Sing the Four Quarters

by Tanya Huff

  “Not quite,” he gasped, rising to his knees.

  Before she could stop him, he grabbed the fletched end of the quarrel and yanked it back out of his flesh.

  “You idiot!” Annice caught him as he swayed. “How did you know that wasn’t barbed?”

  “Guards use smooth diamond tips.” His face had taken on a slightly greenish cast. “Same going out as going in.”

  Calling him every insulting name she could think of, she snatched up his shirt and stuffed it against the hole, her fingers stained red.

  “You could’ve waited …” she began.

  Pjerin shook his head and wished he hadn’t as the world tried to slide sideways. “No time. His troop has to be close. We’ve got to move.”

  “Not until I’ve bound this up!” She hurriedly tore, and wrapped, and tightened. “And what about Otik? Who knows how long he’s going to be out. What do we do with him?” Hands still working, she half turned.

  Otik lay crumpled on one side, the pink and gray ruin of his head facing the sky. His eyes stared sightlessly into the bracken, and a fly minced daintily along the moist lower curve of his lip.

  “What do we do with Otik?” Pjerin repeated grimly. He hadn’t intended to kill him, but remembering every detail of the long journey from Ohrid to Elbasan under the captain’s control, he couldn’t find it in himself to care that he was dead. “We leave him for the worms.”

  Fourteen

  Jazep Sang the kigh a gratitude and stared thoughtfully down at the earth that now covered the body of Captain Otik. The captain had been killed with a blow to the side of the head. That much was obvious. That alone was obvious.

  Red-brown bloodstains on the bracken were still sticky. Someone besides Otik had been injured.

  The kigh were little or no help. Whether that was because they considered whatever happened none of their business or because they were protecting Annice, Jazep had no idea. He sighed and Sang for the trail. With one of them injured and Annice pregnant, or Annice injured and pregnant, they couldn’t be very far ahead of him even with the addition of Otik’s horse. With the help of the kigh, he’d be with them by noon.

  And then Annice had some explaining to do.

  Sometime later, he found himself back in the clearing by Otik’s grave. The kigh had led him in a circle.

  He Sang a question and frowned. Annice had asked them not to let anyone follow and they were including him in their compliance. There wasn’t anything he could do about it either—the kigh had decided to protect Annice and her baby and nothing he could Sing would breach what they considered that protection to include.

  Sliding out of his pack, Jazep sat and mulled over the possibilities. Why had Otik been killed? Because he’d wounded either Annice or her companion. Simple so far. But Otik must have known he’d have a fight on his hands if he tried to take them back to Elbasan, and risking that with a man Gregor and Adrie described as both large and fit didn’t sound like the captain at all.

  “Then let’s suppose he didn’t risk it,” Jazep mused aloud. “Let’s suppose he tried to remove the threat, maybe attacking the man in his sleep, botched the job, and was killed.” Unfortunately, King Theron disapproved of his guard conducting summary executions and Otik was far too ambitious to risk the king’s displeasure. “Unless …” The bard’s eyes widened. “Unless Otik was right and Jorin a’Gerek really was the Duc of Ohrid, with a Judgment of Death already passed.” Why was Annice with him? Jazep counted back. Because during Annice’s Walk to Ohrid, the duc had fathered her child. Where were they headed now?

  He stood and brushed off his breeches. Given the distance and direction they’d already traveled, they had to be headed for Ohrid.

  Why?

  “I guess I’ll have to ask them that when I get there.”

  * * * *

  “You sent for me, Lady?”

  “Yes. I did.” Olina leaned back against the crenellations edging the tower roof and studied the new steward. In the seven days since she’d appointed him, he’d wrapped himself in the privileges of the position and gloried in the power, all the while keeping half an eye on her lest she change her mind. She turned and waved a hand down into the pass. “This is my great-nephew’s heritage. If you want to cross the mountains into Cemandia or from Cemandia, you do it here.”

  Lukas moved forward until he stood by her side.

  She allowed it for the moment. “I believe that the Duc of Ohrid has the right to exploit his heritage in such a way that all his people prosper. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  “Do you know what that is?”

  Lukas squinted along the line of her pointing finger. “The palisade, Lady.”

  “There, at the base of the palisade!”

  He cringed slightly under the whip of her voice. “A crack in the lowest supporting log, Lady. But it’s always been there.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time it was fixed?”

  “But …”

  She was rapidly losing her patience. “Don’t make me repeat the question, Lukas. And don’t make me regret I appointed you steward.” The coiled ebony mass of her hair reflected the sunlight with an iridescent shimmer. “Fix the palisade so that my great-nephew can make Ohrid prosper.”

  “Yes, Lady.” Stroking his beard he stared down into the pass, then suddenly turned to face her. “Yes, Lady,” he repeated enthusiastically. Eyes gleaming with a mixture of fear and greed, Lukas bowed and hurried off.

  He wasn’t entirely stupid.

  Olina smiled and flicked a bit of loose mortar off the top of the tower. Although she was certain he hadn’t intended to, Albek had taught her the simplest way to get around Bardic Command. The truth was much more subjective than most people dreamed. “I told him to fix the palisade,” she told the sky. “The palisade is an important part of Ohrid’s defense.”

  Historically, the truth often depended on who won and, therefore, on who asked the questions. Olina intended to have as many of the right answers as possible, regardless of how much it presently looked like Cemandia would be the clear winner in the upcoming conflict.

  * * * *

  Stasya stared up the length of the valley at the keep of Ohrid. When she’d been here in Fourth Quarter, it had brooded bleakly over a landscape of ice and snow, its high thick walls of black rock appearing to be more a grim growth on the side of the mountain than the result of a stonemason’s art. She’d thought at the time that the dark impression was most likely a result of her errand.

  “And I was wrong,” she muttered, swinging her pack back onto her shoulders.

  New growth had tinted the landscape a delicate green but nothing else had changed.

  “Come to think of it, I’m on the same unenclosed errand.” She shook her head and started up the track, a little surprised that the area got even enough traffic to cut the imprint of wheels into the grass.

  The trip from Vidor upriver to the head of Lake Marienka had been one worth a song and the recall, when she finally got a chance to do it, would inspire fledgling compositions for generations. Among the Riverfolk, the young woman who’d risked her small boat on the chance that Stasya could out-Sing First Quarter currents had been considered a fool at the beginning of the journey and an unenclosed lucky fool at the end.

  Whistling up a kigh, Stasya Sang it a short message to take back to Elbasan and the Bardic Captain. “I’ll be at the keep by sunset. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.” She hesitated briefly before adding, “Any news of Annice?” The guard had tracked them out of Vidor and then, as she’d predicted, lost them in the wilderness between the plains and Ohrid. Stasya wasn’t sure that she wanted to be told, yet again, that there was no news, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  By the time she reached the gates, she had a small parade of children accompanying her, dancing and leaping about to the music of her pipes. When she stopped playing, a howl of protest arose.

  “Oh, so hard done by,” she told them, laughing, gesturing
with her empty hand at the two people waiting just outside the keep. “I’m not going to ignore the duc’s regent for you lot. Run along and I’ll play for you tomorrow.”

  “Are you going to thtay?” lisped a tow-headed boy through the gap where his front teeth had been.

  “I’ll be staying for a while,” Stasya promised, watching the edge of her vision for a reaction from either of the listening adults. “His Majesty, King Theron is coming here for a visit and I’m to wait for him.”

  “Is that the majesty that killed Gerek’s papa?” asked a child of indeterminate sex, small brows drawn into a frown.

  “Yes. But he didn’t want to.” Four younger brothers had taught her that, moral position aside, children might just as well be told the truth because no adult could predict how they’d react to it. “Sometimes kings have to do things they don’t want to, just like other people.”

  “Like going to bed when you’re not thleepy?”

  She nodded. “Just like.”

  “Gerek’s not gonna like him,” another child warned. “And he’s sposed to be His Grace now. Maybe you could play for him ’cause he likes singin’ and stuff.”

  “Well, I very definitely will.” She knew it wasn’t going to be anywhere near that easy and wondered if anyone had taken the reaction of a five-year-old duc to the king who killed his father into consideration during the planning stages. If they hadn’t why not; and if they had, why hadn’t they told her. “You guys had better get home before your parents think you’ve been carried off by ducks.”

  “Duckth don’t do that!”

  Stasya screwed her face up into a ferocious scowl. “Scat anyway.” She watched them race at full speed down the track that led from the keep to the village nestled against its flank, then turned to face the gate and Sang the notes of her name.

  “You’re Stasya,” Olina said, stepping forward. “The bard who put Pjerin under Command.”

  Bowing as deeply as the weight of her pack allowed, Stasya decided that the whole unenclosed family was just too good looking. While she appreciated Pjerin’s dark and brooding beauty aesthetically, her reaction to his aunt’s was a little more visceral. Guess I was too distracted the last time to really notice her.

  Olina sensed Stasya’s response with a predator’s instinct and hid a smile. Wouldn’t it be interesting to discover if bards can be as easily controlled by desire as lesser folk. It appeared she’d have time to find out. “Did I hear you correctly when you told those children that His Majesty, King Theron, is coming here?”

  “You heard correctly, Lady.” Getting her mind back on the situation at hand, Stasya slipped into a light recall trance. “His Majesty wishes to assure Gerek a’Pjerin, the seventh Duc of Ohrid, that the crime of his father will not in any way mar the historical relationship between Ohrid and Shkoder. His greatest desire now is to strengthen the ties between himself and the new duc. To such end he travels to Ohrid to accept the duc’s oaths of fealty, rather than insisting on the duc coming to him in Elbasan.”

  “How generous of His Majesty.” Olina’s tone was dry. “But why didn’t he send this news with the messenger that came to tell of my unfortunate nephew’s execution? He was here just …” She paused and counted. “… nine days ago.”

  “By the time His Majesty had come to the decision, the messenger had already left.” Stasya spread her hands and smiled modestly. “Only a bard could be apprised of changing plans while on the trail.”

  “And when does His Majesty intend to arrive?”

  “At the rate he’s traveling now, he’ll likely be here just after the Third Moon of the Quarter.”

  Olina glanced up at the rapidly darkening night sky. A crescent of moon rose on an arc of sapphire blue. Half moon in four nights and the Third Moon arrived seven nights later. Any time after that, King Theron. She needed to speak with Albek. “We have a room set aside for those few bards who manage to walk this far. My great-nephew’s steward will escort you to it.”

  Lukas started, made as if to speak, and thought better of it.

  Well, he’s up to something, Stasya decided. I’ve a dozen days to find a traitor before the king arrives; let’s hope it’s this obvious.

  Lukas motioned her through the gate. His hand continued to rise as she passed and once he was safely out of her line of sight, his fingers flashed out in the Cemandian sign against the kigh.

  * * * *

  “King Theron coming here?” Albek froze, half out of his leather vest. “Are you certain?”

  “The bard was.”

  “But why?”

  Olina smiled although the ice remained in her eyes. “His Majesty wishes to strengthen the ties between Shkoder and Ohrid so unfortunately loosened by my late nephew. He’s coming here to accept Gerek’s oath of fealty.”

  “Here …” Slowly, Albek let the vest slide off his arms. “What an opportunity. At first light, I’ll have to head back over the border. If it’s at all possible, the army must arrive while Theron is in the keep.”

  “Of course it must,” Olina agreed. She beckoned him forward and extended a booted foot.

  Almost absently, he bent to grasp the leather. “What about the bard?”

  “No doubt sent on ahead to sniff out any remaining treason. It’s what I’d do in the king’s position.”

  “What if she discovers what you’ve done in the pass? That could be dangerous, all things considered.”

  “Not to me.” Olina offered him the second boot. “I’ve already been cleared under Command. By this very bard as it happens. The only thing she found me guilty of was being used by a certain Cemandian trader as an excuse to visit and remain at the keep.” Her voice became a warning as she finished.

  Albek knelt gracefully by her chair and softly kissed the fingers of a captured hand. She has to believe she has her hooks in you. If she ever suspects for a moment you’ve used her, she’ll close the pass with you in it. And if Queen Jirina’s army arrived at a pass he’d guaranteed open to find it closed, he didn’t want to think of how Her Majesty’s anger might manifest. His heart began to pound as Olina twisted out of his hold and gripped his chin painfully tight. He swallowed as she pulled his head toward hers. She has to believe it, he reminded himself. You don’t.

  But the voices had grown louder as he’d watched the bard approach and, now that she was in the keep, they surrounded him with constant pleading. Pain had always been used to silence the voices.

  * * * *

  “You sent for me, Majesty?” With one hand raised to discover his headroom, Tadeus paused at the entrance to the king’s tent.

  Theron turned, gestured, then flushed and said, “Come in, Tadeus.”

  The blind bard ducked gracefully through the triangular opening, took three strides forward, and stopped. A breeze followed him in. It danced once around the tent, billowing the canvas walls, then lifted his curls on invisible fingers and left to a softly Sung gratitude.

  “Kigh?” Theron asked curiously.

  “Yes, Majesty.” Tadeus smiled in the direction of the king’s voice. “They’re usually hesitant to enter even so flimsy an enclosure, but as I asked them very nicely and as they know how much of a loss I’m at when I’m in a place I’ve never been before, they agreed to help.

  “Somehow,” Theron told him dryly, “I can’t imagine you ever being at a loss.” Over the seventeen days they’d been traveling, certain impressive stories had filtered up as far as the royal ear.

  Tadeus heard an undertone of those stories in the king’s comment. Knowing full well that many of them were blatant exaggeration—because he’d been the one doing the exaggerating—his smile broadened and he graciously inclined his head.

  Lowering himself carefully into the folding camp chair, Theron nodded a dismissal to his valet who disapprovingly uncorked a small clay bottle of wine, set it sharply on a tiny table beside two silver goblets, and left, nose in the air.

  As the tent flap slid shut, Tadeus sighed theatrically. “He doesn’t approve of
the company you’re keeping, Majesty.”

  “He doesn’t approve of this entire trip,” Theron corrected. “But it would’ve broken his heart if I’d left him behind.”

  “The Lady Heduicka said much the same of her servant, Majesty.”

  “The one always giving the Troop Captain advice?”

  “Yes, that’s Irenka. I believe, Majesty, that she was Lady Heduicka’s nurse and moved out of the nursery with her charge.

  “She must be older than she appears.”

  “By quite a bit, Majesty, but she’s as tough as boot leather and not only passionately devoted to Hedi, uh, Lady Heduicka, but convinced the lady in question would be unable to so much as dress without her. I personally believe Irenka could take on the entire Cemandian army on her own. Just take them by the ear and march them back to their own side of the border.”

  “Good.” Theron scrubbed at his face with both hands and hoped they wouldn’t need her. “Please sit down, Tadeus.” He gestured to the second chair and flushed again but before he could speak, Tadeus had crossed the tent—deftly avoiding the hanging lamp—swung his lute around to rest in his lap, and sat.

  Wondering how long it would take him to remember both the bard’s blindness and how little it hindered him, Theron bent forward and poured the two goblets full of dark wine.

  Under the black silk scarf he wore over his eyes, Tadeus’ nose twitched. “Is that one of the bottles you were given in Caciz, Majesty?”

  “Kind of distinctive, isn’t it?” Theron smiled as he watched the younger man carefully lift the offered goblet to his lips. “I had a feeling it wouldn’t travel well.”

  “You’re probably right,” Tadeus agreed after a moment’s serious consideration. “But, that aside, it’s actually quite good.”

  Theron lifted his own cup and settled back in his chair.

  They drank in silence for a moment, then Tadeus asked quietly, “Was there a reason you wanted to see me, Majesty?”

  “Not especially,” the king sighed. “It’s just that you’re the only person in the company I don’t have to lie to. You know why we’re going to Ohrid and you know what’s likely to happen when we get there.”