Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress - Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 85
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Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 85

"Thank you." Anna rose. "Until dinner."

Jecks rose also. "Until dinner, Regent Anna."

122.

Anna stretched, after having enjoyed the first hot bath in four days, and wrapped the dressing gown around her, brushing her hair back away from her face. In the dry air of Defalk, the hair she had cut short of necessity would dry quickly-she hoped.

Then she walked from the bathing chamber into the main room and studied the single gown she had brought. The simple green dress lay across the purple coverlet of the triple-width bed.

The sorceress turned and, for a moment, stood at the window, looking out across the lands shrouded in shadow, toward a reddish purple sunset that faded into dark gray and purple as she watched. Both moons were visible, but separated by half the width of the sky, with Darksong nearly at the zenith, its reddish glow like an ember in the sky.

Clearsong was almost an evening star, a point of light above the horizon.

She turned back toward the dress on the bed, then dropped into the big easy chair, wondering if Alasia or Barjim had preferred the chair, trying not to think about so many things, from Mario and Elizabetta, to the expedition ahead, from the disapproving presence of Gelen, to the questions posed by Jimbob. Had the tutor set up the boy? Sooner or later, she'd have to do something about that-assuming she were around to do it. And then there was the question of why Jecks had stated her accomplishments so clearly, even to the point of nearly humiliating his grandson. Was there more there than ensuring that Jimbob didn't get an inflated opinion of himself?

Anna wanted to shake her head. Right now, she didn't need those kinds of complications-and there was no reason to look farther, at least not until she dealt with the Evult, assuming she could, and she returned.

Finally, she rose and began to get ready.

She had dressed, and brushed her hair, and added what little makeup she had when the rap on the door was followed by a feminine voice. "Lady Anna?"

"Yes?"

"Lord Jecks would like to know if you are ready to join us, or if he should hold the dinner for a time?"

"I'll be there shortly."

She put on the faintest hint of lipstick-too much wouldn't be good in this culture and it didn't hurt to stretch her meager two tubes-checked her image in the glass, and headed for the door.

Fhurgen smiled as Anna stepped out of the room.

"You have guard duty?"

"I volunteered, lady." The dark-haired guard paused. "That was a kind thing you did out front.

With the boy."

"I don't know, Fhurgen. I don't want him automatically thinking women are weak, but I also didn't want him humiliated before me, and he still might resent me."

"He has time to learn."

I hope so. "It's hard to learn some things when you're young and powerful, and Lord Jecks doesn't want him to get too big for his britches." Anna turned toward the grand staircase and Fhurgen followed.

Jecks was waiting at the foot of the staircase, with a broad smile. Definitely like Sean Connery, she decided. His eyes took in Anna, all of her, and she almost found herself blushing as the tanned and white-haired warrior extended a hand.

"It is hard to believe you are the same regent who rode in on a mighty mount."

"I feel better," she admitted.

"Are you hungry?"

"Very."

Jecks escorted her along the short hail to the first door on the right, where Alvar waited.

Fhurgen stationed himself by the door, his hand close to the hilt of his blade.

"This is a mighty hall," Alvar noted, his wiry frame bowing to Anna as she entered the dining room.

"Not so mighty in these days," answered Jecks dryly.

Anna looked to the chandeliers, unlit as Jecks had indicated.

"Would you honor us, Lady Anna?" Jecks stood back and raised his voice in asking, as if to make an announcement with his question, with only the slightest twinkle in his eye.

"I would be honored, Lord Jecks." The sorceress smiled, hummed, hoping she had the pitch right, and sang the candle spell, with concert vigor.

Obediently, the chandelier blazed.

Jimbob' s mouth opened, but the redhead shut it quickly, his eyes flicking to his grandfather as if to ask whether Jecks had seen his astonishment, then to Gelen, standing beside the young lord.

Gelen's eyes widened, but only momentarily.

The whipcord-thin man who had moved from beside the dining table until he stood behind and to the right of Jecks nodded, as if to affirm to himself that the Regent of Defalk was indeed a sorceress.

"Thank you, Lady Anna. May you bring light-and rain-back to our lands."

Anna inclined her head slightly. "I'll do the best I can."

"Knowing you, that will be good indeed."

The sorceress wanted to squirm at what she viewed as a setup, but only smiled politely.

Jecks stepped back and gestured to the thin man with the lank brown hair. "Lady Anna, might I present Clethner, Lord of Nordland?"

"I'm pleased to meet you, Lord Clethner."

"Clethner, Lady Anna. I am a plain man." Clethner bowed. "You are most impressive in person." His eyes glittered, and Anna stiffened inside.

"People expect a regent to be impressive, I've gathered." She nodded politely.

"This is a small dinner, Lady Anna, in keeping with the times." Jecks gestured. "Besides those you know, and Lord Clethner, I have also asked Herstat to join us, since I thought you might like to meet him."

"His daughter has been very helpful."

"She has written her sire that you have been most effective in reorganizing the accounts, and that you have suggested major improvements in holding accounts." Jecks shook his head slightly, reminding Anna once again of the combination of Robert Mitchum and Connery.

Careful... you can't think like that, not now.

"A sorceress who can improve accounts and who is deadly with both spells and daggers, and who rides a raider beast no one else can touch?" Clethner laughed, a gentle laugh. "You are the stuff of legends, Lady Anna."

"I doubt that." I couldn't be, not a country girl from Cumberland, Kentucky.

"If you would do the honor?" Jecks inclined his head toward the table...

Anna smiled and eased herself toward the table, finding she was seated at the head, with Jecks at her left, and Jim-bob at her right. Clethner sat beside Jecks, and Alvar beside Jimbob, with Daffyd flanking Clethner and Spirda flanking Alvar. Gelen was seated beside Daffyd and Herstat beside Spirda.

"Before we begin... although it is not customary, I would like to propose a toast for the honor we have in our regent visiting us." Jecks lifted his goblet. "To the regent! To her success in restoring Defalk to health and honor."

"To the regent," echoed the others.

Anna worried more about the honor part than the health part. Honor among men was a nebulous concept, often continually redefined. She held back a snort. She should complain, when all too often she'd found women-like Dieshr-had no concept of honor at all. Either way, restoring honor was a chancy business.

The whole business of being a regent was chancy, and getting chancier.

She smiled.

125.

VULT, EBRA.

As the echoes of the mirror-pond spell die away, the white mists give way to the image of a blonde woman in a green gown, seated at the head of the table.

"That is not Falcor," observes Yurelt., unaware of the sidelong glance the Evult bestows upon him.

"She guests at Lord Jecks." The Evult nods. "What does that tell you, Songmaster?"

"She is trying to gain his support? Or strain his purse and hospitality. Perhaps she has need of coin, and is letting Jecks support her and some of her forces? Why, she is no different from Lord Behlem."

"All possible," admits the cloaked leader of the Dark Monks. "But she is more devious than that, I fear. She will strike at us, as soon as the roads clear in spring."

"She will not be ready. Defalk is in ruins. Falcor is a shambles. She destroyed the roads and the ford across the Cheor." Yurelt shakes his head.

"She will be ready, and we must be ready before her." The Evult smiles, but only white teeth show from under the dark hood. "I will melt the winter snowfall and cast down more floods- down both the Cheor and the Fal, and you will march even as those floods ravage Defalk."

"She is beautiful," says Yurelt.

"She is evil, and older than you. She may be older than I am. Do not be misled by appearances. She is resourceful." The hood turns as if he shakes his head. "It is too bad this has gone on so far, and we have few choices. I would almost like to see her take on the Liedfuhr.

Would that not give the mighty Konsstin fits?" A harsh laugh follows. "Or those plotting fools in Wei."

"Why can you not wait?" asks the Songmaster.

"Because she has declared herself our enemy, and she will not believe any envoy we send.

Besides..." The Evult does not finish the sentence.

"She is a woman?"

The Evult touches the harp strings, and ripples cross the pond, fragmenting the image of the blonde soprano. "I want your supply lists and your march plan for the spring two weeks from today. No later."

"Yes, Evult." Yurelt bows.

124.

On the third morning after leaving Elheld, as Anna and her expedition rode first eastward, and then more toward the north, the dark smudges on the horizon slowly grew taller, and more distinct, until the outline of the Ostfels rose clearly above the brown and dusty hills of eastern Defalk. The riverbed dwindled to the point where it no longer dwarfed the thin line of water that wound down from the mountains, and scattered jumpers began to dot the sloping banks of the Fal.

In time, Anna could see patches of brown where evergreens, or some trees, had died, almost like she imagined might be the impacts of acid rain. From each side of the river stretched deks and deks of browned and bent grass. Close up, Anna could see the grass consisted of clumps separated by reddish dirt, but the more distant grass appeared unbroken.

She shook her head. Even the grasslands were slowly dying. Her eyes lifted to the Ostfels.

Were there clouds to the east of the tallest peaks? Anna squinted, but she could not see any.

What she did see was that the peaks to the northeast were rocky and barren, while the taller peaks to the south bore some snow cover.

A faint smile crossed her lips. Had the Evult used warm rain or something to melt the snow cover to fuel the flood that had devastated Elhi and Falcor? Perhaps she wasn't so insane to try to strike now. By spring there would be more snow.

"We are going over those?" Daffyd asked again.

"Yes. According to Jecks, there is a trail, an old road, but it's narrow." Anna upstoppered the water bottle and drank, then replaced the bottle and patted Farmnelli on the neck.

"Had I not seen what you did to the Ebrans before, I would say this is foolhardy." Daffyd volunteered.

"It is foolhardy," Anna admitted. "Totally foolhardy. It's just that not doing anything is even worse. You've seen Defalk. The whole land is dying. I'm hoping to surprise the Evult in his lair.

. . his den... whatever."

"Do you know he is there?"

"So far." When Anna had used the glass the night before, only briefly, very briefly, the shadowed figure had been in Vult, eating at a dark table, alone.

She also had the feeling that he would still be in his den, and she had to trust the feeling, not that she had any intention of getting too close to that den. The idea behind the battle hymn- rivers of fire, not water-that should let her spells create their havoc from farther away. She winced. If the spells worked, there would be havoc. If not...another kind of havoc. War, whether through technology or magic, created havoc, but she had to wonder why arms were regarded as more acceptable. Or are you self justifying again?

She patted Farinelli absently. Why was it always so hard to figure out what was truly right- and still survive?

"I'm sore," said Iseen, one of the horn players, as she tried to stand in her st irrups. Then she called to Alvar, who rode to Anna's left. "Captain, isn't it about time to water the horses?"

Alvar grinned at Anna, who smiled back, then shrugged. "In a while, lady player. We will need a more gentle slope down to the river."

"In a while, he says. . . ." muttered Iseen, just loud enough for Anna to hear.

"All those silvers... too good to be true... now we know."

"Stop mouthing, Iseen. You were told you would travel. Did you expect a carriage?"

"They sound like lancers," observed Alvar. "Nothing is ever quite the way they would like it,"

"Nothing ever turns out quite the way any of us would like it," Anna said dryly. "It's just that the young ones feel that they deserve it that way."