The Quartered Sea (31 page)

As for Benedikt, she could recognize threat as she recognized power, and he was no threat. He wanted a place to belong. She could give him that—and he would give her everything he had.

"Your pardon, peerless one." Curling his lip at the dog, Hueru stepped closer to the bed, his shins pressing against the edge of the platform. "Do you want him, peerless one?"

"Do I what?" Her laughter brought a sleepy yap from the dog. "Don't be ridiculous. He's too young, he has no understanding of what's happening around him, and he's far too hairy." Stretching out an arm, she slid a hand up under Hueru's sawrap. In her experience, once a person began to think with their crotch, it became increasingly hard for them to dissemble. "Do
you
want him?"

"Peerless… one."

"You do. Why? Because he's so much larger than you? Never mind. You can't have him. No one has him; willing, unwilling."

"Why not?"

Up under the sawrap, her fingers closed and Hueru gasped. "Because I said so." Benedikt was hers, and when the time came, she'd let him know exactly what that meant.

* * *

The waves were behaving strangely. Bards who Sang water had no fear of the sea, but Karlene paused knee-deep and checked the beach to see that her clothes remained high and dry. She had others in her pack, but they'd been well worn during the Walk she was just finishing and she'd as soon not put them on again before she reached the Bardic Hall in Elbasan and the whole lot of them had been boiled.

"The older I get," she muttered to the wind, "the more I consider a good laundry the ultimate sign of civilization."

The sea moved like cool silk against her skin as she waded deeper until she finally threw herself forward into the waves' embrace. To her surprise, they set her back on her feet again.

Skimming the water off her face with both hands, she rolled her eyes and Sang the four notes to call the kigh.

There were more kigh in the cove than she'd ever seen in one place before. No wonder the waves had been behaving strangely.

It took her the rest of the afternoon to work out what they were trying to tell her. Each of them held a piece of the message—a single note, a half a tone, a tear.

Sorrow diffused over a very long distance.

Chapter Nine

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KARLENE hadn't slept for almost two days. All she wanted was a chance to fall into her bed and stay there for an equivalent time. Later, when body and mind were functioning again, she'd grieve properly for the loss of Benedikt and all the bright dreams that had died with him. The old wood-and-leather chair creaked as she shifted her weight, impatient for the Bardic Captain to finish his deliberations.

"I think," Kovar said softly, pulling one end of his mustache hard enough to distort his lip, "I think this is the sort of message that should be delivered personally to the queen by the bard who received it."

"What are you talking about?" Rebalancing her head on her neck, Karlene glared across the desk at him. "I sent you word by air when I left the cove."

"
The sea tells me the
Starfarer
is lost
—not exactly something I could take to the queen."

"You haven't told her?" Too tired for dramatics, Karlene covered her face with both hands. "I don't believe this."

"But you're the Bardic Captain!" When Kovar made no reply, Karlene dropped her hands and found him looking obstinate. "Center it! Don't tell me you haven't made up."

"Her Majesty is not interested in my opinions." He purposefully shuffled papers from one pile to another. "I do my job, and we maintain as little contact as possible."

"Contact is part of your job," Karlene snarled. She'd never have spoken to her captain in such a way had she not been so exhausted but, having started, she decided to get the entire judgment off her chest. "This
situation
is not good for us, it's not good for Her Majesty, and it's sure as slaughter not good for Shkoder!"

Kovar's brows drew in over his nose. "I find your use of Imperial Army oaths distasteful."

"Imperial Army oaths?" The younger bard stared at him, openmouthed. "That's all you have to say?"

"I needn't defend myself to you or to anyone else." His tone made it quite clear the discussion was over. "Do you really think Her Majesty would want to hear about the
Starfarer
from me?" he continued, voice too reasonable. "All things considered?"

Her burst of indignant energy spent, Karlene could only numbly shake her head.

"Good. You should find her in the small audience chamber. If not, Marija is on duty at the Palace and will be able to tell you where the queen has gone."

Dragging herself up onto her feet, Karlene paused, one hand on the back of her chair. "Was I the only bard the kigh found?"

The sea tells me
Starfarer
is lost
… There really wasn't much else to say. The
Starfarer
was lost and Benedikt was dead.

The queen could have been told, should have been told the moment Kovar got her message and the bards told directly after that. It wasn't right that a bard had died and no one mourned him. Granted, Benedikt had more than his fair share of the arrogance and insecurities of the young and was, at best, prickly company, but that still didn't make it right. He was one of theirs. He was a bard of Shkoder.

Dashing a tear away with an angry hand, Karlene entered the Palace through the Dawn Doors and beckoned to the first page she saw.

"Go to the Healers' Hall and find Magda i'Annice a'Pjerin," she told him. "Tell her it's extremely important that she meet Karlene immediately outside the small audience chamber."

"What if she can't come?" he wanted to know, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"She has to come." The bardic emphasis probably hadn't been necessary, Karlene realized as the page raced away—at his age, every message he carried was of equal and vital importance—but she needed to be sure Magda would be there. The queen had invested so much of herself in
Starfarer's
voyage, only the Circle knew how its loss would affect her.

There were three people already waiting in the hall outside the small audience chamber. Seated in various anticipatory postures on benches along one wall, they were attempting to look serene about the wait under the steely gaze of the queen's secretary. Karlene recognized the harbor master and the new head of the Glassmakers' Guild, but the third man she didn't know. Pitching her voice for the secretary alone, she leaned over the desk and said, "I have to see Her Majesty."

"You're a bard." During the moment she studied her face, Karlene bit back half a dozen scathing replies to that bland observation. "Karlene, isn't it?"

"That's right."

He glanced down at his appointment book. "And why do you need to see Her Majesty?"

"I'm a bard, remember. I have information." She sagged forward so that her elbows were on the desk and they were eye to eye. "It's what we do; we gather information and make it available to the crown so that well-informed decisions can be made for the good of us all."

"Thank you." Strongly suspecting that if she sat down she wouldn't be able to get up again, Karlene crossed the hall to a bit of smooth paneling and set about propping it up. She could feel the eyes of the other three, feel them wondering what business she had that was more important than theirs.
They'll know soon enough
… Tears pricked against the inside of her lids, and when she closed her eyes they rolled slowly down her cheeks, and into the corners of her mouth.

Magda arrived before the Furriers' Guild finished their business. Her impatient expression disappeared as soon as she came close enough to read Karlene's kigh. "What's wrong?" she asked quietly, closing a hand around the other woman's arm.

"And here I thought I was due for a tedious meeting with the harbor master," Jelena laughed, beckoning bard and healer closer. "What's happened that you've upset Johan's…" As Karlene stepped out of the shadows and into the late afternoon sunlight streaming into the chamber through a high window, the queen's smile vanished. "Tell me," she said quietly.

Karlene wet her lips and swallowed. This would be the third time she'd told the story since arriving back at the Citadel. It should have gotten easier. It hadn't. Hoping for the distance she'd need to finish, she fell into a storytelling cadence. "I was two days out of Elbasan, Majesty, and I stopped to bathe in a small cove just north of Gull's Head Point…" She left nothing out, not her amazement at the number of kigh nor her feelings as each gave up a piece of the message. "… and the only thing I can conclude, Majesty, is that the kigh have brought us news of Benedikt's death and the loss of the
Starfarer
."

In the silence that followed, someone laughed outside in the courtyard, and all three women glanced toward the window.

"The message was shattered, spread over a great many kigh." Jelena locked her gaze on Karlene's face as though she could gain the answer she wanted by force of will alone. "The
Starfarer
may be lost, but there must be survivors. If Benedikt died, who Sang the news to the kigh?"

"No one, Majesty. When a bard dies, the kigh carry the emotional imprint of the last moments of life and surrender it only when they reach another bard."

"But with so many kigh carrying so many pieces, you can't be absolutely positive," the queen insisted.

"Unfortunately, Majesty, there're only a few ways those pieces go together. They were nothing
but
emotional imprint and they all agree that the
Starfarer
was lost." Karlene had to swallow hard before she could continue. "He, Benedikt, was thinking of you when he died."