"A simple system to begin with, but I have no idea right now what we owe, what we may owe, or even what many things I would like to do might cost. How can I plan when I don't know what anything might cost?"
Dythya looked to Jecks, who nodded.
"My lady," said Dythya, "I can tell you how much you have spent and where. Or I can find out. Beyond that, one must foresee the future."
"If you can figure out the past, I can show you .how to plan for the future." Anna paused.
"What kind of numbers do you use?"
"Numbers?"
Anna pointed to the chair across the table. 'Sit down. If you would also, Lord Jecks?" As the two took chairs, she pushed the ink stand arid a sheet of paper across the table. "Write the numbers, digits, from one to twenty there."
Dythya wrote.
It was as bad as she feared. They weren't exactly Roman numerals, but they weren't Arabic either, and it didn't look like there was either a decimal system or place value.
Would she have to reinvent double-entry bookkeeping? She only had the faintest idea of how it worked. Why was everything so hard?
"We have a lot of work to do, Dythya, including a better system of numbers that will make it a lot easier." I hope.
The sorceress lifted the bell on the table and rang it. It bothered her to be summoning people hither and yon, but the bell made more sense than yelling.
Birke opened the door. "Yes, lady?"
"I would like to see Menares for a few moments."
Birke bowed and closed the door.
Anna turned to the white-haired lord. "Lord Jecks, how have you had young Jimbob tutored?"
"As best I could, lady. He learns his numbers from Herstat, his horsemanship from Hylar, his letters from Restak..." Jecks frowned. "Why ask you?"
"I am going to offer more regular instruction to some of the children of the lords."
"Here in Falcor?"
"Where else?"
"Why... lessons are the prerogative of the lords. They always have been. Who else would know what their offspring would need to learn?"
"Oh, I don't intend to force this down anyone's throat. Not directly. And I intend to see that instruction is offered to young women as well." Anna looked up as the door opened.
"Menares for the lady Anna."
"Take the other seat, Menares."
"Yes, Lady Anna." The white-haired counselor looked around the table warily, then eased his buik into the remaining chair.
"Have you found out who taught young Lord Jimbob when he was here?" asked Anna.
"Tirsik taught him about horses, and his mother taught him his letters and numbers. Someone named Isosar taught him heraldry and emblems and the basics of tactics. I believe he was the sire of young Skent. One of Lady Alasia' s maids taught him about manners."
Anna winced at what was considered education.
"We will be doing more here, in the future."
"That may not go well," cautioned Jecks.
"Did Barjim save his son's land-or did I? I am a woman, you know."
"Very much so." Jecks offered a smile, but his eyes did not quite appraise Anna.
For a moment, Anna was most aware of the near sexual tension between them, but she knew where that could lead, and now was not the time.
"Defalk is too poor to waste half its talent and brains. Lord Barjim would have failed before he started without your daughter."
"I have been so told," Jecks said.
Menares and Dythya looked from Anna to Jecks and back again, following each speaker, but offering nothing.
"Knowledge is power, or so it's been said. . . in the mist worlds. Since we don't have much of any other kind of power, we'd better use what we can. I intend to add all the knowledge I can."
"You have other reasons for such instruction, I would wager," suggested Jecks.
"Of course." Anna smiled. "They will be closer than if raised on their own lands or fostered in a single other hall." The smile vanished. "They'll also have a better idea of whom to respect and whom not to."
"You are a dangerous woman." Jecks shook his head.
So did Menares. Dythya smiled faintly.
"Menares? Dythya?"
"Yes, lady?"
"Two things. Menares, first, find Hanfor and dig up twenty silvers from him. Get them to Daffyd so that he can pay the players. Then, you two find a quiet corner and some paper. I want you to come up with two lists-one that gives all the possible expenses we have faced or could face. The second list should show all the sources of revenue that the liedburg has, or might have.
Then come back here." The two looked at each other.
"Just do it. I'll explain when you return." Both nodded.
"You are even more dangerous than I thought," Jecks said with a laugh. "When neither of those two can think ahead of you." He shook his head.
Anna waited until the door was closed.
"I intend to destroy the Evult."
"How could you do that? And why? You have destroyed his armies."
"The Evult is putting together more darksingers and another army. I intend to put a stop to him now."
"I have heard of and seen your powers, Lady Anna, but you risk everything you have gained by such an effort." Jecks frowned. "You do not have the coins to send an expedition into Ebra, and the Evult will not return to Defalk for another year."
"In time to ruin next year's harvest, if we have one. We need rain, and we won't get it without destroying the Evult. Besides, I have another idea" Anna forced a smile she did not feel. While her body felt less sore after eating, her head still throbbed. Why was it that even trying the littlest spells across the worlds cost her more than far larger efforts on Liedwahr? Another one of those physical laws she had never learned, she supposed. It made sense, but she didn't have to like it.
Jecks raised his eyebrows.
"It will take only a small expedition."
"If it is small, you will have to lead it," the white-haired man pointed out, "and that is dangerous."
"Not as dangerous as suffering another year of drought followed by another invasion. And I can get halfway there without anyone knowing. No one will expect it. I can visit your lands without suspicion. Wouldn't everyone expect me to make such visits? I'll let it be known that I intend to visit many lords." Anna shrugged. "You're right, though. It's not reasonable. It's not prudent-but, as the saying goes. It's better than the alternatives. And there's another thing.
Everyone is watching. Sooner or later, someone else will try. We cannot fight more than one enemy at once."
"No... we have few arms and fewer armsmen and only one sorceress," admitted Jecks.
"I intend to move quickly, within the next few weeks."
"That be awfully soon, and close before winter."
"We are surrounded on all sides," Anna pointed out. "But if Ebra is rendered permanently helpless, that will stop one threat, and from what everyone says, that will buy a lot of time.
Neserea, even under Konsstin, cannot do anything until next year. I don't know about Nordwei."
"The Norweians like to plot carefully. They will wait, I think." Jecks fingered his chin. "You have not said how you will accomplish this."
"I want maps showing the shortest feasible routes from Elhi to Vult and to Lake Aulta."
"Surely you do not think armsmen could travel the Ostfels? In late autumn, when the snows begin to fall?"
"I have a plan. Let's leave it at that." Anna smiled tightly. "Can you come up with the maps?"
The older lord shook his head. "No one has ever tried such a..."
"Lord Jecks," the sorceress said tiredly, "unless the Dark Monks are totally destroyed these senseless battles will go on and on."
"You destroyed their entire army at the river."
"They lost their best... general... and they're already rebuilding. Even if the Evult were killed, the system would create another. That's what systems do. Isn't that what's happened all over Liedwahr? You kill a despot and get another. I bought a year, perhaps two, and then I'll have to do it again. I won't live forever. Do you want your grandson to suffer his father's fate?"
"You talk as though he will live to be lord."
"He will be," insisted Anna. "I intend to see him married, to Secca or one of the other suitable fosterlings." Anna finished the last of the water in her goblet.
Jecks rubbed his forehead. "You walk to tunes unplayed and spells uncast, as if they were already ringing in the air."
"Can you get me maps? Good maps? Can your scouts find me what I need?" Anna asked again.
Jecks bowed his head. "We will make your maps."
As the white-haired lord left, Anna wanted to scream. What was it with these people?
Couldn't anyone look ahead? Didn't anyone believe that anyone else kept their word?
In the meantime, she had to give arithmetic lessons, develop a rough budget outline, meet with Hanfor, and come up with tunes for Daffyd's players, not to mention setting up a school, figuring out what sort of answer to give the Matriarch of Ranuak, and a dozen other items she hadn't even gotten to yet.
The meeting with Hanfor would be long, because she had to ensure that the armsmen-or some of them-could be used for some work around the liedburg, maintenance, and the like. She didn't have the coins to pay any good-sized force that was limited just to occasional battles. Yet she didn't want maintenance workers who carried arms.
Later, she should talk to Lady Essan, if for no other reason than to see where else she might have made a mistake or overlooked something. She hoped there weren't too many mistakes or oversights...but she wouldn't have bet a clipped coin-or an off-tune key-harp-on it.
112.
Anna walked to the single high rear window in the receiving room, where the base of the sill was nearly chest-high. She needed to rearrange the place, put the receiving/conference area somewhere with more ventilation and light. She sighed-another item for the list.
Outside, in the oblong between hall walls and the outer walls, the sky remained clear and blue.
While the daytime temperatures were more moderate than before the harvest, in most places in the U.S., the day would have had people headed to the beaches or the pools!
After a last look at the blazingly clear fall sky, she walked back to the table where the scrolls were laid out for her signature-at least Menares had a decent hand and didn't mind acting as a scribe-secretary. The row of scrolls sat there-for Secca, for Kyrun, for Cataryzna, for Nelmor's daughter Ytrude, for Birke and his sister, and the rest generally worded to various lords, inviting them to consider sending a child to Falcor for the opportunity to study under her and various other experts.
Then she shook her head-all for what... so she could try to bring some stability to a place that had never had any? And how many lords would accept? She had to try, even if it meant fostering a child from every major and minor lord in Defalk, or if it meant only a handful.
She smiled grimly. That handful would get every advantage she could give them.
She also had to decide about Cataryzna. Should Anna send the girl home? While she had made an offer to Lord Geansor, would he see it as a veiled threat, or seize the opportunity to bring her home? Skent had told her that the crippled lord seldom traveled.
If Cataryzna loved Skent, perhaps Anna could set up a match between the two. Skent would more likely be loyal to Anna, and thus Jimbob, either through fear or gratitude, and that might keep some other ambitious lord from consolidating holdings. The last thing she or Jimbob needed was a growing barony or the equivalent on Defalk's southern border.
Anna wanted to shake her head. She was thinking like Machiavelli. Then she smiled bitterly.
Why not? She had the problems that the old Florentine had addressed.
A squeaking sound caught her ear, and she walked back to the window. A wagon laden with grain and pulled by two bony horses creaked through the courtyard.
With a sudden gesture she turned and walked to the door, opening it. Skent, Birke and the guards stiffened.
"I'm headed to the granary. Skent, you come." She didn't have to tell the guards. Both followed.
The glass mantles along the main corridor had been poiished, and the floor mopped and wiped dry. She sniffed. Did the place smell cleaner? She hoped so.
As she stepped into the courtyard, the armsmen practicing blades in the exercise square stiffened.
"Lady Anna!"
"Keep practicing," she called.
"You heard the sorceress!" snapped Himar, offering a half salute to her before he turned back to his charges.