The Quartered Sea (11 page)

Benedikt slipped into the Citadel through the Bard's Door and rolled his eyes as the notes of his name activated the message Kovar had left for him. All bards saw the Bardic Captain as soon as possible after returning from a Walk; did Kovar think that he'd rebelled so thoroughly he wouldn't bother?

With good weather sending every able-bodied bard out into the country, the Hall was nearly empty. Even the year's two fledglings were gone, no doubt taking a short Walk up coast with Petrolis who thoroughly enjoyed teaching starry-eyed teenagers the more mundane aspects of their new lives. In Benedikt's opinion, for a bard who didn't Sing earth, Petrolis was just a little fanatical about latrine pits.

He saw no one as he made his way up to the second floor although he could hear the faint sound of a flute from somewhere up above. When the same three or four bars were repeated with minor variations, he suspected the song was a work in progress. It was a catchy tune and he hummed it softly as he went into his room.

In an effort to fight off the cold and damp, servers lit fires in the unoccupied rooms at the new moon and the full. Unfortunately, neither the occasional fire nor the bowls of dried mint could keep a place from smelling musty when it had remained essentially empty for a full quarter. Nose wrinkled, moving carefully in the near dark, Benedikt crossed to the window and opened the inner shutters.

Somehow, the room looked as abandoned as it smelled even though it looked very little different from when he was actually living in it. Shrugging out of his pack, he unbuckled his instrument case and paused, about to lift it up onto the small table. There was a slate propped up on the shell he used as a catchall dish. Someone had come into his room while he was gone and left him a note.

In case Tadeus missed you
, it read,
please see me before you speak to Kovar
. It was signed, Magda.

"Does a healer outrank a Bardic Captain?" Benedikt wondered, smudging the chalk lines with his thumb. As a fledgling, he'd had significantly more long talks with Magda than the others. The talks had been intended to convince him that his lack of air made him no less a bard than the rest, but the mere fact that they'd singled him out for reassurance had shown him what they really thought.

Magda could only want to talk to him now about the queen's voyage. He knew what Kovar was likely to say, and he had no real desire to test his resolve against the full orchestration of the captain's opinion; therefore, it only made sense to begin defending his decision at the Healers' Hall.

Besides, from what Tadeus had said, Magda was likely to be on his side.

A quick wash and a change of clothes later, he started across the Citadel's outer courtyard. It seemed unlikely that Kovar would have the kigh watching for him, but since something as simple as a glance out a window could still give him away, he moved quickly.

"Benedikt!"

Not quickly enough. He turned to see Kovar hurrying across the cobblestones, looking distinctly displeased. Unfortunately, in direct confrontation, a healer did not outrank a Bardic Captain. He waited, shifting his weight from foot to foot as Kovar closed the distance between them, quartered robes whipping around his ankles like angry, multicolored cats.

An arm's reach away, closer than Benedikt would have liked, he stopped. "Are you unwell?"

"Unwell?" Benedikt repeated, confused. Expecting some kind of accusation, the question took him by surprise. Then he realized—in another three strides he'd be climbing the steps to the Healers' Hall. "No, I'm fine."

"I see." Kovar's tone suggested this answer came as no surprise. "Did you not get my message?"

Benedikt stiffened. "Of course I did."

"I wasn't suggesting you wouldn't understand it, Benedikt, I
was
wondering why you chose to ignore it."

"I'm not ignoring it."

The silence wondered why, then, he was going to the Healers' Hall.

"Magda wanted to see me." He hated how defensive he sounded and struggled for the voice control that should be second nature to a bard.

"Your responsibilities to the Bardic Hall should have brought you immediately to me. If you aren't sick, Magda can wait."

"Are you accusing me of ignoring my responsibilities?"

"Not out here," Kovar said pointedly and Benedikt suddenly became aware of the half-dozen guards over by the stable and the multitude of windows overhead. "Whatever our differences, we will not end up brawling like a couple of riverboat pilots out in public."

If he became recognized as the bard going on the queen's voyage, any argument would begin to attract attention. One or two of the guards were already looking their way. The thought of attracting a crowd, of a face staring down at him from every one of those windows, from the Bardic Hall, from the Healers' Hall, from the Palace, made Benedikt's palms itch.

Stepping to one side, Kovar half turned back the way he'd come. "Shall we discuss this in my office?"

He could say no. Say no and walk right into the Healers' Hall. But as much as he despised himself for it. he didn't have the courage. To walk away from Kovar now would turn a difference of opinion into something much more significant.

He nodded and fell into step beside the Bardic Captain. It was likely to be an unpleasant interview and he couldn't blame himself for trying to postpone it.
If Magda's as concerned about the queen as Tadeus thinks, why isn't she out here supporting me
?

An indignant gaze lifted to Kovar's face and thin arms crossed over royal livery. "Her Majesty wants to see him
now
."

"Her Majesty hasn't seen the Bardic Captain in ever so long," the page confided as they entered the Palace through one of the smaller, private doors. "She sees other bards and reads all the recalls and stuff, but she doesn't see him. She saw you cross the courtyard from upstairs and sent me to get you."

The queen herself had come to his rescue. Benedikt felt his mouth curve up into an idiotic smile he couldn't seem to stop.

"This way, follow me." Racing up the stairs, the page turned on the landing and stared mournfully down at Benedikt. "I wish I was going on the
Starfarer
but they say I'm too young. I'm not."

Ignored for the moment, Benedikt realized that, in spite of an imposing presence, the Southerner wasn't significantly taller than the page he quizzed.

"Urn, it's late afternoon, you're not with him…" Her face lit up. "He must still be meeting with Chancellor Cecilie."

"Her Majesty told me to get him." She folded her arms. "Did Her Majesty send
you
?"

Bannon smiled. "No."

After studying him for a moment—and Benedikt would've given much to know if she saw threat or promise—she returned the ex-assassin's smile. "Okay, you can walk with him, and I'll go on ahead so I can announce you when you arrive, and if I get in trouble with the Page Master, you've got to get me out of it."

As the page raced up the remaining stairs two at a time, Bannon motioned for Benedikt to join him on the landing. They took half a dozen steps in silence.

Benedikt could feel himself wanting to babble, to fill the stairwell with nonsense just to cover the drumming of his heart. He only wished he knew why. Perhaps it should have been fear, but it wasn't.

"This voyage is very important to Her Majesty."

Only a bardic ear could have detected the difference in Bannon's voice. To anyone else he would have sounded the same as when he'd been speaking with the page—friendly, unconcerned. Benedikt could hear the warning, but he couldn't think of a safe response.

"His Highness has said that the
Starfarer
has given Her Majesty back the self she lost in grief."

"Your captain has made his feelings on this clear—he disapproves of the trip but if the ship sails without his approval, he doesn't want a bard on board."

"Then what if he tells you that your going will split the bards, make them less able to do their work, that you must respect his opinion, keep a united front for the sake of everything that makes a bard?"

"He wouldn't…" But looking into the gold-flecked eyes, Benedikt knew that Bannon was right. That was exactly what Kovar would do. Announcing a threat to the good of the many was his greatest power. "I don't know what I'd do."

Bannon cupped Benedikt's chin in his hand, fingers and thumb indenting the flesh along the jaw just on the edge of pain. "I do."

"You're not a bard." To disagree with Kovar was one thing. To place himself in opposition to what it meant to be a bard, that was something else entirely. "You don't know what it's like."

Bannon handed the bard back to the page outside the door to the queen's solar and continued on his way without a backward glance. Shoring up another's insecurities was a new experience for him but, with any luck, he'd managed to exert a force equal to that of the Bardic Captain, enough to keep Benedikt from collapsing under the weight of
being a bard
.

Bards. Everything in Shkoder came back to the bards. Right now, everything in Shkoder came back to Benedikt.

Absently rubbing the lingering warmth of Benedikt's skin on his fingertips, he sighed. All he could do was see to it that Her Majesty's choice got onto the boat. The rest of the slaughtering country would just have to work things out on its own.

"You've seen the
Starfarer
?"

"Yes, Majesty."

"What did you think?"

Remembering Mila, Benedikt smiled.
I thought she'd be bigger
was not the answer the queen was looking for, so he told her another truth. "I think she's beautiful, Majesty."

"Isn't she." Eyes gleaming, Jelena smiled down at her secretary. "Taska, have I got time to take the new Fienian ambassador down to see her tomorrow?"

"I'm sorry, Majesty, but no."

"Majesty, please…" Her tailor muttered his plea through a mouthful of pins. "If you keep moving, your hem…"

"My apologies." She stilled, and the tailor's assistant draped another piece of fabric over her shoulder. "What about after Council?"

"You're meeting with the Due of Vidor, Majesty."

"Oh, well." Sighing philosophically, she turned her attention back to Benedikt. "You'll just have to sing him a song describing it."

"Yes, Majesty." But that wasn't the song he wanted to sing.

"This voyage has given her back the self she lost in grief."

The difference between this Jelena and the Jelena he'd Sung across the strait was like the difference between a running river and a stagnant pool. If he was all that stood between her and the loss of her joy, then Kovar could do his worst. He was insulted that everyone seemed to think he wouldn't be up to the responsibility.