Free The Quartered Sea by Tanya Huff Page B

component conversations, he smiled as he shrugged out of his jacket and lifted his harp free of her case. Word had spread that there was a bard at the River Maiden and the room was full. Good. The night's performances would deserve a full house.
     
    As a quick run of notes from the strings of a quintara commanded something approximating silence, he moved to a shadow just outside the archway leading into the common room—a position that should keep him hidden if the bard by the fire happened to glance his way.
     
    "The Dark Sailor" was a ballad, tied to the rhythms of the sea. Tadeus had never heard it sung as a defiant anthem be fore, and he wasn't entirely certain it was suited to the role Not that it mattered. When a bard sang the way young Benedikt was singing, lyric and melody both were only the framework of the greater Song.
     
    Defiance.
     
    I am as good as any of you.
     
    You can't tell me what to sing.
     
    I stand by the queen.
     
    So there.
     
    Sifting the room for reaction, Tadeus grinned. Benedikt was young and handsome with a fine, strong, and, more importantly, bardic baritone. He could've sung the menu and still gotten an appreciative response from most of this audience—a trick Tadeus himself had tried successfully a time or two in the past. But if Benedikt wanted to do more than merely air personal grievances—if, say, he wanted to influence public opinion, to drum up support for the queen's voyage—he was going to need a little help.
     
    In the moment between the applause and the next song Tadeus stepped out into the light.
     
    "Tadeus!"
     
    The weight of the crowd's attention moving from him was almost a physical sensation, and its sudden absence brought on relief so overwhelming Benedikt felt nauseous. Swallow ing convulsively, he stopped fiddling with strings that wen already perfectly tuned and looked, with everyone else toward the back of the room.
     
    In spite of everything, he couldn't prevent a smile. The old bard certainly knew how to make an entrance. Dressed in spotless black, silver hair above the scarf over his eyes silver buttons down the front of a velvet vest, one huge silver ring on the first finger of his right hand, he was the epitome of elegance and wouldn't have looked out of place at Court Glancing down at his own travel-stained clothing, Benedikt scraped at a bit of mud with his thumbnail and wondered how Tadeus managed to keep so clean on a First Quarter walk when he couldn't even see the puddles to avoid them.
     
    As the welcome rose to a crescendo, Tadeus bowed and moved slowly toward the fire. Crossing a crowded room was something he enjoyed doing, and he saw no need to hurry—after all, a blind man saw through his fingertips.
     
    Laughing, he turned down several offers of company, one or two gratifyingly explicit, and stopped an arm's reach from Benedikt, bestowing upon the younger man the full force of his smile.
     
    "May I join you?"
     
    Confused, Benedikt nodded, realized what he was doing and said, "You can't stop me from singing 'The Dark Sailor.' "
     
    "Of course I can't." Reaching behind him, Tadeus pulled a chair to the fireside and sat, arranging his harp on his lap. "You just sang it."
     
    With a worried glance at the nearest tables, Benedikt pitched his voice for Tadeus' ears alone. "Then why are you here?"
     
    "I always stop at the River Maiden on my way to Vidor." Frowning at the tone of a string, he reached into his vest pocket for his harp key. "You're causing quite a stir, you know. Most of the other bards think you've got a chip on your shoulder the size of the Citadel. That you're deliberately causing trouble. Unfortunately, this is an opinion shared by bards who would otherwise support your position."
     
    The younger man stiffened. "I don't care what most of the other bards think."
     
    "I know. You haven't exactly gone out of your way to make friends. Now, personally, I think that a bard, any bard, should be able to sing anything that