Part 16 (2/2)

Konsstin still wore the sky-blue tunic, but no cloak. The Liedfuhr sat behind a dark wooden desk, outlined by the light from windows behind him. A map-what appeared to be Liedwahr-was spread before him. As he studied the map, he frowned, but his lips did not move.

Anna strummed the lutar again, singing the brief couplet to end the view in the pool.

Konsstin apparently remained where he had been, Manauus, Presumably, but was studying a map. In preparation for what? Anna wished she knew.

She checked the lutar-it still had a tendency to slip out of tune-and changed the spell for Dencer.

Dencer was riding, wearing a breastplate and carrying a lance. Anna watched the image in the pool only long enough to see that he was practicing thrusting the lance at a target as he rode by it. He'd been working hard. That was obvious from the red face and the s.h.i.+mmer that indicated sweat.

The sorceress released the image with the couplet and exhaled. One was studying maps and the other improving warlike skills. Not conclusive, but not exactly rea.s.suring. But unless she wanted to spell all her strength all the time following them in the pool, it was about as good an indication as she was likely to get at the moment.

Wasn't anything easy?

For you, of course not. She immediately felt ashamed of the thought. Lots of people had it far harder than she had. Like poor Dalila, exhausted, with nowhere to turn, and ashamed of having to prostrate herself at Anna's feet.

The sorceress pursed her lips. What else had she meant to check? Oh, the question of harmony. She looked at the books on the shelf-the ones she'd moved in right after she'd finished the reflecting pool.

The first handful of the leatherbound books were those Brill had let her use in the workroom he'd lent her at Loiseau-Boke of Liedwahr, The Naturale Philosophie, Proverbes Neserea, Donnermusik.

She pulled out Donnermusik, searching for the sections that had alluded to harmony, hoping her memory had been correct, but worried about Liende's dubious looks.

”...harmonic variants be most important as a musical consideration, for they must in truthe effect a change of musical resemblement through the constant repet.i.tion, with most suitable variants, of the ba.s.s pattern - . . through tromnel.”

”... the relations.h.i.+p between the thunder, and that needs must be represented by the falk horn, supple- mented by a continuous ba.s.s provided by a trornmel, and the lightning. . . must be joined by a melodic line of the violincello.”

She remembered those lines and skipped ahead to another section. Nothing there, except more discourses on storms. Another few pages. . . Where was it? Anna took a deep breath. You've got to slow down. You won't find anything just flipping through pages that are half Old English and half b.a.s.t.a.r.d German.

Another breath, and she forced herself to read more deliberately. Ten pages farther on, she found what she thought she'd remembered.

”... in truthe the greatest of sorceries shulde result from dissonant clothing played wit gewalt equal to that gewalt of the spell melodie. . . . The players of each parte needs must kraft their resemblements.... Any endliche resolution ... must needs embodye harmonic consonance....”

Her head aching from puzzling through the archaic language. she slowly closed the book.

Leaving the lutar in the scrying room, she slowly walked back along the corridor toward Lady Essan's room, trying to ignore the guards that followed her.

”So. . . another venture you be off on,” said the white-haired widow, even before Anna settled into the chair across the low table from Essan.

”Why do you say that?” Anna took a handful of the sugared nuts from the dish, then another, reaiizing that, again, she was hungry.

”Synondra told me that you rush hither and yon, back and forth. That stern arms commander works with Mies to make sure of the finest wagons and teams, and blades clash all the time on the practice quarter.

My ears are still sharp, would-be daughter.”

Anna laughed. ”Just like a mother. You know what I'm about even if I haven't told you.”

”And you were saying, sorceress-girl, my daughter you'd be.” Essan grinned over the brandy goblet.

'So I did.”

”What be on your mind, seeing as much there'd be you would be doing?”

”What do you know about Lord Arkad?” Anna asked.

”He was a problem for Donjim, and he must be one for you, too. You asked about him a time back.”

Lady Essan sipped her brandy.

”He hasn't paid his liedgeld,” Anna admitted.

''If any lord could afford liedgeld, Arkad could. Donjim envied those lands, you know, but Arkad always supported him. He even sent more levies than he had to for the second peasant uprising. I didn't ride with Donjim then. I should have, broken leg or not. Donjim wasn't ever the same after that. He died right after he returned.” Essan fussed the embroidered pillow behind her back.

”I'm sorry.”

”You had nothing to do with it. Long before your time, sorceress-woman. You were having your own children then, like as not, never dreaming you'd be here.”

Anna certainly hadn't ever expected she'd end up on a world she once would have regarded as a total fantasy.

”He couldn't understand it. No, he couldn't, my poor Donjim. Twenty years of peace, prosperity, and the very peasants he'd supported rebelled.” Essan snorted. ”Some foolishness about land reverting to the lord if a man had no direct heirs. All stirred up by those high and mighty women in Encora, I thought.”

”Do you still think so?”

Essan laughed, more a cackle than a true laugh. ”I was right, and I was wrong. It was women from Encora, but not the Matriarch, or the traders, but those crazy ones, the Sisters of the South. They were so crazy their own Matriarch had to turn her own guards on them. The Sturinn thing, you know. Did I tell you about that?” Her eyes glazed over momentarily. ”That be the problem with growing old. You talk, and you don't remember.”

”You said that some group. . . the Sisters of something stormed a s.h.i.+p from Stunnn...”

”Sisters of the South-they were the ones. They sent blades to the women of Stromwer and Sudwci and Lerona. Terrible mess, it was. Now, some say, the crazy women have a new name, the SouthWomen, excepting they're still the same, not even remembering what happened to the last bunch.” Essan took a hefty belt to drain the apple brandy in the goblet, then refilled it from the crystal decanter without looking at Anna. ”Terrible, it was, back then, and old Wa.s.sir's son used those very blades to try to overthrow his father. That was Aaslin, not Geansor. Blood everywhere, Donjim said. Wa.s.sir died, and Donjim killed Aaslin himself, and Geansor near died. Might have been better had he. Geansor's other brother, the youngest one, he was killed by raiders, but that came later.”

The more Anna heard, the worse it got. If Lady Essan were right, then all her consort had gotten out of twenty years of decent rule was heartbreak and revolt. If she were wrong, then Defalk had been in turmoil for far longer than the past decade. Neither thought was exactly comforting.

18.

DUMARIA, DUMAR.

Three men enter the audience chamber, led by a tall and rangy man in a heavy brown woolen jacket. Un- der the open jacket, he wears a shaft-sleeved white tunic, and white trousers. His face is tanned. The two men who accompany him are also rangy and tanned.

Ehara stands before the gilt chair upholstered in red velvet. ”Greetings! Welcome to Dumaria.”

”We are pleased to be here.” The tall man answers in a heavily accented voice, bowing. ”I am Sea- Marshal jerRestin.” He gestures to the two who flank him. 'SeaCaptain jerKillek and Sea-Captain jerHailin.”

”A small token for the warm welcome we have received.” The Sea-Marshal lifts the small chest he carries and offers it to Ehara. ”From Sturinn to Dumar.”

Ehara, looking burly before the rangy Sturinnese, accepts the chest, a wooden box no more than two spans long and one wide that is almost lost in his overlarge hands. The sides of the chest are carved with intertwined serpents rising out of a mother-of-pearl surf, and the top bears the crest of Dumar-the mountain ram on a tor, wrought in rubies and gold. ”You are welcome, and my thanks for such an artistic treasure.”

”Please open it.”

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