Sing the Four Quarters (38 page)

—with obvious variations he could never achieve.

"Which brings us to the question," he said, straightening, "of just what Annice is doing Walking so far from a healer so near to her time." He ripped away the vine that had grown over his pack during the night, Sang an admonishment to the kigh, and began to pull on his clothes. Not for the first time, Jazep wished he could Sing air. Or that earth would occasionally concern itself with less indigenous matters.

Fortunately, he could track her easily as her condition, combined with the season, set up sympathetic resonances within the kigh. He wondered, briefly, if she had any idea of what was likely to happen when she gave birth and decided that it probably hadn't even occurred to her to ask as she'd been away on a Walk when Terezka had Bernardas. Terezka Sang only air and water with no earth ability at all, and it had still been interesting.

After a quick breakfast, he shouldered his pack and Sang a request, the bass notes thrumming in the air. A path opened up through the underbrush. Humming softly, he hurried down it.

Although the sun was setting when Jazep reached the valley, not even dusk could hide the effects of Annice's Song.

Shaking his head in amazement, he stared out over an area of such fecundity he had to loosen his breeches and think very hard about bathing in pools of winter run-off. He'd never been aware of so many kigh so active in such an enclosed area and he thanked every god the Circle contained that the valley hadn't been any smaller.

"Guess Adrie and Gregor are going to make their surplus this year…"

He Sang as he walked toward the homestead, calming the kigh and doing what he could to curb their more extreme reactions. Once or twice, the mating song of spring frogs nearly drowned him out.

Darkness had settled by the time he got close enough to be heard and he Sang the notes of his name at the flickering light in the open window. Both dogs bounded around the corner of the house, barking wildly. Jazep froze on the spot, not willing to chance that they remembered him from almost a full year before.

"Safety! Honor! Be quiet!" Gregor appeared in the doorway, a silhouette against the light within. "Is that you, Jazep?"

"It is." He walked forward and frowned as he drew close enough to see the other man's expression. "What's wrong?

Has something happened to Adrie, or the baby?"

"No, they're fine." A smile flashed for an instant between the drooping ends of the mustache as Gregor touched his fist to the bard's. "Mari's almost walking. It's just that…" He paused, threw up his hands, and stepped back out of the doorway. "It's just that it's complicated. I'd best save it till you're in and sitting down."

Confused; Jazep followed him into the house.

"… so then this Captain Otik rides up, oh, mid-afternoon and says that Annice is really His Majesty's sister and she's wanted in the capital for treason and Jorin a'Gerek is really Pjerin a'Stasiek, the Due of Ohrid and he's escaped from his execution."

Dusting his fingertips lightly over the stretched skin of his tambour, Jazep frowned. "He's right about Annice, although I doubt His Majesty intends to pass Judgment, but I was in the Bardic Hall in Vidor the day the due died. Unless the king himself is involved, he certainly didn't escape his execution."

"Then the captain was lying?" Adrie hugged herself and shivered although the night was warm.

Because he Sang only earth, Jazep spent most of Third and Fourth Quarter at the Citadel and often sat gate duty, giving him more contact with the King's Guard than most bards. Even the most determinedly neutral opinion of Otik had included a variation on "insanely ambitious."

"Did the captain say why he was after Annice and this man?"

Gregor nodded, one end of his mustache twisted so tightly around his finger that it pulled his upper lip out at a painful-looking angle. "He said that His Majesty wanted Annice brought back to Elbasan but that Judgment had already been passed on the due."

"And he said that because we were here on the king's sufferance," Adrie continued miserably, "if we didn't cooperate, we'd lose the valley."

Jazep suddenly knew what had happened. "You told the captain which way they went. Showed him their trail." The lap drum whispered under his fingers.

"We've put our lives into this valley." Gregor pleaded for understanding. "We thought he was a traitor…"

"It's all right." Jazep used enough Voice to be believed.
No wonder these two are wound so tightly with
guilt. They must realize that Annice saved their valley this morning. And then they had to sacrifice her to save it this
afternoon
. "Otik's a Captain in the King's Guard. You did what you had to." He couldn't go after them until sunrise. "I don't know who this Jorin a'Gerek is, but Annice isn't entirely helpless."

Adrie looked even more wretched. "I thought bards took an oath not to Sing against other people even to save themselves."

"That's true." Jazep drummed out a faint heartbeat. "But she can Sing to save her baby." He just hoped Annice remembered that.

Otik watched their camp from downwind, his position carefully screened by trees. He could take them now, while they slept—one arrow for him and a second to keep her silent. The crescent moon and stars combined shed enough light to hit a motionless and unsuspecting target. Slowly, he raised the crossbow.

Slowly, he lowered it again.

He'd wait until he got a good look at the traitor in the morning. He didn't want to make any mistakes.

Annice cracked open her eyes and stared sleepily up at Pjerin. From the length of the shadows it couldn't have been much past dawn. "What are you doing?" she muttered.

"Checking for bruises," Pjerin grunted, twisting around and trying unsuccessfully to get a look at his own right shoulder blade. "There was a great big unenclosed pointed rock the size of my fist jabbing into me all night."

"Then why didn't you mo… What is your problem?" she snapped as the kigh pushed her up into a half reclining position. "I can get up on my…" She fell silent as she realized that something had the kigh very upset. "Pjerin! Get down!"

The crossbow quarrel caught him just under the left shoulder, spun him around, and dropped him face first into the pile of bracken he'd used for bedding.

"Pjerin!" Annice heaved herself to her feet and started toward him.

"Not another step, Bard, and not a sound, or there's one for you, too."

Annice froze. There was an inch of bloody steel poking out through Pjerin's back and a line of crimson dribbling down from the wound. She couldn't tell if he was breathing, but the quarrel hadn't gone through anything vital, so he couldn't be dead. He
couldn't
be.

Light crossbow, at the edge of its accurate range
, she found herself thinking as she listened to the footsteps cautiously approaching from the brush behind her.
A heavy crossbow, or a closer shot would've gone right through him
.

"Go back to where you were sleeping and sit down. And remember, even so much as a cough out of you and I'll shoot."

The voice was educated.
An Elbasan accent over Vidor origins; and what difference does it make
? She couldn't risk the chance that he was bluffing. Not with another life dependent so completely on her.
Pjerin, don't be dead
, she pleaded silently as she sat.
There are times I can't stand you, but I don't want you to be dead
.

When Otik walked out of the bush, weapon ready, it confirmed her worst fears; the guard had caught up to them. How they managed it wasn't really relevant. Then she frowned. Here was the captain, but she couldn't hear the rest of the troop.

"Very good, Highness," Otik piled sarcasm on the honorific. "Stay there and stay quiet and you'll be able to throw yourself on His Majesty's mercy at your Death Judgment. Move and you'll pay the price for treason now." He hoped she believed him because he didn't think he could actually shoot her. It was one thing to realize she was with child and another thing entirely to be confronted with it.

His attention locked on the bard, Otik circled the fire pit and squatted by the due's wounded shoulder. It wasn't a heart shot; he'd known that the moment he pulled the trigger, but it
had
hit close and it was entirely possible that the position of the body hid a spreading pool of blood.

Still watching the bard, crossbow cradled in his right arm, the captain reached out and dug his thumb, hard, into the due's side. Any reaction, and he'd shoot the unenclosed traitor again before he turned him over.

In a single motion, teeth clenched against the pain, Pjerin twisted, wrapped his right hand around Otik's wrist and slammed the fist-sized rock on his left, into the other man's head.

The wet crunch of bone shattering at Otik's temple, drowned out the single grunt of surprise he managed. As he fell, his finger spasmed.

Annice screamed as the ground dropped from under her and the quarrel punched through the place where her head had been. Heart pounding, she scrambled to her feet and raced through the kigh to Pjerin. "You're not dead!"

"Not quite," he gasped, rising to his knees.

Before she could stop him, he grabbed the fletched end of the quarrel and yanked it back out of his flesh.

"You idiot!" Annice caught him as he swayed. "How did you know that wasn't barbed?"

"Guards use smooth diamond tips." His face had taken on a slightly greenish cast. "Same going out as going in."

Calling him every insulting name she could think of, she snatched up his shirt and stuffed it against the hole, her fingers stained red.

"You could've waited…" she began.

Pjerin shook his head and wished he hadn't as the world tried to slide sideways. "No time. His troop has to be close.

We've got to move."

"Not until I've bound this up!" She hurriedly tore, and wrapped, and tightened. "And what about Otik? Who knows how long he's going to be out. What do we do with him?" Hands still working, she half turned.

Otik lay crumpled on one side, the pink and gray ruin of his head facing the sky. His eyes stared sightlessly into the bracken, and a fly minced daintily along the moist lower curve of his lip.

"What do we do with Otik?" Pjerin repeated grimly. He hadn't intended to kill him, but remembering every detail of the long journey from Ohrid to Elbasan under the captain's control, he couldn't find it in himself to care that he was dead. "We leave him for the worms."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jazep Sang the kigh a gratitude and stared thoughtfully down at the earth that now covered the body of Captain Otik.

The captain had been killed with a blow to the side of the head. That much was obvious. That
alone
was obvious.

Red-brown bloodstains on the bracken were still sticky. Someone besides Otik had been injured.

The kigh were little or no help. Whether that was because they considered whatever happened none of their business or because they were protecting Annice, Jazep had no idea. He sighed and Sang for the trail. With one of them injured and Annice pregnant, or Annice injured and pregnant, they couldn't be very far ahead of him even with the addition of Otik's horse. With the help of the kigh, he'd be with them by noon.

And then Annice had some explaining to do.

Sometime later, he found_ himself back in the clearing by Otik's grave. The kigh had led him in a circle.

He Sang a question and frowned. Annice had asked them not to let anyone follow and they were including him in their compliance. There wasn't anything he could do about it either—the kigh had decided to protect Annice and her baby and nothing he could Sing would breach what they considered that protection to include.

Sliding out of his pack, Jazep sat and mulled over the possibilities. Why had Otik been killed? Because he'd wounded either Annice or her companion. Simple so far. But Otik must have known he'd have a fight on his hands if he tried to take them back to Elbasan, and risking that with a man Gregor and Adrie described as both large and fit didn't sound like the captain at all.

"Then let's suppose he didn't risk it," Jazep mused aloud. "Let's suppose he tried to remove the threat, maybe attacking the man in his sleep, botched the job, and was killed." Unfortunately, King Theron disapproved of his guard conducting summary executions and Otik was far too ambitious to risk the king's displeasure. "Unless…" The bard's eyes widened. "Unless Otik was right and Jorin a'Gerek really was the Due of Ohrid, with a Judgment of Death already passed." Why was Annice with him? Jazep counted back. Because during Annice's Walk to Ohrid, the due had fathered her child. Where were they headed now?

He stood and brushed off his breeches. Given the distance and direction they'd already traveled, they had to be headed for Ohrid.

Why?

"I guess I'll have to ask them that when I get there."

"You sent for me, Lady?"

"Yes. I did." Olina leaned back against the crenellations edging the tower roof and studied the new steward. In the seven days since she'd appointed him, he'd wrapped himself in the privileges of the position and gloried in the power, all the while keeping half an eye on her lest she change her mind. She turned and waved a hand down into the pass.

"This is my great-nephew's heritage. If you want to cross the mountains into Cemandia or from Cemandia, you do it here."

Lukas moved forward until he stood by her side.

She allowed it for the moment. "I believe that the Due of Ohrid has the right to exploit his heritage in such a way that all his people prosper. Don't you agree?"

"Yes, Lady."

"Do you know what that is?"

Lukas squinted along the line of her pointing finger. "The palisade, Lady."

"There, at the base of the palisade!"

He cringed slightly under the whip of her voice. "A crack in the lowest supporting log, Lady. But it's always been there."

"Don't you think it's time it was fixed?"

"But…"

She was rapidly losing her patience. "Don't make me repeat the question, Lukas. And don't make me regret I appointed you steward." The coiled ebony mass of her hair reflected the sunlight with an iridescent shimmer. "Fix the palisade so that my great-nephew can make Ohrid prosper."