"She does not seem overly joyed," said Liende, riding on Anna's right.

"Would you be?" answered Anna.

"Aye, and it would be an incautious woman to remain out with strange armsmen pa.s.sing," observed Jecks.

A brown-and-white dog ambled out across the dirt of the main street, then scurried behind a wooden shed at the sound of hoofs.

A rail-thin and bearded man stood on a wooden porch in the shade of a signboard so faded that Anna couldn't make out the letters. The narrow building itself was of the umber brick and had a cracked and faded red-tile roof.

The man looked like he wanted to spit in the street as the sorceress rode past, but his face twisted, and he took a deep breath.

"Peace to you," Anna said, wondering what other phrase she could have used.

The bearded man nodded, reluctantly.

The center of the town was an enlarged crossroads without a central square or a statue. A handful of two- storied brick buildings sprawled along the main road. Anna spotted the faded crossed candles of a chandlery, and the three wagons lined up before it. Around the square were stationed armsmen with bared blades. Another ten or twelve formed a line into the chandlery.

Hanfor gestured, and Anna turned her mount toward the weathered veteran.

"Do we have enough golds to pay for this?" asked Anna, as she reined up.

In turn, Hanfor glanced at Jecks.

"We have some..."

"But we really shouldn't use them?" she asked. "All right. Promise to pay. We'll have to send them later."

Her. eyes fixed on Jecks. "We need to keep our word on this." Then she turned to Hanfor. "Keep a record of what we take and what it is worth."

"Yes, Lady Anna."

"I mean it." Her words were firm, almost cold. In the end, all she had was her word. She'd learned that a long time ago, and that was one thing that hadn't changed. And it wouldn't.

100.

The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows, and Anna pulled down the brim of the floppy hat. Her shirt was soaked, as was the inside band of the hat, and her hair felt gummy and sticky.

The air was still, without even a hint of a breeze. The road bore the traces of the still-retreating Dumaran armsmen. Anna's last scrying with the mirror showed Ehara and his forces nearly at the Falche, another day and a half from where the Defalkan forces slowly rode westward.

Anna chewed the bread slowly as Farinellli carried her toward the low sun. She glanced back over her shoulder as the column pa.s.sed the dek-stone. Her eyes blurred as she tried to focus on the words Hrissar-2 d.

Hrissar was a large town with five squares, lots of granaries, and no hills. She'd blanketed the place with so many armsmen-seeking spells that she felt her eyes were swimming, but she'd found nothing. Even the local armsmen had been conscripted and dragged off by Ehara, and the shutters and doors to the town were closed After four days of riding, and using enemy-seeking spells, in every town near or along the main road, she was tired. So were the players.

"You cannot keep casting spells such," said Jecks quietly. "Not if you must cast a large spell when we meet Lord Ehara."

"I know. I know," said Anna tiredly, wiping stale dark crumbs from around her mouth before she reached for the water bottle. "I'll have to get some rest tonight and take it easy tomorrow, but there aren't that many towns between us and the river."

"They are small enough that you need not spell them now. Hrissar was the only town worthy of the name."

"I know that, too." The sorceress not only knew it, but felt it. She was so tired she could also feel the drain of the enchanted shield, a spell Jecks had practically demanded she renew as soon as they had camped the second time outside the Vale of Cuetayl.

"You are the sole force of Defalk," Hanfor said mildly.

"Now," she answered. "Now." Somehow, some way, she had to build an army worthy of the name. She couldn't keep riding from border to border and beyond. Had conquerors like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan felt that way? Oh... more delusions of grandeur? You're a great conqueror now?

The sorceress pushed away the nagging thoughts, reaching instead for the remaining water bottle.

"Have you considered the spell against ensorcelled weapons?" pressed the white-haired lord.

"Lord Jecks," Anna said wearily, "in the last year I have had to develop and learn dozens-scores--of spells. Today, we scoured a small city. Right now, my brain is frazzled, and 1 couldn't come up with another if Ehara or the Evult appeared on the road in front of us."

"...frazzled' . . . betimes, she speaks strangely..." The murmur from a guard somewhere behind Anna, a guard whose voice she didn't recognize, filled the comparative stillness.

The squeaking of a provisions wagon drifted from the east on a sudden puff of wind that cooled the sweating sorceress momentarily, then stilled.

"More than betimes I speak strangely," Anna said hoa.r.s.ely. "More than betimes. Dissonance, I'm strange all the time. Who else would he riding through Dumar in this heat? Mad dogs and Englishwomen?" She laughed.

"I think you need rest," said Jecks. "And soon."

"The regent is losing it?" The sorceress shook her head. "Not yet. Not until we put an end to the Sea- Priests in Liedwabr. Chains. ... Who do they think they are?"

Jecks extended a chunk of stale bread.

Anna took it, and began to eat slowly. Low blood sugar? Emotional overextension? Fatigue? She kept her thoughts to herself as she forced herself to keep eating.

Her eyes caught a pinpoint of light, with a reddish glint, in the western sky-Darksong. the moon of dark sorcery. of power that led to the need for using yet more power. Was that what she faced? Was she becoming the Clear-song sorceress of evil for the best of motives?

101 MANSUUS, MANSUUR.

And her forces are approaching the Falche north of Dumaria." Ba.s.sil clears his throat and waits.

"She has destroyed two fleets of the Maitre of Sturinn and is pushing Lord Ehara back to the Falche?

With how many armsmen?" Konsstin unfastens the blue cloak and walks to the open door. His forehead is beaded with sweat, and he stands in the doorway between the study and the balcony, letting the slight western breeze blow around him.

"Less than thirtyscore, sire," answers Ha.s.sil. "Perhaps less than twenty-live. She cast a spell on the Sturinnese lancers, and they burst into flame. Ehara and his men retreated."

"Have the Sea-Priests sent no sorcerers themselves? Dissonance knows, they've spent years training them."

"They sent three, or more, according to your seers. All but the strongest died in the flood she sent down the Falche."

"I'd wager the Maitre loved that." Konsstin chuckles, but the sound fades as his eyes darken. "The harmonies help us if she can build a true force of armsmen, and that's where she's headed." The Liedfuhr's eyes drift eastward and to the city below, beyond the port and the triangle where the Ansul and the Latok join to form the mighty Toksul. The angular sail of a river trader billows as a gust of wind crosses the river. "We need not a.s.sist her in that.'' He shakes his head. "Take notes."

"Yes, sire." Ba.s.sil bobs his head.

"And listen! Try to understand why I'm ordering these things." His fingers touch his brown-and-silver beard. "Double the bonus for reentered contracts for armsmen. Have recruiters from anywhere else exiled or imprisoned. Announce the formation of new companies of lancers. Give them honorable-sounding names, and find the best officers from the existing companies. I don't care about names. Put the officers we have to placate in charge of things they cannot damage too greatly and keep track of them until they make a mistake for which they can be exiled or executed." Konsstin walks onto the balcony to the north end, which retains a modic.u.m of shade.

Ba.s.sil follows, marker and paper in hand.

"Also, make, sure that no one ships any iron from the Deleatur mines eastward-to Ranuak or anywhere else."

Ba.s.sil lifts his dark and bushy eyebrows.

"Buy it, if you have to. Use the procurator's funds, That's what they're for. And horses-draft a dispatch- two dispatches-one to my darling grandson and one to the lizard Nubara. Tell them that any of the High Gra.s.sland nomads that trade horses to Defalk are to be executed in whatever is the most unfavored fashion."

"The conquest of Dumar... if she manages it... is that such a threat?"

"Let us see, Ba.s.sil. There was the Evult, reputedly the greatest sorcerer of a generation. She buried him in hot lava, and a volcano named after her still grows in the northern Ostfels. In less than a year, she has managed to unify a county no one has been able to govern in generations. Half of Ebra already acknowledges her as sovereign. By the way, send more coins to Hadrenn. Not many, but enough to make him grateful." Konsstin pauses... "She's killed the ruler of Neserea and stolen some of the best officers from his forces. That mined the morale of those left. She's on the verge of adding Dumar to her empire." Konsstin turns on the dark-haired lancer officer. "She's done all of this in less than two years and with fewer armsmen than we have as a casual guard in Hafen, where no one's threatened in hundreds of years. Are you going to tell me I shouldn't be worried?

Oh, and don't forget, she just killed off another handful of some of the stronger sorcerers in Liedwahr without even realizing she had."

Ba.s.sil nods, not meeting the older man's eyes.

"That doesn't even count the fact that she's remaking the whole society by giving women power.

Do you want every scheming lady in Mansuur thinking she can run lands better than her consort?" Konsstin coughs twice before continuing. "If the Sea-Priests can't stop her in Dumar, the way they feel about women, they'll send every vessel and armsman they have into Ebra or Neserea."

"But she is their enemy."

"That's true enough, but they'll want to flank her, and the Matriarch would invite the sorceress into Encora in a moment if the Maitre attacked Ranuak."

"The SouthWomen wouldn't like that."

"They wouldn't That's true. But given the choice between the sorceress and chains, just whom would they choose?"

"I see."

"No, you don't. If the Maitre is thrown out of Dumar and he doesn't or can't attack Ranuak, exactly where will he attack?"

"Us?"

"That's a possibility. We're closer than Ebra, but we're the third choice. More likely, next summer he could flood the Bitter Sea with ships and take Esaria." Konsstin offers a twisted smile.

"That would solve my problem with Rabyn, but I'd probably have to ally Mansuur with the sorceress to stop Sturinn."

"Maybe the Maitre will seek out Ebra?" Ba.s.sil bobs his head. "That might be better."

"For a time... perhaps." Konsstin pauses. "We will see. Now... hmmm... what else? Oh, I suppose, you can ship some of that extra iron plate or ingots that the foundries in Deleatar will have left over to Bertmynn. Some of it, anyway. The rest of it... well, we need more blades, and iron quarrels and crossbows."

''Yes, sire."

"That should keep you busy, Ba.s.sil."

"Yes, sire." The dark-haired lancer backs out of the study.

From the small patch of shade on the northern end of the palace balcony, Konsstin stares westward, beyond Mansuus, beyond the mighty Toksul, in the direction of the Western Sea.

102.

The muted sound of harnesses and horses rose slowly as the light brightened outside the silken tent now off-white from all the imbedded red dust and grit. Anna found the bucket of water and splashed her face and hands, washing slowly, then pulled on her clothes, and finally, her boots, listening to the low murmurs of the guards.

"...she up yet?" That was Fhurgen's deep voice.

"...not about to look. You want to?" asked Rickel. Fhurgen offered a muted laugh.

"You been with her longer than any of us...Why are we here?"

"I could guess, Rickel. I won't. 1 know that she does nothing without a reason, and most folks who wager against her lose. Them that don't, die. Hard for mighty lords like Jecks, it is." Another low laugh followed. "A woman doing what they couldn't."

The words got even less distinct, and flashes of light flickered in front of Anna's eyes. After deciding she'd better eat, she sat on the end of the cot under the silk canopy of her tent, slowly forcing her way through the strong yellow cheese wedges. She couldn't afford a repet.i.tion of her performance the afternoon before.

The bread was so stale and hard that her trousers were covered with crumbs by the time she crunched through what was left. Still, she could stand without feeling as though she would topple over.

At the sound of Jecks' voice. Anna washed down the last of the cheese, and the last crumbs of the hard dark bread, then stood and stretched before opening the thin flap of the tent and stepping into the half gray, half-rose light of dawn.

"Good morning." She smiled although she still felt logy.

"How do you feel this morning?" asked Jecks.

"Better than yesterday afternoon, if that'.s what you mean. I ate more this morning, and that will help.

Yesterday was a long day." She grimaced. "So was the day before." And the day before that, and that..."

"I worry that you attempt too much, Lady Anna."

Behind Jecks, by the tent, Anna caught the hint of a nod from Fhurgen. Or she thought she did.

"Sometimes, like now, I do too." She paused. "I know that we have to keep the Sturinnese out of Dumar."

"It is the weakest land in Liedwahr. Now." He smiled, and the warm hazel eyes smiled as well.

Anna smiled back in spite of herself He tries... and he is intelligent and handsome...and he does look like... No, he is more handsome than Robert Mitchum.... If only he'd understand a little more...

'I would suggest that we only ride to Gewyrt today. That is a good ten deks short of the river hills." His smile turned half-apologetic, half-worried.

"You're saying that the sorceress needs rest before she attempts another battle?"

"So do your players."

Jecks was probably right about that, too. When he was worried, he had good cause. It was what he didn't worry about that caused problems between them.

"You're right." She offered another smile, and absently, couldn't help smiling inside as the handsome and muscular lord, who tried so hard, smiled back.