Sing the Four Quarters Page 4

  Realizing that Stasya had made up her mind and resistance was therefore futile, Annice sighed and surrendered. “It’s going to be a waste of time,” she muttered. “They won’t know what it is. They never know….”

  * * * *

  “When was the last time you had your flows?”

  “My flows?” Annice frowned as she shrugged back into her clothing. “Oh, come on, Elica, I can’t remember that.”

  The healer rolled her eyes. “You’re a bard. You can remember if you want to.”

  “Well.…” The frown smoothed out as Annice slid into a light recall. “I was between Adjud and Ohrid. Four days out of Adjud and thirteen from Ohrid.”

  “How long ago were you in Ohrid?”

  “Nine weeks.”

  “So you’ve missed two, almost three cycles.” Elica pushed a carved wooden box out of the way and sat on the edge of her table. “Didn’t you ever wonder about that?”

  “I was on a Long Walk. I had other things on my mind.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Why?” Annice’s head came up and her tone sharpened defensively. “What have I caught?”

  “You haven’t caught anything,” the healer sighed. “You’re pregnant.”

  * * * *

  “You’re WHAT?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Annice hissed, pushing past her. “Do you want the whole Citadel to know?”

  Stasya hurried to catch up as Annice stomped down the corridor of the Healers’ Hall. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  “Well, how did it happen?”

  “How the empty Circle do you think? The usual way.”

  “What about the teas the healers gave you?”

  “I gave them to a woman who’d had seven babies in six years. She seemed to need them more.”

  “Very commendable, I’m sure, but none of her babies were committing treason in the womb.” Together they pounded out of the Healers’ Hall and across the courtyard. “Annice! Slow down. Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got to talk to the captain.”

  “I’ll say. Can you get rid of it, or has it gone too far?”

  “I can. But I’m not going to. That’s why I have to talk to the captain.”

  “This,” Stasya said with feeling, as they raced up the stairs to the captain’s chambers, “is what comes of sleeping with men.”

  * * * *

  Liene stared up at the young woman standing on the other side of her desk. Why me? she asked the Circle silently. Or more to the point, why her? “You’re positive?”

  “Healer Elica is.”

  Wonderful. The Bardic Captain closed her eyes and heard King Mikus ask in memory if she had known about his youngest daughter’s boon. It had been a fair question. The old scoundrel had bloody well known she’d been after his permission to recruit Annice for almost a year. Practically every time the child opened her mouth, kigh flocked around her. Allowing that kind of talent to remain untrained would have been criminal. Even more so considering how badly Annice had wanted to be a bard.

  Eyes still closed, Liene rewitnessed the old king’s declaration and the new king’s conditions. She’d strongly disapproved of those conditions, but the king had refused to listen to her counsel. The child had been only fourteen, so she’d decided to deal with both conditions and king later. As Annice threw herself into her studies, becoming less the princess and more the bard, later moved farther and farther away.

  Later, Liene sighed silently, seems to have come home to roost.

  The Bardic Oath stressed the responsibilities of power but mentioned nothing about celibacy, and Annice was not the first bard to conceive. While it didn’t happen often—the healers thought it had something to do with Singing the kigh—babies had been raised in Bardic Halls before. Bards had even occasionally left to raise babies with nonbardic partners. Babies happened. Sometimes, they even happened on purpose. Personally, the captain rather liked having children around, although not to the extent that she’d ever thought of having her own.

  She could hear the young woman fidgeting and reluctantly opened her eyes to meet a cautiously defiant gaze. “You do realize that, considering the king’s edict, what you did was, to say the least, irresponsible?”

  Annice tossed her head. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  Liene leaned back and slowly lifted one brow. “My point,” she said, “exactly.” When understanding registered, she sighed and leaned forward again. “I realize why you gave away the tea, Annice, although, as we’ve been importing it from the south at ridiculous prices to prevent exactly this situation, I’m sure you realize that I wish you’d never met the woman. The deed being done, however, didn’t it occur to you to temper later actions?”

  A blush stained Annice’s cheeks deeply pink in spite of color left by two quarters on the road. “It only happened the once. There just weren’t any alternatives handy, and …”

  “Never mind.” A chronicle of spontaneous passion was more than Liene felt up to at the moment. “You’re certain about the father?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “And it’s none of my business. Succinctly put. Annice’s voice control was a credit to her training. “Do you feel any obligation to let him know?”

  “No, Captain. It was a casual encounter. He’ll have no interest in a child from it.”

  Because a difficult situation would be marginally less difficult if the father never knew, Liene was willing to go along with Annice’s assessment. “And you’re determined to continue the pregnancy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Annice repeated, looking confused.

  “You’re still within the healer’s limits. Why continue when, considering His Majesty’s edict, it would be easier—not to mention less dangerous—to terminate?”

  Annice paced the length of the room and back, then bent over and placed her palms very precisely on the edge of the captain’s desk. “Look, Captain, I’m twenty-four years old. I’m in excellent health. I haven’t got a family anymore and I suddenly find that I want one now I’ve got this chance.”

  “I thought the bards had become your family, Annice.”

  She caught the older woman’s gaze and held it. “Have they?”

  Liene recognized the challenge. One family had turned their backs on this young woman already. Would a second? “If I support you in this, it is my treason, a bardic treason, as much as it is yours.”

  “I know that.”

  “The king would be within his rights to have everyone who knew and who didn’t tell him put to the sword.”

  Annice almost smiled. “Then tell everyone.”

  “Your point,” Liene acknowledged. “As he certainly can’t execute us all, we’re safe enough. But, considering it objectively, you’re probably just as safe. You don’t honestly believe that His Majesty would have you put to death over this matter, do you?”

  “I can’t afford not to believe it. I have my baby’s life to consider.”

  “Then you should go into hiding.”

  “Where would be safer than Bardic Hall?”

  Just about anywhere farther than a stone’s throw from the palace, Liene thought but she kept that opinion to herself as she recognized the expression on Annice’s face. Nothing she could say would change the younger bard’s mind at this point and, as she herself didn’t believe there was any great danger, she decided not to make it an order. His Majesty would find out about the baby in due time and then things would get interesting. Bards appreciated that. Still.…

  “I think you should tell him,” she said finally.

  “I’m a bard.” Annice straightened, brown eyes narrowing. “Why should a bard have to tell the king she’s having a baby?”

  “He’s your brother.”

  “He proclaimed me out of the family. He shouldn’t be able to have it both ways.”

  Liene drummed her fingers on her desk as she considered the options, one hand beating counterpoint to the other. It didn’t seem worth mentioning that, as the king, he could have it any way he wanted it. “Very well, Annice.” The rhythms merged and stopped. “The Bardic Hall will support your choice as it would any other bard’s.”

  “Thank you.”

  She saw Annice’s shoulders visibly relax and allowed her tone to soften as she realized just how worried the young bard had been. “I suggest, however, that we work out a way for you to keep a low profile. There’s no point rubbing King Theron’s nose in your decision.” Again, she added silently. While the maneuver that had gotten Annice into the Bardic Hall originally had been ingenious—the deathbed promise of the old king could hardly be disallowed by the new, regardless of his personal plans—it had been significantly lacking in tact. “When are you due?”

  “Uh …” A quick calculation got chewed out of her lower lip. “Just into Second Quarter.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Nauseated mostly.”

  “I’ve heard that should stop soon. I’ll have a word with the healer—Elica was it?—before I schedule you in for even Short Walks this coming quarter.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll check with the healer anyway. Now then …” fingers laced together, Liene allowed herself a smile, “as long as you’re here, did anything else of interest happen during the two quarters you were away?”

  Again the blush. “There were more Cemandian traders around than usual.”

  “You’re not the first to mention it. Anything else?”

  “Actually, there is. Cemandian superstitions seem to be growing stronger in the mountain provinces. Although most people seemed glad enough to see me, I caught an extraordinary number of these …” Annice flicked her fingers out in the Cemandian sign against the kigh. “… thrown in my direction.”

  That was not good news and would have to be dealt with the moment the weather allowed bards back into the mountains. A greater amount of intolerance seemed to be accompanying the greater number of traders. Liene wondered, for a moment, if it were an intentional import. “Any overt hostility?”

  “No. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to mean much yet. But it’s spreading enough so that even a wool trader from Marienka noticed it.”

  “And the rest of the Walk?”

  Although she tried to remember the highlights, it soon became apparent Annice was having trouble concentrating on the details of the last two quarters. Under the circumstances, Liene could hardly blame her and dismissed her early. At least in recall she’d be able to report her observations without the emotional interference caused by this new knowledge of her condition.

  Sighing deeply as the door closed behind the young bard, the captain tipped her chair back and swung her feet up on the desk, wincing with the movement. Every year after fifty seemed to drive the damp deeper into her bones.

  It had been an interesting morning and looked as though it would get more interesting still.

  “Treason, my ass.” Liene rubbed at her temples. Overreacting to his youngest sister’s coup, King Theron had hit back as hard as he’d been able to with the limited weapons Annice had left him.

  It was long past time for a reconciliation. This would force it. The king, while an admirable man in every other way, was deaf to counsel concerning his youngest sister, and Annice had a stubborn streak that bordered on pigheaded. Neither could be brought to see that they were equally at fault.

  Had Theron not been king, the situation would have resolved itself long ago, but not even the Bardic Captain dared tell the king what he should and should not feel, and there were few things more extreme than royal pride. Annice had not helped when, in her second year of training, she’d rejected her brother’s one attempt at compromise. Liene hadn’t been surprised; had His Majesty been trying to further alienate his sister, he could not have done a better job.

  While she’d meant what she’d said about not rubbing King Theron’s nose in Annice’s pregnancy, only a fool would doubt that eventually he’d discover it.

  Bards were terrible at keeping secrets. They insisted on putting them to music.

  * * * *

  “Can you hear me, Annice?”

  “I hear you.”

  Slane picked up his first pen. “Begin recall.”

  Deeply in trance, Annice started to speak, each word carefully enunciated. “I left Elbasan in early morning, one day after Second Quarter Festival….”

  The two quarter scroll began to fill with bardic shorthand and Slane let the greater part of his mind wander. Some bards never quite got the hang of editing out their personal lives, but Annice, no matter how deep she went, had never let a salacious detail slip.

  Observant, Slane acknowledged. But boring. With any luck, he’d be on recall when Tadeus came in. Now there was a bard who knew how to party.

  * * * *

  A baby. Shoulders braced on the stone chimney, Annice slid down until she settled on the roof of Bardic Hall. She was going to have a baby. Between her discussion with the captain and the rest of the day spent in recall, this was the first chance she’d really had to just think about it.

  At least the weaver hadn’t lied about the wool for her breeches being preshrunk.

  A baby.

  She let her head fall back against the masonry hard enough to snap her teeth together. “What in the Circle do I think I’m doing?”

  Having a baby.

  “I don’t know anything about babies!”

  But she knew she wanted it. Had wanted it from the moment Elica had told her. Or perhaps a little after that, when she’d calmed down and stopped demanding to see a healer who knew what she was doing.

  A cold wind off the harbor moved her around to sit on the palace side of the chimney. In a little while, when the lamps were lit inside, she’d be able to see her old suite. It wouldn’t take much to discover who was living there now—she could Sing a kigh over to the windows in a couple of minutes—but she didn’t want to know. Hadn’t ever wanted to know. She went into the palace to take her turn witnessing in the courts but that was it. She’d never been asked to play at any function and she’d never attended any that were within her rights as a bard to attend.

  Although Bardic Hall and the palace were both within the Citadel walls, there was no chance of an accidental meeting with His Gracious Majesty, King Theron. He lived surrounded by insulating layers of people and protocol and moved in circles far from those of a lowly Bard. Even while growing up with the full rights and privileges of a princess, she’d gone for months without seeing her father.

  But Theron could have called for her at any time. Their father had often spoken with the bards just returned from Walks rather than relying solely on the records. Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to him that a bard who’d spent the first fourteen years of her life learning politics and protocol might make useful observations.

  It didn’t take Bardic Memory to recall the message that had accompanied the invitation to her cousin’s joining—Theron had added a pompous declaration of forgiveness for the mistakes of her youth. Well, he’d been the one who’d cut her off from everything she’d known and she hadn’t forgiven him. She’d said as much in the message that had gone back to the palace. All she’d wanted was for him to say that he was sorry for the way he’d hurt her. He never had.

  It didn’t matter. As the captain had said, the bards were her family now.

  Annice slid one hand inside her jacket and pressed it against her waist. She remembered how Theron had looked when he’d laid his heir in her arms. He’d stared down at his daughter as though she was the most amazing creature he’d ever seen, as though she was the only baby ever born.

  Annice tilted her head to watch the sky as lights began to break up the block of shadow dusk had wrapped around the palace. I want to feel what Theron felt when he looked down at Onele. I want something I can love that much.

  A gust of wind, cold across her ear, brought her head around in time to see a kigh disappear below the eaves. So much for quiet contemplation; she wouldn’t be alone for much longer.

  “Although, come to think of it, I haven’t exactly been alone for about nine weeks.”

  * * * *

  Stasya Sang the kigh a gratitude and beat her head lightly against the casement. Annice was on the roof again, sitting at the base of one of the chimneys where the ridge of slate flattened out for about a foot all around. It wasn’t actually as dangerous as it seemed, or the captain would’ve put a stop to it years ago, but it was a habit that drove Stasya crazy.

  If she wants to be alone, why doesn’t she just close the bedroom door? Stasya hadn’t gotten an answer to that question at any time over the last ten years and wasn’t expecting one any time soon.

  “Nees?” She directed her voice up and over the edge of the eaves. “Nees, you’re going to freeze or fall off or something. Why don’t you come down?”

  Annice’s voice, equally directed, drifted back. “Why don’t you come up?”

  “Because I don’t have a death wish.”

  “Chicken.”

  She’s going to cluck in a minute. Stasya tucked the ends of her scarf into her jacket, and stepped out onto the small balcony just as the henhouse noises began. Considering that she never even saw a chicken that wasn’t covered in some kind of sauce until she was fifteen, she’s not bad.

  The steeply pitched roof of Bardic Hall almost met the floor of the balcony. Bolted down beside the gabled window, a narrow metal ladder—intended for use by the chimney sweeps who descended on the Hall once a quarter—stretched up to Annice’s perch. Stasya peered up at the dark on dark silhouette against the late afternoon sky, blew on her fingers to warm them, and began to climb. Having spent her childhood clambering about the rigging of her parents’ ship, she had no problem with either the physical effort or the distance from the ground, but she couldn’t get her head around the concept.

  “Why the roof?” she asked, as she’d asked a hundred times, sitting down beside Annice with a heavy sigh.

  “I think better up here. With nothing around me but sky …”

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