"Veria. Please join us," invites the gray-haired Matriarch with a pleasant smile upon her round face.

"You expected me." Veria slips into one of the two vacant chairs.

"Of course. What has happened will affect the SouthWomen greatly." The Matriarch sips her tea.

"Greatly. Your presence will allow them to understand what has happened."

"The sorceress tried to build a great dam with sorcery," Veria begins. "and it failed-"

"It took a mighty regenflut. and the dam did not fail; the ground around the dam failed." The Matriarch corrects her dark-haired daughter with a smile. "Even now the dam holds together, and it will do so for longer than any of us will endure."

'Moth-Matriarch, does that not show her weaknesses still?" Veria's fingers lighten around the pale blue cup.

"Veria, if you will permit your aging father," Ulgar says with a smile as he steps up to the table with a green-and-golden ceramic pot in his hand, "I will refill your cup.

"Thank you." Veria's fingers loosen their grip on the fluted cup that matches the pot, and she inclines her head. "Thank you, Father."

"The sorceress has weaknesses, as you say. Veria," answers the Matriarch. "As do we all. The weakness was not in her sorcery, but in her failure to understand that the rock to which she anch.o.r.ed her sorcery was not so strong as either she or her spell. And the spell was pure Clear-song."

"Clearsong or no, it was a failure," points out Veria.

"Sister. . . that failure destroyed the entire fleet of the Sea-Priests," says Alya. "Not a ship of those in Narial remains."

"Even her failures are successes," says Veria. ''This cannot continue. The harmonies will not permit it."

"The harmonies permit what they will," suggests the Matriarch. "I feel that this failure was not the success you suggest. She will pay for it; she has paid for everything, and the hannonies do not permit us to escape. With the forces she has wielded, even less will they permit her to evade fate."

"Yet you support her?" asks Veria.

Alya looks at Veria, but the dark-haired woman refuses to meet Alya's eyes.

"1 support the harmonies." The Matriarch smiles. "So does she; as she understands them. So should the South Women."

"You said this would affect the SouthWomen," Veria suggests.

"It will. Lord Ehara and the Sturinnese cannot accept such a devastation. All their resources will go to Dumar. They will not treat with the freewomen of Elawha, and they will kill them immediately and as quickly as possible."

"You had said that such would occur because Sturinn was backing Bertmynn. Now you say that it will happen because the Sea-Priests are not backing Beitmynn." Veria snorts-loudly.

"They will no longer suggest. They will send more coins and fewer arrmsmen, and the price of those coins will be higher, and paid with the blood of the freewomen and any who oppose Bertmynn and the plans of the Sea-Priests."

'You merely seek another way to forecast failure for those women who wish to be free."

"The women of Ebra will he free, in spite of your plots and blades, Veria. They will be free because of the prices that the sorceress will pay, and you will suffer"

"Are you threatening me?" Veria sets down the green fluted cup.

"No, my daughter." The Matriarch shakes her head sadly. "I know what the harmonies demand. They de- mand much, and they demand more of those who supply blades for others to fight their battles than of those who lift them for their own ends."

Ulgar slurps his tea noisily. As the others look at him, he adds. "That is why the sorceress will prevail.

She does what she must, and then asks others."

The Matriarch nods, bat her eyes are sad, and fixed upon Veria.

90.

The sorceress glanced at the reflecting pool, then cleared her throat, beginning another vocalise. After three, her voice was firm, cords clear, and she lifted the lutar and sang.

"Show in Dumar, high and true, what the raging flow did do...

Show me now, and show me all, of how it struck and what did fall..."

Anna forced herself to lower the lutar gently, even as her eyes were drawn into the scenes in the reflecting pool, even as she heard the indrawn breaths of Hanfor and Jecks.

A muddy sea tossed objects on an equally mud-drenched beach-spars. sections of rope, limp, doll-like figures in muddy white uniforms. Farther along the beach were the remnants of a ship, timbers shattered, jagged ends protruding from the waters like spears.

"The Maitre of Sturinn will not be pleased," said Jecks.

That's an understatement, and then some. Anna did not speak, letting her eyes take in the scenes that followed each other, so many that they could not all show in the pool at once.

Another scene displayed brown waters swirling around piles of timbers smashed against riverbank, a bank where gra.s.ses and trees had been pressed flat or swept away, where long patches of red earth had crumbled into the waters. Carca.s.ses of animals, scattered human bodies, tree limbs, and debris littered the riverbanks.

Another vista showed rows upon rows of roofless and collapsed houses. below a bluff. Behind the collapsed houses was a heap of wet earth, from the edge of which protruded walls and timbers. The wet earth had peeled away from the bluff.

"Dumaria, I think," murmured Jecks. "The lower part is on the river."

River water piled up behind and flowed through and over and around a long heap of stone blocks that had once been a bridge.

The pool showed another town, a small one, where nothing remained but foundation walls and a sea of mud, and figures toiling through the mud, searching for bodies or belongings, or both.

Anna's eyes burned and her stomach twisted. She'd wanted to avoid that kind of destruction and even her attempts at that had created a disaster, another kind, but a disaster, possibly even a greater disaster than killing thousands of armsmen. Which you will now have to do...anyway....

Another score of scenes followed before she choked out the release spell. She had to sing it twice, because she couldn't hold the words the first time.

'I never...planned...for that," she finally said after lowering the lutar and setting it on the writing table.

"We know," Jecks answered, "but Lord Ehara and the Sea-Priests do not."

"Surely, Lord Ehara will request the Sturinnese leave," murmured Hanfor.

"Never," said Jecks flatly. "Now... now he cannot give in. His own people will destroy him unless he attacks us. Within days; he will march on Defalk."

"He will march after such destruction?"

"You speak as an arms commander. You speak as one who sees the power a sorceress wields." Jecks shook his head. "The people and the holders of Dumar will not care. They have suffered great injury, and, unless Lord Ehara redresses that injury, they will turn on him. He has no choice."

"He is a fool."

"Perhaps," Jecks admitted, "but he will be a live fool. At worst, he will live long enough to attack."

Anna winced. "Hanfor, you'd better get the men ready to ride. We'll try to reach the road below Stromwer before Ehara' s lancers do."

"He will not hurry that quickly," Jecks said with a bitter smile. "He will have to re-form his armsrnen, and find a way across the Falche. You left no bridges and no fords, I wager, Lady Anna."

Anna wasn't about to take that bet. She nodded. "I need to think."

"Of course." Jecks bowed.

So did Hanfor.

After the two had left, Anna lifted the lutar again. The first spellsong was to seek her enemies of power, and she got the same images as always-the young man in brown with the hatred-filled eyes, the blonde seer of Nordwei, and the tall Sea-Priest. Still... neither Menares nor Dythya had discovered who or where the young sorcerer might be, and her spells .had revealed nothing more.

As for the Sea-Priest, this time he was with Ehara, and the two were on horseback, apparently leading a column of armsmen.

Anna shook her head and released the spell. She redrafted the danger spell and sang it. The reflecting pool gave her the image of the Sea-Priest with Ehara. Another spell, and she was able to determine that they were somewhere between Narial and Durnaria-at least they were beside the Faiche, and she would have guessed they were south of Dumaria.

"Good...." If so, that gave her some time. Not a lot, but some.

She walked to the window, and wiped her sweating forehead.

91.

Anna turned and glanced back along the road to the north. Under the hot late-morning sun, the column of armsmen seemed to stretch a dek behind her; with the wagons and their mounted escort out of sight behind the low rolling hills. The threescore armsmen from Birfels and yet another two score from Gylaron had boosted her force to over four hundred. That had meant the need for-more supplies-and wagons, and spare mounts.

The sorceress looked ahead at the Sudbergs rising behind the steeper southern hills ahead. Already, the green bean fields of Lerona were giving way to meadows and woodlots and an occasional vineyard. And the soil was turning back into a redder clay. Peasants and farmers toiled in the fields, not approaching the armsmen, but not bolting for cover, either. That was an improvement from the last ride to Stromwer.

She blotted her forehead before she took out the third water bottle and drank. After four days on the road, they still had another two before they reached the rugged cliffs of Stromwer.

She had begun to understand why so many of the English kings had always seemed to be somewhere other than London-and she didn't like how she was finding it out. There was always some problem that no one else could handle, and it took forever to get anywhere by horse, even on comparatively dry roads.

Slowly, she replaced the water bottle, looking to her right as Jecks cleared his throat.

"Have you decided on the tariffs for the rivermen?" he asked.

"I can't give them relief without opening the door to everyone who has problems, and then there won't be any money left to defend Defalk." She wanted to shake her head. Everybody wanted something. The rivermen wanted relief. Lord Tybel wanted to. take over his grandchildren's lands, and wanted Anna's approval for the stunt. The Rider of Heinene wanted coins to buy arms and more horses to defend the gra.s.slands against the raiders from the High Gra.s.slands across the border in Neserea. Hanfor and Himar wanted more coins to hire and train more armsmen. Hadrenn needed coins to hold off Bertmynn... and so it went.

"Lady Anna?" Jecks' voice was so deferential that she knew he was going to ask something even more disturbing.

"Yes." She turned in the saddle.

"You said that the Sea-Priest is a wizard, Lady Anna?"

"The one who's always with Lord Ehara is.

"He could enchant arrows and crossbow bolts, then?"

"I'm sure he could."

"You can sense danger only in the mirror?" Jecks was definitely being delicate.

"You're afraid he'll come up with some magical surprise when I'm preoccupied?"

"Could that not happen?"

Jecks was right, but it was one of the last things Anna wanted to think about. She was hot and sweaty, and mud had spattered everything she wore. At least there wasn't any dust but the riding was slower, and the wagons had lagged behind the main body more than a gla.s.s or two every day. Finding halfway dry areas to camp had been a problem as well, especially the first two nights. The third night had been at Lerona., where Gylaron had been pleased to see them, and even more pleased, Anna suspected, to see them leave.

He had been gracious enough to send an additional two score of his own armsmen, to be paid by the Regency, although Anna had not made it clear she was not officially requesting levies. She would need those later, if she had to face both Konsstin and Bertmynn at the same time.

'I suppose it could," she admitted.

Jecks waited for her to draw the inevitable conclusion.

"And you think I should come up with some sorcerous answer?" Anna finally asked.

"I am not a sorcerer. We have no others here," Jecks answered with a smile.

"What kind of sorcery did you have in mind, my good Lord Jecks?" asked Anna with exaggerated politeness.

"Something which would protect you whether you were immediately aware of it or not."

"I don't think pure enchantment would work. I could perhaps strengthen this breastplate."

"That would only protect your chest."

Anna nodded. "So now I should carry a shield? How could I use the lutar?"

Jecks frowned. "That would be difficult."

"Extremely."

He smiled. "Perhaps you should not carry it at all."

"A shield I didn't carry? What use would that be?"

"A small round shield. It could rest like an Ebran shield-forward of your knee, in a holder with an open top. You could enchant it so that it would fly up if anything threatened you."