The Quartered Sea (17 page)

The ship began to rock gently back and forth to the rhythm of the Song.

The muscles and tendons stood out in hard relief on Benedikt's throat. Rivulets of sweat began to draw their own salty paths down damp skin.

With glowers and gestures, the mate sent the crew back to their unfinished tasks. As the captain approached, he leaned toward her, her words barely louder than her breath.

"How long do you think he can last?"

The storm screamed through the rigging, furious at being denied its rightful prey. It swept down, blew over the decks, caught up the queen's coin Benedikt wore, dragged it to the length of the leather cord, and slapped it back against his mouth. The ship jerked, once, twice then, eyes still closed, Benedikt licked the blood from his lower lip and forced his voice over the shrieking of the wind. The gentle rocking began again.

The mate snorted and turned his mouth to the captain's ear. "He's barely twenty. If he's lasted this long, he should be able to last all day."

Outside the ring of kigh, the sea raged. And waited.

With the sun behind a barricade of green-gray cloud, time passed unmarked. Wide-eyed and silent, the crew watched the storm throw itself against the constant fluid motion of the kigh and tried to hear past the winds for any faltering of the Song.

Benedikt had no idea how long he'd been Singing. He couldn't feel the deck beneath his feet or the pain in his lip or the wet cotton clasp of his breeches. He could feel the Song. And the kigh. They didn't so much Sing with him as within him. He ran up one series of notes and down the other, the kigh never allowing the Song to build to the point where he'd have to bring it to its only possible conclusion.

He could still hear the wind, the creaking and groaning of the tortured masts and spars, but he ignored it just as he ignored the roar of his own blood in his ears, the racing of his heart, and the taste of copper in his mouth. There was only the Song. And the kigh.

"They're gonna kill him."

The captain forced her gaze off the bard and down to the woman by her side.

Hair whipping about her face, Mila kept her own eyes locked on Benedikt. "They'll just keep takin' it till he's got nothin' more to give."

"He's a bard," Captain Lija reminded her quietly. "This is what they do."

That brought Mila's attention around. She snorted. "This is
not
what they do. At least not that I ever heard of. He's givin' them too…"

A sudden violent gust of wind won the battle it had been waging and ripped a line and pulley free of its mooring. Mila threw the captain hard back against the rails, grabbed for the wildly swinging rope and missed. They whirled around together and watched the weighted end swing wide across the deck, missing Benedikt by inches.

At the bottom of its arc, the pulley struck him a glancing blow against the back of his head. Had it struck him full on, it would have silenced him forever. As it was, it stopped the Song.

He blinked once, twice, sustained for a moment by the kigh. It almost felt as though he went with them as they left, driven out of his own body by shock and pain.

It had happened too fast for reaction, too fast for anything but Mila's one desperate cry. The crew watched in stunned silence as Benedikt crumpled apparently boneless to the deck.

The kigh drew back, peaks folding over once again into foam-capped crests as the storm threw itself past any lingering form and against the Starfarer.

As though making up for lost time, cross seas created dangerous pyramidal waves that broke over the ship from stem to stern. Bruised and battered, the captain fought her way in from the aft rail and fingers white around the upper end of the brass tube, she shouted directions to the helm below. With half the stores gone, the Starfarer was under ballasted. If they turned to, the waves would roll her over and take her straight to the bottom.

Smashed down onto the deck by Benedikt's side, Mila could do nothing more than keep his face above water as the sea threw them back and forth. The deck tipped. His head lolling against her shoulder, they began to slide.

Then something grabbed the waistband of her breeches. The wet fabric dug into her stomach, stretched, and held. They stopped sliding and actually began to move against the angle of the deck.

The angle changed.

Still cushioning Benedikt with her body, Mila slammed into Pjedic's unyielding bulk. The sea swirled around them unable to gain ground, the irresistible force hitting the immovable object.

"We'll take him to the galley!" he bellowed. "But I suggest we do it on our hands and knees."

Together they began dragging Benedikt toward the forecastle. They moved slowly, careful not only for his sake but for their own. When waves broke over them, Pjedic hunkered down and created a pocket of calm in the lee of his body. Against all evidence, Mila began to think they'd make it.

Starfarer
slowly began to turn.

"Helm! Maintain heading!" The captain's command bounced back and forth between the walls of the trough.

The wave no longer rose directly off the bow.

Starfarer
continued to turn.

"I should have sent a bard who sang air as well as water." Jelena stepped away from the window without having seen either the sunlight or the new growth that painted the courtyard topiary in pale green. "I never thought it would be so hard not have news."

"You sent the bard who wanted to serve," Otavas reminded her.

"But not necessarily the best bard. It was an emotional choice, not a rational one. I chose Benedikt because I was angry at Kovar for assuming that
he
had the final decision. Perhaps if I'd waited…"

Otavas rose and drew the queen into the circle of his arms. "You wouldn't have found anyone more anxious to please you. That has to count for something."

Grabbing his shoulders, she locked her eyes on his. "Have I sent them to their deaths?"

"You haven't sent anyone, Lena." He cursed Kovar silently for not only putting the thought into his queen's head but for repeating it so often she almost believed it. "They all volunteered, and they all knew what they were getting into. Magda touched every single kigh on board that ship and they were all willing to dare the unknown. You made something possible that many of them had only dreamed about."

"He is." Otavas plucked his gloves off the mantle and slapped them down into his other palm. "We're going riding this afternoon; theoretically to exchange nonbinding opinions on the trade route and the taxes my brother, the Emperor, is proposing, but I expect Bannon will be discussed."

"In a nonbinding manner?"

"Count on it." He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand as he straightened from their kiss. "They're all watching, you know: Fienia, Petrolka, even my most Imperial brother. They're all waiting to see how this venture of yours turns out, and they're all cursing themselves that they didn't dare to send a ship out first."

"There's nothing stopping any of them from sending a ship out
second
," Jelena snorted.

"Perhaps, but Fienia, Petrolka, and the Empire are all ruled at this time by men and men, my darling love, would rather not make an attempt at all if they know they'll come in second."

"
Starfarer
was certainly no secret. I'm surprised they didn't try to beat us out of the harbor."

To Otavas' surprise, Bannon was not waiting outside the royal apartment. When questioned, one of the duty pages pointed to the double doors at the end of the long hall and asked if His Highness would like him fetched.

"Thank you, no. I'll fetch him myself."

The balcony on the other side of the double doors was the balcony where he and Jelena had first really spoken without the rules of rank between them. She still used it to view the western stars.

Bannon turned from the railing as Otavas stepped outside, saw who it was, and dropped gracefully to one knee. "My apologies, Highness, I meant to stay only a moment, but I…" Explanation trailing off, he dropped his gaze to the toes of the consort's boots. He knew, they both knew, he had no business being anywhere in the royal wing but with his prince or outside his door.

"I assume you had a reason for wandering off?"

The ex-assassin looked up, saw that his prince was smiling, and sighed. "Do you remember, Highness," he asked in Imperial, "how it feels when there's a huge storm overhead? Not Shkoden storms but the storms back home when the sky seems low enough to touch and the hand of Cieri reaches down to flatten the land?"

A little surprised by the reference to the empire's god of storm, Otavas motioned for Bannon to rise. "I remember. Why?"

"That's how I feel now, Highness." He lifted the edge of a glance to the brilliant blue sky above and shrugged. "I don't know why."

Otavas glanced up as well. It would be hard to imagine weather less likely to evoke the misery of an Imperial storm.

"Perhaps these feelings have nothing to do with weather," he said, continuing the thought aloud. "Could it have something to do with your sister?"

"No, it's not Vree. And it's not you nor Her Majesty." Bannon turned to face the west again, knowing his prince would forgive the slight. "I don't know how I know that, but I do."

"Then who?"

He shook his head, almost wishing it had been one of the few he cared for because then he could answer foreboding with action and drive it away.

As near as Otavas could tell, Bannon was at least as much annoyed by this unwelcome feeling as he was distressed. Both responses would have to be defused if they were to ride that afternoon. Personal sympathy aside, the company of a distressed assassin would be almost as dangerous as that of an annoyed one. There were very good reasons the Imperial army trained emotions out of their blades of Jür. He moved to stand beside Bannon at the railing, their shoulders touching. "Perhaps it's the Fienian ambassador."

Which was so ridiculous Bannon forgot himself and said so.

Otavas grinned. "He's about to spend at least half of the afternoon courting your service. I know I'm feeling foreboding about that."

"Yes. But since diplomacy forbids the order, we'll both have to put up with him." Otavas laid his hand for a moment on the other man's arm. "Come. Let's hope your storm warning is nothing more than anticipation of an extremely tiring afternoon."

"As you say, Highness." But as he smiled and bowed and led his prince back into the royal apartments, he hadn't lost the feeling, the certainty, that something had gone very wrong.

The day
Starfarer
had sailed had been the first time in years Kovar had gone to the harbor. He was the Bardic Captain. Every bard in Shkoder was his responsibility. He almost never left the Citadel.

Standing on the end of the wharf, staring down into the brackish water, he realized that this was his eleventh trip since then. One more, he thought, watching the shadow of a fish disappear under the wharf, and he'd have an even dozen. And there would be one more. And one more after that. And as many as it took until he knew that Benedikt was safe.