The Shadow Sorceress (35 page)

Secca adjusted the relatively clean tunic, then stepped toward the window of the main chamber of the guest suite. The morning was gray and looked cold outside, but there seemed to be little wind. “It's not snowing or raining.”

“Not yet,” replied Richina.

Secca walked toward the wall peg on which hung her green leather riding jacket, removing it and slipping into it.

“You don't want me to come?” asked Richina.

“There's no reason for you to,” Secca said, trying to avoid pointing out that the invitation was for the Sorceress-Protector alone. “You could practice or rest. You can practice here, if you like.” She sighed. “I wouldn't mind the rest.”

“You didn't sleep that well, did you?”

“No,” admitted the redhead. “Not after all the work it took to find out what Belmar had done. I still don't know what keep
he brought down, except that it's in Neserea, and it's not in Esaria.”

“You don't think…? Lady Clayre, I mean?”

“No. She's safe.” Secca shook her head, then fastened the oiled leather riding jacket. “I think I would have felt something like that, but I did use the glass last night to make sure. She was as surprised as I was, I think, because she had her glass out.” Secca glanced around, then reclaimed the green felt hat, but tucked it into the jacket belt rather than wear it. “I hope I won't be too long, but…I just don't know.”

“I hope the meeting with the counselor goes well.”

“So do I.” Secca paused at the door. “Best you study the arrow spell. You may need to use it before we return to Loiseau.”

“The arrow spell…for thunder-drums?”

Secca nodded before she turned toward the door, then stopped. “Could either of us have stopped them here by ourselves? Do you think that will change when we get to Dumar?”

“We're going to Dumar?”

“If we don't, we'll find the Sturinnese coming to us.” The older sorceress smiled. “So practice.”

“Ah…yes, lady.”

Secca slipped out and down the corridor to the stairs.

Wilten and Alcaren were mounted and waiting by the rear entrance when Secca walked out. Behind them, in formation, were four guards—Dyvan, Rukor, Achar, and Easlon—and a squad of lancers from Loiseau.

“Good morning, lady,” offered Wilten.

Alcaren smiled and inclined his head. “I trust you slept well.”

“As well as could be expected, and certainly in greater comfort, thank you.” She returned the smile, before looking back up at Wilten. “Are the lancers comfortable?”

“Most comfortable, lady, and well fed. They are pleased for the respite.” The overcaptain smiled.

“And the SouthWomen?” Secca turned to Alcaren.

“They are indeed, lady, and pleased to be back here.”

“Good.” Secca mounted, conscious again of how she practically had to jump and lever herself into the saddle because of
her lack of height, at least when there were no mounting blocks convenient. As she rode forward behind Achar, and the standard he bore, Wilten rode beside her on her right, and Alcaren on the left.

When the short column rode out from the paved lane and turned northward on the gray brick road toward the Council building, the breeze stiffened. Fine misting drops of rain swept into her face, droplets that stung as if they were tiny ice pellets. Secca pulled the green felt hat from her belt and pulled it down on her head, so that the front brim would deflect some of the icy rain.

“Good thing we're here in quarters,” observed Wilten.

“Very good,” Secca admitted, wondering as she did how long she could impose on the city, and how long she dared. That would depend on the meeting with the Counselor, and on what she could discover in the next day or so through the use of the scrying glass.

“You look worried,” ventured Alcaren.

“I am,” the sorceress admitted. “We have a respite, but the Sturinnese are still in Dumar.” She decided against saying more for the moment.

Alcaren frowned slightly, then shifted his weight in the saddle. “Up there, to the left, you can see the walls for the quarters of the Free City's lancers. Just this side—the building with the pale green shutters—that's the Boiled Pot.”

“Boiled pot?” asked Secca.

“It is an odd name for a tavern—it's not really an inn—but it's because the old proprietress said she boiled every pot before cooking anything in it. She claimed that kept food from spoiling.”

“Did it…” Secca shook her head. Anna had insisted on the same thing for water used in childbirth. “It should work.”

Alcaren shrugged. “I wasn't here that long before you arrived, but the local lancers claimed no one ever got the flux from eating there.”

“Maybe more innkeepers should boil their pots,” interjected Wilten with a laugh.

“Especially in Ebra,” added Alcaren wryly.

“I didn't know…” Secca grinned at the Ranuan overcaptain.

“I'm fine…now. The ride from Hanlis was…shall we say I have had more comfortable journeys.”

Secca couldn't help a gentle laugh at the wry and self-deprecating tone of Alcaren's response. “I'm glad you're fine now.”

As the column turned left at the unmarked squarish building, Wilten pointed to the green across the green. “Don't see anyone there today.”

“We wouldn't be out in this if we lived here,” Secca replied. “I'd just as soon it didn't turn to snow.”

“It seldom does along the coast,” Alcaren said.

Anna would have had an explanation for that, Secca reflected, realizing that there was much she could have learned—and hadn't. And now she never would. The redhead reined up the gray mare on the side of the steps leading up to the square columns at the front of the Council building, opposite the bronze hitching rings set into the blue marble wall that comprised the side facing of the steps. She dismounted quickly, and tied the gray to the end ring.

Wilten nodded at the sorceress. “We'll be here till you return, lady.”

“I don't know how long it will be.”

“We'll be here.”

Alcaren dismounted, but did not leave his mount, nodding as Secca turned to walk back to the front of the half-score marble steps. Between the darkness of the clouds overhead and the dampness left by the fine rain on the stone, the pale blue marble steps appeared a darkish gray.

Dyvan and Easlon followed Secca up the steps.

A single woman guard in a crimson short cloak, wearing a brace of shortswords, stepped forward as Secca walked through the square archway and then through the right hand door of the double oak doors.

“Lady Sorceress, Counselor Veria is in the third chamber on the left.”

“Thank you.” Secca offered a smile.

“My pleasure, lady.” The smile presented in return was more than mere politeness.

Secca's boots clicked on the blue marble floor, as she walked toward the doorway indicated by the guard. Her steps echoed loudly enough that the sorceress suspected her heels were worn down and the boot nails were striking the stone. She slipped off the hat, folded it, and slipped it through her belt. She tried to smooth her hair somewhat, knowing that it wouldn't have mattered if she'd used a brush or comb.

The door to the chamber was unguarded, and Secca almost felt foolish as she looked in to see the counselor seated behind a wide table-desk, alone except for a stack of scrolls.

“Lady Sorceress, do come in.”

“Thank you.” Secca looked to Dyvan and Easlon. “If you would guard the door…?”

“Yes, lady.”

Secca eased the polished golden oak door closed and stepped into the chamber, a room roughly four yards wide and three deep, containing a table-desk with a chair behind it, three chairs before it, and a series of footchests lined up against the wall to the left. The table-desk was set before the single tall and narrow window, with two oil lamps upon it—one on each side. Each side of the chamber also had an oil lamp in a sconce. Although all four were lit, the room was still dim.

Veria gestured toward the chairs. “I must apologize, but luxury is yet frowned on in Elahwa.”

“The quarters for us are luxury enough in this season and so far from Mencha, and we are most grateful.” Secca sat down in the chair to the right.

“We are even more grateful for your presence and your decision to rescue Elahwa before dealing with the keep at Dolov.” The counselor studied Secca before speaking again. “Alcaren's message was brief. He only wrote that you had destroyed the keep and left young Haddev there to rebuild and restore the holding. I assume you used sorcery.”

“We did. I asked for those within to surrender. They refused. They even tried to kill the lancer delivering the message.”

“You decided to destroy the keep, then?”

“The clouds were gathering to the north for another storm. We couldn't stay. We had no siege engines, and not that many lancers.” Secca shrugged. “I was tired and angry. Lady Anna pardoned Bertmynn's heirs and gave the keep and lands to them if they were loyal to Hadrenn and Lord Robero. Mynntar rebelled, and his heirs refused to accept Lord Hadrenn's or Lord Robero's rule.” The sorceress paused. “I've thought about it since. It might have been better if I had used sorcery to slay all within and left the keep intact.”

“I think not,” replied Veria. “I say that not because I despise Bertmynn and his heirs. I do despise them, but that is not why.”

“Oh?” Secca raised her eyebrows.

“Any who rebuild it will know the effort and golds required. Young Haddev will first call dissonance upon you. In time, he will respect you, for he will learn what it takes to build…If you had emptied it and bestowed it upon him…then he would have taken it as his due. Even if it goes to the younger brother, the older will not forget.” Veria offered a crooked smile. “They will not like you much, but they also will not cross you.”

“I can't say I thought of that,” Secca admitted.

“You followed what you felt, and that is oft right more than fine words.”

“Others have said that.” Secca recalled Anna.

“Remember this. Long after you and I are moldering dust in a fine tomb, for you will have that, men will read of your deeds, and they will call you worse than a rutting bitch because you employed sorcery to slay fine lancers and armsmen. They will praise a masterful battle in which more died and suffered because of the skill at arms of the marshal who won. Yet, in the end, all are dead. Most men, especially lords and holders, wish to be known for their valor and strength.”

“And women?” asked Secca. “Are we that different?”

“Some women are like men, and some men think like women, but I would say that most women often care more about what results than how the results were obtained, save they also realize that some means will never achieve the results wished.”

Secca nodded, although she was less sure of that than Veria seemed to be.

“If I might ask,” Veria asked cautiously, “why did you determine to return to Elahwa?”

Secca smiled, trying to compose a truthful answer that didn't make her seem too simplistic or too calculating. “I suppose because I could see no point in trying to return to Mencha with the Sand Pass drifted deep in snow. The lancers and players need a respite before we try such, and I thought there was the chance that we might be needed to go to Dumar.”

“Needed?” Veria shook her head. “Lord Robero should have dispatched one of the other sorceresses the moment he discovered the Sea-Pigs had used the thunder-drums to raise the sea against Narial.”

Secca wondered if she should have suggested such, or gone herself—except then Ebra would have fallen.

“You wonder that you should have gone?” asked the counselor. “That would have been no better, for Elahwa would have fallen—and Ebra. Sending a sorceress to Neserea was unwise. A rebellion without Sea-Priests is far less to be feared than ships and lancers in white in Dumar.”

“Perhaps not,” Secca said slowly. “There is a sorcerer in Neserea. He brought down a walled keep somewhere there last evening. The disruptions were enough to wake me.”

Veria leaned forward in the chair behind the table-desk. “You could sense that all these many deks away?”

“Unhappily.”

“Can the other sorceress sense such?”

“I don't know about them all,” Secca replied. “Some can, and some cannot.”

“From that far away?”

Secca offered a laugh. “We've never had this happen before, and I've not been able to talk to them.”

“What of the younger sorceress with you?”

“She is still learning,” Secca said. “She is the youngest who is beyond an apprentice.”

“You were wise to bring her.”

Before Veria could pursue more about sorcery, the redheaded sorceress smiled again and asked, “What can you tell me about Alcaren?”

“Possibly less than you already know.” Veria smiled in turn. “He was not even yet born when I left Encora. He comes from an old trading family, but not one of the wealthiest. He is trusted by the Matriarch not to harm Ranuak, or she would not have sent him, and he is skilled enough to listen to his captains, but strong enough that they will not overtly disobey him. There is more to him than meets the eye, but he is skilled enough to hide what that may be, but not skilled enough to hide that such exists.”

Secca laughed gently. “Much of that—”

“You have already discerned,” Veria completed Secca's sentence.

“What is there that is not to be seen?”

Veria smiled. “Besides his interest in you, you mean?”

“Me? He is but interested in me because I am a sorceress.”

“I have no doubts that he follows what you do, but he follows more than that.”

Secca managed to keep from flushing.

“Do not worry. He will never press, and if he is not to your inclination, then you need not worry.”