Wearing her green leather riding jacket over the blue gown was practical, if not terribly elegant, but Secca had no alternatives, besides freezing. She shifted her weight in the saddle of the gray mare, then glanced sideways at Alcaren, riding beside her in the darker blue dress uniform of an overcaptain of Ranuak—a much warmer outfit than the blue consorting gown Secca wore under the riding jacket.
“I’ve never seen that uniform,” she said.
“Neither had I, until yesterday. It was a gift from the Matriarch. She said she owed more than a uniform to me, but that the uniform would have to do for now.”
“She wants you consorted and out of Ranuak,” Secca suggested, “and she might gift her favorite cousin more—once you’re safely away.”
“Her problem cousin is more accurate,” Alcaren replied. “But I’m about to become more your problem than hers. Are you ready for that?”
“More than ready. You’ve already been the problem. We’re past that.” Secca smiled, broadly, trying to conceal some of the nervousness she felt.
“You’re worried still.” His voice carried the understated concern that it had taken her seasons to recognize.
“A little. In a way, I’d given up hope of finding a consort I could love. Getting that feeling back…”
“I know.” Alcaren laughed gently, warmly. “I do know. I didn’t expect to find myself drawn to you. Then…I couldn’t lose you, and I didn’t realize it until I had to act.”
“I know. I’m glad.” Secca appreciated both his words and the warmth behind them.
The last half-dek of the avenue leading to the Matriarch’s palace was lined with lancers—women lancers in the red and blue of the SouthWomen. As Secca and Alcaren rode past, each SouthWoman lifted her sabre in salute, holding it unwaveringly long after the couple had passed.
“They don’t have to…” Secca murmured.
“They do,” replied Alcaren in a low voice, leaning toward her. “The Council of SouthWomen will ask the Matriarch to allow all five companies of the SouthWomen to accompany you to Dumar.”
“They told you this?”
Alcaren shook his head. “They were talking about it from the day after the battle with the Sea-Priests. All of the SouthWomen lancers are packing, and all have made arrangements for others to handle their crafts or work.”
Secca swallowed.
“You have become their champion, and they will follow you where they would follow no other.”
“Me? I’m not even from Ranuak.”
“All have seen your work with a blade, and all know that you have slain Sea-Priests with both sorcery and blade.”
Secca smiled, ruefully. “You told them?”
Alcaren shook his head. “Delcetta did. Since the time of the Great Sorceress, they have felt they failed, and they would follow you to redeem themselves.”
Secca still felt strange hearing Anna referred to as the Great Sorceress. “Redeem themselves for what? What they did created the Free City, and that began to change everything in Ebra.”
“Only because Anna defeated Bertmynn and forced the Ebrans to recognize the city as a place of refuge. They feel they owe both of you.”
Even after Alcaren’s brief explanation, Secca couldn’t say she understood, but she wasn’t going to pursue it on her consorting day.
Following the Matriarch’s guards, they turned their mounts toward the gateless opening in the bluish white granite walls that encircled the Matriarch’s palace and grounds. Over the ungated entry rose a high stone arch. Above the keystone of the arch was set a single white-bronze fire lily. Inside the walls, the stone drive curved toward the three-story dwelling set in the middle of a park with wide expanses of grass and irregularly spaced low trees. Under the portico waited another set of four guards in the pale blue uniforms of the Matriarch, standing on the steps above the long carriage-mounting block.
“You will let me assist you in dismounting, my lady, will you not?” asked Alcaren. There was a smile in his tone of voice, as well as upon his lips.
“This time.” Secca was smiling as well.
After dismounting, Secca took Alcaren’s arm, and they walked past the small honor guard and up the three wide stone steps to the archway into the small palace. Richina followed silently.
Once in the square foyer inside, Secca removed her riding jacket and handed it to Richina. The younger sorceress took off her own jacket, revealing her simple traveling gown of rich green, then passed both jackets to Gorkon, who had followed them inside, with Wilten. Richina led the way up the single staircase, not overly wide, perhaps three yards, but broad enough for Secca and Alcaren side by side, even with Secca’s blue overskirt.
“I hope your family is here,” murmured Secca.
“Father wouldn’t miss it, and neither would Mother and Nedya. They’ve probably been here for a good glass.”
When Richina reached the landing at the top of the steps, the younger sorceress stepped forward toward the open doorway into the Matriarch’s formal receiving hall, where the consorting would take place. The Matriarch’s two daughters, both in white trousers and tunics, flanked the doorway, each carrying a sprig of fir about two spans long, each sprig wrapped in white ribbon. The two girls bowed gravely to Richina, and then more deeply to Secca and Alcaren.
“Have them enter,” called the Matriarch.
As Secca stepped into the formal receiving hall, past the two girls, walking slowly beside Alcaren, her eyes went first to Alya, standing on the dais before the blue crystalline chair-throne, a throne sparkling with an inner light that created an aura around the Matriarch. The diffuse light from the from the floor-to-ceiling windows on each side of the chamber somehow emphasized the warm bluish aura.
Alcaren’s parents stood on the left side of the receiving room, their backs to the long windows, while a slender man with blond-and-silver hair, presumably the Matriarch’s consort, stood by himself on the right. He was attired entirely in white, except for a dark blue belt and matching dark blue boots.
Both Carenya and Nedya wore white tunics with lace collars over dark blue trousers, while Todyl wore a blue tunic over white trousers. All three wore crimson leather belts.
Richina stepped forward, and then moved to the right, beside the Matriarch’s consort, before turning to face Carenya.
Secca and Alcaren stopped two paces short of the dais and the Matriarch.
Alya smiled warmly. “I would like to say that I never would have guessed that this consorting would come to be. I cannot tell you, and all those here, how happy I am that you two have found each other, and happiness in each other.” She paused. “The ceremony is simple.”
There was a moment of silence. Then, the Matriarch glanced out across the modest formal hall. “Do any here have any objection to this consorting?”
After a pause, she looked at Secca. “Do you, Secca, Lady of Loiseau and Flossbend, enter this consorting of your own free will, without coercing another, and without coercion by any other being, and in joy, hope, and honesty?”
“I do.” Secca felt a lump in her throat, and, somehow, she wished Anna could have been there to see the ceremony, and…somehow…she felt sad that her mentor had never felt able to consort to Lord Jecks.
“Do you, Alcaren of Encora, enter this consorting of your own free will, without coercing another, and without coercion by any other being, and in joy, hope, and honesty?”
“I do.”
Alya looked to Secca once more. “If you would repeat after me…”
Secca nodded.
“I, Secca, in the sight and song of the harmonies, offer myself as your consort, forsaking all others. I accept you and no other as my consort for so long as shall the harmonies declare, through all times of trouble, all times of joy, and the times that are neither.”
“Alcaren, if you would repeat after me…”
Alcaren smiled and squared his shoulders ever so slightly before repeating the words. “I, Alcaren, in the sight and song of the harmonies,
offer myself as your consort, forsaking all others. I accept you and no other as my consort for so long as shall the harmonies declare, through all times of trouble, all times of joy, and the times that are neither.”
After just a moment of silence, Alya raised her left hand, drawing a circle in the air.
Secca could see the faintest shimmer of a blue orb hanging before the Matriarch for a long instant before Alya again spoke.
“As Matriarch of Ranuak, I declare you are consorts in body, in spirit, and in harmony.”
Secca turned toward Alcaren, lifting her head slightly as his arms went around her ever so gently. Their lips met.
Someone sighed.
As she and Alcaren embraced and kissed before the Matriarch, Secca could feel a sense of warmth—and peace—flow over them, and she didn’t want the moment to end.
8
Envaryl, Dumar
The sharp-faced man in the crimson tunic of the Lord High Counselor of Dumar stands with his back to the low coals in the hearth of the villa’s study. “A cold winter this has been. Few have seen one this chill.”
The man in gray nods. The two other men, one wearing the uniform of an overcaptain, the other the gold collar insignia that proclaim him an arms commander, do not.
“We watch, and yet your glass, Elyzar, it shows nothing,” continues the Lord High Counselor.
“The glass shows what is, Lord Fehern. It does not show what we wish,” replies the sorcerer.
“I do not see why the Sturinnese do not move against us,” offers the arms commander. “The roads are firm. The mud is gone, and yet they advance not. Or so slowly that they might be a giant tortoise.”
“That may be, Halyt,” says Fehern. “That indeed may be, but they hold all of our lands save this miserable western province. They rode quickly enough in the fall. Now, they do not. Can your glass tell us why, Elyzar?”
“It can show what happens. It does not show what is in men’s hearts.” The broad-shouldered sorcerer fingers his neatly trimmed and square-cut black beard.
“It is clear that they wait for something,” states Arms Commander Halyt. “Could it be that they fear the Liedfuhr will strike them from the north?”
“Kestrin won’t do that.” Fehern snorts. “He worries far more about his sister and her daughter. My dear younger brother Eryhal should have consorted with the elder. Then, there would be less support for this Belmar.”
“One cannot undo what is done, lord,” offers Elyzar unctuously. “One can but take the opportunities offered to change the future.”
“We can’t do anything about Neserea,” points out Halyt. “We needs must prepare for the onslaught here.”
“How…with more quick skirmishes that kill Sturinnese, but scarcely stop them? Or do you have a score of sorcerers or thirtyscore companies of lancers coming to our aid from somewhere?” Fehern laughs hollowly. “Not a word, and not a single lancer from that old woman of Defalk. All these years we have sent tribute and fealty, and what do we receive in our time of trouble? Not a thing. A sad thing it is when the best ruler of Defalk was a woman and but a regent. She was more a man than the men of Defalk.”
“All the mountains are too deep with snow…” murmurs the overcaptain.
“Now…but were they that deep when the Sturinnese landed in Narial? When aid would have truly helped?”
Neither officer speaks for a time.
Fehern looks hard at the sorcerer. “Your glass has no answers as to why the Sturinnese tarry. Do you, Elyzar?”
“They wait for something, lord. It could be that they think that waiting will gain them more than attacking.”
“We have supplies, more than enough. What we do not have is sorcerers who can do battle work and lancers adequate to stop the white tide. You know that.” Fehern glares at Elyzar. “So must they.”
“They must know something.” Halyt laughs heartily. “Otherwise, we would see them on the river road.”
“They must. But what?” Fehern turns from the sorcerer, cocking his head slightly. “What could it possibly be?”
Elyzar offers an enigmatic smile, but does not reply.
9
The cold and clear skies that had graced Secca’s consorting had departed, and for the two days afterward gray clouds and misty rain had blanketed Encora, not that Secca or Alcaren had paid much attention to the weather for the first day or so.
A stolen pair of days of bliss were all Secca dared take, and Alcaren had but nodded knowingly that morning as she made ready to visit the Matriarch once more. Now, she rode through the light and cold rain, with Alcaren beside her, back northward along the avenue to the Matriarch’s compact palace. Behind them rode a company of Defalkan lancers, and before them a squad of SouthWomen in their crimson-trimmed blue jackets.
“I will not accompany you inside her receiving room,” Alcaren said. “Neither your people, nor Lord Robero, nor the Ladies of the Shadows would wish to see me as exerting greater influence.”
“That would be best,” Secca admitted, relieved that she had not been the one to have to make that statement, and pleased that Alcaren had both seen the problem and made the offer not to accompany her. “The Matriarch will still know I listen to you.”
“She listens to her consort, and all know that. In Ranuak, consorts are meant to be heard in private.”
“That is also true in Defalk, save that the consorts heard in private, until the Lady Anna changed matters, were all women.”
“Some lords would not be loath to see that custom return?”
“There are doubtless some, but more in Neserea than in Defalk, and that is why so many rally behind Belmar.”
“You worry about what will happen there almost more than what awaits us in Dumar.”
“I do.” Secca couldn’t have explained the dread she felt when considering Neserea, almost as if that land posed a greater danger than Dumar, yet nothing she knew would support that. “I cannot say why, but I do.”
“I cannot see that, my lady, but I would not go against your senses for that.” Alcaren paused. “I would ask that you consider why you may feel that way. In that fashion, we will not be so surprised as might otherwise be the case.”
“I don’t think it’s Belmar…” Secca shook her head. “I’ll have to think.” She could still recall Anna’s words about trusting her feelings. If only she could put words and ideas to why she felt as she did.
Alcaren did not press her, and shortly they rode under the archway into the Matriarch’s grounds and reined up under the covered portico, where a pair of guards in pale blue stood by the archway.
“You are expected, Lady Secca,” offered the taller, even before Secca had finished reining up beside the mounting block.
“Thank you,” she replied, dismounting easily, then handing the gray’s reins to Gorkon, who also took the reins to Alcaren’s gelding.
Secca and her consort entered the foyer, then climbed the stairs to the upper level, where Alcaren stopped at the upper landing, well short of the Matriarch’s guard.
Secca stepped forward, and the guard turned to the door, opening it just a trace.
“The lady Secca to see you, Matriarch.” Almost before completing the announcement, and before the Matriarch’s words to admit Secca were completed, the guard opened the door.
Secca walked toward the dais, stopped, and bowed before Alya, who was again seated on the blue crystalline throne-chair.
“You had asked to see me, Lady Secca?” asked the Matriarch.
Secca bowed. “I would like to inquire as to how might our transportation to Dumar be coming?”
“As quickly as we can finish fitting out the vessels. After all, after freeing our ports and providing us with six more vessels,” replied the Matriarch with a smile, “how could I refuse?”
“Especially since it would remove two sorceresses and a sorcerer from Encora,” countered Secca.
“But I would be losing my favorite cousin.” Alya laughed warmly, before a more serious ex
pression reappeared. “I cannot tell you how happy I am for both of you. I have not seen Alcaren so joyous in all his life. He does not tell others, but I can sense and see that.”
“I fear I am carrying him into great danger,” Secca said.
“That may be, but it is a danger that you may be able to overcome together. The dangers he faced here could never have been conquered.”
Secca nodded. From what she had seen of the Ladies of the Shadows, she understood.
“Do you know where our ships would carry you? When we spoke before, you had not decided, and Narial remains in Sturinnese hands…” ventured the Matriarch.
“I had thought the small port of Stygia, south of Envaryl. We are still using the glasses to study Dumar, but, before we went farther, I wished to ask if that destination would be one where you could assist us.”
Alya laughed gently. “I think everyone in Ranuak would like to help you on your way, wherever it be in Dumar, if not for the same reasons. The SouthWomen want to follow you into battle. The Exchange wants you to defeat the Sturinnese as soon as possible. The Ladies of the Shadows would like you and Alcaren out of Encora before you corrupt the land to a greater extent, and I will feel great relief, if sadness, once you are safely departed.” Alya’s expression returned to a somber cast. “You know the SouthWomen have requested to accompany you? All five companies?”
“I had heard rumors of such.”
“Would you have them?”
“Gladly,” Secca replied. “Five companies would help greatly.”
“I had thought as much. They have asked if you would accept Delcetta as their overcaptain. She would take orders still from Alcaren, or from you, as you see fit.”
“I have no problem with her being an overcaptain. With the demands of sorcery, I would leave direct command to Alcaren.”
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