Sing the Four Quarters (9 page)

"Oh." She stared into the past and slowly smiled. "Now I remember."

"I thought you might."

"He threw the Due of Vidor's cousin—that overbearing, pompous cretin—into a pile of horse manure. He was like a breath of fresh air."

"More like a bloody gale. By all reports, he hasn't changed. If anyone can hold Defiance Pass, he can."

"So the next logical question becomes, will he?"

Theron sighed. "I like to think so. He seemed to take his oaths seriously enough. Still, he's never attended a Full Council, always sends a proxy. I didn't care much either way, but now I wish I'd gotten to know the due better. The mountain provinces are poor, far from Elba-san, and, if you ignore the obstacle of the mountains, Ohrid is considerably closer to Cemandia." He shifted again in the chair, as though the edges of potential trouble kept prodding him. "According to the captain, a bard's just returned from there and they're transcribing the recall now. I told her to send it over the instant it's readable." His voice changed slightly, picking up a speculative tone. "The due has a son."

"How old?"

"Four."

"Brigita's ten, Theron. Four years until she's old enough to consult and ten until the boy is. It doesn't sound like we have that kind of time." Lilyana stood and shook out the heavy velvet folds of her skirt, "It sounds to me that you've done all you can. Further decisions-will have to wait on more information."

The king snorted. "I don't wait well."

"Nonsense. You just don't enjoy it much." She moved around his chair and placed her hands on his shoulders. "And as Brigita is far from old enough to be consulted about joining anyone, why worry about
that
now?"

His shoulders rose and fell beneath her touch. "I don't know."

"Because you love her." She bent and lightly kissed the top of his head. "The father wars with the king; the demands of the heart with the demands of the crown." Her fingers tightened for an instant. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have things to ready for tonight's vigil and tomorrow's festival."

Theron sat for a while longer after she left, sat while a servant stoked the fire, sat while the sunlight faded. He didn't often have the opportunity to just sit. And think.

This could have all been solved ten years ago.

How many times had he left meetings with a succession of Cemandian ambassadors and thought that? A thousand. A hundred thousand.

Solved but at what cost?

He'd only just started to work at that. And every time he considered a joining for one of his children, he got closer to an answer.

I
never wanted her to be unhappy
.

She made me look like a fool. Like a tyrant. As though 1 couldn't be reasoned with.

But I never wanted her to be unhappy.

"Annice? Are you in there? It's almost sunset, we're going to be late."

Annice came out of the privy, adjusting her robe. "All things being enclosed, it's a good thing water's the closest quarter to the door."

"All things being enclosed," Stasya repeated wryly as they hurried toward the Center. "When was the last time you Sang water at a vigil?"

"Two years ago," Annice told her smugly. "I was on a Walk and I ended up perched on a stool in a shepherd's cottage, surrounded by about a dozen more people than the place could hold, three orphaned lambs, two cats, and seven kittens.

I Sang all four quarters in rotation throughout the night. By dawn, I was so hoarse I Sang the sun back as a bass-baritone."

"Show off."

"I have a feeling tonight pays for expediting my trip downriver. When the captain gave me the assignment, she said,
After all, you've had practice Singing water lately
. The word practice dripped with double meaning."

Stasya laughed at the impersonation—Annice had the captain's acerbic tone down pat—but sobered quickly. "Maybe she just wanted you where I could keep an eye on you. Are you sure you're going to be able to do this?"

"I slept most of the day, I've got dried fruit and a flask of water in my pouch, and I only have to stand while I Sing."

Annie followed Stasya through the Bard's Door and waited while she Sang it closed. From the outside of the building the door would now appear to be part of a wall of unbroken stone—symbolism insisted that Centers have only four entrances. "As long as I can run off to pee in between solos," she continued as they started up the spiral staircase, "I'll be fine."

"Yeah, but…"

"Stas! Don't fuss. This baby and I walked all the way back from Ohrid, didn't we? I think I can manage a vigil."

As Stasya had reached the gallery, she could only turn and silently glare.

Rolling her eyes, Annice climbed the last few steps, and set her mouth against her lover's ear. "I'll be fine," she whispered, added a kiss, and pushed the other bard toward her own position. She watched Stasya's robe—the pale gray-blue of a winter's sky—until it disappeared into the shadows, then stepped through the curtain and out onto the small semicircular balcony where she'd be spending the night.

Down below, the choir was gathered around the altar and crowds of people were standing more-or-less quietly, waiting. Directly beneath her at the south door, eddies of movement marked latecomers racing sunset. Across the great round chamber, a baby began to fuss. Annice wasn't sure if there were a greater number of children present than usual or if she were merely more aware of them.

She watched an obvious family group rearrange itself around a young woman carrying a squirming toddler, and found herself suddenly remembering the horrified expression on Theron's face when an infant Onele had started to scream the moment one of the priests began to invoke the vigil. Lilyana had calmly rearranged her mantle, lifted her shrieking daughter out of Theron's arms, and put her to the breast. The Annice of memory had somehow managed not to giggle.

Tonight, the king and his family would be in the Center at the Citadel. The captain would be Singing there with the three of the senior bards and the fledglings. Fledglings always Sang at the Citadel during their training as it helped to emphasize their duty to Shkoder. Annice had only been able to get through those years, pointedly ignored by her family, by immersing herself completely in the Song.

She shifted, her chest tight, forcing her attention back to the here and now. Closing her hands around the polished wood of the balcony rail, she turned, and with the crowds below, watched the light begin to fade from the west windows. As the colors dulled in the intricate pat terns of stained glass arcing up into the vault of the ceiling, the choir began to sing the farewell to the sun.

Annice shivered.

When the last note slid into silence, the last of the light went with it, plunging the Center into darkness.

Somewhere in the crowd, a priest called out, "From light into darkness into light again."

The people answered, "The Circle encloses us all."

From balconies in the four quarters of the chamber, the bards began to Sing. First, air; Stasya's powerful soprano rose to open the shutters in the vault. Leaning into the rush of wind, Annice called water into the Song and heard the fountain on the altar leap into life. The next instant, her body thrummed with the stones of the Center as Jazep's resonant bass evoked earth. The three of them wove a melody for a dozen heartbeats, then paused for a dozen more as an achingly pure tenor Sang fire.

The darkness vanished as a burst of flame crowned the four great candles as well as the hundreds of smaller ones held carefully by the crowd.

Annice felt the hair on the back of her neck lift as the elements united into one glorious, all-encompassing whole and it became impossible for that moment to tell if she were singer or part of the Song. Then, just as the paean trembled on the edge of what flesh and blood could bear, the choir took up the melody. Panting, fingers laced across her abdomen, Annice staggered and sat down heavily on the narrow bench, listening as Stasya Sang the first of the solos that would continue until dawn.

Final Quarter vigil had begun. Throughout Shkoder—in Centers, in their homes, out under the stars—people kept the light alive, waiting on this the longest night of the year for the return of the sun.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Elica?" Annice brushed a dangling bit of vine out of her way and stepped down into the warm, moist air of the small, glass-enclosed room that jutted off the back of the Healers' Hall. "Are you in here?"

What had appeared to be a bundle of cloth on the far side of a tiny, central hearth straightened out and became the healer. Her hands full of dried plants, she stared at Annice in disbelief. "Oh, no. Is it that late already?"

"Later. I've been waiting in your chambers. When one of the apprentices told me that you were in the growing room, I came searching." Stepping over a pile of earth, Annice walked slowly down the narrow aisle, staring around her in amazement. On either side, five graded shelves covered in plants rose in staggered ranks from the floor to about hip high. Above the shelves, walls and ceiling were constructed of glass—more clear glass than Annice had ever seen in one place in her life. Outside, although the sun shone, the temperature had dipped below freezing, and a cold wind danced swirls of yesterday's snow against the glass. Inside, summer reigned. And the closer she got to the hearth, the more summerlike it grew. "What
is
this place?"

"In simple terms, a Fourth Quarter herb garden." Gathering up her apron, Elica dropped what she carried into the fold and secured the bundle at her waist, leaving her hands free to sketch theories in the air. "The glass concentrates the sunlight for the plants and also heats the room."

"But the hearth…"

"The hearth keeps the temperature constant after dark."

Dressed for the cold, Annice could feel sweat trickling down her sides. "Okay, so that's what it is. But what's it for?"

"We're trying to grow some of the healing plants we import from the south. Most of them are so expensive. But…"

She spread her hands triumphantly and smiled. "… if we can grow them ourselves, we can lower the cost and use them for more people. Like the teas you were taking to prevent pregnancy."

Annice decided to ignore the implied sarcasm. "What an absolutely brilliant idea." She added just enough Voice so that the healer would know how much she meant it and realized it must have been Elica's idea when the other woman flushed with pleasure. "Really, truly brilliant. But how did you afford all this glass?" Some of the small panes were quite green and a number showed bubbling or other obvious flaws, but, considering what glass of a similar quality had cost her and Stasya for the two windows in their sitting room, the sheer quantity present represented a considerable expenditure by the Healers' Hall. Not even the palace could afford glass windows in every room.

"The Matriarch of the Glassmakers' Guild donated most of it and bullied some of the other members into donating the rest. She's very interested in developing a local source for those teas. Her daughter died in childbirth, you see, and—"

Suddenly remembering Annice's condition, Elica winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"Don't worry about it." Annice shrugged and one hand came around to rest on the slight curve of her belly. "I've heard more horror stories about being pregnant and having babies in the four weeks since the vigil than I had in the entire twenty-four years before that. Every bard in the Hall seems to know someone who had a terrible time and they're
sure
I should hear their recall about it."

Elica smiled at her tone but continued to look worried. "Are these stories bothering you?"

"Not really." Sometimes they crawled into her dreams and filled the darkness when she lay awake at night. During the last two nights, since Stasya had left on a Walk and she no longer had the rhythm of the other woman's breathing in the bed beside her, they'd bothered her more. But, as far as Annice was concerned, what went on in her head wasn't the healer's business. Physically, she was fine. "Stories are my trade, remember. I can spot exaggeration when I hear it."

She waved a hand about as though to clear the subject from the air. "So, how's it working?"

"What? Growing the teas? Not very well, I'm afraid." The healer shot a disappointed glance down at the contents of her apron. "I just don't know what we're doing wrong."

Annice took another look around the room and frowned. Now that she took the time to study them, leaves were curling, or missing, and many plants appeared as much yellow as green. "Have you asked someone to Sing earth?"

"Inside?"

"Why not? We do it in the Centers."

"They're specially constructed," Elica pointed out, shaking her head. "This isn't."

"The altar's just a big hole in the floor," Annice corrected, snatching up a metal poker from beside the hearth and dropping to her knees. "What's under here?" The healer looked down and shrugged. "Dirt."

"Great." She dug the point of the poker into a crack and leaned back on it. "Let's get one of these boards up." A moment later, the smell of damp earth rose up through a hole about a handbreadth square. "Sorry about that." Annice sheepishly pushed the splintered piece of wood under a shelf and rushed on with an explanation before the scowling healer could speak. "Most of the earth kigh are asleep right now, waiting for First Quarter, but with all the heat in here and nothing under the floor…" Taking a deep breath, she Sang.

Nothing happened. Wishing she had her flute, Annice Sang louder.

All at once, the floor rippled; shelves, plants, walls, rose and fell behind the crest. Elica cried out as the wave surged by beneath her and grabbed wildly for support. Shattering glass laid a descant on the Song.

Annice toppled back as the squat brown shape of a kigh bulged through the opening she'd made, ripping the rest of the broken plank aside as it came. Ignoring both bard and healer, it glanced around, exploded into a dozen smaller versions of itself, and disappeared into the mass of upended plant pots.

Training got Annice through the gratitude, but only just.