The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (17 page)

“Before the end of the year, we will,” promised Hanfor.

“I wish I had your confidence, Arms Commander.”

“I have seen what you have done to large forces who opposed you. Men will fight for you who would not have fought for Defalk before.”

“Let’s hope so.” Anna took another swallow of orderspelled water. Even in the chill of winter, she needed
more liquids than others. Then, that had been true on earth as well. She’d always been prone to dehydration.

The graying veteran took a sip of wine from the goblet Anna had provided, then looked at his empty plate. “I will groan all the way back to the stables, and you ate twice what I did.”

“I wish I didn’t have to.” Anna smiled. “The stables?”

“I am leading the lancer training this afternoon.”

Anna felt guilty for keeping him. Like her, he was trying to handle too many things. Except he didn’t complain, and she felt she was always complaining, if only to herself.

“Lady Anna?” Skent stood in the doorway.

Anna nodded for the page to enter, recognizing somehow that he needed a moment with her. Hanfor stood, but Anna raised her hand, gesturing for him to wait a moment.

“There is a woman in the courtyard. She has a babe and a child, and she says she is the sister of the player Daffyd.” Skent offered a puzzled look.

Anna’s guts churned. Dalila. Daffyd’s sister and the woman who had taken her in when no one else would after the Sand Pass battle—and whose consort had tried to rape Anna. Anna shook her head. She’d placed a spell on the man—Madell—and had worried about it ever since.

Then, while she was recovering from the battle with the Evult, Anna had sent some golds and a message about Daffyd’s death, but Dalila wouldn’t have traveled to Falcor, not unless something was wrong, terribly wrong.

“I’ll see her. Now.”

“Perhaps I should go,” suggested Hanfor.

“Not yet. Something might have happened in Synope.”

As Anna recalled, Dalila was brunette and stocky and stood barely above Anna’s shoulder. The pertness Anna remembered was gone, replaced by hollow eyes and exhaustion. Her face was smudged with dried mud, and her trousers ragged above shoes barely held together with
thongs. Dalila cradled an infant, mechanically rocking the child. The dark-eyed, dark-haired Ruetha clung to her mother’s dusty and tattered cloak. Ruetha’s cheeks were streaked with dirt, a combination of dust and tears, Anna suspected.

“Dalila,” the sorceress began, “what happened?”

“Lady . . .” Dalila sank to the polished stone floor and bent her head, as if unable to speak.

“Dalila,” Anna said slowly, “you’re welcome here. You welcomed me, when I had nowhere to turn, and you’ll always be welcome. I don’t know what happened, but you are welcome.”

Only the faint shudders betrayed the silent sobs.

After a moment, Anna spoke again. “Is there . . . trouble in Synope? Because of Lord Hryding’s death?”

A choked “No,” was the only answer, followed by more sobs. Dalila did not look up.

Anna lifted the bell, rang it, and waited for Skent, then addressed the dark-haired page.

“Skent . . . Dalila and her children need food. They’ll be staying with us. For the moment, after they eat, put them in one of the larger rooms in the players’ quarters for now. And make sure they have some water and some towels to get cleaned up.” Anna paused, and added, “Dalila took me in when no one else did. I’d like you to take care of all of this personally.”

Skent nodded, his face impassive.

The sorceress stepped forward and reached down, slowly helping Dalila rise.

“Lady . . . I . . . be . . . so . . . No one else . . .”

“Dalila . . . I told you, and I meant it. You are welcome here.” Anna squeezed the too-thin shoulder gently. “When you are fed and rested, we’ll talk some more. Now you and Ruetha and the child need food and rest.”

Dalila began to sob again.

Anna hugged her. “You’ll be all right. You’ll be safe.” What else could she say? “Now, go with Skent. He’ll make sure you get fed, and you have a room to rest and
recover.” Her eyes went to the page, fixing him. “They’ll need to eat regularly. Make sure they get fed with the players for now. But they must eat. All right?”

“I understand, Lady Anna.” Skent’s eyes went to the pair, softening as they rested on Ruetha.

Anna helped Dalila to the door, and Ruetha tottered beside her mother, one hand still holding the tattered cloak.

“And see that they have some clean clothing, too.”

Skent nodded again.

When the door closed, Anna found Hanfor smiling.

Anna raised her eyebrows in inquiry.

“You do not forget kindnesses, lady, and you repay your debts. I am glad I decided to remain in Defalk.”

“So am I,” Anna said. “But I’m not sure I’ve repaid all the kindnesses I’ve received.”

“You will.”

Anna wondered. “Will you make the arrangements for which armsmen will accompany us?” She paused. “Lord Jecks and Jimbob will be going with me.”

“Twelvescore, then,” Hanfor said firmly. “I held back some to protect the young lord.”

“I’ll be taking the players. I hope I can do some repairs along the way.”

“You are still determined to travel to Synope after Cheor?” Hanfor asked.

“If I don’t have too much trouble. I’d thought about stopping at Arien to see Lord Tybel, but Jecks thought that might not be a good idea, not after dealing with Arkad.”

“He suspects you will have to use sorcery on Arkad.”

“I hope I don’t.”

“If you really believed that, Regent Anna, you would not have to undertake this journey.” A faint smile creased Hanfor’s lips as he stood.

Anna grinned sheepishly.

“I will talk to Mies, to make sure you have two good supply wagons.” Hanfor inclined his head before he left.

Alone, Anna walked to the window and looked down on the courtyard. Didn’t the paving stones ever dry in the winter?

Had Madell driven Dalila out? Why hadn’t anyone been willing to help her? Synope had to be three weeks by foot, if not longer with two children. Anna could feel herself seething. Every time she thought she’d come to understand and accept Erde, something like this reminded her how much women were looked down upon and abused.

“It’s still that way on earth,” she murmured to herself. Some places were worse than Defalk, although she didn’t recall anywhere as bad as—where was it?—Sturinn? Where they still chained women? She shivered, hoping that she didn’t have to deal with those people anytime soon. That would take more than simple sorcery.

Sorcery . . . that reminded her. She’d need players if she meant to do road and bridge work on the trip to Cheor. She hurried out of the receiving room, this time with Giellum and Lejun following her.

Anna crossed the courtyard, placing her boots carefully on the damp stones. Had she really understood how much rain Defalk had gotten before the Evult’s sorcery had created the drought? Defalk in winter seemed more like . . . parts of Oregon, perhaps? Except it had more sunlight. Already the water level of the Falche where the Fal and the Chean met was two-thirds of what the older armsmen said was normal, and, based on the shape of the banks and the traces of old river beaches and the dried-up oxbow lake to the northwest of Falcor, they seemed to be right.

Liende wasn’t in the rehearsal room, nor in her own room. Anna finally caught up to her on the top of the north tower.

The player looked out on the grayness that was Falcor in winter, with thin trails of smoke rising from scattered chimneys. Liende turned at Anna’s boots—or Lejun’s on the stones.

“Regent . . .”

“I wanted to talk to you.” Anna turned to her guard. “Lejun . . . if you would wait at the foot of the top stairs.”

Lejun nodded stiffly and eased out of sight.

The sorceress had begun to understand why public figures became recluses, especially those who were more than figureheads. Then, sometimes, when so many things seemed beyond her control, she felt more like a figurehead than a real ruler.

Anna stepped toward the red-and-white-haired player.

“Your wish, Lady Anna?”

At times, especially in dealing with players, Anna wished for a little less deference and a bit more warmth.
You’ll have to get used to it
, she told herself, forcing a smile. “We will be traveling to Cheor in several days. I would like you and the players to accompany us.”

“I can only vouch for the two building spells right now. We might have the third one ready by then.” Liende did not meet Anna’s eyes.

“It’s harder than you thought,” Anna said.

Liende looked down.

“It’s hard because I’m asking more than Brill did,” Anna said quietly. “I’m asking you to use harmonies, and that makes it a lot harder. It makes stronger spells, but it’s not easy.”

“You are not saying that to ease my fears?”

The sorceress shook her head. “I mean it. I talked to Brill about harmony, but he wouldn’t consider it. He said it was too dangerous, but I think that’s because he wasn’t trained with harmonies. He didn’t understand harmony.”

Anna had realized that for most people on Erde, even players, the term
harmony
had a far more general meaning in Liedwahr—something akin to “not creating dissonance” rather than the earthly technical musical meaning of parallel chords or supporting lines of music distinct from the melody line. Then, she supposed a lot of people on earth thought of the word in the same way.

“He did understand much,” said Liende. “And he
would use Darksong. Mayhap he had reason to distrust this . . . use of harmony.”

The sorceress had to remind herself that Brill had been Liende’s lover, and that Liende would hear little about his shortcomings. She paused, then spoke carefully. “Any sorcerer can only do so much. Lord Brill could do many spells I have not even tried. I have been trained in some he did not know. All the spells I have used with the lutar are based on chorded harmony.”

Liende nodded slowly. “You risk more than your players.”

“Can you have your players ready?”

“We will be ready with those spells, lady.”

“That’s all I ask.” That was all she could ask, Anna reflected, and, as usual, it wasn’t really as much as she needed. “Thank you.”

She headed back down the tower stairs.

Instead of remaining in her office in the receiving hall, she stopped there only long enough to reclaim the lutar. She carried it up the main stairs. She felt strong enough to engage in some limited sorcery, although she wanted to be at full physical strength when she began the journey to Cheor.

The smooth waters of the reflecting pool confirmed that she had gained back some weight. Her eyes were no longer sunken, nor her cheeks so hollow.

She took the lutar from its case, fingers caressing the smooth wood. Her eyes burned momentarily as she thought of its maker, poor Daffyd, entombed in lava in the valley of Vult—all because he’d summoned her to revenge his father’s death.

With the grease marker, she made the changes to the mirror spell, then hummed through them—without the words. Then she strummed through the chords. Finally, she put it together.

“Water, water, in this my hall,

show me now that Konsstin who seeks my fall.

Show him bright, and show him fast,

and make that strong view well last.”

Konsstin still wore the sky-blue tunic, but no cloak. The Liedfuhr sat behind a dark wooden desk, outlined by the light from windows behind him. A map—what appeared to be Liedwahr—was spread before him. As he studied the map, he frowned, but his lips did not move.

Anna strummed the lutar again, singing the brief couplet to end the view in the pool.

Konsstin apparently remained where he had been, Mansuus, presumably, but was studying a map. In preparation for what? Anna wished she knew.

She checked the lutar—it still had a tendency to slip out of tune—and changed the spell for Dencer.

Dencer was riding, wearing a breastplate and carrying a lance. Anna watched the image in the pool only long enough to see that he was practicing thrusting the lance at a target as he rode by it. He’d been working hard. That was obvious from the red face and the shimmer that indicated sweat.

The sorceress released the image with the couplet and exhaled. One was studying maps and the other improving warlike skills. Not conclusive, but not exactly reassuring. But unless she wanted to spell all her strength all the time following them in the pool, it was about as good an indication as she was likely to get at the moment.

Wasn’t anything easy?

For you, of course not
. She immediately felt ashamed of the thought. Lots of people had it far harder than she had. Like poor Dalila, exhausted, with nowhere to turn, and ashamed of having to prostrate herself at Anna’s feet.

The sorceress pursed her lips. What else had she meant to check? Oh, the question of harmony. She looked at the books on the shelf—the ones she’d moved in right after she’d finished the reflecting pool. The first handful of the leatherbound books were those Brill had let her use in the workroom he’d lent her at Loiseau—Boke
of Liedwahr,
The Naturale Philosophie, Proverbes of Neserea, Donnermusik
.

She pulled out
Donnermusik
, searching for the sections that had alluded to harmony, hoping her memory had been correct, but worried about Liende’s dubious looks.

. . . harmonic variants be most important as a musical consideration, for they must in truthe effect a change of musical resemblement through the constant repetition, with most suitable variants, of the bass pattern . . . through trommel. . . .

. . . the relationship between the thunder, and that needs must be represented by the falk horn, supplemented by a continuous bass provided by a trommel, and the lightning . . . must be joined by a melodic line of the violincello. . . .

She remembered those lines and skipped ahead to another section. Nothing there, except more discourses on storms. Another few pages . . . Where was it?

Anna took a deep breath.
You’ve got to slow down. You won’t find anything just flipping through pages that are half Old English and half bastard German
.