Anna, flanked by Fhurgen, stopped short of the dais, squinting in trying to make out Arkad. Her nose itched. Mold? Dust?

"Pay homage to the regent," growled Fhurgen.

Arkad looked up from the carved chair at Fhurgen, then to Anna "I honor you, Regent. I honor you. I honor you." Tears seeped from the rheumy eyes, disappearing into the food-stained and tangled white heard.

Anna paused. Something didn't feel right. She lifted the lutar slightly, her fingers feeling for the strings.

"I honor you," cackled Arkad, a line of saliva drooling out of the left corner of his mouth. The Lord of Cheor tottered erect and bowed his head. "I honor you."

Anna glanced toward Fhurgen momentarily. Did Arkad seem as . .. mad . . . as she thought?

The ancient figure stumbled down from the dais toward Anna. "Honor you!"

With the flash of silver Anna threw up her right hand and jumped aside, trying to protect the lutar and herself from the blade. A line of fire grazed the side of her hand.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Fhurgen's bare blade slashed, and the knife clattered on the stones. The guard's second effort threw the tottering figure onto the bricks.

Arkad did not move, and blood began to pool on the stained yellow floor bricks. Then the ancient figure twitched once and was still. Anna knew he was dead.

After a moment, Anna looked at the gash on the side of her palm. "Good thing you brought the alcohol,"

she murmured to herself.

"I am sorry, Regent." Fhurgen's voice almost broke.

"It wasn't your fault Fhurgen. I was careless." She shook her head. Sorcery doesn't protect you if you don't use it... or if someone's so twisted and mad that the spell has no effect... or if you're seeing double and don't react.

"There's a bottle wrapped in green cloth in my saddlebags. Would you send someone for it?" She looked back down on the emaciated white-haired figure in the stained maroon tunic lying in already-drying blood.

Fhurgen nodded to the blond armsman behind him. "You heard the regent, Rickel."

Jecks looked to Anna.

"I'll be all right. It's not much more than a scratch." She shook her head. "What a mess. What a f.u.c.king, dissonant mess."

24.

DUMARIA, DUMAR.

Ehara swings into the saddle of the roan, glancing from the stable back at the white limestone of the palace, then urges his mount toward the parklike preserve that stretches from behind the white stone building to the top of the bluffs overlooking the Falche River three deks to the east and to the north gate little more than a dek away, where the road winds down the steep hill past the mansions of the wealthy traders.

The gray-haired lancer officer spurs his mount to catch up with the Lord of Dumar.

"You're a lancer, Overcaptain Keasil. It took you long enough to catch me." Ehara' s voice booms across the turf that leads to the woods.

"You are known as an excellent horseman, sire." Keasil's voice is lower than Ehara's as he settles his mount into a walk beside Ehara. "You asked me to accompany you?"

"Away from the palace and the ever-listening ears. I'm sure you understand." Ehara urges his mount into a trot.

Keasil manages to react quickly, and the two men ride side by side toward the tended woods.

"Keasil..." Ehara turns in his saddle and grins. "Send a token of our appreciation to Lord Sargol in Suhl.

You can select something from the chest, a diamond or two, I think, when you come to my study later.

Siobion prefers the pearls and rubies. I will have a scroll ready for you shortly after I return to my study.

I'll send for you.

"Lord Sargol? Not Lord Dencer?" Keasil's bushy gray eyebrows lift in inquiry.

"Lord Dencer would be our agent. He has made it quite clear how he would be both agent and overlord in southem Defalk." Ehara shakes his head, in mock sadness. "That is why Captain Gortin rode to Stromwer.

He looks younger than his years, and that was not by accident. I am not fond of agents. They place their interests above mine."

"That can be so."

"It is so. Remember that."

"Yes, sire." Keasil frowns as he guides his mount clear of the marble walled fountain that sits alone in the gra.s.s.

"You look displeased."

"Oh, no, sire. It is just that..." He pauses and guides his mount closer to Ehara's. "Your pardon, lord, but if I am to act properly..."

"Yes?"

"Would it not be wise if I had a general idea of what message I am to convey?"

"A scroll to Lord Sargol." Ehara reins up short of the first line of trees.

The officer inclines his head to Ehara. "I will do my best, ser.''

"I will probably convey my felicitations. A good word, felicitations. My felicitations about the situation in which he has been placed. I might suggest I sympathize with his uncertain condition, mentioning in pa.s.sing a sorceress unfamiliar with his particular situation as a regent for a boy whose forebears were scarcely distinguished. That might be viewed as unsettling, even without having neighboring lords with loyalties regarded as close to rebellious by such a regent. And I will offer him friendship."

"That is all?"

"That is what you need to know, Keasil." Ehara smiles. "The scroll will be spelled. Don't try to read it."

"Yes, ser. No, ser. I won't, I mean.''

"I know what you meant." Ehara smiles. "No more talk of scrolls and messages. Let us ride."

25.

After Fhurgen walked through the chamber, blade out, Anna glanced around the guest quarters-a large room with an adjoining bath chamber. Like everything else in the hail, they smelled, as if the bath chamber had never been used, but they smelled less than either Fauren's quarters or those of the late Lord Arkad.

The walls were yellow brick, covered with plaster that had once been whitewashed and now looked more like dirty yellow, either from the brick showing through or from an acc.u.mulation of dirt, smoke, and grease. The light from the two narrow windows was further darkened by heavy brown drapes that drooped from wrought-iron brackets set above the cas.e.m.e.nt and by inside shutters. Two wooden armchairs were pushed against the outer wail.

A double-width bed, with a dirty brown quilt and two lumpy pillows, a bedside table with a dandle and smudged gla.s.s mantel, and a writing table with a wooden straight-backed chair completed the bedchamber furnishings.

The regent's boots sc.r.a.ped, as though on sand, as she crossed the brick floor to the nearest window and pulled back the drapes and opened the shutters.

"Khhhchew!"

Anna rubbed her nose, then sneezed twice more, before opening the shutters of the second window.

"d.a.m.ned dust. . . bed's probably worse."

Fhurgen had retreated to the half-open door, watching as Anna studied the room, one hand touching the full black beard momentarily.

She turned as another set of boots echoed down the corridor.

Jecks stepped into the room, followed by the redheaded Jimbob. "We have inspected the strong room and the lower levels."

Had it taken her that long to disinfect the wound and inspect the top floor of the keep?

"How be the hand?"

"It hurts." Anna shrugged, her eyes going to the dressings. "Other than that. . . Other than being stupid..."

She shook her head. "This place stinks."

"No worse than many," Jecks said.

"I'll have to have it cleaned up to sleep here." She eased herself into a straight-backed chair.

Jecks nodded. "There is much to be done here." Anna had the feeling Jecks wasn't talking about cleaning.

"Does Alvar have the hold under control?"

"Your spell did that. Your armsmen hold the gates and the ramparts, but the servants are obeying willingly. So are the few crafters."

"Good." Anna started to rub her forehead, to ma.s.sage away the headache, but doing it left-handed felt subtly awkward.

"Lady Anna?" Jimbob's voice was uneven.

"Yes, Jimbob."

"Might I ask...?"

"How Lord Arkad managed to lift a knife against me?''

"Yes, lady."

"It's simple and it's complicated," Anna said tiredly. "Spells like the one I cast on the holding only work on a mind that's healthy. Lord Arkad was not well. I don't know if he was spelled or old or insane, but he didn't know that what he did was against the spell." And you didn't cast it to make an attack physically impossible.

"Everyone talks about how your spells stop people or kill them." The youthful face screwed up in puzzlement.

Jecks started to open his mouth, and Anna shook her head, then took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts, She really needed something to eat. "Jimbob someday you will command an army. It might happen that a lord will refuse to pay liedgeld. I hope not, but these things can happen. He has an army- many armsmen, and many other people behind his walls; What will happen if you use all your armsmen-or sorcery-to kill that lord and all his armsmen and people?"

"They'll die."

"And who will harvest the crops? Who will ever wish to surrender to you, if they know they'll die? How many of your armsmen will die? How will you replace them?"

"I'll use the golds from the rebel's strongbox."

Jecks nodded. "And then more lords will rebel. Will you destroy them? And if you do, who will stand behind you?"

Jimbob's eyes went from Jecks to Anna to Jecks, as if he could not believe that his grandfather was supporting Anna.

"Jimbob..." Jecks sald softly. "Armsrnen and sorcery do not create crops or golds. They can sometimes seize it, but such seizures must be seldom, and every man must think that you were right to use armsmen and sorcery."

"But Lord Arkad was evil," protested Jiinbob.

"You're right," Anna said, "but I'm a stranger in Defalk, and I didn't know he was evil. Do you think most of the other lords thought he was evil?"

"They will now."

"Some will," Jecks said. "Some will yet protest the regent's efforts to secure your future. All would have been angered if the regent had brought the hall down around Lord Arkad and his seneschal."

"All of them?"

"All of them," Jecks repeated. "now... off with you. The regent and I need to talk." The white-haired lord of Elhi glanced toward Fhurgen. "Can you ensure him a guard?"

"Yes, sire." Fhurgen grinned.

"And find us some wine and something to eat?"

"Yes, Lady Anna." Fhurgen was still smiling as the door closed.

Once they were alone, Anna shifted her weight in the chair.

"It is good he is away from Galen." Jecks said.

"I wondered when I met... his tutor."