Sing the Four Quarters (19 page)

there are those who believe that there's a type of kigh within the body and healers manipulate it much as bards manipulate the kigh of the elements. Let me tell you, young man, if that's true, you've got a powerful kigh tucked away in there. It practically grabbed hold of me and drained me dry." He thumbed the wax stopped off the vial and drank the contents in one long swallow. "Much better," he pronounced, standing. "Now then, let's have a look at that eye."

Pjerin allowed his head to be pushed gently around to the right. "How long?" he asked.

"How long what?" Damek muttered, peeling up the swollen lid and peering beneath it. "How long will it take to heal?"

"What? Your ribs? Oh, a week. Maybe two. Nothing we do is entirely instantaneous no matter what people think. Now then…" He pulled back enough so that Pjerin could see a reassuring smile. "… this may hurt a bit as well, but it should take the swelling down enough for you to use the eye. Fortunately, there doesn't appear to be any internal damage. Try not to jerk your head away."

The warning came a second too late, but the healer's grip was surprisingly strong. Pjerin felt as though his face were held in a warm vise while someone skewered left brow and cheek with a red-hot needle. Then it was gone. Breathing heavily, he blinked and found he was using both eyes.

Damek patted his shoulder apologetically. "Sorry. I guess you can see why most people with minor injuries tend to have us clean them up and then they let them heal on their own."

"And I'm not most people?"

"Not really. No." To cover his embarrassment, Damek ducked his head and closed up his bag.

"They're healing me to send me to the block."

"Yes. Well." The healer shrugged. "No reason to die in pain."

Pjerin sighed. "No," he said bitterly, "I suppose not."

"Do you want a priest sent in? To talk to?"

"No. Thank you."

Damek sighed, picked up his bag, and called for the guard. Then he paused in the open doorway. "If they offer you a chance to bathe before Judgment, I suggest you take it. It's amazing how being clean will help."

"With dying?" Pjerin laughed, a short harsh bark that held no humor. He turned and glowered at both healer and guard.

"I broke no oaths. I
am
not a traitor."

The guard spat into the cell. Damek shook his head sadly and walked out of sight. The door swung closed, the iron bolt that held it hissing against iron brackets as it slid home.

* * *

"You're going where?"

"To the Judgment."

"Are you out of your mind?" Stasya leaped up from her chair, and ran around Annice to block the door, harp dangling from one outstretched hand. "What if His Majesty sees you?"

Annice frowned. "His Majesty will have enough on his mind without trying to figure out who's up on the bards'

balcony."

"But suppose he does look up? What then?"

She shrugged. "He'll see a bard."

"Annice, you're his sister. I don't care how long it's been since he's treated you like one, you're not exactly an unfamiliar face!"

"Every bard in Elbasan will be there, Stas. He won't notice me."

Stasya sat her harp down and crossed her arms. "Great plan. Except that there's bugger all bards in Elbasan right now.

They're all out Walking."

"All right." Annice sighed and shoved a fistful of her robe for inspection. "What color is this?"

Stasya's eyes narrowed but, uncertain of where Annice was leading the argument, she answered. "Brown."

"And why is it brown?"

"Because you're Singing earth now."

"And what color is my robe usually?"

"You mean the nonfestival robe you never wear? It's quartered. So what?"

"So if His Majesty does look up, he'll see a bard in a brown robe. I'm sure he knows I wear a quartered robe. He'll therefore have no reason to take a closer look. Will he?"

"This is really stupid."

"Stas, I'm going to go. Whether you like it or not."

And she was, too. Stasya recognized her expression and, short of physical restraints, could see no way to stop her.

"Fine. Hang on till I get dressed. I'm going with you."

"I hate this sort of thing," Theron muttered, tugging at the high, embroidered collar wrapped about his throat. Although she knew he referred to the upcoming Judgment and not his clothing, Lilyana reached up and adjusted the clasps. His Majesty's valet could deal with her later.

He caught her hand. She returned the pressure of his fingers, then pulled free.

"Majesty?" The page bowed in the open doorway. "They're ready now."

Theron nodded and squared his shoulders under the folds of heavy black velvet. The king was responsible for every sentence of death passed in Shkoder. There'd been a hundred and twenty since he'd taken the crown ten years before; four other attempts at treason, but most of them men and women who'd committed crimes so terrible that removing them became a necessary surgery for the greater good. Carrying them all, Theron walked slowly out to pick up the weight of the hundred and twenty-first.

Although the gleaming wooden benches in the bards' balcony weren't known for comfort, Annice sagged against the high back with a sigh of relief. She was finding it more and more difficult to negotiate such things as steep, narrow, spiral staircases—around and around and around on tiny wedge-shaped steps, unable to see her feet, the curve of her bulk barely fitting within the curve of the stone.

"What's wrong with stairs in straight lines?" she hissed at Stasya as the other bard sank down beside her.

"Spiral staircases take up less room," Stasya reminded her absently, gaze sweeping the crowds assembling below.

Annice sniffed. "That'd mean a lot more if I was taking up less room." She settled back and looked around. The last time she'd been on this balcony, she'd been one of the fledglings touring the parameters of their new lives. She hadn't been back in the ten years since. It seemed smaller than her memory of it.

Cut into the wall on the narrow end of the Great Assembly Hall, high above and behind the right side of throne, the balcony could hold a dozen bards comfortably and twice that if comfort was disallowed. At the moment, it held only Stasya and Annice.

"I guess no one else cared enough to come," Annice growled, uncertain as to why she was so angry about it. If every bard in Shkoder had crammed onto the balcony, Pjerin would still be condemned to die.

"It's First Quarter," Stasya reminded her. "Every bard who can Sing is out Walking. Stay tucked up against the pillar.

It'll block the angle of view from the throne if His Majesty does happen to glance up."

"I can't see as well from behind the pillar."

"And you can't be seen as well either," Stasya pointed out, shoving her so that she slid sideways over the polished wood and into the partially hidden position. "Please stay there."

Because it meant so much to Stasya—but
only
because it meant so much to Stasya—Annice gritted her teeth and decided to be gracious.

Down below, the thirty-two members of the Governing Council were filing in. Dressed in somber black, they moved quietly to stand before the two rows of wood and leather chairs set up at right angles to the throne. Annice recognized a few of them; they'd been on the Council in her father's day and had been passed down from reign to reign, their hard work and experience remaining in the service of Shkoder.

When all thirty-two had taken their places, a pair of guards in full ceremonial armor threw open the huge double doors at the other end of the Great Assembly Hall and the public surged in. This was an innovation of her brother's.

Although the common courts had always been open, Royal Judgments had not as their royal father would have rather passed Judgment in a sheepfold than in front of his subjects. Newly a bard, Annice had listened to the criers call King Theron's first proclamation with amazement.

"Neither Death nor Mercy should come in secret. Any who wish to keep silent witness in the Death Judgment of
Hermina i'Jelen to present themselves, weaponless, at the Citadel Gate tomorrow at noon."

Yesterday, the criers had called for those who wished to keep silent witness for Pjerin a'Stasiek, Due of Ohrid.

Well, here I am
. She laced her fingers into a protective barrier between her baby and the room below.
Here we are
.

Although it was far from hot, damp patches spread out from under both arms.

A solid wall of bodies pressed up against the low wooden barricade that kept the citizens of Elbasan from spilling over into the actual area of the court. Neither as solemn nor as quiet as the Council, they were anxious to see this Due of Ohrid—who'd intended to have them slaughtered in an unequal war—get the traitor's death he deserved.

Annice could feel the anger rising off of them, could almost see it beating against the molded plaster ceiling like a great black kigh. Heart pounding, she hoped Pjerin would be safe, that the anger wouldn't catch him up and dash him down in pieces. Then she called herself four kinds of fool because he'd be safe only to die.

Suddenly, the Bardic Captain stood before the throne. Instead of her quartered robe, she also wore black, her short hair like a cap of polished steel above it. Slowly, she swept her gaze over the huge room and where it touched, silence fell and spread. At last, she nodded and stepped to one side, her voice falling equally on every ear. "His Majesty, Theron, King of Shkoder, High Captain of the Broken Islands, Lord over the Mountain Principalities of Sibiu, Ohrid, Ajud, Bicaz, and Somes."

Annice started forward, then jerked to a stop even before Stasya's cautioning hand reached her arm. From behind the pillar, she watched the top of her brother's head come through a door in the wall below.
Well, at least he still has his
hair
. Biting down hard on the terrifying urge to giggle, she couldn't believe that after ten years and under the present, potentially deadly circumstances she could have such a stupid reaction.

Chewing her lip, she watched Theron move slowly and deliberately around to the front of the throne. Just for an instant, she caught a glimpse of his face. Ten years under the crown had drawn lines around his eyes that hadn't been there before and something, perhaps the Judgment he was about to make, perhaps the Judgments he'd already made, had drawn the mouth she remembered as full, into a narrow, barely visible crease.

He took his seat and disappeared behind the high, carved back of the throne.

The Bardic Captain bowed to her king, then turned and called, "Pjerin a'Stasiek, Due of Ohrid. Come forward for Judgment."

A small door opened about halfway down the left side of the Great Assembly Hall. Two of the King's Guard marched through, black plumes nodding on the top of ceremonial helmets. The accused followed, dressed in neutral gray, hands tied behind his back. Two more of the King's Guard brought up the rear. The guard's expressions were unreadable. The due's could only be called defiant. All five marched to the center of the room and then the guards peeled off to stand two on each side of the throne, leaving Pjerin alone between the flanking rows of the Council. The muttering crowd at his back, he faced the Bardic Captain and beyond her, the king.

Annice stared down at him, tried to grab a single emotion out of the multitude she was feeling, and found herself clutching disbelief. No longer filthy and in pain, this man looked more like the Pjerin she remembered. Purple and yellow bruising still colored his face, but he stood straight, shoulders squared, ready to meet the enemy head to head.

The Pjerin she remembered could not have done what he admitted doing. Her stomach twisted and a quick kick/punch made her catch her breath.
Right. And my judgment has been flawless lately
… But the disbelief lingered.

Fighting to keep his breathing even, Pjerin glared at a point just over King Theron's shoulder. He supposed that the others who'd stood so exposed had been able to find strength in the inevitability of the Judgment. If they were here, they were guilty—Commanded, Witnessed, condemned. It only remained for the king to pass sentence. It only remained to die. He had no such support. He'd done nothing worthy of death and what was more, he had no idea of what his mouth would say when they put the question to him a second time. Perhaps, this time, he'd be able to speak the truth.

Pjerin dropped his gaze to the bard who faced him and recognized her from his only previous trip to Elba-san. She'd stood in much the same position when the newly crowned King Theron had taken his oaths of allegiance, witnessing his words and no doubt marking him then for the treachery that came to fruition now. The Bardic Captain would see to it that whatever ways Annice had twisted his mind, he would not be able to untwist them here. He allowed his mouth to curl into a sardonic smile and was pleased to see the captain's brows draw in.
How many words of denouncement
could I speak before she silences me? And would His Majesty listen to any of them
?

He would draw his strength from the knowledge that he had done nothing worthy of death and they could take the rest of it and shove it right out of the Circle. Swallowing, he lifted his chin and clasped his fingers together hard lest they tremble and the crowd behind him think him afraid.

Annice saw the smile and wondered. Then she saw the swallow and wished she hadn't come. All the rest was bravado.

He knew he was going to die.

Her face expressionless once again, the Bardic Captain took a deep breath and began to speak, her voice filling the huge room so exactly that there was no longer room for the muttering of the crowd.

"The oaths of allegiance that bind His Majesty and the lords who swear them are so sacred that the breach of them is the only offense irredeemable by law. From the acceptance of the sanctity of this plighted faith comes the belief of sanctity in all plighted faith. That whomsoever gives their word, be they ever so base, it shall hold.

"Pjerin a'Stasiek, Due of Ohrid, step forward."

The step was ceremonial. It meant nothing as he already stood apart. He had no choice but to take it anyway.