Darksong Rising (6 page)

taking a seat behind the table. “I don’t question the value of captains and armsmen either," she

replied after sitting. “I wish we had more good ones.”

Firis sat on the edge of the chair. “I am most pleased to be in the service—”

“I’m not recruiting you, Firis. From what I’ve seen and heard, and from what Lady Gatrune has

said, you’ve done a good job here." Anna paused. “Something here is bothering you, and, as

Regent, I need to know that sort of thing.” She waited.

“It is most difficult..." After a moment, the overcaptain added, “The town of Pamr... it was not

this way when I became Lady Gatrune’s captain. At first, I thought the strangeness I felt was

because I was an outsider, but many of the armsmen have lived all their lives in the demesne of

Pamr, and most of those have even moved their families to the lands."
 
Firis snorted. “Most

times, armsmen will keep their women and consorts as far as they can from a lord’s holding.”

“It sounds strange’ Anna said. “Do you know why?”

“Would that I did, lady. Would that I did. Many feel as I do, yet none has heard or seen anything

that would give voice to the cause of those feelings."

“Well…I would appreciate it if you or Lady Gatrune would let me know if anything happens…"

Anna held in a yawn. The day had been all too long.

“By your leave, Regent?”

Anna stood. “By my leave, Firis.”

After Firis left, Gatrune appeared in the open study doorway. “You were right,” Anna admitted,

stifling a yawn. “He was gallant and tactful, and he’s worried.” So are you, but what exactly can

you do?

“We will watch and inform you of what we discover.”

Anna couldn’t stop the next yawn. Lord, she was tired.

“You are tired. We can talk more in the morning.” Gatrune waited for Anna.

Lejun followed the two down the corridor to the guest chambers.

When Anna finally stretched out on the big bed—lumpy as most were in Defalk—tired as she

felt, her mind continued to race. Both Firis and Lady Gatrune felt something was wrong in Pamr.

Is it because of what you did to the chandler? Anna sighed. Why do you have to pay for

everything you do? Pay more for it than others do?

Still…she wasn’t sure that was the cause. She only felt that. How often are your feelings wrong?

There was no answer to that—not one she liked.

4

ESARIA, NESEREA

Rabyn glances at his own image in the heavy gilt-framed mirror that dominates the dressing

room off his bedchamber. Light green eyes survey his high-checked, narrow-faced visage. He

nods and brushes damp and freshly washed hair back over his left ear. After fingering his

beardless chin, he frowns, then readjusts the green cloak of the Prophet of Music.

His eyes drop to the miniature portrait on the long dressing table, and he smiles at the dark-

haired woman centered in the gold frame. “I am being patient—as you taught me. But, Nubara,

all of them, they will find out who is Prophet.”

As he leaves the dressing room, his eyes go to the bedchamber where the blonde girl shivers

under the silks, pretending to be asleep, and his lips curl into a smile of pleasure—momentar-

ily—before he turns and walks down the short hall, stepping through the double doors from his

chamber. The Mansuuran lancers stiffen. So do the guards who flank the lancers, the pair who

wear the cream-and-green of the Prophet’s Guard.

Rabyn ignores all four and walks not-quite-briskly along the corridor to the stairs, and thence up

to the scrying pool. The two guards in green and cream follow, four paces back.

From the door Rabyn studies the three players who have risen and then bowed to him.

“The scrying song. Now!”

“It will take a moment, Prophet, to check the tuning;" explains the older violino player, bowing

again.

‘Then best you do so. Quickly.”

As the trio of string players tune, Rabyn studies them, his eyes going from the graying and

heavyset lead violinist to the balding man, and then to the thin-faced strawberry blonde. He

studies the blonde, then looks back to the leader.

“We’re ready, Prophet”

“Play.” Rabyn clears his throat and nods, then waits for the melody before starting the spell.

Show me the sorceress of Defalk,

 
what she does and where she may walk...

and who stands by her side and hand....

The scrying pool silvers, revealing a slender blonde woman about to mount a palomino—one of

the oversized beasts from the grassland raiders of the north. She swings up into the saddle with

an ease born of practice and settles herself quickly, then nods to the officer in Defalkan purple

beside her. They ride from the stables toward a column of waiting armsmen.

Rabyn studies the image, nodding abruptly. He sings the release couplet, and ripples cross the

silvered water. The image vanishes, and the pool is but a pool. He turns to the three players, his

eyes on the center woman, a heavy figure with graying brown hair. “You did not hold the tone

clearly. Best you do better next time.”

The violino player swallows. “Yes, Prophet and Seer.”

Beside her, the thin and younger strawberry blonde player conceals a silent gulp.

Rabyn turns and leaves the scrying room. The two Prophet’s Guards again follow as he makes

his way down the stairs and along a shaded and columned walkway toward the open-columned

hilltop chamber that serves as the summer receiving room. Out beyond the palace of the Prophet,

the Bitter Sea is calm and flat under the morning sunlight. Barely a breeze penetrates the

columns of the chamber.

“Greetings, Lord Rabyn.” The overcaptain in the maroon uniform of a Mansuuran lancer who

awaits Rabyn stands from behind the small desk to the side and below the dais on which the

throne is set.

“Good day, Nubara” The latest Prophet of Music, Lord of Neserea, and Protector of the Faith of

the Eternal Melody, fixes his eyes upon his regent “What have you heard about the sorceress?”

“She is said to be visiting the eastern lands of Defalk” Nubara shrugs.

“What might she be doing there?” Rabyn’s voice turns lazy, close to indolent, as he steps onto

the dais and settles himself into the throne.

“Almost certainly essaying to enlist greater support among the Thirty-three. Possibly visiting

Lady Gatrune. She did not venture so far as her own holdings on the border.”

“Is it not strange that she has yet to visit her own lands in more than a year?”

“She cannot obtain support from her own lands, and, as your sire had planned, those lands are

among the more distant from Falcor.” Nubara inclined his head, waiting.

“I would see Eidlon later in the day. We should hear of his progress in assembling and training

the Prophet’s Lancers.”

“You should, indeed,” answers Nubara smoothly.

“I should. For once they are ready for battle, then Ovecaptain Relour can move his lancers to

Elioch. They will be in position to counter any schemes of the sorceress.”

"And well away from Esaria, as well.”

“That, too,” agrees Rabyn, smiling. “Today is the day for petitions. Which is the first?”

“The rivermen on the Salya River are asking for a copper more for each passenger from Nesalia

to Esaria?”

“Boring,” Rabyn nods. “But necessary. And after that?"

 
“A civil dispute between two cloth factors..."

5

The day will be hot,” ventured Himar from where he rode to Anna’s right.

"Too hot," she agreed, glancing toward the houses ahead, where the town of Pamr began. Under

a clear sky, the morning air was still and moist, yet the lingering dampness of the road was the

only sign of the previous night’s rain. To her left, Rickel nodded, but his eyes, like those of

Lejun, studied the road and the fields that flanked it—and the houses they neared.

“Zechis won’t be that long a ride—late mid-afternoon, eighth or ninth glass,” suggested the

overcaptain.

“Tomorrow is the long ride,” she replied, readjusting the floppy brown hat, “but the sooner we

get back to Falcor the happier everyone will be.” Anna frowned as a motion from the house they

approached caught her eye. Had someone closed a shutter? A door? She turned her head, but the

first house remained silent.

At the back of the third house Anna passed, a gray-haired woman stood bent over a washtub,

shielded from the already strong sun by a sagging porch. As the sound of horses reached her, she

straightened. Then she stiffened, but made no other move as the column passed her and

continued toward the center of Pamr.

Anna’s eyes narrowed, and she concentrated on studying each dwelling or shop they neared,

wondering if she should uncase the lutar. In your own land? In a town held by your strongest

supporter?

A bearded man peered out of the open window of what looked to be a cabinetry shop, then

jerked his head inside as he caught sight of Anna. Firis was right, she decided, more than right,

but there was little she could do about mere chilliness toward the Regency, especially when she

could only speculate about the cause. The chandler? Her killing of the man who had tried to

assault and kill her hadn’t raised any coldness the year before.

Anna took a deep breath. She needed to know more, but she still didn’t know enough to use her

scrying glass to find it out. The problem with asking questions was always that you needed to