"There is no doubt?"
"My bard was most thorough, Majesty." More than thorough from the impressions brought by the kigh. It had taken Liene most of the morning to unravel the tangled messages and had the emotions behind them not been so strong she doubted she'd have had much success. "They are returning with the traitor to Elbasan, Majesty. For your judgment."
There was, always had been, only one judgment passed on treason.
"How long?" Theron asked, the parchment roll collapsing beneath the sudden pressure of his ringers.
"They should arrive ten to fifteen days after First Quarter Festival if everything goes well."
It is impossible to lie under Bardic Command. But I heard my mouth twist the truth, twist my words, twist my memories. His mind not on the placement of his feet, Pjerin stumbled and would have fallen had one of the two guards walking close beside him not stretched out her hand. He nodded his thanks. Careful shepherds, seeing that their sheep makes it to the slaughterhouse.
I am not guilty of treason. But it's impossible to lie under Bardic Command. Everyone believes that. King Theron believes that. So, by my own words, I'm guilty. Except that they weren't my words. All right, whose words are they? Who can twist a man's mind in such a way? Who can…
Up ahead, Stasya began a marching song, her clear soprano drawing in those of the guards who knew the tune. All around him, heads lifted, shoulders straightened, and arms swung out. Pjerin found his feet beginning to move to the rhythm.
Who can twist a man's mind? The answer became suddenly very clear.
But it wasn't this bard. She had no opportunity. It happened earlier.
He remembered a woman who'd matched him passion for passion, who'd sung to his son, who'd brought news of the world into the isolation of the mountains, and taken news of the mountains out into the world. Annice. It had to be Annice. How and why, he had no idea. How and why didn't matter.
It was impossible to lie under Bardic Command.
Everyone believed that.
He was going to die.
No. He wasn't going to die. Not without a fight. They were still in Ohrid and he knew his land. Knew how to live off it, knew where to hide. In time, he could clear his name, but to do it, he had to survive.
It wouldn't be easy. At every stop, that bastard of a troop captain had gleefully recounted the questions and answers that had condemned him. At every stop, he'd seen his people turn against him.
How can they believe me a traitor? For a moment, he felt physically ill. They believe because the words came out of your mouth.
The road—no more than cart tracks for the roads Shkoder had promised three generations ago still came no farther than the head of Lake Marienka—followed the north edge of a steep-sided ravine. If he could reach the bottom, he could lose himself in the tangled paths of frozen water courses. Once he was free in the mountains, Shkoder would have to bring an army to dig him out.
Heart pounding, muscles tensed almost to pain, Pjerin waited until the marching song reached its final chorus then, with most of the guards singing, dropped his pack and threw himself off the road. He kept his feet under him for only the first two strides. When he hit snow, he allowed himself to fall.
A winter's worth of snow had been packed and frozen by a day of rain and a subsequent drop in temperature creating not only a solid surface for walking but a slick and dangerous route down the side of the ravine. Ignoring the cries from above, Pjerin concentrated on avoiding the trees and rocks rushing toward him at deadly speeds. He'd been sliding down these mountains all his life. This was a path the guards wouldn't dare to take.
Then the ice ended. He slammed into bare rock, bit back a cry of pain, tumbled, dropped five feet straight down and landed on another strip of frozen snow. Arms and legs flailing, fighting to regain control, he crashed off the trunk of an ancient pine, gouged his jaw on a protruding branch, and spun without slowing through the tearing clutches of a thorn bush. Only a frantic grab for the trunk of a small tree kept him from plummeting over a final drop and onto the jagged bed of stone at its base, the sudden jerk nearly tearing his arm from the socket.
Gasping for breath, Pjerin pulled himself to his knees and froze as a crossbow quarrel thudded into the tree just above his hand.
"The next one nails your hand to the tree. Stand up."
Shaking with disappointment, Pjerin stood.
"Now turn around."
He turned. The ice had taken him diagonally, not straight down. Captain Otik and two guards, bows cocked and aimed, stood braced against a fallen tree about three body lengths from the road. The scrub and rock between them offered nothing to block a shot. He could chance it. Leap off the edge, count on the rock to shield him. Defy the odds that said if they didn't shoot him in the back, he'd break a leg in the landing.
No. It was a long way to Elbasan. There'd be other, better chances.
"Get your traitor's ass back up here," Otik growled, "or I'll have the corporal shoot you through the knee and we'll drag you to Elbasan and the block."
The corporal looked as though she'd be more than willing to pull the trigger.
Hauling himself back up to the road, bruised muscles and joints protesting every movement, Pjerin kept his eyes locked on the captain's face and took a savage pleasure in having the other man finally wheel away. This isn't the end, he vowed, blood staining the snow from the wound on his face. I am no lamb to go meekly to the slaughter.
Rough hands yanked him over the last distance and threw him down in a circle of boots. He rolled over and squinted up at uniform expressions of animosity.
"Hobble him," Otik commanded. "And after you've got the pack back on him, tie his hands. I should've remembered that traitors have no honor."
Annice stared down at the blank page without seeing it, her attention held by the movement under the loose folds of her smock. Over the last few weeks, the baby had grown increasingly more active and almost impossible to ignore. Her awareness of it ran under everything she did; under her music, under time with the fledglings, right through eating and sleeping. It's like having a house guest you can't get rid of, she thought, chewing on a handful of raisins. I can't believe some women do this more than once.
Giving herself a mental shake, she finally laid pen to paper, discovered the ink had dried on the quill, and shoved it back into the well. While she usually enjoyed transcribing recall notes, the thought that the king, Theron, would be seeing them kept distracting her.
What was he like now? The evidence of how he wore the crown was hardly hidden but what kind of a man had he become? What kind of a father had he been? Onele was seventeen, a woman grown. Antavas, at thirteen, tottered on the edge of being a man. And Brigita, the baby she'd never seen other than at a careful distance, was a child of ten. Did he love them? Or were they merely imperial playing pieces as the previous generation of royal children had been—shuffled from lesson to lesson, brought out and put on display when the occasion merited a show of family.
Did he ever think of her?
Would he listen if she went to him and said…
And said what? Please excuse the fact that I committed treason with a man you're about to behead for the same crime. Don't hold it against me, don't hold it against my baby. Dream on, Annice. He wouldn't see a coincidence, he'd see a plot. He's a king before he's your brother. She'd learned that at fourteen when he'd rejected everything she was and everything she wanted for herself.