Sing the Four Quarters

CHAPTER TWO

Done. Annice pulled off her mitten and rubbed the back of her hand under her nose. Sometimes Bardic Memory stinks. She didn't know whether she'd seen regret that afternoon or just imagined it. She'd never spoken to Theron, to any of them, again. Not once in ten years. She wasn't even sure if that was his idea or hers. "Annice?" Jon laid his huge hand lightly on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"I didn't mean your stomach."

She sighed and let it go with the breath.

"I know."

He sat back, still watching her, worry creasing his face.

"I'm sorry I brought it up." He offered her a tentative smile. "I'll forget it if you like."

"Will you forget that unenclosed song, too?"

"I'll even pound it out of my brother's head."

Annice grinned and held out her fist. "Done," she said.

"You want yer weight carried back upriver in the spring, Bard, you whistle me up." Sarlo smacked her fist into the top of Annice's with enthusiasm. The kigh had got them to Riverton one full day faster than average. "Pity I couldn't use yer help in the races."

"Wouldn't you rather win because of your skill not because of a push from the kigh?"

Sarlo snorted. "I'd rather win."

Grinning, Annice bent to pick up her pack but found Jon already holding it. "Thank you." She slipped her arms behind the leather straps, settled the familiar weight on her shoulders, and turned to face him. "And thank you for offering the ride. Considering the weather, and the way I'm feeling, I'd have been lucky to get home by First Quarter Festival, let alone Fourth."

A smile gleamed in the depths of his beard. "I was glad of the company. You sure you're going to be okay for this last little distance?"

"I just spent two quarters walking to Ohrid and back," she reminded him. "I think I can manage." She held out her fist. "Good trading, Jonukas i'Evicka."

"Good music, Annice." He let his fist rest against hers for a moment, "And see a healer. All that puking isn't natural."

She nodded. "The moment I get home. Or maybe first thing tomorrow," she amended, glancing at the rapidly darkening sky.

"Witness?"

"Jon, I can't witness for myself."

"Then promise."

"Oh, all right." Shaking her head, she traced the sign of the Circle over her heart. "I promise." She waved at Avram, who waved back from his perch on top of the cargo cover, and regretted one last time that she hadn't felt well enough, long enough, to try to get to know him better. Picking her way carefully along the wet rocks, she started up the dock toward home.

"Annice?"

Hand against the hull of a riverboat already out of the water for the season, Annice half twisted around.

"May I tell my brother?"

The brother who knew all twenty-seven verses to "The Princess-Bard." She laughed ruefully. "Why not?"

The rain held off and in spite of the road, a muddy mess from previous downpours that somehow seemed more resilient under her boots than it should, Annice reached the bridge over the new canal before full dark.

The East Keeper lumbered out of his tiny shelter and held out a massive hand.

"Bards don't pay toll," Annice reminded him and started to go around.

He blocked her path.

And most of the rest of the bridge, she realized. Big boy.

"How do I know you're a bard?"

"You could take my word for it." It wasn't healthy to lie about being a bard. Bards who found out tended not to take it very well.

"No, I can't." Crossing meaty arms over a barrel chest, the keeper scowled down at her. "Sing for me."

"What?"

"I want you to Sing me your name."

That she'd be expected to identify herself in order to enter the city used up about all the patience she had remaining. Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye and said, "Get out of my way."

He responded to her Command with the gratifying promptness shown by most petty tyrants and others of like personality. Resisting the urge to tell him to jump in the canal and realizing she was teetering just beyond the edge of her oath as it was, Annice stomped up and over the arch and into Elbasan.

Her mood lightened as she followed River Road into the heart of the city. Evenings were long at the dark end of the Third Quarter, so taverns and soup shops were doing their best business of the year. Annice briefly considered stopping for supper before she headed up the hill, but smells, individual and combined, from a thousand different sources changed her mind. She was not going to throw up in the gutter like a common drunk.

At least she hoped she wasn't.

Hill Street to the Citadel seemed steeper than it had when she'd left. She felt ready to collapse when she reached the wall and sagged panting against the stone by the gate. You'd think that after walking for two quarters I'd be in better shape. Nothing hurt, she just felt drained. As she stood there, trying to catch her breath, the clouds that had been threatening finally made good on their promise of rain. Shit.

Dragging up her hood, she decided she was too exhausted to Sing the Bard's Door open and staggered in under the arch of the main gate. She didn't know the guard on duty, but the bard had been a fledgling with her.

"Annice. Bard. Going to the Bardic Hall."

Jazep peered up under her hood. "Witnessed," he said. "You look like you've fallen out of the Circle, Nees." His deep voice rumbled with concern. "Rough Walk?"

"Long Walk," she told him, already moving. "I'll see you later."

The rain came down in icy sheets as she made her way diagonally across Citadel Square. A dry route existed through barracks and stables and storerooms, but she wasn't up to negotiating her way past their occupants. It was faster and easier to get wet.

Eventually, putting one foot in front of the other, she arrived at the main entrance to the hall. Lifting her head, she blew a drop of water off the end of her nose, pulled the door open, and went inside.

The bard sitting duty in the main hall glanced up from her book. "You're dripping."

"It's raining."

"Annice?"

Annice shook her hood back, spraying the immediate area with a fine patina of water.

"Well, I guess the Circle does hold everything. Welcome home, Annice." The older woman rested her fore arms on the desk and leaned forward, frowning. "You look awful."

"Thank you." If one more person told her that tonight, she was going to puke on their shoes. "If you'll record that I'm back, Ceci, I'm going up to bed. I don't even want to think about recall until morning."

"Do you want me to have the kitchen send something up?"

No. Except that she was starving. "Soup and bread. Thanks."

Ceci turned to watch as she started toward the stairs. "You going to make it all the way to your rooms?" she asked dubiously.

"Of course I am. I'm fine. I'm just a little tired. It's my punishment for sitting on my ass all the way from Vidor."

"Riverboat?"

"What else."

"You push?"

"A little."

"Captain won't like that."

"Extenuating circumstances."

Ceci laughed. "They always are. Stasya's out in the city."

"Good for her."

"When she comes in, shall I tell her you're back or let her find out for herself?"

Annice thought about it for a moment, then called down from the top of the stairs. "You'd better tell her. You know how she hates surprises."

"You're the one who wanted to be on the fourth floor," she reminded herself a few moments later, resting on the third floor landing. "And you're the one who wanted rooms at the back of the building not the front. You've got no one to blame for this final effort but yourself."

The soup and bread very nearly made it to her rooms before she did. She'd barely Sung the lamp alight and checked to see that the kigh dancing on the wick was safely contained when the server arrived.

"Just set the tray here," she said, lifting a jumbled heap of slates off a round table and searching desperately for a place to put them. As usual, Stasya had left their common room looking like a storm had recently passed through. Finally, as it seemed to be the only clear space remaining, she stuffed the slates under a chair, stood her instrument case against the wall, and shrugged her pack off to crash to the floor.

The older man clicked his tongue—at the noise or the mess, Annice wasn't sure which—and nudged a pile of colored chalks aside with the edge of the tray. "I brought you some cheese," he said, straightening. "Need more than just bread and soup after a Long Walk."

"I only walked in from Riverton today, Leonas," Annice pointed out, removing a half-strung harp and a pair of torn breeches from her favorite chair. "Not all the way from Ohrid."

Leonas ignored her. "Probably haven't had any decent food for the whole two quarters."

"I actually ate quite well."

He snorted and looked her over. "Gained a little weight, did you?"

Annice sighed. She couldn't win. "Good night, Leonas."

"Good night, Princess."

"Leo…"

"If I can call my Giz Cupcake when she never was one," he interrupted, glaring back at her from the threshold, "I can call you Princess when you aren't one no more. Get some sleep. You look terrible." Jerking the door closed behind him, he left Annice no room to argue.

Leonas had already been serving at the Bardic Hall for thirty years when the fourteen-year-old Annice arrived. Determined not to let it show, lest word get back to her brother, she was hurt and confused and had no idea of how not to act like a princess. Leonas had gruffly taken her under his wing, explaining little things it had never occurred to the bards that she wouldn't know, easing the transition as much as he could. Over the years, he'd slid into the role of trusted retainer and if he wanted to call her "Princess," she supposed he'd earned the right. She tried to discourage it, though; she'd long left that life behind.

Stripping off her wet clothes and letting them lie where they fell, she pulled a heavy woolen robe and sheepskin slippers from the wardrobe in her bedroom, shuffled down the hall to use the necessity—fortunately running into no one with whom she'd have to make conversation—then finally sat down to eat.

The soup was excellent, big chunks of tender clam in a thick vegetable stock. Not entirely trusting her stomach, Annice saved the bread and cheese for later.

She thought about lighting a fire, but—in spite of the rain slapping against the shutters—it just wasn't cold enough to justify making the effort. Besides, once in bed with the curtains closed, she'd be plenty warm enough. Setting thought to action, she picked up the lamp and shuffled into the bedroom.

Blankets and sheets were heaped in a tangled pile. The down comforter trailed on the floor, evidence of a hasty departure, and all but one of the four pillows had been thrown to the foot of the bed.

"I can't believe she can sleep in this," Annice muttered, tugging the mess into some semblance of order. "And I don't even want to know how she tore that corner of the curtain." Bed finally tidied, she Sang the kigh in the lamp a gratitude and, in the dark, slipped off her robe and slid naked between the sheets. Just as they began to warm around her body, her bladder decided to get her up again.

"I just went!" she told it.

It didn't seem to matter.

"If it isn't one end lately, it's the other," she complained, groping for her slippers. "I am really getting tired of this."

"Nees? Are you asleep?"

Annice roused enough to murmur an affirmative, then gasped as a cold body wrapped around hers. "Stasya, you're freezing!"

"You're not. You're nice and warm."

"I was nice and warm."

"Oh, hush. I'll warm up in a minute and you won't even know that I'm here."

"Not likely." Annice squirmed as the other woman began chewing on her ear. "Stop it, Stas. I'm tired."

"I missed you…"

"I missed you, too, but I'm tired."

"Can I welcome you home in the morning?"

"You can do what you want in the morning," Annice muttered, "if you'll just let me sleep now."

When she woke again, weak light shone through the space between the bedcurtains, enough to illuminate the woman propped on one elbow and staring down at her.

"Hi."

"Hi yourself." Stasya smiled and waggled dark brows. "It's morning. Welcome home. Remember what you promised?"

She remembered a cold body very clearly, but the rest only vaguely. "Stas…"

"Stas…" The other woman mocked and leaned forward. "It was witnessed by a bard," she whispered, breath tickling Annice's lips.

"Stasya." Annice shoved her aside as her stomach rose to greet the day. "Get out of my way. Now!"

"How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know." Panting, Annice sat back on her heels, steadying herself against the toilet. A while now."

Stasya leaned against the open door of the cubicle and frowned. "What do the healers say?"

"I haven't seen one."

"You are such an idiot. Why not?"

"I figured I'd see one when I got home."

"Fine. You're home. Are you finished?" Stasya stepped forward, bent, and helped Annice to her feet. "You can go see one right now."

"But I haven't talked to the captain yet."

"So?"

Yanking the chain that flushed water through the pipes with one hand, Annice secured her robe with the other. "In case you've forgotten, I just got back from a Long Walk; I'll be in recall all morning."

"Healers take precedence."

"But I'll likely have to sit around the Hall for hours before they can see me."

"Not at this time of the morning." Fingers locked around Annice's arm just above the elbow, Stasya propelled her down the corridor and into their rooms. "Get dressed," she commanded. "You're going to see a healer if I have to drag you, so you might just as well go comfortably on your own two feet."

Realizing that Stasya had made up her mind and resistance was therefore futile, Annice sighed and surrendered. "It's going to be a waste of time," she muttered. "They won't know what it is. They never know…"

"When was the last time you had your flows?"

"My flows?" Annice frowned as she shrugged back into her clothing. "Oh, come on, Elica, I can't remember that."

The healer rolled her eyes. "You're a bard. You can remember if you want to."

"Well…" The frown smoothed out as Annice slid into a light recall. "I was between Adjud and Ohrid. Four days out of Adjud and thirteen from Ohrid."

"How long ago were you in Ohrid?"

"Nine weeks."

"So you've missed two, almost three cycles." Elica pushed a carved wooden box out of the way and sat on the edge of her table. "Didn't you ever wonder about that?"

"I was on a Long Walk. I had other things on my mind."

"You shouldn't have."

"Why?" Annice's head came up and her tone sharpened defensively. "What have I caught?"

"You haven't caught anything," the healer sighed. "You're pregnant."

"You're WHAT?"

"Keep your voice down," Annice hissed, pushing past her. "Do you want the whole Citadel to know?"

Stasya hurried to catch up as Annice stomped down the corridor of the Healers' Hall. "You're kidding, right?"

"No."

"Well, how did it happen?"

"How the empty Circle do you think? The usual way."

"What about the teas the healers gave you?"

"I gave them to a woman who'd had seven babies in six years. She seemed to need them more."

"Very commendable, I'm sure, but none of her babies were committing treason in the womb." Together they pounded out of the Healers' Hall and across the courtyard. "Annice! Slow down. Where are you going?"

"I've got to talk to the captain."

"I'll say. Can you get rid of it, or has it gone too far?"

"I can. But I'm not going to. That's why I have to talk to the captain."

"This," Stasya said with feeling, as they raced up the stairs to the captain's chambers, "is what comes of sleeping with men."

Liene stared up at the young woman standing on the other side of her desk. Why me? she asked the Circle silently. Or more to the point, why her? "You're positive?"

"Healer Elica is."

Wonderful. The Bardic Captain closed her eyes and heard King Mikus ask in memory if she had known about his youngest daughter's boon. It had been a fair question. The old scoundrel had bloody well known she'd been after his permission to recruit Annice for almost a year. Practically every time the child opened her mouth, kigh flocked around her. Allowing that kind of talent to remain untrained would have been criminal. Even more so considering how badly Annice had wanted to be a bard.

Eyes still closed, Liene rewitnessed the old king's declaration and the new king's conditions. She'd strongly disapproved of those conditions, but the king had refused to listen to her counsel. The child had been only fourteen, so she'd decided to deal with both conditions and king later. As Annice threw herself into her studies, becoming less the princess and more the bard, later moved farther and farther away.

Later, Liene sighed silently, seems to have come home to roost.

The Bardic Oath stressed the responsibilities of power but mentioned nothing about celibacy, and Annice was not the first bard to conceive. While it didn't happen often—the healers thought it had something to do with Singing the kigh—babies had been raised in Bardic Halls before. Bards had even occasionally left to raise babies with nonbardic partners. Babies happened. Sometimes, they even happened on purpose. Personally, the captain rather liked having children around, although not to the extent that she'd ever thought of having her own.

She could hear the young woman fidgeting and reluctantly opened her eyes to meet a cautiously defiant gaze. "You do realize that, considering the king's edict, what you did was, to say the least, irresponsible?"

Annice tossed her head. "I didn't do it on purpose." Liene leaned back and slowly lifted one brow. "My point," she said, "exactly." When understanding registered, she sighed and leaned forward again. "I realize why you gave away the tea, Annice, although, as we've been importing it from the south at ridiculous prices to prevent exactly this situation, I'm sure you realize that I wish you'd never met the woman. The deed being done, however, didn't it occur to you to temper later actions?" A blush stained Annice's cheeks deeply pink in spite of color left by two quarters on the road. "It only happened the once. There just weren't any alternatives handy, and…"

"Never mind." A chronicle of spontaneous passion was more than Liene felt up to at the moment. "You're certain about the father?"

"Yes, Captain."

"And it's none of my business. Succinctly put. Annice's voice control was a credit to her training. "Do you feel any obligation to let him know?"

"No, Captain. It was a casual encounter. He'll have no interest in a child from it."

Because a difficult situation would be marginally less difficult if the father never knew, Liene was willing to go along with Annice's assessment. "And you're determined to continue the pregnancy?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Why?" Annice repeated, looking confused. "You're still within the healer's limits. Why continue when, considering His Majesty's edict, it would be easier—not to mention less dangerous—to terminate?"

Annice paced the length of the room and back, then bent over and placed her palms very precisely on the edge of the captain's desk. "Look, Captain, I'm twenty-four years old. I'm in excellent health. I haven't got a family anymore and I suddenly find that I want one now I've got this chance."

"I thought the bards had become your family, Annice."

She caught the older woman's gaze and held it. "Have they?"

Liene recognized the challenge. One family had turned their backs on this young woman already. Would a second? "If I support you in this, it is my treason, a bardic treason, as much as it is yours."

"I know that."

"The king would be within his rights to have everyone who knew and who didn't tell him put to the sword."

Annice almost smiled. "Then tell everyone."

"Your point," Liene acknowledged. "As he certainly can't execute us all, we're safe enough. But, considering it objectively, you're probably just as safe. You don't honestly believe that His Majesty would have you put to death over this matter, do you?"

"I can't afford not to believe it. I have my baby's life to consider."

"Then you should go into hiding."

"Where would be safer than Bardic Hall?"

Just about anywhere farther than a stone's throw from the palace, Liene thought but she kept that opinion to herself as she recognized the expression on Annice's face. Nothing she could say would change the younger bard's mind at this point and, as she herself didn't believe there was any great danger, she decided not to make it an order. His Majesty would find out about the baby in due time and then things would get interesting. Bards appreciated that. Still…

"I think you should tell him," she said finally.

"I'm a bard." Annice straightened, brown eyes narrowing. "Why should a bard have to tell the king she's having a baby?"

"He's your brother."

"He proclaimed me out of the family. He shouldn't be able to have it both ways."

Liene drummed her fingers on her desk as she considered the options, one hand beating counterpoint to the other. It didn't seem worth mentioning that, as the king, he could have it any way he wanted it. "Very well, Annice." The rhythms merged and stopped. "The Bardic Hall will support your choice as it would any other bard's."

"Thank you."

She saw Annice's shoulders visibly relax and allowed her tone to soften as she realized just how worried the young bard had been. "I suggest, however, that we work out a way for you to keep a low profile. There's no point rubbing King Theron's nose in your decision." Again, she added silently. While the maneuver that had gotten Annice into the Bardic Hall originally had been ingenious—the deathbed promise of the old king could hardly be disallowed by the new, regardless of his personal plans—it had been significantly lacking in tact. "When are you due?"

"Uh…" A quick calculation got chewed out of her lower lip. "Just into Second Quarter."

"How do you feel?"

"Nauseous mostly."

"I've heard that should stop soon. I'll have a word with the healer—Elica was it?—before I schedule you in for even Short Walks this coming quarter."

"I'm fine. Really."

"If you don't mind, I'll check with the healer anyway. Now then…" fingers laced together, Liene allowed herself a smile, "as long as you're here, did anything else of interest happen during the two quarters you were away?"

Again the blush. "There were more Cemandian traders around than usual."

"You're not the first to mention it. Anything else?"

"Actually, there is. Cemandian superstitions seem to be growing stronger in the mountain provinces. Although most people seemed glad enough to see me, I caught an extraordinary number of these…" Annice flicked her fingers out in the Cemandian sign against the kigh. "… thrown in my direction."

That was not good news and would have to be dealt with the moment the weather allowed bards back into the mountains. A greater amount of intolerance seemed to be accompanying the greater number of traders. Liene wondered, for a moment, if it were an intentional import. "Any overt hostility?"

"No. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to mean much yet. But it's spreading enough so that even a wool trader from Marienka noticed it."

"And the rest of the Walk?"

Although she tried to remember the highlights, it soon became apparent Annice was having trouble concentrating on the details of the last two quarters. Under the circumstances, Liene could hardly blame her and dismissed her early. At least in recall she'd be able to report her observations without the emotional interference caused by this new knowledge of her condition.

Sighing deeply as the door closed behind the young bard, the captain tipped her chair back and swung her feet up on the desk, wincing with the movement. Every year after fifty seemed to drive the damp deeper into her bones.

It had been an interesting morning and looked as though it would get more interesting still.

"Treason, my ass." Liene rubbed at her temples. Overreacting to his youngest sister's coup, King Theron had hit back as hard as he'd been able to with the limited weapons Annice had left him.

It was long past time for a reconciliation. This would force it. The king, while an admirable man in every other way, was deaf to counsel concerning his youngest sister, and Annice had a stubborn streak that bordered on pigheaded. Neither could be brought to see that they were equally at fault.

Had Theron not been king, the situation would have resolved itself long ago, but not even the Bardic Captain dared tell the king what he should and should not feel, and there were few things more extreme than royal pride. Annice had not helped when, in her second year of training, she'd rejected her brother's one attempt at compromise. Liene hadn't been surprised; had His Majesty been trying to further alienate his sister, he could not have done a better job.

While she'd meant what she'd said about not rubbing King Theron's nose in Annice's pregnancy, only a fool would doubt that eventually he'd discover it.

Bards were terrible at keeping secrets. They insisted on putting them to music.

"Can you hear me, Annice?"

"I hear you."

Slane picked up his first pen. "Begin recall."

Deeply in trance, Annice started to speak, each word carefully enunciated. "I left Elbasan in early morning, one day after Second Quarter Festival…"

The two quarter scroll began to fill with bardic shorthand and Slane let the greater part of his mind wander. Some bards never quite got the hang of editing out their personal lives, but Annice, no matter how deep she went, had never let a salacious detail slip.

Observant, Slane acknowledged. But boring. With any luck, he'd be on recall when Tadeus came in. Now there was a bard who knew how to party.

A baby. Shoulders braced on the stone chimney, Annice slid down until she settled on the roof of Bardic Hall. She was going to have a baby. Between her discussion with the captain and the rest of the day spent in recall, this was the first chance she'd really had to just think about it.

At least the weaver hadn't lied about the wool for her breeches being preshrunk.

A baby.

She let her head fall back against the masonry hard enough to snap her teeth together. "What in the Circle do I think I'm doing?"

Having a baby.

"I don't know anything about babies!"

But she knew she wanted it. Had wanted it from the moment Elica had told her. Or perhaps a little after that, when she'd calmed down and stopped demanding to see a healer who knew what she was doing.

A cold wind off the harbor moved her around to sit on the palace side of the chimney. In a little while, when the lamps were lit inside, she'd be able to see her old suite. It wouldn't take much to discover who was living there now—she could Sing a kigh over to the windows in a couple of minutes—but she didn't want to know. Hadn't ever wanted to know. She went into the palace to take her turn witnessing in the courts but that was it. She'd never been asked to play at any function and she'd never attended any that were within her rights as a bard to attend.

Although Bardic Hall and the palace were both within the Citadel walls, there was no chance of an accidental meeting with His Gracious Majesty, King Theron. He lived surrounded by insulating layers of people and protocol and moved in circles far from those of a lowly Bard. Even while growing up with the full rights and privileges of a princess, she'd gone for months without seeing her father.

But Theron could have called for her at any time. Their father had often spoken with the bards just returned from Walks rather than relying solely on the records. Apparently, it hadn't occurred to him that a bard who'd spent the first fourteen years of her life learning politics and protocol might make useful observations.

It didn't take Bardic Memory to recall the message that had accompanied the invitation to her cousin's joining—Theron had added a pompous declaration of forgiveness for the mistakes of her youth. Well, he'd been the one who'd cut her off from everything she'd known and she hadn't forgiven him. She'd said as much in the message that had gone back to the palace. All she'd wanted was for him to say that he was sorry for the way he'd hurt her. He never had.

It didn't matter. As the captain had said, the bards were her family now.

Annice slid one hand inside her jacket and pressed it against her waist. She remembered how Theron had looked when he'd laid his heir in her arms. He'd stared down at his daughter as though she was the most amazing creature he'd ever seen, as though she was the only baby ever born.

Annice tilted her head to watch the sky as lights began to break up the block of shadow dusk had wrapped around the palace. I want to feel what Theron felt when he looked down at Onele. I want something I can love that much.

A gust of wind, cold across her ear, brought her head around in time to see a kigh disappear below the eaves. So much for quiet contemplation; she wouldn't be alone for much longer.

"Although, come to think of it, I haven't exactly been alone for about nine weeks."

Stasya Sang the kigh a gratitude and beat her head lightly against the casement. Annice was on the roof again, sitting at the base of one of the chimneys where the ridge of slate flattened out for about a foot all around. It wasn't actually as dangerous as it seemed, or the captain would've put a stop to it years ago, but it was a habit that drove Stasya crazy.

If she wants to be alone, why doesn't she just close the bedroom door? Stasya hadn't gotten an answer to that question at any time over the last ten years and wasn't expecting one any time soon.

"Nees?" She directed her voice up and over the edge of the eaves. "Nees, you're going to freeze or fall off or something. Why don't you come down?"

Annice's voice, equally directed, drifted back. "Why don't you come up?"

"Because I don't have a death wish."

"Chicken."

She's going to cluck in a minute. Stasya tucked the ends of her scarf into her jacket, and stepped out onto the small balcony just as the henhouse noises began. Considering that she never even saw a chicken that wasn't covered in some kind of sauce until she was fifteen, she's not bad.

The steeply pitched roof of Bardic Hall almost met the floor of the balcony. Bolted down beside the gabled window, a narrow metal ladder—intended for use by the chimney sweeps who descended on the Hall once a quarter—stretched up to Annice's perch. Stasya peered up at the dark on dark silhouette against the late afternoon sky, blew on her fingers to warm them, and began to climb. Having spent her childhood clambering about the rigging of her parents' ship, she had no problem with either the physical effort or the distance from the ground, but she couldn't get her head around the concept.

"Why the roof?" she asked, as she'd asked a hundred times, sitting down beside Annice with a heavy sigh.

"I think better up here. With nothing around me but sky…"

"… your mind is unfettered. I've heard you sing the song, Annice. I've sung it myself. I just keep hoping you'll come up with a reason that isn't such a bardic cliche." She sat back and swept her gaze over the view. "Palace looks a lot smaller from up here."

"Last time you said it looked bigger."

"That was then. This is now. Nees, are you sure you're not having this baby just to get the king's attention?"

Annice twisted around to stare at her. "Are you nuts? Stas, if he finds out, I'm dead. And so is the baby."

"You don't really believe that."

"I have to."

"You don't."

"Stasya." Annice made the name a warning.

"All right." She threw up her hands. "I think you want a reconciliation, but you're just too stubborn to make the first move and you've finally come up with something he can't ignore. But you don't have to listen to me."

"I'm not."

"I also think that's a really bad reason to have a baby."

Annice glared at her for a moment, then pointedly looked away. The brittle silence that followed stretched into an uncomfortable length of time.

"Nees?"

"You're wrong."

"About what?"

"Everything."

Then why didn't you have the captain tuck you away out of sight? Stasya asked silently. But all she said aloud was, "All right. It was an accident. Then why are you keeping it?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"Maybe because we all want to know."

"I'll tell you the same thing I told the captain. I want a family. I lost the one I had and now I have a chance to start another."

"Babies don't love unconditionally, Annice. I helped raise four younger brothers and you wouldn't believe how self-centered the little shitheads can be."

"Maybe I want someone I can love unconditionally."

"What am I, fish guts?"

"It's not the same."

"I should hope not."

"Stasya, when I think about this baby, I feel the way I feel when I Sing; that sense of everything snapping into place and being, if only for a little while, absolutely right."

"Oh." Stasya reached out and laced her fingers through the other woman's. "Why didn't you say so?" She still believed Annice was making a deliberate attempt to attract King Theron's attention, but she was willing to allow for the rise of stronger feelings. "It might be kind of nice to have a baby around."

"So you don't want to move out? Find a new set of rooms?"

"Not unless you start going all esoteric Mother-goddess on me."

Annice snorted. "Hard to be an esoteric Mother-goddess and puke your guts out at the same time."

"Good point. What did Slane say about it when he took your recall?"

"It didn't come up. Unlike certain other bards, I don't kiss and tell, even under trance. Besides, I found out this morning and the Walk ended last night."

"Another good point. Nees, I can't feel my butt any more. Can we go in now?"

"Sure." Annice stood and had to make a sudden grab for Stasya's shoulder as a kigh whipped around the chimney and almost sent her off the roof. Heart in her throat, she watched it disappear into the clouds, eyes so wide they hurt. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah. I saw. Let's get inside. Now."

"I'm sorry, Annice. I should have warned you. Your pregnancy is affecting your orientation to the kigh."

"What do you mean? Air kigh don't like babies?"

"No, but they're jealous. You always Sang strongest in air and they can feel that changing."

"To what?"

"Earth."

"Oh, great."

"It shouldn't be too much of a difference for you, you've Sung earth before."

"Not often. There isn't anything you can do with earth. Except maybe grow things."

"I warned you about that Mother-goddess shit," Stasya snickered.

"Shut up, Stas! Captain, there's got to be something I can do."

"Bit late in the cycle for gardening."

"Shut up, Stas!"

Liene bit down on a smile. "Well, to begin with, I suggest that you stay off the roof. And then, you should ask Terezka some questions. Her Bernardas is just two; she should still remember what she went through. Don't ask anything of Edite, she hasn't forgiven Dasa for choosing to live with her father."

"But that happened five years ago."

"I know."

Annice shook her head. At least she wouldn't have to worry about that.

"Sarlote just left to spend Fourth Quarter with her family—Hard to believe that Ondro's almost ten, isn't it?—but she'll be back before you're due and you can talk to her then. Speak with Taska and Ales if you want, but they're grandmothers now and I'm pretty sure their memories of the experience have been gentled by time."

Stasya made a face. "Oh, I can't see why. Puking and pains are memories I'd want to hang on to."

Smiling sweetly, Annice kicked her in the shin. "Good," she said. "Remember that."

"They know, don't they?"

"What are you talking about?" Stasya asked, mopping up gravy with a thick slice of bread. "Who knows what?"

"The fledglings, at the end of the other table. They're looking at me."

Stasya swiveled around on the bench and the three youngsters immediately became interested only in their dinners. Sighing theatrically, she turned back and shook her head at Annice. "Of course they're watching you. They got here while you were Walking and now you're back they're checking to see if you match the songs. Every new kid for the last ten years has done the same thing. I thought you were used to it by now."

"You're sure that's all it is?"

"Yes, I'm sure." She shot another glance over her shoulder. "And with any luck that blonde'll grow into her nose."

"Stas…"

"She looks like she should be wearing a hood and jesses."

"Stasya!"

"What?"

"You are being really cruel."

Stasya grinned. "And you are really being an idiot."

Annice pushed a boiled bit of something around on her plate. "I know. I'm sorry." She put down her knife, picked it up again, and stabbed at a piece of meat. "It's just that when I walked into the dining room, I felt…"

"Sick?"

"Exposed. Like I had a purple 'p' painted on my forehead or something."

"No one knows but me and the captain, Nees, but you've got to get used to the fact that they're all going to find out."

"All of them? Why all of them?"

She looked so startled that Stasya reached for her hand. "Nees, sweetie, you're going to get—how can I put this delicately?—bigger. Bards are trained to observe. They'll notice."

"I hadn't thought of that."

You haven't thought of much, Stasya realized, but she kept it to herself. "I can't believe I haven't asked you this yet, but who's the father?"

"This isn't to go into any songs."

"I swear. I'll have it witnessed if you like." She pitched the word "witness" to carry.

Of the nine other bards in the dining room, only Terezka, busy picking bits of carrot out of her son's hair, didn't turn.

Teeth clenched, Annice waved them back to their meals. "Don't be such a jerk," she muttered.

"You're the one who cast aspersions on my discretion." Stasya bracketed her plate with her elbows, cupped her chin in her hands, and leaned forward. "So tell."

"Pjerin a'Stasiek."

"Never heard of him."

"He's the Due of Ohrid." Stasya continued to look blank so she added, "Remember 'Darkling Lover'?"

"That Due of Ohrid? You're kidding."

Annice flushed. "Why would I kid about something like that?"

Stasya shrugged. "I don't know. Why would you sleep with the Due of Ohrid?"

"Well, for one thing, the song's right—he's absolutely gorgeous. And for another…" Annice frowned as she remembered violet eyes and a thick fall of ebony hair and a night that very nearly blew the roof off the keep. "Actually," she said thoughtfully, "there isn't another. Pjerin a'Stasiek is the kind of man you don't mind going to bed with…"

"You don't mind going to bed with," Stasya corrected acerbically.

"… but you wouldn't look forward to facing over breakfast the next morning."