"Safety! Honor! Be quiet!" Gregor appeared in the doorway, a silhouette against the light within. "Is that you, Jazep?"
"It is." He walked forward and frowned as he drew close enough to see the other man's expression. "What's wrong? Has something happened to Adrie, or the baby?"
"No, they're fine." A smile flashed for an instant between the drooping ends of the mustache as Gregor touched his fist to the bard's. "Mari's almost walking. It's just that…" He paused, threw up his hands, and stepped back out of the doorway. "It's just that it's complicated. I'd best save it till you're in and sitting down."
Confused; Jazep followed him into the house.
"… so then this Captain Otik rides up, oh, mid-afternoon and says that Annice is really His Majesty's sister and she's wanted in the capital for treason and Jorin a'Gerek is really Pjerin a'Stasiek, the Due of Ohrid and he's escaped from his execution."
Dusting his fingertips lightly over the stretched skin of his tambour, Jazep frowned. "He's right about Annice, although I doubt His Majesty intends to pass Judgment, but I was in the Bardic Hall in Vidor the day the due died. Unless the king himself is involved, he certainly didn't escape his execution."
"Then the captain was lying?" Adrie hugged herself and shivered although the night was warm.
Because he Sang only earth, Jazep spent most of Third and Fourth Quarter at the Citadel and often sat gate duty, giving him more contact with the King's Guard than most bards. Even the most determinedly neutral opinion of Otik had included a variation on "insanely ambitious."
"Did the captain say why he was after Annice and this man?"
Gregor nodded, one end of his mustache twisted so tightly around his finger that it pulled his upper lip out at a painful-looking angle. "He said that His Majesty wanted Annice brought back to Elbasan but that Judgment had already been passed on the due."
"And he said that because we were here on the king's sufferance," Adrie continued miserably, "if we didn't cooperate, we'd lose the valley."
Jazep suddenly knew what had happened. "You told the captain which way they went. Showed him their trail." The lap drum whispered under his fingers.
"We've put our lives into this valley." Gregor pleaded for understanding. "We thought he was a traitor…"
"It's all right." Jazep used enough Voice to be believed. No wonder these two are wound so tightly with
guilt. They must realize that Annice saved their valley this morning. And then they had to sacrifice her to save it this afternoon. "Otik's a Captain in the King's Guard. You did what you had to." He couldn't go after them until sunrise. "I don't know who this Jorin a'Gerek is, but Annice isn't entirely helpless."
Adrie looked even more wretched. "I thought bards took an oath not to Sing against other people even to save themselves."
"That's true." Jazep drummed out a faint heartbeat. "But she can Sing to save her baby." He just hoped Annice remembered that.
Otik watched their camp from downwind, his position carefully screened by trees. He could take them now, while they slept—one arrow for him and a second to keep her silent. The crescent moon and stars combined shed enough light to hit a motionless and unsuspecting target. Slowly, he raised the crossbow.
Slowly, he lowered it again.
He'd wait until he got a good look at the traitor in the morning. He didn't want to make any mistakes.
Annice cracked open her eyes and stared sleepily up at Pjerin. From the length of the shadows it couldn't have been much past dawn. "What are you doing?" she muttered.
"Checking for bruises," Pjerin grunted, twisting around and trying unsuccessfully to get a look at his own right shoulder blade. "There was a great big unenclosed pointed rock the size of my fist jabbing into me all night."
"Then why didn't you mo… What is your problem?" she snapped as the kigh pushed her up into a half reclining position. "I can get up on my…" She fell silent as she realized that something had the kigh very upset. "Pjerin! Get down!"
The crossbow quarrel caught him just under the left shoulder, spun him around, and dropped him face first into the pile of bracken he'd used for bedding.
"Pjerin!" Annice heaved herself to her feet and started toward him.
"Not another step, Bard, and not a sound, or there's one for you, too."
Annice froze. There was an inch of bloody steel poking out through Pjerin's back and a line of crimson dribbling down from the wound. She couldn't tell if he was breathing, but the quarrel hadn't gone through anything vital, so he couldn't be dead. He couldn't be.
Light crossbow, at the edge of its accurate range, she found herself thinking as she listened to the footsteps cautiously approaching from the brush behind her. A heavy crossbow, or a closer shot would've gone right through him.
"Go back to where you were sleeping and sit down. And remember, even so much as a cough out of you and I'll shoot."
The voice was educated. An Elbasan accent over Vidor origins; and what difference does it make? She couldn't risk the chance that he was bluffing. Not with another life dependent so completely on her. Pjerin, don't be dead, she pleaded silently as she sat. There are times I can't stand you, but I don't want you to be dead.
When Otik walked out of the bush, weapon ready, it confirmed her worst fears; the guard had caught up to them. How they managed it wasn't really relevant. Then she frowned. Here was the captain, but she couldn't hear the rest of the troop.
"Very good, Highness," Otik piled sarcasm on the honorific. "Stay there and stay quiet and you'll be able to throw yourself on His Majesty's mercy at your Death Judgment. Move and you'll pay the price for treason now." He hoped she believed him because he didn't think he could actually shoot her. It was one thing to realize she was with child and another thing entirely to be confronted with it.
His attention locked on the bard, Otik circled the fire pit and squatted by the due's wounded shoulder. It wasn't a heart shot; he'd known that the moment he pulled the trigger, but it had hit close and it was entirely possible that the position of the body hid a spreading pool of blood.
Still watching the bard, crossbow cradled in his right arm, the captain reached out and dug his thumb, hard, into the due's side. Any reaction, and he'd shoot the unenclosed traitor again before he turned him over.
In a single motion, teeth clenched against the pain, Pjerin twisted, wrapped his right hand around Otik's wrist and slammed the fist-sized rock on his left, into the other man's head.
The wet crunch of bone shattering at Otik's temple, drowned out the single grunt of surprise he managed. As he fell, his finger spasmed.
Annice screamed as the ground dropped from under her and the quarrel punched through the place where her head had been. Heart pounding, she scrambled to her feet and raced through the kigh to Pjerin. "You're not dead!"
"Not quite," he gasped, rising to his knees.
Before she could stop him, he grabbed the fletched end of the quarrel and yanked it back out of his flesh.
"You idiot!" Annice caught him as he swayed. "How did you know that wasn't barbed?"
"Guards use smooth diamond tips." His face had taken on a slightly greenish cast. "Same going out as going in."
Calling him every insulting name she could think of, she snatched up his shirt and stuffed it against the hole, her fingers stained red.
"You could've waited…" she began.
Pjerin shook his head and wished he hadn't as the world tried to slide sideways. "No time. His troop has to be close. We've got to move."
"Not until I've bound this up!" She hurriedly tore, and wrapped, and tightened. "And what about Otik? Who knows how long he's going to be out. What do we do with him?" Hands still working, she half turned.