The Shadow Sorceress (20 page)

Secca walked to the window, where she stared out into the cool and clear early morning, a day bidding to be warmer than those just previous. How long would the weather hold? Did she dare cross Ebra to Dolov? Did she dare not?

A dull thump filled the room, and both Richina and Secca turned.

On the desk where Secca had been studying the maps was a
tarnished bronze cylinder. From it rose the odor of hot and oiled metal and the smell of parchment being heated.

“Who sent it?” asked Richina. “Lady Clayre?”

Secca pulled on the leather riding gloves that she had laid on the corner of the dressing table, then swiftly lifted the bronze tube off the maps, but not before a rectangular browned shape had darkened the parchment.

Quickly, the small sorceress pried open the copper tube, and extracted the parchment, and then a second sheet, sealed in blue, and a third—with its seal and blue ribbons slightly scorched. All three were browned from the heat, but not so much that she could not read the words of the unsealed one.

Secca shook her head, recalling the anguished chord that had awakened her in the night. Why hadn't she used the reflecting pool sooner to seek out the cause? Because she'd been so exhausted? It had only been a day later, and she had sent a message to Lord Robero. She moistened her lips, hoping her carelessness would not come back to plague her, not any more than it already had.

The writing seemed to blur for Secca, but she knew the letters had not blurred. She looked blindly toward the closed window, as the dark wooden walls seemed to press in upon her.

“Lady! What is it?”

Rather than speak, Secca extended the message to Richina.

While Richina read the first, Secca unsealed the second, the one with her name on the outside, and with Robero's seal.

Secca's lips turned up in a faint smile. That wording read of Jolyn's not-so-light hand. The half-smile vanished with the next words she read.

In short, approaching winter or not, bad weather or not, she was headed eastward in an effort to stop matters which were already less than wonderful from turning into a complete disaster, if they had not already.

“I should have known. I should have used the glass more.” Secca shook her head. “Yet looking at the memories of reflections will not suffice.”

“What are you going to do?” asked the younger sorceress.

“Take Lord Robero's scroll directly to Lord Hadrenn.”

“He will not be pleased.”

“I'm not sure Lord Hadrenn has ever been pleased.” Then, she reflected, in his position, she supposed she would not have been either. Hadrenn was a local lord who was not fitted for more, in a time when a greater man would have been welcome. Except all those who would have been greater had opposed Anna, and now Secca had to find a way to rescue a weak land with a weak lord. Without sorcery and without Stepan, it would have been impossible from the beginning.

Secca picked up the scroll, then glanced at Richina. “You need to practice the vocalises, the ones with the ‘eees,' because you're still swallowing your voice too much. I hope I won't be long.”

“Yes, lady.”

Secca stepped from the guest chambers, and Mureyn, an older lancer, followed her down the corridor. Duryl, the other lancer, whom Secca did not know except by name, remained at the door.

The pair of guards standing outside Hadrenn's study stiffened as Secca marched toward them.

“Lady Sorceress…” The taller guard began.

“Tell Lord Hadrenn that what I bring him will not wait long.”

The two exchanged glances, then the taller guard rapped on the door, and eased it open a fraction. “Sire…the Lady Secca. She says that it requires much haste.”

Apparently, Hadrenn said nothing, but only gestured, for the guard opened the study door, bowing to Secca as she stepped inside and closed the heavy oak door behind her.

Hadrenn did not stand from behind the ornate and ancient desk, its wood so darkened by age that it appeared almost black. The dark green velvet hangings framing the tall windows behind the desk were drawn so closely together that only a slit of light passed into the study, and the four branched candelabra on the corner of the desk dropped only a small pool of light across the ledger before the Lord High Counselor.

“I was reviewing the liedstadt accounts. There is little to spare. It was not the best of harvests, and the need to use the lancers has cost more than we had set aside. Then there are the death golds for those men you flamed…” Hadrenn gave a dramatic sigh.

“You will need to find more golds, I fear, Lord Hadrenn.” Secca extended the sealed scroll.

Hadrenn studied the blue wax of the seal and the blue ribbons, whose edges were browned by the heat of its sorcerous transmission. “How did you come by this? And why did you not present it sooner?” He scowled.

“It was sent by sorcery,” Secca stated. “In a bronze tube lined with special fabric. It appeared in my room moments ago.”

“You can send such? Why then do any use messengers?” Hadrenn shook his head.

Secca took a slow breath. “It takes a sorcerer or a sorceress. Sending one small tube will take all the sorcery she can muster for a day, perhaps two. Would you prefer the battle won? Or the road built?”

“For such as you do, we would do better with more sorceresses,” Hadrenn offered, not quite growling.

“Defalk has more sorceresses than ever it has had, and we have worked hard, but four could not send all the scrolls a ruler would need, and then we could do little else.”

“So…this scroll is most important?”

“I would judge so.”

“You know what it states?”

“Not the words, Lord Hadrenn, but I believe Lord Robero makes a request for your support against the Sturinnese and in securing eastern Ebra under your control.”

Hadrenn studied the scroll again, still not breaking the seal. “It has been scorched.”

“That happens when sent by sorcery, even within bronze. Some messages, if sent when a sorceress is too tired or sent too far, arrive as little more than cinders.”

“Sorcery…” After a brusque headshake, Hadrenn broke the seal and began to read, his lips mouthing the words. Finally, he looked up, his head outlined by the light from the windows, but his face in shadow.

“The Sturinnese are about to attack the Free City—or so your lord says,—and I am to offer all that I can in your support, excepting levies.” The Lord High Counselor lifted his hands. “I am recalled as to why I dread the visits of sorceresses. What choice have I? If I support you not, then I will have neither the backing of Defalk nor my lands. Yet…in supporting you, at the least I impoverish my folk and risk losing what it has taken long years to build.”

Secca could not find much sympathy for Hadrenn within herself, even as she spoke. “We of Defalk did not foment this, Lord Hadrenn. Nor does Lord Robero desire your lands.”

“Both I know. Both I understand. Yet…” The balding lord twisted the scroll in his hands, then glanced down at the desk before looking up at Secca. “Stepan and the lancers will accompany you until you need them not, and you may request aught that you need from Frengal and him.” A ghastly pale smile crossed the Lord High Counselor's face. “Let us devoutly hope for the support of the Harmonies as well.”

“Thank you.” Secca understood how little Hadrenn wished to be where he sat. She doubted he understood how little she wished to be where she stood. “We will depart tomorrow, the weather permitting.”

“As you will, Sorceress-Protector. As you will.”

“As we must,” Secca replied, bowing slightly before she turned and left.

The mother and the father and two daughters sit around the oval dining table that could seat at least another four people. The table is lit but by a single candle. Outside, the cold rain pelts on the windows and the roof.

“You're worried about Veria?” asks Aetlen, finishing the last bite of a stew that had filled but half the small bowl before him.

“Veria…and Encora,” replies the Matriarch. “We know that the Sturinnese will lay siege to Elahwa, yet we're still losing trading vessels. Even ships from Wei are no longer porting here. Prices of all goods are going up, and there are some grain futures that the Exchange will not trade, at any price.”

“Mother, why will you not send more lancers to help the FreeWomen?” asks the thin and older dark-haired girl.

The blonde daughter—Verlya—pauses in lifting a goblet. Her eyes flicker from her mother to her older sister.

“We have already sent ten companies, Ulya. What am I to do if the Sturinnese turn their ships south and sail to attack Encora? They can reach us in less than a week if the wind is right, and if their fleet is in the channel. The lancers will need to ride back, and it will take almost twice that for them to return. And they will not be fit for battle for another week if they make such haste.”

“You could send Alcaren,” Verlya says. “The SouthWomen would go with him.”

Alya's mouth opens, if for but an instant. “Where did you hear that?”

Verlya flushes. “I shouldn't say, I guess. Should I?”

“You overheard Alcaren talking to someone?”

“No, mother. It wasn't Alcaren. He wouldn't do that.”

“I'll bet it was Scyda,” suggests Ulya. “She was complaining the other day that the SouthWomen could make a difference.”

Alya cocks her head, as if in thought, then glances at her consort.

“Do you know what the Sorceress-Protector will do?” asks Aetlen.

“Whatever is best for Defalk, I am sure. That may not be best for Elahwa or us.” Alya's lips twist. “Then it may be, but it is not something we can count upon, not in these times.”

“She will not harm us, will she?” questions Verlya.

“That is most unlikely, but she is young, as sorceresses go—”

“Like Alcaren?” interrupts Ulya.

Alya laughs. “In a way. In a way. But he would rather use a blade or a lance, while she prefers indirect spells.”

“That's why he's the head of your guard,” Verlya announces.

Aetlen and Alya exchange a quick glance before smiling at each other.

Alya laughs, ruefully. “Why not? If the SouthWomen would have him…then…”

Aetlen nods. “One way or another…it will solve the problem. Or one of them.”

The brief light fades from Alya's face as she looks at Aetlen's somber countenance. She forces a smile as she turns back to her daughters. “We do have a little rice pudding.”

“It's been sooo…long since we had sweetcakes,” Verlya says.

“That's because the ships haven't come with molasses and sugar,” Ulya points out. “We're lucky to have rice pudding. Most people don't have that.”

“I know.” Verlya sighs.

Aetlen rolls his eyes at the dramatic statement and sigh, but manages to keep a straight face.

“I could give it to someone else,” Alya suggests.

“Please don't, mother,” Verlya says quickly. Then she pauses. “Perhaps you should. If it's someone who doesn't get any.”

“You may have some,” Alya says. “I already had most of it given to some of the families of the lancers of the third company.”

“The ones in Elahwa?” asks the older daughter.

“One of the companies in Elahwa. There was only enough for four families, but they have children your age.” Alya stands and slips from the dining chamber.

“I can eat mine, then.”

“Yes, you can,” Aetlen says with a smile. “Your portion is small enough that you may enjoy it.”

The Matriarch returns with two dishes, one for each child, each portion but two small bites. Neither child leaves a grain of the rice or sauce.

Neither parent smiles.

In the entry hall of Hadrenn's shabby palace, Secca adjusted her leather riding jacket, and then the heavy green felt hat. Lifting her saddlebags again, she prepared to step out into the clear but windy dawn, when there was a cough behind her.

Secca turned.

Wearing a green tunic thrown on askew and above purple trousers with dark splotches, Hadrenn stood and looked at the redheaded sorceress. “I wish you well, Lady Secca, in this venture…for the sake of all within Defalk and Ebra. Particularly for Haddev.”

“Perhaps, when he returns, you should send him to join us,” Secca found herself saying. “He might find the journey to be useful.”

“Perhaps I should.” Hadrenn cocked his head. “Perhaps I will.”

“I do not know if I will be returning this way,” Secca said after another period of silence, “but I thank you for your hospitality and support, and especially for the use of Stepan and your lancers.”

“Your sorcery—and that of your predecessor—has made possible the restoration and preservation of my patrimony. For this, I thank you, and wish you well.”

“Thank you, Lord Hadrenn.” Secca inclined her head, then straightened with the warmest smile she could muster before turning.

Mureyn followed her, carrying the portable scrying mirror.

The gray mare was standing by the doors when Secca stepped into the courtyard, the reins held by a lancer. Richina was already mounted, waiting for Secca.

“Thank you, Duryl,” said Secca to the lancer who tendered her the gray's reins.

“My pleasure, lady.”

Secca fastened her saddlebags in place, then the mirror and lutar, before mounting.

Once mounted, she eased the mare toward the south side of the courtyard to where she spied Palian.

The chief player nodded as Secca reined up. “Lady Secca.”

“Palian. How fare you and the players?”

“All are ready. The respite has done them well,” Palian replied.

“Good.” Secca hoped the respite hadn't cost them too dearly in dealing with Dolov, but particularly with the Sturinnese.

“Lady Secca,” called Wilten, easing his mount around Delvor, who was adjusting the straps holding his lutar behind the saddle of his mount, “the lancers stand ready.”

Behind Wilten, Stepan merely offered a nod that his men were also ready.

“Then best we ride,” said Secca.

Slowly, order emerged from the chaos of milling mounts and players, and Secca rode down the lane toward the main road.

While the sun of previous days had melted away the thin layer of snow, the cold night had frozen the ground almost as hard as the stone of the highways of Defalk. Every rut in both
the lane and the ground beside it was sharp-edged, and often outlined in frosty rime.

Once beyond the stone gates, the column turned eastward toward the bridge that led to the south side of the River Syne and the main road eastward toward Dolov—and Elahwa.

“I was a little nasty,” Secca confessed. “When Lord Hadrenn thanked me for ensuring his patrimony and Haddev's, I suggested that Haddev might be well-advised to join us.”

Richina grinned. “Do you think he will send Haddev?”

“I do not know.”

“He will,” offered Stepan, easing his mount up beside that of Secca. “The Lady Belvera will protest, for she would protect Haddev from all. But Lord Hadrenn is not unperceptive. Haddev will spend many years dealing with you two, and it would not be wise for him to be perceived as less than brave.” Stepan laughed. “You fight his foes, Lady Sorceress, standing as you do but to the lord's shoulder, and with an assistant who is most young, and you ride out to battle, asking naught of him or his heir personally. If neither he nor his heir should take the field…”

“Haddev will have trouble in later years?” asked Secca.

“Also…few battles are safer than those with a sorceress on one's side,” Stepan pointed out. Secca doubted that.

“And he could well use the understanding and the experience,” Stepan continued, adding dryly, “Young Haddev will gain much renown by fighting for his land.”

“What is he like?” asked Secca.

“He is much like I imagine Lord Robero was at his age, though I but saw your lord when he was somewhat younger.” Stepan smiled blandly.

Secca managed not to wince, and offered a smile as innocuous as that of the arms commander. “Then we will but follow the example set by Lady Anna.”

“I thought as much, and so would Lord Hadrenn, within his heart.”

Both Stepan and Secca smiled and nodded, near-simultaneously. To the side, Richina suppressed a frown.