Ehara does, and glances at the unset rubies, diamonds, and pearls in the small container. "A most generous and artistic treasure." He closes the case gently. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company and such a small token of appreciation?"

"We merely wished to meet the famous Lord Ehara."

"My fame as ruler of the smallest nation in Liedwahr has carried all the way to the lands and isles of far Sturinn?" Ehara laughs self-deprecatingly.

"Your fame has carried farther than you would have imagined, Lord Ehara," returned jerRestin.

"What have I done that merits such notice?" Ehara's eyes narrow ever so slightly.

"We understand that you are considering efforts to strengthen your northern border, Lord Ehara,"

suggests the Sea-Marshal, the accent in his voice stronger.

"I've never mentioned such an action to anyone." Ehara smiles easily. "Are you Sea-Priests able to read the tides of the future?"

"When the tides run strongly and pluck at the very. harmonies of Erde, then anyone who stops to look can see where they will take the unwary." The Sea-Marshal offers a bland smile.

'What is this disturbing tide of which you speak?"

"We understand that the Regent of Defalk is also a sorceress, and one who would change all of Liedwahr.

Surely, that is a tide you would watch... and have watched."

"I wasn't aware that the Sea-Priests bothered themselves with the petty affairs of poor and distant Lied- wahr."

"We look on Dumar as a bulwark against this riptide of destruction that will change all you-and we- hold dear. That is why we offer a mere token of friendship and appreciation."

"I see." Ehara tilts his head to the side fractionally, still holding the carved chest. "And in return for such generosity . . . what must poor and lowly Dumar provide to mighty Sturinn?"

"Only friendship, Lord Ehara. Only friendship."

"You value my friendship highly."

"It is said that those who share enemies must be friends. Our fortune-seers have declared that the Regent of Defalk is our enemy." JerRestin shrugged. "Since she is also your enemy, we must be friends and allies."

"What of the Liedfuhr of Mansuur?" Ehara's voice carries a tone between bemus.e.m.e.nt and curiosity.

"The Liedfuhr is preoccupied with his own concerns and has expressed little interest in the friendship of Sturinn." The rangy Sea-Marshal shrugs. "We must seek friends among those who would have friends."

"So you must. So must we all." Ehara laughs once wore. "And I bid you welcome, Welcome as friends and allies." He sets the chest on the red velvet of the chair, then steps off the dais and embraces the Sea- Marshal, who refrains from flinching.

19.

After discussing the last of the arrangements for the next day's journey toward Cheor with Hanfor, Alvar, and Jecks, Anna waited until the receiving-room door closed. She stood and stretched, then took a deep swallow of cold water from the goblet, draining it.

As she lifted the pitcher to refill the goblet, her eyes went to the window, and to the gray-and-white clouds she could see. What else did she need to take care of before she left?

It had been two days and she still hadn't seen Daffyd's sister Dalila. That didn't seem like Dalila, but, then again, with all her preoccupations, Anna might not have seemed that approachable.

With a deep breath, she lifted the bell and rang it, standing and gathering herself together.

Her dark-haired page, Skent, appeared.

"Skent, would you take me to the room where Dalila is?''

"She's in the players' quarters, like you told me, Lady Anna. And I have made sure she and the child have gotten food." Skent's lips pursed.

"You've had to take it to her?" asked the regent.

"Yes, lady. She won't leave the room-except for the jakes." Skent flushed. "I guess.. I mean... I don't know."

Anna laughed wryly. "I understand." She added, "Thank you. I knew I could count on you, and I appre- ciate it."

Skent flushed. "You ... you keep your word."

"I try." You try. . . but how long will you be able to? You said you'd be there for Elizabetta, and... She pursed her lips and forced herself to keep walking. Only Skent, of all her pages, would have trusted her enough to say that, a good harbinger for what she hoped of him.

They crossed the courtyard, the wind whipping the purple sash Anna had forgotten to remove and leave in the receiving room. Behind them followed Giellum and Blaz.

"The second door, lady." Skent gestured.

After marching up the narrow staircase, Anna rapped on the door to the second-level room.

Dalila opened it. falling back. "Lady. . I am..."

Anna shook her head as she stepped inside and closed the door, leaving Skent and the guards in the narrow pa.s.sageway. "Dalila, you've seen me in your robe and dusty boots doing laundry. Do you think I've changed that much?"

The brunette's eyes remained on the plank floor, and her shoulders slumped in a posture of defeat. Behind her, on the bed, sleeping in a faded gray blanket, lay the baby.

Ruetha looked up from the floor by the single wide pallet. The girl's fingers clutched a rag doll, and she hugged the cloth figure to her, taking her eyes from Anna.

"I said we'd talk, Dalila. I'm sorry... things have been busy, but...I'm here."

A soft snore came from the bed, and Anna smiled as she glanced at the sleeping infant. The smile faded as her eyes returned to the defeated-looking Dalila.

"I should not.. I would not have come. . . but where could I turn? If it were just for me..."

Anna could hardly imagine walking for weeks on end with two children. She could remember once, when her own mother had taken Anna to visit the back holler where her grandparents lived, how her mother had carried the heavy suitcase along the half-dry creek bed for a hundred feet or so, and then come back and carried Anna those hundred feet, time after time. And that had only been for a few miles!

"You have to think of the children. Mothers always do." And now you can't. The image of the black-lined rectangle on the wall of her room slipped into Anna's mind momentarily.

Dalila did not look at the sorceress or speak.

"Tell me what happened." Anna feared she already knew. "When did he leave? What happened?"

The silence lengthened in the late afternoon, but Anna forced herself to wait, forced herself to, remain calm despite all the items she needed to deal with before dinner, before riding out to the south in the morning.

After a time, Dalila began to speak, her voice barely audible above the light breeze that whispered past the single shuttered window. "Madell. . . After you left, he scarce would come...home. When Anandra- please don't be angry with that-when she was born, he yelled... He told me I wasn't even good for sons..." The words broke off into sobs.

Anna stepped forward and put her arms around the smaller woman, holding her as she cried. Dalila was scarcely more than skin and bones, and Anna wanted to call down all the harmonies and disharmonies on Madell. Instead, she swallowed and waited. "I'm not angry. I'm sad for you, and flattered that you would do something like that." Would anyone on earth even remember her name? Or would she be remembered as the mother or grandmother or whatever, who just vanished? Anna swallowed.

In time, when Dalila's sobs had subsided into small shivers, Anna stepped back and prompted gently.

"And after that?"

"Then... I got your scroll about Daffyd-and the golds. You bespelled Madell so he could not touch me.

But he took the golds, and he sold the house and his share in the mill to Reuten-"

"Reuten?" Anna asked involuntarily.

"His older brother. Reuten never cared for me. I was not from Synope." Dalila took a deep breath.

"Madell took his clothes and left. No one saw him again. Reuten said he went to Dumar. He claimed that I drove him away."

Anna didn't think much of Reuten, either. "And the house?"

"Reuten told me I had to leave. The house was his, and I had no sons."

Sons again! d.a.m.n masculine-dominated society! Anna swallowed. "So you left?"

"What, else could I do? Lord Hryding was ill, and I was turned away at his gate."

Another mark against Anientta, Anna reflected, and another reason to stop at Flossbend on her return from Cheor. a.s.suming things go as planned and nothing else goes wrong. She swallowed the sigh.

Something else would go wr6ng. She just didn't know what it might be. "Lord Hryding would not have turned you away, but he was so ill that he died."

"They say he was a good lord." Dalila's voice was flat.

"He was, and I'll miss him. But we can't change what's already happened. And you can't change what's happened to you." Anna forced a smile. "There's a place for you and the children here."

"Lady... the silvers you gave me for the children, I -had to use them." Dalila looked down as though Anna would spell her or strike her.

"To get here?"

"Aye." Dalila's voice was low.

"Then they were well spent."

"You say... a place for me. . .me? I am no player like Daffyd." The brunette's eyes darted to the sleeping Anandra, and then dropped to the plank floor. "What can I do? I have the bairns."

"Dalila? Can you write?"

"1 know my letters. Da made sure of that. He beat me when I missed." The woman shivered.

"A sorceress can only do so much. Will you help me? I will pay you, like all those who help." Anna forced herself to be patient, recalling that no one had been exactly patient when Avery had dumped her.

She'd still had to get up and go to work, to teach not only the willing, but the whining students, and there'd been too few of the good ones and too many of those who sat there like lumps and said, in effect, "Teach me. I don't have to learn; it's your job to make me learn."

"How could I help?"

Anna laughed softly. 'There is so much to do, and I'm only one person. One of the problems I have is that too few people know their letters, and they learn them too late. They should learn them when they are not much older than Ruetha. I would like you to teach letters to the younger children. For that, you would get your room and food and a half-silver a week"

Dalila sank onto the floor planks. "For teaching the letters to children. You are too generous. I cannot...

That is too much."

Anna thought, then added, "You can also, if you wish, help in the kitchen. You cook well, and Meryn is always complaining that she doesn't have enough help."

Dalila nodded. "I can cook."

"I'll let Meryn know." Anna paused. "I am leaving tomorrow, and you will have to talk to her yourself.

We won't be able to work out your lessons until I return." She lifted her hand. "But you'll be paid starting on one-day."

"You are good, lady."

"No. I am not that good. Had I not come to Synope, you would still have Madell, and your brother. I owe you at least this. You can help me. I wish I could do more, but Defalk's a poor land, and there's oniy so much that I can do."

Dalila shook her head. "My father sent me away. My consort deserted me, and his brother turned me out.

My lord could not help me. You are a stranger, and you have offered more than all of them." She bowed her head. "I am glad I named Anandra after you."

Anna swallowed. "Thank you." What else could she say? What else could she have done after all the damage that followed her?

20.

STROMWER, DEFALK.

"LORD Dencer." The young-looking Dumaran officer in red bows to the taller and slightly older man who stands by the ornately carved desk. "Gortin, captain of lancers for Lord Ehara."

The tall and gangly Dencer nods his head sharply, and a lock of thinning brown hair droops across a too- high forehead, almost screening his left eye. "To what do we owe the courtesy of a visit from a neighbor to the south?" His eyes flicker imperceptibly to the pair of armsmen in tan leathers at the door, and the one who stands by the tall bookcase to his left.

"A sad courtesy, a sad one indeed." Gortin bows again. "We were led to believe that one traveler by the name of Slevn came from Stromwer. He paid a courtesy visit to Lord Ehara, and we had thought he returned to Stromwer?'

"You had thought this... visitor. . . had returned?" Dencer' s eyebrows rise, and he brushes the wayward Jock of hair back and across his balding pate.