Fifth Quarter

by Tanya Huff

  *I want to see.*

  No need to make an excuse this time. Heart pounding, she let him stare.

  Gyhard paused, spine arced as he dried his back. “What’s the matter?”

  *Tell him that I’m just making sure he hasn’t lost anything.*

  When she repeated it, Gyhard smiled but his gaze remained locked on her face and she could see a question in his eyes.

  Bannon’s eyes.

  Not Bannon’s eyes.

  “Tell your brother,” he said softly, “that he’s unbelievably vain.”

  “Tell him yourself,” Vree snapped, but her mouth was dry.

  * * * *

  It was too quiet. Vree lay stiffly under the weight of the cotton blanket and stared into the darkness. The sights, the sounds, the smells of the army were missing. No comforting barricade of life surrounded her. She could smell the lingering perfume of the bath; could hear the pounding of her own heart; could see nothing. Couldn’t sleep.

  *What is it?*

  *Nothing.* She forced her eyes closed and stared instead at the patterns flaring across the lids.

  *Sure is quiet.*

  *Everyone’s asleep.*

  *You’re not.*

  Moisture spread from her palms to the leather-wrapped hilts lying against them.

  *You thinking about him?*

  She rubbed her hands dry on the blanket. *No. There’s nothing we can do about him now.*

  *Yeah, I guess.*

  The room that had seemed so confining before, now seemed infinitely large. She couldn’t get any sense of the other lives in the villa and felt as though she were floating alone in the night with no reference points to ground her.

  *Vree? You’re not alone.* His voice laid an arm across her shoulders and pulled her into a loose embrace. *I’m here.*

  A night bird screamed. The silence swallowed the cry.

  What were they doing, Emo and the others? Had they fought? Had they died? Was her pack still sitting where she’d left it? When would they divide her kit? When would they be sure she wasn’t coming back?

  Her palms were damp again.

  *Hey, do you remember how Ugy used to snore? How crazy it used to drive you? You’d get up and slip across the barracks to pinch his nose closed, oh, two or three times before you finally got so pissed off you’d throw something heavy and hard at him. It’d crash and he’d swear and half the squad’d wake up ready to pound him.…*

  As Bannon built a wall of memories around her, Vree began to relax. The night filled with the familiar, with the known, and his voice became one of many voices. When she finally surrendered to sleep, she took the last words she heard with her.

  *It’s all right, sister-mine. We’ll go together.…*

  Four

  His last companion had gone to pieces days before. He wasn’t sure how many days, sunrise and sunset had grown so much alike of late, but he remembered holding her tenderly as the last of her flesh rotted beyond the point where it would contain her. When it was all over and her kigh had fled shrieking into the darkness, he’d taken one of her few remaining finger bones, threaded it on a silver wire, and added it to the multitude hanging from the silk cord he wore around his neck.

  He kept a bit from all of them. They were his family, his friends, and he owed it to them not to forget.

  If he lifted his head, he could see the Capital growing like a carbuncle on the horizon. Although old muscles ached, he was too near his destination to rest.

  As he walked, he scanned the faces of the other travelers on the road. A glance, no more, and then his gaze moved on. He’d been searching for so long, he no longer remembered what it was he searched for—he only knew it was important and that he couldn’t be complete until he’d found it again.

  His heart began to pound uncomfortably quickly as he finally distinguished the first of the stone tombs that lined the road. Trembling fingers tightened around the carved, bone knob of his walking stick. Once it had been part of a shoulder joint which had, in turn, been part of a young shepherd he had loved. They’d stayed with him longer back then, back before age had weakened his Song.

  The sun had risen past the center of the sky when he reached the first tomb, and he shuffled gratefully into the small bit of shade it offered.

  “When I was alive,” he muttered, tracing the stone letters as he read, “I was a candle-maker. I was the first to add the scent of oranges or lemons to the wax. My candles burned in the Imperial Palace. I gave one tenth of all I made to the temple of Leetis.… Who in the Circle is Leetis?” He’d never been able to keep track of the Empire’s gods—not that it made any difference in the end. Once it had enraged him that the Circle had a place for gods created from nothing more than a bit of misremembered history but no place for him. He’d grown too old for rage, but he still felt the old pain, the old betrayal. “Every festival, I gave two dozen beeswax candles to the healers. I employed three craftsmen and twelve laborers. My name was Elkan. My mother was Yolandis.”

  He tapped a ridged and discolored nail against the crudely cut bias relief of a man dipping candles. “Elkan Yolandis. A good name. My name is … is …” He frowned. No one had called him by name for so long, he had trouble remembering. “Well,” he sighed after a moment, “it doesn’t matter.” Clearing his throat and hacking a mouthful of phlegm into the dust at the side of the road, he began to hum.

  A number of those jostling past on their way along the East Road to the Capital grew suddenly uneasy and began to hurry. No one paid any attention to the old man in the travel-stained brown robes as he padded about the tomb.

  His circuit complete, he sagged against the barred and bolted door. Although three of the eight panels prepared for epitaphs had been filled, no one had answered his call.

  “Too old. Too old.” A long drink of brackish water from his leather flask did nothing to wash away his disappointment. Shoulders slumped, he continued on his way, less certain now that he’d find the companionship he so desperately desired.

  He almost didn’t recognize the funeral when he saw it approaching. It took up fully half the road, and the noise rising from the crowd seemed more likely to wake the dead than lay them to rest. As most of the traffic grumbled its way over to the remaining side of the road, he hovered near the edge of a small cluster of the curious.

  “Would you look at that.” A beefy arm waved at the four blue-veiled figures carrying a small but working fountain between them. “What’s the point in paying for a blessing of the goddess at a tomb?”

  “I heard the family’d paid for a sickbed blessing. I heard they’d paid and the priestesses were getting ready to leave and the healers said not to bother.”

  “What? The goddess was late?”

  “That’s what I heard. And just try getting your coin back from the temple.”

  He sidled a very little closer to the pair of middle-aged women who’d set down their baskets and seemed ready to enjoy the opportunity for gossip the procession created.

  “Look at all the mourners. That must have cost a crescent or three.”

  “You’d think as they were so close they wouldn’t have minded sharing.”

  They? More than one? He strained to see past the white-robed men and women who appeared to be performing a stylized, scripted grief. Between the simulated mourning and honest sorrow—a dozen or so friends and family, many with tears washing channels through the thick white makeup that covered every face—came a pair of biers.

  Two young men.

  He somehow managed to stop himself from darting forward. Two. Young men. And dead less than a day.

  “They were cousins, you know.”

  “I heard they were lovers.”

  “Everything has to be sex with you, doesn’t it? It’s not enough they were cousins?”

  The second woman shifted uncomfortably. “I heard it was bad fish.”

  “What was bad fish?”

  “Bad fish killed them.”

  “Who said?”

  “
My cousin.”

  “The fishmonger?” Her voice rose in disbelief.

  “No, my other cousin, the butcher.”

  Food poisoning. The bodies would be whole.

  * * * *

  He made his camp in the rough ground behind the tombs, dug a small fire pit, and coaxed a flame from bits of broken brush. Carefully, he measured honey and herbs into a sooty cup and filled it with the last of his water. When the tisane had warmed so that he could no longer feel it against the inside of his wrist, he drank it slowly, and as the moon rose, he sang the exercises that would tone an aged voice. To lose this opportunity would be heartbreaking.

  He had no need to call when he finally approached the tomb. He could feel the kigh, could feel their confusion, could feel them trying to cling to the life they’d lost. It was often that way with those who died young and healthy.

  “Hush,” he murmured, struggling with the heavy bar securing the door. “I’ve come to help.”

  Had the tomb not been opened that afternoon, he knew he wouldn’t have been strong enough to force the rustpitted metal up out of equally worn brackets. As it was, his arms trembled and he gasped for breath as he finally leaned the bar against the stone.

  Fortunately, the hinges still glistened with oil and the door swung easily, silently open. He pushed it back until it would go no farther, then jammed it in place with a fist-sized rock. The spill of moonlight would provide all the illumination he needed.

  The smell as he entered the tomb was familiar, comforting, and he breathed deeply of it as he shuffled into the narrow central aisle. Designed to hold eight bodies—the carrying poles of the biers slipping into iron cradles on the end walls—five places had already been filled before this double death. The lower three of the four resting to the left of the door had been stripped by time and rats to bare bone. The fourth wore enough bits of dried flesh for him to recognize a beautiful woman—although no one else could probably have seen her in the desiccated ruin that remained. To the right of the door, the lowest place held a body and a large brown rat.

  They stared at each other for a moment, then the rat picked up the finger it had been gnawing and disappeared into the shadows.

  Heart pounding, he leaned forward to check the fingers and toes of the two young men lying stacked above and sighed in relief when he found them whole. Although their faces and hands were marked with white smears of makeup from the farewell kisses of friends and family, the scavengers had not yet begun to feed.

  “So young.” His voice held more anticipation than sorrow as he touched each gently in turn. They’d been broad-shouldered, stocky young men who’d worn their brown hair cut short in identical round caps and had shared a slight family resemblance about the jaw. One had been a little taller, the other a little more heavily muscled. He didn’t know their names or what they’d done in life—for their epitaphs had not yet been carved—but it didn’t matter. They’d be able to tell him themselves soon enough.

  He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and Sang.

  The kigh responded joyfully until they touched the bodies. First the lower jerked and then the upper, an arm flung out to dangle down beside the bier.

  He felt the pair of kigh begin to struggle and he threw more into the Song. When they tried to twist away, he caught them. When they balked, he shoved. It always happened thus, no matter how much they’d wanted to return before it began. Over the long years, he’d become well practiced in overcoming the fear of the kigh.

  His voice cracked and wavered. The Song slipped into mere sound for a heartbeat before his desperate need for companionship lent him strength and he wrapped it around the kigh once again.

  The bodies of both young men were now shaking so violently their teeth clattered in spite of the cords securing their jaws.

  Hands clasped together around his staff, praying that he’d been strong enough, he finished the Song.

  The silence rang with it for a moment.

  Two pairs of brown eyes snapped open.

  He had to help them to stand, Singing gentle Songs of comfort to them as their bodies spasmed and they moaned in terror. Lost and confused, they turned to him. He stroked them and calmed them and reassured them that the stiffness would pass. They were like children, his children, and he felt the familiar rush of love spill out over into his Song.

  “All right, I know yer in there. Drop what yer holdin’ and step outside where I can see ya.”

  A guard. He should’ve known there’d be a guard. These tombs were an open invitation to looters. He murmured a brief prayer of thanks to whatever gods were listening—had the guard shown up before he’d finished the Song.… Leaning heavily on his staff, he led the way out into the night.

  The guard snorted when she saw him, brows nearly disappearing under the padded edge of her round helm. “Well, yer old enough to know better, Gramps.” A wave of her loaded crossbow directed him to one side. She glared into the tomb. “The rest of ya can get out here, too. Yer not gonna make me believe this old geezer was workin’ a … Goddess protect us, yer alive.”

  “Nooo.” The taller of the two young men fought to pull air in and then push it out in the shape of words. It wasn’t easy as he no longer needed to breathe. “We … are dead.”

  She swallowed and backed away a step, obviously wanting to run, forcing herself to stay. “But yer, yer standin’. Yer movin’. Ya gotta be alive if yer movin’.”

  The second young man lurched forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with his cousin. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

  The guard had seen death in many forms before. She’d picked it up in pieces after the food riots of eighty-seven. She’d dragged it frozen out of the gutter every winter. She’d held it when her son had been taken, the healer standing helpless to one side.

  These men were dead.

  Her finger tightened on the trigger. The crossbow quarrel slammed quivering into the dirt at the cousins’ feet. She stared at it, then slowly lifted her gaze to their faces.

  These men were most certainly dead.

  And they knew it.

  Another step back. Then another. Then, biting off a scream, she turned and ran.

  * * * *

  Halfway through the first verse, Karlene realized she should never have agreed to sing a love song. His Imperial Highness, Prince Otavas had pulled his cushion close, drawn one knee up to his chest—not an easy thing to do with any modesty considering the short style of kilt currently favored around the Imperial Court—and was staring at her with his heart in his eyes. Although at seventeen, he was a strikingly handsome young man, with his father’s dark coloring and the heavy bones of his mother’s northern heritage, those dark, intense eyes were his most devastating feature and he knew how to use them to their best advantage. He was also charming. Intelligent. And very, very young.

  If anyone had told me when I left Shkoder that the hardest part of serving in the Empire would be keeping a love-struck princeling at arm’s length, I’d have laughed in their face.

  It wasn’t that he was rude, or pushy, or even particularly imperious about his infatuation—he was just persistent. Without appearing to be following her about, he always seemed to be where she was. Had he not been an Imperial prince, a gentle Bardic Command could have cleared up the problem in short order, but as it was, she could only dance around his feelings and try to convince him that certain gifts were inappropriate.

  The worst of it was, the prince’s attentions had caused a fascinatingly beautiful lady of the court to politely—or perhaps politically—surrender the field. Nor did it help that the only other bard in the Havakeen Empire thought the whole situation incredibly amusing and had already written a not-very-funny song about it. Could be worse, I suppose. At least with the prince’s involvement so obvious, he can’t sing it anywhere.

  She sang the final verse with less emphasis than usual on the “Love conquers all,” but as the prince’s expression remained besotted, she suspected she needn’t have bothered.<
br />
  A babble of voices rose as the last note faded. Karlene smiled and inclined her head. Pushing her heavy, blonde braid back over her shoulder, she set her quitara to one side and stood.

  “You must be thirsty.” Prince Otavas stepped forward to claim her before any of the others could. “Would you care to join me for a drink? They’ve chilled lime juice tonight, I think. I remember you saying once how much you like it.”

  Those beautiful eyes looked so hopeful, she couldn’t deny him. Besides, she was thirsty. A pity he’d read a deeper meaning than intended into the ritual response. “It would be my pleasure, Highness.”

  “I wish you’d call me Tavas.” Beaming, he fell into step beside her.

  “That’s what your family calls you, Highness. I couldn’t presume.”

  “They wouldn’t mind. They like you.”

  Smothering a sigh, Karlene fell back on the standard Imperial response. “I’m honored, Highness.”

  “Tavas.”

  “Highness …” She turned to face him. “While I am …” Well, there really isn’t another word for it, is there? “… honored by your attention, I feel it only fair to tell you again that I have no interest in men in that way.”

  He shrugged and grinned. “I’m not men. I’m me.”

  “And that I’m eleven years older than you are.”

  “You don’t look a day over …”

  She could see him rapidly examining ages, discarding them, and finally settling on:

  “… twenty-one.” He bowed deeply, one hand keeping the back of his kilt from riding up. “Maybe twenty-two.” Impossible not to laugh.

  Flashing a triumphant grin, the prince straightened and extended his arm. Shaking her head, Karlene laid her hand on his wrist and allowed herself to be led to the refreshment table.

  In warm weather, the Imperial Court spent its informal evenings in a second-floor room with more window than wall. This evening, the three wide pairs of louvered shutters to both the east and west had been folded back to allow the passage of cooling breezes delicately scented by the night-blooming flowers in the gardens below. As always, refreshment tables had been set up at the narrower, south end of the room to either side of the arched entranceway. Karlene often wondered how the guards could stand so close to such mouthwatering bounty and be able to resist throwing themselves on the food.