"We have. So long as you report victories, little will happen."

"But we don't know for sure-even with my scrying. We haven't seen one scroll from Falcor."

"No . . that is the difficulty with extended campaigns.' Jecks offered a bland smile, "With those in Defalk, all should be well."

"But we don't know."

"No."

"Everyone loves a winner. Let's hope. that's enough.". She paused. "You checked Ehara's treasury?"

"There is little enough there-a few thousand golds, probably what he could not take with him. Mysara- he is the cbief bookkeeper, like Dythya is-he said that Ehara rode off with two large chests. He thought there were two thousand golds in each."

"Dumar is going to pay for this war." Anna shook her head. "But I can't take everything, or it will make things worse."

"Mayhap we can recover the golds."

"I don't think we can count on that."

"The lady Siobion,'' announced Ehurgen from the study door. "At your request."

Both Jecks and Anna stood.

The slender brunette stepped into the study and bowed. "What would you have of me?"

"Your loyalty," Anna said bluntly after Fburgen had closed the study door. "Defalk deserves that at least.

Your consort fomented rebellion in my land."

"What matters my loyalty now? My consort flees you, and you will kill him." A sad smile crossed Siobion's thin lips. "And us, at your pleasure, no matter what you promise now."

Anna wanted to shake her head. "Please sit down."

Siobion eased into the chair directly across the writing table from Anna. her eyes flicking toward Jecks, then back to Anna, who seated herself.

Jecks sat last, with a quirk of his lips, as though at some unspoken jest.

"I probably will kill your consort if he remains in Dumar, if I possibly can," answered Anna. "But someone has to rule this place, and I'm not interested in creating some sort of empire," Anna said. "First, even if I were, it wouldn't last. Those things don't. Second, what's the point?" We can maybe get Jimbob to be a good ruler of Defalk, but an empire would be too much, especially if he takes power young.

"Do not jest with me . . .I beg of you." Siobion's voice was thin, but firm.

"Lady Siobion. I don't jest or joke."

"Many have discovered that, to their rue," added Jecks.

"I really want to clean up this mess in Dumar and go home."

"Did you not create... this mess?"

Anna admired the woman's s s.p.u.n.k, but not her naivete. "Not until your consort started funding rebellions and sending lancers into Defalk." The sorceress squared her shoulders. "Which child of yours is most fit to be Lord of Dumar?"

Siobion pursed her lips, remaining mute.

With a sigh, Anna stood and walked to the bookcase, reclaiming the lutar and tuning it as she stood there.

"Do you want me to enchant your will? Or just drag in all your children?"

Siobion' s eyes widened. "You cannot drag in Haeron. He is with his sire."

"Then he will probably die," Anna said coolly. "Do you wish to tell me..." She turned to Jecks. "Have the remaining children brought in."

"No..." After a moment, Siobion stammered, tears running from her cheeks. "Clehar. He is strong, and he is just."

"You're not doing that to save another?"

"No..." Siobion's voice was low. "Byon is but six, and Feharn five, and Eryhal is still in the cradle."

Anna set the lutar on the thin-planked floor beside the table leg, then looked at Jecks.

The white-haired lord stood and walked to the door, opening it. "Rickel, have Clehar, the son of Lord Ehara, brought here, if you would."

"Yes, ser."

Jecks closed the door and took his seat again.

"No..." sobbed Siobion. "No...he has done little wrong. Spare him.... Please spare him."

Anna looked coldly across the writing table, knowing she must appear a total b.i.t.c.h. She almost didn't care; no one ever seemed to want to take her at face value, and it didn't seem as though that would change anytime soon. "Lady Siobion, you're a.s.suming I'm like your consort. I'm not There's no point in my talking about it, though. No one believes me"

Anna seated herself to wait.

Sidbion fidgeted ever so slightly in the chair.

"Young Lord Clehar," Fhurgen announced, escorting the youth into the room.

Clehar was thin like his mother, but dark-haired like his father, and looked to be slightly younger than Jimbob-eleven or twelve, Anna judged. He stood just in front of his mother's shoulder, his thin lips like his mother's, set tight.

Anna rose and looked at the two. "Try to listen. Try to understand what I am telling you. Even when three lords rebelled against me in Defalk, I did not kill the heirs. The only lands I took were those of one who died without heirs-and his offspring died long before I ever came to Liedwahr. You can believe me or not, but it is true." Anna paused, wondering if anything she said penetrated.

"I sent your consort a scroll, Lady Siobion. I asked for peace between our lands and a thousand golds in payment for the unrest he created in sending armsmen of Dumar into Defalk. Your consort mocked me, and demanded golds of me. I blocked the river, and requested peace and the thousand golds. He refused that. The river destroyed much of Dumaria and Narial, and your consort still refused peace. What choice did I have? To let him continue to send armsmen into my land? I would not have it, and I will not."

Anna's eyes hardened, and she fixed the brunette with them. "You will be loyal to me and Defalk, and you may rule as regent for your son until he is of age.

"Now. It's very simple, Lady Siobion. You are the Lady Regent of Dumar. You will administer Dumar, with the a.s.sistance of who ever I name as your chief armsman. You will also pay for the cost of my coming into Dumar. Once those costs are paid off, you owe Defalk nothing except free and open trade, and resistance to all invaders. And, of course, the continued appointment of who ever the Regency chooses as your chief armsman. We do expect formal friendship. I doubt that any of us will remain too fondly in your thoughts, but blame that on your consort."

"You jest..." Siobion's tone was uncertain, for the first time.

"I don't jest. I never have. All I'm interested in is keeping Defalk strong and independent and keeping the dissonant Sea-Priests out of Liedwahr." Anna paused. "And probably keeping the Liedfuhr out of any place he isn't already."

"You do not intend to make an example of....us?"

"Why?" Anna asked. "All that would do would be to make people mad and wanting to hate Defalk more, especially later. Some already hate me for the flood, but that was your consort's fault, not that any good Dumaran would wish to believe that." She took a deep breath. "If I killed you all, then I'd have to figure out how to govern Dumar, and I'd be spending more time here than in Falcor. It's your land. You can run it. You just have to be loyal to Defalk, and since we don't really want a war, and you can't..." Anna laughed, not quite harshly. "...Why, things should work out."

'How can you trust...?" asked Siobion.

"I can raise enough of a flood to make the last one look like an afternoon rainstorm. Do you want all your main towns and cities washed away again?"

Siobion looked down. "You will not live forever."

"No. I won't. But I hope by then everyone will figure out that peace is easier. . . and more profitable."

Siobion frowned. "Do you think to stop the Sea-Priests?"

"I don't have to," Anna pointed out "You do."

Siobion paled. "You are cruel."

"I'll help, as I can. But would you rather spend the rest of your life in chains, the way the Sturinnese women do?" asked Anna.

"You... leave few choices."

"Your consort left me none," Anna said quietly. Did you really have to invade Dumar... or are you ration- alizing again? "Not if Defalk were to remain independent for long."

Jecks nodded at Anna, and she realized she'd said enough, possibly more than enough.

The sorceress stood. "You may go."

"By your leave, Regent?" asked Siobion. Her hand touched Clehar' s shoulder.

"By your leave?" echoed the dark-haired Clehar.

Anna nodded, watching as the two walked to the study door, opened it, and slipped from sight.

"Did I say too much?" the sorceress asked once Fhurgen again closed the door firmly.

"I would not say such. There was no need to say more."

"I'm becoming such a b.i.t.c.h," Anna mused. '1 don't like it."

"As you said, my lady, the harmonies have left you little choice. As you also made most clear to me..."

Jecks' voice was warm, sympathetic, and Anna wished- for a moment-that he would just hold her. Not long before, she'd wanted to clout him. Would it always be like that?

"d.a.m.n... dissonantly little," she agreed. "Tomorrow, we'd better start after Ehara. The mirror says he's moving slowly, but it'll still take nearly a week to catch him. I just want this to be over."

Jecks frowned momentarily.

"Are you saying it won't ever be over?"

"I had thought to enjoy my lands once Alasia consorted with Barjim." Jecks offered a wry smile. "Now I accompany a warrior sorceress and consider myself lucky to have survived."

"I've never been that angry at you." Anna said with a grin.

"There have been times..." Jecks' voice was ironically rueful.

They laughed, and Anna enjoyed the laughter, pushing away thoughts of the morrow... and those to follow.

114.

Another hot and sweaty afternoon on the road in Dumar, and Anna wondered why she'd even bothered to get her riding clothes clean in Dumaria. Two days on the road in the humid summer air of Dumar, and one of her two sets of trousers and shirts a1ready smelled like she'd spent weeks in it.

The Envar River, smaller even than the Chean in Defalk east of Sorprat, where Anna had yet to rebuild the ford, lay on the south side of the road from Dumaria to Envaryl. The ever-present sheep kept the brush low, and only scattered trees dotted the water course. The land was almost flat, with the stretched-out hills no more than a few yards higher than the river bed. Even to the northwest, where Envaryl lay three more days over the horizon at the base of the southern Mittfels, according to both maps and gla.s.s, the land extended in the same featureless flat plain to the horizon.

Anna leaned forward in the saddle and patted Farinelli on the shoulder. "You're a good fellow."

The gelding continued at an even pace, as if to indicate that, of course, he was, and there was no point in acknowledging such fatuous praise.

The road contained the hoofprints of Ehara's fleeing forces, the only evidence of life along the road, except in the towns, with their boarded doors and shuttered windows.

"What would happen if Ehara escaped us and returned?" she asked. "Would people follow him as read- ily?"

"No" said Jecks, "but it would be better that he- and the heir with him-not escape. Fewer still would cross you."

"Oh? The sorceress who never relents? Who will destroy every hostile armsman in order to enslave an entire land?"

Jecks laughed. "Can you imagine a better reputation in Liedwahr? Do you think Sargol would have spumed your rule had he seen what you have done?"

"Probably not," the sorceress admitted. "But it's force again. Not reason, not intelligence, just force."

"Since when has it been otherwise, my lady?" Jecks offered both a smile and raised eyebrows.

Anna couldn't offer any reb.u.t.tal to what was clearly a rhetorical question-either in Liedwahr or on earth. "You're right, but I don't have to like it. I can try to change it." How? By using more force through sorcery? Her own self-inquiries reminded her that she still had to deal with her conscience, and the nagging questions it prompted.

"Am 1 relying on sorcery so much that when we leave Dumar no one will even consider remaining loyal?"

"Once ... once." Jecks pulled at his chin. "Once I might have thought that. Now. . . thousands of the finest armsmen of Sturinn and Dumar lie dead. Now ... much of Dumaria and all of Narial lie in ruins. A huge stone bridge spans the Faiche, one that would doubtless withstand even another flood you sent forth.

The Lord of Dumar flees you, and all have seen your armsmen. And no armsmen remain where you have been, save as are loyal to you."

"At least in name," she added.

"I doubt that many will forget you." He smiled, half sadly. "Or cross you."

"But Jimbob will have problems?"

"Each generation must solve its own. You have given him the chance."

Anna's eyes went to the gray dek-stone on the right shoulder of the road, its lower part obscured by gra.s.s.