The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (9 page)

Anna felt lightheaded, and knew she should stop. Besides, they all had that dazed expression—like children who had discovered there was no Easter bunny . . . or something.

“Magic, like everything else in this world, takes a lot of skill, a lot of raw talent, a lot of training, and you can only do so much. You all need to think about what I’ve said.” She slipped off the stool and walked slowly past the table to the door in the silence.

Jecks offered his arm, his brows knit in concern.

She took it.

Outside the main hall, once the door had closed behind them, he whispered, “You’re not strong enough for this yet.”

“They need to know I can’t work miracles all the time. Better I tell them than they find out and feel I’ve deceived them.”

“Some will feel that way now.”

“They may,” she agreed. “And they can leave, and we won’t waste any more effort on them.” She wanted to scream, but she was too damned tired. Why was everything a double standard? Why was it that people could understand that an armsman could only fight so long, and that he couldn’t defeat an entire army single-handedly, but they thought that a sorceress who couldn’t sing spells endlessly was weak?

Y
our son and heir, my lord.” The dark-haired woman bows deeply, almost prostrating herself on the rich maroon of the time-worn carpet in the private study.

“What bargain did you make with the bitch?” The gangly Lord Dencer, pushing a lock of brown-and-gray hair off his forehead, surveys the woman and the infant she carries, but makes no move toward her.

“I said nothing, and I agreed to nothing, my lord.” She straightens, and her son clutches at her shoulder. “I had hoped you would be pleased to see us. We rode as fast as we could.”

“So . . . Wendella, my consort, what message do you bring?” Dencer’s words are hard, bitter. He puts both hands on the wood of the desk and leans forward, looking
improbably like a long-legged heron about to spear a marsh frog. “For you must bring message or bargain.”

“I was sent with no messages and no bargains.”

“The bitch knows I do not favor her, and she is far brighter than either Barjim or Behlem. She would not have released you without gaining something. Something!” Dencer bobs his head. “What are you hiding?”

Wendella’s eyes meet Dencer’s. “My lord, the bitch sorceress . . . she sent no message to Stromwer. Yet she delivered one to me in bidding me leave. While it was to me, you should hear it.”

“To you?”

Wendella shivers, but clears her throat, and shifts the infant higher on her shoulder, absently patting his back. “When she dismissed me, the bitch said that you had continued to court both the Matriarchy and Lord Ehara of Dumar. Then she said, and I remember this most clearly, ‘I don’t have time for games and intrigues. And I have even less for the people who attempt them.’ ” Wendella shook her head. “My lord, you are lord, and you must handle your lands and your affairs as you see fit. But I see great danger in opposing this sorceress without great power behind your cause.” The brown-haired woman paused, then added, “I fear that power great enough to break the bitch sorceress will be great enough to destroy us.”

“That was your bargain . . . to seek my loyalty to her! You would bind me! No harmony in you, Wendella. Was that why your brother, the honorable Mietchel, was so agreeable to letting you become my consort?”

“I pled, and I groveled, my lord. I told her that your son had not seen you in half a year . . . that I had not seen you in that long.”

“And out of kindness, she just released you? I find that as improbable as a spade on a sow.”

Wendella flushes.

“As impossible as a beard upon you. Yet you would shave me for your release from Falcor.” Dencer straightens,
and his eyes glitter. He steps forward, and his hand lifts.

“Is it wrong to tell you what I saw, my lord? Is it wrong to tell you that she is most powerful?” Wendella watches Dencer’s eyes, not the hand that strikes her cheek.

“Do not tell me how powerful she is! You do not deceive me, Wendella. Your tongue slithers like that of a snake. Your words are smeared in filth. You have betrayed me. You have betrayed Stromwer and Morra.” His hand falls, and he looks at it. “I feel unclean.”

The dark-haired woman, a welt the shape of an open hand rising on her cheek, continues to watch Lord Dencer. She mechanically pats the child who has begun to sob. “I did not make you unclean. I hate and despise the bitch regent. I offered you truth, my lord, and you have struck me for that. I can do nothing. You are lord. Yet I fear for us both should you oppose the sorceress-regent.”

Dencer lifts his hand, then lowers it. “You should fear me, Wendella. I am lord in Stromwer, and I will be lord.” His voice hisses, and his eyes glitter more darkly.

“You are lord,” Wendella acknowledges, but she does not turn her eyes or her head.

“You will have new quarters, my lady.” Dencer lifts the brass bell, and it clangs off-tone. “Then we will see. Indeed, we will see.”

I
n the dim early-morning light of midwinter, Anna studied her face in the washroom mirror. The hair remained blonde with a trace of curl, the nose still fine and straight. No lines or bags circled her eyes, even without makeup,
not that she had any left except half a tube of lip gloss. The chin and neck lines were firm.

The cheeks were another question, deep and sunken, as though she were starving. Her eyes seemed sunken as well, and there was a darkness behind the blue. Was that the darkness of having seen and experienced too much?

The regent and sorceress washed and dressed in the green shirt, overtunic, and trousers that she’d adopted as her official working uniform. In hotter weather, though, the tunic went. Gowns and dresses were for rare formal dinners and state occasions not requiring riding.

A last look in the mirror confirmed that she had to eat more, and that she should refrain from spells as much as possible for a time, except one to get clean water. She just couldn’t bear the thought of drinking more vinegar.

With a deep breath, she finally headed out the door, trying to ignore the black rectangle on the stone wall that reminded her too painfully of her last attempt to look across to earth—the mist world—to see her daughter Elizabetta. Before coming to Erde and becoming a sorceress she never would have dreamed that a mirror could explode. Or that her grief over her older daughter’s death would have left her open to sorcerous transport to Erde.

The fire-etched stone also reminded her of the need to create or have built a reflecting pool. She couldn’t keep destroying mirrors.

Blaz and another guard—Lejun, if she recalled correctly—followed her along the corridor and down the stairs to the receiving room.

“Good morning, Skent, Resor.”

“Good morning, Lady Anna.” Both pages bowed, and Resor opened the door for Anna.

Dythya stood to the left of the doorway, across from the pages, waiting for Anna.

“Come on in, Dythya.” Anna nodded toward the doorway, then led the way into the room, still cold despite the low fire in the hearth.

The Regent cleared her throat, wondering whether to
crack the window to dispel some of the smoke, or to leave it closed and hope the chimney’s draw would improve as the receiving room warmed.

Dythya stood, waiting.

Anna looked at the platter on the worktable, with a sliced and already browning apple, hard white and yellow cheese, rock-hard imitations of crackers, and, thankfully, a small loaf of dark bread fresh enough that it still steamed in the chill air. Then she turned to Dythya. “Where do we stand?”

Dythya extended a sheet of brown paper. “This is the reckoning you requested, lady. The top part shows the coin on hand, the recent receipts, and the liedgeld owed. The bottom shows what we have spent since the harvest, what we have received, and what I would guess we will have to spend before the next harvest.”

Anna gestured to the seat across from hers. “Please sit while I study this.” In turn, she seated herself, and took one of the apple slices and chewed it, then reached for another.

Almost absently, she coughed, trying to get her throat clear, before singing the water spell to ensure the water in the pitcher was pure. Clean water was scarce anywhere in Defalk, as she supposed it was in any medieval-type culture. Even before she finished, she felt dizzy.

Damn! Damn! Damn!
One lousy water spell, and she was reeling. Anna forced herself to set down the paper and eat several mouthfuls of the hot bread, and two slices of cheese. After filling her goblet, she followed the cheese with a swallow of water, and then more of the apple slices, and more bread.

Finally, as the worst of the dizziness began to subside, Anna checked the liedgeld owed. Arkad of Cheor hadn’t paid. Neither had Gylaron of Lerona. Dencer had paid half. So had Lord Sargol, after sending a complaining scroll. Lord Vlassa of Fussen had died, and his twin sons were still sorting it out, probably with blades, and liedgeld
was doubtless low on their priorities. Four other lords had various reasons for not paying.

Then she laughed, ironically. The holding of Mencha had not paid. As the Sorceress and Lady of Loiseau and as Brill’s successor, she owed herself, as Regent, liedgeld, and she probably couldn’t raise it, although at two hundred golds, it was less than half of what almost all the others owed.

“My lady?”

“Dythya . . . I owe myself liedgeld, and I doubt I can raise it. I’ve let some of those who wished to remain continue to live there, but there’s not even anyone there now to run the lands.”

“You owe liedgeld?”

“I ended up as the Lady of Loiseau and holder of Mencha.”

Dythya’s mouth went into an O. “I am sorry. I should not have put that on the list.”

Anna shook her head. “I’m not angry. It’s another problem. I probably needed to look into that as well.”
Along with everything else. Who can I get to manage the place? Surely a good manager could raise enough for the liedgeld and even some coins for my personal use
.

Who could she have manage Loiseau? What had happened to Gero, Brill’s personal assistant? Or Serna and her daughter Florenda? Anna remembered how good Serna’s breads had been. Quies, the stablemaster who had thought Farinelli would be a good mount for her—he and his son Albero, who’d taught her the basics of using a knife—they’d been among those who had petitioned her to allow them to return to Loiseau. But some of the others, she’d scarcely thought of, and they were people, too.

She forced her mind to the paper before her. “Have the golds for the Ranuan Exchange left?”

“Three days ago, lady. Even with good roads, it would be another five days to Ranwa, and two on the river. With the ways as they are . . .” The accountant shrugged.

“A month?”

Dythya looked puzzled, and Anna corrected herself. “Two weeks? Or four?” From what Anna could figure, months didn’t exist on Erde, just seasons, each twelve weeks long. That made the Erdean year shorter by a month than the year on earth, she figured, since she couldn’t tell any real difference in the length of the day. With twenty glasses in a day, a glass was longer than an hour, but how much longer? Who knew?

“It is possible.”

“We’ve done what we can. Now, we need to send a scroll to Lord Birfels, telling him that we have taken steps to ensure that he can obtain seed grain. If he has any more trouble, he should let me know as soon as possible.”

“I can have that scroll for you to seal this afternoon, lady.”

“Good. I take it you feel that it’s important.”

Dythya nodded.

“So do I.”
Especially since Birfels and Geansor are the only ones I even halfway trust in the south of Defalk
. “And we probably ought to send one to Lord Geansor as well. Is there any other lord who might have that sort of concern? Oh, Lord Hryding,” she answered her own question before Dythya could speak. “Sorry.”

“Perhaps Lord Sargol of Suhl,” suggested Dythya. “There are rumors.”

“Can you do that?”

“It will be done, lady.” Dythya rose as Anna did.

Once the accountant or bursar or whatever Dythya was—minister of finance?—once she left, Anna turned to the now cooler bread and cheese, forcing herself to eat more than her stomach said it wanted by concentrating on how thin and almost anorexic she’d appeared in the mirror, and how dizzy the simplest spell had left her. By the time she finished the apple slices and four more chunks of cheese, each mouthful was an effort, each swallow leaving her feeling as though she would gag.

“Arms Commander Hanfor and Lord Jecks are here.”

Her mouth full, Anna motioned Resor to send the two
in. She stood and swallowed, grateful to put off eating for a few moments more.

“Lady Anna.”

“Lady Anna,” Jecks said a moment behind Hanfor.

“Please be seated.” She gestured and sat without waiting, knowing both men would stand until she took her seat at the table. She looked at Hanfor. “I never did ask you about the Sand Pass fort.”

The graying arms commander smiled. “The Ebrans repaired most of the outer walls before they left. Lady Gatrune’s levies included some masons . . .”

Anna nodded, recalling the big woman who had been the first landholder, as administrator for her late husband, to recognize Anna’s regency.

“. . . and Alvar managed to get the rest of the rents in the outer walls patched, and one more quarters’ block usable. The Ebrans had restored two. The walls won’t hold off more than brigands. . . .”

“But that’s an improvement, and we won’t have to worry about an attack from there for at least another year.”

“Perhaps next fall, Alvar could finish the job,” Hanfor said.

“Do you think we should put a small force there?” Anna asked, looking from Hanfor to Jecks.

“We do not have many armsmen here in Falcor,” pointed out the white-haired lord.

“I wasn’t thinking about the best armsmen,” the sorceress said. “Just a few to keep an eye out, and to show that the regent cares about the area.”