Sing the Four Quarters (31 page)

Pavel i'Gituska woke with the memory of music in his ears. Pleasant music, pretty music, music a man could sleep to.

He stretched, scratched, and went out into the evening to check his rented corral. Business hadn't exactly been brisk and he still had five of the eight-mule string he'd come to Vidor with.

He frowned and counted again.

There were only four mules in the corral.

A shriek of outrage had begun to form when he caught sight of the purse hanging off an upright. It wasn't very full, but that didn't end up mattering as the coins it held were silver.

Pavel looked down at the two half-anchors and the double-hawser gleaming on his palm and quite sincerely hoped that his unknown customers would be happy with the mare they'd so drastically overpaid him for.

* * *

Annice
came
out from behind the bush designated as the privy and stared in astonishment. A couple of hours out of Vidor, they'd camped at a spot she remembered vaguely from a fledgling Walk; near where a small stream dropped off a series of stone shelves and rested for a moment in a deep hollow in the rock. Last night, the water had been cold enough to bite at the throat and it wasn't hard to believe that the reflected moonlight was a tracery of frost.

"Are you out of your mind?" she gasped.

Pjerin sucked air through his teeth as he turned and the water lapped higher on his body. "I hate being dirty."

"But you're fond of frostbite?"

His grimace didn't even pretend to be a smile. "You lowlanders don't know what cold water is," he growled and ducked under.

Annice almost screamed in sympathy then reluctantly raised a hand to her own limp tangle of hair. "All things being enclosed," she muttered the hand dropping to her belly, "it's a good thing I've got an excuse not to be in there with him."

She watched appreciatively as he surfaced, muscles rigid, the tendons in his neck standing out in sharp relief, hair flung up in an ebony/crystal arc spraying water across the pond. "Very nice," she said as he waded with dignified haste toward the shore, "but wasn't that bigger the last time I saw it?"

Pjerin glanced down. "Shut up," he snarled.

Lips curved but obediently closed, Annice pulled a cloak up off the pack and handed it to him with exaggerated solicitude.

"I thought I'd let the sun dry me off."

"It's barely up," she pointed out. "And so's…"

"Annice!"

"Sorry. I'll get some food ready and we can move on." With plenty of dry deadfall around, she had a small, very hot fire going in minutes, and water nearly boiling in their squat iron trailpot shortly after.

Pjerin was dressed and had the packs ready to load by the time the oatmeal was done. "You put raisins in it."

She nodded and carefully unwrapped her horn spoon.

"Stasya says that oatmeal without raisins is called a hot grain mash and you feed it to hor…" Her mouth worked, but the last syllable wouldn't come out. All at once, she wasn't hungry. She set the bowl aside.

Pjerin put it back into her hands, wrapping her fingers around the wooden curve and holding them there until they gripped on their own. "You have to eat."

"I don't want to."

"Tough. The baby hasn't made that choice."

"You don't understand. I forgot. I hadn't thought of it all morning."

"As you said, the sun's barely up."

"What about last night? We were alone. We could've tried to find out what was going on. All we did was sleep."

"Annice, you were barely in command of yourself last night, you couldn't have Commanded me, and you certainly didn't have the energy to begin to untangle the mess in my head."

"But…"

"No buts." He pushed wet hair off his face. "You can't think about injustice all the time."

Annice lifted her head, nearly choking on the lump in her throat, and met his eyes. "Can't you?" she asked pointedly.

They sat like that for a long moment.

"Eat your oatmeal," the Due of Ohrid told her at last.

"Ya said ya wouldn't want her fer days yet." The owner of the livery stable squinted up at Otik as he mounted. "Ya shouldn't oughta just take her out like that. Not without warnin' me."

Otik sighed, settled in the saddle, and threw the man a purse. "Look, she's my horse, I can take her when I want her.

The full sum we agreed on is in there."

A quick weighing on the palm brought a gap-tooth smile. "But ya said ya wouldn't want her fer days and…"

"Never mind what I said!" Otik snapped. "I'm taking her now!" He yanked the mare around, put his legs to her, and trotted her out of the livery yard.

The stable owner shrugged and pocketed the purse. "Can't say as I didn't try to tell 'im."

Otik had grown up in Vidor. In order to head due east—and Ohrid was due east—there was only one way out of town.

A few questions in the right places and a gull or two changing hands had elicited the information that a man and a woman and a mule had passed that way early the previous evening. The woman had been quite pregnant. The man, taller than average, broad shouldered, and dark haired.

"Good lookin' mule, too, yer honor."

A muscle jumped in Otik's cheek. "I don't care about the unenclosed mule!"

Given the woman's condition, they wouldn't be traveling very fast—or very far in the dark. He knew the road and had a good idea of where they must've spent the night. It was mid-morning when he turned his horse off the track, dismounted, and saw he'd guessed correctly.

"Probably pulled out just after sunrise," he muttered. "And likely heading for Turnu. The bard'll know of it, even if the due doesn't." A day's travel from Vidor in good weather, Turnu was the last village of any size heading east. If they needed any supplies, or even one last chance to sleep in a bed, they'd stop at Turnu.

Back on the track, Otik pushed his horse into a canter. Fields and trees rolled by on either side with gratifying speed; he'd be on them long before they could reach the village. His free hand slipped down to pat the crossbow hanging from his saddle.

The mare stumbled.

Otik catapulted headfirst over her shoulder, landed, and rolled dangerously close to still moving hooves. Impact jolted the reins from his hands and, through bones driven into dirt, he felt her jog away. He lay there for a moment, taking inventory, then slowly got to his feet blinking away multicolored flashes of light. All things being enclosed, he was lucky nothing had broken, although the arm he'd landed on would be black and blue and too stiff to use very shortly.

Swearing under his breath, a habit he'd gotten into when he'd made captain, he limped down the track to where his horse had stopped to pull at the new grass, weight resting off her left foreleg. The moment he saw her stance, he knew what he would find when he lifted the hoof.

The shoe had been loose when he'd left her at the stable upon arriving at Vidor and he had given explicit instructions that it was to be immediately taken care of. Running his fingers over the cracked horn, for the shoe had not cast cleanly, Otik added a snarled opinion of the stable owner's lineage to his stream of profanity.

He had no choice. He'd have to walk the horse back to Vidor and have a farrier repair the damage.

"A reprieve," he muttered, catching up the reins, "nothing more. Tomorrow, they are
mine
."

"I want you to Walk directly to Ohrid by way of Marienka. Act in no way that would draw suspicion on yourself but
don't delay. I need you as my eyes at that pass as soon as possible."

Stasya stepped off the stern deck of the rivcrboat and onto the dock at Vidor, exhausted but pleased with herself.

Although "as soon as possible" was not a speed often traveled by bards, she'd used the season to her advantage; moving quickly upriver as King Theron had commanded without alerting possible enemies. That she'd done it with everyone from Elbasan to Vidor watching, made it a particularly bardic solution.

She'd have enjoyed her accomplishment more, however, if every note hadn't been tinted with worry for Annice.

"You've a right powerful Song there," the pilot told her as his family swarmed over the boat. "Be a good omen fer the season, first boat travelin' so fast." He spat into the water. "River willin'."

"River willing," Stasya echoed, spitting carefully just beyond the reach of a lingering kigh. The last thing she needed was to have the ritual thrown back into her face. Her voice rasped against the sides of her throat and her head throbbed with the echoes of her Singing. She'd spent almost every waking moment of the last four days ensuring that the huge, square sail remained full and would no doubt spend the next four regretting such prolonged contact with the kigh.

The Riverfolk traveled downstream with the currents from the mountains and upstream with the winds that blew inland off the sea. Although the kigh might not fill another sail all season, after the breakup of the ice the symbolic first boat was always Sung upriver. Only the kigh could hope to move even the nearly flat-bottomed riverboats against the First Quarter currents. Stasya had seen no reason why she couldn't be that bard and the captain had agreed.

She rescued her instrument case from an overeager teenager and let the congratulations of the gathering crowd wash over her. First boat attracted a lot of attention. Although she wouldn't be able to leave until after the blessing and the celebration that followed, it had still been a much faster trip than walking River Road.

Passed from one set of admiring hands to another, Stasya soaked up the goodwill of the crowd, but even while she wished she would surrender to the moment, she found herself scanning the surrounding faces for the familiar curve of Annice's smile. Which was ridiculous. If Annice was in Vidor—a possibility not entirely removed from the Circle for all she'd left some days before—she'd have—they'd have, for the due would be close by her side—no reason to be hanging about the docks. Connected by the kigh for as long as they'd known each other, Stasya hated this sudden separation. It was one thing when she knew Annice was safe and secure back at Bardic Hall and another thing entirely with her pregnant and wandering Shkoder.
With
, she added silently, struggling to control her expression,
His Grace,
the unenclosed Due of Ohrid
. The urge to write a scathing song about the man that would last for centuries was intense.

She had no idea how she was going to manage the next month and a half of ignorance and couldn't understand how His Majesty had turned his back for ten years. That was, however, not the only question the king had avoided answering before he dismissed her.

"
The captain will contact you through the kigh the moment we've constructed a plan, so there's no need for you to
waste the limited time we have waiting around here. Given that the actual traitors believe their plot has succeeded,
you should be in no danger until the Cemandian army arrives. Before
you
arrive, we'll have come up with a reason for
you to be there and then a reason for me to follow with an escort of guards." His Majesty's expression had been grim.

"If you've managed to discover the identity of the traitor, I'll hold a Judgment and ensure the keep is in loyal hands. If
not, we'll face the army together."

His Majesty obviously had more faith than she did in what a king, a troop of guards, and a bard could hope to accomplish facing an army.

With a noncommittal smile and ears tuned to catch any comments directed specifically at her, Stasya let the celebration sweep her into her appointed role, all the while wondering just how the king intended to get to Ohrid
with
his guard without attracting the kind of attention he'd commanded her to avoid.

"Suppose," the Bardic Captain said thoughtfully, turning from the window where she'd been watching a team of gardeners pack up their tools for the day, "you went to Ohrid to accept the allegiance oath of the new due." Theron looked up from the maps spread out over his desk. On the topmost map, the border that split the ancient mountains between Shkoder and Cemandia had been thickly traced in red. The pass at Ohrid appeared to have been circled in blood. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you acknowledge that Pjerin a'Stasiek made a valid point when he accused the crown of failing in its obligations to the principalities, Majesty." Liene stepped forward, the soles of her boots crushing the plush nap of the carpet. They'd discarded a score of ideas since Stasya had left for Vidor, but she was certain this one would work. "If you go to Ohrid rather than have the due come to you, you'll be showing a willingness to break the isolation."

"And strengthening the ties between Ohrid and the crown," the king mused, tapping a fingernail against the smooth curve of the ivory button closing his vest. "A logical and politically astute move, seeing as the last due committed treason and we'd like to prevent that from happening again."

Liene nodded. "It would also be seen by your people as a way of showing the Cemandians you intend to hold the border."

Theron almost smiled. "Makes so much sense, even the Cemandians should have no trouble believing it.

And I'd be a tempting enough bait that we'll be able to schedule the arrival of the invading army."

"Bait, Majesty?"

"If they hold their attack until I'm in the keep on my alleged diplomatic mission, they have the chance to not only enter Shkoder through an undefended pass—thanks to the traitor they think we don't know about—but also to remove Shkoder's king. Queen Jirina's no fool, she'll see the opportunity and she'll take it."

Liene frowned as she considered the implications. "Your Majesty, we can't put you in that kind of danger."

"Captain," Theron spread his hands, "we don't have any choice."

"But, Majesty, suppose the traitor is still unidentified when you arrive? It would only make sense for this person to kill you before the invasion actually occurs. You'll have no idea of the direction of the threat, so you'll be unable to defend yourself. The army will pour through the pass unopposed and down over Shkoder with your head on a pike before them."