Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff Page B

who'd accused her of almost drowning her son, stepped out of the crowd.
    "Nadina i'Gituska, as of this moment, we take the child Jurgis from your care."
    "Witnessed." The four voices spoke in ragged but emphatic unison.

    "Bard?"
    "Witnessed." As the woman began to shriek profanity, Annice turned and went back into the healer's cottage. The mother wasn't her problem, but it very much sounded as though the child was. Moving slowly, and thankful for the curling driftwood banister, she climbed up the steep and narrow stairs and ducked into the other second-floor room.
    It was identical to the one she'd been placed in except that the bed held a small boy and, bending over him, the oldest man she'd ever seen. "Healer Emils?"
    The old man turned and squinted in her direction. "I don't know the voice," he said, his own voice a rough whisper, "so it must be the bard."
    Annice stepped forward and saw the milky film over both his eyes.
    He snickered, as though aware of the direction of her gaze. "Lifted the fog from any number of eyes but can't clear my own. Everything else still works, though. And why are you standing up? After that stunt you pulled, your baby needs you to rest. You know very well where the energy to control the kigh like you did comes from."
    "How's Jurgis?"
    "Well, he should have frozen solid, but he didn't. My guess is that those water kigh he called somehow protected him."
    "How…"
    "How do I know about that? How do you think? You were questioning the woman right under my window. Sit down on the edge of the bed." Clawlike fingers reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her to the bed and then pushing her down. "Have a good long look, then get back where I put you. I haven't lost a patient in… in… well, in a long time, and I'm not going to start with you. Or your baby. How do you feel?"
    "Tired." She had no intention of denying it, but she needed to see the child.
    The hair fanned out on the pillow was bleached a fine white-blond and against the tanned skin of his face, his brows, the same sun-kissed color, almost glowed. There were smudged circles under his eyes, but whatever else his life had been lacking, at least he seemed to have gotten enough food. Annice smiled as she recognized the line of his jaw and the unmistakable alignment of his features and wondered how six years of bards Walking the north coast had missed it.
    Wondered how she'd missed it when she'd walked through three years before. Her smile slipped a little at the green and purple bruise still discoloring one temple.
    "Got a baby on a bard who Sang water," she murmured.
    "What?" The ancient healer groped for her shoulder. "What are you talking about?"
    "I know who Jurgis' father is."
    "Good. Good." The clutching fingers moved on to administer an approving pat on the head. "A man should be told when his seed bears fruit."
    She told him three days later, sitting on top of the cliff with the boy cradled on her lap, weaving his father's name in an amazingly complicated descant around her message. It was obvious that Jurgis had inherited the ability to Sing both water and air as the kigh no longer responded with such willingness for her alone.
    When they finished, and the pale bodies had disappeared against the clouds, Jurgis pushed his head into the hollow of her throat. "What if he doesn't want me?"
    "He will." Annice added just enough Voice that he couldn't doubt her, confident that Petrelis would be overjoyed to discover he had a child. The older bard was one of the finest teachers the Hall had ever had; kind and patient with the fledglings, soothing fears and bringing out the best in each of them. She couldn't think of anyone who'd be a better father.
    "Mama doesn't want me."
    "Your mother's sick. In her heart. Emils is trying to heal her, but the sickness makes her fight against his help."
    "Tell me again about being a bard."
    "Well, bards are the eyes and ears and voice of the country. We bring the mountains to the coast and the coast to