No Quarter by Tanya Huff Page A

as he walked, hoping one of them would carry the news to a bard who could hear it.
    Head cocked, one hand lifted to stroke the air, Annice frowned. "Something's wrong."
    "At the keep?"
    "No." The bard squinted up the length of the valley to bring the distant stone bulk of the keep into better focus. "It's definitely not Stasya. In fact…" Her frown deepened as she slowly pivoted, trying to pinpoint the source. "… it's not really a Song, it's more a… feeling."
    Pjerin, Duc of Ohrid, stepped back from the stooked corn, swept an approving gaze over the work continuing in the rest of the field, and finally turned to face Annice. While he'd come to appreciate bardic abilities over the last seventeen years, he'd spent a lifetime learning that good weather seldom lasted so close to Third Quarter Festival. He wanted the field stacked by dark, and that wasn't going to happen if something was wrong.
    "A feeling?" he repeated irritably. "Annice…" An imperious wave of her hand cut him off and he folded his arms across his chest with a scowl. The scowl lightened as he realized the extent of her concern and, watching the play of emotions across her face while she Called the kigh, he began, himself, to feel a faint sense of unease.
    Although the kigh seemed skittish, they couldn't answer Annice's questions.
    "Too far," she muttered at last, having Sung an unhappy gratitude.

    Ohrid stood on the border between Shkoder and Cemandia, the farthest of the five mountain principalities from Elbasan. The farthest from the Healers' Hall.
    Pjerin stepped forward, as though to close the distance. "Is it about Magda?"
    "No, I don't think so."
    He turned on her, violet eyes narrowed. "You don't think so? If you're not certain , check."
    His tone left no room for disagreement. Under other circumstances, Annice would have disagreed anyway, on principle—growing older had only intensified Pjerin's fondness for having his own way—but not this time. Hearing the fear behind the arrogance, she called the kigh back and Sang the four notes of their daughter's name. She didn't believe the wrongness had anything to do with Magda but, now that the possibility had occurred to Pjerin, she knew he'd not let it rest until he was convinced their child was safe.
    "Shall I have them check up on Gerek as well?" she wondered. Although Gerek was not her son by birth, she had long since come to consider him hers, much the same way she'd come to consider all of Ohrid hers.
    "Gerek," Pjerin growled, "is a grown man and does not need you peering over his shoulder!"
    "Magda is…"
    "A child," her father declared.
    And that was that.
    Over half the crop had been stacked by the time the kigh returned with the unmistakable message that all was well at the Healers' Hall. Magda was in no danger the kigh could discover.
    The wrongness remained, a shadow over the Circle; faint and undefined, impossible to ignore.
    "If not Magda," Annice asked herself, growing increasingly concerned, "then who?"
    "Tadeus!" Magda flung herself past Vree, across the courtyard, and into the arms of a slight man standing just at the edge of the cloister. He laughed as the force of her greeting rocked him back on his heels and Vree, who'd spun around into a defensive position at the sound of footsteps behind her, relaxed slightly.

    *I think she knows him,* Gyhard observed dryly as Magda dragged him forward.
    When Tadeus stepped out into the late afternoon sun, Vree realized that the shadow covering his eyes was a narrow black leather band cut to perch on his nose and loop back over his ears. *He's blind.*
    *So it seems.*
    *He's also not alone.* Tadeus' companion moved hesitantly out of the cloisters and Vree was astounded to see he was Southern. In fact, if she had to place him more precisely, she'd say Sixth or Seventh Province based on the cinnamon-brown of his skin.
    "Vree, Gyhard, this is Tadeus." Tucked in the semicircle of his right arm, Magda smiled proudly at the bard as though he were