Annice made a mental note to have the Guild's percentage checked into. While traders traditionally complained about the percentages they had to pay in order to deal with the larger guilds, the Council had asked that bards keep an eye out for price gouging.
"… and then I continue—usually a little farther from freeze-up—downriver to Elbasan."
Merchants said that in Elbasan they could trade for the world. As a child, Annice had loved to be taken to the harbor to watch ships unload strange and exotic goods. While the captains had entertained one or another of her older siblings, she'd run about the docks poking her nose into odd corners and driving her nurse to distraction. As an adult, she often thought about petitioning for what the bards called a Walk on Water but had never gone so far as to actually make the request.
Warming to his subject, Jon leaned forward and began sketching trade possibilities in the air. Annice, not really interested in the cycle of wool cloth for exotica for linen back in Vidor, slid into the light trance that would ensure memory as he expanded on his season. She had no idea if the information would ever be of use, but under the bardic adage, wasted knowledge is wasted lives, better to have it than not.
"… and if that trader from Cemandia's still up in Ohrid, I might be able to unload some on him."
That roused her. She'd run into a pair of Cemandian traders in Ohrid and another in Adjud. She'd even seen a small cluster of them in the market in Vidor. In fact, she'd seen more on this latest Walk than she had in all her previous travels combined.
Jon laughed when she mentioned it. "There's always been some trade across the border. Ohrid's never quite managed to close the pass." Then he was off again on an unlikely tale of how he'd bested a Cemandian in an impossible deal.
Annice slid back into trance; all Jon seemed to need was an audience and she was more than willing to oblige. Few people realized that bards spent half their training time learning to listen. And half of that, Annice mused as the story slid from unlikely to improbable, learning to sleep with our eyes open.
"All right, Bard. This is where you float yer weight." Sarlo hooked the sweep oar into one armpit and gestured ahead with her free hand. "Got a whole stretch of river here where the current spreads out and ain't worth shit. Not to mention wind's comin' northwest and'll keep tryin' to blow us onto the far shore. We get through it slow and sure as a rule, but since I don't want to end up with my butt caught in ice, it's all yers."
Fingers clamped not quite white around the oar support, Annice peered off the stern. The fantail following the riverboat was a deep gray-green; not exactly friendly-looking water. Watching the bubbles slipping away upstream induced a sudden wave of vertigo. Annice swallowed hard and sat down, legs crossed for maximum support and eyes closed. Thanks to the innkeeper's well-timed hunk of bread, she'd discovered that small, bland meals at frequent intervals both remained down and damped the nausea to merely an unpleasant background sensation. Unfortunately, during the two days on the river, she'd found all sort of new ways to make herself sick.
"You okay?"
Annice opened her eyes and decided she could cope. "I'm fine."
"You seen a healer yet?"
"I'll see one after I get to Elbasan."
Sarlo snorted. "Yer business."
Reaching under her jacket and sweater, Annice pulled out her flute, the ironwood warmed almost to body temperature. When the kigh arrived she'd Sing, but first she had to get their attention.
"They're gonna be deep with freeze-up so close," Sarlo observed.
Annice ignored her, setting her fingers and checking the movement of the single key. She took a deep breath and slowly released it, then lifted the flute to her mouth.
The kigh took their time responding to the call, but eventually three distinct shapes became visible just below the surface.
Three would have to be enough.
Shoving chilled fingers and flute between her legs, Annice Sang. Some bards argued that as long as the music was right and the desire strong, words were unimportant; that the kigh didn't understand the words anyway, so why tie rhyme and rhythm into knots in what was probably an unnecessary attempt to Sing a specific request.
Personally, Annice preferred to repeat variations of short phrases over and over. It occasionally got tedious, but it usually got results.
The kigh listened for a few moments, one lifting a swell two feet into the air the better to stare intently at the source of the Song, then suddenly all three dove and the boat jerked forward.
"Whoa!" Sarlo took a steadying step and braced herself against the sweep as Annice let the Song fade to silence. "This'll make us some time. How long do you figger they'll push for?"
Annice slumped forward. "Hard to say," she admitted. "I haven't actually asked for much, so we might make it out of the slow stretch before they get bored."
"Then what?"
"Then I'll play them a gratitude and we're back on our own."
"They won't hang around and cause trouble?"
"Probably not…" A sudden gust of wind lifted the top off a wave and flung it up over the high stern deck of the riverboat and into Annice's face. The air kigh flicked the last few drops off its fingers at her, then sped away.
"More kigh?" Sarlo asked.
"More kigh," Annice sighed and pulled the sleeve of her sweater down to wipe at the freezing water. "I've always been strongest in air, so they get jealous when I Sing the others."
"Sort of like being followed around by a bunch of obnoxious kids."
"Worse."
The pilot snorted. "You were never stuck on a river-boat with my right-out-of-the-Circle three."
"Why didn't you leave them with their father?"
"Couldn't. He was my crew till he got knocked off and drowned."
"I'm sorry."
"Why? You weren't the one what pushed him in."
Annice didn't care how unbardlike it was; she wasn't going to ask, she didn't want to know.
They were a day out of Riverton, buildings frequently visible on shore through the slanting rain, when Jon cast off a completed sock and said, "I figured out who you remind me of."
Annice felt her shoulders stiffen.
"I was watching you last night at the inn, while you sang in the common room," he continued. "Firelight was flickering on your profile, turning it kind of goldlike, and it suddenly hit me " He reached under his clothes and pulled out a coin.
In spite of herself, Annice leaned over and looked. Most of the sharp definition had worn away over the years, but it was still easy to see that the profile of the last king, not the current one, lay cradled in his palm. He would have a Mikus, not a Theron, she sighed. The gold coins were struck only once, at the beginning of a reign and named for the likeness of the king they bore.
Jon tucked the old coin safely away, "You look like your father."
"Only from that side."
"My youngest brother knows all twenty-seven verses to The Princess-Bard' and still sings it."
The only response she could think of was too rude to say, so she clamped her teeth shut.
"Not a lot of songs stay popular for ten years, but this one's got a real catchy tune." He started to hum but abruptly broke off when he caught sight of her expression. "I, uh, I guess you're tired of hearing it."
"You might say that. Yes."
"Sorry. It's just—well, the Princess-Bard crammed in right here beside me."
"It's the same person who was crammed in beside you yesterday."
"But yesterday, I didn't know you were the Princess Bard."