The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Jecks nodded.

  “I’ve been thinking about roads,” Anna ventured.

  “You have mentioned them.” A glint entered the arms commander’s eyes.

  “After my recent . . . experience with the bridge,” Anna spread her hands, “I have been cautioned to be somewhat more . . . careful.”

  “Far more careful,” suggested Jecks mildly.

  “I would like your thoughts on something. If we could get large piles of rocks beside the roads, that would make my sorcery much easier. Is there a way to encourage that on the part of the holders and lords?”

  Jecks fingered his chin. “I would gladly do that on the roads to market.”

  “But some of the market roads go through swamps and rivers,” Hanfor pointed out. “The roads we need for armsmen and lancers should follow the ridges where possible.”

  “The high roads,” Jecks added. “But the holders will not wish to have their tenants and freeholders work on roads that offer them no benefit, nor will the farmers—”

  Anna held up her hand. “Even I can’t rebuild a fraction of the roads in Defalk, not in years. Three sorcerers couldn’t.”

  “I did mention that, lady,” Jecks said.

  Even if he were as handsome as any movie star, Anna wanted to clout him for the condescending tone, but she smiled perfunctorily instead. “Which roads are most important—and which sections of those roads? I’m talking about fords or places that turn into swamps or where we’ve lost bridges?” She gestured vaguely, wishing she could articulate what she meant more clearly, but she’d been a singer and an opera professor, not a sorceress or an engineer. She needed a Regency engineer, a Regency weapons smith, a Regency schoolmaster and tutor, not to mention an agronomist, along with a chief of players. That didn’t count the expertise she needed and didn’t know she needed.

  “The bridge at Elhi . . .” began Jecks.

  “The ford at Sorprat or the road to Denguic—”

  “Gentlemen,” Anna said with a laugh. “Gentlemen. I think you need to get together with Tirsik and with Himar and Alvar and Lady Essan and Dythya. Then bring me a list, with the most important part of the most important road at the top.”

  “The lady Essan?” asked Hanfor.

  “She was Lord Donjim’s consort, and she rode with him on many of his early campaigns. She will know the roads as well as anyone, and she will know which roads used to be important and why they are not.” She’s also likely to be far less biased. The problem was that Hanfor was relatively unbiased, but didn’t know Defalk well enough, and Jecks knew Defalk, but would still lean toward benefiting Elhi. She wanted to shake her head. Instead, she smiled once more. “Surely, you can get together and figure that out for me?” She looked at Jecks. “You did say I should be cautious. Would you also think about how we can persuade the lords and others to carry rocks to places beside the important roads?”

  Jecks returned the smile, a glint between amusement and anger in his hazel eyes. “Yes, Lady Anna. We should be able to provide such a list.”

  Anna stood. “Thank you both.”

  For a moment after the two men had left, Anna looked at the platter and the remaining crackers and cheese. She couldn’t eat any more, not for a while.

  Instead, she took out the grease marker and a sheet of the coarse brown paper. What should a road look like? If she recalled correctly from that long-ago ancient history course, the Romans had built their roads on yard-deep stone-and-gravel bases, and surfaced them with long smooth paving blocks nearly a foot thick.

  She began to sketch.

  How wide? Enough for two wagons abreast? But could she physically sustain that much sorcery?

  “You’d better limit it to key bridges and marshes or things like that,” she murmured. Defalk wouldn’t have the resources to build good roads for a decade without sorcery, but the country might not last a decade without a better internal transport system. She sighed, and set aside the sketches, then lifted the spellsong folder that had come from Brill’s workroom in Loiseau. She began to read. Perhaps there was something in his spells that would help. Perhaps.

  “The player Liende,” announced the dark-haired Skent, sometime later, peering around the door as if afraid that Anna would snap at him.

  Anna gestured for Skent to have the player come in.

  “You summoned me.” Liende bowed as she entered the receiving room.

  “I did.” Anna gestured to the seat across the worktable from her. “Please be seated.”

  The player sat on the front edge of the wooden chair, stiffly, as though she had been summoned for her own execution. Anna decided to plunge right in, since no amount of reassurance without substance was likely to relax the horn player.

  “Liende . . . although it was not my intent, I stole from you what you wished for most.” Anna forced her eyes to meet those of the gray-and-red-haired player. “What Lord Brill had intended for you, I received. When he was dying, I went to his side, and he thought I was you. And he made me young with his death-song.”

  “I know.” The words were scarcely a murmur.

  “I did not ask for that, and I tried to call you, but you were hurt . . . and then it was too late. For that, I am sorry. You have every right to be angry with me.”

  The silence was broken only by the sound of rain against the window and shutters at the back of the receiving room. Anna waited, her eyes on the horn player.

  “At first.” Liende paused and swallowed. “At first, I was angry. I was most angry, and I watched, and I would hear nothing good of you—”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Hear me, Lady Anna. Let an old woman have her pride.”

  Anna swallowed. Liende couldn’t have been over forty, and she thought she was old? Then, on Erde, forty was old.

  “I would hear nothing good of you. But Lord Jecks almost wept when he described how you stood alone against the Ebrans. And he said how you dealt fairly with him and how you stood against the Ebrans alone a second time. And you restored Jimbob’s heritage to him. But still, I avoided you. You came to Elhi, and I thought you were cold and aloof. Then they carried you back, and you wept in your sleep, and a healer walked twenty deks to try to help, and grown men sobbed as though they might lose their consort or their mother.” Liende swallowed.

  Anna waited, wondering, wondering how the woman could forgive her.

  “Lord Jecks sent a scroll. It was the bridge, Lady Anna. No one who cared not for Defalk or Falcor would spend herself on replacing a bridge. You gained nothing from that. I was ashamed.” Liende’s eyes were damp. “I am here. Do not shame me further.”

  Anna’s throat was thick, and she had to swallow again. “I won’t shame you. I never thought of that. I was the one who was ashamed and guilty because you had stood by Lord Brill, asking nothing. You only hoped, and I was the one who dashed those hopes.” So often, Anna thought, so often had others dashed her hopes, and she hated being the one who had dashed another’s dreams.

  “Life does not happen as we hope,” Liende said slowly, “and you did not ask for what you received. Nor did I.” She smiled wryly. “Thank the harmonies. For without you, all of us would have been lost, and like as not, I would have been used by every Ebran armsman, then tossed aside, if I had even endured. Far better I live, in hope and well-fed, than to have been young for a few days and perished in rape and slaughter.”

  Anna wanted to protest, but something stopped her. Could she really have done what she did without the strength of her second youth?

  “Even now, you doubt, lady?”

  “I’ve come to doubt a lot,” the sorceress finally said. “There’s not much in life that’s as simple as we think.”

  After a nod, Liende asked simply, “What did you wish of me?”

  “I have no right to ask,” Anna said, “but I need your help. I cannot save Defalk without it.”

  “My help? What have I that is so precious that the greatest sorceress on Erde must beg?”

 
Anna wanted to smile at the involuntary bitterness that Liende still harbored, wanted to hug the woman for being human. Instead, she answered. “Your skill as a player, your knowledge of players. I’d like you to become the leader and teacher of the Regent’s Players. You will be honored and safe. I can’t risk losing you or your knowledge.”

  “I play a good woodwind horn. I am not a leader of players.” The brown eyes met Anna’s.

  “You could be.”

  “A woman lead player?” Liende’s eyebrows arched.

  “A woman regent?” Anna asked softly in return.

  Liende smiled faintly.

  “It is not just a favor,” Anna added. “I will pay you for finding and organizing the Regent’s Players.”

  “Coin . . . and kindness. Neither can I afford to turn down, lady.”

  “Two silvers a week to start. Three a week, and two golds bonus, if you can gather enough players for two groups.” Anna paused. “And you don’t play for battles. What I had in mind is several groups of players, if we can find or train enough. A group that will learn and perform the songs for building, another group for battle songs, perhaps a third for other functions.”

  “I know much about building songs,” Liende said. “Could I not lead such a group?”

  “As long as you’re not close to battles.”

  “Lady . . . the others would think ill—”

  “It’s not kindness, or favoritism.” Anna shook her head. “I made a mistake with Daffyd, a terrible mistake. I should not have brought him with me to the battle with the Evult. I can teach singing, in time. I cannot teach players. I cannot make instruments. If anything happens to my lutar . . . who would replace it?”

  Liende smiled. “A strange sorceress you are. You hazard yourself, but would save others less valuable. Yet . . . I will not protest. While Kinor is near grown, Alseta is but twelve and young for her years.”

  “I did not know. They are welcome here, and you will have quarters large enough. Alseta and Kinor could join those being schooled.”

  “To me, lady, that be worth as much as the coins.”

  “Then you accept?”

  “How could I refuse?” Liende smiled. “Palian will join me, and I trust Kaseth will. Jaegel will not. He could not play under a woman.” She shrugged. “You will see. I be no bargain.”

  “I can help you with conducting,” Anna said. “I already have many of the songs, both my own and some from Lord Brill. I can guide you, but I can’t be a sorceress and a lead player at the same time.”

  “You have led players before?”

  “I’ve studied leading players, and I have led large groups of singers,” Anna admitted. Her conducting classes were far behind her, but she doubted many in Liedwahr had had even that much training. She paused. “Can you read Lord Brill’s notations?”

  “No. He kept those to himself. Most sorcerers do, I understand.”

  Anna understood, but it was just something else to make her plans—and life—a little harder. “Oh . . .” She shook her head. “There’s one violino player I’ve found. He’s barely adequate, but we don’t seem to have much choice. His name is Delvor.”

  “I do not know of him, but I will hear him.”

  Anna reached for her belt wallet and extended a gold. “This is to help get you and your family here. Dythya is the accounts mistress, and she’ll pay you and your players.”

  “Dythya I know.”

  Of course, Anna thought. After the battle of the Sand Pass, Liende had found refuge at Elhi, Lord Jecks’ holding.

  Anna took out the quill pen, and carefully, most carefully, wrote out a short note to Dythya, explaining Liende’s commission, and pay, and that she would need two to three rooms in the players’ quarters.

  Both the ink and the brown paper ensured that the note would take time to dry. While it did, Anna pointed to the paper and added, “This note—please give it to Dythya—it explains that you are the chief player and requests that she give you all possible assistance.” Anna paused. “How soon can you start?”

  “Why . . . now, lady. Alseta and Kinor can travel here as they can from Elhi. Lord Jecks often sends a few armsmen and messengers.”

  Anna nodded. “Then get settled, and talk to Delvor and check his playing. Later this afternoon”—Anna fumbled as she tried to convert hours to local time—“around the eighth glass, please come back with your horn, and we’ll go over several of the spellsongs we’ll be using. One or two you may know, but I want you to be familiar with the main ones.” Anna took a sip from the goblet, then continued. “Can you send for Palian and any others? If you need a scribe, see if Dythya can help.”

  Liende bowed her head slightly. “You do not lag, my lady.”

  “We’d better not.” Anna said. “We have to be ready.” Exactly what she was readying Defalk for, was another question, but her intuition told her that it was necessary, and whenever she’d doubted that intuition, she’d found trouble and more trouble.

  Anna waved the short note a last time in the air, and seeing that the ink had finally dried, stood and extended the paper to Liende. “Until the eighth glass.”

  “Thank you, Lady Anna.”

  Anna paused, then said, “Liende. I am not being short with you. I am not displeased. I am gratified that you are here. I am asking you to pardon me if I seem short, or if I do not spend more time being courteous and gracious. In time, I hope I will not feel so rushed. Now there is much to do, and I know so little.” And I’m still tired, damned tired.

  A smile played across the thin lips of the player. “Most rulers would not explain, but I thank you. Alseta will also be grateful.” She bowed again, then slipped out.

  Anna still felt embarrassed by the situation, but what else could she do?

  She had yet to deal with a reflecting pool—and where to put it. The small room across the corridor? No one had been living there since the Neserean forces had left, and it was probably better not to guest strangers too close to her quarters.

  Still, that would have to wait, since it would take sorcery, and she dared not try anything significant for a few days yet.

  Why was everything so fucking difficult? She’d replaced one lousy bridge, and she’d been a basket case for over a week. Why? Why had the bridge been so hard? Had it been because she’d done Darksong with Wendella just before?

  Anna just sat at the worktable, slowly chewing through a hard cracker, knowing she was stalling, almost not caring. She finished the cracker, then looked at the papers on the corner of the table.

  Her nails clicked together, and she looked down, surprised that her old nervous habit had resurfaced. Were things getting that bad?

  11

  DUMARIA, DUMAR

  The broad-shouldered man in the gold-trimmed red tunic lifts the dagger, momentarily balancing it on his forefinger. “It’s not right,” he murmurs to himself before half turning to the window and the gray downpour outside. “A gold, and it’s not balanced right.”

  The man in the gray cloak waits on the hard wooden chair.

  The red-clad man leaves the window and sets the knife on the dark wooden writing table, beside the flickering oil lamp. He picks up the scroll once more and studies the words before setting it on the desk and letting it rewind itself. “And why will your master not come himself, the honorable soul that he is?”

  “The bitch sorceress knows his likeness, Lord Ehara.” The man in gray shifts his weight on the hard chair.

  “—and she holds his consort and heir. I know. Too bad that he cannot put his consort aside and take another. Heirs are easy enough to come by. The harmonies know, I’ve got enough of them.” Ehara’s bass laugh booms off the walls of the small study. “Your master writes that the lords in the south of Defalk would willingly swear to me. Yet he does not say why this should be so. Perhaps you could explain that, Master Slevn.” Ehara’s voice drops into an almost silky bass as dark as his beard and hair.

  “Not a one of the southern lords of Defalk have mu
ch love of the bitch, save perhaps Geansor, and he’s a cripple who can’t live forever.”

  “I had heard Birfels supported her.”

  “For lack of a better alternative, Lord Ehara. He has removed his older son from Falcor, you may have heard. His younger remains in Abenfel. Only his daughter is hostage to the sorceress.”

  “You say that Birfels is hostile to the sorceress. Why, pray tell, if he did remove his sons, would he leave his daughter?” Ehara again turns his back to Slevn.

  “She must find a consort, I would imagine,” Slevn says slowly. “None of Birfels’ neighboring lords have sons of an age. I do know that Birfels told the sorceress that he had no love of the sorceress’s efforts to educate the daughters of lords at Falcor. Nor of allowing the widowed ladies to hold their dead lords’ lands. I understand you have no love of such thoughts, either.”

  “What of Lord Gylaron?” asks Ehara abruptly.

  “Gylaron has been brooked too often by Lord Geansor, and by those in Falcor who side with the cripple in order to keep the south weak and divided.” A faint sheen of perspiration coats Slevn’s forehead.

  “Oh . . . so your lord would be the overlord of the south under me, relying on my armsmen and their blades and blood? Why did he not write me such a proposal?”

  “He did not say such, my lord Ehara.”

  “Yet he thinks such, or you would not have voiced it.” Ehara laughs again. “Tell your master that I ask much of my overlords. More, I wager, than he would dream or wish.” Another laugh follows. “What of Lord Arkad? His lands are the key to the south of Defalk.”

  “Lord Arkad is ailing. His seneschal runs his lands. They are rich lands, perhaps the richest in Defalk.” Slevn blots his forehead with the back of his hand when Ehara half turns toward the window and the continuing rain. “And he has no heirs, not ones close enough to worry about.”

  “Your master would tempt me, then? Ha! Defalk once was rich, and may be again. Now it is but a ruin of a land, governed by a madwoman for an underage boy and lords who do not know that the world must change.” Ehara touches his black beard, and the blue eyes flash for a moment, although his voice drops into an even tone as he finishes. “It must change before the ships of Sturinn flood our coasts. One way or another, we cannot ignore the Maitre of Sturinn.”