Spellsong 02 - The Spellsong War Page 3

  "Have you had any luck in the search for a weapons smith?" Anna asked more loudly, turning to the graying arms commander.

  "No, my lady." Hanfor smiled briefly. "Yesterday, a journeyman wheelwright tried to convince me that he could do the job. He couldn't explain the difference between a shortsword and a rapier." He paused as one serving girl set the large bowl of stew before Anna, and another eased a basket of hot bread beside it.

  "We need to advertise," the sorceress mused.

  A puzzled look crossed Jecks' face, hidden quickly by a pleasant smile. Hanfor merely waited, as did Dythya and Menares.

  "Can we send scrolls or messages to Ebra or Ranuak suggesting that the position of weapons smith to the Regency for the Lord of Defalk is open?"

  "To whom… ?" began Menares. "Do they have guilds or something?"

  "Of course, that would work," added Dythya with a smile. "You could also send scrolls to the portmasters at Encora and Narial."

  "And they would pass on such news?" asked Menares skeptically.

  "They would contact the mastercrafters," Dythya explained. "If the master smiths had journeymen who needed positions, they would tell them. If positions are few, then they would tell any one who came about the opportunity so that the newcomers would not take from those already smithing there."

  "I could see that," mused Hanfor. "I could send scrolls to a few armsmen who might know of weapons smiths."

  "We'll talk about that tomorrow." Anna wanted to rub her forehead. Even at dinner the problems kept assaulting her. She used the overlarge serving spoon to ladle out her portion of stew, then eased the huge bowl toward Jecks, and the bread toward Hanfor.

  "It smells good," offered Dythya. "Better than the heavy noodles and the fried dumplings."

  As her stomach growled again, Anna hoped so. She also hoped she could get some sleep uninterrupted by some nightmare or another.

  She took a bite of the stew—spicy, but not burning, thank heaven, or the harmonies, she mentally corrected herself.

  Anna looked to the server. "Jysel, would you convey my thanks and compliments to Meryn?"

  Jysel bowed and flushed. "Yes, Lady Anna."

  "Thank you." Anna needed to work in another visit with the cooks, among everything else, but the personal touch was what made the difference. It definitely did, but it took time, and that was something that was also in short, short supply.

  Like everything else in Defalk, she mused, taking another mouthful of stew, nodding to herself as she did, appreciating a meal that was neither bland nor tongue-searing.

  3

  MANSUUS, MANSUUR

  WHAT have you discovered, Bassil?" Leaning forward in the silver chair, Konsstin peers across the polished walnut of the desk at the raven-haired officer who has entered the Liedfuhr's private study.

  "About Defalk, sire?" Bassil's words are formal and barely contain the hint of a question in their tone.

  "What else? I did not send you out to seek out the price of grain in Encora." Konsstin leans back and tugs at his beard, half light brown, half silver, and close-trimmed.

  "The seers show that the sorceress has recovered. Lord Jecks and the heir have returned to Falcor, and the liedburg flies Jimbob's ensign with a Regency symbol. They are training more armsmen."

  Konsstin frowns. "The bitch is serious."

  "So it appears, sire."

  "What about the dissonant northern traders?"

  "Nothing. Their seers watch us and the sorceress. The Ranuans have been silent."

  "And about Bertmynn?" Konsstin pushes back the heavy chair and stands, clasping large hands behind his back for a moment, pushing back the silver cloak, revealing the close-fitting sky-blue velvet tunic and trousers with the silver piping that nearly matches the silver in his hair and beard.

  "As you requested, we sent a hundred golds and twoscore blades. You know that another young lordlet has taken Synek?"

  "That's Hadrenn. We can't have two of them fighting over a corpse. We'll have to choose before long." Konsstin paces in a small circle for a time, then looks straight at the dark-haired younger man. "Send Hadrenn fifty golds… no weapons. Tell him it's a token to help rebuild the devastation caused by his nettlesome neighbor. Use those exact words—'nettlesome neighbor.' I don't want them thinking of her as a danger, just as a troublesome problem."

  "Just fifty?"

  "In another two weeks—make that three weeks—send off another fifty golds. People remember unasked-for and repeated smaller gifts more than large ones. Besides, our lordlet Hadrenn will use them more wisely if they're small." After a pause, the Liedfuhr adds, "Gifts need to be bigger than pocket change and small enough that the recipient can delude himself into believing he's not being bought."

  "I will remember that, ser." Bassil stands, waiting, apparently relaxed, his eyes never leaving Konsstin.

  Konsstin's head and eyes turn toward the wide windows to his left. "We need a true Empire of Music, Bassil."

  "Yes, ser."

  "Don't humor me!" Konsstin's voice rises to a bellow. "I don't need someone who tiptoes around agreeing with me."

  Bassil has stepped back, but his eyes meet those of the Liedfuhr. "You do not like those who agree, nor those who disagree, nor those who question. What would you have me do, ser?"

  Konsstin's frown is broken by a hearty laugh. "That's the first honest thing you've said today."

  "It can be dangerous to be too honest around those who are power-ful.

  "Perhaps I am too hard on people… but everyone has a scheme, and those who do not scheme flatter in the hopes of position and influence." His hazel eyes harden, then smile. "What do you want, Bassil?"

  "Position, influence, and enough coins to be comfortable. I would rather obtain all three through ability than through scheming or flattery."

  "Do you have enough ability for that?"

  "I think so. You would have to be the judge of that."

  "So," laughs Konsstin, "you grant me my due."

  "How could I do otherwise? You are the Liedfuhr."

  "Careful, that verges on flattery."

  Bassil swallows.

  "Enough of these games. I know what you want, and you'll have the opportunity to prove that ability… or to fail. That's all anyone can ask for." The Liedfuhr's fingers brush his close-trimmed beard. His lips tighten, and his eyes close for a moment before he continues. "I wasn't spouting idle thoughts about an Empire of Music, you know. It will not be long before the ships of Sturinn seek Liedwahr for more than trade. And what will they find? A bunch of ragtag holdings and merchant city-states scrapping with each other?"

  "Unless matters change, that is what they will find," points out Bassil. "That is the way the eastern half of Liedwahr has always been."

  "The western half was that way, too, until the time of my great-grandsire." Konsstin clasps his hands behind his back once more and paces back and forth in front of the walnut desk. "You know, the Maitre of Sturinn is building warships with three masts, ones tall enough to touch the clouds. The Ostisles have submitted."

  "It will be years before—"

  "A Liedfuhr has to think years in the future, Bassil. No one else does." Konsstin offers a snort. "Defalk was practically prostrate while that sorceress was recovering. Did anyone think what would happen once she recovered? Did any of those close enough to act do anything?"

  "What might they have done?" asks the raven-haired younger man. "Your seers' pools showed that Ebra was ravaged. The Norweians were still rebuilding Wei, and there was no effective ruler in Neserea after the death of the Prophet… and his consort. That leaves Ranuak, and the Matriarchy has never used arms except at sea or in defending their own lands."

  "And Dumar," adds Konsstin.

  "You would have expected Ehara to march his small armies up the Great Chasm in winter?"

  "They should have done something. Why am I the only ruler in Liedwahr who sees the images in the pool of the future?"

  "The sorceress seems to see the futur
e."

  "That she does. I must grant her that. But what can she do? Defalk is surrounded on five sides. She has no access to the ocean and thirty-three stiff-necked and feuding lords who are only agreeable when you have their necks under your boots. She can only be in one place at a time, and she has no standing army, and no naval forces, and a land that can barely support its people."

  "Yet the people support her."

  "For now. They once supported Barjim, and then half fled Falcor at the first whiff of battle." Konsstin unclasps his hands and stretches. "For that matter, what am I supposed to do? I proposed a confederation to that idiot my daughter married. No… he had to have his own empire, and now where are they? Charred corpses under a monument that no one will recognize a generation from now."

  "Lord Behlem was somewhat headstrong," temporizes Bassil.

  "That's like saying… Oh, never mind. And now I have to deal with Neserea. My grandson takes after his mother and his grandmother, both vipers, the harmonies soothe their departed spirits, and I'm in the most awkward position of being his regent—from a thousand deks away." Konsstin turns and marches toward the windowed door, which he flings open, and steps out onto the balcony, where the wind blows the silver cloak back over his shoulders.

  Bassil follows, standing back from the sculpted limestone balcony railing.

  From the western balcony of the blufftop palace, the Liedfuhr surveys the stone walls of the fort below that commands the junction of the Ansul and the Latok Rivers. Then he swivels on one boot heel and studies Bassil. "I've sent the lancers to support that lizard Nubara… but it will take a lizard to deal with a viper."

  "Should you not take a stronger position?" asked Bassil.

  "Are you suggesting that I should?"

  "You know your grandson and Neserea far better than I do, ser. But you do not trust him, and you did not trust his father or your daughter, and Neserea flanks Defalk and Nordwei."

  "And Dumar. Let us not forget the ever-ambitious Ehara." Konsstin turns back to the balcony and the view of the two rivers that form the Toksul, the great river of Mansuur that flows westward to Wahrsus and the ocean. "So I should cross the Westfels and expand Mansuur… because no one else can see the dangers… or because I am ambitious… or because…"

  His words die away in the stiff wind that blows uphill to the palace and eastward across the bluff.

  Bassil waits for what the Liedfuhr may command.

  4

  UNDER gray clouds that appeared to be slowly lifting, Anna looked out over Falcor from the north tower, the one in which she had stayed when she had first come to the liedburg, the one where poor Garreth had sketched that sole image Anna had been able to send across the mists between Erde and earth for Elizabetta. Garreth—tortured by the prophet Behlem's consort Cyndyth, another innocent who had died just because she'd been close to Anna.

  Anna shook her head. Now she couldn't use her skills even to see her youngest, much less send anything across the gulf between worlds. Her eyes traveled westward over the roofs of Falcor, seeing what appeared an endless stretch of gray and brown and white. The white was the already melting slush from the first snow seen in Defalk in nearly a decade.

  Behind her, Giellum and Blaz stood at the top of the tower stairs. Giellum watched the stairs, Blaz the tower and the grounds.

  Several plumes of smoke rose from the chimneys surrounding the liedburg, barely standing out against the morning mist that swathed the brown of the winter fields and that rose around the gray of the walls and roofs of Falcor. Half the city's structures were still vacant, Anna suspected, but she hoped that would change as Defalk recovered.

  After a last look across the liedburg and Falcor, Anna turned and headed down the steps of the tower and then down to the main-level receiving room. The candle sconces and mantels on the left side of the hall had been cleaned, but not those on the right. That was some prog-ress.

  Menares was waiting for her outside the door. She nodded for him to follow her inside the receiving room.

  "Have we had any response to all those scrolls we sent? Or from the Matriarchy about Barjim's debts?" She slipped the purple regency sash over her green tunic and trousers, wishing she'd thought more about color coordination earlier, but she was stuck with both colors for differing reasons. She even had a purple-and-gold vest that someone had made for her.

  Menares shrugged his heavy sloping shoulders. "Lady Anna… with the rains, and now the snow, the roads are muddy swamps. Messengers, wagons, all will be slow for the winter."

  How had people on earth dealt with muddy roads? Paved them, but asphalt and cement weren't exactly practical for Defalk. She frowned. Hadn't Brill used sorcery to create a brick road to the fort at the Sand Pass? And the ancient Romans had built stone roads that had lasted centuries.

  Lord, she wished she knew more. "Until when?"

  "Spring planting, I would say. The roads might dry sooner. Then they might not. It has been many years since Defalk has had rainfall, Lady Anna."

  In short, no one was prepared for mud, and she hadn't even thought about what it would do to roads in poor, backward Defalk.

  "Menares… go talk to Tirsik. See if he can give the messengers ideas on where and how to travel through this mess more quickly. Then let me know."

  Menares bowed and departed.

  Anna hoped that Tirsik, the stablemaster, could help Menares out. She looked at the murky water in the pitcher, then sang her water spell, watching as the swirling subsided into a clear whirl, before filling her goblet and taking a long swallow. The door creaked ajar.

  "Arms Commander Hanfor," announced the stocky and blond Cens, another page from the time of Barjim.

  "Come on in," Anna said.

  Hanfor's weathered face carried a half ironic, half sour expression as he stepped into the receiving room. "What problems now?" asked Anna.

  "There's nothing new, lady."

  "You looked so disgusted."

  "I feel like a graybeard with that title," admitted Hanfor.

  "You're more than an overcaptain, and you are the arms commander of Defalk," she pointed out. "Is there some other term of office you'd prefer?"

  "The others are worse."

  "Then you're stuck being arms commander." Anna gestured to the chair across the table from her and waited for Hanfor to seat himself. "Menares told me the weather had slowed our scrolls and messengers."

  "Mud is hard on horses and men." Hanfor added, "Especially those who have not experienced it."

  "That's anyone from Defalk who's under twenty," suggested Anna. "What do you suggest?"

  "There is little I can suggest. The rain the land needs. The roads… they could be better, but one cannot build roads in winter and rain." The arms commander shrugged. "Who would build them? You have given me coins to pay armsmen I do not have, and cannot find. Not enough. If we cannot find armsmen, where will we find those to build roads?"

  "Or repair bridges or houses or…" Anna shook her head. "Even if our message scrolls do get through, when will craftspeople or armsmen arrive? Next summer?"

  "Not before spring for most."

  Anna paused, then asked, "What did you want? I just hit you with my problems."

  "We still have no weapons smith." Hanfor stroked his beard. "Himar received a scroll from his brother who heard that the Ranuans have a ship loaded with blades that were destined for Elawha."

  "How much?"

  "I do not know. A good blade fetches a gold, sometimes two."

  "We could spare a hundred golds, perhaps two hundred, but wouldn't we have to send a large guard?"

  "We could send twenty or thirty golds, and arrange to take the blades in Sudwei." Hanfor laughed. "Now, after the destruction you rained upon Ebra, there cannot be that much of a market for blades there."

  Anna chuckled. "Why not? Work out the details with Dythya and have her see me if she has a problem… or a better way."

  "Thank you."

  "Thank you," she answered. "If what Hima
r's brother heard is true, it would give us more time to find a weapons smith. If not, we haven't lost anything. Is there anything else?"

  "Not at the moment."

  "But you're worried about those blades?" Anna smiled.

  "Good weapons are hard to come by. As hard as to find those who can use them."

  Especially in Defalk, thought Anna. "We'll try to purchase what we can."

  The arms commander bowed.

  Anna managed another swallow of water after Hanfor departed and before the receiving room door opened again.

  "The lady Wendella begs your indulgence," said Resor.

  The last person Anna really wanted to see was Wendella, Lord Dencer's consort, who remained as a hostage because Anna trusted neither Dencer nor Wendella.

  "Have Giellum or Blaz escort her in." Wendella deserved an armed guard, if as nothing more than a more blatant reminder of her status.

  Resor's eyes widened. "Yes, lady."

  The brown-haired woman bowed low, carrying the child in her left arm. "Lady Anna."

  Blaz stood behind her.

  "You asked to see me," Anna said quietly.

  Wendella bowed. "I would ask your indulgence. My son has not ever seen his father, nor have I seen my lord in more than half a year. Nor my brother, the lord Mietchel."

  "Lord Dencer is always welcome here," Anna said truthfully. Her brother is a lord? Why didn't I know that?

  "I would like to return to Stromwer and to my lord. Please, my lady Regent?" Wendella went to her knees.

  Anna ignored the gesture, distrusting it, knowing that over the fall and early winter Wendella had continued to bad-mouth Anna to whoever in the south tower would listen, until even the stern Drenchescha had told Wendella to cease her complaining, and the pages had been able to repeat Wendella's words from memory.

  "She's a bitch from the mist worlds . . ." And that had been one of the phrases that people had dared to repeat.

  "Lady Wendella," Anna said, "Lord Barjim didn't trust your lord, and nothing you've done—or said—has given me any reason to reject Lord Barjim's opinion. Lord Dencer has continued to court both the Matriarchy and most lately, Lord Ehara of Dumar. I have found, if anything, that Lord Barjim was extraordinarily trusting for a lord of Defalk."