Sing the Four Quarters (5 page)

"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?"

"Nauseous 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…"

"… 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 cliche." 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?"