Sing the Four Quarters Read Online Free Page B

Annice bent to pick up her pack but found Jon already holding it. "Thank you." She slipped her arms behind the leather straps, settled the familiar weight on her shoulders, and turned to face him. "And thank you for offering the ride. Considering the weather, and the way I'm feeling, I'd have been lucky to get home by First Quarter Festival, let alone Fourth."
    A smile gleamed in the depths of his beard. "I was glad of the company. You sure you're going to be okay for this last little distance?"
    "I just spent two quarters walking to Ohrid and back," she reminded him. "I think I can manage." She held out her fist.
    "Good trading, Jonukas i'Evicka."
    "Good music, Annice." He let his fist rest against hers for a moment, "And see a healer. All that puking isn't natural."
    She nodded. "The moment I get home. Or maybe first thing tomorrow," she amended, glancing at the rapidly darkening sky.
    "Witness?"
    "Jon, I can't witness for myself."
    "Then promise."
    "Oh, all right." Shaking her head, she traced the sign of the Circle over her heart. "I promise." She waved at Avram, who waved back from his perch on top of the cargo cover, and regretted one last time that she hadn't felt well enough, long enough, to try to get to know him better. Picking her way carefully along the wet rocks, she started up the dock toward home.
    "Annice?"
    Hand against the hull of a riverboat already out of the water for the season, Annice half twisted around.
    "May I tell my brother?"
    The brother who knew all twenty-seven verses to "The Princess-Bard." She laughed ruefully. "Why not?"
    The rain held off and in spite of the road, a muddy mess from previous downpours that somehow seemed more resilient under her boots than it should, Annice reached the bridge over the new canal before full dark.
    The East Keeper lumbered out of his tiny shelter and held out a massive hand.
    "Bards don't pay toll," Annice reminded him and started to go around.
    He blocked her path.
    And most of the rest of the bridge , she realized. Big boy .
    "How do I know you're a bard?"
    "You could take my word for it." It wasn't healthy to lie about being a bard. Bards who found out tended not to take it very well.

    "No, I can't." Crossing meaty arms over a barrel chest, the keeper scowled down at her. "Sing for me."
    "What?"
    "I want you to Sing me your name."
    That she'd be expected to identify herself in order to enter the city used up about all the patience she had remaining.
    Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye and said, "Get out of my way."
    He responded to her Command with the gratifying promptness shown by most petty tyrants and others of like personality. Resisting the urge to tell him to jump in the canal and realizing she was teetering just beyond the edge of her oath as it was, Annice stomped up and over the arch and into Elbasan.
    Her mood lightened as she followed River Road into the heart of the city. Evenings were long at the dark end of the Third Quarter, so taverns and soup shops were doing their best business of the year. Annice briefly considered stopping for supper before she headed up the hill, but smells, individual and combined, from a thousand different sources changed her mind. She was not going to throw up in the gutter like a common drunk.
    At least she hoped she wasn't.
    Hill Street to the Citadel seemed steeper than it had when she'd left. She felt ready to collapse when she reached the wall and sagged panting against the stone by the gate. You'd think that after walking for two quarters I'd be in better shape . Nothing hurt, she just felt drained. As she stood there, trying to catch her breath, the clouds that had been threatening finally made good on their promise of rain. Shit .
    Dragging up her hood, she decided she was too exhausted to Sing the Bard's Door open and staggered in under the arch of the main gate. She didn't know the guard on duty, but the bard had been a fledgling with her.
    "Annice. Bard. Going to the Bardic Hall."
    Jazep