The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle (11 page)

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Authors: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

BOOK: The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle
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W
ith the rap on the workroom door, Anna glanced up. “Would you care to accompany me back to the hall for the midday meal?” asked Brill.
Anna looked at the half loaf of bread and the empty platter
that had held apple slices. She was still hungry. How could she be? “Yes. Unfortunately. I seem to be hungry all the time.”
“Magic is hard work,” Brill offered. “There are few weighty sorcerers.”
That might be so, but Anna hadn’t been doing that much sorcery. She was still trying to figure out the basis for a few verses or adapt a few songs that might possibly be converted to the magic of Liedwahr—she hoped. She’d figured out a way to cool water—safely—and burn paper. Neither was particularly inspiring. “I haven’t been working that hard.”
Brill glanced at the dark spot on the stone floor.
Anna flushed. “I burned some paper. The spell worked.”
“Why paper? Paper is hard to come by, lady.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that.”
“There are a number of objects and materials in the closet,” Brill inclined his head toward the closet door Anna could not see.
Anna donned the floppy hat, following the sorcerer out to the horses—and the two guards—who waited outside in the shade offered under what amounted to a portico. Gero stood behind the guards, eyes downcast.
“Is all well?” asked the sorcerer.
“We’d not be seeing anything strange,” offered Wiltur, the older guard, one hand still on the blade at his waist. “’Cepting a messenger.”
“Messengers do not bode well,” Brill said lightly, “but we all know that.” He laughed gently.
Anna smiled briefly at the two men, then untied Farinelli, and climbed into the saddle, trying to ignore the blazing sun and dust as she rode beside Brill and toward the hall. Gero and the guards followed.
“To the northeast there,” said the sorcerer with a gesture to the hills that hugged the eastern horizon, “lies Lake Aulta. Vult is the home of the dark ones, and it lies some thirty leagues north of the lake through the mountains.”
Anna concealed a frown. Why were the dark ones attacking some thirty leagues to the south? Or were the distant mountains so impassible that they made direct travel difficult? She smiled to herself ruefully, thinking about horses and foot soldiers crossing the Rockies—or the Appalachians. Cumberland Gap had been the gateway to Tennessee, and that had been less than two hundred years earlier. But it was still hard to believe she was stranded in a place where such considerations were necessary. “I take it the mountains are impassable for an army?”
“For a large force,” Brill conceded. “And clearsong sorcery does not work that well there, except where there are no trees.”
Anna rubbed her nose, to try to keep from sneezing, then shifted her weight in the saddle.
Farinelli
whuff
ed, and she patted his shoulder. “Easy there … good boy.”
That got her a snort.
Even the chickens were silent in the midday heat as she reined up before the stables, and by the time Anna had walked from the hall stables, she felt like a morning glory subjected to the South Dakota badlands in August. She shivered, recalling the time Avery had dragged them all camping and Elizabetta had come down with roseola in the middle of nowhere.
The cool of the hall was welcome, and she stopped for a moment in relief, pulling off the floppy hat.
Brill bowed and said, “I will meet you in the salon, Lady Anna, shortly.”
Anna started up the stairs, followed by the ever-present Florenda. Anna pursed her lips. She hated being followed. That was one thing that Mario had done as a preschooler that had driven her crazy. She’d cross the family room, and he’d follow. Then Avery had used the same tactic, as things were falling apart, following her from room to room, except he’d kept saying, “We just have to look at this logically. You’re feeling, Anna, and you need to think about it.”
At the top of the steps, Anna turned to the serving girl. “Florenda?”
“Yes, lady.”
“Are you to do my bidding?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Good. Follow me.” Anna marched to her bedchamber and into the robing room.
Florenda tagged along. “You wish some help in robing?”
“No. I need some more clothes. In this whole place there are two pairs of trousers that fit, and two shirts, and not much more in the way of gowns and drawers.”
“Drawers?”
“Underclothes, smallclothes, the stuff you wear under your trousers or dresses.”
“Yes, lady?”
Anna turned and glared. “I don’t need help. I don’t need you following me around. What I do need is more clothes. I’d appreciate you taking care of that, rather than following me around.”
The girl swallowed. “But Serna … and Lord Brill …”
“Tell Serna I’ve told you what I need. If she has a problem with that … then she can talk to me.” Anna smiled. “And you can also tell Serna that I will be very displeased if I find out that she is even thinking about punishing you for carrying out my wishes.”
Florenda swallowed.
“And I will punish her if you are replaced.”
That got a tentative smile, tinged with hidden amusement. Anna wanted to sigh, hoping she’d covered all the possibilities. “Now … get on with finding me some clothes. You can still wake me in the morning or announce meals, and you can check with me when I come back to the hall—but otherwise, get me some clothes that fit.”
“Yes, Lady Anna.” Florenda remained standing in the middle of the robing room.
Anna pointed to the dusty outfit she had worn before. “Take that and go. Now.”
Florenda backed out. When the door closed, Anna took a deep breath. “I hope it works.”
After washing up, Anna returned to the salon where, for once, she arrived before the sorcerer. She seated herself, pouring more water into her goblet, and sipping it while she waited.
Brill’s face was solemn, almost impassive, when he finally entered the salon. “You need not have waited.”
From the formality of his statement, Anna decided it was better that she had. “You have always waited for me.”
The sorcerer pulled out the heavy iron chair, which grated slightly on the stone floor, then sat and immediately filled his goblet with the dark wine that Anna had not tried.
“Bad news?” she asked, adding, “I saw a rider in purple, earlier … .”
Brill lowered his goblet. “Lord Barjim sent a messenger.”
“You don’t sound pleased.”
The sorcerer shook his head. “The dark ones are beginning to mass their forces on the far side of the Sand Pass. Lord Barjim estimates they will begin to march in two weeks, perhaps three.” He took a long sip from the goblet.
Serna slipped through the doorway, her sandaled feet almost silent as she carried two platters to the table—one with narrow wedges of both yellow and white cheese, surrounded with dried apple slices, the other with a long loaf of dark bread.
Brill waited until the server set down the platters, then broke off a chunk of bread from the one and nodded to Anna. She took a chunk herself, and added several wedges of the yellow cheese, and some apples, to her plate.
“Did you expect them so soon?” Anna asked, hoping the sorcerer would provide more information. She still knew so little.
Brill chewed through some cheese and bread before answering. “That they would attack before harvest was to be expected. This soon … Barjim had hoped for more time, and so had I.”
Anna chewed through another mouthful of bread, nodding for him to continue.
“With the bad harvest of last year, and the dry winter, supplies are scarce. We have a half a season to harvest—and Lord Barjim probably owes half his share of the harvests to the usurers in Encora.”
“Encora … you haven’t mentioned that.”
“That’s the liedstadt of Ranuak, and the richest city in Liedwahr.”
“That’s the one women run?” Anna asked. “If it’s so rich, why aren’t the dark ones attacking there?”
“They are,” snorted Brill. “They’re moving the Whispering Sands south.” The sorcerer refilled his goblet. “Defalk is an easier target. With all the coins the usurers have, the Ranuans can afford a large standing army, not just levies. Of course, the bitches also need the army and the ships to prove they can collect on their loans.” Brill took another deep swallow from the goblet, then broke off another chunk of bread.
Anna ate silently for a time, trying to put together what she had learned. Finally, she spoke. “Do you think that what the Ebrans plan is to take over Defalk, then bring back the rain and prosperity, and use that—”
“Exactly,” snapped Brill. “It’s so obvious, that an outsider like you can figure it out in less than a week, and no one in Liedwahr has been able—or willing—to say so.” The goblet went down on the table with a thump. “Then, they might have to join forces against the dark ones. Instead, they each hope that the lizard snake eats the others first.”
“You’re upset,” Anna prompted.
“I am requested, in return for silver, to join Lord Barjim’s forces at his summons.”
“‘Requested’?” Anna gave the word an ironic twist.
“I don’t exactly have a choice, dear lady. If Defalk falls to the Ebrans, they will have no use for sorcerers of my type—or yours. If, by some miracle, Lord Barjim holds them off without my assistance …” Brill frowned.
“You’re not exactly in the best of graces?”
“Exactly—if you consider being dead or exiled as being in poor graces.” The sorcerer’s eyes flicked to the window.
Anna followed, but the sky outside remained clear, the walls empty.
In the silence that followed, Anna asked, “What do you expect of me?”
“Lady Anna, I expect nothing. You will do as you see fit. You owe Lord Barjim nothing, and so he can ask nothing.”
“I owe you hospitality and information,” she replied, biting back the thought that the information remained hardfought and scanty.
“In a struggle such as this, one cannot ask,” Brill said gently.
Right! She would be forced to volunteer by Brill’s expensive hospitality. “What will you do, then?” she asked
“All that I can,” answered the sorcerer, with a rueful laugh. “There is little point in doing less.” He lifted his goblet, then held it momentarily, while asking, “How was the workroom? Is there anything … I might help with?”
The sorcerer’s condescending tone irked Anna, just as Avery’s had, but she wasn’t married to Brill, and she smiled and asked, “Why couldn’t you use just a drum to replicate thunder, rather than requiring both a falk horn and a violincello?” Anna watched Brill intently.
Brill swallowed hard, then squinted at Anna. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he took another swallow of the vinegarlike wine. “No one has tried to create storm magic in a century—except for the dark ones—and they use the chorus—the power of massed voices.”
“Why couldn’t you use a drum?” Anna broke off a corner of the dark bread, still the best part of the meals Serna offered.
“It is like matching voices with different melodies and the same words.”
“We call that ‘harmony,’” supplied Anna.
“If the match be not perfect,” Brill continued as if she had not spoken, “then both singers could be destroyed.”
“But you said that the darksingers used massed voices.”
“They sing the same notes and words in chorus. That is different.”
She wondered how different—or were sorcerers so paranoid, or untrusting, like rival tenors, that harmony was effectively avoided? She ate more of the bread, wondering why she was not becoming a balloon.
“You continually surprise me, Lady Anna. Burning paper, and actually reading.”
“Don’t most sorceresses read?”
Brill laughed, not unkindly. “Very few sorcerers or sorceresses could have read what you obviously did. The talent to cast spells does not necessarily require reading. Young Daffyd’s friend Jenny cannot print or read her name, but she is good at summonings and sendings—if someone else supplies the spell and music. That earns her a fair living.”
Anna shook her head at the reminders that Liedwahr was still mainly an oral culture, even in spell magic, and one where a prosperous woman was one who owned a small house. She noted that, once again, Brill hadn’t answered the question. “Why wouldn’t a drum be enough?”
The briefest of frowns vanished from the sorcerer’s face. “It has to do with the nature of magic. There is no link between one drumbeat and another. All are the same tone, and by the construction of the drum, all must be of the same tone.” He pulled at his chin. “The first Evult was said to have wrought spells with drums of different pitches, but no one has tried that since, not that I know of, although who would know what they do on the Eastern Isles or in far Sturinn?” Brill turned to Anna, and with that cheerfully false smile, added, “You still puzzle me, lady. You understand some aspects of music, yet not others. Your voice is firm, precise, yet spells seem foreign to you. Once given a hint, you can perform a spell as powerfully as the best, yet you seem to know no spells.”

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