"They do not know that this lane winds within a quarter dek of their camp, because of the wood," Hanfor said quietly. "Still, once you have done what you must, we need to ride quickly. They will be most angry."

Anna suspected that was an understatement. Still... she had to try to get the message across that she was willing to be reasonable-and that those who wouldn't see reason would see force.

"Regent." Hanfor's voice was low.

"Yes."

"To the right, just above the trees."

Anna followed Hanfor's directions, looking uphill. They hadn't been able to tell elevations from the mirror scrying, but it was clear that the side road was a good twenty yards or more lower than the low rise on which the Mansuurans had camped. There were several widely s.p.a.ced points of lights, fires, and other smudges of light wavering in the darkness. "That looks like their camp. It's a good thing we put out the torches."

"Very good." The hint of an ironic laugh colored Hanfor's words. "Green company, halt." His words were low, but intense.

Anna dismounted and handed Farinelli's reins to Kinor, then took the lutar from its case and checked the tuning, fumbling more than she would have liked in the darkness. Rickel and Lejun remained mounted, flanking her on each side, but leaving her a clear path toward the Mansuuran camp.

"Bowmen... string your bows and stand ready," Hanfor ordered. "Aim your shafts high and toward the fires beyond the trees. Nock your shafts when the Regent begins to sing, and then release them after you count to ten in a whisper.

Remember, nock when she sings. Count to ten and release."Anna faced the fires that suddenly looked all too close, despite the trees, the gully, and the hill. Then, she took a deep breath and released it, lifted the lutar, began the chording, and then the spell itself.

These arrows shot into the air, the head of each must strike proud Relour there- As the sorceress heard the thrum of bowstrings, she concentrated on the images and the last words of the spell.

...and turn to fire, turn to flame Overcaptain Relour, for all his fame.

The chords of the lutar and Anna's voice died away. She slipped the lutar into its case, fastened it in place, and climbed into the saddle.

Was there a flash of light to the northwest? Anna wasn't certain, but there was no reason to try to find out until they were back with her own forces, and with the players. Either they would face the Mansuurans on the next day-or they wouldn't.

"Are you ready, Regent?" asked Hanfor.

"I'm ready. Let's go."

"Green company, forward!" Hanfor's voice carried tension, tension Anna could well understand.

She kept glancing back over her shoulder at the fires of the Mansuuran camp, but so far as she could tell, nothing changed. If it did, she could not see it As she rode, she groped for the food pouch, stuffing some squares of cheese into her mouth, and then some of the hard cracker-bread, which she had to moisten with swigs from the water bottle in order to soften the stuff enough for her to chew and swallow it.

But she had looked back often enough that, by the time they rejoined the other lancers at the main road, her neck and shoulder were stiff.

"Weylar?" Hanfor called.

"Ready here, ser." The subofficer rode forward into the light cast by the torch carried by the lancer accompanying Hanfor and Anna. "Not a soul came down the road. Didn't see a torch. Not one."

"Good. Have your companies fall in behind. Send a messenger up to me if you see any torches or hear any riders."

"Yes, Ser."

Rickel and Lejun had dropped back behind Anna and Kinor. They had strapped the big shields behind their saddles. Anna wasn't sure how they managed to hold the shields for so long as they did, but none of the guards had ever voiced a complaint.

"Do you know... if...?" Kinor finally asked.

"I think so. I don't know. We'll have to check in the mirror when we get back."

Anna yawned. Youth spell or not, she was tired, and she probably wasn't going to get much sleep. Not if Hanfor happened to be right.

The ten-dek ride back to her own camp had taken forever, or so it seemed, and Anna kept wondering when the sun would rise.She slowly dismounted from Farinelli, removing the lutar and food pouch, and the water bottles. Then she unsaddled the gelding, rubbed him down too briefly, and picked up the lutar and pouch. She walked slowly back toward her tent. between Kinor and Hanfor, with Lejun and Rickel following.

"We need to see what we'll face in the morning."

"That would be best." Hanfor agreed.

"All went well?" asked Liende as she approached the three, but with her eyes upon Kinor.

"So far as we know." Anna had no doubts that the chief player was at least as concerned about her son as about the results. "Join us. We're going to find out."

Fielmir and Bersan were on guard, waiting.

Anna nodded to the two, then stepped past them, into the small tent. "Let's see." She lit the candle on the camp table, then opened the case and removed the traveling mirror, setting it on the table. Next came the lutar, which she had to tune once more, slowly because she was tired.

She glanced around at the three other faces, each as fatigued as she felt, before she started the scrying spell.

Show us now, in place and frame, he who bore Relour's rank and name....

The mirror silvered and then reflected the candle beside it on the camp table, before darkening and revealing another scene. A single man-shaped length of black lay stretched on the ground beside a tent. Four guards formed a square around the corpse. Flickering shadows crossed the area lit by a half-score of lancers bearing torches.

Anna sang the release couplet and sighed. "You were right. We'd better be ready early, you think?"

"I already sent out scouts, and they will watch through the night," Hanfor said.

"Their lancers are tired, and many were asleep. If they attack, it will be early, but I doubt they will wake their lancers tonight. If they do, we will be warned."

"I have made sure the players slept close together, and close to their instruments," Liende said.

"Thank you."

Anna turned to Hanfor. "If they do not attack, I'll send another scroll, asking that they support you."

"They will not." Hanfor nodded slowly. "They will all die before they would surrender Neserea."

"They don't have Neserea," Anna pointed out. "And they certainly won't if I have to kill off all their lancers."

"They will not accept that, for all they have seen, until It is too late."

"Why? Because they're more afraid of the Liedfuhr than me.""He is a man, and you are a woman. This is Liedwahr." Hanfor shrugged.

"So I have to be twice as ruthless?" Again; she wanted to scream, but refrained.

"And then, because they won't listen, I'm the b.i.t.c.h of the east, or the evil sorceress of Defalk?"

"You ask of me what I see, not what I wish," Hanfor said reasonably.

"I know." Anna took a deep breath. "We'll just have to see what tomorrow brings."

After the other three left, Anna sat on the middle of the cot, holding her head in her hands. No matter how or what you try... it always comes back to force.

Machiavelli was right.

She took a deep breath, then bent farther forward and pulled off one boot, then the other.

94.

With the cold sunlight striking her tent, Anna woke with a start. What time is it? Are the Mansuurans coming? Why didn't someone wake me? Her eyes were gummy'

her mouth dry, and her head was pounding.

Dehydration-you didn't drink enough water last night. She forced open her eyes and groped for the water bottle she kept near the cot. With her lurch, the cot began to tilt, and she had to scramble upto keep from being tipped onto the dirt.

"Lady Anna?" The voice was that of Blaz.

"I'm fine," she lied. "Just clumsy. Has Arms Commander Hanfor been up here yet?"

"He came up a while ago. He said to tell you when you woke up that nothing had happened yet."

"Thank you." She paused. "Would you have someone tell him that I'll be ready in a while?"

"Yes, Lady Anna."

Anna drank all that was left in the water bottle that had been by the cot-about two-thirds of it-hoping that the headache would subside before long. She wolfed down the few fragments of bread and cheese left in the pouch, not caring much that the cheese was hard and stale and the bread even harder.

Then she retrieved the bucket of water one of the guards always set outside her tent, and splashed off the worst of the dust and grime, and completed all the other necessities before pulling on her clothes and boots. She brushed out her short hair as well as she could, trying to ignore the headache and clogged sinuses that bedeviled her almost every morning.

"Lady Anna?"

"Yes...?"

"I have some breakfast," ventured Kinor.

"Come in.. I'm decent." She tried not to growl. It wasn't Kinor's fault that she wasn't at her best in the mornings, especially in the field on short sleep and continuing worries.The redhead entered with a basket-with warmish bread and cheese wedges and a battered apple. "After last night, lady, with sorcery needed this morning..."

Kinor looked so apologetic that Anna laughed before speaking. "I won't take off your head. I'm not at my best in the morning, and it's worse when I'm tired. But it's not your fault." She paused, then took a large chunk of bread from the basket. "You take some, too. Your eyes are pinkish, and that means you haven't had enough to eat."

"Ah..."

"Take some," Anna insisted.

Kinor broke off a small portion. He tried not to wolf it down, then looked up almost guiltily.

Anna grinned, but not widely or she would have had crumbs falling all over her shirt and purple vest. She set the basket on the corner of the camp table and took out the wedge of cheese, slicing it into thinner sections. She took two sections and motioned for Kinor to have some. "Go ahead."

The redhead hesitated, but Anna gestured a second time. She didn't have to insist a third time, and they both ate. Anna and Kinor had almost finished both bread and cheese, and it hadn't taken long, when she heard someone nearing.

"Lady Anna?"

She recognized Hanfor's voice. "Come on in. I'm trying to gulp down some food."

"Regent." The weathered warrior stepped into the tent and bowed. "The Mansuurans-all of them-are riding toward us. They will be here in a gla.s.s. I have ordered the men onto the road and ridge just to the west of here.

"You could have awakened me earlier," Anna suggested, after taking another large mouthful of bread and cheese.

"There was no need." Hanfor bowed, apologetically. "The chief player and I wished you to be as rested as you could be."

"Thank you." Do you look that bad? I'll be there in just a bit. I'll warm up here, and then ride over." Anna paused. "Did you tell Lord Nelmor and Falar?"

"I informed them that the Mansuurans had rejected your terms and were attacking.

Both stand ready to hold with us. I thanked them for you."

Anna sighed. That was something she should have done. "Thank you. I should have done that, but I appreciate it."

"You needed the rest, and even those two see such." Hanfor glanced at Kinor, bowed, and slipped out of the tent.

Kinor straightened, brushing crumbs from his face, and looking even more guilty than before. "Best I get the mounts ready."

Alone in the tent for a few moments, Anna tried a vocalise. "Holly-lolly-" The coughing was especially bad, and she doubled over, struggling to hold her bladder against the violence of the spasms.

"d.a.m.ned asthma..." Slowly she straightened up and tried to clear her throat without triggering another coughing attack. She glanced around, but the waterbottles were all empty. She'd been too tired to do a spell to get herself clean water the night before, and too forgetful.

After another vocalise, she decided she could risk a small spell, the one to clean the water, and picked up the lutar.

Cool clear water in this pail...

She managed to hold off the tickling in her throat and the gunk in her lungs long enough to complete the spell. After more coughing, she drank some of the cool clean water, then refilled all four water bottles. After one more vocalise, she pulled on her battered brown felt hat, swept up the water bottles and the lutar, and stepped into the cool hazy sunlight outside the tent.

"Ah... Lady Anna, I could carry the bottles." offered Blaz.

"Thank you."

The walk to the tieline and Farinelli was less than fifty yards. The big gelding whuffed as Anna neared.

"No, you won't be left alone. And you will get ridden." She saddled him with a deftness she wouldn't have believed possible for her two years earlier.

Kinor came running, bringing a bulging food pouch. "Here, Lady Anna." He tendered it to Anna, then mounted quickly.

Preceded by Rickel and Lejun, and followed by Kinor and Jmibob, and then all the rest of her guards, Anna rode slowly to the slightly higher ground where Liende had already gathered the players.