"You are angry," remarked Alcaren, who had been reading the words over her shoulder.

"I am more than angry." Secca spaced out the words. "He sent Clayre out without an assistant and with but two companies of lancers."

"Did she not choose to go?"

"She did." Secca took a deep breath. "But he knew she would not insist on more. Clayre is . . .

she was . . . too proud."

Alcaren nodded slowly.

"You think I'm too proud?"

"There is a difference," he answered carefully, "between pride and foolhardiness. You have trained Richina, and you are training me to help with sorcery. When the need was there, you asked Richina to help. You allow me to assist you. You did not even consider leaving Richina behind, did you?"

"No . . ." Secca admitted slowly. "But when we left Loiseau, I could not have explained why I brought her. I felt it was right."

Alcaren smiled. "That is the difference."

Secca wasn't sure, but she lifted the scroll and resumed reading.

He asks me every day whether you have defeated the Sea-Priests...

We have received word from the Council Leader of Wei that Aerfor and Eryhal have fled Neserea and made their way safely into Nordwei. Lady Aerlya and Annayal remain in Esaria, but their forces are diminishing. Many are deserting, and others appear to be asking that Annayal consort with Belmar or even that she request that he become Lord High Counselor---if not Prophet of Music.

The Liedfuhr's lancers are making their way through the snows of the Mittpass toward Neserea.

He had marshaled close to five thousand lancers and armsmen, but those struggling through the snows number far less than that, less than a hundred companies. From what I can scry, Belmar is moving to the southwest, and ignoring Esaria . . .

"Of course," murmured Secea.

"If he destroys the Liedfuhr' s lancers, then he will hold Neserea---until we can vanquish him,"

Alcaren said softly.

"You are most hopeful, my love," Secca said softly.

"You can defeat Belmar."

"But can we defeat Belmar and who knows how many Sturinnese sorcerers?" asked Secca.

"We must."

With a faint and knowing smile, Secca returned to reading the scroll.

. . . Lord Robero had asked Lythner if he would act as an envoy to Lord Belmar, should it be necessary. To his credit, Lythner declined and left Falcor. Lord Robero has summoned Lythner's brother Nerylt from Wendel . . .

Secca winced. Nerylt was a well-meaning bumbler who would do whatever Robero asked without raising an eye-brow or a question.

but he has yet to arrive. So you can see why I dare not tell Lord Robero about Clayre. Yet I can keep that secret only for weeks at best, days at worst. If there is aught you can do, or that I can do for you, please let me know. As matters are proceeding, all will be lost in a season, if not sooner.

Secca looked up from Jolyn's hasty signature. "I do not know if we can reclaim Dumar in a season."

"Why reclaim it?" asked Alcaren. "It can be reclaimed as you choose if you can but defeat or drive the Sturinnese out. Without them and Lord Belmar, any one of your sorceresses, even Richina, young as she is, could return Dumar and Neserea to Lord Robero's rule."

"That may be true," Secca agreed, "but there is more to Lord Belmar than meets eye or glass."

She eased the scroll aside.

In the fading afternoon light, sitting in one of the straight-backed chairs before the table and after taking out several scraps of the heavy brown paper and a black grease marker, she began to write.

Alcaren slipped away, only to return with a small wedge of cheese, some thin strips of jerky, and half a loaf of bread, all of which he set by her elbow. "As you write, please eat some of this."

"Thank you." She continued to write, occasionally stopping to eat and nodding appreciatively as Alcaren lit the two candles in the shaky candelabra he brought to the table. She ignored the curious look from Richina, who peered into the long room, then slipped away as her consort murmured something to the younger sorceress.

Finally, she sat up erect and handed Alcaren a single sheet. "Can you read that?"

"Yes. Why?'

"I want you to sing that spell."

In the flickering candlelight, Alcaren studied the words on the brown paper. "You're assuming a great deal here."

"If it isn't so, the glass will come up blank." Secca smiled. "Can you sing it?"

He frowned. "I might get the glass to show what I want, not what is."

"It won't do that. The glass can only show what is, not what was or what might be."

He smiled dryly. "Why do you really want me to sing it?"

"So I can watch the glass." Secca's voice was cold.

"You really hate Belmar, don't you?"

"I do, but I don't think he's the one to hate."

"Sturinn? The Maitre?"

"Who else?" She glanced up once more. "Can you . . .?"

"Let me try to work out the chords for a few moments." Secca smiled and took another sheet of the brown paper, frowning as she looked at the blankness. Finally, slowly, she began to write the thoughts and words of another spell, trying not to be distracted by Alcaren's fingers on the strings of his lumand.

"I'm ready," he finally said.

Secca put aside the paper and marker and looked to the blank silver of the scrying mirror.

Her consort cleared his throat and began the scrying spell.

"Show me Belmar now and in the same Light that Sea-Priest who advises him tonight, the one who talks of whom to kill or fight and who would put all Defalk to flight . . ."

Acaren lowered the lumand and looked into the glass, over Secca's shoulder. The image showed two men sitting across the table from each other in what appeared to be an inn. Neither was speaking.

"Another Sea-Priest," he finally murmured. "You thought as much."

"I did. It could be no other way."

"No other way?" Mcaren raises his eyebrows.

"Belmar. He is a young lord of an impoverished set of lands. The only sorcerer in his family is a distant Prophet of Music. No one has ever heard of him. Lord High Counselor Hanfor dismisses him as unworthy of Annayal. Yet he has the coins to train and pay players, and he has more than five companies of lancers that were trained and ready a year ago? That might have been possible, straining his coffers, but by the middle of last season he had three times that many."

"He had taken the keeps and lands of several in Nesecea," Alcaren painted out.

"That is true, and that is what all were meant to think." Secca paused. "It did not feel right, and I should have listened to my feelings earlier."

"All this was planned by the Maitre?"

"All this, and much more, I fear," Secca replied. "Much more, so much more that I cannot guess, only feel." She laughed, harshly. "That sounds mysterious. It is not. The Maitre has a plan to take all of Liedwahr. That is clear. How he intends to do so, is what is not clear-except that it has been planned for years, and involves sorcerers and lancers and fleets, I fear we have never seen." She paused. "And sorcery as deadly as anything Liedwahr has, ever seen."

Alcaren shook his head. "Not so deadly as you might use, and that is why you hesitate and fret."

"Already, you know me too well." Secca pursed her lips before lowering her voice. "Even knowing what the Maitre plans . . . how could I use such spells? How could I?"

"How could you not, if it meant every woman in Liedwahr in chains, and every sorceress tortured to death or with her tongue ripped out?"

Secca winced.

"You see?" Alcaren said, sadly, gently.

50.

The faintest orange of dawn had barely begun to color the eastern sky outside the windows of the dwelling in Hasjyl when Secca looked down at the image Richina had called up in the glass on the oblong table. Alcaren, Palian, Delvor, Delcetta, and Wilten--- the others with them also looked into the scrying glass.

Early as it was in the day, the Sturinnese force was leaving the hamlet to the north, clearly headed toward the trade pass, since the maps showed that the northern road went nowhere else.

Secca nodded for Richina to sing the release couplet, and that the younger sorceress did easily, with a composure she had not possessed two seasons earlier.

"How many days' travel would it be for us to reach the pass?" Secca asked.

"Three," suggested Wilten. "Two, if we hasten."

Delcetta nodded in agreement.

"I think we need to hasten," Secca suggested. "For the first day, it is almost eastward along the river road, is it not?"

"For a half day, according to the maps," Alcaren replied. "Then the road to the trade pass separates and makes its way north along a stream."

"That stream is the one that comes from the trade pass and feeds into the Envar River, is it not?"

asked Delcetta.

"It is," replied the broad-shouldered sorcerer. "Most passes have rivers or streams, but this is a narrow pass and a small stream as such go."

Secca glanced at Wilten, then Delcetta. "How soon before all can ride?"

"Less than a glass."

"Good." Secca stood, turning to the chief players. "And the players?"

"They will be ready," Palian affirmed.

51 Mansuus, Mansuur In the early-morning grayness caused by two days of steady rain, Kestrin uses a set of calipers to measure a distance on the maps spread across the wide desk in his private study, muttering to himself as he does, "Less than a hundred deks . . . day's sail in favoring winds."

Thrap! Thrap! "Sire!"

"Come in, Bassil," says the Liedfuhr, his voice resigned. As Bassil enters, the Liedfuhr notes that the maroon uniform is not quite as precisely set as has always been the case with the older lancer officer, and Bassil's hair is slightly disheveled, also unusual. "What has happened now?"

"The Sturinnese have landed a score of companies of armsmen and lancers at Hafen, sire. And at Landungerste." Bassil's voice bears the slightest trace of raggedness, and there are circles beneath his eyes.

"Dissonance! The dissonant Sons of sea-sows . . . those . . . unmentionable heaps of dog excrement . . ." Kestrin breaks off the string of expletives, and shakes his head. "They looted and burned the town and harbor, in both places, did they not?"

Bassil's face reflects surprise. "Yes, sire. But how did . . .?"

"So that I will be forced to keep my lancers close to Hafen and Landungerste---and Wharsus. So that my people will be angry and unhappy that I did not protect them, but sent lancers to a foreign land to protect my sister and niece while leaving my people unprotected. No matter that we have never had more than two companies of lancers in Hafen, and never more than three in Landungerste. No matter that they would have been slaughtered by forces ten times their number." The Liedfuhr shakes his head.

"Will you recall the lancers from the Mittpass to Mansuus, Hafen, or Landungerste?"

"To Hafen and Landungerste? What good would that do? There's little enough left to protect, I imagine. That would be what the blighted Sea-Priests would hope, I wager."

"You wager much on each decision, sire."

Kestrin looks outside at the cold rain of spring, rain that has barely finished melting the accumulated snow and ice of the long winter. "Is that not true of every decision?"

"Ah . . ."

"We just don't always have to pay for the bad wagers so quickly, and sometimes we pay for those of others."

"Others?"

Kestrin ignores the question. "When did this happen, and when did you find out?"

"You had your seers watching the Sturinnese fleet. Part of that fleet had sailed south into the northern part of Defuhr Bay several days ago, and a very small flotilla came even farther south.