The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (31 page)

Anna wanted to wince. “Could there have been something else there?” From what she recalled, bacteria wouldn’t have been able to act fast enough to give her a fever within moments, and she’d have to watch the wounds for any signs of sepsis or infection. That would really be a joy.

“You suspect poison?”

“Yes.”

“The quarrel was smeared with a tar. It could have been mixed with any substance.” Liende gave a half-smile. “Your elixir, and your own strength, surmounted whatever was upon the quarrel.”

“I don’t feel like I’ve surmounted much.”

“More than most,” Liende answered.

“Are the players still here?”

“Where else would we be?” asked the player gently.

“Sorry. I’m still not thinking that well.” Anna gave a small headshake, a very small headshake. “Can you start them working on the next two spellsongs?”

“We have started.”

“Good.” Anna glanced around the room. “In a day or two, I’ll hear them. There’s room enough to practice here.”

“We will not be soon returning to Falcor?”

“I have not decided,” Anna temporized. She wasn’t about to decide anything until she found out from Jecks exactly what the situation was.

Liende nodded, then stood as the door to Anna’s quarters opened.

Jecks stepped into the room, his eyes going to Anna. Since he didn’t look shocked, he must have looked in on her a few times. That, or Anna was beginning to look
human. She suspected Jecks’ lack of surprise wasn’t because of her improved appearance.

Liende moved away from Anna with a nod. “By your leave, Lady Anna?”

“Until later, Liende.”

Jecks inclined his head to Liende. “My thanks to you, chief player.”

“We did as we could, but she is strong, and her elixir is powerful,” Liende acknowledged before easing out the door.

“Lady Anna.” Jecks stepped toward the bed.

“Lord Jecks.” What could she say that wouldn’t sound stupid or helpless or hopeless? Anna glanced at the white-haired Lord of Elheld. There had been times when she had wished him in her bedroom, but the present didn’t qualify, even if she did need to talk to him.

“I am pleased to see you are awake. Are you still fevered?”

“Sometimes, but it seems to be getting better.” She frowned. Without antibiotics, a fever should have worsened. She gestured toward the chair with her left hand.

He nodded. “Good.” Then he sat down.

Anna still hadn’t figured out exactly how the damned arrow had gotten her, especially since Jecks and Alvar had said that they’d all been beyond range. She was also less than pleased about being a target for the second time in less than a year. “That arrow . . .”

“The arrow was ensorcelled,” Jecks said.

“Spelled somehow?”

“Aye. It curved. That I saw.”

Anna wanted to beat her own head—again. Not having been born on Erde left her blind to the simplest matters. She’d been required to use huge spells, and ones that took all her ability and strength, so often that she’d totally overlooked the simpler—and still potentially deadly use of spells.
You aren’t devious enough, either. You’re not used to poisons and other local nasties
.

“You are troubled,” offered Jecks.

“Troubled and angry,” Anna said. “I didn’t think about spelling arrows or poisoning them. Even when I saw those players, it didn’t really dawn on me.”
Stupid!

“The quarrel was tainted?”

“It had to be poison. I wouldn’t have gotten a fever or chills from . . . filth that fast.”

“You are fortunate—or enchanted.”

You’re a damned fool, Anna
. She shook her head slowly and far from vigorously. “I still don’t know enough. I’ve been incredibly lucky.”

“You were prepared. You had the elixir.”

“And that breastplate.” She met his hazel eyes. “How did you know about the breastplate? That I’d need it?” Anna forced herself to take another slice of the white cheese. At least it was hard and cold, rather than soft, moldy, and mushy, like so much of the white cheese Brill had favored.

Jecks glanced at the yellow brick floor. “I was fortunate. We were fortunate.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me, my lord Jecks,” Anna said wryly. “Why not?”

The white-haired lord shrugged, but did not speak. Finally, Jecks answered. “At times . . . I feel as though I know things. Sometimes I am wrong. Most times, I was right to fear. I have feared this journey from the day you first spoke of it.” His eyes did not meet hers.

“What else do you fear?” she queried.

“I have no feelings of danger now.” He smiled his movie-star smile.

Anna wanted to smile back. She didn’t, though she hoped he was right. “That’s good.”

“I still worry.” The smile vanished with a frown.

“So do I.” She coughed gently, trying not to wince.

Jecks’ frown deepened.

“I’ll be all right.”
You hope
.

“You should not strain yourself.”

Anna tried not to bridle at the male condescension in his tone. “Was it Lord Sargol?”

“We do not know with certainty. I did not feel we should spare armsmen to chase those on the hilltop. Your safety was more important.” Jecks shrugged. “Once well . . . I thought you would be able to find out.”

“If I got well, then I’d be able to find out. If I didn’t, you and Jimbob had bigger problems.” Anna forced a smile.

“You surprise me, even when I expect it.”

She did not answer immediately, but sipped more of the wine, wishing she were strong enough to orderspell just plain water. Could she have someone boil some? How would she know if it had been boiled enough, or put into something that was clean enough not to be contaminated? “I suppose we’ll have to do something about Sargol now.”

“There is no hurry,” Jecks said.

“You mean, there’s no hurry beyond the time when I’m strong enough to bring his whole holding down around him?”

“You cannot bring down every holding in southern Defalk.”

Anna understood that. She wasn’t sure she could, but even if she could have, razing them all except for Geansor’s keep wouldn’t help in welding Defalk together. She had the glimmer of another idea.

The damned arrow had actually given her an answer—use sorcery to influence what was—like arrows. That approach would take far less energy. It took as much skill, but skill wasn’t her problem. Energy was. She pursed her lips. There might be a problem with finding archers, lots of them, but she didn’t need marksmen, just people who could put a lot of arrows into the air at the same time.

She’d also need to craft some defensive skills.
Why does everything keep getting more complicated? . . . Because it always does, no matter what
, she answered herself.

Before she could actually implement her ideas, she
needed to get well, and get stronger. While she was healing, though, she could work out the spells.

She glanced worriedly at Jecks. “The lutar?”

“I put it in the chest there.” He inclined his head toward the carved chest at the foot of the bed. “It was not damaged.”

Anna released her breath slowly, but it still hurt.

Damn!
If she had anything to say about it, one Lord Sargol and one Lord Dencer, and their allies, were going to pay dearly for their shenanigans. Except their actions were far worse than shenanigans.

She could see Jecks stiffen as he watched her. Would it always be that way? Would men always back away when she looked determined? Why didn’t they understand that she had no choice? Even as they didn’t think they had to understand women, they always wanted women to understand.

She snorted . . . softly.

O
utside the keep of Synfal, rain sleeted from the gray clouds down onto the thirsty fields and the wet brick walls, a warm rain that turned into mist where it struck yellow brick. The shutters to Anna’s quarters were half closed—held that way by a casement bar, a compromise that allowed some fresh air without too much water splashing inside and onto the polished brick floor.

At the writing table, Anna finally pushed away the pile of accounts that Dythya had sent with the scrolls that had begun to appear with a semblance of regularity.

Of course, Gylaron hadn’t paid his liedgeld, nor Dencer and Sargol the remainder of theirs. Lord Vlassa’s heirs
continued to quibble, and she’d heard nothing from Lord Birfels about whether Birke would return to Falcor for more education. She and Jecks had sent for Herstat, but even the message to Elheld summoning Jecks’ saalmeister-accountant would take days to get there.

Time slipped by while she recovered. About the only physical things she could manage at first were an awkward one-handed grooming of Farinelli and short walks around the corridors, chafing at the time it took her wounds to heal. She knew that the Sea-Priests of Sturinn were probably weaseling their way into Dumar, while Lord Ehara continued his mischief in trying to subvert Defalk’s southern lords. Konsstin was up to something, massing more troops in Neserea, or worse. And who knew what the traders of Wei were trying?

And you can’t afford more than an occasional mirror spell that’s shown nothing new. Or one for clean water. What a place—it takes magic even to get clean cool water
.

She recalled Shakespearean England had been like that, too. After a small shudder, she pushed the accounting paperwork to the corner of the table and reclaimed her spell folder. She concentrated on the crude brown paper, trying to work out the spell, murmuring the first words.

“All the arrows we have shot into the air,

have them strike . . .”

She pursed her lips. Trying to create the spells without writing them made it too hard to remember all the parts. Finally, she lifted the grease marker and crossed out several words, humming the tune again.

“Those arrows shot into the air,
oh, make each strike one armsman there . . .”

The first lines would do, if she could find another couplet that would define which armsmen were to be struck.
After a long slow exhalation, she sipped the too-sweet wine, then swallowed.

Then she froze. Arrows? What were arrows?

“Shit!”

The damned arrows were metal arrowheads fitted onto wooden shafts and fletched with once-living feathers. She cradled her head in a left hand propped on the writing table. She couldn’t even direct arrows without getting into Darksong. But how had they ensorcelled the arrow? . . . She wanted to shake her head. It had been a crossbow quarrel and all metal.

She looked at the crude brown paper. Back to the drawing board—literally.

Her right arm ached only slightly, if somewhat more at the end of the day. After more than a week, the gash on her chest, thankfully above her breasts—lower would have been a real mess—was beginning to heal, and all the bruises had turned faded green-and-purple.

Sometimes, she felt as though all she did was either get wounded and recover, or kill someone and recover, and most of the time was spent trying to deal with some administrative mess or another.

She had the gist of an idea—maybe—when someone
thrapped
on the door.

“Yes?” She tried to conceal the irritation in her voice.

“Lady Anna?” Fhurgen peered in. “Halde would request a moment with you.”

Anna understood Fhurgen’s body posture. Her chief guard didn’t trust totally anyone of Synfal. “Escort him in.”

She straightened in the chair.

“Lady Anna,” Halde began almost before he stopped opposite the writing table. “In the past several years, Fauren and Lord Arkad left the higher fields fallow. Those were the ones where the ditches from the rivers did not reach. We have had much rain this past season.” The acting saalmeister of Synfal glanced down at the yellow-brick floor.

“You’re thinking of planting them, but it will take coins and seed and time, and the crops will be later, and you should have thought of it earlier.” Anna waited.

The dark-haired acting saalmeister flushed and said nothing.

“Halde,” Anna said gently, but firmly, “I do not punish questions or honest mistakes, provided they aren’t repeated. I do get angry at people who do not speak what they mean and people who try to deceive me.” She paused. “What would you plant, and why? What would it cost? How late would the crops be?”

The flush faded. “Lady . . . I would not plant maize. It drinks too much water, even in the wettest year. Wheat corn, I think, and some barley. The hard wheat can weather periods of drought.”

Corn?
Anna remembered from somewhere else that corn meant grains like wheat and barley and something else. The Corn Laws of England had been to protect British agriculture. She nodded after a moment. “Go on.”

“We have enough seed corn, but it would draw down our stocks.”

“Go ahead,” Anna decided, then added, “Heavy rains won’t hurt early in the year, will they?”

Halde shook his head. “Rains at harvest, yes, they could destroy the crop. And a rain right after planting could wash away everything.”

“We’ll take that risk. We’ll need the grain.”

“Thank you, lady.” Halde stood silently.

“What else?” Anna tried to keep from grinning. Halde had his way of conveying that he wanted more.

“Some of the tenant women have asked that they be allowed to plant the silt marsh flats with melons.”

“Is that a good idea?” Anna countered.

“Lord Arkad’s sire allowed it, according to the record books, if they would provide one in five of the melons to the keep.”

“But Fauren didn’t?”

“No, lady.”

“Why not?”

“He told Vierk and he told me that we would spend more time arguing over melons than we would receive.”

Anna laughed. “He was probably right. We won’t argue.”

Halde looked at her quizzically.

“Tell them they can plant, on the old terms. We’ll trust them. If I find that trust is misplaced, they won’t plant again.” She smiled. “You don’t have time to count melons. Oh . . . and tell the armsmen and a few others that half the melons that the keep gets will go to them one way or another. You can figure out how, later.”

The skeptical look on Halde’s face at Anna’s last words made her want to sigh. “Halde, I don’t know that you’ll stay as saalmeister. I won’t lie to you. I do know that I can’t afford to waste talent and loyalty. My arms commander, the head of my personal guard, and Captain Alvar, all served Lord Behlem. My chief player served Lord Brill. You do a good job, and you’ll have a good position. Talk to any of my people, if you doubt me. Make up your own mind.” She took a slow breath. “Is there anything else?”