Darksong Rising (40 page)

From what she could tell, both weighed the same. In a strange way, it made sense. Underlying

Liedwahr was the idea of harmony, and it would have been unnecessarily disharmonious to have

coins of different weights. Dissonance was reserved for weightier matters.

She snorted and stood. easing the lutar from its case and beginning to tune it, as she went through

another vocalise.

After several more vocalises, she straightened and concentrated on the first spell, and on the set

of designs on the table.

Coin, coin, by this my own design,

 
a coin figured round and fine,

 
weighted like all others here of gold,

 
signifying the Regency as strong and bold.

Clink! As the last note died away, a single coin rested qn the table, next to the drawing. Anna

reached for it, then stopped. Her fingers could feel the heat radiating from the metal. She bent

down and looked. The coin, not even quite the size of an American nickel, bore on the upper side

the emblem of crossed spears.

“Now all you need is a few thousand more,” she murmured, setting aside the lutar and reseating

herself at the small worktable. She refilled the mug from the pitcher and took another healthy

swallow.

She brushed her index finger over the surface of the small coin, but it was merely warm. She

picked it up and studied it., noting that the inscriptions and design matched those she had drawn.

With that, a smile crossed her lips, then faded. You only need afew thousand more like this one.

Shouldn’t you bring in the players? Anna shook her head. Some things were better not seen... if

she could make the spell work at all for larger numbers of coins, then she should do it with the

lutar.

She stood once more, checking the lutar’s tuning and clearing her throat before beginning the

revised spell.

Coin, coin, by this my own design,

a thousand coins both round and fine,

weighted like all others made of gold,

signifying the Regency as strong and bold.

This time, a wave of heat, steamy and metallic, filled the workroom, and Anna backed out into

the hallway. As she retreated, awkwardly closing the door, the clink of metal striking the floor

sounded almost like heavy rain.

With her right hand still holding the lutar, she blotted her steaming forehead with her left sleeve,

listening. The pattering clinking had stopped. After what seemed forever, she eased open the

door, stepping back as warm metallic air puffed from the scrying room. Finally, she stepped

inside. Gold coins lay strewn across the polished stones of the floor, hundreds of them. Probably

a thousand.

Anna slipped into the room and closed the door. After she set the lutar on the table, she began to

stack the warm coins on the table in stacks of ten. In time, she had exactly one hundred stacks.

Her eyes dropped to the stack of bars on the floor. She swallowed. Exactly one bar was missing.

She looked again... less than one bar, since a small oblong of gold lay in the right-hand upper

corner of the stack of gold bars.

She tried to figure it out—with more than a thousand coins a bar, and one hundred bars stored

below Loiseau—ninety below the hold and nine before her... The Regent shook her head slowly.

What dared she do with all that gold? She had the equivalent of more than ten years’ liedgeld. If

she spent it too quickly... she’d generate the local equivalent of inflation... and if anyone knew

exactly how much there was... she’d have thieves and who knew what else prowling through

Mencha and Loiseau.

She needed a concealment spell—or something—after she converted another bar or two to coins

to pay for her coming campaign. Then she laughed. Once she had all the gold in the storeroom,

she could weld it into a stack with sorcery and then conceal it. No one had the technology to

move that mass—not quickly—and that would be if they could find it.

She went to the door of the domed building and peered out.

Frideric, Blaz, and Lejun all stiffened.

“If one of you could find Lord Jecks and ask him to join me... if you would?” She smiled as

pleasantly as possible.

“Ah ... I will, Lady Anna,” offered Blaz.

“Thank you. Tell him I’ll be in the room with the pool, please.” She slipped out of the early-fall

heat and into the somewhat cooler hallway, walking slowly back to the scrying room. Then she

sat down and forced another swallow of water and more of the bread before she got back to

work.

Anna was making a list—of everything that needed to be handled in one way or another before

she left Loiseau—when Jecks knocked on the door.

“Come on in.”

Jecks’ eyes widened as he looked at the stacks of coins on the worktable.

“What do you think?” asked Anna. ‘There are a thousand there.”

The older lord picked up one of the golds, then turned it over, noting the milled edges, and the

emblems. “It should bear your image.”

“No. The crossed spears and crown with the R are enough. If I mint coins with my image, just

how long will your beloved lords of the Thirty-three keep believing in a Regency? Or how long

before one of them gets to Jimbob?”

“These are yours,” Jecks said slowly. “The gold came from your lands by your sorcery. They do

not belong to the Regency or to Jimbob.”

“We need them, though,” Anna pointed out.

“Then use them to add to the liedgeld fees collected by the Regency, but do not allow the Thirty-

three to think that they will always be there.”

“As a Lord of Defalk might use coins from his own lands to help support the realm?” she asked.

“As such,” Jecks answered. “I would also transfer some of the armsmen and perhaps Himar into

your personal force, and pay them yourself, now that you can.”

Anna nodded. That definitely made sense, because it established her as a power independent of

being Regent—and as a power without having to use sorcery. “Won’t that upset some of them?”

“They need not know exactly how you obtained the gold.”

“I could keep it secret?” Anna snorted.

“There are so many tales about you,” Jecks pointed out, “that it becomes difficult for those who

know you not to determine which may be true and which false. If you do not speak...who will

know for certain. Your players will not speak, nor will most armsmen. That is why young

Skent’s company has guarded the gold most closely.” Jecks laughed. “And if some armsmen

speak... well, who will believe such?”

Anna nodded. Her players understood well enough that any alternative to playing for her was

probably worse. You hope they do. She took a deep breath. She’d have to watch them, If only

because she’d learned that most people didn’t know when they were well off.

Jecks fingered the coin he held. “It is softer. I think.”

“How could you tell?”

The white-haired lord smiled, almost sheepishly. “I cannot. But I know that pure gold is softer

than coin gold, and the gold you created—”

“I gathered it. I didn’t create it.”

“That gold must be pure," Jecks finished.

“It’s pure. Will people take it? As golds, I mean?”

Jecks smiled again. “They will take it, and they will save those of your coins they can, and spend

the coins of others. Yours are worth more, especially to merchants. If you had paid the Ranuans

with such, you would have had even less difficulty."

“I don’t know...” answered Anna musingly. Then she looked up. “Now... we can see about going

to Ebra.” Anna handed the list to Jecks. “If you would read this...see if there’s anything on it we

shouldn’t do... and what I might have forgotten.” She paused, then added, “and please sit down.

We also need to talk about Lord Dannel.”

“I feared he would be less than pleased.”

“He is less than pleased. I’ll try to draft some sort of response to say he’s honorable, but Lysara’s

not going to be his consort.”

“You will not reconsider? Many of the northern lords..."

Anna met Jecks’ eyes. “If I give in to him, then where do I stop?”

“That may be, my lady, but he is a man who never relinquishes a grudge.”

The Regent nodded. “I understand, but even if Nelmor agrees to a match between Tiersen and

Lysara, Dannel would never accept it. Besides, he has to know that Defalk won’t survive if

things don’t change.” She looked at the rest of the scrolls. “Even here, things keep piling up.”

Jecks laughed ruefully. “So said my daughter.”

Anna picked up the second scroll. “The rivermen...again...”

37

 
Anna, Himar, and Jecks stood beside the scrying pool in the domed sorcery work building

outside the hold at Loiseau. At midday, even despite the thick stone walls, the room was hot and

still, and a trace steamy. The two men watched as Anna finished tuning the lutar.

"First,” she said, “we need to find out where Bertmynn’s forces are.” She glanced at Himar, then

at Jecks. “And what they’re doing.”

“They must be nearing Elahwa,” hazarded Jecks, “if they are not already there and attacking the

city. They were loading the barges weeks ago.”

“Not all leaders move so quickly as the Regent,” countered Himar. ‘The roads may not be so

good, either.”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Anna took a moment to clear her throat, then hummed, trying to

ensure she was ready, before beginning the spell and concentrating on the idea of Bertmynn’s

forces.