After a moment of thought, it seemed he'd followed the circle around to its logical conclusion. "Nees." He paused, and pulled her hand off the tassel, folding it in both of his. "Is the Due of Ohrid the father of your baby."
She nodded, remembered, winced, and said, "Yes."
His grip tightened. "What a mess."
"It's not that I love him, because I don't—I don't even like him very much—but treason is punishable by death and…"
"You don't want him to die."
Her mouth twisted and she pulled his hands over so that they rested on the swelling below her heart. "It's more than that, actually; I don't want us to die with him."
CHAPTER SIX
"Your Grace, there appear to be people approaching up the valley."
"Appear to be, Bohdan?" Pjerin turned, his breath pluming in the damp of the cellar.
The elderly steward pulled his heavy wool cloak tighter around his shoulders and frowned at his due. "I sent young Karli up the north gate tower to knock off that icicle, the one that threatens the life of anyone coming or going should we have a thaw—which, all things being enclosed, we'll have to have sooner or later no matter how little it looks like it now—and she came down saying there appeared to be nearly twenty people making their way up from the edge of the woods."
"Were they in trouble?"
"She says not, but who can tell at that distance?
"Well, if they're not in trouble, why are they traveling in the mountains at this time of the year?"
"Exactly, Your Grace."
"They can't think that the pass is open."
"I personally don't make those kind of assumptions about lowlanders, Your Grace."
Pjerin grinned and lifted his torch out of the ancient metal holder.
Bohdan sniffed. "Barbaric."
"You'd have had more to say if I'd wasted beeswax or oil down here, and a tallow dip would've been useless." Holding the torch over his head, he gestured at one of the huge, square-cut beams. "Does that look like rot to you?"
"No, Your Grace. It looks like frost."
Grin broadening, Pjerin took the hint and led the way up to the relative warmth of the ground floor. "Have
Karli ski down to meet them. The sooner we know who or what they are, the better."
Bohdan clicked his tongue and shook his head disapprovingly. "You could be sending her into danger. Suppose they're robbers, driven out of their winter lair by the cold and storms?"
"Robbers?" Pjerin extinguished the torch in a bucket of half-melted snow he'd left at the top of the stairs for just that purpose. Peering at his steward through the cloud of smoke and steam, he had to wait for the hiss and sputter to die down before he could continue. "Even supposing that Ohrid could support a band of robbers twenty strong, why would they be on their way here?"
"To throw themselves on your mercy, of course. So that you'll keep them fed for the rest of the winter."
"Then they're not likely to slaughter my messenger. Besides, Bohdan, even robbers have better sense than to travel very far at this time of the year."
"A Troop of the King's Guard?" Karli stared at Troop Captain Otik in awe. "And you've traveled all the way from Elbasan?" Elbasan was on the other side of the world as far as she was concerned. "To see the due?"
"That's right," the captain grunted, plodding forward on a pair of borrowed snowshoes. He spoke the local dialect with an atrocious accent, but bardic tricks had given him a basic command of the language over the tedious days of travel. "A Troop of the King's Guard from Elbasan to see the due."
"Why?"
"That's between us and the due."
Stasya watched, jealous, as the young woman poled herself effortlessly over the snow. The town where they'd left the horses could've supplied her with skies, but with the troop confined to the much slower snow-shoes there would've been little point. She hadn't wanted to push it as the situation had already left the captain in a decidedly foul mood.
"There's no forage," she'd told him bluntly, "and past this point, if we find shelter every night—which I can't guarantee—you've no right to have your beasts eat up someone else's winter supplies."
"But we're on the king's business."
"And these are the king's people and I don't think he intended them to starve their own livestock for yours. We can carry enough food for ourselves but not for the horses. From here on, we walk."
Fortunately, someone in Elbasan had been thinking ahead and most of the troop turned out to be country-bred even if their captain was not.
"So what am I supposed to tell His Grace?" Karli demanded.
Captain Otik's head jerked up and around. "You'll tell him nothing. You'll travel with us until we reach the keep."
"I don't think so." She glided half a dozen steps ahead. "We may be moving uphill, but there's not much of a slope until I reach the village. I can beat you back by hours."
"You don't understand," the captain told her, all at once sounding as though he were not a person to be argued with. "You haven't any choice in the matter."
Stasya watched the young woman's face, anger rapidly replacing disbelief, and broke in just before the heated protest. "He's an asshole, isn't he?" Half the strength of Charm was to find a common ground. "What's your name?"
"Karli i'Celestin." Grinning broadly, she skied to Stasya's side. "What's yours?"
"Stasya."
"Just Stasya?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, you don't look much like a priest… "Karli's grin slid into speculation. "… so you must be a bard."
"Right the first time."
"We had a bard here last quarter."
"I know. Annice. She's a friend of mine."
"Really?"
"Really. Why don't you travel with us to the keep and we can talk about her?"
"That'd be great. She sang a song called 'Darkling Lover'. Do you know it? It really steamed His Grace."
"I'll bet." Stasya shot Captain Otik a superior look as Karli expanded on just what she meant by steamed. The captain had wanted the approaching skier kept with them under threat of crossbow fire.
"If the due finds out what we are," he'd declared in a tone that suggested no room for argument, "he'll close the gates and we'll never pry him out. If we keep his messenger, he'll have no idea of what happened; a request for assistance, a broken ski, a sudden love affair. He may suspect trouble, but he won't know for sure."
Stasya had not taken the suggestion, had argued, and had won.
Weapons remained undrawn.
Karli remained with them.
They'd be at the keep by noon.
"You told her to come right back?"
"I did." Bohdan hunched his shoulders against the cold wind blowing down from the mountains and funneling out through the gate of the keep. "I told her to find out who the travelers were and what they wanted and to return immediately."
Pjerin beat his fist lightly against the stone of the north gate tower as he peered down the length of the valley. Although they were still some distance away, individuals could now be picked out of the moving mass and counted. Twenty-two; twenty-three including Karli. "I wouldn't worry about it, Bohdan. Karli's probably just found someone new to talk to."
His steward grunted and didn't seem reassured.
He wasn't particularly reassured himself.
The Cemandian has spoken to no one since Tadeus found him. The due cannot have been warned of your coming. Inform me immediately upon questioning.
The messages the kigh carried were high in concept and low in structure and therefore open to interpretation depending on the personal style of the bards involved, but in this particular instance, there hadn't been much room for flexibility.