The column neared the distance until Anna could make out the dusty figure of a man seated on the cart seat.

Abruptly, with a fearful glance toward the armed riders that Anna led, the driver turned his single horse cart down a side lane that was little more than a rutted path between fields filled with green shoots. Anna didn't know the plants, but thought they might be beans of some sort.

Dust puffed from under the waist-high wheels and from the hoofs of the bony gray horse as the cart bounced southward down the uneven lane and away from Anna's force.

"Sargol has spread the word," said Hanfor dourly. "We are here to destroy and pillage." His eyes followed. the dust raised by the farmer and his cart.

"Best we disappoint their expectations," growled Jecks. "Save for Sargol himself."

"No pillaging." Anna said. "Destruction will be bad enough."

Hanfor nodded.

They rode eastward, not speaking, to the sound of hoofs on the dusty clay.

43.

ENCORA, RANUAK.

The Matriarch descends the wide polished limestone steps to the floor of the Grain Exchange. Men and women standing around the raised platform in the center watch the tally poles, as the prices are changed periodically. Several glance toward the round-faced and gray-haired woman in pale blue on the stairs, their eyes alternating between the tally changes and the Matriarch.

A tall thin woman in a sea-blue tunic and trousers steps to the front of the platform, and a gong reverberates through the high-ceilinged s.p.a.ce, the tone echoing off the stone walls and columns.

"Trading is temporarily suspended," she announces, "for this visit of the Matriarch." She extends a hand in a vague gesture toward the older woman. "We would not wish. any to be distracted or to lose coins by another's distraction."

"You are most kind, Abslim," answers the Matriarch as she nears the head of the Exchange.

"What brings you to our humble Exchange?"

"Me? The harmonies, I suppose. I had heard rumors that the Exchange was considering a surcharge on handling grain and transactions that involved Defalk. I thought I would come to see for myself"

A series of murmurs whisper across the polished white floor.

"The surcharge was begun yesterday. There is much unrest in Defalk."

The Matriarch nods as she proceeds through and around the traders and toward the trading platform at the south end of the hall. "Are you imposing a surcharge on Ebra? Or Dumar? Or Neserea?"

There is a moment of stillness.

"Not at the moment."

"Ebra has a civil war brewing and no central government. Neserea has a struggle between an outside regent and an underage lord. Dumar has accepted the presence of a Sturinnese fleet. Do not those merit consideration?"

"We will consider such."

"Ah. . . Abslim. . . why does the Exchange deal so harshly with Defalk?"

Abslim squares her shoulders. Finally, she speaks. "Is it not true that the sorceress continues the old ways in Defalk? She has announced that the new heir to Synfal will be young Lord Jimbob. She has not allowed any of the consorts to dead lords to become full n.o.ble holders in their own rights, but only administrators for male heirs." The tall and thin woman in sea-blue tunic and trousers smiles coldly across the floor of the Exchange. "This lady Anna may be a woman, but she has done little or nothing for women."

"That may be, although I would suspect you have not stated all that has occurred. Still," muses the Matriarch theatrically, as she steps from the trading floor to the platform, "what has the sorceress to do with the cost of transactions involving Defalk?"

"It raises their costs," answers Abslim. "Because you are the Matriarch, we have acceded to your request to allow normal credit to the lords of southern Defalk. Now we find that they are in revolt against the very regent who has guaranteed that such loans would be repaid."

"She never guaranteed more than repayment of past debts," answers the round-faced Matriarch quietly, yet her voice carries, and the whispers die. "She has repaid half of a debt she did not incur. How does that make her responsible for guaranteeing the debts of those who rise against her?"

"She is the Regent of Defalk."

"There is no authority in Ebra, but you have no surcharge there," points out the Matriarch. "You have oft said that the price itself knows the problems of trade. Why have you changed that?"

There is no answer.

"Abslim, what do you desire?"

"I desire that the Matriarch use her power and the harmonies to improve the lot of women throughout Defalk, not to impose her wishes through the Exchange."

"You are imposing your wishes through the Exchange. Banning further loans to Defalk reflected your wishes. Or those of the SouthWomen." The Matriarch smiles.

"The marketplace is always right," says Abslim. The Matriarch shakes her head. "The prices set by the market are right, in the end, but that does not mean you or the traders are right." A gentle smile follows.

"You know that, and so do the harmonies." She turns. "1 have said what I will say."

The whispers on the trading floor remain low until the round-faced Matriarch has climbed the stairs and vanished.

Abslim's face remains as cold as the limestone columns, long after trading resumes.

44.

The dusty road wound around yet another orchard covered hill, with a narrow strip of bean fields sep- arating road and orchard. The fields appeared to have been recently tended, but nothing moved in the still morning air, warm already, with the sun barely above the trees and low hills.

The road was empty as well. It had been all the way from Cheor, except for an occasional dog, one or two farm carts that vanished upon seeing the riders, and a handful of older women in the fields, most of whom slipped out of sight behind trees or hedgerows once the riders appeared.

Anna sipped the last drops from her second water bottle, then replaced it in the holder. She readjusted the uncomfortable breastplate, hoping she wouldn't need it, but knowing that she should get used to wearing it. Under the light armor that rested too heavily on her, the scar from the crossbow bolt still itched, and the itching was worse because the plate made her sweat more. The slash on her arm itched as well.

"Glories of warfare, Liedwahr style." she murmured, half wondering, far from the first time, how a singer who'd hated fantasy had ended up in a world with two small moons, music magic, and medieval warfare.

"G.o.d, or the harmonies, have a nasty sense of humor."

"Pardon, Lady Anna?" asked Jecks.

"Nothing, Lord Jecks. I was just muttering to myself" As you find you're doing more and more.

Jecks nodded, but did not pursue the conversation. Riding beside Jecks, Hanfor studied his map, and oc- casionally spoke to the riders who shuttled messages to and from the scouts.

The sorceress slowed Farinelli as they neared a brick marker-a road stone that read, "Osuyl-2 d." She peered eastward, but could see nothing except those scouts who rode almost a dek ahead and the fields, which slanted gradually upward and ended in arise about a dek away. Osuyl had to be beyond the low hill.

When the column halted, so did some of the scouts, while a single rider eased over the rise and out of sight along the road toward Osuyl.

"How far to Suhl?" asked Jecks.

"Four deks beyond Osuyl, from what we figured, and more to the south," said Hanfor.

''Time for the mirror," Anna said. The intelligence would be valuable, and she wanted time to eat and recover after using it. She reined up and waited until she was sure Hanfor had signaled Alvar and gotten the armsmen to halt in reasonable order.

Then she dismounted and extracted the mirror from its padded leather case atop her saddlebags. Next came the lutar.

A good thing you don't travel heavy, she reflected as she tuned the instrument.

Finally, she glanced at Jecks, then Hanfor. "Ready?"

They both nodded, Jecks first.

Her fingers touched the strings, and she began the spell-song.

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

The image in the mirror on the roadside gra.s.s was clear. On the mound she had discovered weeks earlier was a huge crossbow, unattended and attached to a log frame set into the ground. Below the vacant summit in the meadow between the keep and the mound were more than a score of tents. Several strings of mounts were lined up, as though on some form of tieline, to the north of the tents.

Anna frowned. Weren't they keeping tabs on her? Sargol's forces seemed almost relaxed. What did that mean? She glanced at Hanfor and Jecks. Jecks smiled faintly, but did not speak.

"They have something else planned, I would say, Lady Anna," Hanfor suggested.

Anna released the spell, then set down the lutar and took a long swallow of water from one of the remaining bottles.

"They do not have many armsmen on guard," mused Hanfor. "I do not like that."

Neither did Anna, even if it happened to be early in the day. Setting aside the water bottle, she tried the second spell, ignoring the line of hot and dusty armsmen who lined the road, waiting on equally hot and dusty mounts under a sun getting hotter each moment.

"Danger from Suhl, danger near, show me that danger bright and clear..."

The next image in the gla.s.s was that of fields and a road similar to the one that stretched before them to 0suyi. Orchards crowned the low hills to either side of the road. Anna squinted, trying to discover. . .

something.

"There," murmured Jecks. "The soil is different"

Anna followed his finger, as did Hanfor.

''Pits . . . stakes."

"Blinds there, I'd wager. Archers." Jecks shook his head. "Signs of mounts there."

"Is it just my imagination," Anna asked, "or are there traps all along the direct route to SuhI?"

"That is what your gla.s.s shows," Hanfor pointed out. "They will have scouts on all the main roads."

"Main roads?" Anna had already noted the lack of the wider roads throughout Defalk. "is there another one?"

"There is but one," conceded Hanfor. "They will have scouts on the larger lanes as well."

With his patient tone, Anna felt small. "I'm sorry. I'm feeling b.i.t.c.hy." Who wouldn't riding for days after a lord who's tried to kill you and who's probably got ambushes everywhere?

A quick frown pa.s.sed across Jecks' face, and Hanfor showed no expression at all, both indications that regents weren't supposed to admit b.i.t.c.hiness in public.

Feeling the heat from the gla.s.s, and seeing the gra.s.s next to the frame begin to brown, Anna released the spell, then blotted her forehead, and searched for the water hottIe.

After drinking, Anna decided to try again.

"Show me now and show me clear the way to avoid this danger near...

Like a vision, like a map or plot..."

The mirror remained blank. Anna frowned. Jecks and Hanfor exchanged glances.

The mirror couldn't advise? It could only display. What about showing a lane without armsmen? Would it do that?

"Let's try something else." Anna tried to get the words in her mind. Of course, there's no simple way to do it.

She could sense the impatience of the riders waiting in the hot sun, yet she had to find a way to keep them out of an ambush.

"Show me now and show me clear a lane to SuhI without armsmen near.

Like a vision, like a map or plot..."

This time the gla.s.s showed an image-of a lane leading from a group of buildings-Osuyl?-down a lane that branched to the north of the main clay road. The lane swung around one hill and then swung south uphill through a few small hovels and, then down another lane and through an older and neglected orchard. Beyond the orchard was an open field just to the northeast of the mound containing the enchanted crossbow.

"There are some hovels along this route, but there are no signs of armsmen, noted Jecks. "Not now"

"They will find us soon enough." Hanfor had out the greasemarker and was sketching the route rapidly on his map.

Anna broke the spell, and the image faded. She walked back to Farinelli. She was faintly light-headed, and that bothered her. Three biscuits and several chunks of cheese later, she looked at Jecks and Hanfor.

"If we find that lane, can we get to the field and get set up before they charge us?" she asked Jecks and Hanfor.

"We will find it," averred Hanfor. "It is not far ahead." He turned his mount to the armsman beside him.

"Tell the scouts to look for a lane to the left of the road. It will be shortly past the hill crest. We will take that if they find no signs of mounted armsmen."