Part 60 (1/2)
”What rumors do you wish planted?”
”That you have decided to adopt the Sturinnese custom of decorative chains for consorts.” JerRestin pauses. ”Or that you have pledged full allegiance to the Maitre. Or that Sturinn has pledged to send as many s.h.i.+ps and armsmen as necessary to bring the sorceress down...”
”I prefer the latter,” says Ehara. ”My own folk would drown me in the Falche if I pledged to any lord outside Dumar, and the chains business. . . well, I see why you find it expedient, and why it would incite her.... Perhaps we could add something that said I had rejected that... for now. . . unless the Matriarchy becomes too restive.” The Lord of Dumar laughs. ”The b.i.t.c.hes to the east won't act on rumors; they never have, and they never will. It could help provoke the sorceress...” His fingers touch the full black beard.
”Now, my friend Sea-Priest, would you kindly explain-before I extend my neck further- just how you expect to defeat the sorceress.”
”By devious enchantment.” Sea-Marshal jerRestin smiles. ”She is not the sole sorcerer in Liedwahr. She is perchance the most powerful, but she is new to Erde. We lure her into a situation where she does not expect and cannot defend herself against sorcery. Without her, Defalk is powerless. Now.”
”Correct me, if I am mistaken, but was that not what Lord Sargol attempted?”
”Bah! He set his trap so that a female child could see it. The sorceress cannot defend what she does not see.”
”And how can she not see it? She scrys everything, you have said.”
”Simply put-if there is no enchantment until the moment before the trap is sprung.” The Sea-Marshal smiles more widely. ”She cannot detect a trap that does not exist-until it does, and then it will be too late.”
78.
Outside the unshuttered window, a bird twittered, one that Anna had not heard before in Erde, something like a finch. A puff of warm air brushed over her as she sat at the conference table in the room once used by another sorceress.
Anna pushed away the pile of spell-noted papers and put her head in her hands. She just couldn't use Brill's spells. The tunes were essentially monophonic, and even if she varied the melody she sang, there just wouldn't be enough harmony and varied textures to support the heavy sorcery she had in mind. She didn't have the theory background to compose a polyphonic spell, not one where the separate melodies meshed strongly enough.
She shook her head. Her eyes burned from trying to force her way through the awkward phrases and spellings Brill had used-awkward to her, but probably normal for Erde, she reminded herself.
The finch twittered again.
Is it right to do this? is it right not to? Do you want to risk the chance that the Sea-Priest will put the women of an entire county in chains... and then all of Liedwahr?... But they might not.... And who will stop them?
The arguments and counter-arguments battled back and forth across her mind until she wanted to scream.
Shaking her head again, she pulled out the crude orchestration she'd done for Daffyd based on ”The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” If she had to fight another pitched battle, the players could use it. In the meantime, could she write another set of words? One designed to build a dam?
With a long sigh, she reached for the marker and a fresh sheet of the rough brown paper. After a time, she wrote. Then she rewrote. Then she rewrote that. Finally, she murmured the first lines aloud.
”My words must start the damming of the river here below, with a building of the strongest stones from where the waters flow...
Let the base he solid as the granite with no single flaw...'
Anna scratched out the next words, and glanced to the window, rubbing her forehead. She was no poet, no composer, and words didn't come that easily. What rhymed with ”flaw” that would fit the note values?
After a time of staring at the paper and then at the window, she reached for the goblet of orderspelled water.
Could she use the modified chorus? After slowly, carefully dipping the quill in the inkwell, she wrote out the lines.
”Glory, glory, halleluja; glory. glory. halleluia; glory, glory, hallelnia, these stones will last and last!”
The middle lines were too rough, and she needed a second verse. Still using strophic spells. ”What else can you do? You're not a composer.”
One finch twittered, then another, as if in argument- like the danmed lords of the Thirty-three.
Anna stood. Time to find Liende, now that she knew it could be done...somehow. She still probably needed to refine her sketch of the dam as well, to ensure supports went well into the cliff walls and well below the sand and mud of the canyon floor.
As she walked toward the door to the corridor, carrying the music, she glanced at the smaller writing desk in the bedchamber where another pile of scrolls lay. Earlier she'd read through close to a dozen. She heard from Lady Gatrune of Pamr that her sister Herene was on her way to SuhI to take on the guardians.h.i.+p and tutoring of Dinfan and her brothers, and that was one piece of good news. The rivermen had pet.i.tioned again, and that wasn't. Lord Tybel had requested that, since Hryding had died and. since Anientta was Tybel's daughter and since Arien and Synope adjoined, that the two domains be temporarily joined under his oversight. Tybel had also requested that Anna keep that request in confidence, which meant that he probably hadn't. So she had another problem on her hands, another lord who either couldn't stand a woman running the lands, or worse in this case, a woman in Anientta who couldn't run the lands.
She took a deep breath before opening the door.
”Lady Anna,” offered Lejun.
”Lady Anna.” Jecks stood in the hallway, where he had been talking to Rickel, the broad-shouldered blond guard, and one of the two on duty outside Anna's door.
”I'm going to find Liende.”
”The players' quarters are up a level and at the end of the long narrow ball.” Jecks gestured toward the staircase at the front of the keep.
”How are their quarters?” Anna asked, feeling guilty that she didn't know personally.
”They are good. I looked.”
”Thank you. Sometimes...I just feel like I can't keep track of everything.”
”Barjim and Alasia felt that way, and there were two of them,” Jecks said reasonably.
”I could get the chief player.” offered Lejun. ”Thank you.” Anna hadn't really felt like running after Liende, but she also hadn't wanted to ask someone directly. She found she had to ask too much as it was, and she'd never liked asking or ordering people around. And now you're in a position where you have to.
How G.o.d or the harmonies have a sense of humor.
”I'll remain,” said Jecks with a smile, ”so that she has two guards.”
Anna doubted she needed even one guard at Abenfel, but she hadn't thought she'd needed any riding the grounds at Loisean, and that had almost killed her when the Dark Monks had spitted her with a war arrow.
”What have you been doing?”
”Thinking. That is hard for an old warhorse like me.”
Jecks laughed. ”It is much easier to run one's lands or fight battles. Even to discipline a grandchild.”
”Old?” Anna shook her head. ”You're not that much older than I am.”
Jecks studied her, blatantly, for a moment before touching the silver-gray hair behind his temple theatrically and grinning. ”It would not appear so.”
”You are an impossible and lecherous warhorse, not an old one.”
”I defer to your judgment, lady, regent, and sorceress.” Jecks bowed. ”My bones, in their wisdom, would beg to differ.”
At the sound of steps, both Anna and Jecks turned as Lejun returned with Liende.