The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle (54 page)

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Authors: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

BOOK: The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle
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FALCOR, DEFALK
T
he raven-haired woman shakes Behlem’s shoulder. “Wha …”He blinks and tries to open his eyes, although the sun has barely cleared the horizon, and the room is dim, its shutters closed tightly.
“We need to talk, dear consort and Prophet.” She wears a silk robe of dark bloodred, tucked in to show a narrow waist and more than ample breasts.
“At this glass?” he groans, dropping his head back on the sheets.
“What I do not understand, Behlem,” says the raven-haired woman, almost languidly, as she perches on the foot of the bed that had once belonged to the lords of Defalk, “is why you always think you can deceive me when you go off and leave me.”
“Deceive you?” He struggles up into a sitting position. “What on Erde are you babbling about. I told you everything.”
“In the middle of the night, some … intruders … entered the north tower. They were apparently bent on some mischief with your dear sorceress.”
Behlem rubs his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“There were screams, I am told, but they were not from the sorceress. I was led to believe that she was unprotected.” Cyndyth smiles. “After last night, I almost believed you, until this morning.”
“You used your father’s … resources, and they failed?” Behlem laughs. “The resources of the great Konsstin failed?”
“You would be wise to remember, consort dear, that he is paying for the arms and supplies for this expedition.” Cyndyth shifts position, and her eyes smolder. “In the interests of everyone’s safely, I inspected many of the lockbolts throughout the liedburg, rustic place that it is. The sorceress’s was singularly inadequate. “Yet …” Cyndyth shrugs. “So I would like to know why you warned her.”
Behlem shakes his head, almost sadly. “I did not. I would wish I had, just to see you frustrated, dear plotting consort, but had I, your tame seers would know already.”
“You slept with her.”
“I would rather sleep with a grass-snake.” The Prophet grins momentarily.
“As pretty as she is? Have you lost all manhood?”
“Cyndyth, I have no idea what happened to your assassins, but I saw what she did to Delor, as I am certain Menares informed you. I had no desire to end up as he did.” Behlem shrugs and sits up farther in the bed. “Since you would be displeased at the results and since I would also, I did not think that you would mind.”
“Good. Then you will not mind our devising a way to remove her?”
Behlem holds up a hand. “Only one stipulation. That her removal be quietly handled—after the victory dinner. Her
demise before it would not set well with many of the captains and their troops. She must appear … low on the table, below all the overcaptains and senior captains. And I will delicately suggest that her victory, while welcome, created significant additional problems that are entirely her fault.”
“You worry about peasants?”
“They have more weapons than we do, Cyndyth, and even the densest of them will suspect us—especially after this botch of yours.”
“Mine? I had nothing to do with it.”
“Yours. Now go get something else to chew on and let me get dressed and talk to Menares. We will work out something quiet—perhaps in Mencha. I will give her the sorcerer’s hall, as compensation, despite her failings.”
“You what?”
“Then she will have to travel there. The dark ones will be waiting, to avenge their losses. Something like that. Now … go find someone else to annoy.” Behlem staggers to his feet.
Cyndyth smiles as she sways toward the door.
“L
ady Anna?”
“Yes?” the sorceress answered without unbolting the door. Despite washing up, eating, and dressing, she still felt tired.
“It’s Menares. Might I come in?”
“You and who else?”
“There is no one else here.” A pause followed. “Do you think anyone else would dare?”
After using the mirror spell to verify that Menares was indeed alone, and feeling untrustworthy about it, Anna opened the door.
Menares stepped in slowly, glancing around. He licked his lips.
“I won’t incinerate you, Menares,” Anna promised, closing and bolting the door behind the counselor.
“I would … appreciate that.”
“I’ve never wanted to kill anyone here,” she added. “That’s why it’s so hard to understand why so many people want to kill me.”
“Lady Anna … the Prophet is distressed.” After another sweep of the room, his eyes halting on the uncovered lutar on the bed, the counselor settled into one of the chairs.
“Menares, I’m distressed. Do you think I enjoy having people trying to break into my room in the middle of the night?” Anna paused, then sat on the bed beside her instrument. “Do you know who they were?”
“No, Lady Anna. No one is missing from the Prophet’s retinue.” Menares’ eyes flickered, and Anna knew a lie would follow. “It could have been the dark ones. At Synek, when they came, the streets were filled with bodies and they hacked to death those who would not follow.”
“These didn’t feel like dark ones,” Anna said.
“There is no way to tell. They had blades and daggers and coins in their purses. Everything else …” The counselor shrugged.
“And some sort of hammer and chisel?” prodded Anna.
“Ah … how did you know?”
“When someone takes a hammer to an iron hinge, it is loud.” Anna smiled. “I also found it interesting that no one came to investigate until Skent brought my breakfast tray and found the … remains. Was he supposed to find mine?”
“Lady Anna, I swear I had nothing to do with this.” The white-haired counselor licked his lips. “And the Prophet is most unhappy about this … occurrence.”
Anna almost nodded. She believed most of his statements. There had been a massacre in Synek, and Menares had known, or suspected, someone was out to assassinate her, but had had nothing to do with it, and the Prophet
wanted her out of the way, but more subtly, and probably after his victory dinner.
Lord, how many people wanted her dead?
“Can’t you find out who they were?” she asked.
“Lady Anna,” the white-haired counselor said with a shrug, “you did not leave much except their leathers and their weapons. And their tools.”
“I’m sure they would have left little of me, Menares.” Anna smiled coldly. “What do you want?”
“To reassure you, and to offer a solution mutually agreeable to you … and everyone, I hope.”
Anna didn’t like the term “solution,” because it meant she was a problem, and she’d already had enough experience with being a problem. Dieshr had been a wonderful Music Chair, forever offering “solutions”—each one of which either had or would have isolated Anna more, like suggesting that Anna give up her non-credit performance classes because she was “working too hard.” That would have left her students unprepared for their performances in recitals, and in turn, that would have allowed Dieshr to fault officially their preparation by Anna.
“Lady Anna?” asked Menares.
“Sorry. I was thinking. Your solution?”
“It is the Prophet’s solution. He has been thinking and reconsidering the situation as well. He is granting you the estates and hall of the late Lord Brill, in recognition and recompense for your services.”
Anna managed to keep her jaw in place. Just like that? After earlier insisting that they would be his? “That’s most gracious,” she said slowly. “I had understood that he would retain them.”
Menares looked toward the door and lowered his voice. “The Prophet and his consort both agree that you should be rewarded and that you should take possession soon after the victory celebration. In fact, he and the Lady Cyndyth would like to meet with you in the hall slightly before the dinner to convey his appreciation and respect.”
Anna was beginning to see
all
the elements of the “solution.”
She allowed herself a deep breath, trying to consider how to respond. Clearly, the Lady Cyndyth had it in for Anna, and the assassins of the night before had probably been her doing, and that had upset Behlem, who couldn’t afford to have anything happen to Anna just yet. Behlem liked things smoothly and quietly done, at least in public, and he just avoided Anna when he feared matters would not be smooth.
“Lady Anna?” asked Menares nervously.
“I’m sorry,” Anna lied. “Loiseau is such … such a … gesture. It’s hard to believe.” And things too good to believe usually were.
“Lady Anna, might I be frank?” The counselor’s eyes flicked around the room. “You have done much for the Prophet. And you are beautiful. And powerful. Mencha is near the border, and you would doubtless use your abilities to protect that border. The lady Cyndyth is most devoted to her consort, and would also wish that he not be any more … committed to spending time away from Falcor—or preferably Esaria—than absolutely necessary.” The white-haired man offered a smile. “So you see …”
“I think so. I can’t put it quite so delicately. Cyndyth would prefer my absence and Lord Behlem’s presence, and he would like a strong first-line defense against any future Ebran attacks on the borders of his new expanded lands. He can reward me and please her and strengthen his position, all at once.”
“Most precisely. Now … I would appreciate your discretion until the dinner, for there are those among the overcaptains …” Menares shrugged, and his eyes flickered. “You are a woman, if a sorceress.” He heaved himself out of the chair.
“I understand.” And she did, hopefully far more than Menares understood that she did. She walked with him to the door, opening it. While treachery was still theoretically possible, she doubted that anything would happen to her, not until Behlem could get her out of Falcor, or until more time passed.
“Thank you, Lady Anna.” Menares bobbed his head up and down. “Thank you.”
“Thank you, Menares. I appreciate all the efforts you have made to resolve what could have been a difficult situation.” Anna lied with yet another smile, hoping it didn’t seem too false.
After she dropped the bolt in place, she walked to her chair and sat down, trying to figure out the situation. If she’d been offered Loiseau while she was in Mencha, she probably would have taken it and never thought otherwise. But this latest turn of events … while she couldn’t say why, she knew it was all a ploy to put her on ice, or worse. Was she being unreasonable? Menares’ explanation made sense; it made a lot of sense, and she might have done the same thing had she been in Behlem’s position. But Behlem was the type not to give up much of anything, and though she had never met Cyndyth, Garreth’s death told her all she needed to know.
“Aren’t you being unfair?” she asked herself.
Besides, even if Behlem’s offer were honest, that meant she’d end up killing more and more Ebrans—or someone—while he got the credit and Cyndyth pulled her cruelties on more and more innocents. She’d be the butcher of Mencha, and people like Virkan would become more and more common.
She had a chance—a slim one—to make a difference.
“You also have a chance to get thoroughly killed,” she whispered under her breath. The sorceress shook her head. One way or another, she would die if she accepted Behlem’s “offer.” She felt that coldness down to the pit of her stomach, a coldness that was more solid than any form of “proof.”
She laughed nervously. Anna Mayme Thompson, born off the holler in Cumberland, Kentucky, and here she was, at the center of a mess that involved half a continent in a world she’d never dreamed existed. Even Avery wouldn’t have believed it. He would have wanted proof. Damn proof!
She looked at the bellpull, then yanked it and waited.
Birke was the page who responded.
Anna met him on the landing. “Birke? Have you seen Garreth?”
“No, Lady Anna.” Birke’s eyes slipped to the floor.
Cold inside, Anna said, “If you do, would you tell her I’d like to see her.”
“They said she’s with the Lady Cyndyth, and I’m not allowed up there, Lady Anna.”
“If you do …” Anna nodded in a perfunctory fashion.
“Yes, Lady Anna.”
“That’s all. Thank you.”
Birke went downstairs slowly, his eyes drifting back to the landing.
That might confuse someone … maybe.
Next came Hanfor.
She took a deep slow breath, then straightened, and opened the tower door. After crossing a courtyard crowded with armsmen cleaning away mud, she found the tall senior overcaptain in the same small room where she had gone before.
“Lady Anna. I must say I did not expect you.” The overcaptain rose from the stool. A map was spread on the small table, and Anna could hear horses and men through the open window.
“Did you hear about last night?” Anna dropped onto one of the stools.
“Last night?” Hanfor’s face showed total confusion.
“Good, I’m glad you didn’t. Last night some assassins attempted to enter my chamber. I had noted that the door bolt had been weakened, and I repaired it before I went to sleep. They attempted to use a sledge and chisels to snap off the hinges.”
“The hinges were outside?”
“At one time, long ago, I suspect that the room was used for other purposes. It is not large.”
“I forgot. The north tower has those marks, but they have removed the bars from the windows.” Hanfor nodded. “I take it that you were successful in routing them?”
“I turned them into a pile of ashes. Now, the Prophet is somewhat distressed, so distressed that he has offered me lands. Through his counselor.”
“A good distance from here, I would wager?”
It was Anna’s turn to nod. How far could she go? She frowned. “As a matter of fact, you know the lands.”
Hanfor’s eyebrows rose. “You worry about such a gift horse?”
“The idea had occurred to me,” Anna admitted.
“I do not know what to say, Lady Anna.” The overcaptain’s hand touched his graying beard, then scratched the back of his head. The weathered brows knit together for a moment. “You saved many of my men, even me. But I must tell you frankly that I do not
know
the cause of this mischief, nor do I believe that the Prophet would have anything to do with such an event at this time.”
“Rumor has it that his consort is jealous of any woman who is the slightest bit attractive.”
“I could not deny such a rumor,” mused Hanfor, offering a quick grin that vanished.
Anna forced herself to relax. “What do you like about what you do, Hanfor? Or do you like it at all?”
Again, the overcaptain looked startled. “I am sorry?”
“What you do—why do you like it?”
“At times, I do not. I am the third son, with no lands and no ear for music, though my sire was sure to see that I knew my letters. That helps.” He shrugged. “Except with weapons, my hands are clumsy, and I am not terribly clever. I understand that many men have these problems, or ones like them, and I found I can lead them.” Hanfor’s eyes narrowed. “Why ask you?”
“I’m a stranger. I’m faced with the problem of trying to sort out what’s right. You must know that it was hard to kill the Ebrans.”
“Alvar said you were prostrate for more than a day.”
“It was hard to decide to do it, too,” Anna mused. “If I didn’t kill them, then I’d die, and so would you and a lot of men. If I hadn’t slaughtered the last thousand, who were
helpless, then Eladdrin would have escaped. Was that right?”
“Hmmmm.” Hanfor scratched his head again. “All armsmen must answer questions like that.” He laughed. “The easy answer is that it is better to live than to die. That is as far as most go.”
“I’m not most people,” Anna pointed out.
“You are not. You are a sorceress and a warrior and a beautiful woman. That makes it hard.”
“I appreciate the compliments. I don’t know that I’m either beautiful or a warrior.”
“But you are, and now you seek justice.” Hanfor shook his head. “I fear you may not find it, not in this world.”
“I might have a chance, a small one.” Anna looked at the honest, weathered face. “Should I try?”
Hanfor laughed wryly again. “Do you have any choice? You are who you are.”
“I suppose not.” His reaction would have to do. She hoped she was reading the overcaptain right. “But it’s scary.”
Hanfor was fidgeting. Was everyone afraid to be caught alone with her? If only it were for different reasons. Anna rose and bowed slightly. “I did not mean to take so much of your time, Hanfor, but I appreciate your thoughts.”

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