Dythya stood to the left of the doorway, across from the pages, waiting for Anna.

"Come on in, Dythya." Anna nodded toward the doorway, then led the way into the room, still cold despite the low fire in the hearth.

The Regent cleared her throat, wondering whether to crack the window to dispel some of the smoke, or to leave it closed and hope the chimney's draw would improve as the receiving room warmed.

Dythya stood, waiting.

Anna looked at the platter on the worktable, with a sliced and already browning apple, hard white and yellow cheese, rock-hard imitations of crackers, and, thankfully, a small loaf of dark bread fresh enough that it still steamed in the chill air. Then she turned to Dythyn. "Where do we stand?"

Dythya extended a sheet of brown paper. "This is the reckoning you requested, lady. The top part shows the coin on hand, the recent receipts, and the liedgeld owed. The bottom shows what we have spent since the harvest, what we have received, and what I would guess we will have to spend before the next harvest."

Anna gestured to the seat across from hers. "Please sit while I study this." In turn, she seated herself, and took one of the apple slices and chewed it, then reached for another.

Almost absently, she coughed, trying to get her throat clear, before singing the water spell to ensure the water in the pitcher was pure. Clean water was scarce anywhere in Defalk, as she supposed it was in any medieval-type culture. Even before she finished, she felt dizzy.

d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n! One lousy water spell, and she was reeling. Anna forced herself to set down the paper and eat several mouthfuls of the hot bread, and two slices of cheese. After filling her goblet, she followed the cheese with a swallow of water, and then more of the apple slices, and more bread.

Finally, as the worst of the dizziness began to subside, Anna checked the liedgeld owed. Arkad of Cheor hadn't paid. Neither had Gylaron of Lerona. Dencer had paid half. So had Lord Sargol. after sending a complaining scroll. Lord Via.s.sa of Fussen had died, and his twin sons were still sorting it out, probably with blades, and liedgeld was doubtless low on their priorities. Four other lords had various reasons for not paying.

Then she laughed, ironically. The holding of Mencha had not paid. As the Sorceress and Lady of Loiseau and as Brill's successor, she owed herself, as Regent, liedgeld, and she probably couldn't raise it, although at two hundred golds, it was less than half of what almost all the others owed.

"My lady?"

"Dythya.. . I owe myself liedgeld, and I doubt I can raise it. I've let some of those who wished to remain continue to live there, but there's not even anyone there now to run the lands."

"You owe liedgeld?"

"I ended up as the Lady of Loiseau and holder of Mencha."

Dythya's mouth went into an 0. "1 am sorry. I should not have put that on the list."

Anna shook her head. "I'm not angry. It's another problem. I probably needed to look into that as well."

Along with eveiything else. Who can I get to manage the place? Surely a good manager could raise enough for the liedgeld and even some coins for my personal use.

Who could she have manage Loiseau? What had happened to Gero, Brill's personal a.s.sistant? Or Serna and, her daughter Florenda? Anna remembered how good Serna's breads had been. Quies, the stablemaster who had thought Farinelli would be a good mount for her-he and his son Albero, who'd taught her the basics of using a knife-they'd been among those who had pet.i.tioned her to allow them to return to Loiseau. But some of the others, she'd scarcely thought of, and they were people, too.

She forced her mind to the paper before her. "Have the golds for the Ranuan Exchange left?"

"Three days ago, lady. Even with good roads, it would be another five days to Ranwa, and two on the river. With the ways as they are..." The accountant shrugged.

"A month?"

Dythya looked puzzled, and Anna corrected herself.

"Two weeks? Or four?" From what Anna could figure. months didn't exist on Erde, just seasons, each twelve weeks long. That made the Erdean year shorter by a month than the year on earth, she figured, since she couldn't tell any real difference in the length of the day. With twenty gla.s.ses in a day, a gla.s.s was longer than an hour, but how much longer? Who knew?

''It is possible."

'We've done what we can. Now, we need to send a scroll to Lord Birfels, telling him that we have taken steps to ensure that he can obtain seed grain. If he has any more trouble, be should let me know as soon as possible."

"I can have that scroll for you to seal this afternoon, lady."

"Good. I take it you feel that its important" Dythya nodded.

"So do I." Especially since Birfels and Geansor are the only ones I even halfway trust in the south of Defalk. "And we probably ought to send one to Lord Geansor as well. Is there any other lord who might have that sort of concern? Oh, Lord Hryding," she answered her own question before Dythya could speak.

"Sorry."

"Perhaps Lord Sargol of Suhl," suggested Dythya.. "There are rumors."

"Can you do that?"

"It will be done, lady." Dythya rose as Anna did.

Once the accountant or bursar or whatever Dythya was-minister of finance?---once she left, Anna turned to the now cooler bread and cheese, forcing herself to eat more than her stomach said it wanted by concentrating on how thin and almost anorexic she'd appeared in the mirror, and how dizzy the simplest spell had left her. By the time she finished the apple slices and four more chunks of cheese, each mouthful was an effort each swallow leaving her feeling as though she would gag.

"Arms Commander Hanfor and Lord Jecks are here." Her mouth full, Anna motioned Resor to send the two in. She stood and swallowed, grateful to put off eating for a few moments more.

"Lady Anna."

"Lady Anna," Jecks said a moment behind Hanfor. "Please be seated." She gestured and sat without wait- ing, knowing both men would stand until she took her seat at the table. She looked at Hanfor. "1 never did ask you about the Sand Pa.s.s fort."

The graying arms commander smiled. "The Ebrans repaired most of the outer walls befqre they left. Lady Gatrune's levies included some masons..."

Anna nodded, recalling the big woman who had been the first landholder, as administrator for her late husband, to recognize Anna's regency.

"...and Alvar managed to get the test of the rents in the outer walls patched, and one more quarters' block usable. The Ebrans had restored two. The walls won't hold off more than brigands "But that's an improvement, and we won't have to worry about an attack from there for at least another year."

"Perhaps next fall, Alvar could finish the job," Hanfor said.

"Do you think we should put a small force there?" Anna asked, looking from Hanfor to Jecks.

"We do not have many armsmen here in Falcor," pointed out the white-haired lord.

"I wasn't thinking about the best armsmen," the sorceress said. "Just a few to keep an eye out, and to show that the regent cares about the area.

Jecks and Hanfor exchanged glances.

Then Hanfor nodded. "A squad with a graybeard who has seen enough, perhaps." He paused. 'They will need some silvers for supplies."

"Figure out how many and talk to Dythya." Anna didn't shake her head. Everything she thought about cost silvers, but an abandoned outpost on the eastern border wouldn't help impressions at all, not even if Ebra were still prostrate. "Have we heard about those blades in Encora?"

"Not yet, lady. I would not expect a reply for another week at the earliest." Hanfor inclined his head slightly.

Jecks nodded.

"I've been thinking about roads," Anna ventured.

"You have mentioned them." A glint entered the arms commander's eyes.

"After my recent ... experience with the bridge," Anna spread her hands, "I have been cautioned to be somewhat more... careful."

"Far more careful," suggested Jecks mildly.

"I would like your thoughts on something. If we could get large piles of rocks beside the roads, that would make my sorcery much easier. Is there a way to encourage that on the part of the holders and lords?"

Jecks fingered his chin, "I would gladly do that on the roads to market"

"But some of the market roads go through swamps and rivers," Hanfor pointed out. "The roads we need for armsmen and lancers should follow the ridges where possible."

"The high roads," Jecks added. "But the holders will not wish to have their tenants and freeholders work on roads that offer them no benefit, nor will the farmers-"

Anna held up her hand. "Even I can't rebuild a fraction of the roads in Defalk, not in years. Three sorcerers couldn't."

"I did mention that, lady," Jecks said.

Even if he were as handsome as any movie star, Anna wanted to clout him for the condescending tone, but she smiled perfunctorily instead. "Which roads are most important-and which sections of those roads? I'm talking about fords or places that turn into swamps or where we've lost bridges?" She gestured vaguely, wishing she could articulate what she meant more clearly, but she'd been a singer and an opera professor, not a sorceress or an engineer. She needed a Regency engineer, a Regency weapons smith, a Regency schoolmaster, and tutor; not to mention an agronomist, along with a chief of players. That didn't count the expertise she needed and didn't know she needed.

"The bridge at Elhi..." began Jecks.

"The ford at Sorprat or the road to Denguic-"

"Gentlemen," Anna said with a laugh. "Gentlemen. I think you need to get together with Tirsik and with Himar mid Alvar and Lady Essan and Dythya. Then bring me a list with the most important part of the most important road at the top."

"The lady Essan?" asked Hanfor.

"She was Lord Donjim's consort, and she rode with him on many of his early campaigns. She will know the roads as well as anyone, and she will know which roads used to be important and why they are not."

She's also likely to be far less biased The problem was that Hanfor was relatively unbiased, but didn't know Defalk well enough, and Jecks knew Defalk, but would still lean toward benefiting Elhi. She wanted to shake her head. Instead, she smiled once more. "Surely, you can get together and figure that out for me?" She looked at Jecks. "You did say I should be cautious. Would you also think about how we can persuade the lords and others to carry rocks to places beside the important roads?"

Jecks returned the smile, a glint between amus.e.m.e.nt and anger in his hazel eyes. "Yes, Lady Anna. We should be able to provide such a list."

Anna stood. "Thank you both."

For a moment after the two men had left, Anna looked at the platter and the remaining crackers and cheese. She couldn't eat any more, not for a while.

Instead, she took out the grease market and a sheet of the coa.r.s.e brown paper. What should a road look like? If she recalled correctly from that long-ago ancient history. course, the Romans had built their roads on yard-deep stone-and-gravel bases, and surfaced them with long smooth paving blocks nearly a foot thick.

She began to sketch, How wide? Enough for two wagons abreast? But could she physically sustain that much sorcery?

"You'd better Jimit it to key bridges and marshes or things like that," she murmured. Defalk wouldn't have the resources to build good roads for a decade without sorcery, but the country might not last a decade without a better internal transport system. She sighed, and set aside the sketches, then lifted the speilsong folder that had come from Brill's workroom in Loiseau. She began to read. Perhaps there was something in his spells that would help. Perhaps.

"The player Liende," announced the dark-haired Skent, sometime later, peering around the door as if afraid that Anna would snap at him.

Anna gestured for Skent to have the player come in.

"You summoned me." Liende bowed as she entered the receiving room.

"I did." Anna gestured to the seat across the worktable from her. "Please be seated."

The player sat on the front edge of the wooden chair, stiffly, as though she had been summoned for her own execution. Anna decided to plunge right in, since no amount of rea.s.surance without substance was likely to relax the horn player.

"Liende . . although it was not my intent, I stole from you what you wished for most." Anna forced her eyes to meet those of the gray-and-red-haired player. "What Lord Brill had intended for you, I received.

When he was dying, I went to his side, and he thought I was you. And he made me young with his death- song."

"I know." The words were scarcely a murmur.

"I did not ask for that, and I tried to call you, but you were hurt. . .and then it was too late. For that, I am sorry. You have every right to be angry with me."

The silence was broken only by the sound of rain against the window and shutters at the back of the receiving room. Anna waited, her eyes on the horn player.

"At first" Liende paused and swallowed. "At first, I was angry. I was most angry, and I watched, and I would hear nothing good of you-"

"You don't have to-"

"Hear me, Lady Anna. Let an old woman have her pride."

Anna swallowed. Liende couldn't have been over forty, and she thought she was old? Then, on Erde, forty was old.

"I would hear nothing good of you. But Lord Jecks almost wept when he described how you stood alone against the Ebrans. And he said how you dealt fairly with him and how you stood against the Ebrans alone a second time. And you restored Jimbob's heritage to him. Rut still, I avoided you. You came to Elhi, and I thought you were cold and aloof Then they carried you back, and you wept in your sleep, and a healer walked twenty deks to try to help, and grown men sobbed as though they might lose their consort or their mother." Liende swallowed.

Anna waited, wondering, wondering how the woman could forgive her.

"Lord Jecks sent a scroll. It was the bridge, Lady Anna. No one who cared not for Defalk or Falcor would spend herself on replacing a bridge. You gained nothing from that. I was ashamed." Liende's eyes were damp. "I am here. Do not shame me further."

Anna's throat was thick, and she had to swallow again. "I won't shame you. I never thought of that I was the one who was ashamed and guilty because you had stood by Lord Brill, asking nothing. You only hoped, and I was the one who dashed those hopes." So often, Anna thought, so often had others dashed her hopes, and she hated being the one who had dashed another's dreams.

"Life does not happen as we hope," Liende said slowly. "and you did not ask for what you received. Nor did I." She smiled wryly. "Thank the harmonies. For without you, all of us would have been lost, and like as not, I would have been used by every Ebran armsman, then tossed aside, if I had even endured. Far better I live, in hope and well-fed, than to have been young for a few days and perished in rape and slaughter."

Anna wanted to protest, but something stopped her. Could she really have done what she did without the strength of her second youth?

"Even now, you doubt, lady?"

"I've come to doubt a lot." the sorceress finally said. "There's not much in life that's as simple as we think."

After a nod, Liende asked simply, 'What did you wish of me?"

"I have no right to ask," Anna said, "but I need your help. I cannot save Defalk without it."

"My help? What have I that is so precious that the greatest sorceress on Erde must beg?"

Anna wanted to smile at the involuntary bitterness that Liende still harbored, wanted to hug the woman for being human. Instead, she answered. "Your skill as a player, your knowledge of players. I'd like you to become the leader and teacher of the Regent's Players. You will be honored and safe. I can't risk losing you or your knowledge."

"I play a good woodwind horn. I am not a leader of players." The brown eyes met Anna's.

"You could be."