In addition, it has come to our attention that over twoscore Sturinnese war vessels are anchored in Dumar.
These events lead to the almost inescapable conclusion that Dumar is attempting to meddle in Defalk. At worse, one could conclude that Dumar and Sturinn plan a war of conquest in Liedwahr.
Such a war would be to the detriment of all, particularly of Dumar. To reinforce this point, without resorting to force of arms, I have stopped the flow of the Falche River. This gesture on the part of the Regency is offered in good faith short of war, and in response to your use of lancers in Defalk and the presence of a large foreign fleet in Dumar, the fleet of a land that has been unfriendly in the past to all Liedwahr.
We would urge you to reaffirm bonds of friendship with Defalk and to take the necessary steps to ensure that the only ships from Sturinn anchored in Dumaran waters are those few necessary for mutual trade. . . . We also await the payment of those golds required for the rebuilding of Defalk necessitated by your actions. . . .
The next part wouldn’t do. She scratched out the line, and laboriously rewrote it, forcing herself to take care with quill and inkwell.
In time, she stood and went to the door, peering out. Fhurgen, Rickel, and Lejun were all there.
“Yes, Lady Anna?”
“Ah . . . could someone find Lord Jecks for me?”
Fhurgen looked at Rickel. Rickel looked at Lejun. Lejun shrugged and grinned.
“He was sparring with Lord Birfels earlier, but he may be in the library now,” offered Fhurgen.
“I shall go,” said Lejun.
“Thank you,” Anna said quietly.
She went back to the smaller writing desk in the bedchamber and began to read the latest scrolls. Menares, Dythya, Himar, and Herstat somehow managed to get messengers to the right place.
The first message was another from Lady Gatrune, thanking Anna for trusting Herene with a position of responsibility. The second was from Anientta, disavowing her father’s request to combine the administration and control of Arien and Flossbend.
Anna frowned. She’d already denied Tybel’s request, but those messages to both Anientta and Tybel probably had crossed with Anientta’s to Anna. Sooner or later, she needed to visit Synope—or send Jecks or someone—to resolve that mess.
She picked up the third scroll and broke the seal.
Thrap!
“Lord Jecks, Lady Anna.”
“Come on in.”
They walked back to the conference table where Anna handed her rough-drafted message to the white-haired lord. “Would you read this?”
“I would be pleased. You have a fine hand, and a way with words.”
“Thank you.” Anna forced herself to accept the compliment, even while rejecting the idea.
After he finished, Jecks glanced up. “You are determined to use such sorcery?”
“Unless someone comes up with a better idea. Doing nothing will only make things worse.” Anna took the last sip of wine in the goblet and lifted the pitcher. It was empty, and she set it down. “Right now, we have young Hadrenn holding off Bertmynn and the Sturinnese and maybe the Liedfuhr in Ebra. According to Menares, and who knows how he found out, both the Liedfuhr and the Sturinnese are funding Bertmynn. Things still aren’t sorted out in Neserea, and we’ve at least got credit with the Ranuan Exchange for our people. Dumar’s the only problem. What happens a year from now when there are twice as many Sturinnese ships and armsmen in Dumar, when the Liedfuhr uses that as an excuse to take over—just for the duration—Neserea—”
“‘For the duration’?” asked Jecks.
“Sorry. That’s a sarcastic expression where I come from. It means he’ll say his action is temporary because of the emergency conditions, but he never will leave. Neserea will become part of Mansuur, and then we’ll have problems on two borders, with Bertmynn using coins from everyone to finish off Hadrenn in Ebra. . . .”
“Matters might not turn so ill.”
Anna raised her eyebrows and fixed Jecks with cold blue eyes.
Jecks’ lips curled into a sardonic smile. “That is why I am glad you are regent, Lady Anna. You expect the worst of serpents and plan for it. Planning for the worst, season after season, is not to my liking.”
“I take it you don’t have a better idea?”
“I have those which are more pleasant.” He laughed harshly, once. “Yet against what you say, my ideas are like mist. No, I fear you are right. I do not have to like your reason, but I must respect it.”
Jecks, an optimist? Anna nodded. He’d have to have been, to have survived. And what does that say about you? She pushed that question away.
“I’ll have this ready to go.” She gestured to the message. “It needs to leave by messenger the moment the dam is completed.”
“Why tell me such?”
“Because I’m liable to be exhausted or asleep or not thinking well, and you won’t be.” She forced a grin.
“As you say, Lady Anna.”
“Am I wrong?” she demanded, her eyes meeting his warm hazel ones.
“I think not.” He paused. “You are not as other women. You will not tell yourself that matters are other than they are. Defalk is fortunate in that, but I would not say that of you, lady.”
“Damned—cursed—to be a realist?”
He shrugged sadly.
“The message will be here, tied in green ribbon.” Anna glanced at the empty goblet, then at the clouds through the narrow window, growing more golden by the moment. She could have used more wine. Before long, being regent would turn her into a full-blown alcoholic.
“There’s a banquet tonight,” Jecks offered.
Anna groaned. “I’m supposed to be entertained, and entertaining?”
“I believe that is what Lady Fylena said.”
“Then you don’t get to leave before I do.” Anna offered a smile.
“Your wish in that is my command.”
“You are still most careful, Lord Jecks.”
“With sorceresses, and regents, that is wise.” He kept a blank expression, but the hazel eyes twinkled, and Anna wished for a moment that she were neither regent nor sorceress.
80
WEI, NORDWEI
Ashtaar turns in her chair to view the harbor through the open window. In the late twilight, the sound of insects hums upward from the trees below the Council building. To the north, points of yellowed orange flicker into being as the larger lamps on the harbor piers are lit. The darkness undotted by lamps denotes the river Nord and Vereisen Bay beyond.
At the knock on the door, the spymistress turns, returning her thoughts to the room illuminated softly by the wall-hung brass luminaries. Behind the spotless crystal mantels, the lamp flames scarcely flicker, but they are bright enough that her dark hair glistens in their light. “Yes?”
“You requested my presence, honored Ashtaar?” Gretslen bows as she steps inside and closes the dark-stained wooden door behind her. The lamplight turns her blonde hair into a faint cloud in the dim room.
“I did.” The darker woman gestures to the chair before her desk. “You have reported that the sorceress now holds all of Defalk?”
Gretslen brushes a lock of short blonde hair off her forehead. “She has subdued all the rebels without destroying their keeps or all heirs, except in the case of Synfal. That she turned over to the heir to Defalk itself, Lord Jimbob.”
“She did not raze Stromwer?”
“No.”
Ashtaar purses her lips, and her fingers slip around the black agate oval, blacker even than her hair. “She has the loyalty of all Defalk, and yet she neither presses into Dumar nor returns to Falcor.”
“She guests with Lord Birfels of Abenfel. She and her forces are his invited guests,” Gretslen confirms.
“And the Sea-Priests remain in Dumar?. Can you determine why?”
“No, honored Ashtaar, save that their Sea-Marshal spends much time with Lord Ehara, who does not seem overly pleased.”
�
��Would you be pleased?” Ashtaar laughs. “He has the Liedfuhr to the west, the sorceress to the north, and the Sturinnese fleet in his harbor. He has been providing aid to the rebel lords of Defalk, and the sorceress knows that. Would you be in his seat?”
Gretslen shakes her head.
“The worst is yet to come,” predicts the spymistress. “Ehara is trapped between the Sturinnese, who will do anything to gain a foothold in Liedwahr and to destroy a powerful female ruler, and the sorceress. She will destroy them—and much of Liedwahr—if she must in order to keep the gilded chains of Sturinn from enslaving the women of Dumar and Defalk.” Ashtaar offers a cruel smile. “She does not know that, but she will.”
“And what of us?” asks Gretslen.
“We are worse, dear seer. We told her about the chains, and we will let her use her full powers, come what may.” Ashtaar’s fingers tighten around the black agate before she forces them to relax.
81
Anna glanced to her right at the mist rising out of the gorge and above the trees and brush that blocked her direct view of the canyon and the river. Her eyes went to the damp clay of the trail that led to the narrows where she would try to create her dam. In the leather folder behind her saddle were her drawings, based on everything she could remember, and the elaborate three-stanza spell. Elaborate strophic, homophonic spell . . .
She hoped she wouldn’t need it, and that she could concentrate on the drawing and the concept of the dam, but the words and melody notations were there if necessary. She felt tired, and she hadn’t even done any spell-casting. Then, most of the fatigue was probably from mental conflict. She didn’t like what she was planning, but she had to do something, besides waiting, and anything else she or Jecks or anyone else had thought up was worse—except doing nothing. And within a short time, that would result in even more dire consequences.
The lutar that accompanied her everywhere away from whatever keep she inhabited was also fastened behind the saddle. Jecks rode silently to her right, drawn into himself, and probably fighting the same internal conflicts. Anna snorted. He was probably wondering how they’d ended up saddled with a temperamental sorceress who didn’t want a return to the good old days. Women thinking? Openly questioning men? Or running holdings? What had Erde come to?
As she pursed her lips, moistening them, she leaned forward and patted Farinelli, getting the faintest of whuffs from the gelding. Ahead of her rode Rickel and Fhurgen, and behind Anna, Hanfor and Lord Birfels. After the veteran and the lord rode Lejun and then the regent’s players, followed by the Purple Company.
The players were silent, even Delvor, the struggling violinist, and Duralt, the cocky falk-horn player who was too often full of himself. Anna missed Daffyd. For all of his puppy-dog hurt looks, for all that his misconstrued spell had dragged Anna to Defalk, he’d been a good player and leader and had stood up for what he believed in—and for Anna—and he’d died at Vult doing it.
“Lady Anna . . . ?” Birke’s voice almost broke—the problems of adolescent growth—as he edged his mount nearer to hers.
She turned her head, eastward, left, and let the rising sun warm her full face. “Yes, Birke.”
“What . . . what will happen . . . after . . .”
“After the sorcery?” That is a damned good question. “There will be a dam, and a large lake behind it. When the water reaches the spillway—that’s a lower place in the dam—it will flow over the dam, and then the river will continue.”
“But . . . why . . . do such sorcery?”
“To let the Dumarans and the Sturinnese know I could halt the river forever. To persuade the Sturinnese to leave Liedwahr.” You hope. . . .
“They might not,” Birke said. “My sire says they are like ants in a granary. You have to remove everything and kill them all before they will leave.” He paused. “Would you do that?”
“Birke,” Anna said slowly, “one day you will inherit your sire’s lands. You’ll be responsible for all of the holding. You know what the Sturinnese have done. They’ve conquered the Ostisles and now they have a fleet in Dumar. Would you like to see Lysara and Clayre in gilded chains? Or your own consort when you have one? What would you do?”
“They have often taken many years . . . and you are powerful. They cannot defeat you.”
Anna wanted to shake her head. She’d seen it in academia on earth, and in Erde among the lords . . . and everyone else. If the problem wasn’t immediate, ignore it and hope it will go away. “Birke . . . your faith in my ability is touching, but how long will I live? I’m older than your father, possibly older than Jecks. And I can be killed. It’s almost happened twice.” More like half a dozen times if you count the backlash of sorcery. “Then what?”
The youth’s forehead furrowed. After a time, he answered. “Lady Anna, when you talk, nothing is quite the same. But it is hard. I remember when you bespelled Virkan. At first, I thought you were fearsome, and then Skent said something strange. He talks more like you, you know. He said that you had only spelled Virkan to do what a good person would not need a spell for.” Birke glanced at the winding trail ahead, then looked back at the sorceress. “He said that you seldom spelled except to make things better for everyone.” The redhead laughed nervously. “And he looked at me, and he told me that what was better for lords wasn’t always better for everyone else. I would have struck him except . . . he’s bigger, and he seemed so calm.”
Anna glanced over her shoulder. Birfels was talking quietly to Hanfor. “Birke . . . Skent was right. What is good for one lord is not good for all lords, and what is good for all lords may not be good for all people. You remember Secca?”
“The little redheaded fosterling. Lysara wrote me about her, but . .”
“You had already returned to Abenfel. She has two brothers, one older and one younger. She is brighter than either. She is fairer and more determined than either. Would it be better for her to hold the lands or her brothers?”
Birke looked at the mane of the roan he rode. “The sons. . . . They have always been heirs. . . .”
“Exactly. It’s hard, isn’t it? If you admit that Secca might be a better landholder, then wouldn’t you have to admit that Clayre or Lysara might have that skill, too?” Anna laughed. “I’m not changing the succession laws, except in cases where the sons are incompetent or there aren’t any sons.” She paused. “Isn’t it better that Cataryzna hold her father’s lands than some outsider?”
Birke nodded. “That . . . that is better.”
“Well . . . that’s the sort of thing I am changing. Nothing more.” Not for a long time, anyway. That’s enough to turn some of the older lords purple as it is.
Birke screwed up his face. “But you did not . . . I mean . . . Dumar . . . and the Sea-Priests . . .”
“I didn’t, did I?” The sorceress wiped her forehead. Despite the early-morning coolness in the hills, she was starting to perspire. Nerves? “I’m hoping that if I cut off the river to Dumar for a time, that will persuade Ehara to get the Sea-Priests to leave.”
“But . . .”
“If they don’t?” Anna shrugged. “We’ll have to see. At least this way, I’m not using sorcery to kill scores or hundreds or thousands of people.” If it works. . . . She repressed a shiver. “Isn’t that the narrows there?”
Birke stood in the stirrups. “Yes. There goes a buck! If I had my bow out, we’d have venison.”
Anna watched as the big white-tailed red deer—was there such an animal?—bounded from the cleared area into the trees that climbed the hills to the east of the trail. She was glad Birke hadn’t had his bow out and strung. She turned in the saddle. “Liende, I’d like the players to set up on that grassy spot on the ridge there, right below those bushes.”
“Players!” Liende ordered.
Anna eased her water bottle from its holder and took a long slow swallow before replacing it. By then, Farinelli had carried her to the partly cleared ridge that overlooked the narrower section of the gorge.
“Purple company!” called Hanfor. “Squads one and two back along the trail, up to the crest by that pine. Squads three and four, ride down to where those two bushes sit by that fallen trunk.”
As the armsmen followed the arms commander’s orders and dust swirled across the high meadow, Anna dismounted, handing Farinelli’s reins to Lejun and then unpacking the folder with the spell and the drawings of the dam. Folder in hand, she stretched, then lifted her shoulders, walking in circles to get the stiffness out of her legs. Her steps took her down to the overlook, and she studied the gorge once more.
The Falche seemed wider than even the few days earlier, the silver ribbon twisting in the shade hundreds of yards below. As she watched the play of light and mist and shadow, she cleared her throat, then began her vocalises.
“Holly-lolly-polly-pop . . . Damn!” She coughed, trying to clear out her throat, then began again. It was going to take a long time to get clear. It did—four separate vocalises and a lot of mucus.
Only the faintest of mist streamers were left by the time she turned from her warm-up and view of the Falche. Jecks was waiting for her by Farinelli, water bottle in hand, after she walked back up the gentle slope through the knee-high brush.
“You’re worried, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I should not be.” He shrugged. “I worry every time you attempt the impossible.” A small laugh followed. “You have made the impossible possible, time and again, but still I worry.”
“This time even more?”
He nodded.
“You may be right. This is a very ambitious spell.”
“Sometimes, my lady, you try too hard to avoid shedding blood.”
“You all wanted me as regent. That’s who I am.” Anna laughed brittlely and shook her head. “No . . . you didn’t want me. You wanted someone to preserve Defalk, and you got me. That’s different, isn’t it?”
The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle Page 46
