In the late afternoon, under a still-cloudless sky, Secca reined up the gray mare in the liedburg courtyard in Falcor. She was scarcely surprised that Lord Robero had not come down to greet her and her party upon her arrival. The silver-haired Dythya, who had been Counselor of Finance ever since Secca could remember, stood on the mounting block by the main west entrance.
“Greetings, Lady Secca.” Dythya’s smile was as friendly as ever.
“It’s good to see you again.” The courtyard was warmer than the open road or the streets of Falcor had been, and Secca unfastened the green leather riding jacket.
“Lord Robero is engaged, but he will be free shortly and would hope you would stop by the audience chamber.” Dythya smiled again, professionally, rather than personally.
Understanding, Secca grinned. “I will indeed.”
“I will convey that.” Dythya’s smile broadened.
Secca urged the mare toward the stables. Just ahead, the dark-haired Clayre stood by the second west entrance to the main section of the liedburg, smiling and raising an arm to greet Secca as the younger sorceress rode toward the stables.
By the time Secca had unloaded her gear, then waited for Richina to do the same, Clayre had crossed the damp paving stones to meet them. “You still look the same.”
“So do you,” Secca replied to the taller sorceress.
“You look older,” Clayre added, with a grin to Richina.
The apprentice bowed slightly, clearly unsure of how to respond to Clayre’s pleasantry.
“The older fosterling boys, especially those from the north, will drool, but don’t mind them,” Clayre added. “They’re still not used to…Falcor.”
Richina nodded, trying to keep from frowning, as the three walked from the stables to the side door and then up the stairs to the second floor corridor that held the major chambers of the liedburg. Behind them followed Quebar and two lancers.
Clayre led the way to the chamber that had been Anna’s, in the middle of the eastern side of the liedburg, where she opened the door. “Lord Robero suggested that it be for the Sorceress of Loiseau.” Her voice carried a tone of both concern and apology.
“He wasted little time, did he not?”
The dark-haired older sorceress offered a nervous smile.
As Quebar cleared his throat, Secca turned to the lancer captain.
Quebar nodded at the pair of lancers. “Dyvan and Easlon will be your guards.”
“I’m sorry. You have other things to do.” Secca inclined her head to Quebar. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
Quebar bowed, before turning and heading toward the stairs.
“We need to talk. I will be back in a moment.” Clayre nodded to Richina. “Your quarters are in the south tower, with the other fosterlings.”
Secca watched for a moment as Clayre led the sandy-haired apprentice down the corridor, then looked at the older and shorter lancer. “Dyvan, I’ll be unpacking until Lady Clayre returns.”
“Yes, lady.”
Secca smiled, then turned and closed the door. She carried the saddlebags to the footchest, where she deposited them, before setting the lutar case on the bed, then unfastening the sabre scabbard and laying blade and sheath on the footchest as well.
The chamber looked little different from what it had before harvest—or a score of years before—with the high bed, the small desk, the narrow window, and the attached bath chamber.
Clayre had her permanent quarters farther north along the corridor, in the larger chambers that had once belonged to Lady Essan, who had died almost a score of years before. Robero, of course, had combined the three southeast corner chambers into a suite for himself and Alyssa.
Secca had hung her riding jacket in the small armoire, washed up, after heating the cold water in the basin with the elemental spell, and was brushing her hair when there was a knock on the heavy door.
“Come in.”
Clayre stepped inside. “I am sorry. About the chamber. But the liedburg grows ever more crowded.”
“You aren’t the one who made the choice.” Secca shrugged. “I know I can’t grieve forever, but…” She paused. “If I don’t take the chamber, I’ll be seen as petty and foolish.”
“He was going to give it to Jolyn. We both protested.”
“Thank you.”
There was another silence. “We do need to talk.” Clayre inclined her head toward the chamber beyond the door and across the hall—the one that held the reflecting pool created by Anna’s sorcery.
“It’s still shielded?” asked Secca.
“Yes. Whatever she did affected the stones themselves.” Clayre opened the heavy oak door and motioned.
Marveling and wondering how much of what Anna had done would last well beyond her death, Secca followed Clayre out and across the corridor. Dyvan followed Secca, while Easlon remained at the door to Secca’s chamber. Clayre opened the door to the scrying chamber, and both sorceresses stepped inside. Behind them Dyvan gulped even before Clayre shut the oak door. Secca smiled. Lancers were not used to sorceresses vanishing from view in plain sight.
“I added a spell to keep words from leaving the chamber.”
“Ears everywhere?” asked Secca.
“More than I’d like. Anna hated it. I think that was one reason she left Falcor.”
“One of many.” Secca’s voice was dry. “What’s wrong?”
“You know me too well.” Clayre laughed, mirthlessly. “Not only is Hanfor dead, but there’s been an attack by Mansuuran armsmen on a coastal town in Neserea. The local lord killed all the attackers, but he’s sent bodies and tunics and a few other proofs from Worlan to Esaria.”
“And scrolls here?” asked Secca.
“I assume they’re on the way.”
“This is your friend Belmar?”
“Not my friend,” Clayre protested. “He never was. Good-looking through a glass, but never more than that, especially not now.”
“It seems rather convenient.”
“All too convenient, but Lord Robero won’t be willing to say that it’s suspicious. There’s no proof. If he says too much, then he’s viewed as wanting to take over Neserea, and Hanfor’s suspicious death is laid at his feet—or ours.”
“Then, you haven’t told Robero? Or Jolyn?”
Clayre shook her head. “I just found out last night, and I wanted to talk to you to see if you knew anything. Jolyn’s at Elheld. Robero has her rebuilding the stables. There’s no harp there.”
“What did she tell him this time?” asked Secca with a laugh. “That the stables were collapsing?”
“Something like that. Except there was the hint that he’d be compared unfavorably to his grandsire.”
“She’ll do anything to get out of Falcor.”
“Almost anything,” Clayre amended. “Except she won’t take a consort. She claims that she feels more like an aunt or a mother to anyone her age.”
“With as many lovers as she’s had—all of them a decade older—she should know.”
“Jealous?” asked Clayre.
“No,” replied the younger sorceress simply. Somehow…in some fashion, Secca had always thought there would be someone, but there never had been. Robero had been far too self-centered, wanting someone to adore him, or at least pretend that, while Secca herself had been looking for someone like her father—or Lord Jecks. And after seeing the closeness between Anna and Jecks, Secca had never wanted to settle for a consorting of convenience, especially not if it meant losing her powers—or some of them—to have children to provide an heir…for what? “She’s also going to work on the road from Elheld north to Wendel?”
“I did suggest that,” Clayre said with a laugh. “The way things are going, we may need more than one way northward…or in any direction.”
“There’s no new trouble in Ebra,” Secca said.
“No, but Hadrenn’s always been a rotten timber.”
“Not rotten, just weak,” Secca corrected.
“They both give way under weight.”
“With Anna…gone…you think Mynntar will try something?”
“You’ve followed him more than we have,” Clayre said. “What do you think?”
“Mynntar won’t do anything directly against Defalk, but he could attack Hadrenn. Even so, he won’t act unless he can finish whatever it is before we could deal with him.”
“But with trouble in Neserea…?”
“He’ll bear watching,” Secca admitted. “We’d best tell Robero about the Mansuuran attack on Neserea. Tell him we just found out now, and that it could be a ploy by anyone, not necessarily by Kestrin.”
“Kestrin couldn’t be that stupid.”
“No. But what if someone wanted to show he didn’t control his land?” asked Secca. “That he is weak or ineffectual? Then what?”
Clayre winced. “I don’t like that at all.”
Neither did Secca. “We might as well tell Robero now. I should present myself to his lordship.”
“You still don’t care for him, do you?”
“Robero has always been too impressed with Robero, and I worry that without Anna…” Secca let the words trail off.
“That we’ll have to go through the same trials she did?”
“Haven’t you thought about it? She was a mighty sorceress from the Mist Worlds. How could we know or have the powers she did?”
“They’ll learn,” Clayre prophesied.
“We’d best go.”
Clayre nodded, and the two stepped from the reflecting pool chamber.
Dyvan’s eyes widened as they appeared from what seemed to be an empty chamber, but he did not swallow or gulp as he turned to follow Secca down the steps to the main level and the audience chamber.
Two guards and a page Secca didn’t recognize waited outside the closed doors.
“Lady Secca and Lady Clayre to see Lord Robero,” Secca said quietly.
The two guards inclined their heads slightly, and the shorter one turned and edged the door open. “The lady sorceresses, Lord Robero.”
After a moment, in which Robero must have gestured, for Secca heard nothing, the guard opened the door. Dyvan remained in the corridor with the other two guards. The blocky man in the gilded chair did not rise as Secca and Clayre entered the audience chamber.
Secca bowed, if just enough to convey respect for the position Robero held.
Behind and to the left of Lord Robero’s chair was a smaller chair, occupied by a petite blonde woman, even more slender and shorter than Secca. Before her consort could speak, Alyssa rose and stepped forward with a warm smile. “Secca…it’s so good to see you.” She glanced at Clayre. “And you, too, if but since yesterday.”
Rising belatedly, Robero offered the all-too-familiar boyish grin, then brushed back wisps of his thinning mahogany hair. “It is good to see you again.” He added quickly. “Both of you.”
“It is always good to see you and Alyssa, even when the occasion is sad.” Secca was grateful to Alyssa, who served Robero as much as loved him, and who, somehow, quietly, managed to keep him from taking himself as seriously as he would have liked to do.
“How…?” asked Alyssa. “She seemed strong last summer.”
“She was working on something. She hadn’t even tried to cast a spell. I found her collapsed by the reflecting pool. Usually, when that happened, she would rest and recover. This time…she didn’t.”
“We will miss her.” Robero, surprisingly, sounded as though he would, as he reseated himself, leaving Secca and Clayre—and Alyssa—standing.
Secca had to believe that the Lord of Defalk had actually considered all of what Anna had meant to him and Defalk.
“Do you think…Hanfor’s death…? He was a good and a strong man,” Robero said slowly.
“It could be,” Secca said smoothly. “Clayre and I have just discovered that lancers clad in the uniforms of Mansuuran lancers attacked a town in Neserea.”
“What town? Were they truly Mansuuran lancers?” Robero leaned forward in the gilded chair.
“Worlan,” replied Clayre. “Apparently, the local lord slaughtered them all.”
Robero shook his head. “That was most convenient for someone. Who was the local lord?”
“A young holder named Belmar. He had sought the hand of Annayal.”
“He would prove he is worthy. Most convenient.” The balding lord snorted.
“A costly way to prove such worth,” offered Alyssa quietly.
Secca held in a faint smile as Robero turned in his chair and raised his eyebrows.
“As you yourself said last week, dearest,” Alyssa continued almost apologetically, “the cost of maintaining a single company of lancers is dear. This Belmar must have had even more force at his command to destroy an entire company of Mansuuran armsmen. To maintain such, especially in an out-of-the-way holding, that could not be without cost, could it?”
“Sorcery, more likely.” Robero looked to Clayre. “Could he have used spellsongs?”
“He has players, lord. Whether they are good and whether he can use them so…we have not seen.”
“Why not?” Robero waved away his own question. “I know. Unless you spend all your time following but a single lord or holder, one cannot be certain. But is it likely?”
“More likely than his being able to maintain enough armsmen to destroy an entire company to the last man,” conceded Clayre.
Secca thought either was highly unlikely of itself, but merely nodded agreement.
“We will have to think upon this. We will talk more tomorrow of it…when you are rested, Secca. And perhaps when you will have been able to learn more, Clayre.” Robero smiled and nodded. “I thank you for your diligence in keeping us well-informed.”
“We look forward to seeing you at supper,” added Alyssa. “You can tell us more about how things are in Mencha and elsewhere in the east.”
Secca bowed, not deeply.
“Until then, ladies.” Robero continued to smile as the two left the audience chamber.