No Quarter
Page 37
Both Magda’s brows rose and she folded her arms, suddenly looking much older than her twenty-five years. “All that?”
“The boy’s belief that he wasn’t worth much because he only Sang water. He’s a fine bard, you know, does an excellent recall.”
“In spite of his handicap.”
Kovar drew himself up to his full height and stared down at the healer, mustache quivering. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to, I can feel your pity.”
“Pity?” Only years of voice control kept him from shouting. “Benedikt is a bard of Shkoder, and he Sings a stronger water than anyone I have ever known.”
“I’m aware of that.” She cocked her head to one side and held Kovar in a steady gaze. “But it’s very rare for a bard not to be able to Sing air, isn’t it? In fact, when a bard sings only one quarter, it’s usually air. I can’t think of another bard alive right now that doesn’t sing air, can you?”
“You know very well there isn’t.” He pushed the words out through stiff lips.
“So you don’t feel just a little sorry for Benedikt because he can’t do the one thing all the other bards can do?”
“Of course, I feel sorry for the boy …”
“He’s not a boy, Kovar. His voice broke late, and he’ll be twenty before Second Quarter Festival.”
“Fine. He’s not a boy. And sympathy is not the same as pity. Jazep, your name-father, Sang only earth, the most restricted of all the four quarters, and I never felt pity for him.”
“Because he never invited it. Benedikt does. Thanks to the misplaced enthusiasms of his parents, who were rather like ducks raising a songbird, he doesn’t see what he has, only what he lacks. Not all the time, of course, or I’d have kept him with me longer—but often enough that he’s convinced the rest of you it’s a lack as well. He is a bard, after all, and bards can be very convincing.”
“Do you think,” the Bardic Captain growled, “that I should keep Benedikt from Singing the queen’s boat across the strait?”
Magda smiled. “Why, if he Sings a stronger water than anyone you’ve ever known?”
After a long moment during which he reminded himself that throttling the young healer wasn’t an option, Kovar expelled a long breath through his nose and spread his hands. “Thank you for the lesson. In the future I will try to keep in mind those talents Benedikt has, not those he lacks. There is no reason to feel sorry for a bard of Shkoder.”
“Hey.” Magda spread her own hands in turn. “You don’t have to convince me.”
* * * *
The next morning Her Majesty, Queen Jelena, inspected the troops gathered in the inner bailey, then walked the walls to ensure they remained in good repair. While Benedikt Witnessed and Kovar Sang the air kigh to ensure that everyone in the fort could hear, she stood on an artificial cliff facing the sea and swore that Shkoder would not fall as long as Fort Kazpar stood.
Just after noon, the Troop-Captain handed his queen down onto the small boat that would take her across the Bache ky Lamer—the Mouth of the Sea in the old Riverfolk tongue—to Fort Tunov. Another captain, another troop would meet her on the other side. “Thank you, Majesty,” he said as he released her hand.
Jelena nodded, a gracious smile carefully hiding emotional turmoil. As much irritated that Madga had been right as she was pleased that wounds—hers and her guards—seemed to be healing, she allowed Otavas to lead her away from the side so that the crew could cast off lines. Unfortunately, the morning’s ceremony had done little to fill the emptiness left behind after the dissipation of despair. The ritual had required only a surface involvement and, looking back on it, she could barely remember what she’d said or done. She’d discovered during her long year of grieving that when performing many of the queen’s duties, show sufficed where substance was lacking.
* * * *
“We’re away from the dock.” Bannon nodded toward the deckhands stowing the lines. “Aren’t you supposed to be Singing?”
“Me?” Suddenly realizing how stupid that must sound, Benedikt hurriedly answered the actual question. “No. Not yet.” The ex-assassin had been close by his side all day; charming because he wanted to be, threatening because he couldn’t not. Benedikt wasn’t sure how he felt about the unexpected companionship. Or how he was supposed to feel. “I don’t know why you’re even here,” he protested.
Bannon shrugged, a minimal rise and fall of one shoulder, deliberately infuriating. “I go where my prince goes.”
“Any danger out in the strait will come from the sea.” The waves grew choppier as they moved from the shore. “How can you protect him from that?”
“I can’t. I guess I’ll just have to depend on you.”
Sarcasm blended so smoothly with threat, a bard couldn’t have done it better. Benedikt stiffened. He didn’t have to put up with that kind of attitude from anyone. Not even from an Imperial assassin. His muscles had actually tensed to turn and walk away when Bannon caught and held his gaze, and he suddenly realized that turning his back on this man was quite possibly the stupidest thing he could do.
Suddenly aware that they were standing alone, a considerable distance from anyone else on the ship, Benedikt’s mouth went dry. “I won’t let anything happen to him. To them. To their Majesties.”
“Good.”
Benedikt could clearly hear the consequences of failure in that single word. Walk away? What good would that do? Anywhere he went, Bannon could follow him.
Where do assassins sleep?
Anywhere they want to.
Imperial humor leaned toward the obvious.
“Benedikt!”
Jerked out of his search for a response by Kovar’s summons, Benedikt realized it was time. He glanced down at the smaller man, who gracefully indicated that he should move toward the bow. Heart pounding, unsure of what he’d just gotten free of, he hurried gratefully to his place.
* * * *
Carefully keeping his concern from his face, Bannon watched the younger man walk away. In eight years in Shkoder, he’d never met a bard so precariously balanced. If he was a blade, I’d have him reforged.
A product of Imperial Army training that many intended assassins didn’t survive, Bannon’d often thought that the Bardic Hall, in insisting that bards were born not made, stupidly depended on talent at the expense of discipline. How they could justify sending this particular bard out into the world so ill prepared to face it, he had no idea. He couldn’t decide if he was intrigued or appalled.
I am definitely going to have to keep an eye on him.
* * * *
Benedikt felt the weight of Bannon’s regard all the way to the bow. It doesn’t matter what he thinks….
Except that it did.
The moment he opened his mouth, he would be responsible for the safety of the queen and her consort. He’d be taking on Bannon’s responsibility, and Bannon clearly didn’t believe it was good idea.
As he stared down into the gray-green water, Benedikt’s fingers tightened around the rail. He should never have agreed to do this. Should never have risked …
“Any time, Benedikt.”
He half turned, intending to make some kind of excuse to the Bardic Captain, but saw only the queen. Saw her smile at him, and nod.
“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have Sing me across the strait.”
Her Majesty believed in him.
He wouldn’t let her down.
The rest of the world, Bannon included, could go suck a wet rope.
* * * *
As Benedict’s Song rose over the myriad sounds of a ship at sea, the waves fell away until the boat rested in the center of a spreading circle of calm. The surface of the water gleamed like polished silver, and when Kovar leaned over the side, the reflection staring back at him was truer than he’d ever seen in any glass. Before he had time to wonder if Benedikt had misunderstood what he was to do, the boat rose gently up on the crest of a massive wave. The wave might have bee
n made of a thousand kigh, or it might have been only one—although he, too, Sang water, Kovar couldn’t tell.
With the boat cradled safely in the water’s hold, Benedikt reached out with his Song and told the kigh what he needed them to do.
The wave began to move toward the opposite shore. Had it not been for the wind of their passage and the rapid approach of Fort Tunov, it would have been hard to believe they were moving at all, so perfectly still did the boat itself remain.
Wide-eyed, the boat’s captain, who had made this journey a dozen times with a dozen bards, turned to stare at Benedikt, tracing the sign of the Circle on her breast.
Others in her crew hurried to follow her lead.
“You’re astounded, aren’t you?”
Kovar turned his head just enough to catch Magda in the corner of one eye, keeping most of his attention on Benedikt. Yes, I am,” he told her.
“You couldn’t do this, could you?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
The healer looked thoughtful. “I wonder if Benedikt knows that.”
* * * *
Standing at the rail, Jelena barely noticed the boat, let alone the kigh it rode. She had given reassurance when it was needed and now, one hand tightly gripping the polished wood, she stared westward out toward the Broken Islands listening to the voice of memory plan for the future.
“When I’m Queen …”
And she was queen. Not grief nor guilt nor anger could change that.
“… I’m going to send ships as far west as they can go and see if they end up in the east again.”
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