The Saprano Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  "The Prophet's Guard is the oldest company-at-arms in Neserea, and it takes much skill to be accepted."

  "I'm complimented that the counselor felt I needed such talented escorts. I didn't know." Anna tried not to retch, but subtlety clearly wasn't within Spirda's reach.

  "The Guard gets the special assignments."

  "Do you guard the Prophet in battle?"

  "Not all of us, but some Guards are always around him, except when he does sorcery."

  Sorcery? Behlem did sorcery? He didn't feel like he did sorcery, but Daffyd had indicated that anyone could do a few spells, if they practiced, and were ready to take the risks.

  At the end of the liedburg grounds to the left, they continued down the street, with structures now on both sides, with a higher noise level.

  "… best spices in Falcor…"

  "Fresh fowl! Get your fresh fowl…"

  "…told Alastor that flour would go to five silvers! Think he'd…"

  Anna wanted to put her hands to her ears as they eased down the street.

  Despite the noise, when she saw the cloth merchant, and the deep green velvets, she wanted to stop, but decided that the Erdean equivalent of shopping wasn't a good idea—not on the first ride with the stiff-necked Spirda.

  "It's better a block down," Skent said loudly. "In three, the way's clear to the bridge and square."

  Anna hoped so, and offered another smile to Spirda. More politics! Would she ever be free of politics? It didn't seem to matter where she was; the need for politics continued!

  65

  "… the gown stayed pure and bright!"

  Anna set down the lutar and looked at the deep-blue gown on the bed—neck cut low enough to sing, high enough to get the message across that she wasn't looking for anyone, with quarter-length sleeves loose enough to let her move, yet like nothing she'd seen on Erde.

  In some ways, she hated creating gowns… but it was like performing for the University president—sorceress or singer, she had to keep up appearances.

  She glanced in the mirror, struck by the contrast between her riding clothes and the gown—and by the thinness of her face. She felt like she were stuffing herself, making sure she ate seconds, and everything on the trays the pages brought. But her clothes were looser. In the beginning, the idea of youth and eating anything hadn't seemed so bad… but now, it was almost as though she couldn't eat enough. She was more muscular, but she still looked too thin, bordering on anorexic. Could she order extra food?

  Nothing she did seemed to be enough. She took a deep breath.

  Still, she'd been riding for the past three days, and even Spirda had become almost friendly. The two pages seemed to enjoy it, and she had a better idea of what Falcor was like—and what it had once been.

  Although it was hard to tell, she sensed that perhaps a quarter of the structures in the small city were empty, and that some had been vacant for what seemed years.

  She shook her head.

  The knocker thunked.

  "Yes?"

  Not recognizing the voice, Anna opened the door.

  Menares stood there. "Might I have a word with you, Lady Anna?"

  "Of course. Please come in."

  As Anna closed the door, the heavy, white-haired counselor took one of the wooden chairs, sat, and wiped his forehead. "Your rooms are cool."

  "One of the benefits of sorcery. I can cool a small room; I'm not sure about a larger one. Would you like some water? It's cold and pure."

  "Another benefit of sorcery?"

  "A necessary one. Defalk is dry, and I need to drink a lot of water." She filled the spare goblet for Menares, and refilled her own before sitting down across from him.

  "You are attending the dinner this evening?"

  Anna's eyes flicked to the gown.

  "I see you are. More sorcery?"

  "Of course. I don't sew that well."

  "You should be aware that the last of the Ebran reinforcements have started out from Synek." Menares took a sip of the water, then a long swallow. "I never thought water would taste so good."

  "Thank you." She paused. "How long before they reach Mencha?"

  "About two weeks." The counselor paused. "There are nearly ten thousand in the last contingent."

  "We're outnumbered?"

  "Greatly. I was wondering just how effective your sorcery is."

  "It's not that effective." Anna tightened her lips. "Do you have any maps of the land between Mencha and Falcor?"

  "A number," admitted the counselor. "But you are not a field commander."

  Anna shook her head. "That is not why I need them. I have some ideas of how I might apply magic in some areas." Actually, I have no ideas at all, just feelings, but I'll have to trust them. She paused. "That might mean fighting somewhere of our choice, though."

  "After what the mirrors showed in the Sand Pass, Lady Anna, most commanders would listen if you could assure them that fighting on this or that hilltop would grant them a victory they could not otherwise assure."

  "I may have to ride out to Zechis or Pamr," Anna cautioned.

  "You will have to take a larger escort," countered Menares.

  "For something like that, I'd need one," Anna admitted. She stood and refilled his goblet.

  "Were I younger…" the counselor began.

  "Remember, counselor," she cautioned, "I'm not that much younger than you are. I was just a beneficiary of a sorcerous accident."

  "Would that such an accident befell me."

  Anna frowned. "Would you really want to be young in a place where you could never see family, friends, or do what you loved fully and freely?"

  The white-haired man tugged at the uppermost of his double chins. "Hmmmm… that is a point." He sipped more of the water. "Yet… it is almost a pleasure just to be here. Cool… with a beautiful woman."

  Anna laughed, softly. "What else do you want, you devious schemer?"

  "Me? The truthful counselor of the Prophet? Devious?"

  "You." The sorceress sipped her own water and waited.

  "You see… I worry about the Prophet. Everyone around him has only seen how easily Defalk fell…"

  "Without Lord Barjim and his consort, I suspect, Defalk was already defeated, or at least Falcor was."

  Menares's eyes widened. "How…"

  "You can feel a lot when you walk or ride through a city." Anna looked toward the window, and the afternoon shadows on the walls. "Falcor is dying, or something." She looked back to the white-haired man. "You were saying?"

  "Be careful, Lady Anna. The Prophet needs you. I know he needs you, but few others understand that need." Menares eased his bulk out of the chair. "Alas, I must go." He bowed. "Might I visit again?"

  "Of course." Anna inclined her head. "Of course."

  "Until dinner." Anna waited until he was down the stairs before summoning Skent to get some water so she could wash up. She missed having a tub—even a real shower would be heaven—but neither was going to happen soon.

  She also hoped the dinner would not be long, that she would not be the subject of more sexual speculation, and that she would not have to demonstrate sorcery. She also feared all three would come to pass.

  66

  Her suspicions had all come to fruition, and despite absolutely gorging herself the night before, a decent night's sleep, breakfast, and a good ride, Anna still had a nagging headache, and the desire to turn Delor into the Erdean equivalent of a toad.

  As if nursing sour white wine all evening, and fending off the innuendos of the not-so-good overcaptain Delor had not been enough, someone had searched her room while she had been at dinner. There was no way to lock the tower door from outside, and they certainly knew by now that she had a packful of assorted arms, and" spells of sorts scrawled everywhere, although she doubted many could use them, given modern English spelling and cryptic musical notation.

  The whole idea made her seethe, though she certainly should have expected it—even sooner. It was almost as bad as univers
ity politics. Worse, in some ways, because the locals had this idea that everything was all right unless they were caught red-handed. She shook her head. That wasn't just an Erdean problem, but one she'd seen everywhere, and more often in men than women.

  Thunk!

  "Coming!" She wrapped the light robe around her and walked to the door, where she unslid the bolt, opened the door slightly, and peered through the slit.

  A slender youth—a page Anna hadn't met, she guessed— stood outside on the landing.

  "Lady Anna?"

  "Yes?"

  "The lady Essan will receive you following the midday meal." His message delivered, the boy straightened, waiting for some response.

  "I would be pleased," Anna said. "I'm new here, and I do not know where her chambers are."

  "Oh… that is easy, lady. She has the quarters on the highest level of this tower. She removed herself there when the lord Behlem occupied the liedburg."

  "I'll be there."

  The page still stood on the landing.

  "Convey to Lady Essan that I will be at her quarters following the midday meal."

  "Thank you, Lady Anna." The page scurried up the stone steps.

  Anna closed the door.

  Why did Lady Essan want to see her? What should she wear? Somehow riding clothes didn't seem appropriate, nor did the gowns she had created for Behlem's dinners.

  In the end, she went back to. spells and sorcery to come up with a looser set of trousers she could wear with her boots and a light overtunic—both in green. That effort left her perspiring, made her headache worse, and exhausted her stock of unused cloth. l

  She left her riding clothes on and made her way down to the courtyard. As she passed the lower door, both Birke and Skent leaped to their feet.

  "Lady Anna!"

  "I promised I'd meet Daffyd, my player, where they have the midday meal."

  "That's over by the stables." Birke wrinkled his nose.

  "You'd do that?" asked Skent.

  "Why not? He helped me when there was no one else."

  The two pages looked at each other.

  "My turn," said Birke.

  "All right."

  Anna let Birke take the lead, but looked back and gave Skent a smile just before she stepped out the door into the hot courtyard.

  "It's really not far," Birke said with a grin, "but we can't leave the tower unless we're on an errand or escorting you or Lady Essan, or Lady Cirsa."

  "How's Virkan?"

  "He's much better, lady. He's not really the same person, but we're not complaining." Birke stopped, as did Anna, while a squad of Neserean armsmen rode in front of them through the courtyard and toward the liedburg's gate.

  Had she been right to lay a geas on Virkan? She knew he needed controlling, and that nothing short of sorcery or death would stop the man from terrorizing people who couldn't protest—but that sort of defense wouldn't have stood up in court. But she wasn't in court; she was stuck in a place where power ruled. And you're becoming just like them. Was she?

  Birke guided Anna around the horse droppings and toward the stable. "It's good to be able to ride again, and the Prophet even let me send a scroll to my sire. I told him about you, and about riding. You don't mind, do you?"

  "Heavens, no." Anna laughed,

  "It's not quite like it was when Lord Barjim was here, but it's getting there. We still don't have lessons like we used to, but Galen's gone."

  "Galen?"

  "He was Jimbob's tutor, as well as counselor to Lord Barjim, but he managed to take Jimbob out of the liedburg before the Prophet arrived. Some armsmen clattered out of here in the middle of the night, and the Prophet's forces were here in the morning." Birke stopped as the dark-haired Daffyd stepped from the shadowed doorway ahead.

  "I'm glad you could come, Lady Anna." Daffyd bowed.

  "She keeps her word," Birke said. "By your leave, Lady Anna?"

  The sorceress and the player watched as the redhead hurried back toward the north tower.

  "I'm hungry," Daffyd confessed.

  "Then lead on, master player," Anna said lightly.

  "We're there," he said, turning and opening the weathered door. The room had two trestle tables in it, and four long benches. The rough-planked ceiling was low enough that Anna could have reached up and touched it. Three men and a woman sat at the tables, the three men in one group, and the woman alone. All looked up as Anna and Daffyd entered.

  "You don't mind bread and cheese, with beer?" asked the violist.

  "That's fine. I can't stay too long, though. I have another command performance."

  "Lord Behlem?"

  "Lady Essan. She's important, but I don't remember quite why." .

  "She's the widow of Lord Donjim. He was Lord Barjim's uncle and the Lord of Defalk before Barjim." Daffyd pulled at his chin. "Do you know why she wants to see you?"

  "Not a clue. I hoped you might know. You know more about Defalk than I do. But you're hungry."

  "Let me introduce you to Fiena. Just sit down and I'll get you a platter."

  "Make it a lot, please," Anna said. "Twice as much as you'd eat."

  Daffyd's eyes widened.

  "Sorcery. If I don't eat like a stuffed horse, I lose weight."

  "If you say so." Daffyd gestured toward the woman sitting at the table nearest the stone wall—clearly part of the exterior wall of the liedburg. "Fiena, this is the lady Anna. Fiena is the lead string player for the Prophet."

  "I am most honored." Fiena, a strawberry-blonde with wide blue eyes and a pinched face, sat with her back to the wall. Her eyes went to the platter before her, filled with wedges of yellow brick cheese and a large chunk of dark bread, then back to Anna as the sorceress eased herself onto the bench across from the string player. "You do look so young, lady. Everyone said that, but it's hard to believe until you see."

  "Appearances can be deceiving," Anna said blandly, deciding she didn't really trust the blonde. "Where are you from?"

  "I'm from Esaria. Most of us are. There's a players' school there. It's the only one in Liedwahr, they say."

  "There was one in Elahwa once," Daffyd interjected as he set a platter before Anna and another to her right. Both were filled with bread and cheese, Anna's overflowing in all directions. "The dark ones destroyed it."

  "Where did you hear that?" asked Fiena.

  "Lord Brill." Daffyd slipped back to the serving table.

  "Oh, he was the one who failed." Fiena gestured vaguely.

  "He was very successful in many things," Anna said gently, taking a good-sized mouthful of bread, then breaking off a generous chunk of cheese.

  "I suppose so," answered Fiena. "I don't know much about Defalk."

  Daffyd set a tumbler before Anna and another before his own plate.

  "How many players are there with the Prophet?" Anna asked.

  "Just eight of us. That's more than enough. He can only do small spells. They say his sire was a great Prophet."

  "That was Mikell," Daffyd explained. "Even Lord Brill admitted he was a great sorcerer. That's why the Norweians assassinated him."

  "He died in his sleep," said Fiena.

  Daffyd shrugged. "Lord Brill said he was killed, that no one but a Norweian assassin could bring down that great a sorcerer."

  Anna felt like she was following a tennis match, with her head traveling back forth. She tried to concentrate on forcing more food into her system.

  "I don't know much about Nordwei." Fiena dismissed Nordwei with a gesture that reminded Anna of too many over-the-hill divas, or Mozart's prototypical Madame Gol-dentrill. "I do know that it is impossible for assassins to have killed Lord Mikell."

  "How did you get to be a player?" Anna decided to change the subject. "Was anyone in your family a player?"

  "My father was the lead string player for Lord Mikell." Fiena shrugged. "I was the youngest daughter. I would far rather be a player than the consort of a flax merchant."

  Did that mean that her father had had to
o many daughters? "How many sisters did you have?" Anna asked.

  "Four. Grendee is the consort of Dene—"

  "Dene was the son of Lord Mikell's brother," Daffyd added.

  "Sort of a duke," mused Anna.

  "Duke?"

  "Never mind." Anna took a healthy swallow of the beer. "It means something like the brother of a lord."

  Fiena shook her head minutely, stopped her intermittent eating and looked at Anna silently for a moment, before saying, "I don't know much about foreign words." The string player dismissed foreign words with the same gesture that she had dismissed Daffyd's speculations about Mflcell's death.

  "I take it that most players do not have consorts," Anna offered.

  "Not women. It disturbs the harmonies." Fiena looked at Anna's platter. "You eat like a sorcerer. All of you eat so much and are so thin."

  Anna broke off another piece of bread and chewed it slowly, along with some of the hard cheese. What Fiena said about women players didn't make sense. Liende had been Brill's lover, as had Daffyd's mother. She looked toward Daffyd.

  His mouth full, the young violist shrugged.

  Anna took a long sip of beer, then asked, "What is Esaria like?"

  "Esaria is beautiful, with white stone buildings on the hills, and wide bridges over the Saris. It's the oldest city in Liedwahr, and scholars come from across all of Erde, even from far Sturinn, to study at the Temple of the Prophet." Fiena smiled faintly. "Each season has its beauty, and no other city is beautiful in all seasons. That is why the Prophet chose it, and why it has endured."

  "What makes Esaria so beautiful?'' Anna pressed.

  "Just everything."

  "Is there anything in Falcor that resembles Esaria?"

  "I haven't seen much of Falcor. I didn't bother." Fiena dismissed Falcor.

  Anna took a last mouthful of bread. Had she eaten the entire platter of cheese and bread? She felt still hungry, and yet as though she could not swallow another morsel. She finally nodded to Daffyd before rising and turning to Fiena. "It was nice to meet you, Fiena."

  "It was pleasant to meet you, Lady Anna, but I hope I didn't offend you. I don't know much about sorceresses." Fiena smiled her faint smile.