No Quarter (19 page)

Unfortunately, the king was past being soothed. "No one except this bardic abomination!" His left hand curled into a fist. "The very thing she's rushing off to face! I want her stopped, do you hear me! Send a kigh to every bard between her and Somes!" He paused and his left shoulder flexed forward, but before the Bardic Captain could explain that they'd already begun to move the only bard in the area, he went on. "And
then
, you throw everything you've got at this thing that is killing my people!" His expression changed between one heartbeat and the next, pain wiping out anger.

"Majesty?"

Beads of sweat suddenly appeared on his forehead, combining and trickling down both temples. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. Right hand clutching at his tunic front, he slumped forward, his face smacking into the desk.

"Majesty!" Liene raced to his side just as a tentative knock sounded against the office door. "What!" she snapped, one hand pressed on a pulse point in the king's throat, relief that he still lived overwhelming fifty years of vocal training.

A section of paneling swung open and a page stepped into the room. "Majesty, the…" Her jaw dropped.

"Get the king's healer! Now!"

The page whirled around and raced away, leaving the door ajar behind her.

As Liene eased Theron back against the leather padding of his chair, the second page on duty poked his head into the room. Eyes impossibly wide under ginger brows and every freckle standing out against pale skin, he crept forward, shoes making no noise against the thick carpet. "Majesty?"

Liene jerked around. "Don't do that!" she snarled.

The page ignored the old woman, his gaze locked on the king. "What's wrong with him?"

"Do I look like a healer?" When the boy seemed about to cry, she clutched at control and managed to gentle her voice. "I don't know what's wrong, but he needs your help."

"My help?"

"That's right. Go get Her Majesty and bring her here as quickly as you can. Be careful not to frighten her."

He sniffed. "What about the Heir? Should I get Princess Onele?"

Her hand on Theron's shoulder, Liene nodded, grateful that the boy had thought of it.
He's ten years younger than I am. This shouldn't be happening
.

"Yes. Get her, too."

"Where you headed, Healer?"

"Somes." Magda covered a yawn with the back of her hand then scrawled her name across the bottom of the form that would get them fresh horses. She began to make the apprentice symbol, realized what she was doing, and flushed.

The stablemaster only laughed. "Haven't been a healer too long, have you?"

"No, in fact, I…" Exhaustion wiped out the rest of the thought and she stared blankly up at him, unable to remember the lie she'd been about to tell.

"Never mind." He looked as though he were about to pat her on the head. "I'll just check this against the list the Healers' Hall sends me out from Elbasan."

Yanking open the single drawer under the scarred table, he pulled out a folded sheet, swept aside some straw and spread it out. "Can't just have anyone riding off on the King's horses," he explained as he ran a thick finger down the first column of names.

Vree shifted her weigh forward and wished she had her second throwing dagger.

Gyhard quickly shifted her weight back. *You're not going to have to kill him.*

*How do you know?*

*Magda would never put us in a situation where that was the only option.*

*She's tired. Tired people make mistakes.*

*Not one that so completely contravenes everything she believes in.*.

*Big words. What the slaughter do they mean?*

*She wouldn't make a mistake that big.*

"Ah, here you are. See that loopy bit there? Unmistakable." He turned frowning slightly. "I see you're still an apprentice on the Second Quarter list. Funny you should make full healer before Third Quarter Festival."

Magda shrugged, making no effort to hide how exhausted she was. "
I'd
have waited, but they need my specialty as soon as possible in Somes and they couldn't spare a healer to travel all that way with me. If I was going to go, and I had to, I had to go as a healer."

"Poor thing. Missed your ceremony, then tossed on a horse and pounded against a saddle for days on end." Clucking his tongue, he looked over at Vree. "If you're her helper, Southerner, you ought to be helping her up to bed. She's nearly dead on her feet."

Startled, Vree took a closer look at the younger woman. They'd been on the move since just after full dark and it was now well into morning. Stops had been infrequent and the two previous times they'd changed horses, Vree hadn't bothered going inside. There were purple-gray shadows under Magda's eyes, her mouth was slack, her shoulders slumped, and she carried her head as if it were too heavy for her neck.

*You're used to your own rather remarkable endurance,* Gyhard reminded her, feeling her guilt. *You're not used to traveling with someone who doesn't share it.*

He well remembered how Bannon's body had effortlessly done everything he'd asked of it.

Vree shoved aside a memory of Gyhard/Bannon riding beside her, laughing, eating, bathing… and lightly touched Magda on the arm. "He's right. You need to rest."

"We need to keep moving." But it was almost a question.

"You'll do no one no good if you fall off the horse and break your neck, Healer,"

the stablemaster pointed out, kindly. "I got a nice quiet corner of the mow for just this kind of situation. You two head up there and lie down and I'll see that you're woke in three hours."

"Three hours," Magda repeated.

Vree met the stablemaster's eyes. There appeared to be nothing behind his smile but an honest desire to help. "Come on." She put her arm around the younger woman's shoulders. "We can spare three hours."

A horse blanket spread over the straw was a better bed than many Vree had slept in. Taking a deep breath, she allowed her muscles to relax and was nearly asleep when an unfamiliar sound snapped her fully alert. Unfamiliar to her; Gyhard obviously knew what it was.

*Imperial Army service starts at fifteen,* he murmured. *Don't soldiers ever get homesick?*

*Not around assassins,* she told him shortly, rolling up on one elbow. Rays of sunlight, glittering with dust, slanted through cracks and knotholes, providing more than enough light to see thin shoulders shaking. "Magda? what's wrong?"

"Jazep's dead." Nearly lost against the crook of her elbow, the childlike wail took years off Magda's age.

Vree reached out a hand, but left it hovering in midair, uncertain of what to do.

*Hold her.*

*Are you sure?*

*Trust me.*

*I don't know how.* She'd meant it as a bald statement of fact, but it came out more like a desperate apology.

*Yes, you do.* He didn't want to say it, didn't want to remind her, but he couldn't allow her to believe she was unable to give comfort, couldn't allow jealousy to cause her such pain. *Just pretend that Magda is Bannon.*

Bannon? Slowly, hesitantly, ready to pull back if it were the wrong thing to do, Vree reached out and drew Magda into the circle of her arms.

Magda pressed herself against Vree's side. Her sobs turned to ragged breathing, evened out, and in a few moments she was asleep, too tired to grieve further.

Resting her cheek on the soft cap of dark curls, Vree shifted to settle herself more comfortably beneath the warm weight and tried to work out how long it had been since she'd held another person; if she'd
ever
been granted the kind of trust that allowed sleep in such a position. Breathing in the scent of sweat and hay and horses, she forced herself to relax and grant that trust in return.

Just before sleep claimed them both, Gyhard realized that Vree hadn't reacted to his instinctive control of her body down in the stable and he found himself suddenly unsure if that was a good thing or a bad.

Her Royal Highness, the Princess Onele, Heir to the crown of Shkoder, looked grim as she left her parents' bedchamber and entered the solar where the Bardic Captain and the Chancellor were waiting, their mutual animosity lost in shared worry. She nodded at Liene. "He wants to see you." Her lips twisted up in a humorless smile. "And he says you're not to start composing any eulogies."

"Highness, is he…"

"In a very bad mood," Onele interrupted. "Use as much Voice as you have to to keep him from losing his temper."

"Yes, Highness."

Neither of them meant it, but the exchange lightened the tensions in the room just a little.

"When His Majesty is finished with you, come and see me. We have things to discuss."

"Yes, Highness."

As the Bardic Captain left the solar, leaning heavily on her cane, Onele took a deep breath and squared her shoulders under the faded shirt she'd been wearing when summoned from the stables. Unlike most children, she'd been raised with the full knowledge that one day her father would die. "
When you are Queen, Highness

…" had begun every lesson, the implication clear, and she had to admit that increasingly over the last few years she'd been impatient to get on with the job she'd been trained to do. She was thirty-four years old. Long past time to finish her apprenticeship. Now that the job was almost hers, she found that she wouldn't mind putting it off for a little while yet.

"
When you are Queen, Highness
…"

When my father dies…

"Highness?"

The Heir gave herself a shake and focused on the Chancellor.

"Highness, Prince Otavas' ship has passed the outer harbor and will be mooring shortly. Everything is in readiness, but…" Chancellor Rozele spread her hands.

Onele nodded. "But obviously I can't go down to greet my Imperial cousin as planned. I don't suppose Aunt Milena's boy is still here?"

"No, Highness, he went home." And, good riddance, her expression added. "I had thought perhaps His Grace, Heir of Ohrid…"

"Perfect. It'll keep him from worrying about his sister and there's only what, five years between them?"

"Four, Highness. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find His Grace." Her lips pursed. "He didn't spend the night in the Citadel and has not yet returned."

Onele briefly closed her eyes. It was just like Gerek not to be around when he was needed. "Who's left?"

The Chancellor glanced down at the floor, as though looking for inspiration in the polished wood. "Princess Jelena is barely three years younger than Prince Otavas, Highness and, as Heir Apparent, would bring a certain diplomatic sense of rank to the meeting."

Jelena's mother frowned. "But she's so shy."

"The pressure on her will be slight, Highness. Although an official duty, it is also a family duty." The shared knowledge that Princess Jelena would, given her position, have to overcome that shyness, lingered behind the Chancellor's words. "If one of the older bards took the duty, she'd feel like she had someone to depend on."

Olena sighed. It seemed her father's illness would also force her daughter forward into new responsibility. "Have her sent to my quarters. I'll tell her myself while I change." Her hand on the door, she paused. "I want to see His Grace when he returns to the palace."

"I'll have him informed, Highness."

Uncertain of what to expect when she entered the royal bedchamber, Liene swept her gaze over healer, consort, and king.

The Healer, Jokubas i'Brigita a'Jokubas, looked too young for the critical position he held—although honesty forced Liene to admit that, of late, everyone looked too young. Standing by the head of the bed, one thin hand resting lightly on Theron's shoulder so that he could constantly monitor the king's condition, his expression was far too serene to give anything away.

Light diagnostic trance
, Liene noted as she approached.

Llyana, sitting close against the bed and holding one of Theron's hands in hers, could not maintain a mask over her emotions. Fear, grief, fear, love, fear—they chased each other around her face. Her grip suggested that if the turning of the Circle intended to take the king from her, it would have to pry him loose one finger at a time.

The king himself was a pleasant surprise. Propped up on a pile of pillows, his face had regained its normal color, and, although he looked very tired, his eyes were clear.

"You're to tell Annice she's to stay right where she is."

Not entirely finished bowing, Liene frowned. "Majesty?"

Theron snorted. "I know my sister, Captain. Her daughter is racing toward an insane bard in the company of an assassin and I've been confined to my bed. One such incident alone would have been enough to bring her here, the two together surely will." Theron sipped at the mug he held and grimaced. "Willow bark tea.

Apparently, I've got to drink a cup of this swill every day for the rest of my life."

"It will help you live a good long time, Majesty," Jokubas murmured.

Theron swallowed and his upper lip curled. "I'm so thrilled."

Llyana leaned forward—fear, grief, fear, love, fear making another circuit. "The Bardic Captain will have to leave if you grow excited," she warned.

He pulled his fingers free and patted her hand. "You want to see excited?

Dealing with Annice, that would excite me. Captain, see that she stays right where she is. King Rajmund's not quite as ambitious as his mother but I don't trust him not to try and take advantage of the situation when he hears I'm laid up. The last thing we need is a war with Cemandia, so Annice must stay on top of the situation at the pass. Tell her that and make sure she listens."

"Majesty," Liene sighed, thankful she was no longer strong enough to Sing a kigh all the way to the border and that the Song would fall to Kovar, "if you have a way to make Annice listen, I'd love to hear it."

"Nees?" Sitting on a stump at the edge of the creek, Stasya watched Annice pace, more than a little worried by how quiet she'd grown. They'd spent the night Singing for Jazep at the small Center in the village, had shared memories of him with Pjerin and the others who'd been touched by his Song, and had been walking alone together with their grief when the kigh carrying Kovar's message had found them. "Nees, are you all right?"