The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle (33 page)

Read The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle Online

Authors: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

BOOK: The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle
12.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
W
ith the sun beating into her eyes, low enough that the battered hat’s brim was useless, Anna squinted toward the west and the road that merged with a red stone bridge.
Moving past her on the left was a wagon drawn by two horses that plodded stolidly forward and raised road dust that seemed to hang just high enough for her to breathe. The driver stared at the road without ever looking at Anna, Daffyd, and the three armsmen.
Anna rubbed her nose gently.
Daffyd sneezed once, twice.
“The dust never ends,” Markan said.
The player sneezed again, and so did Stepan. Anna squeezed her nose and tried not to sneeze as well—and failed. Her eyes watered with the explosive force of the sneeze.
“ … wish we would get enough rain to lay the dust,” gasped Stepan.
Anna agreed, but blotted her eyes on her sleeve, then straightened in the saddle.
A rider wearing a sash of cream and green pounded past the armsman and toward the east. The sorceress’s eyes followed the rider for a moment.
“Prophet’s messenger, for all the good it will do him.” Markan paused, then added. “No one will listen, and no one will tell him anything.”
Anna smiled ruefully—that sounded familiar, just like academic politics at Ames or anywhere else.
A small square tower stood at the eastern end of the bridge, door bolted shut, upper windows shuttered. Dust coated the stones, softening the harsh red. As Anna’s eyes passed over the structure, she wondered why the small tower had ever been built, since it would have been useless against any army. A tollhouse that could no longer even pay for itself?
“Up there, three deks or so, is where the Fal and the Chean come together,” Markan said idly as his mount’s hoofs clacked on the broad stones that paved the approach to the bridge.
Wide enough for two wagons abreast, the stone bridge across the Falche River consisted of three sections. The first ran about a hundred yards from the east bluff of the river
to a wide stone pier built up from a small island covered with brush and willows. The second section extended somewhat less than a hundred yards to another stone pier that rose out of the placid-looking muddy water. The last section stretched from the pier to the western bluff of the river—and the eastern part of Falcor.
The ruts in the stone pavement testified to the bridge’s age, as did the loose mortar in the railing. A single cargo raft, steered with a tiller and containing pallets of something, floated south of the span, a dark brown splotch on the light brown water that shimmered almost silver in the late-afternoon sun.
As Farinelli carried her off the bridge and onto the rough cobblestones of the road, Anna studied the small square that consisted of one statue on a pedestal in a paved area from which five streets branched. Like every other town she had seen in Defalk, Falcor lacked walls. Was that because sorcerers could break them down or because the countries were so far inland that walls were seldom needed? Or for some other reason?
“Which way?” she asked Markan, slowing Farinelli.
“The river road, the one to the left. The liedburg is south of the city proper.” As he spoke to Anna, Markan turned in the saddle and pointed toward Fridric. “Unfurl the banner.”
The streets of Falcor were paved, if dust-and dirtcovered, and the sounds of the city echoed along the narrow streets.
“Knives sharpened …”
Cling, cling!
“Knives sharpened …”
“’Ware the wagon!’Ware the wagon!”
Anna looked up and saw the chamberpot, reining up Farinelli just before the sloppy mess splashed into the open sewer that ran along the right side of the street.
Flies swirled around them, smaller and swifter than the large horseflies on the highway. The street narrowed more, and an odor compounded of horse manure, sewage, spoiled
food, and kitchen fires drifted around Anna. No wonder medieval minstrels extolled the countryside.
“Beautiful Falcor …” murmured Anna. Brill’s hall seemed impossibly distant, impossibly clean. As with so many things in her life, Anna was reminded that the better aspects were often transitory—like Irenia … like earth itself. She drew herself erect on the gelding, steeled herself for the ordeal that would come.
The equivalent of a dozen blocks farther south, they reached another square, containing women, children, and carts drawn up randomly on the pavement. From several carts the smoke of fowl being cooked on braziers rose, and Anna was reminded of how Mario had smelled every night the year he had worked for KFC.
“Roasted fowl! Roasted fowl, two a quarter, two a quarter …”
“ … hot fowl rolls … hot rolls …”
“Stenjabs! Get your stenjabs here!”
What were stenjabs? Anna had no desire to find out, and neither Markan nor Daffyd made any comment.
“Lady? A fowl for your men?”
The sorceress shook her head.
“Probably diseased,” Markan said under his breath as they rode from the open area back onto a street wider than that which had taken them from the bridge.
The dwellings were larger south of the square, with lower level walls built of large square red building stones, like brownstones, and only shuttered entrances on the street level. Up a level were balconies and windows, and higher, tile roofs.
The street sewers were covered—mostly—with slabs of stone.
As the street sloped downhill, Markan gestured to the castle—the first real castle Anna had seen—on the opposite hill, overlooking Falcor, with the Falche River to the left. “The liedburg.”
A banner comprised of two cream-and-green triangles,
over which was superimposed a golden trumpet, flew from the staff above the gates.
Anna nodded and took off the floppy hat, using her hands to try to push her hair into some semblance of order.
“Good idea,” said Daffyd.
Don’t condescend to me!
she thought, but only smiled.
The street widened into an avenue as it flattened in the space under the liedburg. An expanse of grass a full hundred yards wide surrounded the castle on three sides, with the eastern side of the bluff overlooking the river.
Markan slowed his mount at the stone-paved road to the gates.
The walls around the liedburg were not perfunctory, but a full twenty yards high, made of massive red stone blocks, designed to withstand sieges. In the flat below the walls on the side closest to the river, were set up rows of tents, and armsmen lounged in the shade created by the canvas. Several peered toward Anna and her entourage as they headed across the open area to the gates.
A full squad of guards in leathers and sea-green sashes was drawn up, half on each side of the gate. While the gates were open, a network of bars that resembled a portcullis with a small doorway in the middle blocked the gate opening.
“We might as well ride on.” Anna flicked the reins, and Farinelli stepped forward, his hoofs loud on the hard stone.
“Who are you?” asked the weathered subofficer who stepped forward when Anna reined up short of the guards. Then he added less peremptorily, “Lady?”
“I am the lady Anna. I am here responding to the Prophet’s proclamation. The armsmen escorting me represent the fealty of Lord Hryding, and his demonstration of goodwill.”
“The lady who?”
“The lady Anna,” she repeated, forcing herself not to explain. No lady would explain in public.
“Who is she? Some lord’s daughter … .”
“ … another doxie for Behlem?”
“ … got none, not with his consort …”
“ … she that sorceress?”
Anna smiled, ignoring the whispered speculations, waiting for the subofficer’s response.
“I cannot say that I …” The subofficer broke off his words with an embarrassed smile.
“It might be best if you conveyed my message to Lord Behlem,“Anna said.”Just tell him that the lady Anna has arrived, as he requested.” There was no way she was entering the castle or its grounds until Behlem knew she was there.”I will be happy to wait here.”
“It’s hot out here, lady. I was only thinking of your comfort.” His smile turned slightly sick looking.
“I’ve ridden from the Sand Pass to Synope and then here. A little more sun won’t hurt.” She smiled and patted Farinelli.
After a long moment, the subofficer bowed slightly, turned, and made his way into the shadowed archway and through the door in the portcullis.
“She’s got guts … .” whispered Fridric, before Stepan jabbed him in the ribs.
The guards remained drawn up, holding positions loosely at ease, all except for a graying armsman who stepped forward to take the subofficer’s position. He did not look toward the five riders who waited.
Sitting on Farinelli in the late-afternoon sun, Anna could feel the heat on the side of her face and her neck, and the sweat in her hair. Her legs threatened to cramp again, but she held her seat, as if it were a performance before unfriendly critics—and it well might be.
In time, two green-coated officers, with silver-braid swirls on the shoulders of their tunics, appeared, flanking a white-haired older man in cream and green. The subofficer trudged behind.
The whispers rose as the four neared the far side of the portcullis.
“Counselor to the Prophet …”
“ … more than pretty she must be …”
“ … think old sharp-tongue’s in for it now …”
“ … she can get the captains here, she’s someone …”
The armsman who had taken the subofficer’s place stepped back as his superior stepped in front of the guards.
“Honor … arms!”
Twelve blades flashed in salute.
The white-haired man stepped toward Anna. “I am Menares, counselor to the Prophet.” He bowed, then straightened. “I recognize you from the waters, lady, and bid you welcome to our temporary abode.”
“I am pleased to be here.” Anna swung out of the saddle, hoping her legs would hold. They did. “I have arrived as quickly as possible.”
“Your haste is appreciated in these times,” Menares said, before lowering his voice. “If you would all follow me …”
Anna turned and nodded to Markan, and the four dismounted, Daffyd slightly behind the others.
“Let them enter!” Menares ordered.
“Raise the gate!” said the stockier of the two officers who had accompanied the counselor.
After a moment, with a creaking series of squeaks, the gate lurched upward and into the stone grooves behind the heavy wooden gates.
“Return … arms!”
Anna led her entourage forward through the narrow stone archway, hoping that she was doing the right thing. Farinelli only side-stepped once.
Once they were in the courtyard, Menares turned to Anna again. “The Prophet will meet with you—only briefly at the moment—but he will receive you more formally at dinner tomorrow when you have had a chance to rest and refresh yourself.”
And when he’s had time to gather everyone to examine me
, Anna thought.
Or decide what he really wants to do with me.
Menares motioned to the slender officer. “Namir will ensure your armsmen—”
“—and my player,” the sorceress interjected.
“—have their mounts stabled and are refreshed, while I escort you to Lord Behlem.”
“Now?”
“What better time, Lady Anna?”
The sorceress shrugged, finally handing the reins to the Neserean subofficer. Farinelli neighed and side-stepped.
“Easy,” Anna commanded, and the gelding subsided.
With a last look back, and a quick smile at Daffyd, she followed the white-haired counselor across the courtyard and through a wide double door. Their steps echoed through the high ceilings of the hall, or liedburg, echoed off worn and polished stone floors that had no mats or carpets. The walls were bare red stone, except for sconces holding unlit lamps set at irregular intervals. The lamp mantles were uniformly sooty.
A sour odor permeated the hall, one that would have been more unpleasant, Anna suspected, had the climate not been so dry.
At the end of the main hall, Menares started up the grand staircase. Anna tried not to wince as she lifted her sore legs and feet.
“I must admit that I was … taken by surprise … at your speedy arrival,” said the older man.
“I didn’t see much point in waiting,” Anna said.
Not since I really had few choices.
“Sorceresses do not have so much freedom as many surmise,” Menares continued. “Nor do lords.”
Anna nodded. Counselors to rulers weren’t stupid, not even in backward realms, not if they survived, and she had better remember that.
They halted outside a set of double doors, where two armed sentries stood. The one on the right eyed Anna silently.

Other books

Power Play by Deirdre Martin
So Many Reasons Why by Missy Johnson
Tatuaje I. Tatuaje by Javier Peleigrín Ana Alonso
Ciudad by Clifford D. Simak
Duty (Book 2) by Brian Fuller
Boswell, LaVenia by THE DAWNING (The Dawning Trilogy)
Extinction Point by Paul Antony Jones