"The innkeeper seemed to think you're too small."
"I am not too small!" Annice practically spit out the protest. "Everyone who's ever had a baby suddenly thinks they're an expert! I'm not too small, I'm not carrying too low, and of course I look tired, I've been up all night dragging your ass out of a dungeon."
"Why not tell the world?" Pjerin snarled. But no one appeared to have noticed, in spite of the vehemence. Sweat trickling down his sides, he turned and checked behind them again.
She shifted her pack. "What do you keep staring at back there?"
"They must know I'm gone. The drudge comes for the slops at sunrise."
Annice grinned at him. "But you vanished out of a locked cell. First they'll have to drag His Majesty out of bed and then they'll have to question the guards. We won't see any sign of pursuit for hou…"
The sound of at least three sets of shod hooves spun them both around. Pjerin flung out a hand to keep Annice on her feet as her shifting pack threatened to pull her over. Sight blocked by a curve in the road, the sound echoed between the buildings.
"You were saying!" Heart slamming in his chest, the sound of pursuit almost drowned out by the roar of blood in his ears, he searched for a place to hide.
"No!" Annice dug in her heels, throwing her weight against his. "Stay here! Turn your back to the road, the pack will hide you. You're a trader. Remember that!"
There wasn't time to argue. Pjerin turned just as three horses galloped into view, his hands closing around Annice's, her touch the only thing keeping him from running.
They were on them. They were gone.
"Nothing to do with us," Annice said soothingly, her voice trembling a little in spite of her best efforts. "Nobles."
Pjerin couldn't get his muscles to unlock. "Nobles?"
"Young ones. The kind who think it's funny to gallop through town and make everyone jump out of their way."
"Nobles," Pjerin repeated a second time. He remembered how to breathe.
"Assholes!" bellowed a candlemaker stepping out of his shop and shaking a scarred fist at the clouds of dust. "Unenclosed guards are never around when you need 'em."
"Ain't it the truth." Annice pulled her hands out of Pjerin's loosened grip and flexed the fingers to make sure they still worked. "Come on." She reached up and slapped him gently on both cheeks. "Let's catch that ride to Vidor."
"Well, Captain?"
Years of practice kept Liene's voice and facial expression totally noncommittal although below the surface calm her thoughts churned. "The trail does lead to Bardic Hall, Majesty, but we should consider the possibility that it was made by other than a bard."
Theron stared across the desk at her, his hair and clothing bearing mute testimony to his explorations within the walls. "Do you honestly believe that, Captain?"
She frowned. "Not for a moment, Majesty."
"Then let's leave the realm of fairytales behind, shall we, and cut right to the facts." He raised a grimy finger. "One: the passageways through the palace are not exactly secret and have long been explored by the younger members of the royal family. Although, I might add, that particular passageway is going to be filled before we're all very much older. There's no reason," he growled, "for any of them to have been built in the first place."
The captain decided against mentioning that Kristjan II, the king who'd commissioned the building of the palace, had been referred to by the bards of his time as "out of his royal mind" and there were scrolls and scrolls in the library concerning how best to deal with his "enthusiasms." At the moment, the information would only serve as an unnecessary distraction.
"Two:" Theron continued, "you have such a… person currently in residence at Bardic Hall. Three: she was the last bard to go to Ohrid before this whole situation came up."
Four: she's not going to want to see the father of her child executed. The sudden realization hit Liene hard enough to set up echoes between her ears. She'd known from the moment the king had so tersely laid his dawn discovery before her that Annice had to be involved. That Pjerin a'Stasiek had fathered her child could be the only logical explanation for her to save him from the block. Not for a moment did the Bardic Captain believe that Annice had sold out to Cemandia.
Quickly recalling the conversation they'd had after the Due had been accused, she realized that Annice had never denied sleeping with the due although she'd done her best to misdirect suspicion. I must be getting old not to have seen through your innuendos. You told me exactly what I wanted to hear without ever telling me an outright lie and when I get my hands on you, I'm going to wring your neck. How could you put me in this position!
"Captain! I realize this has given you plenty to think about, but try to pay attention."
"Your pardon, Majesty." Liene sketched a bow. Theron snorted. "As I was saying, there is another bard who recently spent time with the due and who may have, over the years in close proximity, been told the secret ways of the palace."
"Stasya?"
The king nodded. "I'll send for them both and we'll see what kind of an explanation they can give us. I'm sure they'll be a credit to their bardic training."
"But, Majesty, shouldn't the guard be sent after the fugitive immediately?"
"No." The word was both denial and a warning not to argue further.
Liene drummed her fingers against her thighs. At this hour of the morning, she didn't deal well with disaster and she couldn't read the king's mood at all. "If you'll forgive me saying so, Majesty, you're taking this escape—and the implication of your sister in that escape—very calmly."
Theron leaned back in his chair and brushed at the cobwebs on his sleeve. "I have my reasons, Captain. Page!"
The door flew open. "Sire!"
"Take a message to Bardic Hall…"
Stasya scrambled into her good tunic and searched amidst the mess on the table for a comb. Things were not going as planned.
"How did he find out so quickly?" she muttered, sifting through a pile of slates, a box of chalk, three scrolls, and a breastband with a broken strap. "There was nothing to connect that escape to Annice. Nothing."
The summons had been for them both.
"Maybe I can say she's in the privy. All things being enclosed, she'd been there often enough lately I can probably make it sound like the truth."
She found the comb at last and dragged it through her hair.
"Maybe this has nothing to do with last night."
One of her boots was under the bed.
"Maybe he's found out she's pregnant and wants to know if it's mine."
The other was propped up in the otherwise empty fireplace.
"Maybe he wants us to sing him a duet over breakfast."
She paused in the doorway and glanced back at the familiar mess. This might be the last time she ever saw it—an execution had already been planned, all it lacked was the guest of honor.
One hand went to her throat as she pulled the door closed with the other. At least Annice was safely away.
"And now off I go to compound treason with lies." She couldn't believe the risks she took for love.
Without appearing to be watching him at all, Liene watched the king carefully as they waited for the two bards to arrive. This would be the first time in ten years he'd seen his youngest sister face-to-face. What was he thinking? Given the circumstances, what could he be thinking? Given Annice's condition on top of everything else, this was likely to be an interview of historic proportions and Liene rather wished that someone else were Bardic Captain during it. I'm getting too old for this.
In her opinion, he looked too calm. She wondered what he was hiding.
Theron continued to brush at the dust on his sleeve. He could remember only two times he'd been this angry; the first when the sister he'd all but raised had made him look a fool at his father's deathbed, the second when she rejected his offer of forgiveness and demanded he apologize for what she had done to him. And now, she defies me once again. This time, she has gone too far.