Holding a clog in each hand for it was impossible to move quietly wearing them, she followed Pjerin and Greek down the main room of the house to a pair of doors set off center in the far wall. The polished planks of the floor felt strange after earth under her feet for so long.
It appeared that Pjerin was having trouble deciding which room Bohdan slept in. Annice sighed and pointed to the left-hand door. The door on the right, set farther from the outside wall, defined a larger room. Logically, because Bohdan's daughter and her partner would need a larger bed, they'd have to have the greater amount of space. When he continued to look doubtful, she pushed forward and opened the door herself. They didn't have time for this.
A high, narrow bed stretched the entire length of the left wall. At its foot, the thick stone wall of the cottage held a small hearth—which shared a chimney with the other bedchamber—and a narrow window. The single shutter had been left open and the moonlight painted silver-white highlights across the bed.
The man in the bed was old, his body barely lifting the blankets draped over him. His cheeks had sunk on both sides of a jutting nose where the flesh had wasted off the arc of bone. Yellowed parchment stretched over the dome of his head. His eyes were deep in shadow, untouched by the moonlight. The one hand resting outside the quilt looked translucent, veins and knuckles swollen through the thin skin.
Pjerin couldn't believe that Bohdan had aged so much in such a short time. When he'd been falsely accused, when the guards had taken him away, his steward had been elderly, yes, but vigorous. A man, if not in his prime, equally not in his dotage. This ruin appeared one breath from death.
His throat tight, Pjerin touched the old man lightly on the hand.
Gray-lidded eyes flipped open, widened, and then Bohdan's lips twisted into a smile. His voice echoed the dry rasp of fallen leaves stirred by the wind. "Have you come to take me into the Circle, Your Grace?"
"I'm not dead, Bohdan," Pjerin told him softly, taking up the skeletal hand in his. "I'm as alive as you are, and I need your help."
"Alive?" The parchment brow furrowed. "Alive?" Gnarled fingers pulled free and crept up the younger man's arm. Breathing heavily, he dragged his hand across the broad chest so that it rested over Pjerin's heart. Rheumy eyes filled with tears. "Alive."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bohdan's daughter, Rozyte, set down the wooden platter of bread, cold pork, and cheese on the table, then slid onto the bench beside her partner. Her eyes locked on Pjerin, Due of Ohrid, she pushed the platter toward An-nice and in a low voice instructed her to eat.
Annice picked at the food, too tense with worry about Stasya to be hungry.
"I'm sorry to be of so little help, Your Grace," Bohdan sighed. Discovering the due he loved had not betrayed him had erased years from the ruin they'd found in the bed, but he still looked old and tired. Scrawny shoulders rose and fell in a disappointed shrug. "I've been sick. I don't get out." He sighed again. "I would like to think that the whole village would stand behind you, our rightful lord, but…"
"But?" Pjerin prodded when the old steward paused.
"But most people would rather be ruled by Cemandia than Shkoder," Rozyte answered.
Pjerin's face grew dark. "Ruled?"
Rozyte raised a cautioning hand. "Your Grace, please, don't wake the children. I can only tell you what I've overheard."
"But Shkoder doesn't rule in Ohrid," Annice pointed out, her tone only slightly less sharp than Pjerin's had been. "The treaty is a partnership. Ohrid guards the pass and has access to Shkoder's greater resources. Shkoder gains security and provides Ohrid with those things it hasn't the size or population to acquire on its own. All five principalities retained their independence."
"We have not overly benefited from that partnership," Rozyte replied shortly. "But since His Grace has been presumed dead, Cemandian traders have done very well by us."
"Cemandian traders have bought you!" Pjerin spat. Annice closed her fingers around his arm, and he settled back onto the bench, seething.
"We were without your leadership, Your Grace," Rozyte's partner, Sarline, spoke for the first time.
Pjerin nodded a tight acknowledgment of her words, but Annice heard the shadow of another meaning and took a long look across the scarred planks of the table. Sarline pushed a graying braid back over her shoulder and pointedly refused to meet the bard's gaze.
"Olina will close the keep if she finds out I'm alive." He pronounced his aunt's name like he hated the taste of it in his mouth. "A siege will place us and His Majesty—when he arrives—right in the path of the Cemandian army."
"But, Your Grace," Bohdan protested, "we don't know for certain there will be an army."
Pjerin laid both hands flat on the table. "Olina knows what capturing King Theron will mean to a Cemandian invasion."
"Granted," the old steward allowed, "but how would Cemandia find out that His Majesty was arriving in Ohrid?"
"Rozyte said that Olina's new toy left for home just after Stasya arrived. No doubt she sent a message with him."
"But, Your Grace, to change the course of an army he would have to gain access to the throne and he was only a mountebank."
"He was Albek."
All five adults at the table swiveled to stare at Gerek standing in the door to Bohdan's room.
Rozyte shook her head. "Simion was nothing like Albek," she said sternly. "Father asked me to check when he arrived, Gerek. The two were very different."
"They had different hair and different clothes," Gerek snorted. "But the person was the same."
"Gerek…"
Pjerin's raised hand cut off Rozyte's protest. "How did he react to your Aunt Olina," he asked.
Gerek beamed. He knew his papa would understand. "Just exactly the same."
"Come here."
The boy ran to his father's side and clambered up onto the bench looking pleased with himself.
"Since you don't seem to be sleeping anyway," Pjerin told him, "and since you apparently kept a pretty close eye on things while I was gone, you might as well join the council."
"Your Grace! He's only a child!" Rozyte's lips drew into a tight, disapproving line. She had insisted from the moment she'd been awakened with the news that her and Sarline's two children—both twice Gerek's age—be left strictly out of the night's deliberations.
"For a time, he was the seventh Due of Ohrid. This concerns him more than any of us save myself. And I am getting into that keep tonight." Pjerin's tone settled the matter. "The only question is how."
"What about the path through the thornbushes Gerek used when he ran away?" Bohdan wondered.
Gerek shook his head. "Papa's too big. I'm almost too big."
"What about secret passageways?" Annice demanded, ripping a crust of bread into crumbs. "The palace is full of them."
Bohdan almost smiled. "Unfortunately, my dear, we are sadly deficient in secret passageways. A regrettable lack of foresight on the part of the first due."
"What about the drain?" Gerek asked. "That's sort of like a secret passageway. 'Cept it's not secret."
Pjerin turned and stared at his son. "Have you been playing near the drain?"
The question merited consideration. "Not 'zactly."
"What does not exactly mean?"
"I wasn't playing." He picked at a loose thread on the edge of his tunic. "I was looking."
"What did I tell you about that area?"
Gerek sighed deeply. "Not to go near it 'cause it's dangerous and yucky and maybe I could get drowned. But, Papa…" His small face grew serious as he fearlessly met his father's scowl. "I was the due. And you said a due's gotta know every bit of his land and stuff."