"Until you have made a decision regarding his lands and holdings, I will continue to administer Flossbend and its lands as temporary custodian for Jeron. In deepest admiration, I beg of you your support. Both Jeron and I stand ready to do your bidding and await your response."

The wax seal remained that of Lord Hryding, but the signature was somewhat different from the last scroll, reading, "Anientta, his consort and administrator for his heir, Jeron."

While Anna couldn't prove it, she doubted Hryding's death was from natural causes. The whole business stank; and it created a real problem. She'd already set the precedent of letting consorts administer for children, and now she had a consort who could be a disaster, but with no way to prove it.

"I am indeed sorry to hear of your lord's death," Anna said to Calmut. "He was a good man and a good lord."

"Yes, Lady Anna. Many regret his death." Calmut's voice was low, properly respectful, and Anna didn't trust him in the slightest.

"Lejun, would you have one of the pages make sure that Calmut is fed and given a place to rest while we consider Lady Anientta's reqnest?" Anna smiled professionally. "And Giellum, would you have one of the pages summon Lord Jecks?"

Her smile faded once the three armsmen left, and the door closed.

She read the scroll again, then set it down and finished the last of the bread and cheese, and drank almost another full goblet of water before Jecks arrived. She waited until he sat across the table.

"Lord Jecks... you may have guessed. Lord Hryding has died." She shook her head. "I probably should have gone to Synope."

"You could not have reached there on these roads be-fore he died." Jecks gave a sad smile. "You feel not all was as it was presented, lady?"

"Anientta's a scheming b.i.t.c.h, from what I saw. Her son Jeron is a living replica of Nero. Actually, both her sons are. Kurik's not any better, and-"

Jecks' brow furrowed.

"Sorry. Sometimes, when I get angry I use names from earth. Nero was a ruler whose mother schemed to get him to be emperor. In grat.i.tude, he poisoned her."

"You think highly of both of Hryding's heirs, I see."

"I thought highly of Lord Hryding, and Secca shows promise." Anna shook her head. "There's no way she's ever going back to Flossbend." Hryding had known-or at least suspected.

"Lady Anna, you cannot solve all problems. Even if you had gone to Flossbend, and you had reached there before Hryding died and saved him-then what would you have done? Could you prove he was poisoned? And if you did not kill Lady Anientta, what would have saved him the next time? If you did kill her, without proof, how many consorts would welcome you to their holdings? How would other lords feel?"

The room darkened as clouds outside covered the late morning sun. Anna wondered if Falcor would get more rain. From the amount she had seen over the winter, she was beginning to appreciate just how much moisture the Evult's sorcery had withheld from the land-and how long it might take to recover from the years of drought.

"That still gives me a problem. Anientta's scheming against me. That's what I feel, but I don't have any real evidence of that, either."

"Perhaps you should visit her."

"That's a possibility. But we need to visit Lord Arkad first." Anna thought. If they followed the Synor River, they could go to Synope after Cheor, and then come back along the Chean. If she took the players, they could rebuild the ford at Sorprat, and perhaps repair a few stretches of highway or bridges.

She certainly wasn't accomplishing the rebuilding of Defalk by sitting in the Iiedburg.

"You have a certain... look, Lady Anna," Jecks said warily. "The same one you had when you decided to cross the Ostfels and take on the Evult by yourself."

"That may be." Anna smiled brightly. "You suggest I do nothing except confirm Lady Anientta as regent for her son for the time being?"

"You might suggest that, as in all other cases, you will visit her and discuss her administration periodically." Jecks' forehead crinkled. "I will tell a few other lords that you are not allowing consorts, who hold their lords' lands, to do so without some oversight."

"That should make them happy."

"Less unhappy," suggested Jecks.

Anna lifted the bell. "First, I have an unpleasant duty."

"Secca?"

Anna nodded as the door opened.

"Resor, would you find the young lady Secca for me? I need to talk to her."

Resor nodded, and the door closed.

Anna turned back to Jecks. "While we wait, I have another question."

"Yes, Lady Anna?" A glint of a smile appeared on both Jecks' lips and in his eyes.

"I find I am the Lady of Loiseau, and I owe liedgeld. As you might have guessed, I have no one to manage the lands, and I haven't the faintest idea of who I could trust to do a good job."

"You need a steward."

"That's pretty clear," she admitted. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Hmmm." Jecks frowned. "You should send a messenger to the tenants, at least. Suggest that they only owe half what they paid last year because of the troubles. See what coins you get. I also do not think that anyone would find it remiss if you excused Loiseau from last harvest's liedgeld because the previous lord had died in defending Defalk and because the succession had not been established." The white-haired warrior gave a crooked smile.

"You may have to do that for Lord Via.s.sa's heirs in Fussen before it's all over. In both cases, do it quietly."

Anna understood that part. What Jecks said made sense, but she didn't like it. She sighed.

"You do not like not paying your debts-even those you owe yourself."

"No. I don't see an alternative right now. I didn't even know I was the Lady of Loiseau.... I mean, I sort of knew, but I didn't understand that accepting the lands meant I owed liedgeld. I'm not exactly from Defalk, you know."

"No one would ever question you on that, Lady Anna."

Again, Anna could feel the sparks smoldering between them. What was she going to do?

This time, she was saved by Secca's arrival.

"You sent for me, Lady Anna?" Secca bowed as she stepped into the receiving room. Her eyes were dark and sunken.

"She did," said Jecks softly, rising. "If you would excuse me, ladies?"

Anna nodded, appreciating Jecks' tact. She stood and stepped around the table, waiting for the receiving room door to close.

"Secca? I've had another message from your mother "Papa's dead! I knew it.. . . I saw Calmut, and I knew it."

"Yes," Anna said quietly.

As the girl sobbed, Anna held her-for a long time.

Once Secca left, Anna requested more to eat. She was worried and emotionally drained Between the financial worries, her concerns about her attraction to Jecks, and Lord Hryding's death and Secca's grief, she was exhausted-and lightheaded once more.

When she finished with the cold slabs of meat, the bread and hard yellow cheese, she stood. She had to walk around, somewhere, somehow, just so she could digest everything she'd stuffed inside herself.

Followed by Lejun and Blaz, Anna walked down the lower corridor and into the main hall, where her fosterlings and pages sat at the long table, young men at the right end, and young women at the left. Her eyes traversed the familiar faces-Skent, Barat, Cens, Hoede, .Jimbob, then Cataryzna, a subdued and blotchy-faced Secca, Lysara, and Ytrude. The two new faces were those of Alseta, Liende's strawberry- blonde daughter, and Kinor, Liende's son and a wiry redhead taller than most of the others, except for Skein and Ytrude.

Several sets of eyes went to her, but Menares was facing the map on the easel and continued to lecture.

"Dumaria is divided into two areas, the higher meadowlands and farms, and the lower and drier gra.s.slands. Dumaria itself is situated almost on that point where these two regions meet and where the Envar River joins the Falche..." Menares' pointer went to a spot on the brown map where two blue lines joined.

"Lady Anna." Menares turned from the map, lowering his pointer.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your lesson." Anna wasn't so sure she was sorry. "Please go ahead."

Menares coughed, then shifted his feet. "Ah ... there are two major cataracts above Dumaria. The second cataract is the farthest north and marks the end of the Great Chasm. The first is where the higher section of the northern highlands end."

When Menares got to the geography of Ebra, Anna slipped out of the hall and walked slowly back to the receiving room-the empty, chill, and desolate receiving room. Suddenly, she grabbed her lutar, and marched back out and up the stone stairs to the new scrying room. Lejun and Giellum followed her, stationing themselves outside the door. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her with a thud.

For a time, she looked at the blank waters. Then she tuned the lutar and hummed through the spell, mentall3 fixing the words in her mind. Finally, she strummed and sang.

"Water, water, in this my hall, show me those in power who seek my fall.

Show them bright, and show them fast, and make that strong view well last."

Bight images appeared in the pool, each a circlet portrait of the individual. There were eight-five men and three women.

The ones she recognized were Nubara-the Mansuuran lancer who'd been Cyndyth's advisor in Falcor and who was now effectively young Rabyn's regent; Lord Dencer; a dark-haired youngster in an ornate green cloak who resembled his mother too much to be anyone other than Rabyn; and, of course, Anientta, Lord Hryding's widow.

At the sight of Anientta, Anna snorted. The woman was not only a poisoner, but stupid, since Anientta wouldn't have lasted a moment as Regent of Flossbend under a male lord of Defalk-or under any of those who wanted to conquer it.

The ones she didn't recognize were a big black-bearded man dressed in red, another man in sky-blue with mixed brown-and-silver hair, a black-haired and dark-eyed woman in deep green with a heavy chain and seal around her neck, and another heavier dark-haired woman with red lips dressed in a loose-fitting powder-blue robe.

From what she'd heard, she figured that the man in red was probably Lord Ehara of Dumar and the one in blue was probably Konsstin, the Liedfuhr of Mansuur. The two women-they could have been from Ranuak and Wei, but which came from where was another question and what roles or positions either held, she couldn't guess, although she suspected the older woman in green was more likely from Wei.

Anna took a deep breath and studied the likenesses again, trying to fix the images in her mind. Finally, she sang the release spell.

"Let this scene of saying, mirror filled with light, vanish like the darkness when the sun is bright."

The pool turned silver, vacant, empty of the images of those who plotted against her. So... what else was new? Someone from every country that surrounded Defalk- except Ebra-was plotting her downfall.

And her sorcery showed that Anientta was, too. Anna still wanted to scream.

She didn't have enough armsmen, enough golds, enough supplies, or enough strength to do all the sorcery required to rebuild Defalk. She also didn't have enough time, and she hadn't really the faintest idea of where to start, and she couldn't exactly blurt that out to anyone. After all, she was the sorceress and regent, the powerful one, who'd done the impossible.

What made it worse was that nothing looked that bad at the moment Anna could feel how bad it was going to get, but no one understood feelings, and she didn't have any way to explain why she thought things were going to get a lot worse.

Hanfor? Could she get him to talk? Perhaps he'd offer an insight that she could build on. She replaced the lutar in its case, then decided to leave the instrument in the scrying room.

She found Hanfor in the courtyard sweating as he practiced with Himar with a rapier-or so it seemed- wrapped in some kind of coa.r.s.e cloth.

Both officers stopped.

"Lady Anna?"

She forced a bright smile. "Nothing." With a nod, she turned and left, knowing she left both officers with puzzled looks on their faces.

How could she explain?

The walls were still closing around her, and she walked quickly, too quickly back into the main building and up the stairs. She knew she was behaving like a madwoman, and she wanted to scream. But sorceresses and regents weren't supposed to scream. And she wasn't a man who could beat at someone with a sharp-or blunted- weapon.

Guards still trailing her, Anna walked to the north end of the conidor and rapped on Lady Essan's door.

"Oh. . . come in, Lady Anna." Synondra backed away as she opened the door, trying to bow simultaneously.

"You may go, Synondra," Essan said from her chair before the low fire.

"Yes, ladies." Synondra slipped out between the two guards, and the door shut with a clunk.

"No sorceress I, but these old eyes can see the fires fly from you," said Essan.

Anna settled into the straight-backed chair across from the white-haired widow. Questions swirled through her mind, and she settled on the easiest. "Is there some color that the Ranuans wear?"

"They wear many, just as we do," said Lady Essan. "I'm told the Matriarch often wears bright colors, but the Sisters of the South-I think they've also called the SouthWomen-wear pastels, often blue. I once met Sister Merthe, but that was years back, and she's dead now. The previous Matriarch had most of the Sisters killed after they stormed a ship from Sturinn and slew the crew."

Anna wanted to sigh. One question-just one question-and the answers gave rise to at least two more.

Was it always going to be like that? "Sturinn?" she asked. "Why Sturinn?"

'The Sturinnese keep their women in chains. Some chains are little more than jewelry, but many are heavy links. A merchant from Sturinn who lived in Encora whipped two concubines to death, and fled to the ship before a mob. The captain refused to return him to the Sisters. They stormed the ship. Almost all the women were killed, but none of the Sturinnese survived."

And Anna had thought the situation in Defalk had been bad. "Why did the Matriarch have the others killed?"

"Trade. Far Sturinn has hundreds of ships that ply the Western Ocean, and most are heavily armed.

Should the Sturinnese choose, they could blockade Ranuak easily, because almost all the trade comes from the port at Encora. The port at Sylwa is distant and small and hard to use in bad weather."

"And Ranuak depends on trade."

Essan nodded.

"Why not the other counties in Liedwahr?"

"Donjim told me it was because Mansuur has many ports, and they do not need much sea trade. Wei has many ports, and almost as many ships as Sturinn."

Anna nodded. In time, she might sort it all out. "Dumar only has one good port, but it doesn't need trade."

"Dumar is famous for its wool." Essan smiled, and lifted the corner of the heavy shawl. "Donjim had this brought from Envaryl for me. The isles of Sturinn are warm, compared to Liedwahr.

The sorceress shook her head.