Sing the Four Quarters

by Tanya Huff

  He moved out of the circle of firelight and Annice, breathing heavily, wrapped both arms protectively around her body. She had to believe that his parting shot had oozed out of the wound she’d inflicted. Had to believe it because if she didn’t, she’d have to pick up her pack and start the long walk back to the safety of Bardic Hall leaving Pjerin to the kigh; to recapture; to the block. And she couldn’t do that.

  Thunder rumbled over the still distant mountains. A few moments later, a flash of lightning showed Pjerin standing at the edge of the open shed, staring out at the night. He looked as if a movement would shatter him into a thousand pieces.

  This time, they’d gone too far for apologies.

  Blinking away the afterimage and ignoring the single track of moisture that spilled down each cheek, Annice dug her flute out of her pack. For the pretense of being traders, she’d had to leave her quitara behind. It could neither be hidden nor explained away as a simple hobby; the moment she played she couldn’t help but show what she was. Although she’d recognized the danger, she’d refused to travel without any instrument at all. The polished rectangular flute case could be thought to hold any number of other treasured items.

  Her hands steadied as she fitted the pieces together. Something had to be said, but she didn’t know the words, so she closed her eyes and let the music speak.

  When the last note slipped away into the darkness, she opened her eyes to see Pjerin sitting back on the other side of the fire, carefully laying wood on the embers as the storm broke and a cold, damp breeze crept in under the eaves of the shed.

  “I remember,” he said, prodding the fire to life, “when you played like that in Ohrid. You were up on the top of the high watchtower and you either didn’t know or didn’t care that the whole valley could hear you. I stood there listening and wondering at the kind of courage that allowed you to throw so much of yourself into the music.” He swallowed and locked his eyes on her face. “Can we go back?”

  She shrugged, flute cradled against the curve of her body. “How far?”

  “To the beginning? We had the time you were in Ohrid and one terrific night together and we’ve been assuming we know each other ever since. We don’t. But we need to.” When she hesitated, he added, “Our lives are irrevocably entwined, Annice. We can’t change that. We’ve already proven we know enough to hurt each other. We have to learn enough to stop.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to start.”

  He gestured at her flute. “You’ve already started.”

  “All right. Then I wouldn’t know how to go on.”

  “How do people usually get to know each other?” He half smiled. “They ask questions.”

  “What kind of questions? Things like, uh …” She searched for something frivolous. It wasn’t easy. There didn’t seem to be a lot frivolous between them. Everything came weighted with the life she carried. “… like, what’s your favorite color?”

  His open hands sketched compromise in the air. “I don’t think we have time to be quite so thorough.”

  Annice nodded. “You’re right.” There was really only one question she wanted to ask, but she suspected it was the one question he couldn’t answer. Not directly. Not in so many words. She knew how complicated her own reasons for wanting the baby were and—in spite of what His Grace might believe—wasn’t egotistical enough to suppose his were any less complex.

  Start thinking about this man, Annice. Stop merely reacting to him. You’re a bard. Finding truth in information is part of what you do.

  “Pjerin?” She used his name to lift his gaze to hers. “What was your father like?”

  The rain fell straight down, securing the open shed behind translucent walls.

  Pjerin shifted uneasily. “My father?” It wasn’t the question he’d expected. Perhaps he didn’t have the courage of her music, but he’d be unenclosed if he didn’t at least try to meet her halfway. “He was, well, he was very strong.”

  “Did he love you?”

  “Yes.” The fire had burned down enough so that he couldn’t see her face, only a constant shadow amid the flickering ones. It made it easier to respond. It almost seemed as though he were talking to himself. “I was lucky, I never doubted it.”

  “How did he do it? How did you know?”

  Pjerin thought he heard an undercurrent of yearning in her voice, almost dismissed it, and then remembered who she was. Who her father had been. As a monarch, the late king had the reputation of being a shrewd politician and, as a father, of being a monarch. Although it should have been her turn to hand over a piece of her soul, he answered anyway. “It’s hard to explain. I always knew that I was the center of his life. My earliest memory of him is of the day he fought and got me back from my mother.”

  “From your mother?” Annice repeated. She had a strong suspicion she knew what accusations the old duc had shouted as he retrieved his son and heir. Oh, baby, it isn’t going to be easy to get your daddy to let go. “Were you a contract birth?”

  “No. They were joined.” Pjerin could hear the bitterness in his voice and didn’t bother trying to soften it. “My father was an attractive man and a duc. She saw him in Marienka; she wanted him; she got him. She didn’t think much of Ohrid, though; there was no one there to appreciate her prize. You’ve been in the keep. It wasn’t the kind of place to keep a woman like her happy. She wanted bright lights, attention; love wasn’t enough.”

  “How old were you when she left?”

  A flash of lightning lit the distance and the thunder grumbled overhead.

  “She didn’t know I existed when she left. Father finally heard she’d had a child, found her, and got me back three years later.”

  And told you these stories all your life. Well, that answers my question. Annice shifted position and traced comforting circles against the taut drum of her skin. She braced herself for the inevitable question about her father, about her family, about leaving them, about being alone. “Your turn.”

  “What does it mean to be a bard?”

  All at once, she wished she could still see his face. “Why?”

  “Because I have a good idea of what it is to be a princess and I want to know why you gave it up.”

  He’s more than just a pretty face, baby. But, to be fair, she already knew that. If he’d answered her questions less than honestly, she could’ve spun him a story with enough truth in it to satisfy. As it was…

  “Bards are the eyes and ears and voice of the country.” It was what she’d told Jurgis when he’d asked. A thousand years ago. “We bring the mountains to the coast and the coast to the river and the river to the forest and the forest to the cities. We’re what keeps all the little bits of Shkoder together—the people, the land, the kigh. We keep the pattern whole. We harmonize the physical and the spiritual, the intellectual and the emotional, joining body and soul.” But that was only what bards were, what they did, not what it meant to be one.

  Lifting the flute, she traced circles in the air. “Most people are aware of only their own little Song. Bards find the connections between Songs, find them and gift them to others. To keep someone with the ability and the desire from the training to use it, is to condemn them to glimpses of the world through prison bars.”

  She paused for breath, then raised a hand too late to stop the shaky laugh that followed. “It just occurred to me that I should’ve probably told all that to Theron.”

  “Probably,” Pjerin agreed, not the least surprised that she hadn’t. “What did you tell him?”

  Her second laugh held little more humor. “Essentially, that he’d be sorry if he tried to push me around.”

  Pjerin knew he was treading close to dangerous ground but he had to ask. “And now you’re calling his bluff?”

  “You created an innocent life just to throw it in your brother’s face.” Annice recognized the gentler version. “No. I want with this child what you have with Gerek. Is that so hard to understand?”

  “No.” He stood. “But so d

o I.”

  “Then we’re back where we started.”

  “We’re a long way from where we started.” He smiled down at her. Annice remembered that smile. The last time she’d seen it, they’d made a baby. “We’ve managed to stop the bleeding from the damage we inflicted earlier. Not a bad evening’s work. Let’s get some sleep.” Without waiting for an answer, he moved into the darkness at the far end of the shed to check on the mule—dubbed Milena after Annice’s older sister and tethered inside with a small pile of hastily gathered forage lest she destroy the surrounding shoots of flax.

  And he dares to call me imperious. He’s pushy, isn’t he, baby? But I think I might be starting to like him.

  A little while later, the packed dirt floor of the shed having shifted about to cradle her bulges almost comfortably, she peered across the fire pit and sleepily asked, “Pjerin, what is your favorite color?”

  “Blue,” he murmured, then, to her surprise, went on. “The sapphire blue of the sky over the keep just after sunset. When the day’s gone but the night hasn’t quite arrived over the mountains.”

  If they hadn’t been treading around each other so carefully, she’d have accused him of being bardic.

  * * * *

  Stasya Sang the kigh a gratitude and watched as it swooped down to run its fingers through the pinfeathers of an annoyed pigeon, spun up to swirl once around the pennants flying from the top of Bardic Hall, then finally raced off to Elbasan to tell the captain that her message had been received.

  Shivering a little in the cool dawn air, Stasya looked out over the sleeping city and wondered if behind one of the half-timbered walls, Annice was stirring, complaining about being roused, racing for the privy. Or were they already on the road?

  Are you seeing that she eats? she asked the duc silently, grinding the question between her teeth. Are you making sure she rests? If you’re giving her a hard time, I can guarantee I’ll find out about it, and you’ll pay.

  Stasya had arrived at Bardic Hall very late, directly from the riverside celebrations marking the safe arrival of the first boat. She knew that the guard troop Theron had sent after Annice and “the father of her child” still hadn’t caught them, but she didn’t know much else.

  “And I hate not knowing.”

  Although she knew she’d get the same response she’d gotten on other mornings, she whistled up a kigh. It appeared almost instantly, frisking around her like an ethereal puppy, eager to please until she Sang the notes that made up Annice’s name, then its elongated features twisted with distaste and it tried very hard to drag her off the balcony as it left.

  Fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the rail, Stasya tried to calm the pounding of her heart. “I don’t think I’ll try that again,” she muttered, forcing herself to release her grip. “At least not unless I’m on solid ground.” Brow furrowed, she backed in off the small balcony and pulled the shutters closed behind her—a First Quarter sun, just up, shed nowhere near enough heat to leave them open.

  The king was going to Ohrid to take the liege oath of the new duc.

  Tymon would receive a similar message later in the morning and by noon the criers would be telling all of Vidor.

  “And I’m to prepare Ohrid for His Majesty’s arrival.” She sighed. “As quickly as I can.”

  Vidor to Ohrid at the less than frenetic bardic pace would take her about twenty-eight days. Unfortunately, the message had stated, as explicitly as was possible with the kigh, that she had about half that much time.

  “Good thing the ice has moved out of the rivers.” She pulled her tunic off the pile of clothes she’d dropped on the floor when she’d finally headed for bed the night before. “Sounds like I’m going to be Singing another unenclosed riverboat all the way to Marienka.”

  * * * *

  “But why must you leave so soon, Theron?” The paneled door closed behind the server and Lilyana picked up a piece of cheese. “By law, the new duc has four full quarters to swear the oath.”

  “Two reasons.” Theron reached for his soup, head bent so that he wouldn’t have to meet his consort’s eyes. It had been her suggestion that they lunch alone—no servants, no courtiers, just the two of them—and he strongly suspected it was because she knew he hadn’t told her everything and wanted to give him one last chance. He’d managed not to actually lie to her, but he’d done it by not telling her the full truth. He didn’t count the Duc of Ohrid’s faked execution because she’d believed the lie he’d told the country. “I want Queen Jirina to see Shkoder’s immediate presence in Ohrid now that her plot has been discovered. We must make her realize that we control the pass. And secondly,” He paused, took a mouthful of the chowder, and took his time swallowing. “Secondly, things are quiet in all other areas—there’s nothing Onele won’t be able to handle if I leave now. Who knows what the. Circle’ll contain if I wait—or if I take my time on the way.”

  “Who, indeed,” Lilyana murmured at a delicate crescent of clam.

  They ate in silence for a few moments.

  “You’ll have to take four nobles, to witness the oath,” she pointed out at last.

  “I know.” Theron ripped a roll in two, spraying poppy seeds over his desk. “The chamberlain’s informing the four I want.” Three of them carefully chosen from a list of those both politically expendable and likely to consider it an honor to die in a hopeless cause at the side of their king should the worst occur; the fourth, although equally expendable, not likely to consider it an honor to die in any cause and so might just ensure that they didn’t. “I’ll be talking to them this afternoon.”

  “Will the chamberlain be telling them they’ll be expected to spend thirty days in the saddle?”

  “Only parts of thirty days,” he protested. “If a bard can walk from Elbasan to Ohrid, from one edge of the country to the other, in thirty-six, thirty with horses isn’t setting a killing pace.” Theron hadn’t actually been pleased at the time the journey would take. The messenger he’d sent to inform Gerek a’Pjerin, the seventh Duc of Ohrid, of his father’s execution would cover the distance in sixteen. Travel arrangements for kings, however, were more complicated.

  Lilyana thoughtfully sectioned an orange, imported into Shkoder from the southernmost reaches of the Empire. Theron watched, fascinated, as she pulled the pieces apart with strong, sure twists of her fingers and hoped she wouldn’t do the same to the story he’d had to tell her. But all she said, as she wiped her fingers on the linen napkin, was, “Are you sure one troop of guards will be enough?”

  No. “Any more and we’ll have to take supply wagons. There’s a limit to the number of people I can expect to have fed on route in First Quarter.”

  “I’m rather curious about you leaving Mathieu behind.”

  Theron studied her expression but saw nothing that gave him any clue as to what she actually meant. “Mathieu is Constable of Shkoder. Why would he accompany me on a state visit?”

  “Because you need four nobles, he’s one of your oldest friends, he’d enjoy the chance to get out of the capital, and you’d enjoy his company.”

  “Unfortunately, I need him here.”

  “Oh?” Her head tilted to one side, Lilyana placed the empty lunch dishes back on the silver tray. “Why?”

  “To calm the Council. Onele will need his help.” He tried not to think about how much Onele would need the constable’s help if he didn’t succeed at stopping the Cemandian army at the border. It was a little like not thinking about a blue goose—his mind kept circling back toward it. But if the possibility of disaster showed on his face, Lilyana gave no sign.

  “Then why not take Antavas?”

  “Antavas?”

  “Our son. He’d old enough to be no trouble and young enough to think the whole trip a grand adventure.”

  “No.” He saw her brows go up and merely shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Lilyana sighed and stood. She took a moment to smooth the folds of her skirt, then she lifted her head, caught the king’s gaze, and held it. “Theron, I trust you and I trust that whatever it is you’re up to is for the good of Shkoder, but if you get yourself killed up in the mountains, there is nowhere in the Circle your spirit can hide from me. Do you understand?”

  Theron smiled and stood as well. He stepped around the desk and took her shoulders in his hands. “I understand,” he said softly. “I love you, too.”

  She lifted her mouth to his but broke the embrace when a knock sounded at the door. “You won’t be leaving for a few days,” she said pointedly as he tried to pull her back against his chest. “We’ll have time.”

  With not entirely exaggerated reluctance, Theron stepped away. “Come.”

  “Bardic Captain’s here with another bard, Majesty. Uh, Majesties,” the page corrected hurriedly.

  “Tell the captain I’ll be with her in a moment.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “You’d better have that bard doing recall every step of the way,” Lilyana warned him. “When you get home, I’m going to want a full and complete accounting.” She reached out and straightened his tunic, then turned and swept from the room.

  A moment later, Theron stared across his desk at the beautiful young man standing beside the Bardic Captain. “Uh, yes, well, I’m sure you’re an excellent bard, but this will be a long trip with much of each day spent in the saddle and, well, you’re …”

  “Blind?” Tadeus flashed a brilliant smile in the king’s direction. “As long as the horse can see, Majesty, I’ll be fine.”

  “More importantly, Majesty, Tadeus Sings a strong air and will be able to keep you in contact with both Stasya and myself.”

  “Then he’ll have to know what’s actually going on.”

  “I took the liberty of informing him already, Majesty.”

  “Liberty, indeed,” Theron growled.

  “Majesty?” Tadeus took half a step forward, an expression of intense sincerity visible around the fringed scarf. “Please don’t be angry. I made such a nuisance of myself that the captain had to tell me why she wanted me to see you in order to shut me up.” The smile blossomed again. “Let me go with you, Majesty. I know I can do what you need and it would mean so much to me.”

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