H
er suspicions had all come to fruition, and despite absolutely gorging herself the night before, a decent night’s sleep, breakfast, and a good ride, Anna still had a nagging headache, and the desire to turn Delor into the Erdean equivalent of a toad.
As if nursing sour white wine all evening, and fending off the innuendos of the not-so-good overcaptain Delor had not been enough, someone had searched her room while she had been at dinner. There was no way to lock the tower door from outside, and they certainly knew by now that she had a packful of assorted arms, and spells of sorts scrawled
everywhere, although she doubted many could use them, given modern English spelling and cryptic musical notation.
The whole idea made her seethe, though she certainly should have expected it—even sooner. It was almost as bad as university politics. Worse, in some ways, because the locals had this idea that everything was all right unless they were caught red-handed. She shook her head. That wasn’t just an Erdean problem, but one she’d seen everywhere, and more often in men than women.
Thunk!
“Coming!” She wrapped the light robe around her and walked to the door, where she unslid the bolt, opened the door slightly, and peered through the slit.
A slender youth—a page Anna hadn’t met, she guessed—stood outside on the landing. “Lady Anna?”
“Yes?”
“The lady Essan will receive you following the midday meal.” His message delivered, the boy straightened, waiting for some response.
“I would be pleased,” Anna said. “I’m new here, and I do not know where her chambers are.”
“Oh … that is easy, lady. She has the quarters on the highest level of this tower. She removed herself there when the lord Behlem occupied the liedburg.”
“I’ll be there.”
The page still stood on the landing.
“Convey to Lady Essan that I will be at her quarters following the midday meal.”
“Thank you, Lady Anna.” The page scurried up the stone steps.
Anna closed the door.
Why did Lady Essan want to see her? What should she wear? Somehow riding clothes didn’t seem appropriate, nor did the gowns she had created for Behlem’s dinners.
In the end, she went back to spells and sorcery to come up with a looser set of trousers she could wear with her boots and a light overtunic—both in green. That effort left
her perspiring, made her headache worse, and exhausted her stock of unused cloth.
She left her riding clothes on and made her way down to the courtyard. As she passed the lower door, both Birke and Skent leaped to their feet.
“Lady Anna!”
“I promised I’d meet Daffyd, my player, where they have the midday meal.”
“That’s over by the stables.” Birke wrinkled his nose.
“You’d do that?” asked Skent.
“Why not? He helped me when there was no one else.”
The two pages looked at each other.
“My turn,” said Birke.
“All right.”
Anna let Birke take the lead, but looked back and gave Skent a smile just before she stepped out the door into the hot courtyard.
“It’s really not far,” Birke said with a grin, “but we can’t leave the tower unless we’re on an errand or escorting you or Lady Essan, or Lady Cirsa.”
“How’s Virkan?”
“He’s
much
better, lady. He’s not really the same person, but we’re not complaining.” Birke stopped, as did Anna, while a squad of Neserean armsmen rode in front of them through the courtyard and toward the liedburg’s gate.
Had she been right to lay a geas on Virkan? She
knew
he needed controlling, and that nothing short of sorcery or death would stop the man from terrorizing people who couldn’t protest—but that sort of defense wouldn’t have stood up in court. But she wasn’t in court; she was stuck in a place where power ruled.
And you’re becoming just like them
. Was she?
Birke guided Anna around the horse droppings and toward the stable. “It’s good to be able to ride again, and the Prophet even let me send a scroll to my sire. I told him about you, and about riding. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Heavens, no.” Anna laughed.
“It’s not quite like it was when Lord Barjim was here,
but it’s getting there. We still don’t have lessons like we used to, but Galen’s gone.”
“Galen?”
“He was Jimbob’s tutor, as well as counselor to Lord Barjim, but he managed to take Jimbob out of the liedburg before the Prophet arrived. Some armsmen clattered out of here in the middle of the night, and the Prophet’s forces were here in the morning.” Birke stopped as the dark-haired Daffyd stepped from the shadowed doorway ahead.
“I’m glad you could come, Lady Anna.” Daffyd bowed.
“She keeps her word,” Birke said. “By your leave, Lady Anna?”
The sorceress and the player watched as the redhead hurried back toward the north tower.
“I’m hungry,” Daffyd confessed.
“Then lead on, master player,” Anna said lightly.
“We’re there,” he said, turning and opening the weathered door. The room had two trestle tables in it, and four long benches. The rough-planked ceiling was low enough that Anna could have reached up and touched it. Three men and a woman sat at the tables, the three men in one group, and the woman alone. All looked up as Anna and Daffyd entered.
“You don’t mind bread and cheese, with beer?” asked the violist.
“That’s fine. I can’t stay too long, though. I have another command performance.”
“Lord Behlem?”
“Lady Essan. She’s important, but I don’t remember quite why.”
“She’s the widow of Lord Donjim. He was Lord Barjim’s uncle and the Lord of Defalk before Barjim.” Daffyd pulled at his chin. “Do you know why she wants to see you?”
“Not a clue. I hoped you might know. You know more about Defalk than I do. But you’re hungry.”
“Let me introduce you to Fiena. Just sit down and I’ll get you a platter.”
“Make it a lot, please,” Anna said. “Twice as much as you’d eat.”
Daffyd’s eyes widened.
“Sorcery. If I don’t eat like a stuffed horse, I lose weight.”
“If you say so.” Daffyd gestured toward the woman sitting at the table nearest the stone wall—clearly part of the exterior wall of the liedburg. “Fiena, this is the lady Anna. Fiena is the lead string player for the Prophet.”
“I am most honored.” Fiena, a strawberry-blonde with wide blue eyes and a pinched face, sat with her back to the wall. Her eyes went to the platter before her, filled with wedges of yellow brick cheese and a large chunk of dark bread, then back to Anna as the sorceress eased herself onto the bench across from the string player. “You do look so young, lady. Everyone said that, but it’s hard to believe until you see.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Anna said blandly, deciding she didn’t really trust the blonde. “Where are you from?”
“I’m from Esaria. Most of us are. There’s a players’ school there. It’s the only one in Liedwahr, they say.”
“There was one in Elahwa once,” Daffyd interjected as he set a platter before Anna and another to her right. Both were filled with bread and cheese, Anna’s overflowing in all directions. “The dark ones destroyed it.”
“Where did you hear that?” asked Fiena.
“Lord Brill.” Daffyd slipped back to the serving table.
“Oh, he was the one who failed.” Fiena gestured vaguely.
“He was very successful in many things,” Anna said gently, taking a good-sized mouthful of bread, then breaking off a generous chunk of cheese.
“I suppose so,” answered Fiena. “I don’t know much about Defalk.”
Daffyd set a tumbler before Anna and another before his own plate.
“How many players are there with the Prophet?” Anna asked.
“Just eight of us. That’s more than enough. He can only do small spells. They say his sire was a great Prophet.”
“That was Mikell,” Daffyd explained. “Even Lord Brill admitted he was a great sorcerer. That’s why the Norweians assassinated him.”
“He died in his sleep,” said Fiena.
Daffyd shrugged. “Lord Brill said he was killed, that no one but a Norweian assassin could bring down that great a sorcerer.”
Anna felt like she was following a tennis match, with her head traveling back forth. She tried to concentrate on forcing more food into her system.
“I don’t know much about Nordwei.” Fiena dismissed Nordwei with a gesture that reminded Anna of too many over-the-hill divas, or Mozart’s prototypical Madame Goldentrill. “I do know that it is impossible for assassins to have killed Lord Mikell.”
“How did you get to be a player?” Anna decided to change the subject. “Was anyone in your family a player?”
“My father was the lead string player for Lord Mikell.” Fiena shrugged. “I was the youngest daughter. I would far rather be a player than the consort of a flax merchant.”
Did that mean that her father had had too many daughters? “How many sisters did you have?” Anna asked.
“Four. Grendee is the consort of Dene—”
“Dene was the son of Lord Mikell’s brother,” Daffyd added.
“Sort of a duke,” mused Anna.
“Duke?”
“Never mind.” Anna took a healthy swallow of the beer. “It means something like the brother of a lord.”
Fiena shook her head minutely, stopped her intermittent eating and looked at Anna silently for a moment, before saying, “I don’t know much about foreign words.” The string player dismissed foreign words with the same gesture that she had dismissed Daffyd’s speculations about Mikell’s death.
“I take it that most players do not have consorts,” Anna offered.
“Not women. It disturbs the harmonies.” Fiena looked at Anna’s platter. “You eat like a sorcerer. All of you eat so much and are so thin.”
Anna broke off another piece of bread and chewed it slowly, along with some of the hard cheese. What Fiena said about women players didn’t make sense. Liende had been Brill’s lover, as had Daffyd’s mother. She looked toward Daffyd.
His mouth full, the young violist shrugged.
Anna took a long sip of beer, then asked, “What is Esaria like?”
“Esaria is beautiful, with white stone buildings on the hills, and wide bridges over the Saris. It’s the oldest city in Liedwahr, and scholars come from across all of Erde, even from far Sturinn, to study at the Temple of the Prophet.” Fiena smiled faintly. “Each season has its beauty, and no other city is beautiful in all seasons. That is why the Prophet chose it, and why it has endured.”
“What makes Esaria so beautiful?” Anna pressed.
“Just everything.”
“Is there anything in Falcor that resembles Esaria?”
“I haven’t seen much of Falcor. I didn’t bother.” Fiena dismissed Falcor.
Anna took a last mouthful of bread. Had she eaten the entire platter of cheese and bread? She felt still hungry, and yet as though she could not swallow another morsel. She finally nodded to Daffyd before rising and turning to Fiena. “It was nice to meet you, Fiena.”
“It was pleasant to meet you, Lady Anna, but I hope I didn’t offend you. I don’t know much about sorceresses.” Fiena smiled her faint smile.
Anna returned the smile.
Daffyd gulped the last of his meal and scrambled after Anna.
“Are they all like that?” she asked Daffyd after they left the room and stood in the courtyard.
“Like what?”
“Never mind,” Anna said.
“Fiena’s nice, once you get to know her.”
“I’m sure she is.”
Nice and empty-headed
. The sorceress stepped back as two messengers guided their mounts toward the stable. The faint
brawwk
ing of chickens echoed through the courtyard and the heat of the day.
“Sometimes, Lady Anna, I do not understand you.”
“I’m sorry, Daffyd. It’s hard to explain. Just because, by some fluke, we speak a language that is similar, we don’t see things in the same way. It’s not your fault.” She paused. “I need to go meet with Lady … Essan.”
“You should be careful. She is very clever.”
Anna nodded, instead of snapping out at the condescension in his tone, then added, “I’ll talk to you later.”
Her boots echoed on the stones as she walked back to the north tower.
Back in her room, she washed quickly, then slipped into the new tunic and trousers, combed her hair again, swearing as she broke one of the comb’s teeth. She hadn’t seen any combs in Defalk. Then, she hadn’t seen a lot of things, but she couldn’t go around trying to create everything through sorcery. After more than a few spells, especially spells without the lutar, the headaches started, the ones that carried needles that stabbed.