that matters have been so unsettled.”
"Battles and fighting can unsettle the most peaceful of lands,” Secca replied. “I will also tell Lord Robero of your concern that matters be settled.”
“Thank you, Lady Sorceress. Thank you.” Sylonn bowed again, as if uncertain as to what he should do next.
You may go, Lord Sylonn, and I will convey your concerns.” Secca felt as though she were endlessly repeating herself, hut she knew she could not and should not commit to more.
After yet another bow, the Dumaran lord turned and walked to his horse, mounting quickly, then following Delcetta and his standard-bearer back toward his personal guard.
Secca watched until she was certain the Dumaran was well out of earshot.
“We haven’t oven finished with the Sturinnese, and now we’ll have to deal with the succession problem here in Dumar. If we don’t . . .” Secca shook her head. “Lords! They won’t support their rulers, or support them as little as possible. Now, they’re all jostling for position practically before the Lord High Counselor’s body has grown cold.”
“Such is life among those who seek power,” observed Alcaren.
“Do you think they all are like that?” asked Richina. Secca almost jumped at the voice of the younger sorceress standing behind her. Richina had been so silent that Secca had forgotten she was there. The older sorceress half turned. “Only those lords still alive. Many would not have been even that indirect.”
“Witness what is happening in Neserea,” Alcaren added. “Lord Hanfor dies, and all wish to be his successor.”
“You’ll notice that the noble lord Sylonn didn’t invite us to share his hospitality,” Secca said with a crooked smile.
“Would you want to?” Alcaren laughed.
“No. I’d be looking in the glass and over my shoulder every moment.” Still . . . it would have been nice to get a bath and sleep in a good bed, although good beds were rare in most keeps and holdings.
Secca turned to her left to watch as Lord Sylonn’s troop made its way back westward along the ridge road. “We’d better check on the Sturinnese.”
“Ah . . .” Alcaren flushed.
Secca turned to Richina, who looked down.
“You two already did?”
“Yes, lady,” admitted Richina. “They remain in the same hamlet.”
Secca laughed.
After a moment, so did the other two. A smile even crossed Rukor’s face, although the lancer turned sober-faced as Secca glanced at him.
49
In the late-afternoon light that slanted through the west windows, Secca looked around the sitting room m the merchant’s dwelling. Here she was, back in Hasjyl, a week or so later, with yet another Sturinnese force to confront. Clayre was dead, along with her lancers, both slain by Belmar’s sorcery, and little lay between Belmar and his conquest of Esaria---and Neserea. Not with most of the lords flocking to him, and those who had not being destroyed by sorcery and treachery.
Secca snorted. She was mired in Dumar, a land without a Lord High Counselor, and a land where who knew how many lords were trying to succeed the nefarious and dead Fehern—or wanting to know who would so that they could work their way into positions of power and influence. After weeks of riding and sorcery and storms, she felt bone-tired. And she felt guilty about feeling tired, knowing that her lancers had suffered the weather more, and that Alcaren and Richina had been through everything she had.
Thinking that water and biscuits might help, she lifted the water bottle she had put on the oblong table and took a swallow, following the water with a biscuit that she finished in three bites, hard as the biscuit had been.
“You should have done that earlier, like I suggested,” said Alcaren from just inside the doorway. “Because you’re smaller, you . . .”
“I know. I need to eat more often. You told me that.” Secca winced at the sharpness of her words, adding quickly and. more softly, “I’m sorry. You are right. But it is hard always to be reminded when you’re smaller and less strong than those around you.”
Alcaren laughed. “I would never say less strong. Smaller, yes, and because your stomach is small, it cannot hold as much, and yet because you do more than others, you must eat more often.”
“I know,” Secca said again, not angrily as before, but tiredly.
Hisss . . . thunk!
A tube of brass appeared on the table, hot enough that Secca could smell the wood under it beginning to heat immediately. She reached for the riding gloves tucked in her belt, but Alcaren was faster, yanking on his gloves and scooping up the tube. He hastened to the end of the long room where he set the tube on the floor. There, he used a wooden dipper to sprinkle water on the tube from the bucket Rukor had brought inside moments before. The water hissed into steam as it struck the heat-tarnished brass.
Alcaren continued to sprinkle the tube with water until the hissing stopped.
Then, almost as quickly as he had seized the tube, Alcaren yanked off his gloves, putting his hands into the bucket of cold water.
“Are you all right?” asked Secca.
“I’m fine. My hands will be a little red, but that will pass.”
“Why?” She glanced at the metal tube.
“It was sent by sorcery, and in haste, because it was hot. If you had picked it up, you would have burned your hands. My gloves are heavier, and I could get to the water. If I hadn’t the messages inside would be charred and unreadable.” Alcaren snorted. “They may be anyway.”
After a time he lifted his hands from the bucket, and held one just above the tube, lowering it slowly. “It is cool enough to open.” He picked up the message tube and handed it to Secca.
She had to force the end-cap off the tube. Although the parchment was brown, the ink on the single scroll was dark enough that she could easily read the words.
Dearest Secca,
As you must know from the
wrenching of the harmonies, Clayre perished in attempting to defeat Belmar. She destroyed nearly tenscore of his lancers, but that was not enough, and Belmar lost none of his players.
I have not yet told Lord Robero, for I fear that he will send you orders to return to Defalk. He has already begun to talk about reaching some truce with the Sturinnese if we cannot defeat them. Alyssa has told him that he should decide nothing until he sees how matters turn out with you and Clayre, but he told her that she should not presume, and now he paces and frets that you have shown little success . . .
Secca shook her head and lowered the scroll. Changing his name from Jimbob to Robero hadn’t changed the Lord of Defalk’ s character or his self-centered concern about his own power, rather than his people’s needs—or even the needs of the Thirty-three.
“You are angry,” remarked Alcaren, who had been reading the words over her shoulder.
“I am more than angry.” Secca spaced out the words. “He sent Clayre out without an assistant and with but two companies of lancers.”
“Did she not choose to go?"
“She did.” Secca took a deep breath. “But he knew she would not insist on more. Clayre is . . . she was . . . too proud.”
Alcaren nodded slowly.
“You think I’m too proud?”
“There is a difference,” he answered carefully, “between pride and foolhardiness. You have trained Richina, and you are training me to help with sorcery. When the need was there, you asked Richina to help. You allow me to assist you. You did not even consider leaving Richina behind, did you?"
“No . . .” Secca admitted slowly. “But when we left Loiseau, I could not have explained why I brought her. I felt it was right.”
Alcaren smiled. “That is the difference.”
Secca wasn’t sure, but she lifted the scroll and resumed reading.
He asks me every day whether you have defeated the Sea-Priests...
We have received word from the Council Leader of Wei that Aerfor and Eryhal have fled Neserea and made their way safely into Nordwei. Lady Aerlya and Annayal remain in Esaria, but their forces are diminishing. Many are deserting, and others appear to be asking that Annayal consort with Belmar or even that she request that he become Lord High Counselor---if not Prophet of Music.
The Liedfuhr’s lancers are making their way through the snows of the Mittpass toward Neserea. He had marshaled close to five thousand lancers and armsmen, but those struggling through the snows number far less than that, less than a hundred companies. From what I can scry, Belmar is moving to the southwest, and ignoring Esaria . . .
“Of course,” murmured Secea.
“If he destroys the Liedfuhr’ s lancers, then he will hold Neserea---until we can vanquish him,” Alcaren said softly.
“You are most hopeful, my love,” Secca said softly.
“You can defeat Belmar."
“But can we defeat Belmar and who knows how many Sturinnese sorcerers?” asked Secca.
“We must.”
With a faint and knowing smile, Secca returned to reading the scroll.
. . . Lord Robero had asked Lythner if he would act as an envoy to Lord Belmar, should it be necessary. To his credit, Lythner declined and left Falcor. Lord Robero has summoned Lythner’s brother Nerylt from Wendel . . .
Secca winced. Nerylt was a well-meaning bumbler who would do whatever Robero asked without raising an eye-brow or a question.
but he has yet to arrive. So you can see why I dare not tell Lord Robero about Clayre. Yet I can keep that secret only for weeks at best, days at worst. If there is aught you can do, or that I can do for you, please let me know. As matters are proceeding, all will be lost in a season, if not sooner.
Secca looked up from Jolyn’s hasty signature. “I do not know if we can reclaim Dumar in a season.”
“Why reclaim it?” asked Alcaren. “It can be reclaimed as you choose if you can but defeat or drive the Sturinnese out. Without them and Lord Belmar, any one of your sorceresses, even Richina, young as she is, could return Dumar and Neserea to Lord Robero’s rule.”
“That may be true,” Secca agreed, “but there is more to Lord Belmar than meets eye or glass.” She eased the scroll aside.
In the fading afternoon light, sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs before the table and after taking out several scraps of the heavy brown paper and a black grease marker, she began to write.
Alcaren slipped away, only to return with a small wedge of cheese, some thin strips of jerky, and half a loaf of bread, all of which he set by her elbow. “As you write, please eat some of this.”
“Thank you.” She continued to write, occasionally stopping to eat and nodding appreciatively as Alcaren lit the two candles in the shaky candelabra he brought to the table. She ignored the curious look from Richina, who peered into the long room, then slipped away as her consort murmured something to the younger sorceress.
Finally, she sat up erect and handed Alcaren a single sheet. “Can you read that?"
“Yes. Why?’
“I want you to sing that spell.”
In the flickering candlelight, Alcaren studied the words on the brown paper. “You’re assuming a great deal here.”
“If it isn’t so, the glass will come up blank.” Secca smiled. “Can you sing it?”
He frowned. “I might get the glass to show what I want, not what is.”
“It won’t do that. The glass can only show what is, not what was or what might be.”
He smiled dryly. “Why do you really want me to sing it?”
“So I can watch the glass." Secca’s voice was cold.
“You really hate Belmar, don’t you?"
“I do, but I don’t think he’s the one to hate.”
“Sturinn? The Maitre?"
“Who else?” She glanced up once more. “Can you . . .?"
“Let me try to work out the chords for a few moments.” Secca smiled and took another sheet of the brown paper, frowning as she looked at the blankness. Finally, slowly, she began to write the thoughts and words of another spell, trying not to be distracted by Alcaren’s fingers on the strings of his lumand.
“I’m ready,” he finally said.
Secca put aside the paper and marker and looked to the blank silver of the scrying mirror.
Her consort cleared his throat and began the scrying spell.
“Show me Belmar now and in the same Light
that Sea-Priest who advises him tonight,
the one who talks of whom to kill or fight
and who would put all Defalk to flight . . .”
Acaren lowered the lumand and looked into the glass, over Secca’s shoulder. The image showed two men sitting across the table from each other in what appeared to be an inn. Neither was speaking.
“Another Sea-Priest,” he finally murmured. “You thought as much.”
“I did. It could be no other way.”
“No other way?" Mcaren raises his eyebrows.
“Belmar. He is a young lord of an impoverished set of lands. The only sorcerer in his family is a distant Prophet of Music. No one has ever heard of him. Lord High Counselor Hanfor dismisses him as unworthy of Annayal. Yet he has the coins to train and pay players, and he has more than five companies of lancers that were trained and ready a year ago? That might have been possible, straining his coffers, but by the middle of last season he had three times that many.”
“He had taken the keeps and lands of several in Nesecea,” Alcaren painted out.
“That is true, and that is what all were meant to think.” Secca paused. “It did not feel right, and I should have listened to my feelings earlier.”
“All this was planned by the Maitre?”
“All this, and much more, I fear,” Secca replied. “Much more, so much more that I cannot guess, only feel.” She laughed, harshly. “That sounds mysterious. It is not. The Maitre has a plan to take all of Liedwahr. That is clear. How he intends to do so, is what is
not clear—except that it has been planned for years, and involves sorcerers and lancers and fleets, I fear we have never seen.” She paused. “And sorcery as deadly as anything Liedwahr has, ever seen.”
Alcaren shook his head. “Not so deadly as you might use, and that is why you hesitate and fret.”
“Already, you know me too well.” Secca pursed her lips before lowering her voice. “Even knowing what the Maitre plans . . . how could I use such spells? How could I?”
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