"It's a risk, but I'd think it's worth it. He's not going to invade Defalk, not with Bertmynn knocking at his door to the east."

"I do not know," mused Jecks. "We know nothing of him."

Anna could see that nothing she said would make much difference at the moment. Instead, she stood, Walked to the chest where the lutar rested, and began tuning the instrument. Then she stepped over to the mirror and lifted the lutar and began to sing.

"Those in Stromwer strong, those who'd do me wrong now show them in this silver cast and make that vision well last..."

Even before the notes died away, an image filled the gla.s.s. From what Anna could tell, well over two hundred large tents cl.u.s.tered below the walls of Stromwer-or whatever Dencer called his keep. A banner with a gold big-homed sheep or something similar poised on a peak, backed in crimson, flew from a pole amid the tents in what had to be a stiff breeze.

"Dumar-Ehara's banner," said Jecks. "Outside the walls. Dencer does not fully trust so many armsmen."

Anna glanced at Hanfor, who stood and stepped forward, peering at the image. After a time, he nodded, and she released the spell.

"How many armsmen are there?" she asked.

"A hundredscore at least."

"Most are from Dumar?"

"It would seem so."

Anna raised the lutar again, and did the second spell song.

"Those in Suhl so strong, those who'd do me wrong..."

The next image in the gla.s.s showed a second keep, of stone and red brick. Below the keep's outer wall, nearly a dek from the wall, hundreds of men labored at an earthwork-or a mound. Beyond them milled several hundred lancers.

Anna snorted. She suspected another outsized crossbow would be mounted there, or something similar, with the lancers for distraction or cover.

"And here," she asked after releasing the spell.

"Twentyscore," suggested Hanfor.

Anna tried a third rendition, one for Lord Gylaron.

The image was equally clear-a gray stone keep with what appeared to be catapults mounted on the walls, and with armsmen on every wall.

Fighting lightheadedness, Anna set aside the lutar and reseated herself, taking a swallow of water and crunching through two already stale biscuits before she felt more steady. She still wasn't back to normal, and the world didn't seem to want to let her recover before rushing in on her.

At the same time, Anna wanted to smile. She was one small woman who could do sorcery, a regent with perhaps three hundred armsmen, and the three southern lords acted as though she were the scourge of the earth-or Erde.

'Do you still want to turn down potential allies?" she asked. "One that could not hurt us unless we were beyond help?"

"What do we gain?" asked Jecks.

Anna could see, once again, she was running against tradition. Defalk had always been the thirty-three lords within their mountain walls, and Jecks consciously or unconsciously was resisting any change.

"In time, we eliminate forever an enemy to the east." That seemed simple enough. If she could co-opt Ebra in time. . . and do something about Dumar to stop the Sea-Priests. She shook her head. What was she thinking? Just about trying to take over large chunks of Liedwahr when they were practically under siege from every side.

Hanfor nodded. "We have little to lose."

"If you think best," Jecks finally grudged.

"I'll write something, and then let you read it," Anna said. "You would know better what phrases would work best." She offered a smile, and got a faint one in return. Lord, politics again, even with Jecks.

The white-haired lord nodded politely.

"We'll have to work out something to deal with Suhl," she said.

"That would be wisest," Jecks offered "Something that will not endanger you."

"I had figured on that." Anna coughed again. "Let's think about that. I need to take care of some things.

How about in another gla.s.s or so?"

After they left, she looked at the closed door, wondering once more how she'd ever gotten into the mess, or how everything she did seemed to hurt the best people.

Life wasn't ever fair. By all rights. Daffyd, who'd been loyal, supportive, and talented, should have been in charge of her players. He and the players who had supported her early on were all dead. Jecks'

daughter Alasia should have been planning the campaign that lay ahead, but she was dead. Lord Hryding should still have held Flossbend, and Anna didn't dare take the time even to investigate that mess.

In the meantime, at least, she could send a scroll to Flossbend, reserving her right to name another administrator in place of the b.i.t.c.hy Anientta for her spoiled son Jeron. That would keep Anientta from causing too much trouble, for now, anyway. She sighed, reaching for the parchment. At least, she could do that.

38.

MANSUUS, MANSUUR.

I have scrolls from both Nubara and from Rabyn," Konsstin says wearily, his large right hand pushing a lock of brown-and-silver hair off his forehead. "Would that Kestrin were older."

Ba.s.sil nods.

"I found Jyrllar too late, after Kandeth, and so my heir is younger than Rabyn. Would that he will be more perceptive and less vicious."

The younger man nods once more.

"What do you think they say?" Konsstin leans back in the heavy silver chair, his eyes flicking toward the window to his right, and the gray clouds that seem to hover not far beyond the balcony.

"Neither is happy with the other?" suggests the raven-haired officer in the lancer's maroon uniform.

"Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant." The Liedfuhr stands and lifts a scroll from the slightly smeared polish of the walnut suiface. "The snake and the lizard, and they do not like each other."

"You feared this," Ba.s.sil says quietly.

"I feared it, and what we fear too often comes to pa.s.s. Is that because we fear it, and that fear becomes embodied in our lives?"

"That I could not say, sire.''

"You repeat my words and refuse to offer judgment. How judicious of you. Are you, too, becoming a courtier?"

"I would hope not, sire."

"You would hope not?" Konsstin laughs harshly. "What would you advise, my dear advisor Ba.s.sil?" asks the Liedfuhr. "My own sworn agent, the good Nubara, advises me, most delicately, that my grandson is indeed the viper that his mother was, except worse. My loving grandson informs me, most properly, that his guardian is intent on a.s.suming full rule in his own name in Neserea, and that Nubara is a scaly lizard who oozes oily charm to disguise his claws."

Ba.s.sil swallows.

"So what should I do?" Konsstin's voice is level. "What do you advise, oh, forthright Ba.s.sil who would not hope to be a courtier?"

After a long moment, the officer answers. "Let the two of them make enough of a stew that the Neserean people will welcome your presence."

"You would advise me to let the situation worsen?" Konsstin sets down the scroll, and it rerolls itself and skitters off the desk. The Liedfuhr ignores it, and his eyes burn down at the lancer officer. "To let a poor situation worsen?"

A faint sheen coats Ba.s.sil's forehead, and he swallows. "Yes, sire. If you take sides now, you are seen as interfering, and the Neserean people will oppose you, as will either Nubara or Rahyn, depending upon whom you back and how."

"So... I should do nothing for now?"

"Send each scrolls telling them that you believe that they should work together to ensure the continuity of the line and the stability of Neserea. Suggest that the growing presence of the Sea-Priests means they should cooperate."

"You are more devious than Rabyn, Ba.s.sil," says Konsstin almost lazily, glancing toward the drizzle outside for a moment. "And what of Dumar in this dissonant mess?"

Ba.s.sil swallows again. "Ah . . . I would let the sorceress deal with that."

"She lies wounded, and you would have her be our shield against the Sea-Priests?"

"If you order the lancers south now, will they go? If they are loyal to Rabyn, he would not wish that. Nor would Nubara, if they are loyal to him. I have no better answer, sire."

"Nor I, Ba.s.sil." Konsstin smiles wickedly. "We will have to move quickly, and before long. Convey my order to the third and fifth lancers to be ready to leave Mansuus within the next three weeks. Send a scroll to the eighth and tenth in Deleator requesting that they stand ready."

"And the scrolls to the sorceress, the Council of Wei, and the Matriarchy?"

"We will wait a little longer. Timing is everything. Ba.s.sil. Everything." The Liedfuhr nods.

Ba.s.sil bows and departs.

In the growing dimness of his study, Konsstin turns back to view the darkening storm.

39.

Anna wanted to wipe her forehead in the heat of the shuttered quarters at Synfal. With the shutters closed, she got a brighter image in the wall mirror, but she wished she had a reflecting pool.

Stop wishing for what you don't have, and keep your thoughts on the spell.

She and Jecks studied the image in the wall mirror. Hanfor held a grease marker over a large section of heavy brown paper on the table. The arms commander sketched rapidly, his eyes darting from the mirror to the paper and back again.

"There is the mound where they would use their evil weapon," the white-haired lord pointed out.

"We're not going to get that close again." Anna's chest still throbbed at times.

"What if we marched down this side road?" Jecks asked. "We could come up on the flat here. The ground rises here, it looks like."

"We would do well to stay farther north. I would not want to have the horse too close to the ditches and the creek there," Hanfor pointed with his left hand momentarily, before he continued sketching. Despite the heavy tunic, he looked cool and composed.

Anna envied him. She felt overheated, sweaty, and bedraggled, and it was barely midmorning.

"Then we could move across the lower side of the field," Jecks suggested, as he glanced toward Hanfor.

The gray-haired veteran armsman nodded. "There would be room to wheel, even if we were surprised."

"We'd better not be surprised," Anna interjected.

"It can happen," Jecks cautioned.

Anna supposed it could, but the idea behind using the mirror as an aerial observer was to avoid such unpleasant surprises. She held out a hand, feeling the heat building in the dense wooden frame. "That's enough for now." She released the spell after she spoke.

"I have much, but I have not all of it," Hanfor said.

"Later," she promised, opening the shutters, and standing in front of the light breeze, then turning to let the air dry the sweat-soaked back of her shirt.

"I am glad you thought of showing such an image on the gla.s.s," Hanfor said. "Is it possible to do that in the field? Can you do that without straining too much?"

"I would think so." Anna said, "if I don't have to hold the image long. I'd be closer to what the mirror displays."

"She must use such skills far enough from the traitors that she can regain her fill strength before...

confronting them." Jecks coughed once, then turned to study what Hanfor had drawn.

Anna frowned as she realized that none of them had even mentioned negotiating with Sargol, Gylaron, or Dencer. Her eyes dropped to her linen shirt and the thin dressing beneath. She didn't feel like negotiating or being charitable. She'd been charitable to begin with, and it had gotten her nowhere with the rebels.

She laughed, thinking that she sounded like one of the Vietnam warhawks that Avery had been so opposed to back in their student days. Somehow, your perspective changed when you were the target.

Jecks lifted his eyebrows, but Anna didn't enlighten him. She didn't want to try to explain hawks or doves or Vietnam, even in general terms. How could she explain a war where the generals weren't allowed to be generals, where the side that won lost almost all the battles, and how people Jecks would have regarded as peasants forced an end to the fighting.

'How long before Herstat arrives?" she asked.

"Another few days. He will hasten."

Anna hoped so. There were too many things still left undone. "Jimbob can remain here with Herstat and a small detachment.''