by Tanya Huff
What more could a bard desire?
Head slightly to one side so that thick black curls cascaded forward over his shoulder—a pose practiced and calculated to open both purses and hearts—he listened to the sounds of the inn. Behind him he could hear the distinctive crackles that said a kigh danced in the grate, called and confined by his Song. Before him, he could hear the rise and fall of maybe thirty voices. The news that he’d returned to the River Maiden had filled the small common room—the dull roar would’ve told him that, even if the innkeeper hadn’t.
While he appreciated a full house as much as the next bard—All right, maybe more than the next bard—it wasn’t going to make his job any easier.
Continuing to strum, he began to separate out the individual voices.
“… don’t worry, I can pay for it. I’ve got plenty of silver …”
There. The accent surrendered origins.
Setting his lute carefully aside, Tadeus rose, throwing the hair back off his face. Smiling in the direction of an appreciative murmur, he made his way toward the Cemandian trader, threading gracefully around tables and benches and clients with no more than the occasional gentle touch to guide his way.
“Of course he’s blind, you unenclosed idiot. Why else do think he’s wearing that scarf thing across his eyes?”
Why else, indeed? The scarf was a brilliant red, cut from the same bolt of fabric as his new shirt. The tailor, a cousin of his, told him the effect was rakish. While he couldn’t swear to rakish, or even the color, Tadeus had to admit that there was a definite effect. He took a deep breath as delicate fingers traced a pattern on the back of his thigh and regretfully kept moving.
As he approached the Cemandian accent, he sniffed the air appreciatively. Over the winter smells of damp wool and infrequently washed bodies, over the inn smells of smoke, and ale, and grease came a distinct scent of sandalwood mixed with clean hair. Seems a rough choice of domicile for a trader with a bit of class, he thought, negotiating the last few feet.
Conversation in the immediate area stopped as Tadeus directed his best smile at the Cemandian, who would, he knew, be staring up at him. “Mind if I join you?”
Bereft of eye contact, he couldn’t Command, but over the years he’d raised Charm to a high art. He heard the trader swallow, hard, before he managed an answer.
“Please do.”
Toning down the smile, Tadeus slid onto the bench, letting his thigh press lightly against his quarry’s—intimate conversations could not be carried out across the full width of a trestle table. He waited until surrounding conversations had risen again before saying, “I’m Tadeus. You are?”
“Leksik i’Samuil.”
His breath was good, too. Tadeus began to hope that Leksik was nothing more than he seemed; a young noble—easy enough to tell from his voice—who wasn’t very bright—because only an idiot would mention having plenty of silver in a place like the River Maiden—playing trader for one of the obvious had-to-get-out-of-the-country reasons. He didn’t hope very hard, though; a gut feeling told him there wouldn’t be much point.
“So, Leksik, what brings you to Shkoder?”
* * * *
Theron paced the length of the nursery and back, shoved his head into the built-in wardrobe and bellowed down the narrow flight of stone stairs visible under a lifted trapdoor. “Haven’t you reached her yet!”
“Almost, Majesty!”
The disembodied voice that came floating up from the darkness seemed to do little to mollify him. Neither did the child’s voice that followed.
“I’m okay, Papa! Really!”
“Brigita! I told you not to crawl around down there …” he began.
“Theron.” Lilyana took his arm and gently pulled him back. “You’re not helping by yelling. They’re moving as fast as they can.”
“I know that!” He shook himself free, then patted her shoulder in apology, muttering, “I should’ve had all those passageways filled in years ago. Suppose no one had heard her yelling? She could’ve died, trapped in the walls like a rat!”
“Theron!”
“Father!”
The king ignored both consort and Heir. “The Circle holds no reason for this place to be riddled with secret passageways!”
“It’s not like they’re even very secret,” Antavas agreed, investigating an old wooden ship he’d forgotten he’d left in the nursery with all the unconcern of a thirteen-year-old for the fate of his younger sister. “Every time you think you’ve found a new one, you find a big ‘A’ and a bunch of arrows scrawled on the wall in chalk.”
“Antavas …”
He turned, recognizing the tone but unsure of what he’d said to cause it. “Sir?”
Theron broke off what he was about to say as a page slipped past the guard stationed at the nursery door. “I’ll speak with you later,” he promised his son. “What is it, Karina?”
The girl bowed. “Message from the Bardic Captain, Majesty. The captain asks for an audience.”
“Did the captain give a reason for this request?”
“Yes, Majesty. She said to tell you that they’ve got him.”
Five
Something had obviously happened while she was away. Annice paused at the edge of the Farmers’ Market, her pack propped against the edge of a wagon, and studied the crowd. The buzz of information passing from city dweller to country dweller, as well as the opinions passing back, held too much of an edge to be merely gossip and the clouds of breath billowing out onto the cold morning air gave conversations a heated appearance.
Shrugging her pack off her shoulders, she let it slide to the ground. Although she’d intended to cut through the market and then the nobles’ district—the shortest, fastest route through the north side of Elbasan to the Citadel and Bardic Hall—finding out what was going on suddenly seemed more important than getting to the Hall in time for lunch.
Scanning the square, Annice caught the eye of a shabbily dressed young man hanging about on the edges of the crowd and motioned him over. He came eagerly, hands tucked into his armpits against the cold.
“You lookin’ fer hire?” he asked, as soon as he was close enough to be heard. “Someone ta carry …” Then he noticed she was a bard, not a cook or innkeeper likely to be buying winter vegetables in quantity and needing help to get them home. His face fell.
Annice flipped him a quarter-gull, enough for a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread at any of the corner stalls in the market.
He snatched the small copper coin out of the air with cracked and bleeding fingers and looked a little more cheerful. “What kin I do fer you, Bard?”
She jerked her head toward the scattered clumps of buying and selling and gossip. “I’ve just come in from a Walk. What’s everyone talking about?”
“Troop of King’s Guard rode out this mornin’, ‘fore dawn.”
“Going?”
He shrugged and a hank of greasy, dark blond hair fell forward into his eyes. “Mountains, they say.”
“Where in the mountains?”
“Dunno. Just mountains. Unenclosed time of the year ta go ta the mountains, ya ask me.”
Annice had to agree. While Fourth Quarter on the coast could be cold and unpleasant, in the mountains it could be deadly—if the mountains could be reached at all. “What could be so important that King Theron would send his guard out in the winter?”
The young man didn’t disappoint. “Treason.”
“What?”
“His Majesty didn’t give me no details.” He began to inch away, eyes on a deal just being concluded. “Now, if ya don’t mind, Bard, I got other things to take care of.”
“How much to carry my pack up to the Citadel Gate?” Her own extra bulk would be more than enough for her to haul around the streets.
He glanced down at the pack, then squinted up at the stone bulk of the Citadel visible over the roofs in the center of the city. “Three gulls,” he said at last. “I go that far I won’t get no more work today.
”
A half-gull, Annice knew, would get him a place in a crowded but warm dormitory room in any of the inns down by Dockside. A full gull would get him out of Dockside and into a place where he not only wouldn’t have to guard his back but would be fed a heaping bowl of porridge the next morning. Bards stayed in both kinds of places, to keep them honest—a number of songs contemplated whether it was the bards or the inns that were to be kept honest—and Annice knew which she preferred.
“How about two gulls and a Song?”
His eyes narrowed. “What good’ll a Song do me?”
“It’ll get you past the gate, to the Hall, and into the kitchen where they’ll feed you. Cast your lines right and you might even make up that third gull. Cook’s always complaining about being shorthanded.”
Stomping his feet in a valiant but doomed effort to keep warm, he didn’t have to think about it for long. As she watched him make his way around the edge of the market, her pack perched high on his shoulders, and a kigh riding unseen over his head, Annice decided not to mention the incident to Stasya who, coming from a south coast fisher family that argued over every quarter-gull, would not understand.
“I know, he’d have done it for half that,” she murmured, settling her instrument case across her back. It wasn’t that she couldn’t barter, it was just that she hated to do it with people who had so little. Not everyone can be equal in wealth, but no one should have to starve. Theron had said that, back when he was Heir, and he was doing what he could as king to stand by his word. He was a good king and a popular one, loved and respected by his people.
Annice rubbed at her eyes with the back of a mitten and ground her teeth. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from suddenly becoming stupidly sentimental about the most commonplace of things. Of course, Theron’s a good king, she snarled silently. And now he’s a good king who’s sent a troop of guards into the mountains, so let’s find out what’s going on, spend our last coin on lunch, and go home.
Information wasn’t difficult to come by as every conversation in the market either began or ended or was solely concerned with the guards riding out at dawn. Annice took a slow stroll, filtering out the story as she walked.
“That unenclosed bastard up at Ohrid has agreed to let a Cemandian army through the pass!”
“This Cemandian nobleman, well, he was hardly more than a baby really, he broke down and, well, just told everything to one of the bards, don’t you know.”
“King Theron’s sent a troop of guards to Ohrid to arrest the duc.”
“No, no, no! The king’s sent a bard to question him, and when the bard finds out the truth, then the guards who are with the bard will arrest the duc.”
“We’re all going to be murdered in our beds, I tell you.”
“They’ll take his head. They will. He broke his vows. Only one punishment for treason. Death.”
Annice found herself wrapping both arms protectively around her belly. All of a sudden, I’m not so hungry. How about you, baby?
Almost everyone believed the Duc of Ohrid guilty of treason as charged. A few allowed that the Cemandian spy—regardless of what said spy thought was going on—might have been planted to sow discord in Shkoder. “To test our defenses!” declared one elderly, ex-soldier-turned-innkeeper, waving his cane with such vigor his granddaughter took it away. Everyone suddenly remembered how many more Cemandians there’d been around over the last year. And they all believed that the bard sent into Ohrid by King Theron would find out the Truth because, after all, that’s what bards did.
Training stepped in and Annice held her tongue. Pjerin a’Stasiek, Duc of Ohrid, a traitor? It didn’t seem possible. It couldn’t be possible. While she could call him a number of uncomplimentary names, traitor wasn’t one of them. All at once it became very important that she reach Bardic Hall without delay. Someone, somewhere, had made an incredible mistake.
* * * *
The summons activated as Annice slipped through the Bard’s Door, her own Song unlocking then locking it again behind her. Her heart pounding, she listened, glaring at nothing. When it finished and the last note had faded into silence, she hoisted her instrument case and strode purposefully down the narrow corridor, the soles of her boots slapping against the dressed stone. So the Bardic Captain wanted to see her immediately—good, because she wanted to see the Bardic Captain just as badly.
“Pjerin is not a traitor.” She’d been muttering it in varying tones of disbelief all the way through the city. The very idea would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. “I’ll have a few things to say to whatever idiot brought in that information.”
She was passing the training rooms, absently noting that one of the fledglings must have started trance work without her, when a sudden realization brought her up short and she stood, frozen to the spot, breath caught in her throat. The sound of approaching footsteps pushed her into an empty room and she sagged against the door as she closed it behind her. She couldn’t face anyone, and least of all the captain, until she worked this out.
Still leaning against the door, she Sang fire, lighting the lamp that stood on the table in the center of the room after her fourth attempt. All the training rooms were identical, tiny and windowless, and as soundproof as the Builders’ Guild and bardic ingenuity could make them. Distractions were the last things fledglings needed.
Annice dropped her instrument case on the floor and dropped herself into one of the two padded chairs. The captain could read nuance off a brick. She couldn’t help but draw the correct conclusions from a hysterical declaration of Pjerin’s innocence.
Allowing her jacket to fall open, Annice rubbed at the itchy skin of her swelling abdomen through sweater and shirt. “The Duc of Ohrid has been charged with treason—it’s ridiculous, but the charge will stand until he’s questioned under Command. The Duc of Ohrid is the father of my baby. By having this baby, I’m committing treason.” She sighed deeply. “What a mess. I couldn’t have got knocked up by some pretty shepherd. Oh, no—it had to be the Duc of Ohrid.”
Pjerin was innocent, Annice was as certain of that as she’d ever been of anything—he didn’t need her help. All her efforts had to be concentrated on not exposing her baby’s paternity to the Bardic Captain because, the moment that happened, the king would be told. Theron was a proud man; no one knew that better than she did. For him to discover she’d committed treason was one thing, for him to discover she’d committed it with a man accused of selling out his oaths was something else again. She had to protect her baby.
In order to do that, she’d have to discuss this whole situation and the Walk she’d made to Ohrid without giving anything away.
Impossible.
So she’d just have to give something else away.
* * * *
“And your personal opinion of the duc, Annice?” Liene’s tone made it very clear she’d tolerate no further dancing around the subject. Annice, after skimming a copy of young Leksik’s testimony, had given opinions on the political situation, economic prospects for the region, and the feelings of the people on everything from government to the weather, but had mentioned Pjerin a’Stasiek only in passing. The captain had strong suspicions about that omission; if she didn’t get a straight answer soon, she’d Command one.
Annice shifted in the chair, searching unsuccessfully for a position that would take the pressure off her lower back. “The duc,” she said levelly, “is loved and respected by the majority of his people. Not only because of the hereditary position he holds but also because he’s cast in the heroic mold. He, in turn, cares very much for his people and very much considers them to be his responsibility.”
“All that was in the recall, Annice.” Liene leaned forward, taking in the way the younger bard’s fingers had closed over the arms of the chair and tightened while she spoke of the duc. “And you edit your recall of personal material more tightly than any other bard Singing in Shkoder. I want to know what you thought of him.”
“What I thought o
f him.” Annice drew in a deep breath and released it in one short burst, obviously aware she wouldn’t be able to put it off any longer. “First and foremost, I thought he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. After a few hours under his roof, I soon came to realize that he’s incredibly strong-willed, stubborn, opinionated …” The words tumbled out as though the dam that had been holding them back had burst. “… arrogant, abrasive, pigheaded, mannerless, self-important, overbearing …” She sputtered to a stop at Liene’s upraised hand, panting slightly.
“Put it to music,” the captain suggested, her eyes narrowing. “Did you sleep with him?”
Annice lifted her chin defiantly. “I wanted to.”
It didn’t take a bard to read the implication. “But he didn’t want to sleep with you. Why not?”
“He’s the Duc of Ohrid.” The emphasis came without effort. Even stripped to the waist and wrestling a stubborn colt into a halter, Pjerin i’Stasiek had been definitively the Duc of Ohrid.
The captain, as intended, misunderstood.
“And you’re only a bard.” Liene finished the thought silently. And you’ve always gotten what you wanted, haven’t you, Princess? If he only knew who you really were; not that pride would allow you to tell him. You must have been furious. “The father?”
“Someone willing.”
“I see.” And she could see it. Exactly. Annice had probably stormed away from the duc and kicked the feet out from under the next person she met. Liene spared the fellow a moment’s sympathy and hoped his heart had been up to it. Then she spared another moment to Sing a silent and heartfelt gratitude that the fear she’d nursed had been unfounded.
“So …” Leaning back, Liene drummed her fingers against the edge of her desk in a martial rhythm. “Do you think the duc has agreed to open the pass to a Cemandian army?”
Annice tossed her head. “Only if they were willing to put him in charge of it,” she snapped.
There could be no mistaking the ring of truth that statement carried. Satisfied, the Bardic Captain nodded and relaxed for the first time since the kigh had contacted her with Tadeus’ news, the knot of worry that had settled between her shoulder blades easing away. “You’ve had quite an eventful couple of quarters, haven’t you? You bring a baby back from Ohrid, then you discover young Jurgis while Walking up coast. I think I’ll keep you around the Hall for a while before you inundate us with children.”
