The Shadow Sorceress (6 page)

In the bedchamber right at the top of the grand staircase—the one Anna had first used when she had come to Loiseau, a chamber larger than the master chamber in Secca's own hold of Flossbend—the red-haired sorceress dressed slowly in the grayness before dawn. She donned dark green trousers and a lighter colored silky green shirt, but with a black vest and a black mourning scarf.

She looked at her image in the robing room mirror, a mirror fringed with moisture from the hot bath she had hoped would relieve the stiffness that had come with an uneasy sleep. Amber eyes ringed with dark circles and set above still-freckled and youthful-looking cheeks looked back at her. She frowned, if wryly. More than a score and a half of years behind her, and she still stood little taller than the youngest of apprentice sorceresses. After a moment, she turned, heading toward the door to face a day she dreaded.

She had to talk about Anna, and she wasn't quite sure she'd ever understood Anna. “But maybe I will…like the vocalises…” While Secca had appreciated Anna's insistence on all the women apprentice sorceresses and fosterlings learning skills with blades, perhaps because of the attack on Falcor when Secca had been a child, Secca had been well into her twenties before she had begun to understand fully the value of the vocal exercises and endless technique—or the songs from the Mist Worlds that were scarcely spells at all, except perhaps love spells. And the thought of learning songs or spells in five or six languages, as Anna had…Secca wondered if anyone besides Clayre or Jolyn really understood, or even whether they truly did.

Today…all she could do was to express the feeling of loss, and that would have to do, but, inside, she knew that was far from enough.

Would Secca ever understand—or would she be old and unable to explain to anyone else before she did?

For all the older sorceress's love and kindness to Secca, Anna had not shied from delivering tongue-lashings to Secca herself—or even to Robero, or to Lord Jecks, or to apprentices, like Richina. Yet Anna had gone out of her way for all of them, and for people she had scarcely even met, and she had tried her best to heal a land that had been wounded throughout most of its long and bloody history.

Perhaps Secca's father had said it best, decades past, when he had told Secca, before sending her to Anna in Falcor, “She is a good woman, but far from perfect. Accept her goodness, and do not expect perfection.”

But then, in ruling Defalk or any land, could anyone be perfect? Secca's lips twisted into another wry expression as she opened the door into the upper corridor.

“Your thoughts are wandering,” she murmured to herself. How could they not wander? In most ways, for almost all of Secca's life—or at least the last twenty-five years—Anna had been her mother, the one Secca looked to, talked to, and had wanted to please. And Anna was gone, gone far earlier than she had to have died. Because…? Because she had spent too much of her life and energy to ensure Defalk was strong, too much energy teaching the sorceresses who were to succeed her?

It was strange, too, in a way, because the older three were all so different—Jolyn, blonde, almost what Anna had called a contralto; the brown-haired Clayre with her middle voice, in some ways the closest to Anna's, if without the power the older sorceress had always projected; and Secca, the redhead with the voice that had turned all too many glasses into crystal powdered almost like fine sand.

For another moment, Secca stood at the top of the grand staircase. Then, halfway down the wide stone steps, as she caught sight of the score of lancers in green—one company of the five
that had comprised Anna's personal armsmen—Secca found her face stiffening into a mask of grave composure.

Wilten, overcaptain of the Loiseau armsmen, met her at the base of the stairs. He bowed. “They're lined up for leagues, it seems, Lady Secca. Some have been waiting outside the gates since a good two glasses before dawn.”

Secca nodded. “Thank you. I suppose we should open the doors and let them pay their last respects. Are your men ready?”

“Yes, lady.”

From the rear lower corridor, Richina appeared, as if she had been waiting, as she doubtless had, slipping up to follow Secca wordlessly. Like Secca, the younger sorceress wore green and black. Behind her were Kerisel and Jeagyn, without vests, but with black scarves.

The red-haired sorceress walked toward the front entry doors, her steps curving away from the open coffin and the glistening bronze catafalque. Behind her followed the three younger women.

At the entry hall doors, Secca looked out into the morning—a morning seemingly like many other fall mornings, with scattered clouds and blue skies. She'd almost wished for something dramatic, like a storm, or even heavy clouds.

Her eyes focused on the open gates of Loiseau. Beyond them, the line of men and women, most of them older—gray-haired, silver-haired, or bald—stretched along the dusty stone road, back down the hill, winding almost back to the yellow-and-red-leaved orchards, in the direction of Mencha itself. Some of them had to have come from other towns, because there were more in the long line than could have ever lived in Mencha.

Secca turned to Wilten, who had also followed her. “Let them in.”

“Yes, Lady Secca.”

Secca nodded at Richina. “Stay at my shoulder.”

“Yes, lady.”

Secca reached out and squeezed Richina's hand. “Thank you.”

The sandy-haired young woman flushed, then lowered her eyes.

Secca's eyes went to the two students. “You two may stand just behind Richina.”

Both inclined their heads silently.

The four walked back toward the coffin, turning before the catafalque and waiting. A half-score of Loiseau lancers eased up behind and beside her before the first of the mourners stepped into the entry hall.

As the men and women, but mostly women, filed past, Secca smiled politely and nodded—and listened.

“Can't believe…like as she's gone.”

“…looks like she's sleeping…”

“…so thin, like a child…”

“The redheaded one there, say she was like her own daughter…sorceress, too.”

“…hope she's as strong and good…”

So did Secca.

“…never be anyone like her again…”

Secca smiled briefly at those words, knowing all too well their understatement. All too many past lords of the Thirty-three and some of those still holding lands hoped fervently that there would never be another like Anna.

“Seems…a shame…all she did for him, and Lord Robero not even here…”

Secca kept her face emotionless. Anna had demanded that she not be paraded like a trophy in the event of her death, but laid to rest in the small mausoleum Anna and Secca had designed and created through sorcery on the hill overlooking the orchards.

A small wizened woman stopped after viewing the coffin. Her bright brown eyes fixed on Secca. “You carry on like her, sorceress, you'll be all right, and so will everything.”

“Thank you,” Secca murmured, not quite sure what else she could say.

In the end, Secca had to stand before the casket and the catafalque on which it rested…and speak.

“A score and a six years past, a tired woman appeared in a house in Mencha. She had been ripped from her own world. She
had been separated from her own children. She was a sorceress who knew nothing of Defalk. She may have wept and raged. If she did, no one saw it. Instead, from the first moment, she did what she thought was right. For this, she was attacked. She suffered more wounds than most armsmen. For the first years she lived in Defalk, she was always attacked, if not by arrows and sorcery, then by words. Defalk was poor and starving and suffering from a terrible drought caused by sorcery. She destroyed the invaders and stopped the drought. Time after time, she almost died trying to put things right.

“Along the way, she helped people—a player here, a miller's consort there, an orphaned child. I know. I was one of those orphans. Along the way, she became powerful. But she still helped people. She restored Defalk and gave a stronger land back to Lord Robero.

“She was not perfect. I will not say she was, but I will say that never has Defalk or Liedwahr had a ruler so powerful who was also so good. She came from another world, but she made Loiseau and Mencha and Defalk her home.” Secca paused. With each sentence, the words got harder, and her eyes blurred more.

“Because of her, we all have what we have. Because of her, we have seen nearly a score of years of peace and prosperity in a land that scarce knew weeks of peace before her.” Secca swallowed again. She had more to say, but there was no way she could express it all.

“My father said it best. The sorceress was a good woman. She asked more of herself than of anyone, and she never stopped trying to do her best. Because she never spared herself, others did more than they thought they could, and Liedwahr is a far better place…. May we all remember that. Forever.”

Secca just stood before the coffin, the rest of the words she would have said choked within her, her eyes burning and unable to take in the hundred or so who had crowded into the foyer—or those who filled the courtyard outside, or even the holding's staff and the guards who flanked her. Finally, she just bowed her head, then, after another long moment, turned and walked back toward the staircase.

There, halfway up the steps, she stood, silently. Beside her
stood Richina, equally silent. On the step below, one to each side, stood Kerisel and Jeagyn.

As the mourners shuffled out into the bright fall sunlight, the four sorceresses watched. Secca stared almost sightlessly toward the front of the entry hall, her throat thick, her stomach knotted so tightly she could scarcely breathe, her cheeks streaked with tears.

Outside, the high puffy clouds drifted westward—toward Falcor—in the light chill breeze.

Kestrin, Liedfuhr of Mansuur, paces back and forth in front of the desk in the upper-level private study. On his left arm is a mourning band of black and maroon, standing out against the sky-blue velvet of his tunic sleeve. After a time, he stops and laughs.

“And you used to tease your father for his pacing.” Murmuring to himself, he walks to the window behind the desk and stands there, looking out from the hillside palace at the wide river Toksul, smooth and broad, leading westward to the port of Wharsus.

With a deep breath, he walks to the bellpull and tugs it firmly, but not violently. Then he walks back to the broad desk and picks up the scroll. He has barely reread the short report when the study door opens.

“Yes, sire?” The trim lancer overcaptain steps inside, closes the outer door, and bows. His hair, mostly gray, with a few streaks of raven black, does not stir as he straightens.

“I read your latest report, Bassil.” Kestrin smiles, then shakes
his head. “How long have you been writing these reports? Two-score years?”

“A score and six, sire.”

“Since just before the appearance of the sorceress.”

“Just after, actually.”

Kestrin pauses. “Does it not seem strange that she and father died within weeks of each other?”

“Given that they were the greatest rulers in Liedwahr,” Bassil says slowly, “and given that we have a world ruled by unseen Harmonies, perhaps it was not so strange.”

“Was she that great?”

Bassil pauses, almost imperceptibly. “Greater than that, sire.”

“Greater than my father?”

“Not in Mansuur, sire.”

Kestrin laughs. “Father warned me about you, Bassil. He said you would tell me the truth whether I liked it or not, and that the more questions I asked whose answers I didn't like, the more I'd understand.”

Bassil smiles, not quite indulgently.

“How great was she?”

“Great enough that, had she more years and children, all Liedwahr would be united and at peace.” Bassil shrugs. “That is but my poor opinion, sire.”

“You don't think much of Lord Robero, do you?”

“He is capable enough that he understood to change his name and that he listens to his sorceresses and his consort, and they appear most capable. And there are more sorceresses in Defalk than in all of Liedwahr. They train others, as well.”

“So…perhaps the long-departed Lord Ehara was right, that the men of Liedwahr will be ruled by women?”

“No, sire. There cannot be enough sorceresses to rule that way, and in all lands there are Ladies of the Shadows who oppose sorcery. Yet even with such opposition, there can be enough sorceresses that it will be dangerous for lords and holders to abuse women.”

Kestrin nods. “We cannot change that, one way or the other. What of Lord High Counselor Hanfor?”

“He is a most capable man tasked with governing a land that
despises ability in anything but intrigue and plotting. Without your sister, he would have had a much more difficult time.”

“Father and I were glad that worked out. He seems to be a good man, and Aerlya is happy.”

“Your sister was most fortunate.” Bassil waits.

Kestrin lifts the short scroll. “I've read this several times. There is one question that remains unanswered. How did an entire company of lancers vanish? Where did they go?”

The older overcaptain shrugs. “Sire, I do not know. No one knows.”

“You're telling me that a company of Mansuuran lancers stationed on port duty at Hafen just vanished? And my wretched seers cannot find them?”

“No, sire.”

Kestrin smiles lazily. “What ships ported there?”

“Ah…the port records—”

“—are missing,” concludes the Liedfuhr. “The lancers are on a ship, because that's the only place where a seer would have trouble finding them. Someone bought them—and their captain—and they want to make trouble. It has to be the Sea-Priests.” He fingers his chin. “Where? Can't be Defalk…no ports. Could be Nordwei…or Neserea or Ebra. Probably not Dumar.”

“Nordwei?”

“Just how would I explain to the bitch traders of Wei that I had no control over my own lancers after they raided or sacked some outlying port like Lundholn?”

“Dumar is the weakest land of all those bordering Mansuur,” Bassil points out.

“True enough, although without the sorceress-protectors of Defalk, Ebra would certainly be a ripe plum ready to fall, but…” Kestrin frowns. “With the golds it took, they could have bribed a company in Cealur, and it would have taken longer for us to learn, and it would have been far closer to Dumar. We will see. Too soon, I fear.” After a pause, Kestrin adds, “The sorceress is dead less than two weeks, my father less than four, and the world is changing.”

“Change it will, sire, for they were the two strongest rulers in Liedwahr.”

“Can I be that strong, Bassil?” Kestrin's eyes fix upon the lancer overcaptain.

“If you work as your father did, sire. If you spend every moment thinking of Mansuur, and not of yourself.”

“And if I listen…carefully.” Kestrin laughs, ruefully.

Bassil nods.

“See if anyone can discover more about the missing lancers—before they appear in a dispatch I will not wish to read.”

“I can but try, sire.”

“I know.” As Bassil steps back, Kestrin turns and looks out at the river below, and at the gray clouds that herald winter sweeping in from the northwest. He does not move as the study door closes behind the overcaptain.