The Shadow Sorceress (33 page)

The Black Kettle—the inn in Sudstrom—was twice the size the Copper Pot in Hanlis had been, and the innkeeper had actually seemed happy to see Secca and her guards.

“We heard of your victory, lady, and most pleased we were,” said the beefy, red-faced man.

“I'd wager the girls and I were far happier, Tyras,” added the equally hefty woman who stood to his left. “Sturinnese kill women like as look at 'em, and chains are not something any of us would wear with joy.” She bowed to Secca a second time. “The big chamber…it has a large and a small bed. We would be honored.”

“Thank you.”

“And a wash stand as well.”

“Richina and I could use that.” Secca looked at the innkeeper. “We also need lodging for the players and the lancers. We have somewhat less than six companies, and the players.”

The innkeeper pulled on his earlobe. “There be ten small rooms, and two other large ones. Be some room in the barn and the stable. Might check with Afgar…he's the grain merchant.”

In time, Wilten and Alcaren had left the inn proper, with arrangements made for two companies to stay at the inn, while Secca and Richina had headed up the wide stairs to the second floor, and the main guest chamber.

Though probably even older than the inns at Hanlis and Rielte, the Black Kettle had one significant improvement—real glass windows, at least in the chamber where Secca and Richina found themselves. While Secca greatly missed the bath chamber of Loiseau—and even the one in Hadrenn's run-down palace—
the basin of warm water, water she reheated with a short spell, and the towels resulted in her feeling far better and less bedraggled.

Once Secca was in cleaner riding clothes, while Richina was washing up, the older sorceress opened the door slightly and called, “Achar?”

“Yes, lady?”

“Could one of you find Overcaptain Wilten and Overcaptain Alcaren—and both the chief players—and tell them we have some matters to discuss at an evening meal with them in the public room here?”

“We can do that.” The young guard smiled back.

Secca closed the door, then went to the window and opened the shutters enough to study the muddy main street of Sudstrom. As she watched, she could see Achar hurrying along the board walk in the dim light of dusk toward the chandlery, and the grain merchant's barns beyond. She took a deep breath, not wanting to think too long or too deeply about the comparative luxury of her quarters. While she could tell herself that she could not do sorcery without rest and food, she still fretted and felt guilty.

She closed the shutter and turned. Richina was brushing out her sandy hair.

“Do you feel better?” asked Secca.

“Some. I'm hungry.”

“So am I. We should wait a few moments, though, before we go down. I just sent Achar to get Wilten and Alcaren.”

“Do you think we will be welcome in Elahwa?” asked the younger woman, seating herself on the end of the smaller bed.

“We were told we would always be welcome. How welcome…I do not know. I worry more about what we must do after we reach Elahwa.”

“Because we cannot return home easily?” Richina shifted her weight on the bed, wincing slightly.

“That is part of it.” Secca paused before asking, “You're sore?”

“I am raw on the inside of this leg. My riding trousers—they were damp and rubbed.”

“I think I have some unguent.” Secca opened her saddlebag and, after fumbling through it, came up with a small oiled leather bag. “Here.”

By the time Richina had used the ointment, and the two had left the upstairs room, the overcaptains and Palian and Delvor were waiting outside the public room. The only others in the room were an elderly couple at a table in the corner near the fire.

The six seated themselves around the large circular table set directly before a roaring hearth. Almost before they had settled in, a serving girl appeared, doubtless the daughter of the innkeeper, for she had the same round and red face.

“What do you have?” Secca asked.

“We have chicken-chased noodles with a paisino sauce or white fish baked in the husk with potato cakes.”

Never having had either, nor having heard of either, Secca looked at the serving woman. “Which is better?”

“I like the noodles, lady, but mayhap that's because we have whitefish so many nights.”

“I'll take the noodles. Do you have any wine?” asked Secca.

“Not so as I'd wish to offer it. The amber ale is better.”

“The whitefish,” Richina said, “and ale.”

“Fish and ale,” Delvor added.

“Noodles and the wine, no matter how bad,” Palian said. “I can't take the thought of ale.”

“Noodles and ale,” came from Alcaren.

“The same,” offered Wilten laconically.

After the server scurried toward the kitchen, Secca turned to Wilten. “Are there quarters enough…”

“Not quarters.” Wilten laughed. “But we've found spaces dry and warm enough, and provisions. Even the chandler was happy to see us—she was happier to know we'll be leaving in the morning.”

A series of
thumps
punctuated the arrival of the ales, followed by Palian's wine, a murky yellowish liquid sloshing in a pewter goblet.

Secca took a sip of the ale. It was weak, almost soapy, but better than making the effort to clean water with a spellsong,
and from the glance she'd seen of the wine, to be preferred over what Palian had begun to drink. “We should reach Elahwa late tomorrow, should we not?” She looked at Alcaren.

“That we should, if it does not rain or snow.”

“We don't want to just appear in Elahwa,” Secca said. “While it is part of Defalk, we should let the city counselors know. I'd be unhappy if an ally showed up unannounced with six companies and two sorceresses.”

“I could dispatch a squad with a message,” offered Wilten.

“They are men, are they not?” Alcaren's tone of voice indicated that his question was more of a statement.

“All the lancers are men,” Wilten pointed out. “Except yours.”

“Could you spare a squad to go with Wilten's squad?” Secca asked the Ranuan overcaptain.

“That might be best.”

“I'll write a scroll tonight.” Secca glanced at Alcaren. “Perhaps you should write one as well, for your lancers to carry.”

“I am not so certain that they are exactly mine, but I will write one.” Alcaren laughed.

Secca nodded.

“Do you have any thoughts on what you will do once we reach Elahwa?” asked Wilten.

“I'd like to talk to their counselors,” Secca temporized. “The glass shows that the Sea-Priests continue to fight in Dumar, and that they still blockade Encora.”

“They could not take Encora,” Alcaren said.

“Could they starve it into surrender?” asked Richina.

“Over several years, perhaps. Some folk might suffer by this coming summer, but the Matriarch has large granaries, and so does the Exchange. Once winter is over, food can flow from Defalk through the South Pass.” Alcaren's lips twisted. “There is enough gold in Encora for that.”

“It would seem that the blockade is more to keep anyone from coming to the aid of Dumar, then?” Secca took another cautious sip of the soapy ale.

“Until they have turned the land into a garrison for Sturinn,
I would guess,” Alcaren suggested. “After that, they will attack Ranuak.”

“Why would they go after Ranuak?” asked Richina.

“The best ports in Liedwahr are Wharsus, and Encora, and then Narial,” Alcaren explained. “The Sea-Priests already hold Narial, and Mansuur has many, many lancers. They know that the Matriarch cannot use sorcery against them, and few will come to our defense, except the FreeWomen, and they have few lancers.”

“Especially now,” suggested Wilten.

Alcaren nodded.

“We may just have to wait and rest in Elahwa,” Secca pointed out. “We can't return to Mencha until the passes clear, and that will not be until spring.” She shrugged. “Then, too, we may be able to find a way to Dumar. I like not dealing with the Sea-Priests, but with each week that passes, they can make it that much harder for us to free Dumar.”

“Need we free Dumar?” asked Wilten. “It provides little for Defalk, and we have no orders from Lord Robero.”

“You are right about Dumar giving little to Defalk,” Secca agreed, pausing for another sip of ale, and to gain a moment to think. “Yet, once the Sea-Priests have gained a firm foothold in any land, such as the Ostisles, none have been able to stop them. As Overcaptain Alcaren has said, once they hold Dumar, then they will take Ranuak. Could we then stop them from taking Ebra and Elahwa? After that…”

“That would take many years…if it could be done…”

Palian snorted. “Three years at the outside, Wilten, if we do nothing. Then we would have to fight, and at a great disadvantage. They could attack through Stromwer from the east or the west, or they could use the South Pass from Ranwa, the Sand Pass from Ebra, the pass from Vult—or they could march north from Envaryl to take the south of Neserea. By then they will have enough lancers and thunder-drums to do all of those at once, and we have but three full sorceresses, and two strong assistants. We may not even have an ally in Neserea, and if we do, that land will be weak.”

Wilten looked down at his ale.

Secca could understand the overcaptain's concerns; no matter what they did, the possibility of years of fighting stretched out before them—and she worried greatly that she had heard nothing from Robero. While she did not see that she could do other than she had, and did not wish to spend her energies on trying to discover what the Lord of Defalk intended, she worried. Either Robero did not understand the extent of the danger, or Clayre and Jolyn were so hard-pressed that neither could spare the energy to send a scroll. Neither of those possibilities was reassuring, not with two Sturinnese fleets and scores of lancers attacking all across the south of Liedwahr.

She took another sip of the ale, waiting for the noodles.

In the bright gray just before sunrise, with the night stars washed out and Clearsong the only light in the sky, Secca stood in the courtyard behind the Black Kettle and strapped her lutar in place on top of the mirror and saddlebags behind the saddle of the gray mare. The clear air was cold enough that her breath steamed, and the tip of her nose tingled with the chill. Once she finished, she also checked the sabre and scabbard, hoping as always that she would not need the blade, but making sure it would be ready. She adjusted the battered green felt hat once more.

Farther toward the back of the courtyard, some of the players were beginning to mount. One—Britnay—seemed to be having trouble buckling the rear saddle girth. Secca shook her head. If it weren't one thing with Britnay, it was another.

Delvor dismounted to help the young violino player in her struggles with mount and saddle.

Glad that she did not have to deal with Britnay, Secca mounted easily, aware that she was finally feeling less exhausted. As she turned the gray toward the front of the inn, and the street that would lead to the road south, Wilten reined up beside her.

“Good morning, Wilten.”

“Good morning, lady.” The overcaptain inclined his head. “Just be wanting you to know that the two squads left almost two glasses ago. Overcaptain Alcaren and I saw 'em off.”

“Thank you.” Secca smiled.

“Be hoping we'll get a warm welcome.”

“I'm sure we will.”

“The lancers'll be forming up in front. I'll be joining you after I check here.”

“I'll wait for you there.” Secca eased the gray past the side of the inn and out onto the street where the green company was already formed up and waiting. Behind her rode Rukor and Achar.

No sooner had Secca reined up on the mud-rutted street before the Black Kettle than Richina guided her mount out of the courtyard to join her. Then came Wilten and Palian and the first players, followed by Delvor and the second players, and another company of lancers.

While none of the inhabitants of Sudstrom poured out onto stoops or porches to watch the column of players and lancers leaving the river town, Secca felt as though many eyes studied her from behind window curtains and closed shutters. She felt a very definite relief—if only from scrutiny—when they were out of Sudstrom and traveling the river road beyond the town, a road of gentle curves flanked by a few fields set between larger stands of trees.

The cold of the night before had left a light frost on the exposed upper side of the needles of the pines and the firs, and across the bare branches of those bushes that were not sheltered by taller conifers. Where the rising sun struck the frost, the thin coating puffed into a white mist that drifted upward, and then
vanished. As the sun rose above the woods to the east, it played across the frosted trees, and light sparkled everywhere for a time. Secca smiled at the not-quite-sparkling light, but light and smile dimmed as the frost evaporated.

“The sun feels good,” Richina offered.

“It's a good thing we're out of the snow,” Secca said. “If it's as warm there as it looks to be getting here, the mud will be hock deep there by afternoon.”

“With these roads, we'd better hope we don't get rain,” Richina said.

“You see why Lady Anna worried about roads?” Secca asked. “We could cross Defalk in the time it takes to go a third as far in Ebra.” She wasn't sure if that were the exact comparison, but that was the way it felt.

“It would take years to pave the roads in Ebra.”

“It has taken years in Defalk,” Secca said dryly. “More than a score.”

“How many deks of roads are paved in Defalk?” asked Alcaren, as he rode up beside the two sorceresses, his mount almost on the shoulder of the road.

“I'm not sure anyone has totaled the number,” Secca replied. “Mostly the main roads north, south, east, and west from Falcor.”

“All the way to the borders?” asked the Ranuan.

“Some places a bit beyond,” Secca conceded. “The road from Mencha is paved all the way through the Sand Pass and about fifteen deks beyond.”

“That has to be more than a thousand deks,” Alcaren said slowly. “And that was done with sorcery?”

“There wasn't any other way. It's taken four sorceresses a score of years,” Secca pointed out. “How are the roads in Ranuak?”

“The older roads near Encora are paved, but most to the north and east are not.” Alcaren smiled ruefully. “The first Ranuan lancer companies that went to Elahwa could have used such roads to get from Encora to Elahwa. The northern part wasn't too bad. It's always dry as you near the Sand Hills.”

“How long did it take?” asked Richina.

“For them, almost two weeks. For us, a week.”

“You rode that much faster?” asked Secca.

“Hardly.” Alcaren shook his head. “The Matriarch had sent more than ten companies when the Sturinnese first blockaded the Free City. The only way that many lancers could get there was overland, and winter had not yet fallen. For us, the Matriarch wagered against luck and weather. She used coastal schooners to send us to the north side of the Sand Hills. It was but a four-day ride from there.”

Secca managed to keep a pleasant smile on her face as she considered the implications of Alcaren's revelations. “She must have felt you would make a difference.”

“She could send no more lancers, not without leaving Encora exposed, and she felt that Elahwa might fall before we could ride that way. She risked losing both ships and lancers, had either the weather turned or the captains left the shallows.” The overcaptain smiled. “She was right. We did blunt the last attacks, but the city would have fallen in days if you had not come to her aid.”

“I am glad we arrived in time,” replied Secca. “I was not certain that we would.”

“But you did,” Alcaren said.

Secca nodded, still mulling over what Alcaren had revealed. The Matriarch had felt she could send no more lancers, and only the SouthWomen, but she had gambled two ships of the type that could evade the deeper-drafted blockade ships to get Alcaren to Elahwa. Or had it been to get the overcaptain to Secca?

Again, the more that the handsome overcaptain said, and the more that he revealed, the further Secca seemed to be from understanding him—and Ranuak. Or was it that she had so much to learn?