Sing the Four Quarters

"Was it something I said?" The innkeeper laughed as the young woman continued her headlong dash out the door, ignoring him completely. Lifting a slab of fried ham off the grill and onto an already full plate, he slid the pile of food across to his other overnight guest. "Kids these days. You just can't make 'em understand that if you sit up all night drinkin' you pay for it in the morning."

The burly wool merchant lowered his tankard, wiped the ale foam off his mustache, and dug into his breakfast with enthusiasm. "Used to be," he said around a mouthful of fried potatoes, "I could empty a good half barrel on my own and never feel it. But these days…" He sighed and speared a pickled onion. "I remember when my youngest brother got joined; the hangover nearly killed me. I was seeing cross-eyed for three days."

"Wine," declared the innkeeper sagely. "Don't get that kind of a hangover on ale."

The merchant snorted. "Depends on how much you drink."

The story that followed probably contained as much wishful thinking as accuracy, but it was well enough told that the innkeeper rested his forearms on the counter and settled in to enjoy it. No point fixing more food when the only person around to eat it was still dumping her evening into the privy.

Annice spit the last of the bile out of her mouth and straightened, brushing damp strands of short, dark-blonde hair up off her forehead with the back of one hand. Her face felt clammy.

"No surprise," she muttered, sagging sideways against the rough plank wall. "All things considered."

Perfectly willing to pay for a night's excess, she considered it entirely outside the Circle to be so sick when she'd only had water and a little soft cider to drink. She hadn't overindulged—
Overindulged? I haven't even indulged
!—for about a month now because the smell of anything containing alcohol was enough to send her racing from the room.

In fact, the memory of the smell…

Stomach heaving, she bent over the hole again.

A few moments of painful dry retching later, she lifted her head.

"All right," she panted, stepping back. "If I don't shake this bug by the end of the week, I
promise
I'll see a healer."

With a shaking hand, she dumped a dipper of ash into the privy and fumbled at the door latch.

A cold wind roared across the courtyard and ripped the door out of her grasp. Reluctantly stepping out into the weather

—she'd thrown on barely enough clothes for decency and not nearly enough for warmth—she grabbed the door with both hands and fought to close it behind her. The wind fought back. Frowning, Annice peered around the edge.

A thin and sharply pointed face, stormy gray eyes the most well-defined point in the shifting features, hung in the air over the wind-sketched outline of an elongated body. A wide, nearly lipless mouth opened in silent laughter as long, pale fingers clung to the boards.

"Kigh," Annice muttered. "Just what I needed." Running her tongue over cracked lips, she whistled a series of four piercing notes.

Its expression clearly stating,
I didn't want to stay longer anyway
, the kigh let go of the door and rode the wind out of sight.

The privy door, now pulled in only one direction, slammed shut.

"Shit!" Sucking on her pinched finger and wrapping the other arm around her for warmth, Annice staggered toward the inn. I
remember when I used to like mornings
…

A wet fall, hanging on long past its time and leaving the roads a muddy quagmire, combined with the expectation of the river finally freezing had put a damper on

traveling and given Annice not only the Bard's corner but the entire dormitory to herself. Leaning against the lingering warmth of the huge stone chimney, she tucked in her linen shirt and struggled to close the carved wooden button at her waist.

"I suspect," she grunted, as she finally forced the button through and reached for her sweater, "that the cloth for these breeches wasn't as preshrunk as the weaver insisted."

Somewhat to her surprise, as the inn was only a day's walk from the Bardic Hall in Vidor, a heavy fleece overcoat, very nearly her size, had been left in the closet. Although she'd already switched to fleece-lined boots, she decided not to take it. It wasn't so cold that her oilcloth jacket wouldn't do and any bards walking the Final Quarter might need it more. Although she hated being wet with a cat's passion, the cold hadn't actually had much effect on her this year.

Placing the folded blankets up onto the shelves, she tossed in the pair of heavy socks she'd just finished knitting and Sang the closet locked.

Checking that both her instruments were secure, she heaved her pack up onto her shoulders and headed for the stairs.

"Down for breakfast, then?" the innkeeper called as she descended into the common room.

Annice smiled tightly and let her pack slide down onto the floor by the bar. "No. Thank you." As she breathed in the odors of the grill still hanging in the air, she could feel the nausea returning. "Just my journey food, please."

The innkeeper laughed, picked a heel of bread off the counter, and handed it to her. "Here, gnaw on this while I fetch your bundle. It'll help."

Although dubious, Annice obediently nibbled at the edge of the crust. It couldn't hurt and if there was any chance it
might
help…

The wool merchant watched her over the rim of his tankard. When he finally lowered it, empty, to the bar, he nodded at her pack. "Heading to Elbasan, then?"

"Yes."

"You finishing a Walk?"

He'd been in the common room the night before while she'd been singing, so he knew she was on her way home.

Annice considered pointing that out but decided it might be safer to continue repeating words of one syllable. "Yes."

"I'm going that way myself. I was late leaving Vidor on account of that fire at the Weavers' Guild. I suppose you heard about that?"

Annice forced down a gummy mouthful of well-chewed bread. "I'm carrying a follow-up," she told him with little enthusiasm, hoping he wouldn't want a recall. Every moment she stayed inside, inhaling the bouquet of greasy smoke and stale ale, increased the odds of another dash to the privy. Given the inn's nearness to the source, most of the story still sat on the surface of her memory, but she strongly suspected—from the tightening in her throat and the churning behind her belt—that even recalling it without trance would take
much
too long.

"Terrible thing." He dusted crumbs out of his beard. "Anyway, I found a pilot willing to risk freeze-up and take me into Riverton. You want a lift? It's a short walk into Elbasan from there and you'll be home in plenty of time for Final Quarter Festival."

Five days, weighed against eight, maybe ten walking.
Maybe more if whatever I've got doesn't let go
. As well as the nausea, she'd found herself tiring easily this last little while which meant more frequent stops and less distance traveled and not arriving home in time for the Festival which was when she was expected. Although she shuddered to think what the motion of the river would do to her stomach, it really wasn't a difficult choice.

"I'd love a lift. Thank you."

"Good, good. And maybe you could convince the kigh to get us there a little faster?"

Annice frowned. "You
know
we're not permitted to Sing you an advantage."

"An advantage?" The wool merchant's teeth flashed white in the depths of his beard. "Hardly that when everyone else is already downriver."

"You have a point…"

"And you
are
allowed to Sing boats out of freeze-up, I saw it done once."

"And you're splitting hairs." She sighed. "Still, if you're determined to go, then the faster you travel the less likely you'll get caught in freeze-up and have to hire a Song to get you free. So I suppose it would actually be doing a sort of public service if I helped."

His grin broadened.

you can rationalize anything if you want to do it badly enough
. "I'll do what I can, but the kigh decide."

"Good enough." He held out his fist. "Jonukas i'Evicka. Everyone calls me Jon."

Annice touched his fist lightly with hers. "Annice," she told him. Bards, like priests, used neither matronym or patronym, and after ten years her name alone was seldom enough to provoke a reaction.

The riverboat rode low in the water by the inn's dock, the pilot waiting impatiently on the stern deck by the sweep oar.

"What did you get hung up on?" she snarled as they approached. "And who's she?'

Jon leaped aboard, timing it expertly between swells. "She's a bard. Name's Annice. She'll be traveling with us."

The pilot's snort was nonverbal but expressive for all of that. "You payin' her weight?"

Annice swallowed another mouthful of the bread. To her grateful surprise, it seemed to be settling things. "I've offered to Sing. To help you reach Riverton before freeze-up."

"You a water?" Her tone seemed to indicate she considered it doubtful.

"I Sing all four quarters."

The pilot's brows disappeared under the edge of her knit cap. "Well, la de sink it da. You know the river?"

"I thought that was
your
job." The tone had been finely tuned to land just this side of insult.

The two women measured each other for a moment, then the pilot snickered. "Get on," she said, jerking her head at the tiny covered cockpit up in the bow. "River's runnin' too fast to need you today, but the Circle'll bring tomorrow around soon enough. Folk call me Sarlo. That's i'Gerda or a'Edko if you wanna do a song about me later. Make it romantic, I like them best. Now move yer butt."

More than willing to move her butt out of a wind that stroked icy fingers over any exposed skin, Annice took a deep breath and stepped across onto the narrow deck. Safely on board, she spat over the side and muttered, "We give to the river. The river gives back."

Sarlo started. "You know the rituals?"

Annice smiled up at her. "I'm a bard. Knowing the rituals is part of what we do."

One corner of the older woman's mouth twisted up. "Think highly of yerself, don't you?"

Annice's smile broadened. "I'd float with rocks in my pockets," she said.

Lashing her pack to the cargo stays, she wrestled herself, her instrument case, and the day's journey food into the tiny bullhide shelter tucked in between the cargo and the bow. When Jon and two bundles joined her a moment later, it got distinctly crowded.

"I hope you don't mind riding with the front curtain up." He tied it back as he spoke. "But I like to see where I'm going."

"Actually, right at the moment, I appreciate the fresh air." Between the smell of the hide and the lingering smell of tar clinging to the boat, Annice was beginning to regret the piece of bread.

"Still a bit queasy?" he asked, sitting down and managing to squeeze his shoulders in beside hers.

"No. I'm fine," Annice said. But she said it through clenched teeth.

Back on the stern deck, the pilot yelled a command and a pair of rope-soled boots under oilskin clad legs pounded into view.

"Sarlo's youngest, Avram," Jon explained as Annice craned around the edge of the shelter for a better look. "I think he's got a love in Riverton. Didn't take much convincing when his mother decided to take my cloth."

Late teens or early twenties
, the bard decided, watching Avram expertly work the side paddle. He was short and slight like most of the Riverfolk, but the hands wrapped around the paddle's polished shaft gave an instant impression of capable strength and seemed almost out of proportion to the rest of his body.

As though he felt her scrutiny, he half-turned, flicked a shock of dusty black hair up out of dark eyes, and grinned down at her.

In spite of the lingering nausea, Annice grinned back.
Good teeth and great hands, I do enjoy the scenery on the river
.

At another command from the stern, he rounded the bow and moved out of sight. With only the bare branches of trees blowing about on the far shore remaining to look at, Annice stifled a sigh and settled back.

Jon propped his feet up on the bow deck and pulled a ball of gray wool and four horn needles out from a small pack tucked under the seat. "I can't sit with empty hands," he explained. "And it takes most of my travel time just to keep myself in socks. I hate having wet feet."

"As a matter of fact…" Shifting her weight against the motion of the river, Annice got comfortable in the other corner and slipped an almost identical setup out of a pocket on the side of her instrument case. The fresh air seemed to be canceling out the rocking of the boat so, while she wasn't feeling any better, at least she wasn't feeling any worse.

Remembering the alternative, she decided she could live with that. "… I know exactly what you mean."

They sat knitting in companionable silence for a time, watching gray sky slide by above darker gray water, listening to the occasional profanity drifting up from the stern, when suddenly a gust of wind dove into the shelter, ripped the front curtains from the tiebacks, and belled the hide out above them.