He looked at the grille—at the space between the grille and the mountain—and allowed his hands to fall to his sides. "Yes," he sighed, "it would."
Although the valley still lay in the mountain's shadow, a cock had already crowed in the village when the grille finally slid down to rest in the mud.
Pjerin squared his shoulders and turned to face the greater challenge.
"It's all right," Annice told him, the stiff line of her back clearly stating how little she liked what she was forced to admit. "I'm not going with you. Not," she added hoarsely, "because of a few bad smells." She chopped a gesture at the dark hole. "I can't bend. And what's more, there's too much of me sticking out—I couldn't climb up into the keep at the end. Happy?"
He was.
Her hand came up to hold her throat, as though to lend strength to her voice. "Swear to me you'll get Stasya out first."
"Annice, if Olina…"
"Swear!"
He could see whites showing all around her eyes and her palms pressed against his arm were far too hot. "Annice, the baby…"
"Swear!"
"All right! I swear." She took a deep breath and Pjerin watched, relieved as she calmed. "If I go up the laundry drain, I can get to the cellars without being seen. I'll free Stasya and then take care of Olina."
"And Lukas?"
"Without Olina, Lukas is nothing." He pulled himself up into the drain. "Will you be able to get back to Bohdan?"
She nodded. "Be careful."
"Don't worry."
As he disappeared into the darkness, she closed her eyes and murmured, "Soon, Stas. Soon."
Although masking shadows grew fewer with every step, Annice made little effort to hide while returning to Rozyte's house. Without Pjerin, she was completely unrecognizable as the bard who'd visited the keep back in Third Quarter. Just another pregnant woman waddling about on business of her own.
The ache in her temples finally forced her to unclench her jaw. Pjerin had given his word. Stasya would soon be free. But what did Pjerin know about bards? Stasya needed her and here she stood, helpless on the sidelines. It made no difference that her own somewhat latent good judgment had placed her there or that honesty and near exhaustion combined forced her to recognize that she needed to lie down.
Then she saw the small basket of potatoes tucked up against a low stone wall.
Pjerin couldn't just walk in the front gate of the keep. But nothing said she couldn't.
Just another pregnant woman waddling about on business of her own… We'll look like a villager, delivering something to the kitchens, baby. I can't be the only person in Ohrid shaped like a gourd.
With the village coming awake, she had no time for deliberation. Any hesitation and this chance would be lost.
Stasya's going to need me. I can't not be there.
Already sprouting, the potatoes had obviously been saved from last year's harvest and, now that the ground had warmed, would probably be planted any day. An-nice squatted and awkwardly stood again. A chicken, scratching in the garden, paused long enough to give her a stupidly superior stare, but no one else appeared to have seen. When this is over, I'll see that these are returned, she promised silently.
With the basket balanced on one shoulder, screening her face from watchers on the walls of the keep, Annice picked her way onto the track and began the long curving climb up to the gates.
Sarline quietly pulled the heavy wooden door closed behind her and shoved her feet into her clogs. It had taken her until dawn to come to a decision. Lying in the darkness beside a sleeping Rozyte, she'd weighed the alternatives.
Pjerin a'Stasiek was neither oathbreaker nor traitor, and he was their rightful due.
But Pjerin a'Stasiek supported the dangerous belief that the kigh were enclosed in the Circle and he had fathered a child on a bard.
While Sarline by no means approved of everything that had allegedly been happening over the last two quarters, she could not allow the kigh to return to Ohrid in such strength.
Lukas a'Tynek was her cousin. As he was still steward of Ohrid, she'd give him the information she had and wash her hands of it.
Bare feet making no sound against packed dirt, Gerek ran to the shelter of a building and peered out at his quarry. Sarline had thought he was asleep, but he'd seen her staring at him with her face all twisted. He'd been frightened, for she'd looked a bit like Lukas did and he knew now that Lukas was a bad man.
When she'd snuck out of the house, he'd got his bow and arrows from his papa's pack and followed her.
Pushing his quiver back behind his hip, he dashed forward and ducked behind a garden wall as an early riser called out a greeting. Sarline answered without stopping.
Eyes narrowed in an unconscious imitation of his father's glare, he watched her pass the last house and head up the track toward the keep. When the curve took her out of sight, he raced for the narrow twisting path under the thornbushes.
Calves burning, Annice sagged against the cool stone of the gatetower. Buildings swam across her vision, then steadied into the solid black rock of the keep. She'd never wanted so desperately to sit down.
"You don't look so good."
Somehow, she managed to turn to face the owner of the voice.
Sandy brows drawn into a deep vee, he took the basket from her slack fingers and set it at her feet. "You shouldn't be carrying stuff like this. Here, let… Hey! You're not…"
As the realization she wasn't who he thought replaced the concern in his eyes, Annice caught his gaze and snapped, "Go on with what you were doing."
The young man shook his head. "Not until I get you where you're going. You really don't look like you should be walking around on your own. Are you Anezka's sister? I heard she was visiting from Adjud."
Annice knew she was staring at him and tried to stop. Her voice hadn't been strong enough to carry the Command. Hand on her throat, she sank back against the wall, hoping she didn't look as frightened as she felt. What if her voice was never strong enough again? "You're, uh, not… that is…" She dropped her gaze to follow his line of sight and forced herself to think. The baby. He thought she was having the baby. "Uh, no. Not now. Soon."
"Soon?" The word slid up an octave and shattered. "Look, you stay right here. I'm going to go get the mid wife." Before she could protest, he was gone, bounding down toward the village.
The baby twisted and Annice clutched at the curve of her belly. Not now, she pleaded silently. Not now.
Abandoning the potatoes, she moved as quickly as she could toward the laundry, hugging the shadows morning had left along the walls. Hang on, Stas. I'm coming.
In another quarter when the rains hadn't been so frequent and the overflow from the cisterns hadn't regularly washed through the drains, it would have been worse. Knowing that didn't help much. Pjerin tried not to think about what squashed beneath his boots or knees or hands, but he couldn't stop breathing and every breath told him unmistakably where he was. The complete lack of light helped and when he began to pass the privy holes, he looked up, not down.
Fortunately, he'd stopped gagging although his ribs burned and his stomach was a tightly knotted ache. Without a healer, the shoulder wound would have to be cauterized to prevent infection.
Nice to have something to look forward to, he mused darkly.
He'd never thought of himself as having an overly active imagination, but he couldn't banish the screams of soldiers from his mind—their scalded skin sloughing off their bodies as they drowned in boiling water. If they'd been seen as they freed the grille or Annice had been taken on her way back to Bohdan… Even now fires could be burning under the huge kettles in the laundry, the water steaming gently, Olina waiting for just the right moment to pour an agonizing death into the drains.