The Quartered Sea (3 page)

"A dislike of shaving in cold water."

"Wimp."

"Hag." Leaning forward, he kissed the top of her head. "Don't worry, I'm getting rid of it before the queen arrives.
Will
the queen be arriving?" he asked as he straightened.

"That's what they tell me."

"Nice to know I haven't made the trip for nothing."

"Nothing?" Grabbing one side of his pack-frame, she led him toward a heavy wooden door built into the inner wall. "How can it possibly be nothing when there's me?"

That night, they sang themselves almost hoarse in front of an appreciative crowd of guards and villagers. Buttressed by Terezka, Benedikt managed to ignore the tightening noose of attention and create two new verses to the ale house favorite, "What Would I Do for Your Love." Just before dawn, he collapsed into bed pleasantly buzzed by the certain knowledge that he'd met all expectations.

"But why the Bardic Captain?" Benedikt asked, not for the first time, as he walked Terezka to the village limits. "He's never come before."

"Have you not been listening to me?" Terezka demanded, shifting her pack into a more comfortable position. "Her Majesty requested his presence. This has nothing to do with you." The older bard sighed and frowned at the plume of her breath. "You know, when you get to be my age, you're not so fond of walking in Fourth Quarter. I should've agreed to teach again."

"Terezka, you seem to be ignoring the fact that Kovar Sings all four quarters. Four," he repeated. "Including water."

"Lots of bards Sing water, darlin', but none of them Sing it like you do. I've seen you Sing up kigh in a raindrop, and I can't think of anyone I'd trust more to sing the queen across the strait."

"You're deliberately not understanding—with Kovar here, they don't
need
me."

"Need?" She snorted, blowing a cloud of heated breath into the air. "Need has nothing to do with it. All bards who Sing water take turns Singing the queen across the strait, and now it's your turn."

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Well, it's nice to be useful for something."

"You bet your ass it is. Plenty of people never know the place they're supposed to fill, but us, we're lucky. We have the security of knowing that our talent defines us. And as for you…" She stopped walking and, when Benedikt turned to face her, poked him in the chest with a gloved and emphatic finger. "There's nothing that makes a good-looking man less attractive than watching him feel sorry for himself. You're a bard of Shkoder, Benedikt—one of the few, one of the proud—and I've never met a bard that didn't have an ego big enough to hold the entire Citadel with room left over for Dockside. You hear me?"

"Ah. I see you didn't actually need that reminder about bardic ego." She studied his face for a moment then reached up and patted his cheek. "Just remember you're as much a bard as Kovar is, and if I wasn't freezing my ass off standing here, I'd pass on a few choice tidbits about our exalted captain." Leaning forward, she dropped her voice and murmured, "He has a tendency to be, well, windy in the morning."

Benedikt rolled his eyes. "I'll remember that."

Stepping back, Terezka grinned. "You will, you know." A quick glance at the sky brought on a tightening of straps. "If I don't get going, I'll never reach Planter's Basin before dark, and these old bones have no intention of spending the night without a bed." She thrust out her fist. "Good music, Benedikt."

He touched his fist to the top of hers. "Good music, Terezka."

"So that's it, then. Give me a kiss and point me up the Coast Road."

Having done as she commanded, Benedikt stood where she'd left him until a curve in the road took her from view. A breeze ruffled his hair as he turned back toward the fort, and he couldn't help thinking that, with him around, at least the Bardic Captain wouldn't be taken away from more important duties during the voyage.

* * *

"What do you think they're saying?" Otavas wondered, nodding toward Jelena and her grandmother. The two women were standing together on the palace steps, well out of the way of the jostling crowd of horses and riders that nearly filled the Citadel's main courtyard.

Magda looked up, twisted around in the saddle, and grinned. "Her Majesty, Queen Lilyana, is telling her granddaughter, Her Majesty, Queen Jelena, that she should be wearing a heavier coat. Jelena is protesting that it's almost First Quarter Festival. Queen Lilyana is reminding her that we could still get snow and at the very least would she please put on a scarf. Jelena is insisting she'll be fine, but if it makes her grandmother happy, she'll wear the scarf."

As Magda finished speaking, the queen accepted a length of crimson fabric from her grandmother and wrapped it around her throat.

Kovar, on Magda's other side, turned his attention from the groom adjusting his stirrups and looked down a disapproving nose at the healer. "It is impolite to eavesdrop."

"I wasn't. When I said good-bye to Her Majesty—that is, Queen Lilyana—earlier, she was carrying the scarf. It didn't take half a lifetime of studying the fifth kigh to work out the rest." Reaching across the distance between their mounts, she patted the Bardic Captain on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Kovar. Cloud Dancer here is the calmest horse in the Citadel stables. All you have to do is stay in the saddle. She'll do the rest."

"I suppose it would be a waste of time to tell you I'm not concerned about my horsemanship?"

"It would as long as you maintain that white-knuckled grip on the saddle horn."

On the palace steps, Jelena kissed her grandmother, descended into the chaos of the courtyard, and rose above it almost instantly as she accepted a leg up into the saddle.

"Are you all right?" Otavas asked softly as her groom led her horse into position beside his.

Jelena pulled on a pair of riding gloves, using the time to find a neutral expression before she turned to face her consort's concern. "Grandmother wanted to come with us, at least to the city limits, but I convinced her that my sister and the idiot courting her would be sufficient escort that far."

"Not to mention Bannon and two full troops of the Queen's Guard."

"Not to mention." A glance across the courtyard showed that the ex-Imperial assassin had taken up position where he could defend all possible approaches to his royal charges. "If Bannon's coming, why do we need the guard?"

"Even soldiers like to feel wanted."

"I suppose." Leaning back, Jelena peered around Otavas at the young noblewoman murmuring the Circle only knew what into her sister's ear. "The lady Marineka reminds me of my father."

Otavas couldn't see a resemblance, but as he spent very little time with Lord Jurgis, the queen's father, he realized he could be missing subtleties. "Is that a good thing?"

"I haven't decided."

Lord Jurgis was a hearty and athletic man who'd never been comfortable at court and, once he'd helped ensure continuation of the royal line, had spent very little time there. Except for state occasions where it was necessary they present a united front and during specific family celebrations, Queen Onele and her consort had lived separate lives—growing up, Jelena and her sister had used their father's country estates as a refuge from the duties and responsibilities that fell to them from their mother's position. Although he'd honestly grieved at the death of his queen, he'd returned to the country the moment her body had been interred. Jelena still wasn't certain how she felt about that; as much as she'd wanted his support, as long as he remained unchanged, safe in the country, he was still a refuge.

"Very well, then." She glanced up at the sky. Midmorning. The last time it had been midmorning on the sixth day of the third moon of the Fourth Quarter, she'd been standing on the steps next to her grandmother, waving good-bye.
If we leave now, we'll reach the place where my mother died by late tomorrow afternoon
. "Open the gates, Troop-Captain, and let's get this over with."

As the company moved out through the gate and into the city, Lilyana folded her hands inside her muff, fingers laced tightly together to keep her from reaching out and grabbing hold of her granddaughter. She smiled as the young queen rode away, experience hiding the lie. Given a choice, she'd have kept Jelena from going to the forts, kept her safely in the Palace, kept her off the road where Onele had died. Where the crown had been passed on. Again. Loss of a husband. Loss of a daughter. Lilyana didn't think she could bear it if she outlived a third monarch of Shkoder.

* * *

"
Captain, we seem to have left the cheering crowds behind
—
at least for a moment. Would it be possible to speed things up a little?"

The Troop-Captain glanced over at his queen, then ahead at the road. "Majesty, with the sun in our eyes and the road following so close along the cliff, it would perhaps be safest to proceed at a walk."

Drawing in a deep lungful of sea air, Onele kicked both feet free of the stirrups and stretched her legs. "I've been on this horse for a day and a half, I've smiled and I've waved, and I've accepted half a dozen bouquets from small children. The sooner we reach Fort Kazpar the happier I'll be. I think we can risk a trot." When the Troop-Captain hesitated, she sighed. "This is my eighth trip out to the forts, Captain. We're as safe on this road as we would be riding down Hill Street in Elbasan. We'll just keep Stoyan here in the center of the company so that we don't lose him."

"Majesty, you cut me to the quick!" The young bard placed one hand on his heart and tightened the other around the saddle horn. "Has my horsemanship so disgraced you ?"

Onele grinned as the Troop-Captain muttered, "Horsemanship ?"

"I did not fall off," Stoyan protested with dramatic dignity. "I was dismounting and taken by surprise when the ground was not where I expected it to be. Although, I must admit, I agree with Her Majesty…" He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. "… the sooner we get to Fort Kazpar, the happier I'll be."

"So we trot," the queen announced.

Six horses, six soldiers in the Queen's Guard riding two by two, had already passed the nest when the bird decided to rise. Shrieking in panic or defiance or both, her wings drumming against the air, she catapulted into the air right under the nose of the queen's horse.

Eyes rolling, white showing all around, the gelding flung himself four feet to the right. Taken by surprise, Onele lost her stirrups and made a desperate grab for the saddle horn. Mane whipping her face, she slammed forward into his neck as he reared and flipped back off over the cantle when he landed.

The Troop-Captain had insisted that the queen ride on the inside position, away from the edge of the cliff. At first, he thanked all the gods in the Circle he had.

And then he realized it hadn't mattered.

Stroking sightless eyes closed with trembling fingers, Stoyan howled a lament onto the wind and the kigh spread the news that the queen was dead.

* * *

Jelena turned to look at her own guard, standing by the horses a respectful distance away. Every one of them had been with her mother that day.

"
Let them come
," Magda had advised her when the Troop-Captain made the request. "
They need this as much as you do
."

"Who built the memorial?"

"Fyona i'Amalica, a stonemason from Fort Kazpar, and Stoyan, the bard who was with her when it happened."

The stone pillar stood exactly as tall as the late queen. The crowned ship of Shkoder had been carved into its seaward face. The other three sides had been polished silken smooth.