Sing the Four Quarters Read Online Free PDF Page B

I'll be in recall all morning."
    "Healers take precedence."
    "But I'll likely have to sit around the Hall for hours before they can see me."
    "Not at this time of the morning." Fingers locked around Annice's arm just above the elbow, Stasya propelled her down the corridor and into their rooms. "Get dressed," she commanded. "You're going to see a healer if I have to drag you, so you might just as well go comfortably on your own two feet."
    Realizing that Stasya had made up her mind and resistance was therefore futile, Annice sighed and surrendered. "It's going to be a waste of time," she muttered. "They won't know what it is. They never know…"
    "When was the last time you had your flows?"

    "My flows?" Annice frowned as she shrugged back into her clothing. "Oh, come on, Elica, I can't remember that."
    The healer rolled her eyes. "You're a bard. You can remember if you want to."
    "Well…" The frown smoothed out as Annice slid into a light recall. "I was between Adjud and Ohrid. Four days out of Adjud and thirteen from Ohrid."
    "How long ago were you in Ohrid?"
    "Nine weeks."
    "So you've missed two, almost three cycles." Elica pushed a carved wooden box out of the way and sat on the edge of her table. "Didn't you ever wonder about that?"
    "I was on a Long Walk. I had other things on my mind."
    "You shouldn't have."
    "Why?" Annice's head came up and her tone sharpened defensively. "What have I caught?"
    "You haven't caught anything," the healer sighed. "You're pregnant."
    "You're WHAT?"
    "Keep your voice down," Annice hissed, pushing past her. "Do you want the whole Citadel to know?"
    Stasya hurried to catch up as Annice stomped down the corridor of the Healers' Hall. "You're kidding, right?"
    "No."
    "Well, how did it happen?"
    "How the empty Circle do you think? The usual way."
    "What about the teas the healers gave you?"
    "I gave them to a woman who'd had seven babies in six years. She seemed to need them more."
    "Very commendable, I'm sure, but none of her babies were committing treason in the womb." Together they pounded out of the Healers' Hall and across the courtyard. "Annice! Slow down. Where are you going?"
    "I've got to talk to the captain."
    "I'll say. Can you get rid of it, or has it gone too far?"
    "I can. But I'm not going to. That's why I have to talk to the captain."
    "This," Stasya said with feeling, as they raced up the stairs to the captain's chambers, "is what comes of sleeping with men."
    Liene stared up at the young woman standing on the other side of her desk. Why me ? she asked the Circle silently. Or more to the point, why her ? "You're positive?"
    "Healer Elica is."
    Wonderful . The Bardic Captain closed her eyes and heard King Mikus ask in memory if she had known about his youngest daughter's boon. It had been a fair question. The old scoundrel had bloody well known she'd been after his permission to recruit Annice for almost a year. Practically every time the child opened her mouth, kigh flocked around her. Allowing that kind of talent to remain untrained would have been criminal. Even more so considering how badly Annice had wanted to be a bard.
    Eyes still closed, Liene rewitnessed the old king's declaration and the new king's conditions. She'd strongly disapproved of those conditions, but the king had refused to listen to her counsel. The child had been only fourteen, so she'd decided to deal with both conditions and king later. As Annice threw herself into her studies, becoming less the princess and more the bard, later moved farther and farther away.
    Later , Liene sighed silently, seems to have come home to roost .
    The Bardic Oath stressed the responsibilities of power but mentioned nothing about celibacy, and Annice was not the first bard to conceive. While it didn't happen often—the healers thought it had something to do with Singing the kigh
    —babies had been raised in Bardic Halls before. Bards had even occasionally left to raise babies with nonbardic partners. Babies happened.