Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress - Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 32
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Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 32

"You are leaving with a detachment of lancers in the morning. I won't be far behind you."

Behlem pauses. "And Cyndyth won't be that far behind either of us. Nor Rabyn. Nor the couriers from Mansuur."

"Yes, ser." Menares looks at the goblet before him on the white linen cloth, but does not lift it.

49.

"We need to go riding," Anna insisted.

"We?" asked Daffyd.

"I need to go riding, and you need to guide me and keep me out of trouble," Anna said with a laugh, before lowering her voice and adding, "And Dalila needs us out of her hair."

"Oh..."

"Is there anything else you need to do with the lutar right now?"

"The glue has to set."

"How soon before it's ready to use?" she asked.

"It needs at least a coat of varnish. Might be as I could get some from Peimnor. Say . . . a few days to dry after that."

"We can't stay much longer." Anna frowned. "Or I can't. Perhaps I can pay my respects to Lord Hryding in the next day or two." She broke off as Dalila carted Ruetha into the main room.

"Young woman.. . I cannot set you down for a moment. and you are in the dirt pouring dust in your hair." Dalila set her daughter on the tabletop with a thump.

Anna wanted to laugh. Mario had been the same way- into everything all the time. It was funny, and it wasn't. Instead, she asked, "We're going out for a while. Is there anything else we could get you?"

"Lady Anna... you are the guest. You brought so many things yesterday...

"You have been kind and hospitable to a stranger in a strange land Anna tried to conceal a wince. That phrase-hadn't it been the t itle of one of those damned science-fiction books Avery had buried his nose in when she'd tried to talk to him? Avery-Antonio Marsali, the great culture king, who read more science fiction than opera librettos, and she was the one living it.

The irony was almost too much.

Dalila shook her head. "If only more ladies were as you-" She lurched for her daughter, who was inching toward the end of the table. "No, Ruetha. You will be the death of me."

"She is lively," Anna commented.

"Like the sun is bright." Daffyd laughed.

Dalila gave a rueful grin as she picked up her daughter again. "We need to make bread. You can make a little loaf all by yourself."

Anna's mouth watered at the idea of bread. Why was she always thinking about food and eating?

"Can I?" came the childish question.

"Yes," answered Dalila.

"Are you certain we cannot get you anything?" Anna asked.

"Not today. I must cook what we have." Dalila smiled over her shoulder. "And let Ruetha bake her bread."

Anna pulled on the now clean floppy-brimmed hat, and the player and the sorceress walked out to the rear stables.

Again, the late-morning sun had turned Synope into a dry, hot oven.

Farinelli whinnied as Anna approached.

"Thirsty? Hungry?" she asked, although there was some grain in his manger. The bucket had some water, but Anna walked to the well for more, which she orderspelled before pouring into the horse bucket.

"Why must you offer so much to Dalila? Madell has not been kind to you." Daffyd led the gray mare out into the sunlight that seemed unending.

"I haven't been kind to him, either, I suppose." Anna tightened the second cinch, straightened up, and untied the leads.

"You cursed him with kindness, did you not?"

"I forced him to be kind to Dalila."

"He has not always been kind. So that is good."

"I don't know." Farinelli whuffled as Anna climbed into the saddle. She patted his shoulder.

"Don't be so eager. Before long, you'll get plenty of exercise." Then she turned to Daffyd as they rode out of the yard. "People don't change, and one thing leads to another. I protect myself from Madell, and he gets angry at Dalila and wants to hurt her. I stop that, but that doesn't make him less angry. Will he beat his horse? Someone else?"

Neither spoke as they rode to the end of the lane, and Anna turned the gelding back toward the center of Synope.

The fine dust rose with each step the gelding took, rising in the still hot air and hanging for an instant, then clinging to Farinelli's legs, while some rose enough to irritate Anna's nose.

"Does it ever rain here?"

"Not unless it comes from the north, or sometimes the south. The rains used to come mostly from the east, and the dark ones-"

"-stopped that," Anna finished.

"What do you know about Lord Hryding?" asked Anna. "He's supposed to be fair, but he's never gotten along well, so they say, with either Lord Barjim or his uncle who used to be Lord of Defalk."

"That's a barrel-maker's?" asked Anna as they rode past the shop with the half barrel mounted above the partly open door.

"That's old Fesrik's. He's some sort of cousin of Madell's. Dalila said he's been the only cooper in town since the drought began."

As they rode westward, Anna studied the center of Synope, more carefully now that she was more rested. "What's the stone platform for?"

"Used to be where they made announcements on market day, or where traveling dramaturges performed. Most towns have platzes, but market days haven't been much lately, and no one can spare coppers for a dramaturge or a troupe."

"And Yuril's? What does he sell?" Anna guessed that the green sign signified something for sale, although she didn't know what the crossed candles meant.

"Some of just about everything. Most chandleries do. Leather goods, travel food, bedrolls, candles, of course...

"What's to the south?" Anna gestured to her left. "That leads to the bridge, the one over the Synor River, and the road to Sudwei. Sudwei is at the north entrance to the South Pass. That's the only real trade road left to Ranuak."

Anna struggled, trying to fit Sudwei into her mental map of Defalk. "You mentioned some lord there once?"

"Geansor. He was crippled in putting down a peasant uprising. They say the leaders were paid by those women in Ranuak." Daffyd shrugged. "I would not know, but I guess he had to be most careful in balancing between Barjim and the matriarchs, especially since he cannot ride or lead his levies."

Anna wanted to shake her head. Did it always come down to military ability?

50.

Just after mid-morning Anna and Daffyd rode west past the center of Synope toward the Synor River-and Lord Hryding's holding. Although it was far earlier in the day than when she and Daffyd had first entered the town, or on their previous rides, the town center still looked nearly deserted.

A single horse stood outside Yuril' s, and two women crossed the square from the Cup and Bowl, wearing hats with brims wider than Anna's as protection against the endless sun. Each step they took raised a puff of the fine red dust.

Anna patted Farmnelli and could feel the long tail swish behind her, seeking one of the infrequent flies that bit hard enough to draw blood. Anna involuntarily raised her hand to brush the unseen insect from the vicinity of the back of her neck.

She shifted her weight in the saddle. With each hour- or glass-the past days had felt more and more confining, as if an unseen noose, or something, were being tightened around her. The mirror images of the four seeking her hadn't helped that feeling.

His nose itched, and she rubbed it gently.

A yellow dog lay in the shade of an empty water barrel beside a vacant dwelling, its shutters askew. The dog barely looked up as the two rode past.

"Will the lutar be ready tomorrow?" Anna asked.

"You ask every day, but. . . yes, it will be ready." Daffyd paused. "What it will sound like- that I do not know."

"I don't, either, but let's hope it's halfway melodic... and loud."

"Why are you going to see Lord Hryding? I asked before, and you did not say."

"Call it politics," Anna explained.

"Is that another one of your strange magics?"

"I wouldn't call it magic, but it is an art, one at which I haven't been as good as I should have been." She looked westward. "Is that it?"

From a distance, the building on the low hill overlooking the river resembled an Italian or Mediterranean villa, with blank white walls that appeared to surround a central courtyard.

"Yes, and the banner says that he is home."

As they rode nearer, Anna could make out a low wall, slightly less than three yards tall, which circled the hall.

Less than a dek farther along, a side road led to a gate in the wall-less than a few hundred yards from the main road. The unguarded iron-bound wooden gates were hinged open, and did not look as though they had been closed in years.

Halfway up the hill on the right side, they passed an orchard similar in layout to that of Brill's except the trees were those Anna had seen on the way into Synope.

"Olive trees?"

"That is what Dalila told me."

On the southern side of the road was a long wooden shed, and in the shade several chickens pecked at the ground. Farinelli whuffed and tossed his head slightly.

"They're only chickens." Anna patted the gelding.

About fifty yards short of the white-walled villa, a hitching rail had been provided under a slanted tiled roof, with a stone water trough beneath as well. A curved stone path ran from the roofed area toward the hall or villa.

Anna reined up, dismounted, and tied up Farinelli near the middle, where it would remain shady as the day progressed. She patted his shoulder. "You stay here. You get water, anyway."

After extracting the mandolin from the saddlebag, Anna started up the walkway, and Daffyd hur- ned to catch up to her.

A young and stocky armsman watched from beside the covered archway that was presumably the entrance to the villa. There were no windows on the ground level, and but a few on the second level, all with heavy shutters. The third level had a number of windows, and several were even open.

The other concessions to defense or the violent nature of Liedwahr were the thick walls and the crenelated parapets above the walls, although the highest point on the villa walls could not have been more than ten yards above the ground in front of the arched entrance.

The two heavy and iron banded doors to the archway were open, and the single armsman in a pale green tunic stood in the shade of the curved roof that projected out from the archway that held the doors.

Anna let Daffyd take the lead.

"This is the lady Anna. She is a sorceress here to pay her respects to Lord Hryding," Daffyd announced.

"You don't exactly look like a lady," observed the guard. "These days everyone wants to see Lord Hryding."

Daffyd frowned. "Give him a spell."

The armsman did not quite smirk.

"Are you thirsty?" Anna asked. "Would you like some cold clear water'?"

"Sure, and how will you deliver it? With that little sound box?"

Anna strummed the mandolin.

"Since now he's faced this duty's waste without of a taste of cool, clear water, shower him now with water cold and clear..."

The equivalent of several gallons of freezing water cascaded over the armsman.

Anna stepped back, and began to sing the repulsion spell even before the guard stepped forward.