Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress - Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 27
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Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 27

Ashtaar steeples her fingers, and her dark eyes flash.

"They have taken Lord Bnll's hall and outbuildings in Mencha, and the surrounding farms and dwellings. The sorcerer's hall is easily suited for base of operations, still within ten leagues of the Sand Pass. They are also rebuilding the Defalkan fort there." Gretslen's tone is level.

"Both are late Lord Brill 's masterpieces, no doubt?" Ashtaar frowns. "What do they do there that is so vital?"

"They have established a continuous resupply from Synek, and they are rebuilding their forces. Their losses were substantial, as I noted."

"From the purported mist-world sorceress? Any sorceress that powerful would be transformed to cinders crossing the worldgates. Are you certain it was not Brill?"

"Lord Brill was dead when more than half the Ebran armsmen were flayed with fire."

Gretslen's eyes flicker to the window, through which she sees an afternoon storm above the harbor.

Ashtaar's fingers close around the dark oval of polished stone before her. "The waters could be wrong."

"They could be."

"You do not think so, do you?"

"No, honored Ashtaar."

The spymistress sets down the dark oval no larger than her clenched fist. "This is troubling. A sorceress that powerful cannot cross from the mist worlds. There was no sorceress that powerful known in Liedwahr, and there has not been one that strong since the time of Vereist. You do not know where she is? How can that be? The waters can surely trace that kind of power."

"The waters show her image. She is riding, with a single companion, somewhere in Defa1k."

Gretslen shrugs.' "After the drought, one part of Defalk looks much like another."

Ashtaar nods. "Then keep watching, and let me know. What of the travel-sorceress?"

"A team was dispatched the afternoon you requested it, but they have had to avoid the fleeing soldiers."

"This is vexing, Gretslen. Is the sorceress also the reason for Behlem's caution?"

"I could not tell you that with certainty, but his seers have used their waters to scry the battle."

"So this unknown sorceress gives Behlem pause, and nearly destroys the Ebrans. We don't know who she is, or where exactly she is. We don't know where her loyalties lie.. In the meantime, Eladdrin is wary enough not to move until he has far more armsmen than he needs, and Behiem has learned caution." Ashtaar pauses. "Very vexing. Defalk should have fallen easily."

"Most of the armsmen fled as we planned," points out Gretslen.

"Except those of Lord Jecks."

"We could not subvert them, as we noted."

"What is Jecks doing?"

"His forces are quick-marching to Falcor."

"Gretslen. . ."

"I only scried that a few moments ago," answers the blonde hurriedly.

"What a dissonant mess..." mutters Ashtaar before looking up. "Is there anything else?

Anything else that the Council could spring on me?"

"Well . . . this sorceress works only with a mandolin, not with players."

"Donner save us.... You're certain?"

"Yes, Ashtaar."

"I suggest you consider a method for removing the sorceress. No... don't send anyone. . not yet. . . but consider it. Consider it carefully." Ashtaar offers a hard smile.

43.

From the hillside to the northeast, where Farinelli carried Anna steadily down the dusty road that they had reached earlier in the day, Synope looked like a larger and even hotter and drier version of Mencha. She checked the rope that ran from her rear saddle ring to the brown mare. The mare plodded after the gelding, bearing two sets of saddlebags, filled partly with stale travel bread, some daggers, a few hand tools and an awl-and two swords. Daffyd led another mare, a piebald one, similarly loaded.

"Are you sure this wasn't the road you had in mind?" Anna asked for the second time, or maybe it was the third, glancing at the late-afternoon sun that hung over the dusty fields.

"Lady Anna... . I said I was sony."

"So am I." Anna wasn't quite sure why she found it hard to forgive Daffyd. Was it because she hadn't wanted to kill the bandits? Or because she'd been glad to be able to stop them before they hurt her or anyone else? They deserved it, a part of her mind said. But you were pleased, another part said. She took a deep breath. "Daffyd, I don't mean to be sharp with you, but. . . I've already done things here that I'm not proud of." Except you are, in a perverse way.

"Those bandits, lady? You stopped them from killing many people. How can you say it was something you aren't proud of?"

Anna thought. "If I kill a snake or a mad dog, it has to be done, but it's nothing to be proud of." There!

Daffyd looked down at the mane of the gray mare. ... sorcerers.. . sorceresses...

There was so much Anna didn't know. She had weapons and tools she didn't know how to use. She had coins, but what were they worth?

"Daffyd?"

"Yes?"

"What are the gold coins called?"

"They're golds, that's all."

"What can you get for a gold or a silver?"

"Things, of course." Daffyd sounded exasperated.

"I meant, what are they worth? How much can you buy with them?"

"Oh. . . like boots or blades or food?"

Anna nodded.

"A good meal at an inn will cost three or four coppers." Daffyd frowned. "My last boots cost Brill three silvers. A good horse runs from three golds up."

"Are there ten coppers in a silver?"

"Of course. Ten silvers in a gold. Always have been, far as I know."

The sorceress's lips tightened.

"You could sell some of those blades, Lady Anna Not here, but in places like Falcor or Cheor or maybe Sudwei. They'd bring over a gold each, maybe more."

"I don't know what we should do." And she didn't. She was carrying, apparently, a fair amount of coins for a local, pius goods that might be worth even more. But business wasn't her strongest point, especially in a strange place like Liedwahr.

The road curved around an orchard. The trees had leathery gray-green leaves. An olive orchard? Anna didn't know, but Russian olives had those kinds of leaves, and olives grew in hot climates.

As she rode around the gentle curve, she could see scattered trees lining what might be a river off to the right, but the road curved back and continued south and parallel to the river toward the scattered dwellings that marked the outskirts of greater Synope.

"Is that a river?" Anna pointed.

"The Synor River. It never was very big, and it's smaller now. Even with the dam, there's barely enough water for the mills." Daffyd fell silent.

"What will your sister say about your showing up with a complete stranger?"

"Every time I come, she says I should come more often. She doesn't mind if I bring friends."

Daffyd smiled. "After all, I am her little brother."

That didn't exactly reassure Anna. "Where does she live?"

"On the east side, but not so far east as, the hills where the mills are."

Anna glanced to the east and the low hills beyond Synope. The Ostfels were no longer visible on the eastern horizon and had not been since well before midday, which meant that Synope was farther from the mountains than Mencha was.

"Does she have children... a husband, consort?"

"She and Madell have a daughter. Ruetha is three, I think."

"What do they do? She's not a player, is she?"

"No. Madell's father is a miller, but there hasn't been that much milling lately."

They passed a small cot on the left side of the road. The door hung open, and one of the shutters lay on the ground beneath the window. The next cot had neither windows nor doors.

Farinelli tossed his head and took a side step.

"I know. You're a hungry and thirsty boy." She patted the gelding's shoulder, looking ahead to where a wagon stood outside a building. A youth carried a bench from the building to the wagon.

"That used to be the woodworker's place, but I never met him," explained Daffyd.

"How long has it been since you were here?"

"Two years, I'd guess," Daffyd admitted.

The woodworker's apprentice looked up at the two riders and their de facto packhorses. His eyes crossed Anna's, and he took a long look before flushing and looking away. Then he scurried back into the shop.

Anna pursed her lips, then moistened them. What had that all been about? Certainly, the young man had seen women before, even women on horseback. From what she'd seen in Erde so far, all women who rode wore trousers- none of the sidesaddle idiocy spawned by the English.

Synope had a central square-of sorts-with a melange of shops clustered around a dusty red stone pratform standing in the middle of an intersection of an east-west road and the north-south road that had carried Anna and Daffyd into the town.

Yuril's proclaimed a faded green sign bearing two crossed candles. Under the sign was a shop with narrow and grimy windows. Beside Yuril's was a larger building, from which projected a white-painted sign bearing only line-drawing outlines of a mug and a bowl.

"The Cup and Bowl," offered Daffyd. "Could be the worst food in Defalk, maybe in all Liedwahr."

A heavyset woman in frayed brown trousers and an over-large tunic that had grayed from too many washings dragged her daughter away from the horses. Her eyes went to Anna, and then away, and she pulled the girl under the narrow porch beneath the sign for Yuril' s.

Anna tried not to frown. She knew she was dirty, dusty, and probably had circles under her eyes that reached to her jaw, but when people looked at her and then ran, it wasn't exactly encouraging.

"That way." Daffyd pointed to the left.

Anna urged Farinelli around the red stone platform and its chipped sandstone balustrade that looked like a town bandstand without a roof. She couldn't imagine a bandstand in Defalk, though.

Two armsmen in soiled light-green tunics, trimmed with purple, stood in front of another shop-this one with a barrel displayed over the door, neither looked away. Both stared at Anna.

She ignored the pair, but could feel their eyes on her back until she and Daffyd were at least another hundred yards from the center of Synope.

The few shops gave way to houses, almost all of one story, and most were finished on the outside with a plaster or stucco. Some were gray, others painted, but the paint on all had faded.

"There it is," said Daffyd, turning the mare down a short lane off the main thoroughfare-if a dirt strip ten yards wide constituted a main thoroughfare.

The house to which the young player pointed was similar in shape to that of Jenny, the travel- sorceress in Mencha, if somewhat longer. The red dust had stained the outside white stucco or plaster walls a faint pink, and two weathered wooden benches stood on the warped planks that formed a porch under the overhanging eaves. The front door was closed against the late- afternoon heat, as were the four shutters, two on each side of the door.

The wood had once been painted a bright blue, but the paint had faded and peeled, giving the house a faintly disreputable look. Behind the house was a long shed, with an overhanging roof and one side without doors, showing six stalls. Five were empty.

"Are you sure your sister won't mind?" Anna asked again.

"She's always saying that I should come more often."

"But I'm an outsider."

"You've saved my life. That counts for something."

"When did I do that?"

"When you talked to Lord Brill, and when you killed all those darksingers and Ebrans.