Sing the Four Quarters (36 page)

When his eyes focused again, his heart leaped into his throat and he suddenly knew how a mouse felt under the unblinking stare of a stooping hawk.

"So. It's official. My nephew is dead."

"Yes, Lady."

"He was…" The deep magenta curves of her mouth twisted and one brow rose. "He was an idiot."

Mesmerized by the ebony arch of brow, the messenger nodded. "Yes, Lady. I mean; no, Lady. I mean…" Under the heat of her gaze, he didn't know what he meant, so he sputtered into silence.

Olina studied him. He wasn't frightened of her, merely tongue-tied.
More's the pity
. There was evidence of a wiry strength it might have been interesting to explore. "Do you return to Elbasan immediately…?"

"Damek i'Kofryna, Lady. And no, I go on to Cemandia with further messages."

"Cemandia? You go on, then, if I grant you the use of the pass."

"I am a King's Messenger, Lady."

"Of course you are. I was merely making an observation. You'll stay the night?"

He glanced toward the small, thick panes of the window. The day had fulfilled its promise of rain. "If I could, Lady."

"You can."

Only an idiot would miss the dismissal in both voice and manner. Damek bowed and hurried from the room, vaguely aware he should be grateful, not wanting to probe too deeply into what he should be grateful about.

Alone, Olina looked down into her laced fingers. Pjerin was dead. She remembered the day Stasiek had brought him home; she'd been fourteen and just becoming aware of her power, he'd been three and willing to follow her like a puppy. She'd gone away, to Marienka, to Vidor, to Elbasan, and when she'd returned he'd become a beautiful young man, realizing the family potential. She remembered taking him to her bed when his father died, that year the only time his guard was ever lowered far enough for her to get past it.

Pjerin was officially dead.

It made little difference; she'd essentially buried him when the guard had taken him away.

Actually, at the moment, she had more interest in the messages Damek i'Kofryna was carrying into Ohrid. Fortunately, she had a way to find out what they were.

"I bet you're glad you're inside."

Damek turned, wiping drops of rain off his face. A server had led him to an upper room in the original part of the keep and he was sitting with his elbows on the wide stone sill, staring out at the storm pounding the valley. "I do prefer being dry," he said neutrally, studying the young man in his doorway.

Albek stepped forward, fist held out. "Simion i'Magda." His accent was pure Shkoder, educated but not noble.

"Traveler, trader."

Standing, Damek touched the other man's fist lightly with his. "Damek i'Kofryna. King's Messenger."

"I know." Albek smiled broadly. "I saw you come out of your audience with the new due's great-aunt. She's one terrifying lady, isn't she?"

"Not exactly terrifying," Damek protested. But something in his visitor's voice made him add, "Although she's a bit like a serrated blade, isn't she?"

"Well put!" Laughing, Albek sat on one end of the windowseat, making it the most natural thing in the world for Damek to sit beside him. "I hear you're heading for Cemandia tomorrow."

The messenger nodded.

"… has a message for Shkoder's ambassador to take to Her Majesty, Queen Jirina. His Majesty, King Theron, and so on and so on, regrets to inform her that not only have his people apprehended a spy—the unfortunate Leksik—but that her ambassador is, for the time being, under house arrest. He's requesting an immediate response."

"Well, he's likely to get one, isn't he?" Olina turned from the window. She'd been contemplating the city that would rise to cover the valley when Shkoder and Cemandia were one. The city she would control. "Will the army be ready to move when His Majesty's messenger arrives?"

The Cemandian frowned as he worked out times and distances. "It'll already be moving."

"Will they kill him?"

"Do you care?"

"No." Ice-blue eyes glittered. "I wondered."

"Probably not. The ambassador from Shkoder has been under house arrest since the pass opened. Damek i'Kofryna will be company for her."

"And after?"

Albek smiled. "We'll all be one big happy country."

"So we will." Olina crossed the room and dropped gracefully into a chair, long legs stretched out and booted feet crossed at the ankle. "How nice."

Recognizing her expression, Albek felt his pulse begin to race.
A serrated blade. If the initial thrust doesn't kill you,
removing it will. His Majesty's messenger has a way with description
. He took a step forward.

"Don't presume,
Simian
. If I want you, I'll tell you. Interest isn't always invitation." She smiled up at him, well aware of his reaction. "As it happens, I'm expecting someone. I'm taking your
advice
and appointing a new steward."

Lukas a'Tynek had been marking time since the fire that had destroyed his house and killed his only child. When Hanicka, his partner, left him and returned to live with her mother, Lukas flicked his fingers out in the sign against the kigh and bid her good riddance. It was her blood that had forced their child out of the Circle, not his. No one had ever been able to Sing the kigh in the entire history of his family and no one ever would be. His family knew what belonged in the Circle and what didn't.

Unlike Pjerin a'Stasiek, the sixth Due of Ohrid. The dead Due of Ohrid.

"
The coward gave me no chance to defend myself. Couldn't be a hero, so he took it out on me
." Lukas repeated the whispered insinuations that drifted through the village and made them his own.

Then the coward was found to be a traitor as well and his hatred of the due made Lukas more than happy to witness.

While he personally had no objection to a Cemandian presence in Ohrid—was, in fact, pro-Cemandia if only because Cemandia was anti-kigh—he had even less objection to the arrogant Pjerin a'Stasiek going to the block.

"You told them what kind of a person he was, but they wouldn't listen."

He didn't know who said it to him first. It didn't matter. "
I told you what kind of a person he was," he pronounced
grimly. "But you wouldn't listen
."

Some of them began to listen.

Now, he'd been called to the keep.

After hanging his dripping cloak on the hook indicated by a less than approving server, he combed his fingers through his beard and tried to make himself presentable. He looked forward to the meeting with equal parts anticipation and dread. The Lady Olina preferred younger men. He was five years her junior. While he fit no other observed preference, why else would she have sent for him?

Olina knew what he was thinking the moment he walked into the room. She could read it in his strut, in the set of his shoulders, in the self-conscious color that burned on each cheek above the damp mat of beard and she hid a smile. She would've laughed aloud except that since the fire, she'd put a considerable effort into shaping him as her tool.

Over half the villagers now looked to this man—this selfish, superstitious, sublimely self-motivated man—as a leader because he had been the only one who'd seen disaster coming. She would use that. That the remaining villagers despised him for the very qualities she found useful, well, she would use that, too.

It amused her that he was beginning to sweat.

"The seventh due needs a steward," she said abruptly, leaning back in the huge, ornately carved chair and crossing her legs. "I've decided to give you the position."

"Steward, Lady?"

"Yes."

"B—but…"

Olina tapped one finger slowly against the broad wooden armrest and watched, eyes narrowed, as he struggled to change his expectations.

"I, uh, I would be honored, Lady."

"Good. You will take your orders from me."

"But the due…"

"Is a child." She was pleased to see him flinch at her tone. "In return for absolute power under me, you will give me absolute power over you. Is that clear?"

Absolute power. He weighed the price, although she had no doubt of how he would respond. "Yes, Lady." She wouldn't have made the offer had she thought he'd answer otherwise. He'd take anything she could hand out for the chance to lord it over everyone else.

"Bohdan is well enough to acquaint you with your day to day responsibilities. Listen to him. You will move into his old suite in the keep. You will be accorded the same rights and privileges he was. That's all."

"Yes, Lady. Thank you, Lady."

He'd have no opportunity to really abuse the position; she planned on keeping him too busy for that.

Under normal circumstances, a man so easily manipulated placed in a position of authority would find no one to follow him. Fortunately, Olina had seen to it that these were not normal circumstances. They might not follow him for long, but then, they wouldn't have to.

If all went according to plan, and Olina saw no reason why it shouldn't, the moment the situation stabilized her new steward would be easy enough to dispose of. Enough people hated him that she wouldn't even have to do it herself.

It had taken him eight days, but Otik knew he'd finally found the trail again. Branches scattered but with ends cut not broken—obviously a lean-to. He fanned his search from that point and found charred rocks that had lined a fire pit at the next night's camp. The trail was days' old, but it narrowed his search to a specific direction, and in the foothills there were a limited number of routes that could be safely taken with a very pregnant woman.

All three of them emerged in the same small valley.

"You just went."

"Well, I have to go again."

Pjerin muttered expletives under his breath but pulled Milena to a stop. "All right, go on. We'll wait for you here."

Wondering when Pjerin and the mule had become a

"we," Annice hurried into the trees. Considering how often she had to squat, breeches had become more ~ trouble than they were worth and she'd changed to the preferred clothing of expectant countrywomen—a full, calf-length, linen shift beneath a tabardlike wool overdress. Her body temperature seemed to have risen enough to make clogs comfortable in spite of the season, although she did slip on a pair of heavy wool socks at night. The outfit was so unlike anything Annice had ever worn, she figured that any guard still searching for them would walk right by her without a second glance.

With one hand pressed against a tree for support and the other against her belly in the hope that the pressure would still the sudden flurry of activity, Annice started… then stopped. "If you don't mind!" she snapped at the kigh who had risen out of the ground practically under her raised skirts. "Go away!" It looked as disappointed as its features allowed but obediently sank back into the earth.

"What took you so long?" Pjerin demanded a few moments later as she made her way out of the bushes, viciously shoving the new growth aside.

"Kigh," Annice snarled, kicking off her clogs and jamming them under the straps that secured her pack. "Every single time, I have to tell one or more of them to get lost. Why do they keep hanging around?"

"Your cheerful disposition?"

"Drop dead. What are we standing around for?"

"Second Quarter Festival," Pjerin grunted. He flicked the lead rope at Milena who lifted her head from the new growth on the track and ambled forward.

Annice sighed and settled into a long, rocking stride that would hopefully lull the baby to sleep. She knew she was being a bitch, but she couldn't seem to help herself.
At least, I've stopped crying
.

There had been a couple of days when everything had reminded her of Stasya—birdsong, bluebells, the stripped and scattered bones of a deer taken down by some large predator. A breeze would touch her cheek and .she'd start to cry.

Rain would dribble off her hair and run under her collar and she'd start to cry. Pjerin would ask if she was all right, and she'd start to cry.

As much as it annoyed her to admit it, Pjerin had been wonderful throughout. Terse and not exactly sensitive perhaps, but tolerant of her mood swings and quietly strong when she needed him to be.

Unfortunately, now she was feeling better, the old Pjerin had reappeared.

Watching movement of his muscles across the top of his back, flesh rippling under the rough homespun shirt he wore, she touched a ripple moving across her belly and wondered how much like its father her baby would be.
You can have
his looks, baby, but I'd really prefer my temperament
. Then she smiled.
All right. I'd really prefer Stasya's
temperament. Or even Jazep's. Something a little less extreme
. Prolonged exposure and training in observing the obvious had forced Annice to realize that she shared a distressing number of character traits with His Grace, the Due of Ohrid.

It wasn't an observation she planned on recalling to him.

"Hey!"

Jerked out of her thoughts, she stumbled and had to grab a pack strap for support. "What?"

"Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"Of course I'm sure."

Pjerin looked dubious. "We should've followed that creek."

"It wasn't going anywhere. This way's faster."

"Not if we get lost."

"Bards don't."

"Oh. I see. So the sun's lost?"

Annice squinted at the sky. So the sun was a little more to the left than it should be. Big deal. The track they were following was taking them in roughly the right direction and they were moving a lot faster than they would forcing their way along an overgrown creek. She said as much to Pjerin. He glowered.

Suddenly the trees ended and they found themselves standing on a ridge, looking down into a broad valley. At the far end, they could see a cluster of tiny buildings, some cultivated land, and a half a dozen animals grazing in a meadow.

Annice began to pick her way carefully down to the valley floor.

"Where do you think you're going?" Pjerin demanded.

"The ridge gets steeper farther along." The bottom of a run-off gully firmed into a path under her feet. "This looks like the best place to descend."