The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Anna wanted to shiver herself, fearing that Secca had confirmed her suspicions of Anientta. Instead, she just hugged Secca again. “You can stay as long as you want.” At least while I’m regent . . . or Lady of Loiseau. “As long as you want. . . .”

  Anna finally sat down, drawing the still-sobbing child into her arms, wondering how she’d ended up with another little redhead.

  After the scattering clouds and shifting light from the window had played across the wall for a time, Secca gave a last sob, a cough, and blotted her eyes.

  “You really won’t send me back to Flossbend?”

  “You can stay here so long as you wish. If I’m no longer regent, you may come to Loiseau with me . . . that’s if you want to.”

  “Can we play Vorkoffe soon? Tonight?” Secca asked.

  “A short game,” Anna conceded with a laugh. The game was similar to the box game Anna had played in college, where whoever got the most boxes completed won, but in Liedwahr the object was to distribute stones by twos, and the complexity made the outcome less certain.

  “You must have a lot to do.” Secca straightened. “And I want to play tonight.” She looked straight at Anna, and her eyes watered again. “You are good. Papa said you were.” She swallowed. “I’d better go.”

  After Secca had left, Anna took out the smooth brown paper that was so expensive in Liedwahr and the quill, and began to write the response to Lady Anientta, slowly and carefully, to avoid smudging the ink that seemed to take forever to dry. Once she finished, she reread the key parts in a low voice.

  “. . . share your grief at the illness of one with whom you shared so much of your life. . . .

  “We also regret deeply that a lord so able and supportive of Defalk and the Regency is unable to fulfill, his duties, and trust you will continue in his tradition. . . .

  “In accordance with Lord Hryding’s wishes, as expressed directly to me, and to Secca, she has asked and will remain in Falcor to complete her fostering and education. . . .

  “In this time of grief and turmoil, Secca sends her love to her father, to you and to Jeron and Kurik . . .”

  It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. She rang the bell.

  “Yes, Lady Anna.” Skent peered in.

  She lifted the scroll. “Skent, would you please make a copy of this, right now, and then return both to me?”

  The page’s eyes widened.

  “Dythya says you’re quite capable of copying and that you have a fine hand.”

  “Yes, Lady Anna.” Skent crossed the room and took the scroll.

  “Send Fridric in on your way out.”

  The page inclined his head.

  Fridric bowed as he entered. “Lady Anna.”

  “I will have a scroll for you to return to the Lady Anientta. At this time, I am adhering to Lord Hryding’s wishes that Secca remain in Falcor.”

  Fridric bowed.

  “You and Stephen and Markan are also welcome here, at any time,” Anna added, deciding against being too explicit.

  “Thank you, Lady Anna.” Fridric stopped, then swallowed. “We serve Lord Hryding.”

  “Lord Hryding is a good lord,” Anna answered, “and I know you will serve him well.”

  Fridric looked relieved.

  “If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside for the scroll. . . .”

  “Oh, no, Lady Anna.” The young armsman practically backed out of the receiving room.

  After Skent returned with the two scrolls and she signed and sealed the original and sent Fridric off with it, Anna glanced at the sandglass on the wall stand, nearing the eighth glass of the day. Four o’clock, earth time, she converted mentally, and time to meet with Liende to go over the spell songs.

  Her eyes passed across the piles of paper, and she wanted to groan. Was she really doing anything? Or was it all an illusion?

  Jecks was right. She had to think about efficiency. She hated the very word. It had been one of Avery’s watchwords, and Sandy hadn’t been much better.

  Clearly, creating things almost from scratch—like the damned bridge over the Falche—took a lot of effort. But what about rearrangements? Would it take less effort to rebuild houses or shops? What if she started fixing up abandoned houses in Falcor? She shook her head. They couldn’t be gifts. Gifts never worked, not with children, friends, or enemies. Was that it? Dwellings for artisans and craftspeople—in return for services to the liedstadt and to entice them back to Falcor?

  She looked at the sandglass. Time for working out more of the spell arrangements with Liende. She stood and stretched, trying not to think about all the problems she still hadn’t resolved, from roads to liedgeld, to dead and possibly dying lords, and hostile countries on almost every border of Defalk.

  Followed by Blaz and Lejun, Anna hurried out of the receiving hall and across the courtyard to the players’ quarters and the large room that had become Liende’s rehearsal hall.

  The strains of the building song, played by several violinos and the clarinet-like woodwind of Liende, seeped through the planks of the stained-pine door. Anna paused to listen, with her guards standing behind her.

  One of the violinos was slightly off.

  Abruptly, the woodwind quit.

  “Enough.” Liende’s voice came through the door. “Delvor, you’re not holding the pitch. You have to follow Kaseth. This sorceress is more forbearing than most, but if you do that when she’s casting a spell, she’s not going to be pleased. I won’t be at all happy, because you’re endangering the rest of us. You need to practice more. If you don’t, I’ll tell the regent you can’t play well enough.”

  “Please . . . master player. I’ll practice. I’ll practice more,” promised Delvor.

  “You must practice better.”

  The regent suspected the wavering words belonged to Kaseth, who had been Lord Brill’s lead player. Anna still wondered how Liende had persuaded the older man to play under her.

  The sorceress knocked on the plank door, then opened it, and stepped into the cool room, lit by only two candles in glass mantels. The flames of both candles wavered with the door’s opening.

  The three string players rose, Delvor scrambling rather than merely standing.

  Anna looked at the youngster. “If Liende doesn’t think you’ve improved enough in two weeks, you will leave. Do you understand?”

  Delvor’s lower lip trembled. “Yes, Lady Anna.”

  “Delvor . . . I may not look it, but I’ve practiced and trained for nearly thirty years.” Anna kept her voice cool. “My oldest daughter was almost old enough to be your mother. Music and sorcery aren’t things you just play at.” She gave a perfunctory smile. “If the rest of you wouldn’t mind, I need a few moments with Liende.”

  The three string players bowed. Kaseth met her eyes briefly, and gave the faintest of nods, as did Palian. Delvor’s eyes were on the floor.

  Once the door closed, guarded on the outside by Blaz and Lejun, Anna turned to the woodwind player. “I hope you didn’t mind, but it’s better that I’m the bad person. Then you can seem reasonable.”

  “I have told him.” Liende shook her head. “The young, they do not understand.”

  “No, they don’t,” Anna agreed, thinking of all the students she’d taught over the years, and how few ever truly understood the difference between adequacy and perfection. In sorcery, or music spells, competency was barely enough, and a mistake could be dangerous or fatal. “If you think he isn’t up to it, then send him away.”

  “He might practice now,” the red-and-white-haired woman said with a short laugh.

  “Or he might sulk and think we’re unreasonable,” Anna said dryly. She’d certainly seen that type before.

  Liende waited.

  “I’m going to need you for a building spell, the second one. How soon can you have that ready?”

  The woodwind player frowned. “We have just started, and it is different with only four players. A week, perhaps?”

  “All right.” Anna
had hoped for a date earlier than that, but Liende seemed reasonable, and Anna hadn’t yet learned whether the player was one who was too cautious, or too optimistic, or relatively accurate in judging timing. Another thing she needed to learn.

  And . . . she’d promised Secca a game of Vorkoffe.

  Was there ever time for what needed to be done?

  13

  ESARIA, NESEREA

  The brown-haired officer in the maroon uniform of a Lancer of Mansuur drops to one knee, and looks up to Rabyn. “Your grandsire the Liedfuhr has pledged us to your service, Lord Rabyn.”

  “To my service, Overcaptain Relour?” asks the dark-haired youth, leaning forward slightly, and almost indolently, in the gilt throne chair.

  “To the service of the Lord of Neserea, and the Protector of the Faith of the Eternal Melody,” answers the overcaptain, standing and turning to his left to face Nubara. “And, of course, following the counsel of the hand of the regent, Counselor and Overcaptain Nubara.”

  “Of course,” echoes Rabyn, smiling broadly. “You are indeed most welcome here in Esaria, and I am certain that Overcaptain Nubara will ensure that you and all of your men are quartered and fed. Then, we must talk, the three of us, about the Liedfuhr’s wishes on how we are to defeat the evil sorceress of the east.”

  “That is one reason why I am here, my lord. We await your pleasure, and that of the hand of the regent.” Relour bows, but not deeply. “By your leave?”

  “By our leave.” Rabyn smiles again, leaning back in the gilt chair. “We are most glad to see you and your lancers, and we look forward to ensuring their use against our enemies.”

  Relour offers a last head-bow before turning.

  The doors to the winter receiving-chamber close behind the lancer commander, leaving Nubara and Rabyn alone.

  “You may be lord and prophet in name, Lord Rabyn,” Nubara says quietly as he edges up beside Rabyn, “but his lancers are a greater force than any single one you have left in Neserea.”

  “Did you know that the Prophet’s Guard has seventy-score armsmen?” asks Rabyn, his tone guileless as he turns and looks at Nubara, his eyes wide. “That’s what Captain Gellinot told me yesterday. He is the cousin of the late captain—Zealor, was it?”

  “Zealor is his cousin. Or was, until the sorceress killed him,” Nubara replies.

  “Do you think he will make a good captain of the Guard?”

  “He is loyal to the throne, and to you.” Nubara’s voice is smooth.

  “Do you like him, Nubara?”

  The Mansuuran officer laughs, softly. “Lord Rabyn, I have liked men who would have killed me, and disliked those who have given their life for me. Liking does not matter. Trust does. If you cannot trust someone, you must control them. You can like them, but never count on liking when blades are drawn.”

  “You are wise.” Rabyn cocks his head to one side. “Should rulers like anyone?”

  “You can like who you wish. Just don’t confuse it with trust.”

  “Can we trust Overcaptain Relour?”

  “He will do as he has been ordered by your grandsire. That you can count upon.” Nubara shrugs.

  “And what are his orders?”

  “We know he has been ordered to protect you and the borders of Neserea.”

  “But not to support an attack on Defalk and the sorceress?”

  “No.” Nubara smiles widely, but only with his mouth. “Not until your forces are stronger. And that will not be too long. Overcaptain Nitron reports that the Mittfels Foot is at full strength—”

  “Why is he still an overcaptain?”

  “Because he was the most senior officer who remained loyal to your father and to you. And he did bring back not only his levies, but the rest of your forces.”

  “Those who didn’t desert,” snaps Rabyn. “What about the Prophet’s Lancers?”

  “Reforming is slower there,” admits Nubara. “Most of the senior officers remained in Defalk. Overcaptain Re-lour might be persuaded to lend an officer or two. . . .”

  Rabyn frowns, then nods. “If you would ask him . . .”

  “I’m sure he would be most pleased. Most pleased.”

  “I’m hungry.” Rabyn gathers the green cloak around him and slips off the gilt throne.

  14

  Even with the candles in the wall sconces lit, as well as the lamp on one side of the writing-desk table, Anna’s quarters were dim, and the black etched rectangle on the stone outer wall, next to where her replacement scrying mirror hung, seemed to shift with the flickering light.

  Anna moistened her lips. How long, how many seasons, or years, before she dared to use the mirror to see Elizabetta? Would a spell even work anymore? The last attempt hadn’t, and the heat and explosion had nearly killed her. Would another attempt, after a season or two, be any better? Would the reflecting pool she planned across the hall make it easier? Her eyes dropped to the redheaded child on the other side of the table, a brown woolen shawl wrapped around her narrow shoulders.

  Secca looked at the two black stones in her hand, then at the game board with the intertwined lattices, and the grooved slots designed to hold the stones.

  Anna glanced from the white stones before her to the window, and the darkness outside the panes she’d installed a season earlier. Sorcery had some benefits. Then her eyes went back to the redheaded fosterling across the table from her. Secca’s hair was the color of Elizabetta’s, but her face was thinner, more intense, and her eyes were amber, unlike the green of Elizabetta’s.

  Secca stared intently at the game board, then placed her stones in adjacent slots in the lattice at the edge of the board to Anna’s far left. “There!” She grinned.

  Vorkoffe was similar to NIM or NEM—at least that was what Anna thought it was called. That was the box game Anna had played in college, where whoever got the most boxes completed won, but on earth you’d completed boxes with a pencil. In Liedwahr the object was to distribute stones by twos. Five stones completed a lattice. If you surrounded an opponent’s lattice, it became yours.

  Tonight, Anna was losing, though she’d held her own recently.

  Is that because your mind’s not on the game? Imagine that. Winning or losing wasn’t that big a deal, no great gain or loss, but she hated to seem incompetent. Anna put her two stones on the board and completed the big center lattice.

  “That’s wasn’t fair, Lady Anna.” Secca offered a hint of a pout.

  “You’re pouting again.” Anna laughed. “Do you know that when I was your age . . .”

  “I know.” Secca sighed. “You put your lip out so far that your mother said she could ride to town on it.”

  Anna wondered if she were repeating herself too much. Early Alzheimer’s? Or stress? “I don’t want you to have that lip stuck out all the time.”

  Secca completed a corner lattice. “There! You need be careful.”

  “The way you’re playing tonight, that’s for sure.” Anna juggled the two white stones, looking at the ten-year-old who munched on a corner of the dark bread. Secca certainly hadn’t wanted to go home to Flossbend—not at all, even with her father ill, and that tended to confirm Anna’s suspicions about Anientta.

  Anna started a secondary lattice beside the center one by putting one white stone on each of the open side slots.

  Secca shivered again.

  Anna looked at her. “You’re cold.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  Were her lips actually blue? The sorceress stood, and walked over to the hearth, where the wood was stacked, then back to the corner where the lutar lay on the chest. She began to tune the instrument.

  “You shouldn’t do sorcery, lady.”

  “Just a little spell.” Anna stepped toward the hearth, then began to sing.

  “Fire, fire, burn so bright

  in this hearth tonight,

  burn well and warm and light

  and have the chill within take flight.”

  The hearth flared into flame, not a
roaring blaze, but a warm glowing steady set of flames. Anna smiled to herself.

  “Oh . . . you didn’t have to do that,” Secca said.

  “You’re cold. I could tell that.” Sparkles flashed before Anna’s eyes. One little spell? I can’t even do a spell to warm a child? Wanting to scream in frustration, instead she turned so Secca couldn’t see her face and carried the lutar back to the chest, setting it down gently, despite her trembling hands.

  “I wish . . .” Secca shook her head.

  Anna slipped back to the table, with the game laid out upon it, and eased into her chair, trying not to sit heavily, trying not to show the lightheadedness. Slowly, she reached for the bread and broke off a chunk.

  Secca sat up straight in her chair. “Are you all right, Lady Anna?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  The redhead reached for the pitcher and, standing on tiptoe, refilled Anna’s goblet.

  “Thank you,” Anna said after she swallowed the mouthful of bread. She reached for the goblet.

  “Would the cheese help?” Secca’s voice was small.

  Anna had to smile at the concern. “I’ll have some in a moment.” She took a swallow of the water. “The fire does feel good.”

  “I like fires when it’s cold,” answered the little redhead, in a voice that reminded Anna all too much of Elizabetta.

  “So do I.” Anna put a small chunk of cheese into her mouth, wondering how much she’d have to eat to dispel the lightheadedness.

  15

  After a last vocalise, the regent and sorceress cleared her throat. She looked down and studied the drawing of the reflecting pool. Then, the sketch in hand, she stepped from her chambers into the corridor. Lejun and Giellum straightened as she appeared. The five waiting players shifted from one foot to the other on the stone floor tiles in the dimness of the corridor, holding their instruments loosely.

  Anna walked past the players, her boots nearly silent on the stones, to the open doorway. She glanced through the squared arch to the piles of granite and limestone resting on the floor stones of the empty chamber that had once been used for guests—or relatives of the lords of Defalk.