Four
Magda stood with two friends just off the end of the gangplank, their healer’s sashes allowing them a prime position as well as protecting them from the rough jostling of the crowds. Behind them, the people of Elbasan packed the pier and the waterfront, personal opinions on the value of the voyage keeping no one from enjoying a warm, sunny day and a celebration paid for by the crown. In front of them, the gangplank length of empty pier away, the Starfarer bobbed gently on the light chop.
Supplies and trade goods had been loaded. The captain and crew were on board.
“What’s taking so long?” Magda wondered, bouncing up and down. Not particularly tall, she couldn’t see a thing when she turned except hundreds of other people, all waiting for the arrival of the queen and her consort.
“I can see the pennants!” Jerrad, one of the other healers, announced. “They’ve made it to Lower Dock Street.”
A sudden rise in the volume of cheering toward the other end of the pier backed up his observation and the crowd began to rearrange itself into two crowds flanking a wide aisle. A curse and splash marked the spot where someone went off the edge and into the water. A moment later a man’s voice yelled “He’s okay!” and the healers relaxed.
“I can’t believe you’d rather stand out here with us peasants than parade to the docks with the royal party,” Jerrad shouted by Magda’s ear.
She grinned and ducked as one end of a streamer escaped the hands holding it and flapped over her head. “What?” she yelled up at him, “And miss all this?”
Once it had been determined she wouldn’t be going with them…
“Because no matter how it may have seemed over the last four quarters, I’m not your personal healer. Johan is. He goes, Majesty; I stay and get some work done.”
… personal good-byes had been said in the quiet of the royal apartments. As friend and cousin, she’d enthused with them over the possibilities unfolding and demanded that they bring her back a souvenir from the Broken Islands. As a healer, she’d kept her mouth shut. Jelena was healing; the idea of the voyage had brought her out of her grief, and Kovar’s opposition to it had strengthened her hold on the crown. Grinning, Magda wondered if Kovar had any idea of how helpful he’d been.
“You look like a cat that’s been into the cream,” Jerrad told her. The streamer retrieved, they straightened.
“Are you surprised?” demanded their companion, one hand clutching her healer’s sash as though afraid she might lose it. “She’s surrounded by overstimulated kigh. Everyone who touches her is giving her a buzz. She’ll be sizzling before this is over, you mark my words.”
“Anzie!” Cheeks burning, Magda smacked Jerrad on the arm before he could add his quarter gull’s worth. “That’s not how it works!”
Anzeta’s answer got lost in the roar of the crowd.
A pair of standard-bearers, each carrying the crowned ship of Shkoder over the symbols of the five principalities and the leaping dolphin of the Broken Islands, took up position at the bottom of the gangplank. They braced themselves as the silk banners, rising more than a bodylength over their heads, caught the offshore breeze and threatened to send them out to sea.
With everyone else craning for a first glimpse of the queen, Magda was the only one who saw their expressions of relief as the air around them, and only around them, suddenly stilled. As she’d seen no bards actually on the pier, she assumed Kovar was making himself useful from his place in the procession.
Four of the Queen’s Ceremonial Guard, their long pikes topped with pennants similar to those flying from the Starfarer’s rigging, took up position just in from the standard bearers. Her view blocked by a broad shoulder clad in gleaming armor, Magda bumped her hip against Jerrad until he moved down far enough for her to see again. The guard, a young woman she knew by sight, was grinning. Leaning forward, Magda aimed her voice at the edge of the ceremonial helmet. “Someone’s going to get a strong laxative in her beer one of these nights.” The grin vanished.
Her Majesty, Jelena, Queen of Shkoder, High Captain of the Broken Islands, Lord over the Mountain Principalities of Sibiu, Ohrid, Ajud, Bicaz, and Somes, looked terrific. Under her blue-and-cream travel clothes she remained a little thin, but her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. Magda felt as proud of the result as if she’d been personally responsible for it.
Two steps behind the queen, Otavas looked as incredible as he always did. He smiled and waved to the crowd as they called his name, but Magda could see that most of his attention was on Jelena and most of his joy was for hers.
Six or seven paces back, Bannon and Benedikt walked side by side.
His hands folded into white-knuckled fists by his thighs, Benedikt seemed to be doing his best to ignore the crowd. Magda could read his kigh from across the pier—she suspected she’d be able to read it from across the city. He loved the adulation. He was terrified of the possibility he might fail in front of so many.
Magda had to admit that, had it been her choice, she’d have chosen a more stable bard—by default, any other bard. On the other hand, it was quite clear that the queen’s faith in him had done more for his self-esteem than she ever had.
Right at the moment, he was thinking that he should never have listened to her and should have boarded earlier with the crew; she could see it in his face.
Bannon’s face, on the other hand, gave nothing away. As far as Magda knew, the possibility he might fail, at anything, had never entered Bannon’s head. To her surprise, he suddenly looked directly at her and winked.
“Magda!” Anzeta followed the path of the wink and was astounded to see it answered. “You haven’t! Have you?”
Magda put on her best healer-of-the-fifth-kigh expression. “What do you think?”
“I hate it when you do that.”
Behind the ex-assassin and the bard, a careful distance back of the boarding party, walked four priests from the Center in the Citadel, the Marshal of Shkoder, most of the members of the Queen’s Council, and the Bardic Captain. From the look of it, Kovar and Benedikt had never had as much in common as they did this morning—Kovar, too, was doing his best to ignore the crowds.
After that first disastrous interview, he hadn’t spoken to the younger bard. “Why should I, Magda? He doesn’t listen to a word I say.”
Privately, Magda had very little sympathy for Kovar. Tadeus was right, he was attempting to make all the bards as cautious as he was himself, and it was frightening how well he’d succeeded. But he wasn’t her patient, and it wasn’t her business.
When the queen reached the top of the gangplank, the captain of the Starfarer stepped out to meet her, and the cheers of the crowds doubled in volume once more.
During their single meeting, Captain Lija i’Ales a’Berngards had gained Magda’s full approval. She was a tall, thin, practical woman who dealt with difficult questions by first staring into the distance as though she could see the answers there. For all Magda knew, she could.
Magda had briefly met with all the members of the crew. Far from shore, sailing an unknown sea, was not the time to discover that one of the people confined on a tiny island of wood had a less than healthy kigh.
With queen, consort, and captain at the rail, Benedikt paused halfway between ship and pier, wet his lips, and raised his hands. By the time he spoke, there was silence enough for him to be heard.
“Shkoder’s Throne,” he said simply, and began to sing.
The sound of the anthem crashed over Magda like heavy surf, and she threw herself joyfully into it, adding her own voice to the din. She’d heard it sung better but never louder; the crowd on the left side of the pier seemed to be trying to drown out the crowd on the right.
On the Starfarer, the flag of Shkoder rose to the top of the mainmast, caught the breeze, and spread the crowned ship out against an azure sky. Jelena was smiling so broadly, Magda suspected her cheeks would hurt for the remainder of the voyage.
As the last line of the anthem deteriorated into screams of approval, Benedikt, looking a little battered by the volume, hurried the rest of the way up onto the main deck. The crew on board drew the gangplank in while crews standing by on the pier released the lines. The priests, tokens of the four quarters divided amongst them, stepped forward and enclosed both vessel and voyage in the blessing of the Circle.
Since the noise level made it unlikely that a kigh would respond, a pilot boat took the Starfarer out to mid channel where she and the two ships accompanying her as far as the Broken Islands swept out of the harbor on the ebbing tide. A little larger, the Starfarer’s companions carried the rest of the queen’s company and would provide a way for her to return home.
“Almost makes me wish I’d volunteered,” Jerrad murmured as they waited for the crowds to thin.
Anzeta poked him in the ribs. “They wouldn’t have let you go. Those of us with the talent are too precious to risk.”
“They let a bard go.”
“That’s different. Bards need to keep finding new songs. The last thing we need to find are new injuries. And speaking of bards—” She jerked her chin, and Magda turned, knowing what she’d see—she could feel the many prickly bits of his kigh jabbing into her.
“Magda.” Kovar nodded at her and then past her at the others. “Jerrad and Anzeta, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.” Grabbing Jerrad’s arm, Anzeta tugged him around. He began a protest but stopped as he saw who’d joined them. “If you’ll excuse us, we were just going to get something to eat. The smell coming up off that sausage cart made me hungry.”
Magda nodded. She could see no polite way of dumping the Bardic Captain and going with her friends—the downside of position in the Citadel. “I’ll see you back at the Hall, then.”
“If they’re actually going to eat one of those sausages,” Kovar murmured as he watched them make their way down the pier, “they’d both better be very good healers.”
“That’s an unfair stereotype,” Magda protested. “Perpetrated by bards and that stupid sausage song: I bit into a sausage and found half a fly… That can’t have made you lot very popular with the street vendors.”
“Actually, they said it improved their business. Not our intent I assure you.” Hands tucked into the cuffs of his quartered robe, he turned to stare out into the harbor. “I sent Evicka along on the Sand Hawk.” He nodded toward the distant sails. “That’s the Hawk there on the left. Her Majesty seems to have forgotten that the crown never travels without a bard, and as she’s determined to throw away the one she has with her now, she needed another for the trip back.”
Gulls crying challenges over bits of garbage filled the pause.
“Her Majesty saw me for a moment yesterday. Do I have you to thank for the meeting?”
Magda shrugged. “I may have said something.”
“Try to see it from his position, Jelena. You spent four full quarters leaning on his knowledge and experience, seeking his advice on everything from foreign policy to replacing an old tunic then, suddenly, you’re not listening to him at all. He feels tossed aside, abandoned. Is it any wonder he overreacted?”
“I tried one last time to convince her not to send these, people to their deaths. She accused me of overreacting and said I want to keep her dependent.”
Magda winced.
“She said that I’ve asked the bards to choose between their queen and me. As though refusing to have any part of this fool voyage has anything to do with loyalty to the crown. I never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.”
“And you told her so?”
“Of course I did.”
She’s no longer my patient, and he never was, Magda reminded herself. This is none of my business. Pity I can’t just knock their heads together. “What do you want, Kovar?”
“I want to keep Shkoder safe, and to do that I need every available bard.”
Reaching out, Magda laid her hand lightly on Kovar’s arm. “Safe from what?” she asked softly.
Slowly, deliberately, he turned his head and stared down at her for a moment or two, lips pressed so tightly together they disappeared under the fringe of his moustache. Then he shook himself free of her touch. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said, pivoted on a heel, and strode away down the pier.
Magda watched him go, noting how the stragglers, still standing about in groups of two or three, called out to him as he passed. There had been a bard on board the Starfarer, and Kovar had come down to the docks to give his support to the sailing. For most of Elbasan, most of Shkoder, that would lay to rest the rumors of a split between Her Majesty and the Bardic Captain. Laying the substance of their disagreement to rest wouldn’t be so easy.
“Safe from what?” she’d asked.
And under her touch, Kovar’s kigh had answered, “Change.”
* * * *
Having insured that his instrument case was stored safely below in the corner he’d claimed as his, Benedikt leaned on the rail amidships and watched the shore slip away. All around him, members of the crew tied off lines, stowed last-minute supplies, and took care of the hundred-and-one tasks that began every voyage—albeit a little self-consciously under the fascinated gaze of queen and consort.
Leaving the bowl of the inner harbor behind, they soon passed the last of the smaller, private docks. Not long after, the land began to climb up onto the cliffs that edged the harbor’s throat, north and south, until they ended at the Forts and the Bache ky Lamer, the Mouth of the Sea. The rock face had just cut off his view of the land beyond when a kigh lifted out of the water and passed on a message from Evicka.
Are you excited?
He turned, saw her on the forecastle of the Sand Hawk, and waved. During his second year as a fledgling, the healers had been forced to amputate her legs, and she’d been confined pretty much to the Citadel ever since. It had been her flute he’d heard his first night back. Nagged by Tadeus’ criticism—“You haven’t exactly gone out of your way to make friends”—he’d sought her out, ostensibly to learn the new piece she was working on, actually to prove Tadeus wrong.
Although philosophical about her loss, she’d been so excited at a chance to Walk on water as far as the Broken Islands that the air kigh had broken two windows in the Hall and a cistern had overflowed into the cellars the night Kovar had told her she was to go. But was he excited?
Not yet.
With a breeze from the wrong direction lifting the hair back off his forehead, Benedikt watched the kigh rise almost even with the Hawk’s deck to deliver his answer. He thought he heard Evicka laugh as she sent it back to him again.
Then look behind you.
Behind? He turned.
Standing barely an arm’s reach away, his balance unaffected by the motion of the ship, Bannon smiled. “Trade secrets?”
“No, we just…” Suddenly realizing what the older bard had meant, he felt his cheeks burn, the heat not at all cooled by the breeze now blowing lazy circles around his head. “Um, excuse me for a moment.” When Bannon gracefully indicated he should do what he felt had to, Benedikt turned, Sang briefly to the kigh, reinforced the Song because he knew Evicka’d be expecting a response, and sent it back to the other ship. Where it drenched her.
The breeze vanished.
“Why did you do that?” Bannon asked, leaning on the rail beside him.
“I don’t Sing air.” He shrugged and tried to keep from sounding defensive. “It was the only way I could get rid of the kigh buzzing around u… me.”
“You don’t think that was an extreme reaction?”
“No. Why?”
“That bard has no legs.”
“So? She has a towel.”
Taken by surprise, Bannon laughed aloud.
Benedikt relaxed at the sound—it came without the overt manipulations of the ex-assassin’s smile and had no expectations he’d fail to live up to.
Still smiling, Bannon rested his weight on his forearms and, while appearing to watch the scenery, studied Benedikt’s reflection in the water. It seemed that under the nerves and patchwork armor, Her Majesty’s pet bard had a sense of humor to go with his pouty good looks. It’s three days to Pitesti; I wonder what else he’s hiding…
Finding out might be an amusing way to kill some time.
* * * *
Approaching the Bache ky Lamer, Starfarer cut her way through a river of liquid gold toward the center of the strait and the point where the sun would touch the sea. Pennants marked with a crimson circle were hoisted on all three ships and the crews fell silent as Evicka and Benedikt Sang the sunset. Their voices rose to fill the space between the cliffs—first air and water alone then together for the Gloria.
In the pause that followed, Benedikt moistened his lips and waited for Evicka, as senior, to begin the choral that would take the place of the two missing quarters.
Instead, from Fort Kazpar, squatting gray and impenetrable to the North, came the unmistakable sound of Terezka’s soprano Singing fire. Spiraling down from the heights, it seemed, on the deck of the Starfarer, as though the sun itself was singing. When she finished, all three bards lifted the Gloria again and, as the last note faded, a male voice began to Sing earth from Fort Tunic.
Pjazef, Benedikt realized. Much younger than Terezka, he didn’t have the projection to bridge the distance across the strait, but Singing earth that didn’t really matter. The cliffs themselves resonated to his Song.
All four quarters rose to close the Circle as the ships slipped from between the cliffs and into the sea.
“All right you lot, look to those lines! We need to make the Arrow Head before dark!”
Jolted from the lingering aftereffects of the Song by the mate’s bellow, Benedikt gripped the rail as Starfarer hit heavier chop. Behind him, Evicka, Terezka, and Pjazef would be exchanging news—although given the other two, he somehow doubted Terezka would be able to get a kigh in edgewise. For the first time since Vidor, he felt his lack of air; felt excluded and a little lonely.
“Benedikt?”
He turned, careful of his balance, and bowed. “Majesty.” When he straightened, he noticed that her eyelashes were clumped together in damp triangles. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Everything’s right.” Her smile trembled at the corners as though the emotions creating it were too great to contain. “I’ve heard the sunset Sung a thousand times but never like that. I’ve never felt so enclosed in the Circle, as though I was a part of everything and everything was a part of me. Thank you.”
“Recent research based on Karlene’s experience with the fifth high has indicated that when the four quarters are Sung correctly, the fifth is evoked.” But Kovar’s lesson, learned way back in his first year as a fledgling, would be a dry and pedantic response to the queen’s joy.
“You’re welcome, Majesty.” Benedikt returned her smile. “I’ll tell Evicka, and she can pass your thanks on to the others.”
Stepping forward into the curve of the bow, Jelena pressed herself against the rail. Wondering what he should do—there being very little between the queen and the sea—Benedikt glanced around for Bannon. He found the ex-assassin amidships, talking with Prince Otavas. Clearly no one who mattered thought the queen was in any danger with only a one-quarter bard by her side.
All at once Benedikt’s tongue felt too big for his mouth, and he doubted he could Sing if he had to.
“I don’t believe in omens,” Jelena said quietly, unaware of the turmoil her trust had provoked. “I don’t believe in things that can’t be measured or proven. The dark sailor existed, so therefore his homeland exists, and I’m sending the Starfarer to find it. But what happened in the strait, two bards with the right quarters there at the right time, that seemed like an omen to me. Kovar would say, Coincidence, Majesty, is a bard’s stock in trade, but if all things are enclosed in the Circle, can’t coincidence be those things falling into place?” Eyes locked on the horizon, she drew in a deep breath of the salty air. “I choose to believe that Song was an omen—a good omen, the best of omens—and that Starfarer will succeed beyond our wildest dreams.”
“We’ll do it for you, Majesty,” Benedikt told her. But he said it so softly, only the wind heard him.
* * * *
That night, the three ships anchored in the lee of the Arrow Head, the huge outcrop of rock that marked the most eastward point of the Broken Islands. Although many captains of deep-keeled vessels risked the passage between the islands on moonlit nights, that wasn’t a risk the captain of Starfarer was willing to take, not with queen and consort tucked up in her cabin.
As a quiet voice announced the first half quarter of the fifth watch, Lija i’Ales climbed into a hammock slung in with the mate and settled to sleep. There’d be plenty of risk ahead. No need to tempt the sea.
* * * *
Jelena’s great-grandfather, King Mikus, had been the last ruling monarch to visit the Broken Islands. It had been near the start of his reign, and he’d come with enough ships and troops to leave bearing the title, High Captain. As the relationship, political and economic, had turned out to be to the benefit of all parties, the title had remained comfortably with the crown of Shkoder. Both Jelena’s grandfather, King Theron, and her mother had made multiple visits while they were heir. Jelena had been planning her first trip when her mother died.
By the time the three ships reached Pitesti, and the deepest harbor in the islands, they’d acquired an accompanying flotilla of smaller craft. With Evicka Singing all flags and banners to their best advantage and Benedikt parting the waves before the Starfarer’s bow, Jelena, Queen of Shkoder, made an entrance worthy of her ancestors.
* * * *
Although a massive rock jetty had been begun, ship’s boats were still the only way to land in Pitesti Harbor. As Starfarer’s boat approached the shore, it became obvious that the entire Council had come to the gravel beach to meet the queen.
“As well as every man, woman, and child on the island,” Otavas noted.
“And a number of other islands as well, Highness.” Eyes narrowed, Bannon stared disapprovingly at the crowds. “So many strangers puts you both in danger. If I may suggest, you should both stay in the boat until your people have gained a little more control.”
Jelena laughed. “These are my people, Bannon. They’re not strangers, and there’s no danger.”
“Majesty…”
“Don’t worry, Bannon. I’ll have Benedikt Witness both your objection and my refusal to listen to you. If anything happens, it won’t be your fault.” Smiling broadly, she twisted around on her seat. “Benedikt?”
“Witnessed, Majesty.” But as they drew close enough to pick out individual expressions, Benedikt began to wonder if perhaps Bannon wasn’t right. Although everyone seemed excited, no one looked terribly happy. He turned and noted that her Majesty’s six Ceremonial Guards, coming in on the boats from the other two ships, were too far back to do much guarding.
When the sailors shipped their oars in the shallows and leaped out to drag the boat the last few feet up onto the beach, an old woman moved out of the crowd and walked slowly forward. The staff she carried, carved with an entwined pattern of kelp and topped with a leaping dolphin, clearly had a ceremonial function although, as she leaned her negligible weight against it, it also worked well as a support.
Jelena stepped out onto the shore.
In the silence that fell, Benedikt could hear Evicka, about half a dozen boat lengths behind him, Singing softly.
“Jelena, Queen of Shkoder, High Captain of the Broken Islands…” Carried by kigh, the old woman’s voice rang out over the harbor. “… are we, the people of the Broken Islands, of Shkoder or are we not?”
A gesture from Prince Otavas held Bannon where he was as Jelena answered. “You are.”
“Then why have we been slighted so?” The staff lowered to point at the Starfarer. “You send a ship to seek the land of the dark sailor, and yet you ignore the best the sea has to offer. Why have none from the islands been asked to sail for you?”
Jelena spread her hands. “Why would I ask such a thing through emissaries? No. Captain Lija i’Ales a’Berngards has chosen only eighteen of the twenty in her crew, the other two she hopes to find here.” Without pausing, she raised her voice and lifted her arms to shoulder height. “Are there two among you with heart enough to sail in search of the unknown?”
The roar from the crowd needed no help from the kigh to make itself heard. As the old woman handed the staff to a nearly equally old man and clasped Jelena in her arms, Benedikt noticed a bicolored robe—blue and green, air and water—in the first line of islanders. It had to be Tomas, the senior of the two bards in the islands.
No doubt warned of his attention by the kigh, Tomas looked up and mimed wiping his brow.
* * * *
The celebration lasted two days and watches were arranged so everyone on board the three ships could take part. On the morning of the third day, Captain Lija chose the final two members of the crew and then began the serious business of loading extra water casks and as much food as possible.
“Shouldn’t you be down there helping?”
Snapped out of his reverie by Tomas’ question, Benedikt straightened and turned. He’d been standing with his forearms on the peeled cedar rails that edged the rooftop deck of the combined Healer/Bardic Hall—a position he’d come to enjoy on board ship—watching the activity down in the harbor. “You know how we’re all-taught as children never to allow a bard to do anything you can do yourself?”
Tomas smiled. “I’ve always thought it’s how we bards acquired our reputations—we’re only ever asked to do the impossible. Or at least, the unlikely.”
“Well, I was told in no uncertain terms that they knew what they were doing and didn’t I have something bardic to take care of.” He shrugged. “Her Majesty wanted me to give you my recall of the trip this far, so I thought now would be a good time. If you’re available.”
“Of course I am. Did you want to work out here?”
“If we could.” Benedikt waved an enthusiastic hand out over the rail. “If I don’t look down, it’s almost as if I’m back at sea—blue above and blue below.
“Yes, well, you can be thankful you’re not here in Fourth Quarter,” Tomas muttered, frowning out at a passing cloud, “Then it’s gray above and unenclosed cold down below. I’ll go get my writing materials, and we can set up over there in the corner out of the wind.”
As recalls went, it didn’t take long. They could still hear the Starfarer’s mate shouting instructions down on the beach when Tomas brought Benedikt up out of his light trance and handed him a glass of honeyed tea for his throat. “That’s one, then.” He frowned down at the topmost page. “Legible but not pretty, I’m afraid. Liene was always appalled by my penmanship. Do we pass this straight over to Her Majesty’s secretary or give it to Evicka to take back to the Hall?”
Benedikt cradled the heavy glass in both hands. “Actually, Her Majesty wants you to copy it—there should be plenty of time before she sails. You’re to keep the original and give the copy to her secretary.”
“But…” Uncertain of just how exactly he’d intended to word his protest, Tomas settled for running both hands up through his thinning hair. “Did her Majesty say why?” he asked at last.
Surprised by how miserable he felt thrust back between the queen and the Bardic Captain, as though the three days they’d already sailed counted for nothing at all, Benedikt nodded. “She doesn’t trust Kovar to deal fairly with the recalls from Starfarer.”
Tomas’ jaw dropped, Up until that moment, he’d considered the expression merely a figure of speech but there was his jaw, hanging loose. He snapped it shut. “Has it gone that far?”
“Apparently.”
“I’m not saying Kovar doesn’t have a point,” Tomas muttered, “there’s few enough of us for Shkoder…”
“So you don’t think I should be going?”
The challenge in his tone lifted Tomas’ brows. “I think you’re a Walking bard and fully capable of making your own decisions,” he said sharply, “And I think Kovar’s forgotten that we were never intended to be a political entity. We Sing the kigh, we bring the people to each other, and anything beyond that is an individual concern.”
Somewhat abashed, Benedikt plucked a leaf off a potted herb and rolled it between his fingers. If the scent released was supposed to be soothing, it wasn’t doing much good. “The only high note in this whole mess is that by tomorrow’s tide, it won’t have anything to do with me.”
* * * *
By the time Imperial assassins made their move, they knew more about their targets than their targets knew about themselves. Ever since Benedikt had made him laugh on the Starfarer, Bannon had been observing the bard. It had been unexpectedly hard to keep his distance, but he had no intention of starting something—even something brief and physical—with a man so insecure and was actually a little appalled to find himself wanting to.
Amongst other things, he’d discovered that there were only three people in Pitesti Benedikt felt comfortable with. Evicka, who had no legs, and Tomas, who Sang only two quarters in a four-quarter position, he saw as handicapped as himself and relaxed around them. Her Majesty, whom he adored, he saw as the one person who didn’t expect him to fail. Concentrating on his noble effort for the queen, he hadn’t yet given a thought to the people he’d be sailing with.
“It ought to be an interesting trip.”
Benedikt jerked around, wondering how anyone, even an ex-assassin could get that close to a bard on a pebble beach without being heard.
Reading the thought off the other man’s face—not difficult as it was a reaction he often, and deliberately, evoked just for fun—Bannon grinned. “No second thoughts?”
Confused by the absence of edges in Bannon’s smile, Benedikt shook his head. “Don’t worry. I won’t let Her Majesty down.”
“Would it surprise you to find out that I’m not worried about that?” Impatience sharpened Bannon’s tone. He’d asked an innocent question and had it treated like an accusation. Why was he even bothering? “No one is slaughtering worried about it except you.”
“You were.”
“The only way you could’ve let Her Majesty down was by not showing up.” Smiling tightly, Bannon spread his hands. “And here you are.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
Surprised and irritated by how easily Benedikt had taken him from amusement to annoyance, Bannon breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, attempting to regain his equilibrium. Up until this moment, he’d thought only his sister could have that effect on him.
Benedikt’s gaze flickered over the beach, the sky, a wheeling gull, and finally settled back on Bannon. It seemed that every time he turned around of late, the southerner was there in the background. I think of him, and there he is.
Every time.
“Why are you here?” he asked at last.
Wondering that himself, Bannon chose to answer the general rather than the specific. He turned and indicated the queen and her consort standing talking to Evicka and the eldest of the Pitesti Council by one of Starfarer’s boats. “Her Majesty and His Highness are going back out to the ship to address the entire company before you sail. Where they go, I go. Looks like you’re not quite rid of me.”
Wondering why he felt slightly cheated by that answer, Benedikt shrugged. “I’m not trying to get rid of you.”
Their small section of the beach seemed suddenly, impossibly, silent.
After a moment, Bannon nodded. “Good.”
* * * *
Standing on the aft deck, looking past the crew gathered amidships, past the forecastle, the bow, and out of the harbor, Jelena gave half a moment’s thought to ordering the anchor raised and Starfarer’s nose pointed out to sea. Exploring the unknown was her dream, had been her dream since the first night she’d stared through a distance viewer at the stars; she wanted to be there to share the discovery. If I weren’t queen… She sighed. If she weren’t queen, there would be no Starfarer. Nor would there be a Starfarer if she hadn’t decided to be queen. Kovar would never have allowed it.
“You can’t go with them, Lena.” Otavas’ breath lapped at her ear “Let’s let them go.”
She turned her head enough to smile into her consort’s incredible eyes, unsurprised he’d know what she was thinking. Taking a deep breath, she held up a gold coin between thumb and forefinger. The crew below fell silent, all eyes locked on her hand.
“I have one of these for each of you; a gold Jelena.” A little embarrassed still by the coin that bore her name, she ducked her head. The twenty men and women on the main deck murmured their approval and, looking up again, she smiled. “It is, of course, too small a reward for what you dare, and when you return, there will be many more.” A pause while that received the anticipated reaction. “I want you to have these coins now,” she continued after a moment, “for a purely selfish reason. When you see them, when you hold them, you’ll think of me. In this small way, I can be a part of your adventure.” She spread her arms. “May the Circle enclose you and protect you and bring you all safely back home.”
For a heartbeat there was no sound at all.
The cheers that followed the silence were so loud they echoed back from the buildings of Pitesti.
To Bannon’s horror, Jelena walked down the ladder to the deck and personally handed out the coins. Everyone, from the ship’s jack to the captain had a moment with the queen before she left, a word and a gentle touch that would carry her with them more surely than any coin.
Finally standing by the rope ladder that led down to the boat and back to shore, she reached out with both hands and drew Benedikt to her. “You are my eyes and my ears, Benedikt.” Stretching up, she kissed him on both cheeks. “I can’t wait to hear the Songs you’ll bring me.”
Benedikt could only bow, his chest too tight for words.
* * * *
“Now we leave our hearth and home.”
“Heave, hard o’re, heave ho.” The main yard began to rise, mainsail spilling off below.
Standing in the very spot on the aft deck where Queen Jelena had stood, Benedikt tossed the next piece of the chanty down to the crew. “We follow aught but dreams alone.”
“Heave, hard o’re, heave ho. Heave ho, on we go.” The great square belled out, lines tightened. “Heave, hard o’re, heave ho.”
“Now we leave familiar shores,” He could hear the lateen rising behind him.
“Heave, hard o’re, heave ho.”
“Seeking lands not seen before.”
“Heave, hard o’re, heave ho.”
“Mains’il secured, Captain.” With the ease of long practice, the mate’s voice inserted itself into the rhythm of the chanty.
“Heave ho, on we go. Heave, hard o’re, heave ho.”
* * * *
“I can’t say I’m not glad to see them go,” Otavas murmured, watching Jelena who was still watching the empty horizon. “Perhaps now, things will get back to normal.”
“I hope so, Highness.” Bannon forced himself to watch the crowds and not the same horizon as the queen. I slaughtering hope so.
* * * *
“Actually, we’ll be near familiar shores for a while.” The captain leaned back so Benedikt could see her finger trace their route on the map. “We’ll run south before the prevailing northerlies, keeping to the western trade routes as far south as the Astobilies. If this wind stays with us…” She traced the sign of the Circle on her breast. “… that should take no more than six, seven days. We’ll refill our water casks, take on fresh stores, and start west from there. Firstquarter winds by the Astobilies blow from the east and the ocean around them is as calm as a millpond. Northern waters are dark and cold and the winds cruel and fickle. There’s no reason I know of suggesting we can’t sail into the unknown in comfort.”
She looked up at the bard and smiled, the skin at the corners of her eyes folding into deep creases. “Doesn’t sound much like an adventure, does it?”
Benedikt sputtered, aghast at having his thoughts read so easily.
“There’ll be adventure enough before we’re finished, lad.” The captain lightly tapped the paper where figures of giant kigh rose out of an empty sea. “I promise you, you’ll come home with songs enough for a dozen bards, and you’ll see and hear plenty to enthrall the queen.” She paused, stared past Benedikt for a moment, then brought her attention back to the young bard, “I want your word that while you’re on board this ship, you’ll not Sing the kigh without my express permission.”
“But…”
“No buts. No exceptions. When it comes to matters between this ship and the sea, I must be the final arbitrator. A ship must have only one Captain.”
“I would never…” he began, recognized her expression for what it was and realized she would accept only one answer. “I give you my word.”
* * * *
“Well, bard, wadda ya think?”
Benedikt shuffled over to give Mila room at the rail. “It’s nothing like a fishing boat,” he admitted.
“I should think not,” the carpenter snorted. “Fishin’ boats stink of fish. Comparin’ my grand lady here to one of them runts is like comparin’, uh…”
“Artur’s snoring to a song?”
She snickered approvingly. “Aye, you’ve got it.”
Artur’s snoring had kept most of the crew awake two nights running. It was the only flat note in Starfarer’s melody. The morning of the third day, three of the company had held him down while the cook forced him to snort a spoonful of brandy up each nostril. Benedikt had no idea if the cure worked or if Artur stayed awake lest it be tried again, but the snoring stopped.
He hadn’t expected just how different Starfarer would be from a fishing boat. He’d known she’d be much larger than anything that had ever sailed out of his village but that was only the most obvious of the differences.
Fisherfolk, even those, like his brothers, who fished the deep water, navigated by dead reckoning. The Starfarer found her way by compass. An invention of the Fienians, it was set on a brass pillar on the aft deck and minded by the officer of the watch.
“I’ve no idea how the unenclosed thing works,” the mate admitted scratching his beard. “But it does. This bit here that always points north, it’s mounted on a gimbal so it swings with the motion of the ship. Those thirty-two points on that circular card it swings over; they tells us what way we’re headed.” After a moment, staring down into the binnacle, he shook his head. “I guess I do know how it works, but I’ll be unenclosed if I could tell you why. It was Her Majesty’s idea to install it; she’s got a right mechanical turn of mind.”
Too big to be steered by a single sweep, Starfarer’s rudder was controlled from a tiller in the aft castle. While this offered the helmsman welcome protection from the elements, he could see very little and had to be conned by the officer of the deck.
“Through this?” Standing by the helm, Benedikt peered up through the brass tube that led to the deck above.
“Oh, aye.” Leaning on the heavy tiller, Janina watched the bard indulgently as he poked about. “You’d be amazed at how loud sound comes through. Mind you, once you know what’s what, you can keep a steady course by the feel of the helm. Here.” Adjusting her grip, she straightened, moving her body back away from the wood. “You have a go.”
“I couldn’t…”
“We’re right straight now, best time.” She waggled heavy brows suggestively. “You know you want to.”
He did.
“Just tuck yer butt in here. Aye, that’s it. Now wrap yer arm around like mine. Put yer weight back on yer heels like. If you have to turn her, you’ll want to be using yer whole body.” Releasing the tiller, Janina moved only far enough to allow him her old position—still close enough for body heat to warm the air between them. “You’ve a nice lot of muscles for a bard.”
“We do a lot of walking,” Benedikt told her absently, distracted by the song of the sea resonating in the tiller. He felt as though Starfarer was his instrument and he could play whole concerts on her with the slightest movement.
“Walking?” She leaned back and looked down. “Aye, that’s nice, too, but I was talking of yer back and arms.” The sleeve of his shirt compacted under her fingers. “If there was something else you might like to try out later like, I’m willing.”
Her touch got through where her words might’ve been lost. “Uh, thanks, but…” He indicated she should take back the tiller. When she did, he stepped away and faced her. He’d studied the ship’s roll back in Elbasan, Janina was two years older than he was, unjoined, no children. The entry hadn’t mentioned the dusting of golden freckles across all exposed skin, eyes almost turquoise, and hair that seemed to ignite in the sun. Nor did it mention the breadth of her shoulders and hips and the deep round bells of her breasts. Suddenly afraid he was staring, he took another step away and spread his arms. “Where?” he asked hoping she’d recognize a request for information not an oblique acceptance.
Janina laughed. “I forgot this was yer first time out. Well, there’s no real privacy that’s for sure but there’s places less public than others.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but…” He shook away a disturbing vision of performing in front of the crew. “… I couldn’t.”
“Don’t fret. I’m not insulted. It takes time before you get used to living in each other’s breeches.” She winked. Explicitly. “But when you are used to it, the offer stands.”
It wasn’t his last offer, but he couldn’t shake the thought of watching eyes. He wasn’t all that fond of singing in front of an audience—and that, at least, worked out well because sailors weren’t all that fond of being sung to. They preferred, he discovered, to be sung with.
At dawn and dusk, Benedikt Sang the sunrise and sunset and led the crew in the chorals.
“Every day?” he asked the captain in astonishment.
She raised a brow. “Feeling overworked?”
Under normal circumstances, he reacted badly to sarcasm, but on board ship the captain held rank equivalent to one of the ancient gods. “It’s not that. I thought only the Centers Sang sunrise and sunset every day. I didn’t know sailors were so religious.”
“Religious?” The captain looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t say that, but when we’re out too deep to anchor, on nights with cloud or without a moon, we sail blind. Sunset, we ask the Circle to enclose us. Sunrise, we give thanks that it did. Not religious.” A half smile curved a long line around one side of her mouth. “Practical.”
During the day, the crew taught Benedikt the Songs of the sea, frequently adding increasingly salacious verses to those commonly known. He’d never be able to sing any of them to the queen. In return, he spent his evenings making the connections that kept Shkoder strong, telling tales of the land and her people to an audience who’d never been away from the sea.
Almost within sight of the Astobilies, Starfarer ran into a calm. The sails hung limp from their yards and the heat baked the moisture from wood, rope, and flesh. By the afternoon of the third day, the captain finally allowed Benedikt to Sing the kigh.
“This is no riverboat,” she warned him. “We’re deeper keeled than anything you’ve ever had the kigh move.” Watching the last sail lowered, Lija shook her head and wrapped one hand around the quartered Circle medallion she wore. “It’s bad luck to Sing the kigh into the sails; it causes the wind to turn against you.”
“That’s not really relevant,” Benedikt reminded her peevishly.
“It is if I say it is.” She turned a warning glare toward him. “If the water kigh don’t want to help, don’t force them, don’t plead with them. The sea’s capricious enough, I don’t need her actively irritated.”
Benedikt’s song called a glistening tumble of bodies to gather about the ship and by evening they’d moved Starfarer far enough for a freshening breeze to cause the sails to be raised again.
The captain broached a cask of sweet rum and they toasted their bard far into the night.
Benedikt had never been so happy in his life.
* * * *
In the Astobilies, they filled the water casks yet again and took on barrels of pickled beef. Benedikt was not permitted ashore and for safety’s sake the crew were forbidden to mention there was a bard on board. The only other bard ever to sail as far as the Astobilies had barely managed to escape the interest of the prince.
“I can protect myself,” he muttered, not really wanting to go ashore until it had been denied him.
“Can you protect all my crew? And this ship?” the captain demanded. “And remember, you’ll be the one who tells Her Majesty why we went no further.”
Instead of exploring a strange, exotic port, Benedikt stayed on board, working on his recall of the voyage so far. Captain Lija had promised, as there were no other Shkoden ships in the area, she’d pass the sealed scroll to an Imperial ship heading north. He knew he should have been grateful for the time to prepare the recall and for the opportunity to send it to his queen, but for the three days Starfarer remained at anchor, the tides were the highest the Astobilies had ever known.
* * * *
For the next ten days, the eastern trade winds blew steadily, and Benedikt savored every morning. He Sang a new song daily to the beauty of a dawn that kindled the clouds and tinted the sails a delicate rose. The sea was smooth and the air so fresh, every breath promised new beginnings. He grew to love the smell of the dew drying on the wooden decks, and as that faded, he happily replaced it with the scent rising from a cup of sah.
“Named for the sound the first Astobo made as he picked the dried bean up out of the sun and breathed in that intoxicating bouquet.” Pjedic, the cook, matched action to words, bean dwarfed between a meaty thumb and forefinger. “Saaaah,” he sighed as he exhaled. “This, I truly believe, is the fragrance at the center of the Circle.”
“Why,” Benedikt wondered, almost as entranced as the big man, “has no ship ever brought barrels of these beans back to Shkoder?”
“A few make it back, a precious few and for nearly the price of a bottle of brandy, those of us who note what ships are in harbor and know the ports they’ve visited can enter the haven of a select ale house in Dockside and remember mornings like these.”
This was the first Benedikt had ever heard of select ale houses in Dockside. There were a couple that Bard’s Hall warned their people not to enter alone, but somehow he didn’t think those were the places Pjedic meant.
“You see, my friend the bard,” the cook continued, “these precious beans travel oh so very badly. Time and moisture are their mortal enemies.”
“Fish shit,” grunted Mila, leaning into the galley to refill her plate. “The stuff may smell good, but it tastes like boiled bilge water and sawdust.”
“That, my dear, is because you have the palate of a barnacle.”
“And I ain’t given’ it back neither.” She flicked Benedikt’s coin as she passed. The first day out she’d drilled a hole in the gold Jelena for him so that he could hang it about his neck. “We coulda just had Cookie talk at the sails and saved yer voice.”
“I have a dream, friend bard,” Pjedic began when they were alone again. “Someday, I’ll find a way to keep the beans both fresh and dry and I’ll open a small place just up from Dockside, where discriminating patrons can enjoy a cup of sah together with those of like mind.”
“Witnessed,” Benedikt told him and raised his cup.
As the days passed, he never tired of the constant play of light and color on the bellying square sails; silver in moonlight, black in starlight, cloth of gold at sunset, white as the clouds themselves at noon. Occasionally, a black squall came up from windward but passed harmlessly with only a brief lashing of rain—the crew stripping down to stand naked in the fresh water. For days the sheets and braces needed no attention except to alter the nip on the block so they wouldn’t chafe through. One by one, the crew brought their stories to where Benedikt stood in the bow, leaning over the rail and watching the silver flash of kigh dancing in the bow wave.
“There’s little enough adventure at sea, if’n yer lucky. No, it’s once you make landfall, that’s where the adventures start. I recalls once landin’ in the Empire, Sixth Province, Harak it was. There was an army garrison there, and I met me a corporal, not real tall but oh, so pretty…”
“Me da was a sailor. Me ma never knew which sailor, but I guess it’s in me blood…”
“Yer family’s fisher folk? Well, fillet me sideways—mine, too. Let ya in on a secret, though. I can’t stand fishin’. Love the sea, can’t stand fishin…”
“Them birds up there? Look sorta like brown gulls? We call ’em sky rats. I shot one once. Cross bow. Slapped it right onta the deck. Tasted like fish shit…”
“My family wanted something better for me, but I can’t think of anything better, can you? With a fair and steady wind singing in the rigging…”
Sometimes, Benedikt forgot why they were there, forgot the dark sailor, forgot the search for the unknown, forgot the young queen waiting patiently back in the Citadel surrounded by stone instead of sapphire white-capped sea. When the glint of gold against his chest jolted his memory, guilt swept away in the rush of great waters alongside. At night, he watched wide-eyed as familiar constellations twisted and new ones appeared.
After ten days, the captain had the bottom sounded, but they were deeper than the line.
That afternoon, Benedikt climbed to the stern rail and found the mate there before him, glowering back at their wake. “What’s wrong?”
The mate shook his head without turning. “It’s this unenclosed wind. It keeps up, we’ll never beat back against it.”
Back. It was first anyone had mentioned going back.
That night the wind changed. Tacking against it, Starfarer made less distance but the mate stopped glowering.
Five days later, Benedikt began to notice a growing unrest in the crew. They’d been out of sight of land much longer than any of them had been before, and he began to hear the words, “go back,” muttered more and more often.
No. He wasn’t going to fail at this as well. He would not return empty-handed to the queen. Using the familiar tunes and rhythms of the chanties, he began tease the crew with the possibilities lying ahead. Some were absurd, some were obscene, and some appealed to that most basic of emotions: greed.
“Do I understand correctly; you’re telling my crew there’s gold in the land of the dark sailor?”
The dawn choral had been sung, the sun was safely in the sky. Benedikt turned to the captain and shrugged. “I’ve also told them there’ll be three-legged whores and rivers of beer.”
“And you may continue to do so with my blessing.” Her tone suggested she knew full well why he’d been singing such songs. “But I don’t want them thinking of gold when we…”
“Land ho!”
The cry from the ship’s top brought everyone out on deck, jostling, crowding at the rail, squinting into the distance.
Benedikt felt some of the tension leave the muscles of his back. Unfortunately, the land turned out to be no more than a cloud bank above the western horizon.
“It’s an unenclosed shame,” the mate told him as Starfarer returned to her original course and her crew returned to abandoned tasks, “but it’s not unusual. You stare at the same unenclosed sea, day after day. You strain your eyes for a sign that the Circle hasn’t shit you out to rot alone. You start to see what you want to see.” His teeth flashed white in the shadow of his beard. “Me, I wouldn’t mind seeing that unenclosed river of beer.”
The air hung hot and heavy as Benedikt walked to his place on the bow rail. Like most of the others, he wore only a pair of thin cotton breeches and sweat clung to his exposed skin like a film of oil. Swinging aside the queen’s coin, he scratched at the damp hair on his chest with one hand and let his weight drop forward onto the other arm. The clouds on the horizon had grown darker and closer and were unmistakably not land.
“If we turn around right now, we’ll be home by Third Quarter.”
He could only see her hands without turning but there was no mistaking the voice. Mila.
“I’m not sayin’ he’ll have found another bedmate by then, but the longer we’re gone, the better the odds. You know what I mean?”
“If you’re worried about keeping his affections, why did you leave?”
She sighed. “I never really had his affections. And I figured this might impress him, you know. Dangerous adventures, finding a new land.”
“I thought you came to keep an eye on your ship?”
“That, too.”
“When Starfarer sails back into Elbasan Harbor,” Benedikt told her, dropping into a storytelling cadence, eyes locked on a kigh beckoning to him from just below the surface, “with all flags flying and a thousand strange and wonderful new things crowding the decks, it won’t matter if he’s taken another bedmate. He’ll be so impressed that you’ve been to the other side of the world that he’ll be impressed right out of the arms of that bedmate and back into yours.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He could hear the smile in her voice. “Then I guess we’d better get somewhere so’s I can bring him back somethin’ pretty.” She picked at a scab on the back of her left hand for a moment. “You leave someone behind, Benedikt?”
About to say no, he found himself thinking of Bannon.
“I’m not trying to get rid of you.”
“Good.”
At the time, he’d thought it a threat. He’d stood and watched Bannon walk away and wondered why the other man was so angry. All at once, he wasn’t sure that the heat had come from anger. Had Evicka, with her teasing Are you excited? Then look behind you. sensed something?
He’d never been a great percussion player but, even so, this had to be the worst timing ever. Here he was, sailing across uncharted seas toward an unknown shore and suddenly realizing… what?
Fear, anticipation, desire—he didn’t know which—dragged a chill down his spine.
Mila pulled an answer out of his silence. “What, no one? A good-lookin’ young guy like you?”
Her tone pulled his head around. She smiled knowingly at him. “It’s okay. You don’t got to tell me. You left without anything settled between you.” The scab came free, and she rubbed at the pale, new skin beneath. “I guess we both got someone we think we got to impress.”
Before Benedikt could protest, a sudden gust of wind flattened their breeches against their legs.
Frowning out at the cloud, Mila straightened. “I don’t like the feel of that.”
And that was almost all the warning they got.