Sing the Four Quarters

by Tanya Huff

  “Isn’t it more dangerous for th …” The last word got lost in a mad scramble backward as a rock the size of her head fell a body length from where she’d been standing, shooting shards of stone in all directions.

  “No,” Lukas snapped, white-faced and glaring up at the top of the palisade as he clutched at a gash in his forearm.

  Stasya, thanking every god in the Circle that she hadn’t been hit, reached without thinking for his arm. “Here, let me look at that.”

  The duc’s steward recoiled and pointed out of the pass with a bloody finger. “Go!” he spat. “I wouldn’t have even been down here but for you.”

  Stasya went.

  * * * *

  “He hates you because his only daughter was killed by the kigh.”

  “What?” Stasya stared at the cook, who’d been forced to speak with her in order to prepare for the coming of the king. It hadn’t been hard to twist the subject to the new steward as the old staff despised him. “How?”

  “She was Singing fire and it burned up the house with her in it. Happened early Fourth Quarter.”

  “But Annice was here in Third Quarter. She must’ve tested the girl for ability.”

  The cook snorted. “Lukas a’Tynek would no more let his child be tested by a bard than he’d, he’d …” She glanced around the kitchen for inspiration. “Than he’d bake a cherry pie. He follows the old Cemandian ways that came over the mountain, back when. Believes the kigh are outside the Circle.”

  “Why do you think the Lady Olina made him steward?”

  “ ’Cause she can’t be regent and steward both, much as she’d think things would go better with her running it all, and Lukas is someone she can push around. Lots of folk up here follow the old beliefs.”

  “But his daughter died because of them.” Stasya sighed and shook her head. “What do you believe?”

  Suddenly aware who she was speaking to, the cook busied herself with rolling pastry. “I believe,” she said, her gaze fixed firmly on the job, “in keeping my own counsel.”

  Olina i’Katica seemed to be the only person in all of Ohrid who had no opinion on Stasya’s involvement with the sixth duc’s treason. Stasya suspected that was because she was still so furious at Albek’s betrayal, at being used by the Cemandian to gain access to her nephew.

  Albek had to have tampered with her memories as well, for under Command, Olina’s testimony had matched Pjerin’s. If Stasya could Command the older woman again, she might be able to find out how he’d done it and who the actual traitor was he’d left behind. Was it Lukas? Had Olina appointed him because of something Albek had left in her mind?

  Or was it Olina herself? Had she agreed to his tampering in order to control a child duc? Stasya watched her and wondered. While she was both self-centered and ambitious, could she actually be cold-blooded enough to frame her own nephew and send him to the block?

  The problem was, Olina had no more to gain than anyone in Ohrid, for Stasya doubted that Queen Jirina much cared who she set up after conquest as her puppet in the keep.

  Stasya was certain of two things only: that when King Theron arrived, Lady Olina was going back under Command; and that she wasn’t going to be the one who told her so.

  Four days later, she heard about Simion.

  “I sent him away the morning after you arrived.” Olina wiped her hands and smiled across the table at the bard. “He was a very pretty Cemandian mountebank who came through the pass with the first lot of traders. I think I was using him to get back at Albek.”

  “Why did you send him away?” Feeling a surge of sympathy for the unknown young man, Stasya toyed with the fork beside her plate. Although common enough in the capital, she was surprised to find the utensil in use in Ohrid. The silversmith’s mark was not one she knew, so the set had to have come from Cemandia.

  “I just told you.” Smiling, Olina pushed her chair back from the table. “You arrived.”

  The room was suddenly very warm.

  “Before the Riverfolk discovered that the Circle encloses all beliefs, they had a Goddess.” Training kept Stasya’s voice steady. “She was dark and beautiful and lived in the deep still places of the river. Whenever any of the Riverfolk drowned, it was said they’d gone to the bed of the Goddess.”

  “My bed is drier.”

  “Perhaps, Lady.” Stasya stood and bowed. “But I’d be just as unlikely to survive. If you’ll excuse me?”

  Complimented by the comparison, Olina regally inclined her head.

  Needing air, Stasya headed for the high watchtower. At the far end of the keep, its base as high on the mountain as the inner watchtower’s roof, it gave an unobstructed bird’s-eye view down into the pass and along it into Cemandian territory. She knew the observation post stood empty as Olina had commented on it, saying, “There’ll be no invasion now the traitor has been discovered.”

  “Everything in this place has two meanings,” she muttered, her thoughts in such turmoil that she had no idea she was being followed.

  By the time she reached the top of the tower, her pulse beat hard in her ears and she sagged gratefully against the stone. There were no kigh around, and she thanked whatever parts of the Circle were responsible. She had neither the energy nor the inclination to deal with the kigh right now.

  Her weight on her elbows, she leaned out over the pass, staring toward Cemandia. No armies approaching. That, at least, was mildly encouraging. Then she sighed and looked back along the outer wall of the keep.

  Frowning, she straightened and moved around the arc of the tower for a better look.

  “Center it!”

  She pursed her lips to call the kigh, but the only sound that emerged was a soft grunt as Lukas smashed the rock in his hand down on the back of her head.

  Fifteen

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  Her tone was ice and iron, and Lukas shrank back, knowing as he did that distance would be no protection from the implied threat. “She was at the high tower, Lady. Looking down into the pass! I had to stop her!” His hand flicked out in the sign against the kigh.

  “Looking down into the pass?”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  And things had been going so well … Frowning, she prodded Stasya’s limp body with the toe of her boot. The dark hair was matted and sticky with blood and the back of the bard’s tunic showed a crimson stain. “You’re certain she’s still alive?”

  Lukas dropped to his knees beside the crumpled body. “Yes, Lady. She breathes and her heart beats.”

  So much easier, Olina reflected, if he’d just killed her outright. Had Lukas killed the bard, she’d merely have him confined, convinced that she’d arrange his escape before the king arrived to sit in Judgment. During that escape, she’d have him killed. The kigh could go ahead and tell the bard traveling with His Majesty everything they saw because none of it would arouse suspicion.

  To ensure an easy and early victory, Theron must be in the keep when the Cemandian army arrived. It was vital he not receive any information that would make him cautious enough to postpone the end of his journey.

  While the kigh might have seen Lukas strike the blow, Stasya would very definitely Sing everything she knew the moment she regained consciousness. Therefore, she mustn’t be allowed to Sing. Olina remembered being told that a bard’s death attracted the kigh. She had no memory of who had told her or how true the observation might be, but now that she could be implicated in was a risk she had no intention of taking. Stasya would just have to be put where the kigh couldn’t reach her.

  “Carry her to the old section of the keep,” Olina commanded at last. “If you let anyone see you, I will be very angry. Do you understand?”

  Very angry. Thankful that he remained on his knees, for they would have surely given out, Lukas nodded. “Yes, Lady.”

  “I’ll meet you in the small chamber at the north end of the Great hall.” She fixed her gaze on him and was pleased to see him tremble. “Remember, no one is to see you.”<

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  * * * *

  Gerek had spent a wonderful morning pulling weeds from the fields autumn-sown with corn. It was a task that all the village children participated in from the time they were strong enough to beat the weeds until they were strong enough to move to larger tasks. Each child had a row—some of the smallest children were paired—and there were races and singing and trophies passed from grubby hand to grubby hand as a particularly long rooted foe was vanquished.

  Although Gerek had been able to stay for the midday picnic and a lovely mud fight that had been too quickly broken up, he wasn’t allowed to remain for the afternoon’s fun.

  “You’re the duc now,” his Aunty Olina had told him. “And you have responsibilities the other children do not.”

  He’d settled back on his heels and stared up at her. “It’s the ’sponsibility of the duc to share in the work and know what’s going on.” Experience had taught him not to preface such announcements with, my papa said.

  Aunty Olina had smiled. “Very well. But only for the morning.”

  “And the picnic.”

  Her brows had risen, but after a moment she’d nodded. “Of course.”

  Urmi, the stablemaster, had come to get him and the pleasure of riding home on Kaspar, his pony, had almost made up for having to leave. From the stable, aware that he was going to be late and knowing how his aunt felt about that sort of thing, he’d take a shortcut through the old section of the keep.

  Still a spiral staircase and a narrow corridor away from the nursery, the sound of boots ringing against the floor froze him in place. Only his Aunty Olina walked like that, like she was slapping the stone with her feet. Was she looking for him? Was she maybe angry with him? Gerek looked around for a place to hide.

  Dropping to his stomach, he squirmed under a carved stone bench and tucked himself as tightly as he could against the wall. The footsteps grew louder, then he saw a pair of black boots stride past his hiding place. Grinning broadly, he hugged his knees as they passed. You don’t know I’m here, he thought. You don’t … Then he frowned as a tooled leather strap dragged by. Why was his Aunty Olina carrying the bard’s stuff?

  * * * *

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “No, Lady.”

  “Good. And the bard?”

  Wrapped tightly in the folds of an old horse blanket, Stasya moaned.

  Lukas stared down at her, then up at Olina. “She lives, Lady.”

  “So I can hear.” She shifted the weight of Stasya’s pack, hastily stuffed behind closed shutters with everything the bard had brought to Ohrid. “Follow me.”

  Heaving his burden back over his shoulders, Lukas followed.

  Leading the way through the ground floor of the keep, Olina took a moment to light a torch with flint and steel and then descended into the cellars, the steward with his burden treading closely on her flickering shadow.

  “Are we going to leave her down here, Lady?’

  She didn’t bother to answer.

  They crossed two rooms, long unused even for storage. In the third, she stopped, and let pack and instrument case slide to the floor. “Put her down and open that,” she said, gesturing at an iron grate set flush with the rough-cut stone.

  In the end, it took both their strength thrown against the grate to lift it.

  Lukas stared through the narrow opening into a darkness so complete it seemed solid. “What is it?” he panted, mouth working against the dank smell of ancient decay rising into the cellar.

  “It’s an oubliette,” Olina told him, scrubbing her palms together. At his blank expression, she added dryly, “A hole in the ground. An old Cemandian custom.”

  “I never knew this was here.”

  “Why should you?” She jerked her head toward the pack. “Get that down there and then her.”

  “Down there?” Lukas backed a step away from the hole.

  Olina’s eyes narrowed as signs of incipient panic began to appear in the steward’s manner. She didn’t have time for this. “Try to remember that killing or attempting to kill a bard means a Death Judgment and that you struck the blow. I am only trying to help you stay alive.” Icy blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on his face.

  After a moment, Lukas picked up the pack with visibly trembling hands and shoved it through the hole. He threw down the instrument case, listened to it land and bounce, and turned to stare at the feebly moving body of the bard.

  “Lady …”

  “Do it!” Olina snapped, seeing the rest of her well worked plans come unraveled in his hesitation. “Or shall we just drag her back outside and give the kigh a good look at what you’ve done?”

  He had to swallow before he could speak. “No, Lady.”

  * * * *

  Stasya moaned. Voices slammed about within her skull with such force that she couldn’t make out the actual words. She tried to push against the scratchy fabric confining her, but her arms refused to respond.

  She moaned again as something dragged her over a surface both hard and cold and poured her into emptiness.

  Her thoughts cleared just long enough for her to realize that she was falling, then a brilliant flash of white light exploded against the inside of her head and darkness claimed her again.

  * * * *

  His small body pressed into the recessed doorway, hidden in shadows barely touched by the pale sunlight slanting through high, narrow windows, Gerek watched as his Aunty Olina and Lukas came up from the cellars. What did they do with the bard? he wondered. Were they mad at her, too, because of what she did to his papa? He watched the torch ground out against the threshold and left lying on the stone, then he watched them walk away.

  Brow furrowed, he padded over to the doorway and squatted to look at the torch. Remembering something he’d seen Rezka do once at the kitchen hearth, he leaned forward and blew on the blackened end. Nothing happened. Eyes narrowed, he leaned closer and blew again.

  A thin wisp of smoke climbed up to be lost in shadows of the ceiling.

  Pleased with himself, he picked up the torch carefully in both hands and kept blowing until, suddenly, it was alight.

  His papa didn’t like him playing with fire.

  But if he wasn’t even allowed to yell at the bard, how come Aunty Olina was allowed to leave her in the cellar? He was the duc. He should at least get to yell.

  * * * *

  “I’m blind.”

  The words bounced back and forth through the darkness, making it clear, even through the pounding pain, that she was in a very enclosed space. There was no panic behind the words; not yet, she figured she’d save that for when she had the energy to make it worthwhile.

  Moving slowly, Stasya forced herself up into a sitting position and fought the urge to vomit. With both hands pressed hard against her mouth and her throat working convulsively against the bile, she sat motionless until the need became less than all she was.

  Sucking damp, musty air through her teeth, she reached behind her and gingerly searched the back of her head where the pain seemed the most intense. Her fingers came away sticky and she swallowed her most recent meal for a second time as, involuntarily, she jerked away from her own touch.

  Obviously, she hadn’t been alone looking down at the palisade and someone had done a thorough job of stopping her from passing on what she’d seen.

  Feeling as though her head were an egg, cracked and ready to fry, she groped around her, trying to identify the objects she’d half landed on. Her pack was easy, the bent cedar frame had dug a painful bruise into her shoulder—a bruise she accepted with gratitude as its padded bulk had kept her head from connecting with the stone of the floor. Untangling her legs from a blanket that smelled strongly of the stable, she bent too far forward, the world tilted, and she cracked her nose against her knee.

  Her eyes welled with tears and she let them fall, fighting for control only when she felt hysteria rising.

  A flailing arm brushed a familiar curve of padded leather.

  “My harp!��� Anger became a useful distraction, blocking everything else until she held her harp on her lap and could run her fingers over its strings; the harp case had exceeded its maker’s guarantee and the soft whisper of sound calmed her enough to wonder, what next.

  She’d get no response if she Sang the kigh. Not even for Tadeus would they come so far into a building.

  Tadeus.

  Blind.

  Eyes opened or closed, the darkness pressed against her with identical intensity. All at once, she couldn’t breathe. Her heartbeat grew louder, louder, louder. Blood roared in her ears. Her fingers tightened convulsively. The dying note of a snapped harp string brought her back to herself.

  “Careful.” Her voice shook, but for the most part she had it under control. “You won’t find any replacement strings down here.”

  Down here.

  At the moment, being blind was the least of her problems.

  Stretching out an arm, she found a wall and had to stop herself from trying to drive her fingers into the damp rock. With the mountain supporting her, for her prison had clearly been dug not built, she managed to stand.

  “Bard? Hey, Bard? Are you down there?”

  “Gerek?” Shoulder braced against the wall, Stasya looked up. Relief hit her so hard, she almost fell. Through the outline of a narrow grate she could see a flicker of flame. She wasn’t blind. Blinking away tears, she reached for the light, but as near as she could tell the opening was an arm’s length again above her fingers. “Gerek! Go tell your Aunt Olina where I am!”

  “She knows.” Gerek leaned forward, resting the end of the torch in one of the holes in the metal, squinting until he thought he could see the bard’s face in the darkness. “Her and Lukas put you there. That’ll teach you for taking away my papa.”

  Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Stasya sagged but the wall caught her. Found your traitor, Majesty. Now what?

  “Hey, Bard? Can you get out?”

  Let’s not waste this one chance. She pulled herself erect, as close to the grate as she could get. “No, Gerek, I can’t.”

  “So what’ll happen?”

  “I’ll die.” Die. Die. Die. The word lingered. Stasya tried to ignore it.

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