"Here we are," announced her consort-to-be, gesturing toward the small villa with two wings branching from the circular and columned rotunda that dominated the stone-paved lane leading to the covered entry and the mounting blocks.

Alcaren reined up in front of the mounting blocks, leaving them to Secca. While she appreciated his courtesy as she dismounted, once more she felt almost patronized because of her small stature.

"Alcaren!" The young woman who hurried out through the columned archway was indeed small and wiry, perhaps even shorter than Secca herself, and more boyish in appearance. She glanced up at Secca and flashed the same warm smile that Secca had seen from Alcaren. "Lady Secca . .

." Then she laughed, warmly and openly. "Welcome . . . welcome."

Secca tried to halt the inadvertently quizzical look that she could feel appearing on her face.

"Alcaren never said how beautiful you are," Nedya rushed on. "Or that you were a redhead."

Secca wondered what Alcaren had said, since, from what she'd seen and overheard from the younger women in her hold of Flossbend or at Loiseau, they seldom mentioned the physical beauty of women who might be rivals-or consorts to their brothers. Secca didn't have an easy response, but managed to reply, "He's probably had other things on his mind. He's been helping me plan what we have to do next" Realizing belatedly the ambiguity of her words, she added quickly, "Against the Sturinnese."

"He talked about that," Nedya admitted. After a moment, she said, "I'd keep you both out here in the cold chattering, but Mother and Father are waiting inside."

"As patiently as ever, I am most sure," Alcaren said dryly as he stepped up beside Secca. He glanced sideways at the sorceress. "Mother has never been known for her patience. She has other virtues, but not that."

"And my older brother can be painfully honest," replied Nedya. "His grace is that he is as unsparing of himself as of anyone else."

"I've always found him the soul of care and tact," Secca admitted.

Nedya raised her eyebrows. "For that alone, we should be thankful." She spoiled the arch effect by smiling.

Secca handed the gray's reins to Gorkon, who had ridden up behind them, but not dismounted.

Then she walked side by side with Alcaren up the steps and through the door that Nedya had left open. The entry foyer was not large, a circular space four yards across with white-plastered walls and a floor tiled in a pattern of repeating hexagons of alternating white and dark blue. A single tapestry filled the blank wall directly opposite the doors, and the scene upon it was that of a full- masted ship under sail, rendered entirely in shades of blue, save for the golden-braided border.

The broad-shouldered older woman who stood just before the tapestry in the small foyer was a good head and a half taller than Alcaren. She had a weathered face somehow both squarish and angular. Her eyes were grayish blue like her son's-except even more piercing. Beside her stood a smaller, slighter man with dark brown hair streaked with silver.

The woman spoke first. "I am Carenya, Lady Sorceress, and I welcome you to our dwelling."

Secca inclined her head. "I am happy to meet you. Alcaren has spoken much of you and of your success as a trader."

"Were it not for your efforts, I fear, none of us would be traders for much longer." A wry smile, but one with warmth beneath, appeared with Carenya's words.

"I am Todyl." The man who stood in the archway to the left offered a broad smile. "Alcaren has said how talented you are, but he had not told us that you are also beautiful."

Secca found herself blushing, as if she were fifteen years old, instead of more than twice that "You are most kind, and so is Alcaren."

"Do come in," Carenya offered, turning and gesturing in the direction of the archway in which her consort stood. "We should not be standing in the foyer." She paused. "It is damp outside.

Would you like some warm cider? Or a hot brandy?"

"Cider, if it would not be too much trouble."

"For me, also," Alcaren added, almost apologetically.

The trader glanced at Nedya. "If you would..."

"I'll be quick," promised the young woman.

The sitting room beyond the archway was both as Secca had imagined it, and not at all the same.

Given Alcaren's description of his mother, she found the spareness unsurprising, but not the vivid reds and yellows infusing the few hangings on the plaster walls and the three brilliant green cushions on the all-wooden settee where she seated herself.

Alcaren sat down beside her, protectively, as Todyl and Carenya settled into unupholstered wooden armchairs across a bare low table from the settee.

"Alcaren has said that you are one of the Thirty-three of Defalk, both by ability and by birth?"

Carenya offered the words as an opening, but without a tone of questioning.

"I am Lady of Flossbend. My father held the domain, but he died when I was a child. And both my mother and my brothers were poisoned by my uncle. The lady Anna defeated my uncle and restored the lands to me. I became a sorceress, and when Lady Anna died last fall, Loiseau came to me as her sorceress-heir."

"If I might ask," ventured Todyl, "what is your hold like?"

Secca smiled. "Neither Flossbend nor Loiseau is terribly large, just enough to support a small household and the lancers."

"Lancers?" asked Carenya.

"The four companies of lancers in green are hers, not Lord Robero's. She supports them and pays them," Alcaren said quickly. "My lady is sometimes too modest."

"Your lands cannot be that small, then," suggested the trader.

"We do as we must in these troubled times," Secca replied, not really knowing how she could answer the implied questions without being deceptive in some way or another, or revealing more than she had any desire to divulge.

Nedya hurried into the sitting room, bearing a tray on which were five mugs. Steam drifted from all five. She deffly set a mug before Secca, then before Alcaren. "Only because this is special,"

she told her brother with the hint of a smile.

"I'll do the same for you," he whispered back.

"You'll wait a long time, but I'll hold you to it." Nedya handed mugs to her parents, then sat on the stool at the end of the low table, cradling the mug between both hands.

There was a long silence.

"Besides fight battles," asked Nedya abruptly, "what does a sorceress of Defalk do?"

Secca smiled. "Until the last two seasons, I had never fought a battle. In Defalk, sorcery is used to make life better for people. We build roads and bridges, sometimes buildings. Last fall I repaired an old dam and part of the aqueduct that provided water to the people of Issl. I have used sorcery to discover where a well might be dug."

"That does not sound too taxing," observed Carenya.

Secca tilted her head, wondering how she could explain. Finally, she began. "In one day, a sorceress and her players may be able to use sorcery to build one dek, perhaps two deks, of stone-paved road. That much sorcery will exhaust them. Defalk had no paved roads outside of Falcor when the lady Anna became regent. Today, there are more than a thousand deks of roads in Defalk. There is even one that travels most of the west of Defalk, from Nordfels to Denguic."

She paused. "It would take scores of men to build and pave a dek of road in a day. While sorcery can do such faster, it takes much effort and skill."

"The roads improve travel and trade," mused the trader. "We also have had to build bridges and fords," Secca added.

"Defalk had been the poorest of lands since the Spell-Fire Wars," reflected Carenya, "but now . .

"Matters are better now," Secca pointed out, "but Defalk is still far from wealthy. It has been more than a score of years since the terrible drought, and the land has still not fully recovered.

Even my orchards do not produce what they did in the first years of Lord Brill."

"You could have been a trader, lady," replied Carenya with a slight laugh. "Nothing is as good as it could or should be"

"How will you get to the ceremony?" asked Nedya quickly, as if to preempt another question by her parents. "It's a long walk from the guest quarters to the Matriarch's."

Secca glanced at Alcaren, who met her inquiry with raised eyebrows. Then, he finally shrugged.

"I would guess that we'll ride," Secca replied. "I haven't seen any carriages or coaches in Encora."

"There aren't any," Nedya said. "Unless you count the wagons with benches."

"It's an old custom," explained Todyl. "The Mynyan lords used carriages shielded with sorcery.

No one has ever used a coach since."

Secca nodded slowly. Just as she thought she understood Ranuak better, something like the matter of carriages popped up. Then, she should have guessed from the tailoring of the gown sent by the Matriarch.

Wondering how many other surprises she would discover in the course of the afternoon, Secca smiled and asked Carenya, "How did you become a trader?"

"That was easy enough. Once I could stand, my mother put me on the deck beside her . . ."

Secca nodded and continued to listen.

7.

While the sun shone through a high and thin haze, the chill breeze out of the northeast reminded Secca that,even in Encora, the season was not yet spring. She and Alcaren rode at the head of the column, preceded only by four of the Matriarch's guards, and followed immediately by Wilten and Richina, with a company of lancers in the green of Loiseau bringing up the rear.

Wearing her green leather riding jacket over the blue gown was practical, if not terribly elegant, but Secca had no alternatives, besides freezing. She shifted her weight in the saddle of the gray mare, then glanced sideways at Alcaren, riding beside her in the darker blue dress uniform of an overcaptain of Ranuak--- a much warmer outfit than the blue consorting gown Secca wore under the riding jacket.

"I've never seen that uniform," she said.

"Neither had I, until yesterday. It was a gift from the Matriarch. She said she owed more than a uniform to me, but that the uniform would have to do for now."

"She wants you consorted and out of Ranuak," Secca suggested, "and she might gift her favorite cousin more-once you're safely away."

"Her problem cousin is more accurate," Alcaren replied. "But I' m about to become more your problem than hers. Are you ready for that?"

"More than ready. You've already been the problem. We're past that" Secca smiled, broadly, trying to conceal some of the nervousness she felt.

"You're worried still." His voice carried the understated concern that it had taken her, seasons to recognize.

"A little. In a way, I'd given up hope of finding a consort I could love. Getting that feeling back .

"I know." Alcaren laughed gently, warmly. "I do know. I didn't expect to find myself drawn to you. Then . . . I couldn't lose you, and I didn't realize it until I had to act."

I know. I' m glad." Secca appreciated both his words and the warmth behind them.

The last half-dek of the avenue leading to the Matriarch's palace was lined with lancers--- women lancers in the red and blue of the SouthWomen. As Secca and Alcaren rode past, each SouthWoman lifted her sabre in salute, holding it unwaveringly long after the couple had passed.

"They don't have to . . ." Secca murmured. "They do," replied Alcaren in a low voice, leaning toward her. "The Council of SouthWomen will ask the Matriarch to allow all five companies of the SouthWomen to accompany you to Dumar."

"They told you this?"

Alcaren shook his head. "They were talking about it from the day after the battle with the Sea- Priests. All of the South Women lancers are packing, and all have made arrangements for others to handle their crafts or work."

Secca swallowed.

"You have become their champion, and they will follow you where they would follow no other."

"Me? I'm not even from Ranuak."

"All have seen your work with a blade, and all know that you have slain Sea-Priests with both sorcery and blade."

Secca smiled, ruefully. "You told them?"

Alcaren shook his head. "Delcetta did. Since the time of the Great Sorceress, they have felt they failed, and they would follow you to redeem themselves."

Secca still felt strange hearing Anna referred to as the Great Sorceress. "Redeem themselves for what? What they did created the Free City, and that began to change everything in Ebra."

"Only because Anna defeated Bertmynn and forced the Ebrans to recognize the city as a place of refuge. They feel they owe both of you."

Even after Alcaren's brief explanation, Secca couldn't say she understood, but she wasn't going to pursue it on her consorting day.

Following the Matriarch's guards, they turned their mounts toward the gateless opening in the bluish white granite walls that encircled the Matriarch's palace and grounds. Over the ungated entry rose a high stone arch. Above the keystone of the arch was set a single white-bronze fire lily. Inside the walls, the stone drive curved toward the three-story dwelling set in the middle of a park with wide expanses of grass and irregularly spaced low trees. Under the portico waited another set of four guards in the pale blue uniforms of the Matriarch, standing on the steps above the long carriage-mounting block "You will let me assist you in dismounting, my lady, will you not?" asked Alcaren. There was a smile in his tone of voice, as well as upon his lips.

"This time." Secca was smiling as well.

After dismounting, Secca took Alcaren's arm, and they walked past the small honor guard and up the three wide stone steps to the archway into the small palace. Richina followed silently.

Once in the square foyer inside, Secca removed her riding jacket and handed it to Richina. The younger sorceress took off her own jacket, revealing her simple traveling gown of rich green, then passed both jackets to Gorkon, who had followed them inside, with Wilten. Richina led the way up the single staircase, not overly wide, perhaps three yards, but broad enough for Secca and Alcaren side by side, even with Secca's blue overskirt.

"I hope your family is here," murmured Secca.

"Father wouldn't miss it, and neither would Mother and Nedya. They've probably been here for a good glass."

When Richina reached the landing at the top of the steps, the younger sorceress stepped forward toward the open doorway into the Matriarch's formal receiving hall, where the consorting would take place. The Matriarch's two daughters, both in white trousers and tunics, flanked the doorway, each carrying a sprig of fir about two spans long, each sprig wrapped in white ribbon.