The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (57 page)

“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.

“Thank you, Lejun. I appreciate it.” Anna faced the red-haired player. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Lady Anna, we are your players.” Liende smiled.

“Liende, Lord Jecks . . .” Anna gestured toward the door to her chambers.

Once the three were seated around the conference table adjoining the reflecting pool, Anna handed Liende the sheets that bore her notated versions of the “Battle Hymn.” Old Professor Thomson would have cringed, but the crude orchestration had worked for Daffyd, and Liende had more experience than Daffyd had had.

“I’d like you all to work on this.”

Liende glanced across the notation.

Anna repressed a sigh. “Let me hum it for you. Then I’ll do it like a vocalise.” Sometimes it was a pain, not ever being able to match words and music except when casting an actual spell.

All in all, Anna went through the melody almost four times, and the cobbled-together bass twice before Liende nodded.

“I have it.” The player pursed her lips. “This is more difficult.”

“It will have to be. Is it possible to get this-together in the next three or four days? I’ll come to the rehearsals—just let me know when.” Anna smiled.

“Everyone is here, Lady Anna.” Liende glanced at the notes again. “We could begin in a glass.”

“I’ll be there.” Anna paused. “There must be a space somewhere.”

“There is a large storeroom that Hanfor obtained for us, up on the fourth level. We have been working on the other spells.”

Anna rose. “Thank you.”

“In a glass, lady.”

After she had escorted Liende out, Anna returned to the conference table. Jecks displayed a bemused half-smile.

“You look amused.”

“This spell will take mighty sorcery. . . .” Jecks ventured.

“Oh?” Anna didn’t feel like admitting much. Besides, after humming and vocalising the “Battle Hymn” six
times, she had a headache, and there wasn’t any equivalent of aspirin or ibuprofen, unless she wanted to chew willow bark, and that cure was probably worse than her headache.

“You have given your chief player music that will have all of them looking darkly and grumbling, once you are not around. There are stacks of paper all about you, and you have requested more. You have ink on your fingers, and your eyes are worried.”

“I’m not a composer. I’m not even an arranger. No one around here has dealt with harmony in a couple of centuries, and the whole concept of homophony seems beyond everyone.”

Jecks’ eyes glazed over, and he shook his head. “I would think that I might understand. Then you speak, and the words mean nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”
There you go, apologizing again. You are the regent . . . but a year doesn’t change a lifetime of apologizing
. “I need spell music that is more complex than anything Brill developed. I was not trained in writing that kind of music. That’s composing. I did all right in theory, but composing’s way beyond that.”

Jecks smiled almost grimly. “For what do you need such music, music so . . . so . . . intricate . . . or mighty . . . that mere words cannot explain?”

“Lord Jecks,” Anna said slowly, “there are more than forty ships from Sturinn in Dumar. Half the time I use the glass to see Ehara, there’s that Sea-Priest sorcerer with him.”

“He is a sorcerer?”

“That’s what the glass says.” Anna didn’t mention the other sorcerers, the blonde Norweian woman and the young man in brown. Her spell efforts hadn’t shown much about him, except he was in a small town of some sort, in Defalk, which bothered her. Her efforts to refine a spell to find out exactly who and where he was hadn’t come to much, and neither had her inquiries to Menares and Dythya, not that she knew yet.

“A sorcerer from Sturinn serving Ehara. Hmmmm. . . . Even dense as I be, that is not good.”

“I have to do
something,”
Anna added. “That’s the way it feels.”
Your big problem is figuring out
how
to make that something happen
. “I’m going to try to block the Falche, and then suggest to Lord Ehara that his reaction wasn’t wise or in the best interests of Dumar.”

“Your spells will do this?”

“I think so.”

“I do not know. Lord Ehara is proud. He will not suffer, but his people will, and they will blame you.”

“That could be,” Anna admitted. “But I’d rather try it than try to march into Dumar and fry every armsman sent against us until they’re either slaughtered or I am.”

“You do not have to fight Dumar,” said Jecks slowly.

“No. I have to fight Sturinn. The only choice I have is when.” Anna moistened her lips. “If I dry up the river, that would ground their ships, some of them, anyway, and it wouldn’t kill lots of people.”

“The Sea-Priests would not like that. No, they would not.”

“I could suggest to Ehara that the Sea-Priests should leave Dumar and Liedwahr.”

“A show of force.” Jecks shrugged. “With some . . . it might work. Ehara, I do not know.”

“I think it’s better than waiting for the Sturinnese to turn Dumar into their puppet.”

“If the Sea-Priests overthrew Ehara now,” agreed Jecks, “even the Liedfuhr might join you in an attack.”

“If something like that happened,” Anna mused, “then would the Thirty-three be so upset if I used sorcery?”

“They would not be displeased if you used sorcery before that—so long as it did not affect them.”

Anna laughed. “How could any sorcery not affect them, one way or another?” She reached for the pitcher and filled two goblets. “I have to think about how to do this more.”
Do you ever!

“Thinking will not halt the need to act,” Jecks said dryly.

“I know that, too.” She offered a crooked smile. “Have some wine. It’s pretty good.”

He lifted the goblet. So did she.

A
nna waited until the group struggled through the “Battle Hymn” spell again. “No . . . it’s too slow. The tempo has to be . . .” She sang the melody like a vocalise. “Da DAH da . . .”

Delvor shook his head slowly, limp brown hair flopping.

“Three separate melody lines at once, and one not exactly a melody line . . . playing such a spellsong is hard,” offered Liende.

Anna repressed a sigh, not bothering to explain that the accompaniment was not three separate lines. That would have been polyphony, and what she’d written was scarcely that. “Hard makes better spells, unhappily,” she finally said.

“You have proven that, lady,” admitted Liende. “We will work harder.”

“Thank you.” The sorceress nodded. “I’ll check back first thing in the morning.”

She ignored the whispered “Tomorrow morning?” as she stepped out of the converted storeroom and onto the landing where Lejun and Rickel waited. Then, she walked slowly back from the storeroom and down the narrow steps, half conscious of Rickel’s boots on the steps above her.

Would her damming of the Falche really motivate
Ehara to push out the Sturinnese? Or just force them to conquer Dumar? Or something else?
What can you do? You just can’t march into another country and turn their armies into ashes. And you can’t wait until they’ve got enough ships and men and sorcerers to take over all of Defalk
.

“Did Napoleon and Hitler think that way?” she murmured. But so many more people got killed when rulers and governments did nothing—like six million Jews and millions of others, a million or so Armenians, five million Cambodians, who knew how many Kurds, Bosnians, Africans . . .

Face it. No matter what you do, it will be wrong
.

Shaking her head still, she entered the chambers Birfels had set aside for her and went straight to the writing desk beside the reflecting pool. Before she sharpened the quill, she poured a small goblet of wine and took one sip.

She sat and began to draft the scroll. Lord, she hated writing things. It took
forever!
After a good two glasses, and as the sun began to lower over western Sudbergs, she finally had something. She read over the phrases slowly.

. . . I encountered two companies of Dumaran lancers in putting down the rebellion at Suhl. Another two companies opposed our efforts at Stromwer. One would hope that you, as a lord of a land, would recognize the authority of a ruler or regent to address rebellion without outside interference . . . yet you have responded to my inquiries with defiance and arrogance . . . and a demand for tribute. . . .

In addition, it has come to our attention that over twoscore Sturinnese war vessels are anchored in Dumar.

These events lead to the almost inescapable conclusion that Dumar is attempting to meddle in Defalk. At worse, one could conclude that Dumar and Sturinn plan a war of conquest in Liedwahr.

Such a war would be to the detriment of all, particularly
of Dumar. To reinforce this point, without resorting to force of arms, I have stopped the flow of the Falche River. This gesture on the part of the Regency is offered in good faith short of war, and in response to your use of lancers in Defalk and the presence of a large foreign fleet in Dumar, the fleet of a land that has been unfriendly in the past to all Liedwahr.

We would urge you to reaffirm bonds of friendship with Defalk and to take the necessary steps to ensure that the only ships from Sturinn anchored in Dumaran waters are those few necessary for mutual trade. . . . We also await the payment of those golds required for the rebuilding of Defalk necessitated by your actions. . . .

The next part wouldn’t do. She scratched out the line, and laboriously rewrote it, forcing herself to take care with quill and inkwell.

In time, she stood and went to the door, peering out. Fhurgen, Rickel, and Lejun were all there.

“Yes, Lady Anna?”

“Ah . . . could someone find Lord Jecks for me?”

Fhurgen looked at Rickel. Rickel looked at Lejun. Lejun shrugged and grinned.

“He was sparring with Lord Birfels earlier, but he may be in the library now,” offered Fhurgen.

“I shall go,” said Lejun.

“Thank you,” Anna said quietly.

She went back to the smaller writing desk in the bedchamber and began to read the latest scrolls. Menares, Dythya, Himar, and Herstat somehow managed to get messengers to the right place.

The first message was another from Lady Gatrune, thanking Anna for trusting Herene with a position of responsibility. The second was from Anientta, disavowing her father’s request to combine the administration and control of Arien and Flossbend.

Anna frowned. She’d already denied Tybel’s request, but those messages to both Anientta and Tybel probably had crossed with Anientta’s to Anna. Sooner or later, she needed to visit Synope—or send Jecks or someone—to resolve that mess.

She picked up the third scroll and broke the seal.

Thrap!

“Lord Jecks, Lady Anna.”

“Come on in.”

They walked back to the conference table where Anna handed her rough-drafted message to the white-haired lord. “Would you read this?”

“I would be pleased. You have a fine hand, and a way with words.”

“Thank you.” Anna forced herself to accept the compliment, even while rejecting the idea.

After he finished, Jecks glanced up. “You are determined to use such sorcery?”

“Unless someone comes up with a better idea. Doing nothing will only make things worse.” Anna took the last sip of wine in the goblet and lifted the pitcher. It was empty, and she set it down. “Right now, we have young Hadrenn holding off Bertmynn and the Sturinnese and maybe the Liedfuhr in Ebra. According to Menares, and who knows how he found out, both the Liedfuhr and the Sturinnese are funding Bertmynn. Things still aren’t sorted out in Neserea, and we’ve at least got credit with the Ranuan Exchange for our people. Dumar’s the only problem. What happens a year from now when there are twice as many Sturinnese ships and armsmen in Dumar, when the Liedfuhr uses that as an excuse to take over—just for the duration—Neserea—”

“‘For the duration’?” asked Jecks.

“Sorry. That’s a sarcastic expression where I come from. It means he’ll say his action is temporary because of the emergency conditions, but he never will leave. Neserea will become part of Mansuur, and then we’ll have
problems on two borders, with Bertmynn using coins from everyone to finish off Hadrenn in Ebra. . . .”

“Matters might not turn so ill.”

Anna raised her eyebrows and fixed Jecks with cold blue eyes.

Jecks’ lips curled into a sardonic smile. “That is why I am glad you are regent, Lady Anna. You expect the worst of serpents and plan for it. Planning for the worst, season after season, is not to my liking.”

“I take it you don’t have a better idea?”

“I have those which are more pleasant.” He laughed harshly, once. “Yet against what you say, my ideas are like mist. No, I fear you are right. I do not have to like your reason, but I must respect it.”

Jecks, an optimist?
Anna nodded. He’d have to have been, to have survived.
And what does that say about you?
She pushed that question away.

“I’ll have this ready to go.” She gestured to the message. “It needs to leave by messenger the moment the dam is completed.”

“Why tell me such?”

“Because I’m liable to be exhausted or asleep or not thinking well, and you won’t be.” She forced a grin.

“As you say, Lady Anna.”

“Am I wrong?” she demanded, her eyes meeting his warm hazel ones.

“I think not.” He paused. “You are not as other women. You will not tell yourself that matters are other than they are. Defalk is fortunate in that, but I would not say that of you, lady.”

“Damned—cursed—to be a realist?”

He shrugged sadly.

“The message will be here, tied in green ribbon.” Anna glanced at the empty goblet, then at the clouds through the narrow window, growing more golden by the moment. She could have used more wine. Before long, being regent would turn her into a full-blown alcoholic.