Sing the Four Quarters Page 5

  “… your mind is unfettered. I’ve heard you sing the song, Annice. I’ve sung it myself. I just keep hoping you’ll come up with a reason that isn’t such a bardic cliché.” She sat back and swept her gaze over the view. “Palace looks a lot smaller from up here.”

  “Last time you said it looked bigger.”

  “That was then. This is now. Nees, are you sure you’re not having this baby just to get the king’s attention?”

  Annice twisted around to stare at her. “Are you nuts? Stas, if he finds out, I’m dead. And so is the baby.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “I have to.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Stasya.” Annice made the name a warning.

  “All right.” She threw up her hands. “I think you want a reconciliation, but you’re just too stubborn to make the first move and you’ve finally come up with something he can’t ignore. But you don’t have to listen to me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I also think that’s a really bad reason to have a baby.”

  Annice glared at her for a moment, then pointedly looked away. The brittle silence that followed stretched into an uncomfortable length of time.

  “Nees?”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “Everything.”

  Then why didn’t you have the captain tuck you away out of sight? Stasya asked silently. But all she said aloud was, “All right. It was an accident. Then why are you keeping it?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  “Maybe because we all want to know.”

  “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the captain. I want a family. I lost the one I had and now I have a chance to start another.”

  “Babies don’t love unconditionally, Annice. I helped raise four younger brothers and you wouldn’t believe how self-centered the little shitheads can be.”

  “Maybe I want someone I can love unconditionally.”

  “What am I, fish guts?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I should hope not.”

  “Stasya, when I think about this baby, I feel the way I feel when I Sing; that sense of everything snapping into place and being, if only for a little while, absolutely right.”

  “Oh.” Stasya reached out and laced her fingers through the other woman’s. “Why didn’t you say so?” She still believed Annice was making a deliberate attempt to attract King Theron’s attention, but she was willing to allow for the rise of stronger feelings. “It might be kind of nice to have a baby around.”

  “So you don’t want to move out? Find a new set of rooms?”

  “Not unless you start going all esoteric Mother-goddess on me.”

  Annice snorted. “Hard to be an esoteric Mother-goddess and puke your guts out at the same time.”

  “Good point. What did Slane say about it when he took your recall?”

  “It didn’t come up. Unlike certain other bards, I don’t kiss and tell, even under trance. Besides, I found out this morning and the Walk ended last night.”

  “Another good point. Nees, I can’t feel my butt any more. Can we go in now?”

  “Sure.” Annice stood and had to make a sudden grab for Stasya’s shoulder as a kigh whipped around the chimney and almost sent her off the roof. Heart in her throat, she watched it disappear into the clouds, eyes so wide they hurt. “Did you see that?”

  “Yeah. I saw. Let’s get inside. Now.”

  * * * *

  “I’m sorry, Annice. I should have warned you. Your pregnancy is affecting your orientation to the kigh.”

  “What do you mean? Air kigh don’t like babies?”

  “No, but they’re jealous. You always Sang strongest in air and they can feel that changing.”

  “To what?”

  “Earth.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “It shouldn’t be too much of a difference for you, you’ve Sung earth before.”

  “Not often. There isn’t anything you can do with earth. Except maybe grow things.”

  “I warned you about that Mother-goddess shit,” Stasya snickered.

  “Shut up, Stas! Captain, there’s got to be something I can do.”

  “Bit late in the cycle for gardening.”

  “Shut up, Stas!”

  Liene bit down on a smile. “Well, to begin with, I suggest that you stay off the roof. And then, you should ask Terezka some questions. Her Bernardas is just two; she should still remember what she went through. Don’t ask anything of Edite, she hasn’t forgiven Dasa for choosing to live with her father.”

  “But that happened five years ago.”

  “I know.”

  Annice shook her head. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about that.

  “Sarlote just left to spend Fourth Quarter with her family—Hard to believe that Ondro’s almost ten, isn’t it?—but she’ll be back before you’re due and you can talk to her then. Speak with Taska and Ales if you want, but they’re grandmothers now and I’m pretty sure their memories of the experience have been gentled by time.”

  Stasya made a face. “Oh, I can’t see why. Puking and pains are memories I’d want to hang on to.”

  Smiling sweetly, Annice kicked her in the shin. “Good,” she said. “Remember that.”

  * * * *

  “They know, don’t they?”

  “What are you talking about?” Stasya asked, mopping up gravy with a thick slice of bread. “Who knows what?”

  “The fledglings, at the end of the other table. They’re looking at me.”

  Stasya swiveled around on the bench and the three youngsters immediately became interested only in their dinners. Sighing theatrically, she turned back and shook her head at Annice. “Of course they’re watching you. They got here while you were Walking and now you’re back they’re checking to see if you match the songs. Every new kid for the last ten years has done the same thing. I thought you were used to it by now.”

  “You’re sure that’s all it is?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” She shot another glance over her shoulder. “And with any luck that blonde’ll grow into her nose.”

  “Stas …”

  “She looks like she should be wearing a hood and jesses.”

  “Stasya!”

  “What?”

  “You are being really cruel.”

  Stasya grinned. “And you are really being an idiot.”

  Annice pushed a boiled bit of something around on her plate. “I know. I’m sorry.” She put down her knife, picked it up again, and stabbed at a piece of meat. “It’s just that when I walked into the dining room, I felt …”

  “Sick?”

  “Exposed. Like I had a purple ‘p’ painted on my forehead or something.”

  “No one knows but me and the captain, Nees, but you’ve got to get used to the fact that they’re all going to find out.”

  “All of them? Why all of them?”

  She looked so startled that Stasya reached for her hand. “Nees, sweetie, you’re going to get—how can I put this delicately?—bigger. Bards are trained to observe. They’ll notice.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  You haven’t thought of much, Stasya realized, but she kept it to herself. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked you this yet, but who’s the father?”

  “This isn’t to go into any songs.”

  “I swear. I’ll have it witnessed if you like.” She pitched the word “witness” to carry.

  Of the nine other bards in the dining room, only Terezka, busy picking bits of carrot out of her son’s hair, didn’t turn.

  Teeth clenched, Annice waved them back to their meals. “Don’t be such a jerk,” she muttered.

  “You’re the one who cast aspersions on my discretion.” Stasya bracketed her plate with her elbows, cupped her chin in her hands, and leaned forward. “So tell.”

  “Pjerin a’Stasiek.”

  “Never heard
of him.”

  “He’s the Duc of Ohrid.” Stasya continued to look blank so she added, “Remember ‘Darkling Lover’?”

  “That Duc of Ohrid? You’re kidding.”

  Annice flushed. “Why would I kid about something like that?”

  Stasya shrugged. “I don’t know. Why would you sleep with the Duc of Ohrid?”

  “Well, for one thing, the song’s right—he’s absolutely gorgeous. And for another …” Annice frowned as she remembered violet eyes and a thick fall of ebony hair and a night that very nearly blew the roof off the keep. “Actually,” she said thoughtfully, “there isn’t another. Pjerin a’Stasiek is the kind of man you don’t mind going to bed with …”

  “You don’t mind going to bed with,” Stasya corrected acerbically.

  “… but you wouldn’t look forward to facing over breakfast the next morning.”

  Three

  Pjerin a’Stasiek, sixth Duc of Ohrid, slid his grip up the smooth wood of the haft, drew in a deep lungful of cold air, and slammed the maul down. The split round of ash exploded away from the chopping block, one of the pieces slamming into an outbuilding just as a small, dark-haired boy ran around the corner. The child cried out and fell.

  “Gerek!” Throwing the maul aside, Pjerin dove toward his four-year-old son.

  Scowling at the wedge of wood, Gerek scrambled to his feet. “I’m okay, Papa,” he insisted, kicking indignantly at a rock sticking up through the snow. “I just jumped back from the noise and that tripped me.”

  Pjerin checked anyway, his hands engulfing the skinny, wool-covered shoulders as he turned the protesting boy around. There didn’t appear to be any damage, so he brushed off a snow-covered bottom and stared seriously down into eyes the same dark violet as his own. “Ger, you know better than to come around the shed like that. What have I told you to do when someone’s at the woodpile?”

  “Go ‘round by the other side so they can see you and stop chopping.” Gerek managed to repeat the entire instruction on one long-suffering sigh. “But Bohdan sent me to get you. ‘Cause that man is with Aunty Olina again.”

  * * * *

  “You’re certain this will work?”

  “Not entirely, no.” Albek took a sip of mulled wine and peered at Olina over the edge of the thick pottery mug. “But anything worth achieving carries with it a certain amount of risk. Don’t you agree?”

  Olina smiled tightly at him and turned to kick at a smoldering log with one booted foot. “That depends on how much risk you consider a certain amount to be. As much as I despise the current situation, I have no intention of losing my head.”

  “Far too beautiful a head to lose,” Albek agreed with polished sincerity.

  “Don’t change the subject.” Nails tapped out her impatience on the mantelpiece. “How great is the risk?”

  He set the mug down on the round table drawn up beside his chair. “We now know, thanks to record keeping that borders on the compulsive, that what we plan has either never been attempted or the attempt has never been discovered. It doesn’t really matter which as both will serve us equally well. We also know that in the eight generations since Prince Shkoder sailed from the north and founded the country that so originally bears his name, high court procedures have not changed. Our plan will use the court’s own formula against it.”

  “It still seems too simple.”

  “All the best plans are.”

  “Don’t be facetious, Albek,” she warned. “To use a bardic skill …”

  “A skill that bards make use of,” the Cemandian corrected, spreading his hands and smiling reassuringly up at her. “Not a talent, not an innate ability, just a skill. A skill that in Shkoder is confined to bards and to healers but in my country is used by anyone with enough interest to learn.” While that wasn’t the entire truth, it was close enough to be believed.

  Olina frowned, brows sketching an ebony vee against pale skin. “And the bards can’t detect it?”

  “Of course they can. If it occurs to them to look for it.” Albek leaned back, stretching his feet toward the fire, and reaching again for his mug. “But it won’t occur to them. Especially when everything they discover will match exactly with the information they’ll already have from young Leksik.”

  “Leksik? Who is Leksik?”

  “The fanatic I told you of. Quite frankly, he makes such an unbelievable trader, I’m amazed they haven’t picked him up yet. When he’s finished ranting and raving, you’ll have King Theron’s men camped on your doorstep in no time.”

  “So you’ve already used this layered trance thing on him?”

  Albek shook his head, the rubies in his ears flashing like drops of captured fire. “Remember simplicity. Why risk tampering with his memories when lying serves as well?”

  In three long strides she crossed to bend over him, the fingers of one hand clamped tightly around his jaw. “And how well does lying serve?” she asked softly.

  In spite of her grip, his lips curved into a smile. “I have never,” he said, staring up into ice-blue eyes, his chest beginning to rise and fall a little more quickly, his voice leaving no room for doubt, “lied to you.”

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  Olina slowly straightened, fingertips caressing the marks left on Albek’s face as her hand fell away. Twitching her embroidered velvet vest back over her hips, she turned to face the door. “Pjerin,” she said, exhibiting no surprise at his sudden arrival, “do come in. I thought you were out playing woodsman.”

  “I was.” Pjerin circled around his father’s sister and went to stand by the window. The pale winter light shining through the tiny glass panes touched his eyes with frost. Weight forward on the balls of his feet, he crossed his arms and glowered. “Bohdan told me Albek had returned.”

  “With no intention to keep you from your work, Your Grace,” Albek protested. Although he and Olina had been speaking Shkoden, he now switched to Cemandian. He always spoke Cemandian with the duc. “I’m on my way home and as this is the western end of the pass …”

  “On your way home now?” Pjerin interrupted. Fluent in both languages—although he spoke neither most of the time, preferring the Cemandian-derived mountain dialect of the region—he didn’t care which the trader used as long as it soon included a variation on “Good-bye.” “You’re cutting it fine. Other years, the pass has been snowed in by Fourth Quarter Festival.”

  “But not this year. I’ve been keeping a very close eye on the weather, I assure you. If I leave first thing tomorrow, I should have the time I need.” He traced a sign of the Circle over his heart. “All things being enclosed.”

  “Festival’s day after tomorrow.” Pjerin paused, then ground out, “You’re welcome to stay until after.”

  Such a gracious invitation. Albek thought, but all he said was. “No, thank you. I can’t risk the weather.”

  Grunting an agreement, Pjerin tried, unsuccessfully, not to appear relieved. “What about your packs?”

  “Yes, uh, well, I admit I was a little overly optimistic about the amount I could move this year.” The trader dropped his eyes and appeared fascinated by the pattern woven into the thick nap of the carpet. “I was hoping you could continue to store them for me. The lighter I travel, the faster I travel, and the less chance I’ll be caught in the mountains. I mean …” His gesture somehow encompassed not only the room they were in but the great, stone bulk of the keep it was so small a part of. “… it’s not as if you don’t have the space.”

  “Oh, plenty of space.” Pjerin spread his arms and scowled. “What about your mules? Shall we store those, too? Next spring, why not bring an army of traders through with you and we’ll billet the lot of them in the Great Hall. We’re not using it for anything.”

  “Pjerin.” Olina made his name a warning. “Don’t be an ass just because you can.”

  He turned, smile gone. “Don’t push me, Olina. I will not have my home become a tollbooth or marketplace to suit your plans to exploit the pass.
Nor will I have my son exposed to …”

  “Exposed to what? To new ideas? To the possibility that the seventh Duc of Ohrid might actually be in a position of power instead of a hewer of wood and a drawer of water like his father and his father before him?”

  Albek stood. “You’ll excuse me, I’ve caused unintentional strife between you, I’ll just …”

  “Sit,” Olina snarled.

  He sat, smoothing the wide legs of his trousers and hiding a smile. Glancing up through his lashes, he studied first Pjerin then Olina. The duc, in his late twenties, was a powerfully built man whose height made him appear deceptively slender. His aunt, eleven years older, was a slender woman who radiated power. He wore his thick black hair tied back at the nape of his neck with a bit of leather. She wore hers in one heavy braid wrapped around her head like an ebony crown. He smoldered. She flamed. They were both tall, and dark, and beautiful, and Albek loved to watch them fight.

  “Ohrid controls the pass. Therefore, we control what passes through it.” Olina advanced on her nephew. “We could become the linchpin between two great nations.”

  “Increased trade with Cemandia,” Pjerin growled, “is a betrayal of everything this family stands for!”

  “Because generations ago our ancestor was chased out of Cemandia?” Her posture changed from aggressive to mocking. “The first Duc of Ohrid, fleeing from oppression, building a keep at the head of what he so romantically named Defiance Pass to protect his people from pursuit. He built this keep in order that he and his entire household not be dragged back to face a charge of treason. You, of course, are happy to huddle in this pile of rock, trying desperately to keep warm, holding tight to tradition when we could use what we have to become rich and powerful. To better the lives of everyone in Ohrid.”

  “None of my people are fool enough to believe Cemandian promises. We increase trade and Cemandia will do everything in its power to crush Ohrid’s independence.”

  She moved closer. Pjerin stepped back, one step, then his shoulders folded the heavy tapestry against the wall and she closed the distance between them. He tossed his head like a horse fighting the bit. “If you’re not happy here, Olina, go somewhere else.”