Otik lay crumpled on one side, the pink and gray ruin of his head facing the sky. His eyes stared sightlessly into the bracken, and a fly minced daintily along the moist lower curve of his lip.
"What do we do with Otik?" Pjerin repeated grimly. He hadn't intended to kill him, but remembering every detail of the long journey from Ohrid to Elbasan under the captain's control, he couldn't find it in himself to care that he was dead. "We leave him for the worms."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jazep Sang the kigh a gratitude and stared thoughtfully down at the earth that now covered the body of Captain Otik. The captain had been killed with a blow to the side of the head. That much was obvious. That alone was obvious.
Red-brown bloodstains on the bracken were still sticky. Someone besides Otik had been injured.
The kigh were little or no help. Whether that was because they considered whatever happened none of their business or because they were protecting Annice, Jazep had no idea. He sighed and Sang for the trail. With one of them injured and Annice pregnant, or Annice injured and pregnant, they couldn't be very far ahead of him even with the addition of Otik's horse. With the help of the kigh, he'd be with them by noon.
And then Annice had some explaining to do.
Sometime later, he found_ himself back in the clearing by Otik's grave. The kigh had led him in a circle.
He Sang a question and frowned. Annice had asked them not to let anyone follow and they were including him in their compliance. There wasn't anything he could do about it either—the kigh had decided to protect Annice and her baby and nothing he could Sing would breach what they considered that protection to include.
Sliding out of his pack, Jazep sat and mulled over the possibilities. Why had Otik been killed? Because he'd wounded either Annice or her companion. Simple so far. But Otik must have known he'd have a fight on his hands if he tried to take them back to Elbasan, and risking that with a man Gregor and Adrie described as both large and fit didn't sound like the captain at all.
"Then let's suppose he didn't risk it," Jazep mused aloud. "Let's suppose he tried to remove the threat, maybe attacking the man in his sleep, botched the job, and was killed." Unfortunately, King Theron disapproved of his guard conducting summary executions and Otik was far too ambitious to risk the king's displeasure. "Unless…" The bard's eyes widened. "Unless Otik was right and Jorin a'Gerek really was the Due of Ohrid, with a Judgment of Death already passed." Why was Annice with him? Jazep counted back. Because during Annice's Walk to Ohrid, the due had fathered her child. Where were they headed now?
He stood and brushed off his breeches. Given the distance and direction they'd already traveled, they had to be headed for Ohrid.
Why?
"I guess I'll have to ask them that when I get there."
"You sent for me, Lady?"
"Yes. I did." Olina leaned back against the crenellations edging the tower roof and studied the new steward. In the seven days since she'd appointed him, he'd wrapped himself in the privileges of the position and gloried in the power, all the while keeping half an eye on her lest she change her mind. She turned and waved a hand down into the pass. "This is my great-nephew's heritage. If you want to cross the mountains into Cemandia or from Cemandia, you do it here."
Lukas moved forward until he stood by her side.
She allowed it for the moment. "I believe that the Due of Ohrid has the right to exploit his heritage in such a way that all his people prosper. Don't you agree?"
"Yes, Lady."
"Do you know what that is?"
Lukas squinted along the line of her pointing finger. "The palisade, Lady."
"There, at the base of the palisade!"
He cringed slightly under the whip of her voice. "A crack in the lowest supporting log, Lady. But it's always been there."
"Don't you think it's time it was fixed?"
"But…"
She was rapidly losing her patience. "Don't make me repeat the question, Lukas. And don't make me regret I appointed you steward." The coiled ebony mass of her hair reflected the sunlight with an iridescent shimmer. "Fix the palisade so that my great-nephew can make Ohrid prosper."
"Yes, Lady." Stroking his beard he stared down into the pass, then suddenly turned to face her. "Yes, Lady," he repeated enthusiastically. Eyes gleaming with a mixture of fear and greed, Lukas bowed and hurried off.
He wasn't entirely stupid.
Olina smiled and flicked a bit of loose mortar off the top of the tower. Although she was certain he hadn't intended to, Albek had taught her the simplest way to get around Bardic Command. The truth was much more subjective than most people dreamed. "I told him to fix the palisade," she told the sky. "The palisade is an important part of Ohrid's defense."
Historically, the truth often depended on who won and, therefore, on who asked the questions. Olina intended to have as many of the right answers as possible, regardless of how much it presently looked like Cemandia would be the clear winner in the upcoming conflict.
Stasya stared up the length of the valley at the keep of Ohrid. When she'd been here in Fourth Quarter, it had brooded bleakly over a landscape of ice and snow, its high thick walls of black rock appearing to be more a grim growth on the side of the mountain than the result of a stonemason's art. She'd thought at the time that the dark impression was most likely a result of her errand.
"And I was wrong," she muttered, swinging her pack back onto her shoulders.
New growth had tinted the landscape a delicate green but nothing else had changed.
"Come to think of it, I'm on the same unenclosed errand." She shook her head and started up the track, a little surprised that the area got even enough traffic to cut the imprint of wheels into the grass.
The trip from Vidor upriver to the head of Lake Marienka had been one worth a song and the recall, when she finally got a chance to do it, would inspire fledgling compositions for generations. Among the Riverfolk, the young woman who'd risked her small boat on the chance that Stasya could out-Sing First Quarter currents had been considered a fool at the beginning of the journey and an unenclosed lucky fool at the end.
Whistling up a kigh, Stasya Sang it a short message to take back to Elbasan and the Bardic Captain. "I'll be at the keep by sunset. I'm sure they'll be thrilled." She hesitated briefly before adding, "Any news of Annice?" The guard had tracked them out of Vidor and then, as she'd predicted, lost them in the wilderness between the plains and Ohrid. Stasya wasn't sure that she wanted to be told, yet again, that there was no news, but she couldn't stop herself from asking.
By the time she reached the gates, she had a small parade of children accompanying her, dancing and leaping about to the music of her pipes. When she stopped playing, a howl of protest arose.
"Oh, so hard done by," she told them, laughing, gesturing with her empty hand at the two people waiting just outside the keep. "I'm not going to ignore the due's regent for you lot. Run along and I'll play for you tomorrow."
"Are you going to thtay?" lisped a tow-headed boy through the gap where his front teeth had been.
"I'll be staying for a while," Stasya promised, watching the edge of her vision for a reaction from either of the listening adults. "His Majesty, King Theron is coming here for a visit and I'm to wait for him."
"Is that the majesty that killed Gerek's papa?" asked a child of indeterminate sex, small brows drawn into a frown.
"Yes. But he didn't want to." Four younger brothers had taught her that, moral position aside, children might just as well be told the truth because no adult could predict how they'd react to it. "Sometimes kings have to do things they don't want to, just like other people."