"You think that they'll come in small groups to tire you? The way they did with their lancers at Elahwa?" Richina tried to stifle a yawn. "I am sorry."

"You're carrying all the wards. That is work, even with the help of the ocean and distance."

After a moment, Secca added, "I would not be surprised. They learn from each encounter, as do we."

That was why Sturinn had taken over so much of Erde, Secca realized, almost belatedly. The Sturinnese changed. Dumar hadn't. Neither had Neserea. And Defalk had changed only because Anna had forced change, and most of those changes Lord Robero wanted to undo. If only Anna could have had children after she had come to Erde, then all might have changed even more, and Secca might never have been faced with what lay ahead.

"You look surprised, lady," offered Palian.

Secca laughed. "I just realized something that I should have seen years ago." She glanced around the table. "There's not much else I can offer at the moment, and I need to go over some spells if the Sturinnese are headed toward us."

"We will practice the first building spell now," Palian said.

After the others had risen and left the cabin, Alcaren motioned to Secca "I need some air. If you would come with me."

Secca glanced at him, realizing that he looked even greener than the others had in the greenish light of the cabin. "I thought you were doing better on this trip."

"Better does not mean I am cured of this affliction." He swallowed and lurched toward the door.

Secca followed at a discreet distance, rejoining him in his favorite spot on the starboard side near the bow. The swells that rose and fell before the Silberwelle seemed slightly higher than they had on previous days, and the sea breeze somewhat warmer. Alcaren looked at her briefly, with a faint smile, then turned his face into the wind.

"Are you feeling better?" she finally asked.

"Much. The fresh air helps." After a time, he added. "You are right, I fear."

"About what?'

"They will wear you down. That is what they have done to all they have conquered. They send more lancers, more ships, until those they attack have nothing remaining. You cannot let them do that."

Secca snorted. "And what would you have me do?"

"Sing a spell large enough and strong enough to destroy all of their vessels at one time. Let me help. If we do it together . . ."

"We can try," Secca said with a smile.

"Best we tell Denyst, and Palian."

Secca frowned.

"We will have storms, and the weather will be rough. Once the spell is sung, the players need hasten below. The decks should be clear on all our vessels."

"You think so?"

"You are a great sorceress, and when you do great sorcery, best we are all prepared."

"You offer me too much praise," Secca replied. "You are my consort, and I fear love colors your judgment."

"I love you, my lady, but my judgment is also sound." He turned to face her. "You are a great sorceress, and all Erde knows such. Why else would Sturinn send a fleet after you?"

Why else? Because the Sea-Priests don't like even moderately powerful women. "You are kind, my love."

"Truthful," he replied.

Secca wondered. Can he be? Or does love make one see what one wants?

81.

Southwest of Eseria, Neserea In the early-morning light, the Maitre stands on a low rise, overlooking the river to the north, and the city of Esaria beyond the river. To his left, in the waters off Esaria, is the great eastern fleet of Sturinn.

Already, the piers lie in Sturinnese hands, and a wave of armsmen and lancers in white is moving through the city from west to east. Only those inhabitants who resist are being slaughtered. The others will provide supplies and coins and, in time, lancers and armsmen. The Maitre smiles and turns as the shadow of another nears.

"Maitre," offers the tall jerClayne, "all is going as you ordered. Few are resisting." He laughs heartily. "And fewer as others see what happens to those who do resist."

"What of the lady pretender?" asks the Maitre.

"She and her mother have fled eastward, in disguise, it appears. No one has seen them."

"Have you not used your scrying glass, jerClayne?" The Maitre's tone is bland, but his eyes are hard.

"We have tried, Maitre. They wear gray cloaks and are somewhere along the river road to the east. We could use the distance spell to destroy them, but you had requested that we not do so yet. You have also had us reporting on the fighting. There is little of that. And on the shadowsinger. The home defense fleet is encircling her ships and will begin the attacks this morning as you ordered."

"It is morning."

JerClayne shifts his weight. "Ah . . . Maitre, the Ostisles are farther west . . ."

The Maitre laughs, not unkindly. "You are most gentle in reminding me, jerClayne." He turns and studies the city across the river for a moment. "Let us go and see what we find in the palace of the Prophet. Then we will decide what to do with Aerlya and her brat daughter."

82.

In the gray-green dimness of the cabin before dawn, there was a solid rap on the hatch door, followed by a second blow every bit as solid as the first.

Secca bolted upright in the double bunk. "Yes?"

"Captain wanted you to know, sorceress, that there are sails on the horizon and closing."

"I'll be there."

Alcaren was already scrambling for his clothes before Secca finished speaking, and, if but for an instant, she watched his muscular figure, before sliding out of the bunk and onto the cold wooden deck, a deck that felt damp and gritty to her feet. But then, she had gotten used to the almost- invisible salt grit that was everywhere, no matter how often the decks and bulkheads were scrubbed and cleaned. Her skin hadn't adapted, not with itching and red blotches everywhere, but she could tolerate it.

A lighter gray light suffused the sky by the time Secca had pulled on her clothes and splashed some of her limited supply of fresh water across her face. Alcaren followed her up the ladder and then back to the helm platform, where Denyst stood beside the helmswoman.

The wind was cool, not quite cutting, and still mostly from the south. Despite the wind, the air felt heavy, close to oppressive. Secca wondered if she felt that oppression just because she worried about the Sturinnese and the inevitable sorcery to come.

"Didn't want to wake you too early, sorceress," Denyst apologized, "but, any direction the lookouts search, there are sails. Easing in closer over the last glass. Closest is still more than five deks, we'd guess, but with the wind the way it is, that's not much more than half a glass to reach us under full sail, leastwise for those to the west."

"Are they actually sailing toward us?" asked Secca.

"Not yet."

Secca frowned. She didn't want to roust out the players early, not if it could be glasses before the Sturinnese actually decided on an attack, but she didn't want to be caught unprepared, either.

Alcaren leaned forward and said in a low voice, "You need something to eat before you do anything, or you won' t be able to sing as well as you need to."

"So do you. We're singing it together."

Denyst waited.

"Can you let me know the moment it's clear that one of them has decided to close on us?" Secca inquired.

"She needs to eat to be at her best," Alcaren said firmly.

Denyst laughed. "Go and eat. We'll find you if the Sea-Pigs make a run."

"Thank you."

"Not be much good to have you not at your best." While the words were gruff, the captain smiled.

"You go back to the cabin and sit down. You'll be standing more than you think today," Alcaren said, as the two stepped away from the helm platform. "I'll see what else I can find besides hardtack and cheese."

"That will be fine." Secca added alter a pause, "Unless there's bread."

Alcaren slipped down the ladder to the main deck with an ease that Secca, short-legged as she was, envied, even as she wondered how he could do it, since he wasn't all that much taller than she was. Before she followed, she turned to look astern, but although the eastern sky was lightening, the sun had not peered above the horizon. Alcaren stood waiting below, as if to make sure she did not slip or fall.

"I'll see what the galley has," he promised. "Just sit down and have some water." He grinned.

"You don't drink enough before you do sorcery."

"Thank you, dear consort." She let a little trace of irritation show, even though she knew he was trying to be helpful.

He grinned again and offered a sweeping bow.

Secca couldn't help laughing. "Go get the hardtack or biscuits or bread or whatever." Then she headed down the narrow passage back to the cabin.

Once there, Secca took her water bottle from the covered bin, and then seated herself at the captain's round table. She took a slow swallow of water, then another, while she waited. Then she shifted her weight in the wooden chair and glanced toward the door. She turned her eyes to the portholes, and she could see that dawn had come, with sparkles of light on the tops of the long even swells.

She could hear steps through the overhead, steps of sailors, she thought. Where is he? You should have gone with him. The Silberwelle heeled slightly, and the cabin tilted. Secca grasped the edge of the table, wondering if more gyrations would follow, but the ship settled back into the same kind of long pitching movement through the ocean swells as Secca had come to expect "Might as well warm up some more . . ." she murmured to herself and began a vocalise. "Holly- lolly-lolly . . ."

Alcaren stepped into the cabin.

"What took so long?" she asked, even before he had closed the door and set two loaves of bread and a wedge of cheese on the table, along with a handful of dried apple flakes.

"I wasn't but a few moments. It just seems longer when you're worried."

Secca didn't feel convinced. "How did you get all this?"

"I just told the cooks that whether they saw tomorrow depended on how much the sorceress got to eat this morning."

"You said that?"

After seating himself in the chair beside Secca, Alcaren nodded. He broke one of the long narrow loaves in two and handed Secca the longer portion. Then he took out his belt knife and sliced several sections off the cheese wedge.

Between them, they finished off both loaves of bread and everything else-without speaking.

"You were hungry," Alcaren said, licking the last bits of apple flakes off his fingers.

"And you were not?"

"I never claimed I was not."

"We should go back outside."

"Denyst would send for us," Alcaren pointed out, "but I'd rather be outside in the fresh air."

Secca slipped out from behind the chair. "I'll bring my lutar."

"Why don't you leave it? I can get it in a moment if you need it."

"But . . . oh . . ." Secca nodded. Best to cast but one mighty spell with players than exhaust ourselves with smaller spell upon smaller spell. "We'd better go."

"It may be a bit early, but you'll just fret down here." Alcaren gestured for Secca to lead the way.

He followed her back along the passageway and up the ladder to the poop deck.

"Still holding off," Denyst said, even before Seeca could ask. "Like as to they're waiting for full sun. Might be that whatever ships are between us and where the sun rises will be the ones leading the way."

"They could get closer before we see them?" asked Secca.

"Some ships, mayhap." Denyst laughed harshly. "My lookouts are better than that." She gestured. "Your other sorceress."

Secca turned to see Richina climbing up the last steps of the ladder. The younger woman made her away aft toward where the three stood just forward and to port of the helm.

Secca studied the younger woman's face, with the dark circles and the haggard expression.

"Richina . . ."

"Yes, lady?"