"Gerek, why didn't you tell Olina that I was alive?"
"Bard made me promise not to." He looked down at his toes digging holes in the dirt. "I was s'posed to tell Bohdan, but he's sick."
"Why did Stasya make you promise not to tell Olina?" Annice asked, sure she knew the answer. Pjerin wasn't the traitor. Someone else had to be.
Gerek sighed. " 'Cause Aunty Olina put her in the hole."
"What?!"
"The hole. In the cellar. It's dark and I don't like it there."
Pjerin's hand snaked out and grabbed Annice's wrist. "You can't help her if you fall over three paces from where you're standing."
Numbly she nodded and sat back down. She wasn't going anywhere before tomorrow at the earliest. And Stasya was in a hole.
Pjerin waited until he was certain Annice was going to stay put, then he asked, "Gerek, why did Olina put the bard down the hole?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. Lukas helped."
"Lukas? Lukas a'Tynek?"
"Uh-huh. Bohdan got sick and he's the steward."
"Lukas a'Tynek is the steward! Has Olina lost her mind?"
Gerek shrugged again. "I dunno."
Annice slid forward until she was sitting cross-legged on the ground, the kigh cradling her, her eyes at a level with the child's. For Stasya's sake she had to find out exactly what was going on. "Gerek, we need you to tell us everything that happened at the keep since your papa went away."
"Everything? I don't 'member everything."
"Yes, you do. Gerek, look at me."
"Annice!" Suddenly realizing what she was about to do, Pjerin gripped her shoulder and half turned her around. "No. I won't allow it."
"We can't go in there blind." She kept her voice calm. The last thing they needed was Gerek choosing sides in an argument. "We have to know who your enemy is."
His face grew bleak at her emphasis. "Olina," he muttered.
"We have to know," Annice repeated. "It won't hurt him. I promise." Olina. Eyes closed, Pjerin nodded.
Annice came out of the cave after singing Gerek to sleep and made her way carefully to where Pjerin stood holding the Ducal sword in both hands and staring at nothing. Her knees still had a disturbing tendency to buckle and she wouldn't want to Sing anything for a few days, but tavern crawling with Tadeus had left her in worse condition. "Any sign of the guard?"
He shook his head. "Never around when you need them. I went back as far as the mouth of the ravine. We could be the only three people in the world."
The name of a fourth person hung in the air between them.
After a moment, Pjerin sighed and let the sword point drop to the ground. "She always said I wasted the power I had. She never understood the power that came from belonging. Of being the Due of Ohrid."
"How could she?" Annice asked softly. "She never was the Due of Ohrid. But Ohrid was important to her, or she'd have left it long ago."
"And gone where?"
"Court. Either in Shkoder or Cemandia. She'd have made a fine politician."
"You don't think much of politicians, do you?" Annice shrugged. "They're a necessary evil."
"She was my family, my father's sister. We were tied by blood. I could almost understand her killing me cleanly because I was in her way, but she set me up, made me appear to be a traitor, an oathbreaker. Dishonored me. Dishonored Ohrid." He swung the sword in a sudden vicious arc and a young alder fell behind the stroke. When he spoke again, he ground out the indictment from between clenched teeth. "She would have raised my son to think I was a traitor when she plans to give Ohrid over to Cemandia without a blow being struck."
Turning, he held out the sword for Annice's inspection. "This sword has been the sword of the Dues of Ohrid for seven generations. The first due brought it with him out of Cemandia and he was probably the only one who ever used it as a weapon. The balance stinks, the grip is too small for my hand, and the last time it was sharpened was when I took the title and had to be blooded." His brows drew in and the violet of his eyes darkened. "I'm going to pin Olina to the doors of the keep with it."
Stasya forced herself to stop sucking at the floor. Still thirsty, all she could do was wait for more moisture to seep up through the stone.
Shaking with the cold, she crawled back to her pad of clothing and wrapped her cloak around her shoulders. It had only been one day—perhaps a little longer but she doubted it. For a while at least, eliminating wastes would give a fairly good idea of the passage of time.
And for a while at least, the oilskin of her pack would keep those wastes contained.
One day.
How was she going to survive another nine?
"Still no message?"
"No, sire." Tadeus turned to face the king, his expression frankly worried. "I haven't heard from Stasya since sunrise yesterday." He waved a hand toward the west, toward a setting sun he couldn't see. "This is too long. Something has to have happened."
Theron frowned. "Is she dead?"
Tadeus blanched. "Dead? No, sire. The kigh would know that. They just can't find her."
"Can't or won't?" Theron asked thoughtfully. "Perhaps Annice and the due have arrived in Ohrid, and whatever it is that's keeping the kigh from Annice is now covering Stasya as well."
The blind bard's smile was enough to make Theron believe the number of conquered hearts supposedly laid at the young man's feet.
"I'd forgotten all about that, Majesty." Tadeus brushed a curl of dark hair back over a scarlet shoulder and visibly relaxed. "That's very likely the case and given how long they've been apart they'll probably…" He paused. "No, probably not considering Annice's condition."
Theron cleared his throat. He didn't need to hear speculation on his sister's… physical relationships. "Suppose Annice hasn't reached Ohrid. Could there be any other reason that the kigh would have trouble reaching Stasya?"
"It has been storming a lot lately, and sometimes that makes them less willing to cooperate." His tone belonged to someone who preferred silk but who'd spent most of three consecutive days wrapped in oilskin. Then he sobered as he weighed the alternatives. "Or she could be unconscious. Or locked far enough inside that the kigh can't get to her. But I can't see how that could happen without her Singing at least a quick call for help."
"If they knocked her unconscious first?" Tadeus looked miserable again. "Yes, sire, that could work."
Thumbs hooked behind his belt, Theron paced to the edge of the rocky outcrop and stared down at the camp. Three days out of Marienka they had only one remaining official visit to slow their arrival at the Due of Ohrid's keep. Thanks to Tadeus, he was as fluent as he was likely to get in the local dialect. And he was very tired of subterfuge. "I'm sending a rider out to Lady Dorota's. We won't be stopping after all. I'll meet with her briefly as we pass and explain."
"You think that Stasya's in danger, Majesty?"
"I think that there's someone in that keep who's already arranged to have one person die and thousands of others killed in a war of conquest. All things being enclosed, I think it's time we hurried."
"Pjerin, wait." Annice sagged against the side of the mule. "I've got to rest."
"Is it happening again?"
Teeth clenched, she nodded.
"Gerek, take the animals into that clearing and let them graze."
"Is Nees going to have the baby now?"
"No!"
As a wide-eyed Gerek led the mule and Otik's mare away, Annice transferred her weight to Pjerin's arm. "No?" she said as the kigh created a hillock for him to lower her to. "How can you be so sure?" If she herself hadn't been worried about exactly the same thing, his look of near panic would've been hysterical.