Anna rubbed her nose as dust rose around them in the still and warm air.

On the bare ground above the orchard on the next hill- the one less than a dek away-were a handful of figures. Some bore items-violins, horns? Anna squinted. Were some of them players?

Her stomach twisted at the thought of sorcerers preparing that sort of unwelcome welcome for her.

Something was anch.o.r.ed-or attached-to a squat pole set in the ground, and two men struggled with a lever or crank. As they did, the sounds of a faint melody drifted downhill.

Anna watched as a figure turned the triangular shape toward them, her mind spinning. What was the gadget, and why was she so fearful? She should know or recognize what was happening. Why couldn't she think quickly?

Farinelli sidestepped, whuffing.

"Some sort of crossbow. Too far to be accurate, but we'd better hold up." Jecks turned. "Alvar! Send a troop after them." Then his eyes went to Anna. "Best we ride back."

"Green company! Forward!"

As the lancers trotted past them, Anna could sense Fhurgen easing his squad around her and Jecks and Jim-bob. One of the newer guards-Rickel---stood slightly in the saddle, looking toward the mound.

His thick bowl-cut hair resembled a strawberry-blond helmet.

Fhurgen stood in his stirrups for a moment. "Don't like this none, Lady Anna," rumbled the black- bearded chief of her guard.

Anna glanced back, but she couldn't move Farinelli, not with her guards so close around her.

The strains of the distant music crescendoed, almost drowned out by the sound of the lancers' mounts.

Through the dust, Anna could see the two men fall away from the crossbow.

Her stomach twisted, and her right hand darted for the blade at her waist yanking it out and up.

A knife against an arrow? Anna wanted to laugh but didn't have time or breath. She only knew she had to get the knife out and up, and there wasn't time to think about it.

Her tight hand jolted. Fire slashed along her arm, and a hammer smashed into the light breastplate Jecks had insisted she wear. As in a dream, she felt herself being lifted from the saddle by the power of that hammer.

What... ? How could an arrow...?

She could sense Farinelli's scream, and her back bouncing against another mount, and then the compacted clay of the road.

For a time, she lay on her back, feeling pressure on her chest. Pressure and fire welling out from her wounds.

Jecks was beside her, kneeling.

"Alcohol...elixir...bathe the wounds..." she gasped.

"Frigging quarrel."

"Get it out," Anna said slowly, forcing each word. "Use the alcohol."

She could sense his puzzlement, but each word was an effort. "Get Liende, pour... the alcohol over the wounds.... Clean it..."

She was getting dizzier. Lord, why... why...

"Went partway through the metal. Shouldn't have done that." Jecks fumbled with the breast plate. "Went across..."

"Get it out" Anna clamped her mouth shut as Jecks worked the black shaft free. Her eyes were having trouble focusing.

"There."

"Alcohol. In my saddlebags."

The splash of the liquid burned worse than the arrow had.

"Arm...too."

The second line of fire was too much, even as Anna fought the combination of dizziness and blackness.

34 PAMR, DEFALK.

"Good morning." The dark-haired young man in brown nods to the two older and full-bearded men who enter the chandlery.

"Good morning, Fa.r.s.enn. Rastr said we ought to stop by... Something about wanting... You know, I don't remember." The taller and ginger-bearded man who has led the way into the building bobs his head.

"I think I know," Ea.r.s.enn says quietly. "It's in the back room. Let me check." He smiles politely, and steps through the doorway out of the dimly lit main room.

The ginger-bearded man picks up one of the leather saddlebags on the table. "Better stuff than old Forse.

He was more interested in what woman he could get out back. Fa.r.s.enn looks after the stock more than his father did."

"He liked the women, Forse did, all kinds," answers the other brown-haired farmer. "Till that sorceress turned him into a bonfire."

"b.i.t.c.h... Don't like uppity women like that. Next thing you know, Mostan, she and that Lady Gatrune be telling us how to wear our trousers." A raucous laugh follows.

The sound of a low drum rumbles from the back room, getting louder as Fa.r.s.enn returns, leaving the door open.

"Deurn, Mostan...I'd like to show you what Rastr was talking about,"

As the three enter the small windowless room and Fa.r.s.enn closes the door, the young drummer in the corner beats his drum slowly . . thurwnmnm thurumm thurummm . . thurumm...

On the pedestal is a life-sized statue of a slender blonde woman, breathtakingly beaufiful and so lifelike that the spun golden hair seems to move in the faint movement of air caused by the door's closing, and the open blue eyes seem to follow the men. The statue-or the woman-totally naked, does not move.

"Real pretty, Fa.r.s.enn."

"...like it better were she real.. .. Ha!"

"That's the way sorceresses should be." Fa.r.s.enn's voice remains warm and friendly. "Now. . . if you'd listen for a moment..."

"Sure. . . . Let me look..."

Fa.r.s.enn begins to sing, his ba.s.s voice weaving around the rhythm of the drum.

"Men of Pamr, heed no woman's song, for Fa.r.s.enn will make you proud and strong so put your trust and all your heart behind the chandler and his part..."

When he finishes, Fa.r.s.enn smiles slightly. "You see? We men need to stand together these days, don't we?"

"Sure do. Whatever you say."

"Like your statue, young feller."

As the drumbeat dies away, Fa.r.s.enn blinks rapidly and shakes his head, as if to clear it, then offers a conspiratorial grin. "Just don't tell any of the women... you know what I mean?"

Both visitors grin.

"It was good of you to come to see me." He makes a vague gesture toward the door, and both men turn as though commanded. The chandler follows them back into the main room of the chandlery.

"Got to tell Enslam about this," remarks the ginger-bearded Mostan.

"You can tell your friends," says Fa.r.s.enn conversationally. "It would be better if you didn't mention it to any of Lady Gatrune's armsmen. They might not take it well." He shrugs. "No sense in stirring up trouble."

"Makes sense." Deurn picks up the worn leather saddlebag. ''How much?"

"Silver and a. half. Might let it go to you for a silver...."

35.

Anna opened her eyes gingerly, glancing around the too-familiar guest quarters in Synfal. She could feel a comfortably warm breeze, coming through the open shutters. The sun lit a rectangle of yellow-brick floor.

Yuarl-a young string player Anna didn't know beyond her name and expertise-sat at the writing table.

She stiffened as she realized Anna was awake. "Can I get you anything, my lady?"

"Something more to drink ... and eat," Anna rasped. Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, her chords clearly swollen.

The trip back to Cheor had been a nightmare. That was the way Anna had felt, neither awake nor asleep, filled with chills one moment, and fired with fever the next. She recalled talking, but not what she had said.

The wounds in her arm and chest had burned continually, and they still did, if not quite so greatly.

She vaguely recalled insisting on eating and arguing with someone-Jecks-about whether she should be eating. She even remembered seeing Synfal from the fields.

Her next memory was that of waking in the dark, with only a lone candle flickering, and trying to drink wine laced with something, and wondering why she had so much trouble staying awake and concentrating. For the next day, or days-she wasn't exactly sure-she had drifted in and out of consciousness.

Anna straightened herself against the lumpy pillows, resigned that all pillows in Defalk were lumpy. She took a sip, then a swallow, of the sweetish wine that Yuarl had offered, then another swallow. Sweet or not, it calmed her throat.

''Might. . . might I summon the chief player?"

"And Lord Jecks." The words were enough to bring up some mucus, and Anna coughed once, and then again. The two coughs sent a searing pain through her chest, and she pressed her arms against her rib cage. "s.h.i.t... s.h.i.t..." The words dribbled out, both from the pain in her chest and from the lesser ache in her bound right arm.

Yuarl, her eyes still on Anna, went to the door, opened it, and spoke to one of the guards outside.

Anna tried to look down at her wound, but even under the loose shift could only see a bulky dressing and radiating bruise lines that appeared to be turning yellow.

Despite the pain that had finally begun to subside, she had to wonder about her wounds. The arrow she'd taken outside Loiseau almost a year earlier had been far more serious, and she'd barely made it, despite Brill's sorcery. So why was she having so much trouble with a slash on her arm and a relatively superficial chest wound? All the bruises wouldn't account for her dizziness and fevers.

Poison? Anna shivered.

"Are you all right, lady? Can I do anything?"

"Just thinking." Anna managed to suppress another cough. She knew she probably needed to cough the garbage out of her throat and lungs-but it would hurt-a lot. She tried clearing her throat. That didn't help much.

A gentle half-cough helped, but she almost choked on the mucus.

d.a.m.ned asthma! d.a.m.n... She felt like screaming and crying simultaneously. Neither would help her or her image as regent and sorceress. At that thought, she wanted to d.a.m.n her image as well. Instead, she tried to clear out whatever was in her nose, throat, and lungs.

Yuarl watched, almost wide-eyed.

Before either Jecks or Liende arrived, a young strawberry-blond armsman lurched through the door.

Rickel bore a tray which Yuarl intercepted and then carried over to Anna. The sorceress studied the platters- slightly wizened apples, hard white cheese, something that looked like an egg custard, and two bran m.u.f.fins. She sniffed the custard and decided that whatever had been done to the eggs wouldn't set all that well. Slowly, she picked up one of the m.u.f.fins and nibbled a corner. Her mouth watered at the hot and moist nutty taste, and she slowly ate the entire m.u.f.fin.

Then she had more of the wine. As Anna forced herself to eat the second heavy bran m.u.f.fin, the door opened, and Liende slipped inside. "Good day, Lady Anna."

Her mouth full, Anna nodded as the player with the white-streaked red hair pulled up one of the chairs and sat beside her bed. Liende waited without speaking.

With a quick look at the two women, Yuarl slipped out the door, and shut it behind her without a sound, "How many days?" Anna finally asked into the stillness.

"You rode in the gate the day before yesterday," Liende answered.

Yesterday? It felt like she'd been out of commission a lot longer than three days. "Just yesterday?"

"You are stronger than most warriors."

Anna doubted that. "It looks like I owe you again. Thank you for helping save me. Again." She started to shake her head, then decided against it. She certainly owed Jecks for insisting that she wear the plastron or breastplate or whatever it had been. And Fhurgen... and...Alvar and all the armsmen.

"You owe yourself." Liende smiled. "The elixir. . . it helped much in cleaning the wound." The smile vanished. "The quarrel had been smeared in foul matter. Most do not survive those wounds."

Anna wanted to wince. "Could there have been something else there?" From what she recalled, bacteria wouldn't have been able to act fast enough to give her a fever within moments, and she'd have to watch the wounds for any signs of sepsis or infection. That would really be a joy.

"You suspect poison?"

"Yes."

"The quarrel was smeared with a tar. It could have been mixed with any substance." Liende gave a half- smile. "Your elixir, and your own strength, surmounted whatever was upon the quarrel."

"I don't feel like I've surmounted much."