An instant later, the sword rang on the cobblestones beside the body.
"What a waste," Theron said softly. "What a terrible waste."
"Are you sure about this, Annice?"
"I'm sure." Annice settled the baby more securely in her sling and carefully sat on the stool Stasya had carried out for her.
"His Grace won't like it," Jazep murmured, adjusting the tambour strap around his neck.
"His Grace doesn't have to like it," Annice pointed out tartly as Tadeus reached out and twitched Jazep's collar down. "This has nothing to do with Pjerin. It's bardic business."
Overhead, the stars seemed close enough to touch. Around them were the remains of Annice's kigh. Most of the earth had been returned to fields—as far as the people of Ohrid were concerned, fear of the kigh did not extend to starving to death over the winter. Newly planted crops were already nearly the height of the corn that had been destroyed. Luxuriant growth hid any crack or crevasse in the pass that hadn't been completely cleared.
"Are you sure you're strong enough for this, Nees?" Stasya squatted beside the stool. "You haven't really slept for more than an hour at a time since you had the baby and remember the captain's message—you're supposed to be resting your voice."
"Stas," Annice reached out and stroked the other woman's cheek. "Tadeus and Jazep are leaving tomorrow with the king. It has to be tonight."
Tadeus turned toward Cemandia. "He might not be anywhere he can hear us."
"He is."
"How can you be so certain?" Jazep asked softly.
Annice sighed. "I'm not."
Shaking her head, Stasya stood. "They've crippled him, Nees. He might not be able to come to us even if he hears."
"I know." She checked her sleeping daughter and when she looked up, her expression was grave. "But how could we live with ourselves if we don't try?"
The night came alive as Jazep stroked a heartbeat out of the drum. Eyes closed, he Sang. He wasn't calling the kigh, but he was calling, voice anchored to the earth and reaching into Cemandia.
Tadeus nodded in time and added a Song that burned along the path Jazep laid.
One hand resting lightly on Annice's shoulder, Stasya's Song rose to touch the stars.
Earth. Fire. Air.
"Annice, he's a spy, and a saboteur, and …"
"And in Shkoder, he would have been a bard."
Water.
Tears.
The other three faltered as Annice added her voice to theirs. For a moment, the longing, the pain, the loneliness overwhelmed everything but the steady beat of Jazep's drum.
Stasya recovered first. Then Tadeus wrapped his denial around hers. When Jazep gathered them all together, they stopping Singing and became the Song.
Slowly, they answered the longing, and eased the pain, and reached out to the loneliness.
Annice saw him first and fell silent.
The Song she'd been Singing carried on. The voice was untrained, rough, but it didn't matter because it was the heart that was Singing.
A moment later, he Sang alone, then the kigh, gathered thickly about him, spun away and carried the last note into the night.
His face twisted with terror, trembling so violently he could hardly stand, Albek stared at the four bards. "What have you done?" he whispered hoarsely.
Annice stood and reached out toward him. "Only told you that we understand."
He shook his head and took a step back. "No." Another step back. In moment he was going to bolt and run.
Then the baby began to cry,
Albek started at the sound.
Without thinking, Annice Sang comfort to her.
When she looked up, Albek was on his knees, sobbing in the circle of Tadeus' arms, the dark head bent close to the gold one, and Singing the same Song.
"… and nursing my daughter on the Cemandian border in the middle of the night." Pjerin wanted desperately to yell—had wanted desperately to yell since he and Theron and half the inhabitants of the keep, who'd been roused weeping from their beds by Annice's song, had met the five of them coming back through the gates—but the baby was asleep and Annice wouldn't leave her. "What were you thinking?"
"I don't need to explain myself to you, Pjerin."
"You know who he is. What he is."
She reached into the cradle and touched the rosebud curl of her sleeping daughter's hand. "Better than you do."
Pjerin sucked in a deep breath and jabbed a finger at her. "Don't hand me some crap about bards being more sensitive, more all-seeing than the rest of us because I'm not in the mood. I heard what you Sang; you pulled out all the stops on telling him how pathetic his life was and then promised you'd make it better."
"That's not quite what happened, Your Grace." Stasya unfolded her legs and slid off the bed.
"Stay out of this, Stasya. This is between Annice and me."
"That wasn't his Song she was Singing, Pjerin. It was her own."
"What are you talking about?" He frowned down at Annice. "What's she talking about?"
"Don't even try," Stasya cautioned as Annice opened her mouth to deny the accusation. "Words might hide the truth, but a Song never lies. That was your pain. Not Albek's."
"Was," Annice admitted, refusing to look at either of them. "But I let go of it."
Stasya sighed and shook her head. "How am I supposed to believe that when you spent ten years telling me it didn't exist?"
Brow furrowed, Pjerin heard again the incredible loneliness, the heartbroken sense of betrayal that had pulled him out of a dream where he'd had Olina by the shoulders and was asking her over and over again, "WHY?" "Your brother did that to you." His tone bordered on treason.
"No." This time she looked up. "I did it to myself. Or maybe we did it to each other, I'm still not sure how Theron feels. Albek had it done to him, but I don't have his excuse." She stroked the baby's cheek and smiled a little at the dark line of lashes so like Pjerin's. And so like Stasya's, too, for that matter. "If I'm going to be responsible for her life, I've got to take responsibility for my own."
"And everyone else's?" Pjerin wondered, thinking of how she'd thrown herself in front of Albek and Tadeus when he'd charged across the court demanding the Cemandian's heart. The edge had left his voice and it wasn't really a question as he already knew the answer.
"I'm someone's mother now, Pjerin. I'm no longer that extreme…"
Over her head, Stasya and Pjerin exchanged identical expressions of disbelief.