“What about in Sturinn?”
“There, too.” The Sturinnese takes a small sip of the wine. “This is good, but it might be too delicate to travel far. Like a beautiful woman, it must be restrained and kept close to home.”
“Speaking of traveling, we ride out a week from now,” Belmar announces, smiling broadly. “All is arranged.” He takes a healthy swallow of wine.
“That did not take you long.”
“Why should it? Chyalar and Motolla are pleased to know that I will be departing, even if they must wait a week. They will be less than pleased that a squad and some of the players are remaining, along with you and a junior captain.” Belmar grins boyishly. “I do look like a junior captain, do I not?”
“By itself, that will not deceive the sorceress.”
“Of course not.” Belmar takes yet another swallow of wine from the crystal goblet. “This is indeed good wine.”
“I fancy the crystal more.” The man in gray gestures for Belmar to continue. “You were saying?”
“In the morning before we leave, we will sing the spell that will create the necessary seemings. Whenever anyone looks for me in a glass, they will find the man who rides my horse or wears my blue tunic.”
“And when you sleep?”
Belmar frowns. “Perhaps I should part with my seal ring.”
“That might be better,” suggests jerGlien. “It will take less sorcery as well, because the ring is associated with you more strongly than are the clothes or the mount. I assume the lancer who will wear it resembles you?”
“He has dark hair and blue eyes, and he was bearded, but will be clean-shaven before dawn. I’ve told him and those of my personal guard who will accompany him that we will be rejoining them in a few days, but that we have a dangerous mission that can best be accomplished with but a handful of lancers.” The Lord of Worlan laughs. “All that is true, so far as it goes.”
“What of the Sorceress of Defalk?”
“The glass shows that she remains in Nysl’s hold, using her glass to follow us. Much good it will do her.”
“I had thought she might have acted by now,” muses the man in gray.
“Perhaps she has received some word from Lord Robero?”
“It is too soon for such, I would judge. He must be persuaded with great patience and the greatest of care. As you must be when the lady Clayre confronts you.”
“So I will be, timid as she has been in coming against us.”
“Timid? Or careful?”
“There are times when there is little difference. Fortune favors the bold now.”
“So it does. So it does,” replies jerGlien with a hearty laugh.
Belmar laughs as well, then takes another sip of the wine, stretching slightly, and enjoying the warmth of the fire.
Unnoticed by the younger man, jerGlien has scarcely drunk any of the dark red vintage.
32
In the midafternoon light, with the sun falling on her back with welcome warmth, Secca reined up on the low rise looking out over the rough and rocky hills east of Hasjyl.
“Lady?” asked Wilten, also reining up beside her and gesturing toward the lancers waiting on the road to her left.
“Have them remain mounted for a bit. I’ll need to check the glass.”
The overcaptain nodded.
Secca turned the gray mare and looked toward Palian and Delvor. “Keep them close. I don’t think they’ll need to play, but we’ll have to see.”
“We stand ready.”
Still mounted, Secca eased the gray around and studied the terrain to the east again. The road wound downhill—and was empty. As far as she could see to the east, there was no one on the dirt track, and not even a sign of dust. A wry smile crossed her face.
“You’re scarcely surprised, are you?” asked Alcaren. He and Richina had halted their mounts behind Secca.
“I’d have been surprised if there had been any sign of the Sturinnese.”
“Where do you think they are?” asked Richina.
“They could be waiting along the river road. They could have headed south to try to go around us. Or they could have split their forces.”
Alcaren nodded. “If they split…then they think that they could attack successfully with whichever force you do not engage.”
“That is if they believe I am the sole sorceress.”
“Why would they think otherwise?” asked Richina.
“All it would take would be for one of them to see you in a glass singing and playing.”
“They might still think that I was merely accompanying you,” Richina pointed out. “No one knows of me, not beyond our lancers and a few armsmen in Ebra.”
“And Haddev,” suggested Secca. “But your point is well taken. Haddev would say little, and few in Liedwahr wish to speak openly of sorceresses.”
“Haddev…that seems years ago,” mused Richina.
Secca hoped so. She dismounted and unstrapped the lutar and leather-wrapped traveling glass. “Best we see which before Fehern arrives.”
“He is about a dek behind Delcetta’s rear guard,” noted Alcaren, who had also dismounted.
Richina belatedly followed their example, then led the three mounts to Gorkon, for the lancer to hold the reins and watch.
Secca quickly tuned the lutar while Alcaren unwrapped the mirror and set it on a flat section of grass on top of its leather wrappings. Then she sang the spell Alcaren had used earlier.
“Show us where upon a map of this land
these forces of Sturinn now do stand…”
The map displayed by the glass showed the Sturinnese in two places. The larger force, from the size of the pulsing star, perhaps as many as fortyscore, looked to be roughly ten deks southeast of where her forces were and upon the south road that circled Hasjyl. Secca noted that a short and narrow road appeared to head due west and intersect the route that had brought the Defalkan and SouthWomen forces to Envaryl.
“That will take them days to reach Envaryl,” Alcaren observed.
“If that is indeed what they have in mind.”
The smaller group of Sturinnese lancers—if a group larger than the Defalkan and Dumaran lancers together could be called small—had ridden due north, or so it seemed, from their last encampment.
“They are headed for the trade pass,” Secca said, immediately singing the release couplet, since she did not want to hold the image any longer than she needed to.
“To use sorcery to block it, you think?” asked Richina.
“I would judge so.” Alcaren looked at Secca. “If you use sorcery to clear the pass, it will take longer and weaken you for several days—and that would be after fighting our way to the pass.”
“They don’t want you to go to Neserea, do they?” Richina glanced back along the road, which followed the ridgeline from Hasjyl. The outbuildings of the town were more than two deks back to the west and barely visible against the hazy horizon. “Here comes Lord Fehern. He’s riding a trace faster.”
“He would, now that he knows the Sturinnese are nowhere around.” Secca’s tone was biting.
Richina tilted her head slightly in puzzlement.
“If they were near, we’d have drawn up in battle formation, and the players would be tuning,” the older sorceress explained. She finished repacking the mirror and handed it to Alcaren, who fastened it behind Secca’s saddle. The gray mare raised her head slightly from nibbling at the dry grass, then lowered it again.
Secca crossed the grass that crackled under her boots, releasing dustlike particles that drifted down in the still air, and took the gray’s reins from Gorkon. “Thank you. It looks as though we will not fight today. Nor tomorrow, probably.”
Gorkon smiled. “We can wait.”
Secca wondered if they could…and how long. She climbed into the saddle, conscious once again that, unlike the long-legged Richina, she had to climb every time she mounted. Then she turned the gray and eased her mount back toward the road to wait for th
e approaching Lord High Counselor of Dumar. Alcaren and Richina remounted and followed her, then halted their mounts at the south shoulder of the road behind Secca.
All three watched as Fehern neared, then reined up a good five yards short of Secca, Halyt beside him.
“The Sturinnese do not appear to be anywhere close to here.” Fehern looked theatrically to the east.
“Since morning they have changed their path and split their forces,” Secca said. “One group is headed north, toward the trade pass to Neserea. The other has taken the road you mentioned, the one that circles Hasjyl to the south.”
“And whatever group we pursue, the other will act unopposed?”
“That would seem to be their aim,” Secca admitted.
“What will you do, Lady Sorceress? We cannot ride across Dumar chasing them.”
Secca knew that all too well. “No. That is what they want.” She smiled politely. “I had thought that was possible. Now we know, and we will act accordingly.”
“And how might that be?”
“Finding a different way to reach them and destroy them. Do you have another idea?”
Fehern’s eyes shifted past Secca’s shoulder, looking beyond the sorceress. “Your…handmaiden…she is most comely,” Fehern murmured.
Secca understood all too well what Fehern meant. “She is indeed. She also comes from one of the more powerful families of the Thirty-three.” Secca smiled warmly. “If you would like to consider her as a consort, Lord Fehern, I am sure both Lord Robero and Lady Dinfan would entertain your request.”
“Dinfan? That is not a name I recall,” replied the dark-haired lord smoothly.
“The demesne of Suhl,” Secca added. “Her father is also the brother of Lord Birfels, who holds Abenfel.”
“Ah…yet she travels with you?”
“Her parents believe she has much to learn.” Secca smiled again. “We should repair back to Hasjyl, where the lancers and players can find some quarters. We will leave sentries posted here and overlooking the south road.” She paused but briefly. “We will watch the Sturinnese and work out a way to trap them. Then, we will meet early in the morning to discuss it with you.” Secca forced yet another smile. “I trust that will meet with your approval?”
“I am not terribly interested in plans, Lady Sorceress. I need results to reclaim my land.”
“I need results as well, Lord Fehern. It is difficult to obtain them if one does not plan well. I look forward to your thoughts, and, if you have a better battle plan, to hearing it.”
Fehern offered a smile barely more than polite. “Halyt and I will be there, wherever you are.”
“We look forward to seeing you.”
After a barely perceptible bow, Fehern turned his mount.
Secca kept a polite smile on her face.
“He would have liked to have cut you down in the saddle, dearest lady,” Alcaren murmured once Fehern was a good hundred yards away on the road back to Hasjyl.
“I know. I’m not charging off and immediately slaying the Sturinnese and handing Dumar back to him, and I’m not turning Richina over to him for his pleasure. So he’s angry.”
“He is also worried.”
“That is more to be concerned over than is his anger,” Secca admitted.
The three watched as the Dumaran lancers turned and began to retrace their route back to Hasjyl.
33
Hasjyl, Dumar
The three men sit around a table in a small sitting room, lit but by a single twin-branched candelabra that is far older than any of them. Each has a mug before him, and there is a crockery pitcher on the table near the base of the candelabra.
“I do not like that woman, nor her consort, always lurking behind her. He smiles most pleasantly, and he sings sweetly, and I trust him not at all. And the young one, the one who looks pleasing, why…” Fehern shakes his head. “It makes little sense. She was telling the truth about that…Richina.”
“Even I could tell that,” Halyt says with a deep laugh. “The young one looks like a lady, demure, well-bred, and well-spoken.”
“Why is she here? On a battle campaign?” asks Fehern, his voice betraying exasperation. “Were it not for the sorceress’s consort, I would almost say that the older woman had more than casual affection for the younger.”
“A love triangle, you think? Ah…what a thought!” Halyt’s laugh rumbles forth uncontained. “Both of them are beauties, in different ways.”
“No. I am missing something.” Fehern shakes his head, then looks at the sorcerer. “What think you, Elyzar? What does your glass show?”
“The sorceress and the Ranuan are indeed consorted, and never have I seen the younger woman with them in such.” Elyzar’s eyes do not meet Fehern’s, not exactly.
“So why is she here?” demands Fehern again.
“Perhaps what the sorceress said was not all that far from the truth,” suggests the man in gray. “Perhaps Lord Robero wishes to bind you more closely to Defalk.”
“A consort forced upon me?”
“Not exactly. Who was the Lord High Counselor when the sorceress left Defalk?” questions Elyzar.
“Oh…” Fehern nods. “Now…now the sorceress is uncertain of what she should do?”
“Or she has received word that she is not to offer the lady to you,” muses Halyt. “A shame to miss such a choice morsel because you are not your brother.”
“Clehar did suggest that he be given a consort of worth,” Fehern says slowly. “The idiot told me that much, as if begging that fop in Falcor would gain him anything.” He shakes his head. “So again, I am to be denied? Most consorts required by necessity are pigs. Here is one beautiful and demure, and she is fine for Clehar, but not for Fehern?”
“The sorceress did say you could ask Lord Robero,” offers the arms commander. “Perhaps she is not empowered to grant such.”
“Aye, you could ask,” Elyzar repeats.
“What mean you?” snaps Fehern. “Say it outright.”
“She does not expect Lord Robero to grant the woman to you. Lord Robero will not go against the sorceress’s wishes. He cannot, for the sorceresses are the source of much of his power.” Elyzar shrugs. “Is that not clear? Defalk is not Sturinn. In Sturinn, as used to be in Dumar, a male ruled both his keep and his land.”
“And I do not?”
Elyzar shrugs again. “It is not my place to say. You know what you know. You know what you must do. I am but a humble self-learned sorcerer barely gifted enough to use a glass or offer a small spellsong here or there.”
“Nothing has been the same since that miserable sorceress came from the Mist Worlds.” Fehern snorts, his voice rising as he continues. “Everywhere one must look over his shoulder for fear of a woman running to a sorceress, or a sorceress destroying everything a man has striven for and built.”
“Not everywhere,” replies Halyt with another deep laugh. “I can’t see the Sturinnese worrying about women. They chain them and cut out the tongues of sorceresses when they’re young.”
“Someone should have done that to this one,” snaps the Lord High Counselor, “but no, I must bow and scrape if I am to have her assistance. Yes, Lady Sorceress…no, Lady Sorceress…if you please, Lady Sorceress…”
“That is true, if you require the sorceress’s assistance,” says Elyzar mildly. “Would you rather do without such? What are your alternatives?”
“If I do…if… if I do…” He looks at the sorcerer and then at Halyt. “You both may go. I need to consider.” His voice drops. “That I do.”
Elyzar and Halyt exchange glances before rising, bowing, and then departing, leaving Fehern holding a mug of wine, a vintage well past its prime and ready to turn.
34
The yellow brick dwelling was most modest, with a sitting room on one side and a dining area off the kitchen on the other side of the lower level, and a narrow staircase leading up to two bedchambers on the second level. One reason why Secca had taken over the house was th
at the merchant who owned it had fled, according to the sole servant remaining. Another was that it was located on the top of a low rise, and there was an inn across the street with a stable and outbuildings. That allowed Secca to have two companies both under roof and nearby while she decided how best to deal with the Sturinnese—and Fehern.
The sky was still the gray of the time just before sunrise and under thin clouds when Secca stepped into space behind the front door—a half foyer between the two rooms on the lower level. Through the narrow window, she could see both lancers—Gorkon and Dymen—stationed at the door as guards—and the squad of SouthWomen mounted and stationed on the street between the inn and the dwelling.
Breakfast had been bread and cheese, with a little cold mutton she had been able to choke down, and she found herself quietly burping from the impact of the heavy food on her system.
“Are you all right?” asked Alcaren, stepping up behind her and sliding his arms around her narrow waist.
“I’ll be fine. The mutton was heavy.”
“It will stick with you.”
“Whether I want it to or not?” Secca laughed, leaning back into Alcaren’s arms and enjoying the moment.
Behind her, she heard the sound of Richina’s boots coming down the staircase. Almost simultaneously, there was a thrap on the weathered oak door.
“The overcaptains and chief players, Lady Secca.”
“Once more,” Secca murmured before replying, “have them come in.”
She turned and touched Alcaren’s cheek, then stepped back through the narrow archway toward the sitting room where an assemblage of ill-matched chairs and stools had been circled around a rectangular table. Her lutar was propped in the rear corner against the wall, although she doubted she would be using it for the meeting.
Alcaren picked up a length of shimmering iron that Secca had not seen before.
“What is that?” asked Richina.
“A lance, a short one,” Alcaren replied, setting it in the outside corner of the sitting room, the corner farthest from the table, so that the lance rested against the wall. “It’s for throwing, but it’s not something very useful in battle.”
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