Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress - Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 30
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Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 30

"Experimenting? Is that a form of sorcery?" The pert brunette put down the bucket and picked up her daughter.

"Perhaps. Do you put soap in the tub with the hot water?"

"Aye." Dalila nodded.

"And then you put in the clothes, and use the paddle there to stir and wash them?"

"Know ye another way?" Dalila's tone was both interested and faintly sardonic.

"Let's try. Put in the soap, and then the clothes."

As Dalila glanced at Anna, a smile crossed her face. "Perhaps you should put your clothes in?"

Anna looked down at the stained and dusty shirt and trousers, smiling in turn. "I should. Do you have a robe- or something?"

It was the younger woman's turn to smile.

Before long, the white clothes-or those that had once been white or light-colored-were in the front tub, and Anna stood barefooted in the doorway wrapped in a light linen robe. She hoped Madell didn't show up too soon, but in the dry heat of Defalk, she suspected that her clothes would dry soon-assuming her sorcery worked.

For some reason, Blake's The Tyger had kept slipping into her thoughts, and she found a way to use it.

"Water, water steaming hot, in the confines of the pot.

Boil and bubble up to clean the clothes as bright as ever seen."

A wave of heat flared back from the barrel, followed by a wave of steam.

"Mummmy!" Ruetha shrieked.

Dalila swallowed and eased back from the barrel.

Anna wiped her forehead. Had she overdone it-again? She felt tired for a moment, and she sat on the step from the kitchen into the washroom. She also realized she was hungry-again.

"Are you all right, lady?"

"I'm fine," Anna said automatically.

"I think not." Dalila stepped around the sorceress into the main part of the house and brought back more of the bread and cheese.

As Anna ate, wondering why such a short spell of singing should take so much energy, Dalila went back to the front tub. There, with the wooden paddle, she lifted out one sodden shirt, holding it as water vapor steamed away from it. She squinted, then moistened her lips as she carried it over to the rinsing barrel, where she dunked it before lifting it out and hand-wringing it.

Then she carried the shirt out to the rope-line hung between two posts behind the kitchen door where she smoothed it before stretching it and fastening it in place with a wooden clothespin.

Dalila studied the shirt for a long moment, then walked back into the washroom.

"There were stains, lady, but they aren't there now, and I never could get them out."

Anna looked up. "I'm sorry." As she said it, she wondered why she was apologizing. She'd done the best she could, but her head hurt. Was she still tired from the Sand Pass battle? Or had she done something wrong?

Dalila scooped up Ruetha and sat on the floor near Anna's feet. "Madell was angry this morning. . . . He Lore off some bread and he left. He was saying he was worried about the grain, but he was angry." Dalila tightened her lips. "I'm not fancy the way you are, and I'm not a player like Daffyd, but I've eyes to see The young mother looked imploringly at Anna.

Anna took a deep breath. "Your Madell thought I was something I'm not."

"Aye. I saw the looks ... but you.., it was plain you were not."

"Some men-" Anna broke off.

"Why was he so angry?"

"Because I told him to leave me alone.. . and he wouldn't.., so I cast a spell to keep him from touching me." Anna looked down at the table. "I'm sorry. Perhaps I should go."

"You're still tired, aren't you?"

"Yes," Anna admitted.

"But you used your magic to help me?" Dalila gestured to the tubs.

"I wish I could do more. The song magic here in Liedwahr is new to me." Anna glanced down at the three-year-old, who looked back with steady eyes for a time.

Dalila offered a wan smile. "Best I finish these clothes, and put the others in."

Daffyd looked in from the doorway between the washroom and the kitchen end of the main room. He held the ax loosely. "I thought you needed wood to heat the water."

"The lady Anna heated it," Dalila said, bending down to disengage Ruetha's hand from the washing paddle that Dalila had momentarily leaned against the barrel as she wrung out a shirt.

The three-year-old grabbed a dangling lock of hair and pulled, but her mother disengaged her daughter's grip with a gentle movement and a smile.

"You mean that I chopped this all for nothing?"

"No. It'll be used, little brother. After you and your sorceress friend leave, there will be many weeks where I need wood." Dalila forced a smile. "Please, would you split some more?" Dalila added. "Please?"

"As you wish." Daffyd looked from one woman's face to the other. "As you wish." He picked up the ax and retreated, shaking his head.

Anna slowly finished the remainder of the bread.

"Are you interested in Daffyd?"

Anna's mouth dropped open. "You. . ." Then the sorceress realized that Dalila did not see Anna as Anna saw herself. "I had better explain, Dalila. I am older than I look. I have a son older than you are, and a daughter who is Daffyd' s age. I did have a daughter who was even older, but she died several months ago.

"Months?"

"Seven or eight weeks ago." Had it been that long? "Daffyd can tell you. I looked older when I came to Liedwahr, but some magic in the battle changed me. It was a surprise to me."

"A not unwelcome one, I wager," Dalila said.

"I don't know. Had I looked the way I did, Madell would not have been so interested. I wonder if any man will take me seriously." Especially in this culture.

"I had not thought that way." Dalila frowned. "Having Ruetha was not easy, for all that Hersa said it was a good birth. To raise children, and then to have one die... and have the chance to start again. . ." She shook her head, then offered a brief smile as she reached for another shirt- Anna's.

"I can wring that out." Anna stood.

"Ye be sure of that?"

Ruetha began to whimper, and Dalila looked at the barrel still filled with warm water and clothes.

"You feed her," Anna said, taking her shirt. "I can manage this." She added, "Enjoy your daughter."

That got a smile of sorts as Dalila retreated to the kitchen The mechanical work of lifting out each article from the hot tub and rinsing it, then wringing it and carrying it out to hang, was almost a relief to Anna.

As she finished the last of the whitish items and dropped the darker clothes into the hot tub, Daffyd appeared at her shoulder, looking toward the kitchen area where Ruetha sat at one side of the table chewing on more of the dark bread, then back at Anna. He smiled as he looked at the ground.

Anna had to smile, too, thinking about walking around in a gown with boots, but she had neither sandals nor slippers.

"What did ye do to Madell?" asked Daffyd, again glancing toward the kitchen.

"He tried to overpower me last night," Anna said quietly. "I managed a spellsong, one that demanded that he trouble me no more."

"He hates you, and he'll be telling tales to Dalila, if he hasn't already."

"We've talked about it, in a quiet way," Anna said. "Madell won't be any trouble to me." She wondered, though, how much trouble the miller would cause for Dalila. Anna liked the pert brunette. The problem was that using spellsong led to using more song. Wasn't there any end to it? Anna tried not to sigh. "I should go back to Mencha."

"That's where the dark ones will be, as I stand here."

"Stand back," Anna said before repeating the laundry spell. Then she retrieved a pair of trousers and rinsed them, then wrung them.

"I can do that," said Daffyd.

"So can I. But I can't finish that lutar, and I suspect you're better at chopping and splitting wood than I am."

"You should go to Falcor," suggested Daffyd, "or, better yet, Elhi. Lord Jecks would help you."

"I don't know," Anna said. "That doesn't feel right." She didn't even know why it didn't feel right, but things felt unfinished in Synope, although she knew she shouldn't stay.

46.

In the morning light, Anna sat at the table, her hair damp. coner or later, the way it was growing, she was going to have to cut it, or wear it permanently in a bun of some sort.

She broke off another piece of bread and offered it to Ruetha. The little girl grinned shyly.

"You can have some, Ruetha," said Dalila.

"She looks funny," said the daughter.

Anna supposed she did, with damp thick hair that had more curl than she remembered, but Dalila had said she could use one of the tubs in the washroom for a bath, and the water spell had gotten her hot water. She felt cleaner than she had in weeks, even if water were dripping down her neck onto the collar of the clean shirt. She'd left off the tunic; it was too hot to wear inside.

She'd blotted herself as dry as she could-Defalk wasn't big on large towels-but then she suspected that, given the difficulty in getting water, Defalk wasn't big on washing. In dressing, she'd noticed that she could almost make out her ribs. Had she ever been able to do that?

"So do you," Dalila pointed out to her daughter, standing at the worktable kneading dough.

Dalila also looked damp, since the brunette had followed Anna into the tub and given her daughter a good scrubbing.

After the solemn-eyed Ruetha took the bread, Anna- st ill hungry-broke off another piece, and slowly chewed through it, occasionally eating from a small wedge of very hard yellow cheese.

"You will spoil us, Lady Anna. Warm water without fires, and laundry that does not take all day." Dalila glanced toward the corner of the room where Daffyd had laid out the pieces of the unfinished lutar. "Daffyd, you should have bathed."

"There wasn't any point to it. I'll get hot and dirty, and besides I have to finish this." The young player slowly eased the backpiece of the lutar into place. The odor of glue permeated the room, already hot, even though it was not even mid-morning. "I'll bathe later, if I can persuade the sorceress to provide the same luxury for me."

"Such industry deserves some luxury," Anna said lightly.

"Well, you said you needed this."

"I do. Or I will. Unfortunately."

"It is unfortunate to be a sorceress?" asked Dalila as she rolled the dough into a ball.

"I hope not." Anna half forced a laugh. "But it is unfortunate to be a sorceress who seems to be more regarded for the damage she can create than the good she can do. Laundry and bathwater are more constructive than trying to hurt soldiers."

"Mayhap," said Daffyd from the corner, where he was setting some glue clamps. "Sometimes the soldiers kill people, though, and it's useful to keep them from killing." He grinned ruefully.

"Especially when it's me you kept them from slaughtering."

"Aye, force has to be stopped with force, and those who can't.. ." Dalila's lips tightened.

Anna thought of the slamming door. She had been awake since not much after dawn when the slamming door had reverberated through the house. Madell had not been at dinner the night before, and he had left early.

"Is Madell busy with that Ranuan grain?" the sorceress asked blandly.

"He left early, lady."

Anna backed off. "Thank you for the bread. It's good. Everything you cook is good."

"I doubt it's like that in a great hall."

"No," Anna said. "It's better. I mean it."

That got a brief smile before Dalila turned to Ruetha. "Best you come here, girl, and give your mother a hug."

Anna swallowed.

"There!" interjected Daffyd, stretching. "That's about all I can do for now. A few more days, and we'll see what this beast sounds like." He turned to his sister. "I'm making a strange instrument for her."

"Oh?"