Sing the Four Quarters Read online

  Later, after the death had been witnessed and they were waiting for priest and bard and the new king to leave the bedchamber, Milena cornered her in the king’s solar and hissed, “Just what’s wrong with the Heir of Cemandia?”

  “Nothing.” Annice jerked her arm out of her sister’s grip. “I just don’t want to be joined with anyone. I want to be a bard.”

  “And you always get what you want, don’t you? Did you even consider your family obligations? Of course you didn’t. There’s a price to be paid for good food and warm clothes and a lifetime of servants saying ‘yes, Highness, and no, Highness.’ ” Milena tossed her braid back over her shoulder. “But I always said Theron spoiled you.”

  “He did not!” He’d just always been there when their mother had been interested only in the beautiful Irenka or their father had been too busy being the king, which was most of the time. Theron had brought her the news of their mother’s accident and she’d clutched his hand when they’d buried her, not understanding why the healers couldn’t fix her. She’d been the first after the proud parents to hold Theron’s baby girl. That wasn’t being spoiled. “Look, Milena, you’re happy. Why can’t I be?”

  “I found happiness on the path of duty. Obviously, that’s not good enough for you.” Having said what she’d come to say, Milena spun on her heel and returned to her partner’s side. After a moment, their heads moved so close together a feather wouldn’t fit between them.

  Annice felt her lip curl watching them, so she propped one leg on the window ledge and glanced around the room. Everyone seemed to be staying as far away from her as they could get, as if afraid physical proximity might implicate them in her plan. Well, Theron had been pretty angry and was likely to stay that way for some time. Only Tomelis would meet her eyes. Why does he look so sad? she wondered. Just for an instant, she wondered if she might have made a tactical error. How could she at fourteen actually outmaneuver a man nineteen years her senior?

  But I’ve done it. With everyone else joined before Theron takes the throne, he’s already let me know that I’m too strong a game piece for him to lose from the board. Even if I didn’t join with Prince Rajmund, he’d never let me become a bard.

  He couldn’t stop her now.

  The door to the bedchamber opened and the men and women in the solar dropped to one knee as the new king emerged. Expecting him to walk right on through, Annice was startled when he stopped before her.

  “By the will of the late King Mikus,” he said, “you have permission to enter Bardic Hall. I, Theron, King of Shkoder, High Captain of the Broken Islands, Lord over the Mountain Principalities of Sibiu, Ohrid, Adjud, Bicaz, and Somes, do on this day declare that by doing so you forfeit all rights of royalty, that you shall surrender all titles and incomes, that all save your personal possessions shall revert to the crown. Furthermore, for the stability of the realm, you may neither join nor bear children without the express permission of the crown. To do so will be considered a treasonous act and will be punished as such.”

  Annice thought she heard a deep voice murmur a protest, quickly hushed. Eyes narrowed, she glared up at her brother, her new king.

  “Do you understand?” he asked, his lips pulled tight against his teeth. To be convicted of an act of treason was to face a Death Judgment.

  He thought she’d back down. Well, he was wrong. “I understand.”

  “Witness!”

  Behind him, the Bardic Captain sighed. “Witnessed.”

  Annice thought she saw something that might have been regret flicker for a moment in Theron’s eyes then he turned away from her and said, “Done.”

  * * * *

  Done. Annice pulled off her mitten and rubbed the back of her hand under her nose. Sometimes Bardic Memory stinks. She didn’t know whether she’d seen regret that afternoon or just imagined it. She’d never spoken to Theron, to any of them, again. Not once in ten years. She wasn’t even sure if that was his idea or hers.

  “Annice?” Jon laid his huge hand lightly on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “I didn’t mean your stomach.”

  She sighed and let it go with the breath. “I know.”

  He sat back, still watching her, worry creasing his face. “I’m sorry I brought it up.” He offered her a tentative smile. “I’ll forget it if you like.”

  “Will you forget that unenclosed song, too?”

  “I’ll even pound it out of my brother’s head.”

  Annice grinned and held out her fist. “Done,” she said.

  Two

  “You want yer weight carried back upriver in the spring, Bard, you whistle me up.” Sarlo smacked her fist into the top of Annice’s with enthusiasm. The kigh had got them to Riverton one full day faster than average. “Pity I couldn’t use yer help in the races.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather win because of your skill not because of a push from the kigh?”

  Sarlo snorted. “I’d rather win.”

  Grinning, Annice bent to pick up her pack but found Jon already holding it. “Thank you.” She slipped her arms behind the leather straps, settled the familiar weight on her shoulders, and turned to face him. “And thank you for offering the ride. Considering the weather, and the way I’m feeling, I’d have been lucky to get home by First Quarter Festival, let alone Fourth.”

  A smile gleamed in the depths of his beard. “I was glad of the company. You sure you’re going to be okay for this last little distance?”

  “I just spent two quarters walking to Ohrid and back,” she reminded him. “I think I can manage.” She held out her fist. “Good trading, Jonukas i’Evicka.”

  “Good music, Annice.” He let his fist rest against hers for a moment. “And see a healer. All that puking isn’t natural.”

  She nodded. “The moment I get home. Or maybe first thing tomorrow,” she amended, glancing at the rapidly darkening sky.

  “Witness?”

  “Jon, I can’t witness for myself.”

  “Then promise.”

  “Oh, all right.” Shaking her head, she traced the sign of the Circle over her heart. “I promise.” She waved at Avram, who waved back from his perch on top of the cargo cover, and regretted one last time that she hadn’t felt well enough, long enough, to try to get to know him better. Picking her way carefully along the wet rocks, she started up the dock toward home.

  “Annice?”

  Hand against the hull of a riverboat already out of the water for the season, Annice half twisted around.

  “May I tell my brother?”

  The brother who knew all twenty-seven verses to “The Princess-Bard.” She laughed ruefully. “Why not?”

  The rain held off and in spite of the road, a muddy mess from previous downpours that somehow seemed more resilient under her boots than it should, Annice reached the bridge over the new canal before full dark.

  The East Keeper lumbered out of his tiny shelter and held out a massive hand.

  “Bards don’t pay toll,” Annice reminded him and started to go around.

  He blocked her path.

  And most of the rest of the bridge, she realized. Big boy.

  “How do I know you’re a bard?”

  “You could take my word for it.” It wasn’t healthy to lie about being a bard. Bards who found out tended not to take it very well.

  “No, I can’t.” Crossing meaty arms over a barrel chest, the keeper scowled down at her. “Sing for me.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to Sing me your name.”

  That she’d be expected to identify herself in order to enter the city used up about all the patience she had remaining. Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye and said, “Get out of my way.”

  He responded to her Command with the gratifying promptness shown by most petty tyrants and others of like personality. Resisting the urge to tell him to jump in the canal and realizing she was teetering just beyond the edge of her oath as it was, Annice stomped up and over the arch and into Elbasan.

  Her mood lightened as she followed River Road into the heart of the city. Evenings were long at the dark end of the Third Quarter, so taverns and soup shops were doing their best business of the year. Annice briefly considered stopping for supper before she headed up the hill, but smells, individual and combined, from a thousand different sources changed her mind. She was not going to throw up in the gutter like a common drunk.

  At least she hoped she wasn’t.

  Hill Street to the Citadel seemed steeper than it had when she’d left. She felt ready to collapse when she reached the wall and sagged panting against the stone by the gate. You’d think that after walking for two quarters I’d be in better shape. Nothing hurt, she just felt drained. As she stood there, trying to catch her breath, the clouds that had been threatening finally made good on their promise of rain. Shit.

  Dragging up her hood, she decided she was too exhausted to Sing the Bard’s Door open and staggered in under the arch of the main gate. She didn’t know the guard on duty, but the bard had been a fledgling with her.

  “Annice. Bard. Going to the Bardic Hall.”

  Jazep peered up under her hood. “Witnessed,” he said. “You look like you’ve fallen out of the Circle, Nees.” His deep voice rumbled with concern. “Rough Walk?”

  “Long Walk,” she told him, already moving. “I’ll see you later.”

  The rain came down in icy sheets as she made her way diagonally across Citadel Square. A dry route existed through barracks and stables and storerooms, but she wasn’t up to negotiating her way past their occupants. It was faster and easier to get wet.

  Eventually, putting one foot in front of the other, she arrived at the main entrance to the hall. Lifting her head, she blew a drop of water off the end of her nose, pulled the door open, and went inside.

  The bard sitting duty in the main hall glanced up from her book. “You’re dripping.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “Annice?”

  Annice shook her hood back, spraying the immediate area with a fine patina of water.

  “Well, I guess the Circle does hold everything. Welcome home, Annice.” The older woman rested her forearms on the desk and leaned forward, frowning. “You look awful.”

  “Thank you.” If one more person told her that tonight, she was going to puke on their shoes. “If you’ll record that I’m back, Ceci, I’m going up to bed. I don’t even want to think about recall until morning.”

  “Do you want me to have the kitchen send something up?”

  No. Except that she was starving. “Soup and bread. Thanks.”

  Ceci turned to watch as she started toward the stairs. “You going to make it all the way to your rooms?” she asked dubiously.

  “Of course I am. I’m fine. I’m just a little tired. It’s my punishment for sitting on my ass all the way from Vidor.”

  “Riverboat?”

  “What else.”

  “You push?”

  “A little.”

  “Captain won’t like that.”

  “Extenuating circumstances.”

  Ceci laughed. “They always are. Stasya’s out in the city.”

  “Good for her.”

  “When she comes in, shall I tell her you’re back or let her find out for herself?”

  Annice thought about it for a moment, then called down from the top of the stairs. “You’d better tell her. You know how she hates surprises.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to be on the fourth floor,” she reminded herself a few moments later, resting on the third floor landing. “And you’re the one who wanted rooms at the back of the building not the front. You’ve got no one to blame for this final effort but yourself.”

  The soup and bread very nearly made it to her rooms before she did. She’d barely Sung the lamp alight and checked to see that the kigh dancing on the wick was safely contained when the server arrived.

  “Just set the tray here,” she said, lifting a jumbled heap of slates off a round table and searching desperately for a place to put them. As usual, Stasya had left their common room looking like a storm had recently passed through. Finally, as it seemed to be the only clear space remaining, she stuffed the slates under a chair, stood her instrument case against the wall, and shrugged her pack off to crash to the floor.

  The older man clicked his tongue—at the noise or the mess, Annice wasn’t sure which—and nudged a pile of colored chalks aside with the edge of the tray. “I brought you some cheese,” he said, straightening. “Need more than just bread and soup after a Long Walk.”

  “I only walked in from Riverton today, Leonas,” Annice pointed out, removing a half-strung harp and a pair of torn breeches from her favorite chair. “Not all the way from Ohrid.”

  Leonas ignored her. “Probably haven’t had any decent food for the whole two quarters.”

  “I actually ate quite well.”

  He snorted and looked her over. “Gained a little weight, did you?”

  Annice sighed. She couldn’t win. “Good night, Leonas.”

  “Good night, Princess.”

  “Leo …”

  “If I can call my Giz Cupcake when she never was one,” he interrupted, glaring back at her from the threshold, “I can call you Princess when you aren’t one no more. Get some sleep. You look terrible.” Jerking the door closed behind him, he left Annice no room to argue.

  Leonas had already been serving at the Bardic Hall for thirty years when the fourteen-year-old Annice arrived. Determined not to let it show, lest word get back to her brother, she was hurt and confused and had no idea of how not to act like a princess. Leonas had gruffly taken her under his wing, explaining little things it had never occurred to the bards that she wouldn’t know, easing the transition as much as he could. Over the years, he’d slid into the role of trusted retainer and if he wanted to call her “Princess,” she supposed he’d earned the right. She tried to discourage it, though; she’d long left that life behind.

  Stripping off her wet clothes and letting them lie where they fell, she pulled a heavy woolen robe and sheepskin slippers from the wardrobe in her bedroom, shuffled down the hall to use the necessity—fortunately running into no one with whom she’d have to make conversation—then finally sat down to eat.

  The soup was excellent, big chunks of tender clam in a thick vegetable stock. Not entirely trusting her stomach, Annice saved the bread and cheese for later.

  She thought about lighting a fire, but—in spite of the rain slapping against the shutters—it just wasn’t cold enough to justify making the effort. Besides, once in bed with the curtains closed, she’d be plenty warm enough. Setting thought to action, she picked up the lamp and shuffled into the bedroom.

  Blankets and sheets were heaped in a tangled pile. The down comforter trailed on the floor, evidence of a hasty departure, and all but one of the four pillows had been thrown to the foot of the bed.

  “I can’t believe she can sleep in this,” Annice muttered, tugging the mess into some semblance of order. “And I don’t even want to know how she tore that corner of the curtain.” Bed finally tidied, she Sang the kigh in the lamp a gratitude and, in the dark, slipped off her robe and slid naked between the sheets. Just as they began to warm around her body, her bladder decided to get her up again.

  “I just went!” she told it.

  It didn’t seem to matter.

  “If it isn’t one end lately, it’s the other,” she complained, groping for her slippers. “I am really getting tired of this.”

  * * * *

  “Nees? Are you asleep?”

  Annice roused enough to murmur an affirmative, then gasped as a cold body wrapped around hers. “Stasya, you’re freezing!”

  “You’re not. You’re nice and warm.”

  “I was nice and warm.”

  “Oh, hush. I’ll warm up in a minute and you won’t even know that I’m here.”

  “Not likely.” Annice squirmed as the other woman began chewing on her ear. “Stop it, Stas. I’m tired.”

  “I missed you….”

  “I missed you, too, but I’m tired.”

  “Can I welcome you home in the morning?”

  “You can do what you want in the morning,” Annice muttered, “if you’ll just let me sleep now.”

  When she woke again, weak light shone through the space between the bedcurtains, enough to illuminate the woman propped on one elbow and staring down at her.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi yourself.” Stasya smiled and waggled dark brows. “It’s morning. Welcome home. Remember what you promised?”

  She remembered a cold body very clearly, but the rest only vaguely. “Stas …”

  “Stas …” The other woman mocked and leaned forward. “It was witnessed by a bard,” she whispered, breath tickling Annice’s lips.

  “Stasya.” Annice shoved her aside as her stomach rose to greet the day. “Get out of my way. Now!”

  * * * *

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “I don’t know.” Panting, Annice sat back on her heels, steadying herself against the toilet. A while now.”

  Stasya leaned against the open door of the cubicle and frowned. “What do the healers say?”

  “I haven’t seen one.”

  “You are such an idiot. Why not?”

  “I figured I’d see one when I got home.”

  “Fine. You’re home. Are you finished?” Stasya stepped forward, bent, and helped Annice to her feet. “You can go see one right now.”

  “But I haven’t talked to the captain yet.”

  “So?”

  Yanking the chain that flushed water through the pipes with one hand, Annice secured her robe with the other. “In case you’ve forgotten, I just got back from a Long Walk; I’ll be in recall all morning.”

  “Healers take precedence.”

  “But I’ll likely have to sit around the Hall for hours before they can see me.”

  “Not at this time of the morning.” Fingers locked around Annice’s arm just above the elbow, Stasya propelled her down the corridor and into their rooms. “Get dressed,” she commanded. “You’re going to see a healer if I have to drag you, so you might just as well go comfortably on your own two feet.”

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