"There she goes.. . sorceress..
"... . almost turned one of the captains into charcoal insulted her.."
"... say she killed dozens of dark ones with an arrow through her shoulder, then rode all the way here..."
Anna winced. Stories always seemed to grow. Then you were in trouble if you didn't live up to them, and you were in trouble if you refuted them.
She eased her way along the upper ramp toward the small room with her gear.
34.
Anna hugged the shade on the eastern side of the northwest watchtower, still struggling with the chords on the mandolin, trying to forget how hard the bricks she sat on were, or how much her nose itched from the dust raised in the courtyard below.
"That doesn't sound like much of a melody." Daffyd stood there, viola in hand, grinning.
"It would be easier if you'd been able to finish the lutar."
"A melody's a melody."
Abruptly, Anna realized what he was talking about. Players in Liedwahr played melody lines that stood alone, while she was working on supporting chords-the difference between the polyphony of Brill's players and the most ly homophonic approach of, say, a Beethoven symphony-Or a Britten song cycle. Idly, she wondered how Sophie Weiss or Nancy Evans might have done in Liedwahr, then pushed the thought away. She was here, and they weren't.
"Lady Anna?" prompted Daffyd.
"I'm sorry. Sometimes, I think about other things. How is the lutar-"
"I can't do much here except work on the tuning pegs and smooth things.
"Daffyd! We need to work on the battle song," called Brill.
The viola player nodded and hurried back to the group. Anna set down the mandolin and uncorked her ever-present water bottle, drinking slowly as Brill conducted the eight players.
Palian was taking Kaseth's place, and Daffyd seemed to hold the lead viola position. Liende carried the bass melody.
After corking the water bottle, Anna went back to the chords, trying to work out the chorus lines of her much-adapted "Battle Hymn of the Republic," shutting out as well as she could the off-notes of the players, and Brill's corrections.
"What's that dust?" asked one of the lookouts in the tower above Anna. "It wouldn't be the Ebrans."
"Not coming from the west, idiot. The scouts say that the dark ones are moving their lancers up the pass, and there are troops of archers on the trails headed down to us."
"That has to be Lord Jecks, then, doesn't it?"
"Look for a blue banner with a golden bear."
A series of trumpet calls echoed from the west, reverberating off the angled sandstone cliffs east of the hills straddled by Brill's fort.
"There's a blue banner, but it's all wrapped up."
Anna stopped chording and eased to her feet. Between the sentries, the trumpets, Brill's players, and the heat, she couldn't concentrate anymore.
"That's it," Brill announced. "Put away your instruments. We'll meet here in the morning, one way or another."
"That's Lord Jecks," offered Daffyd, from behind Anna's shoulder. "He's always the last to bring in his levies."
"He does bring them, in person," said Brill as he walked up to them. "Unlike most of the lords, who only send captains."
Anna looked at the sorcerer quizzically.
"There is an obligation to send levies, but a lord of holdings does not have to come at every call." Brill shrugged. "Barjim could request their presence, but most of their captains are better commanders than they are-except for Jecks and Kysar." The balding man paused, then added, "I wanted to tell you that we are to eat with Lord Barjim tonight, again."
"The food's better, but. . ." Anna spread her hands.
"I doubt anyone will insult us." Brill laughed. "You made your point."
"She always does, ser," Daffyd said quietly.
"Yes, Daffyd, and I hope she can with the dark ones." The sorcerer looked into the low western sun, squinting to make out the oncoming riders, then turned and headed down the steps.
"He's not happy," said Daffyd.
"Would you be?" Anna wondered if she should have brought up the possibility of harmony again, before Brill had slipped away, but she had the feeling the sorcerer would always refuse that possibility.
"I'm not. We'll be lucky to get out of here with our heads attached to our bodies."
"So why are you here, then?" Anna asked.
"My head wouldn't be attached to its body, lady, if I had not come. What about you?"
"Did I have any choice?"
The young man shook his head.
"I have to get ready for this latest.. . command performance." Anna shifted her grip on the mandolin and started down the narrow steps, keeping to the inside and away from the unrailed outer side that overlooked the courtyard.
By the time she reached her quarters, there were three buckets of water in the middle of the floor.
"I had some buckets brought up to the room," Palian said. "I went down to the washroom."
She shook her head. "They asked me who I belonged to. One of them pawed me."
"They tried that on me, at first."
"No one would touch you, now, Lady Anna," said the slender violinist. "There are so many stories..."
"I know." Anna's tone was wry. "I killed dozens of darksingers with a war arrow twice my size through me after losing all my blood, and then I hopped on the biggest and nastiest beast in Defalk and rode here without resting."
Palian laughed.
"It's half true," said Liende from the doorway, where she eased the wooden door shut behind her. "You lost half your blood, and it was a full-sized war arrow with a barbed head, and they're more than a yard long."
"Wait a moment." Anna looked at the buckets, then hummed, and sang the water spell gently.
The water in all three buckets foamed, then subsided.
"It'll be cool," she added as she pulled off the floppy-brimmed hat and the armless tunic. "I'm still glad you had the water brought up."
Liende looked at the buckets, then bent and dipped a finger into the water and licked it. "It's almost a shame to waste such clean water."
"I'll spell more later, if you want," Anna offered, "but I want to clean up.''
"So do I," said Palian.
"It certainly couldn't hurt." Liende stripped off her faded tunic. "But I don't know how long we'll stay clean." She coughed at the dust from the garment.
Anna had barely finished getting dressed and into a cleaner tunic when Brill rapped on the door.
"Lady Anna?"
"I'm coming." Her hair was pinned into a bun, although it wasn't quite long enough for that, and despite her best efforts she was slowly losing pins, and she was afraid it would come undone halfway through dinner.
"You look most presentable," the sorcerer said when she stepped out onto the third-level walkway.
"Thank you." Anna wasn't sure whether that was a compliment, or a statement of appreciation that she had tried to look good but hadn't quite pulled it off.
The dining area was the same low-ceilinged room, except the shuttered windows were open, and the faintest of breezes fluttered through them. This time, more than a dozen men, and Alasia, stood around the table when Brill and Anna stepped inside.
"Lady Anna, who can set hearts afire-along with the rest of you." Captain Firis bowed, then grinned at her.
Anna couldn't help but grin back at the impulsive young captain, so willing to kill one moment, and forgive the next.
She could appreciate him without trusting him. "Captain Firis." She turned to the two others she knew. "Dekas, Sepko."
Then she bowed ever so slightly in the direction of Barjim. "Lord Barjim, Lady Alasia."
Barjim nodded to the sorcerer and sorceress, but continued to listen to the redheaded captain who had not turned.
Beside Alasia was a stocky, white-haired man, his leathers still dusty. Alasia motioned to Anna, and the sorceress stepped toward her.
"Lady Anna, this is my sire, Lord Jecks." Alasia turned from Anna to the white-haired warrior. "Lady Anna is the sorceress from the mist worlds, the one who almost turned Firis into a cinder."
"He still hasn't learned that much caution, it appears." Jecks bowed. "My daughter has told me about you, and I am pleased to meet you."
"I'm pleased to meet you." Anna bowed.
"Let us sit down and get on with the business of eating!" said Barjim, his voice carrying across the conversations.
Anna followed the command and found herself second down on the right-hand side, with Lord Jecks on her left, Brill on her right, and another older man across from her.
"Get the wine moving," Barjim suggested.
Alasia smiled at Anna, then turned to the man on her left, the one across the table from Anna.
"Lady Anna, this is Lord Kysar. He holds the strongholds and the lands around Pamr. Lord Kysar, this is the lady Anna. She is the sorceress from the mist worlds I had mentioned."
Anna inclined her head. "I am pleased to meet you, Lord Kysar."
"Just don't tell her she's useless, lord..." A sotto voce whisper crept up the table. Anna tried not to flush.
"I believe I missed something there." Kysar's voice held the false heartiness that many big men cultivated, in Anna's opinion.
"Rumors fly all over Defalk about you, lady," added Lord Jecks, kindly. "Is this another one?"
"It is not a rumor, unhappily, Lord Jecks," Anna admitted. "When I arrived here, I was tired and not thinking too clearly. One of the captains made a remark, one I think now that was in jest, but it made me mad." She forced a shrug. "I overreacted."
Jecks and Kysar looked to Barjim, who, with his mouth full of bread and lamb curry, nodded at Alasia.
"The lady Anna turned his wooden goblet into a bonfire, and was starting on a spell to do the same to him," Alasia said. "But she was gracious, and so was the captain, after a few words."
"And you, daughter, are diplomatically keeping everyone happy." Jecks laughed.
"My lady Alasia is good at preserving my resources," boomed Barjim. "Get the wine down to my captains."
"Lord Brill, I believe we last met in Falcor in the spring," offered Jecks.
"I believe so." Brill poured some wine, first for Anna, and then for himself. "Did you have any luck with the dam?"
"In fact, I did. It was a good idea, and there was water where you suggested, but it's taking longer to fill the pond." Jecks broke off a large chunk of bread, and took but a small sip of wine.
"Without more rain, that will happen."
"More disharmony from the dark ones." Jecks looked at Barjim, then lowered his voice slightly. "Now that the last of the levies are here, will they attack at dawn?"
Brill frowned. "Not at dawn, but by late morning, I would guess. They are already moving the clouds westward. I could see the darkness over the Ostfels."
"Be a long day tomorrow," Kysar interjected.
Anna felt like every day had been long since she arrived in Liedwahr, but she nodded and took the smallest sip of wine.
35.