Sing the Four Quarters (28 page)

But if the child won't believe me, maybe he'll believe the king.

She smiled and stretched in the sun like a cat. Gerek had been repeating to everyone his version of Pjerin's last words.

"
They made a mistake. The king will make everything better and then my papa will come back
." He had half the village and most of the keep partially convinced as not even those who personally found their due somewhat arrogant and overbearing had wanted to believe the evidence they'd heard. When that piping cry changed to a howl of "
The king
killed my papa!"
, neither His Majesty nor the thought of Shkoder rule would be very popular in Ohrid.

Gerek bounced out of the armory and raced toward the gate of the keep, short legs pumping. "Come on, Aunty Olina!

Come on!"

Still smiling, she followed the boy to the gate.

"You want to set up a
what
outside the village?"

"A fair, gracious lady." The portly trader swept off his hat and managed to actually bow more-or-less from the waist.

He spoke the local dialect with a Cemandia accent. "Why, we asked ourselves, should we travel to distant foreign cities to sell our wares when there is a market eager to buy just over the border."

Eager
? Olina snorted silently.
Try slavering
. The villagers seldom reaped any benefit of the scanty trade that traveled through the pass; sheep and timber being in abundance on both sides. The pass itself was their only worthwhile commodity, and Pjerin, the fool, had refused to take advantage of it. Nor would he have allowed so many Cemandians to remain so near the keep but would have insisted they move on and provided an escort to see that they did.

"We have strong markets in Cemandia for both fleece and timber," the trader continued as though reading her mind.

"And I have a client who has interest in strong mountain rams for cross-breeding purposes."

"My nephew was recently executed for conspiring with a Cemandia trader. He planned to allow a Cemandian army through the pass."

The trader blanched and his hand rose to trace the sign of the Circle over his heart as the small crowd of villagers began to mutter. "War, gracious lady, is so bad for business. I assure you, we have no ulterior motive but profit."

It was impossible not to believe he was sincere. "If you wish only to trade in peace," Olina raised her voice so that those watching would hear and pass it on, "I will bring the matter up with my due." Her fingers closed around Gerek's narrow shoulder. "Shall we let them have their fair?" she asked him.

He looked up at her, brightly colored caravans reflecting in wide eyes. "What's a fair?"

"Like a market day, only better."

Gerek bounced. "Fairs are good," he declared.

The trader bowed again and produced from the pocket of a voluminous trouser leg a small crimson top which he presented with a flourish. "So we have your permission, Your Grace?"

"Yes." Gerek took the top quickly, before any of the adults standing around could decide he wasn't to have it. " 'Cause I am taking care of things till my papa comes back."

A slender man with short blond curls, who leaned negligently against one of the smaller wagons, smiled.

"… your due was accused by bards, was he, lady? We don't have much use for bards in Cemandia. Now you won't find finer pins than this anywhere…"

"… fine-looking young ram and I can give you a good price for him, too. Folk in Cemandia appreciate the work that's gone into breeding for him, let me tell you…"

"… save you an incredible amount of work, they will. I can't imagine no traders from Shkoder have brought them in.

Well, never mind, I can beat their prices right out of the Circle…"

Olina walked slowly around the small fair, admiring the subtle—and occasionally less than subtle—working of Cemandian influence. She stopped for a moment to watch a fair young man keep half a dozen clubs in the air in a spinning cascade. His golden-blond curls gleamed in the afternoon sun and a breeze chased itself through the gilt.

Below the pushed-up sleeves of his cotton shirt, the muscles of his forearms danced under the pale sheath of skin. As the small crowd gathered around him gazed open-mouthed at his skill, Olina dropped her eyes to the fit of his breeches.

"He's no more than a mountebank really." The portly trader stood suddenly by her side, wiping his jowls with a huge square of linen. "But we've found that a little free amusement makes people less willing to argue a price."

"He looks very…" Her brows dipped speculatively. "… coordinated."

"Yes. I suppose."

"When he's finished, could you tell him I'd like a private performance. Tonight. In the keep."

"He warned me that you'd eat me alive."

Olina laughed. "Maybe later." She stretched out her legs and crossed her feet at the ankles. "I like you with those short blond curls. It makes you look younger, more vulnerable."

Albek helped himself to a cup of beer. "Thank you." He wore a rough homespun vest over his wide-sleeved shirt and his manner echoed his clothing; his voice less polished, his speech less subtle. "Rumor says the king accused Pjerin of treason, sent a bard to condemn him, and a hundred guards to drag him away."

"There were twenty guards, but rumor got the essentials right. It was too much for poor old Bohdan. He's tottered off to his daughter's and taken to his bed."

"So the new due will need a new steward. Unless you intend to do the job yourself."

"Don't be ridiculous. I have someone suitably sympathetic to Cemandia in mind."

"You're certain Pjerin is dead?" Albek asked, leaning against the mantel.

"It probably happened some time ago, but you know what the roads are like at this time of the year. I'm expecting the official messengers to ride up any day now, covered in mud and glad to be done with it."

"I told you it would work."

"Yes, you did. Now, tell me why you've brought so many little friends with you across the border?"

"Two reasons." He turned a chair and sat straddling it, arms resting along the top of the back. "Albek always traveled alone so
Simion
does not. Albek was an aristocrat of traders, polished and urbane. These people are as far from that as I could stand traveling with. And…" He took a long pull on the cup and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "…

as I had to check out the situation anyway, I thought I could use the opportunity to stir up a little sedition. Nothing overt, just a bit of
Cemandia good, Shkoder bad
."

Olina looked thoughtful. "So these traders work for you?"

"Not directly. But the Cemandian crown will be buying more fleece and timber than it really wants this year."

"The crown seems to be spending a lot of money on this considering the pass is open to them now."

Albek/Simion shrugged. "Wars are much more expensive and the longer they take to win, the more they cost. We have a saying in Cemandia that the word is not only mightier than the sword, but it's cheaper, too. By the time Her Majesty's army comes through that pass, I want the only resistance to come from parents who don't want their* children to join up."

"That might not be so difficult to accomplish." She told him how Gerek had unwittingly been adding to the
Shkoder
bad
opinion. "By the time the child's finished, Pjerin will be a martyr to half of Ohrid."

"But Pjerin was anti-Cemandia."

"
•Cemandia good
, remember? We're looking for an emotional response." Olina slowly stood. "They were left so emotionally flayed by his betrayal that they're very open to suggestion and will only remember that Shkoder killed him."

"It sounds as though you've been busy."

"I may have dropped a word or two in the right ears."

He could feel her strength, the heat of her focus, from across the room. "And the other half?"

"Pjerin was going to sell them out. They hate him. If he was anti-Cemandia, they're for it."

"But he was going to sell them out
to
Cemandia."

"You're forgetting that in an emotional response rational thought has no place. If you can manage to invoke two or three conflicting emotional responses, rational thought has no chance. Those who aren't convinced to help the invasion will either be so confused that they won't hinder it or easy enough to remove." She reached up and pulled out the pins holding the weight of her hair. It cascaded down over her shoulders like a fall of night. "Come here."

He stood and wet lips gone suddenly dry. It was a long walk to her side and his past walked with him, murmuring in his ear, anxious for the release she could offer.

Strong fingers reached out and snaked through golden curls, pulling him forward over the last couple of feet. "It's time Cemandia showed me some return on my investment."

Later, much later, Olina took the edge of his ear in her teeth and murmured, "Many of them fear the bards, fear the Singing of the kigh."

He twisted under her grip, unable to remain still. "No one Sings the kigh in Cemandia."

"Yet another convincing reason to for them to switch allegiance." The nails of one hand scored the inside of his thigh.

"Half of them already believe there are things that should not be allowed in the Circle. After all…" She smiled as he cried out. "… who knows what fell powers these bards can exert if they so desire."

"Annice, what are we doing here?"

"We're traders, remember?" She stepped over a small, foul-smelling pile she had no wish to investigate too closely and turned down a narrow street that led toward the center of town. "We're going to trade."

Pjerin grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. "We are not traders," he snarled after glancing around to make certain he wouldn't be overheard. "And we're going to Ohrid."

She glared at him until he removed his hand, then she asked, "If we aren't traders, what are we?"

"We're just
telling
people we're traders." His nostrils above the dark bristle of incipient mustache were pinched almost shut. The six days' travel up River Road, afraid to open his mouth for fear he'd be recognized and dragged back to Elbasan, had rubbed his nerves raw and he'd had as much as he was going to take. "I'm tired of pretending to be something I'm not."

"And you think I'm not tired of it?" she demanded incredulously. "The bards have a corner in every inn along River Road. I could've slept warm and dry and well fed inside. Instead, because we're
traders
, I slept under a cart and worked at not being seen by people who might know me. I had to constantly keep reinforcing our story. I couldn't relax. I couldn't sing. I couldn't play."

Pjerin had no intention of dispensing sympathy. From the moment he'd faced Command in his own ancestral hall to the moment just past when they'd left the carter's yard, he'd been swept along by events beyond his control. It seemed he was as helpless to affect his destiny now as he had been when beaten and bound by the King's Guard and there was nothing he hated more than feeling helpless. "At least," he spat, "you had a choice!"

"A choice?" Annice stared up at him in astonishment. "Oh, sure I had a choice; I could've chosen to let you die!" She spun away from him and started walking again, not caring at that moment whether he followed or not.

He watched her go, remembered the kigh, swore, and hurried to catch up. The worst of it was, he'd heard the genuine sorrow in her voice when she'd said she couldn't sing or play. "Annice? I'm sorry."

Oh, no, you're not. You're angry because you've got to depend on me, can't be His high-and-mighty Grace the Due of
Ohrid standing alone on his mountaintop. Well, tough shit
. Half-turning, she glared up at him. "If we don't
act
like traders, no one will believe we
are
traders. They'll start asking questions. Questions we don't want. Ohrid is on the other side of Vidor so, since we have to go through town anyway, we're going to get rid of some of the expensive luxury items we've been packing from Elbasan and pick up things that'll be of more value where we're going. If we make enough of a profit, we can pick up a pack mule."

Pjerin's glower shifted into astonishment. "A what?"

"Well, I personally would prefer a good-sized caravan," she said sarcastically, shifting her weight from foot to foot as the baby started to kick, "but as the whole idea is to disappear into the wilderness after Vidor, I'm willing to compromise."

"What's wrong with horses?"

Annice sighed dramatically and took a certain satisfaction from Pjerin's reaction to it. "I have walked from one end of this country to the other in all kinds of weather, carrying everything I needed on my back and in my voice. I'm willing to walk beside you to Ohrid carrying this baby, but I'll be unenclosed if I carry a pack as well. I realize," she held up a hand as he tried to interrupt, "that you'd rather gallop off in a cloud of dust, but you're stuck with me and I'm not putting this body, in this condition, on a horse. Even if we could afford one—let alone two—which we can't. While you're thinking about it, and realizing I'm right, I'm going to go find a privy."

He caught up to her again in four paces. She thought she could hear his teeth grinding.

"If you weren't carrying my child," he growled. "I'd take my chances with the kigh."

"Your child?" Annice turned to face him again. Their conversations traveling River Road had been nearly nonexistent; they'd never really been alone. The carter hadn't exactly been intrusive, but he'd always been a presence they'd had to account for. "Let me tell you something, Your Grace…" Almost biting her tongue with the effort, she broke off as a chattering cluster of teenagers pushed past them. Overhead, a pair of neighbors leaned out third-floor windows and discussed the weather. "Never mind. This isn't the place. But when we get on the road again and it's just you and I, we're going to have a little
chat
."

"I'll be looking forward to it."

"I wouldn't," she advised tightly.

How do you know about all this trading stuff?"

They were the first words he'd spoken to her in hours and, although he still sounded more annoyed than interested, Annice found she was actually glad he'd finally broken the silence. They might as well make an effort, if only a superficial one, to get along.