"You are still upset, sorceress-woman. Would you care to tell me why?" Essan lifted a goblet of her apple brandy and sipped.

Anna swallowed, then began to speak. "We are surrounded. Defalk is, I mean, and everyone except Ebra is plotting how to take us over. The Liedfuhr has sent lancers to Neserea. The Lord of Dumar is up to something. and so are those women in Wei and Ranuak, some of them anyway. We don't have enough coins for the year Anna spread her bands. "Our roads are so much of a mess so that we can't move armsmen or messages or goods or anything very well, and I've got a handful of lords who don't even want to pay liedgeld-"

"Defalk has never been much different," said the older woman. "You think being a sorceress would change that?"

"No." Anna almost laughed at Essan's dry tone.

"What bothers me is that everyone says just that, and nothing can be changed. If I can't change things, then Defalk will fall. I'm a sorceress, not a miracle worker."

"Already you've worked miracles." Essan lifted brandy goblet again, almost as in a toast. "People expect more. Donjim, he put down a peasant uprising, then another. The second one happened because the lords thought that they could abuse the peasants and he would bring in his armsrnen and back them up." The white haired woman took a solid swallow of the amber liquid. "Those uprisings killed Senjim and broke Donjim's heart. I rode with them, on the first one, you know. Better they had killed me."

"You're too tough for that," Anna said.

"I was then. Not now. I sit in front of a fire, and look at you. This is a hard land, sorceress who looks like girl. A hard land with hard lords. Aye, hard lords and selfish ones." She refilled the goblet. "You must be hard too, Anna, or they will break you and your heart, just like they broke Donjim, and Barjim,' and Brill."

"You must be hard" Was that what it took? To stronger and harder. . . perhaps more cruel? Anna shook her head.

"You say no, sorceress-woman, and that means, should you succeed, you'll end up being harder on yourself than on anyone." Essan laughed softly. "1 know about that. I do. So do you, I'd wager."

What am I supposed to do? That was what she wanted to ask, but she didn't, because. . . it didn't matter she realized. She had to do what she could, what she thought best. The only question was where to start.

The sorceress took a deep breath.

"Aye, and this weather helps not," Essan continued "Damp, like once it was, and good for the trees and crops but not for old bones."

"Not for young ones, either," murmured the regent sitting back for a few moments to listen to Lady Essan reminisce.

"Years ago, in the times of snow... those were truly cold years...."

Later, even after visiting with Lady Essan, perhaps even more so, Anna could feel the walls of the liedburg closing in around her. She had to get out rain or no rain. The more she tried to do it seemed, the more isolated she got because efficiency-d.a.m.ned efficiency-meant delegating, and that meant she saw fewer and fewer people.

Back down the stairs to the receiving room she went ignoring the looks between Lejun and Giellum. Once there, she looked around, glanced to the window. The clouds were scattered, white and gray and puffy.

Good!

She rang the bell-too loudly, but she really didn't care. Skent peered in, keeping the door between him and Anna.

"I'm going tiding," she announced. "If Alvar is free..." She paused. "Is Alvar training armsmen this afternoon? Could you please find out, Skent, and let me know? I'd like you to come as well"

"Yes, lady." Skent's face brightened.

"Oh, and let Phurgen know, if you would."

The door closed, and Anna glanced around the receiving room, then departed herself. She reclaimed her floppy brown tiding hat from her room, as well as a riding jacket, and the lutar from the saying room. Her fingers went to the dagger and truncheon she wore at her belt whenever she left the liedburg. Then she headed for the stables.

Within the southwest corner of the outer walls, the stables held the familiar odors of straw, horses, and manure, although the scents were mild, and the packed-clay floors swept clean. Tirsik saw to that. The wiry stablemaster, who looked far older than Anna and probably wasn't, greeted her; "That great beast has been asking for you."

"Unless I ride him into the ground, he's always complaining."

"Riding's good for the soul, and the harmonies," Tirsik observed. "For horses and rulers."

"I hope so," answered Anna.

"Do young Skent good as well."

"He's already here?"

"Like a bird, he flew out here."

Anna grinned, then headed for the stall.

Whuff!

"Yes, I know. It's winter, and I've been neglecting your riding. Grooming isn't enough for you."

Farinelli stepped sideways as she picked up the brush and entered his stall, then offered a second whuff more subdued than the first. She finished grooming and saddling Farinelli, and the blond gelding fairly pranced as she led him into the courtyard where Fhurgen and a squad of guards rode. Skent sat upon a bay mare and smiled at her.

She smiled back, checking her gear. The lutar was strapped behind her saddle, and she mounted, with an ease she still found surprising.

"Where to, Lady Anna?" asked the dark-bearded arms-man who had replaced the unfortunate Spirda as the head of her personal guard.

"Falcor... the merchants' shops south of the liedburg." She might not be able to shop, but she could look and listen... if anyone would talk.

Hoofs clicked on the damp stones of the liedburg courtyard as the group rode out under the raised portcullis.

Anna nodded to the armsmen at the gate, but neither moved. Hanfor's training-or Alvar's or Himar's, she suspected.

The flat expanse outside the gates that separated the liedburg from the buildings of Falcor was a good hundred yards square. The damp clay was level with the stones of the roadway that led to the gate, but it bad taken most of the winter to remove the piles of dirt and debris that the Evult's flood had swirled through the eastern parts of the town.

Anna turned Farinelli south. Once past the open s.p.a.ce, she rode slowly down the street. Various structures, shops on the lower floors and dwellings above them, filled both sides. Even in the chill, small handfuls of people gathered here and there, talking.

"... still the best spices in Falcor..."

"...hot fowl Hot fowl on a chill day..."

"...you sure there's no worms in that flour?"

Anna wanted to smile when she neared the cloth merchant. In the window were the deep-green velvets she remembered from the hot summer day when she'd taken her first ride through Falcor, young and stiff- necked Spirda beside her. She had wanted to stop, but she'd decided that the Erdean equivalent of shopping wasn't a good idea on her first ride. Now, as regent and sorceress, she actually could afford to shop even less.

A thin girl, her brown hair braided into a roll at the back of her neck, looked at the sorceress from the cloth merchant's door.

Anna reined up, then dismounted, and handed Fadnelli's reins to Fhurgen. She walked toward the girl, who seemed frozen in place.

Fhurgen banded the reins to another guard, a blond, and vaulted down to stand just behind and beside Anna.

"You know," Anna said conversationally, "I've ridden past here many times and I've always wanted to stop. Is this your family's shop?"

"Yes, lady." The girl's voice quavered.

A squat figure appeared in the door, that of a gray-haired man with drooping mustaches. "How might I help you, lady?"

"Is this your daughter?" Anna asked.

"My niece, my sister's daughter. Sirlina, my sister, she was taken by the fever after the flood last fall."

His eyes went to the armsmen and to Skent, all except Fhurgen still mounted in the narrow street, then back to Anna. "Forgive me, my lady. What would you have of us?"

Anna forced a smile as genuine as she could. "I've often admired your shop, and I just wanted to stop and look. I've never had the time."

"Everything we have is yours." The shopkeeper's forehead was damp, despite the cold.

"No. It's yours. When I need something, I'll buy it, just like any other customer." She smiled. "You work for what you earn, and you pay your levies. I'm not about to make your life harder."

The street darkened as one of the puffy clouds drifted across the sun, and the girl shivered in the slight breeze. Anna found the thin jacket more than warm enough. Winter, even late winter, in Defalk was far warmer than even parts of fall and spring had been in Ames, but not nearly so windy and gray.

The cloth merchant frowned. "Our velvets and woolens are the finest-"

"I can see that." Anna took a deep breath and looked toward Fhurgen, fumbling at her belt wallet. She had some silvers and golds that were hers personally, mostly left from the expenses she'd received from Behlem half a year earlier. "I'd like to look here for a moment."

The black-haired Fhurgen marched past Anna and the merchant, looking around the shop before nodding at Anna.

The regent stepped inside and turned to the girl. "What's your name?"

"Kirla, lady."

"Kirla, can you tell me about the velvets?" Anna gestured toward the bolt of green.

The girl glanced toward her uncle. The shopkeeper offered a thin smile, then said, "Go ahead, Kirla.''

"Well . . . lady. The green, that's a cotton velvet, and it's from Sylwa. The cotton is pale green, and they dye the threads first before they go on the looms. The red is from the Ostisles, and Uncle says that it's not as good because they dye the fabric after they cut the pile.'' She glanced back at her uncle again, who nodded.

"What about the blue?" prompted Anna.

"The blue is like the green, but the blue dyes don't hold as well because the caftan is dun. not green or blue. I mean, wit the green, lady Kirla opened her mouth, then shut it helplessly.

"I think I understand. Because the green is dyed over a natural light green cotton, it holds its color better over time. Is that it?"

The brown-haired girl nodded. "Yes, lady."

"How much is the green?" Anna turned to the shopkeeper. "Normally, that is?"

"Ah...last year, last year, before the troubles, the green was five silvers a yard."

Anna managed a nod, even as the cost of the cloth staggered her, momentarily-a yard of velvet more than a half-year's earnings for a peasant. Still, from what history she remembered, before steam looms cloth had been equally expensive on earth.

Anna' glanced to Fhurgen, then to the girl. Neither seemed surprised. "But you haven't sold any since then 7"

The shopkeeper looked down. "No, lady."

Anna thought. She could use another gown-she only had three, and a regent needed more. Sorcery would turn the cloth into a gown, when she had a moment, and she'd already worked out the spellsong.

For what she had in mind, she'd need a good four yards, maybe five.

"Do you have five yards?" she temporized.

"Lady, I have ten," the shopkeeper blurted.

"Ten, I can't use. Two golds for five yards." That would make a serious dent in her personal funds.

The shopkeeper looked stunned. "I would give you a mere five yards."

"No. All I ask is that you pay your levies and...be a good person." She'd wanted to ask him to be a good citizen, but that concept didn't really exist in Liedwahr, not in the way she would have meant it. Anna dug out the two golds and extended them. "If you wouldn't mind cutting the fabric and delivering it to the liedburg... ?"

"Of course, Lady Anna. Of course." He sounded as though he had finally realized exactly who she happened to be, but Anna had to take his hand and actually put the coins there.

He looked down at the two golds as if lie could not believe they were real.

"They're real. No sorcery." Anna locked to the girl. "Thank you, Kirla."

Kida bowed. "Thank you, lady."

Anna smiled. "I've always wanted to come here. I just never had tine." She didn't know what else to say.

So she inclined her head slightly, still smiling, and left.

Outside, once she had remounted. Fhurgen leaned toward her.

"They will tell everyone, and that will be good."

Good? That she had paid for what she needed, and not taken it? Anna took a deep breath, thinking again about the high cost of the velvet, then waved to Kirla who stood in the arch of the doorway. The thin- faced girl returned the wave with a deep bow.

Anna managed to smile, even as she thought how much there was to do-in so many ways.

16.

WEI, NORDWEI.

The dark-haired spymistress glances from the desk-table where she sits in the black high-backed chair toward the single wide window. Through the open window, Ashtaar notes the rebuilt harbor piers that define the well-dredged juncture of the river Nord with the Vereisen Bay and the two-masted Norweian ships loading at those piers.

The door opens, and a woman with close-cropped golden hair steps inside, walking slowly toward Ashtaar, She bows.

"You may sit, Gretslen."