Annice paced the length of the room and back, then bent over and placed her palms very precisely on the edge of the captain's desk. "Look, Captain, I'm twenty-four years old. I'm in excellent health. I haven't got a family anymore and I suddenly find that I want one now I've got this chance."
"I thought the bards had become your family, Annice."
She caught the older woman's gaze and held it. "Have they?"
Liene recognized the challenge. One family had turned their backs on this young woman already. Would a second? "If I support you in this, it is my treason, a bardic treason, as much as it is yours."
"I know that."
"The king would be within his rights to have everyone who knew and who didn't tell him put to the sword."
Annice almost smiled. "Then tell everyone."
"Your point," Liene acknowledged. "As he certainly can't execute us all, we're safe enough. But, considering it objectively, you're probably just as safe. You don't honestly believe that His Majesty would have you put to death over this matter, do you?"
"I can't afford not to believe it. I have my baby's life to consider."
"Then you should go into hiding."
"Where would be safer than Bardic Hall?"
Just about anywhere farther than a stone's throw from the palace, Liene thought but she kept that opinion to herself as she recognized the expression on Annice's face. Nothing she could say would change the younger bard's mind at this point and, as she herself didn't believe there was any great danger, she decided not to make it an order. His Majesty would find out about the baby in due time and then things would get interesting. Bards appreciated that. Still…
"I think you should tell him," she said finally.
"I'm a bard." Annice straightened, brown eyes narrowing. "Why should a bard have to tell the king she's having a baby?"
"He's your brother."
"He proclaimed me out of the family. He shouldn't be able to have it both ways."
Liene drummed her fingers on her desk as she considered the options, one hand beating counterpoint to the other. It didn't seem worth mentioning that, as the king, he could have it any way he wanted it. "Very well, Annice." The rhythms merged and stopped. "The Bardic Hall will support your choice as it would any other bard's."
"Thank you."
She saw Annice's shoulders visibly relax and allowed her tone to soften as she realized just how worried the young bard had been. "I suggest, however, that we work out a way for you to keep a low profile. There's no point rubbing King Theron's nose in your decision." Again, she added silently. While the maneuver that had gotten Annice into the Bardic Hall originally had been ingenious—the deathbed promise of the old king could hardly be disallowed by the new, regardless of his personal plans—it had been significantly lacking in tact. "When are you due?"
"Uh…" A quick calculation got chewed out of her lower lip. "Just into Second Quarter."
"How do you feel?"
"Nauseous mostly."
"I've heard that should stop soon. I'll have a word with the healer—Elica was it?—before I schedule you in for even Short Walks this coming quarter."
"I'm fine. Really."
"If you don't mind, I'll check with the healer anyway. Now then…" fingers laced together, Liene allowed herself a smile, "as long as you're here, did anything else of interest happen during the two quarters you were away?"
Again the blush. "There were more Cemandian traders around than usual."
"You're not the first to mention it. Anything else?"
"Actually, there is. Cemandian superstitions seem to be growing stronger in the mountain provinces. Although most people seemed glad enough to see me, I caught an extraordinary number of these…" Annice flicked her fingers out in the Cemandian sign against the kigh. "… thrown in my direction."
That was not good news and would have to be dealt with the moment the weather allowed bards back into the mountains. A greater amount of intolerance seemed to be accompanying the greater number of traders. Liene wondered, for a moment, if it were an intentional import. "Any overt hostility?"
"No. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to mean much yet. But it's spreading enough so that even a wool trader from Marienka noticed it."
"And the rest of the Walk?"
Although she tried to remember the highlights, it soon became apparent Annice was having trouble concentrating on the details of the last two quarters. Under the circumstances, Liene could hardly blame her and dismissed her early. At least in recall she'd be able to report her observations without the emotional interference caused by this new knowledge of her condition.
Sighing deeply as the door closed behind the young bard, the captain tipped her chair back and swung her feet up on the desk, wincing with the movement. Every year after fifty seemed to drive the damp deeper into her bones.
It had been an interesting morning and looked as though it would get more interesting still.
"Treason, my ass." Liene rubbed at her temples. Overreacting to his youngest sister's coup, King Theron had hit back as hard as he'd been able to with the limited weapons Annice had left him.
It was long past time for a reconciliation. This would force it. The king, while an admirable man in every other way, was deaf to counsel concerning his youngest sister, and Annice had a stubborn streak that bordered on pigheaded. Neither could be brought to see that they were equally at fault.
Had Theron not been king, the situation would have resolved itself long ago, but not even the Bardic Captain dared tell the king what he should and should not feel, and there were few things more extreme than royal pride. Annice had not helped when, in her second year of training, she'd rejected her brother's one attempt at compromise. Liene hadn't been surprised; had His Majesty been trying to further alienate his sister, he could not have done a better job.
While she'd meant what she'd said about not rubbing King Theron's nose in Annice's pregnancy, only a fool would doubt that eventually he'd discover it.
Bards were terrible at keeping secrets. They insisted on putting them to music.
"Can you hear me, Annice?"
"I hear you."
Slane picked up his first pen. "Begin recall."
Deeply in trance, Annice started to speak, each word carefully enunciated. "I left Elbasan in early morning, one day after Second Quarter Festival…"
The two quarter scroll began to fill with bardic shorthand and Slane let the greater part of his mind wander. Some bards never quite got the hang of editing out their personal lives, but Annice, no matter how deep she went, had never let a salacious detail slip.
Observant, Slane acknowledged. But boring. With any luck, he'd be on recall when Tadeus came in. Now there was a bard who knew how to party.
A baby. Shoulders braced on the stone chimney, Annice slid down until she settled on the roof of Bardic Hall. She was going to have a baby. Between her discussion with the captain and the rest of the day spent in recall, this was the first chance she'd really had to just think about it.
At least the weaver hadn't lied about the wool for her breeches being preshrunk.
A baby.
She let her head fall back against the masonry hard enough to snap her teeth together. "What in the Circle do I think I'm doing?"
Having a baby.
"I don't know anything about babies!"
But she knew she wanted it. Had wanted it from the moment Elica had told her. Or perhaps a little after that, when she'd calmed down and stopped demanding to see a healer who knew what she was doing.
A cold wind off the harbor moved her around to sit on the palace side of the chimney. In a little while, when the lamps were lit inside, she'd be able to see her old suite. It wouldn't take much to discover who was living there now—she could Sing a kigh over to the windows in a couple of minutes—but she didn't want to know. Hadn't ever wanted to know. She went into the palace to take her turn witnessing in the courts but that was it. She'd never been asked to play at any function and she'd never attended any that were within her rights as a bard to attend.