The Quartered Sea by Tanya Huff

feeling?"
     
    Benedikt blinked at him, trying to focus. "How do you make that sound like an invitation?"
     
    Looking a little startled, the other bard brushed a bit of hair back off his face, and smiled. "Practice," he suggested.
     
    Her opinion of his practices plain on her face, the herbalist reached past Pjazef's shoulder and handed Benedikt a familiar mug. "This lot should taste like goat piss and raspberries," she told him. "You get that down you, and you should feel more like yourself. And you…"
     
    Pjazef recoiled dramatically from her smack on the shoulder.
     
    "… you let him rest."
     
    "I was only going to tell him the news from the Bardic Hall."
     
    "That's what you say," she sniffed as she gathered up a wooden bucket of scraps and headed out the back door. "And I'm sure you're sincere while you say it."
     
    "How long have you been here?" Benedikt wondered as the door closed.
     
    "Just a little longer than you. Why?"
     
    "Your reputation seems to have preceded you."
     
    Unrepentant, Pjazef grinned. "I'm kind of memorable, being the only redheaded bard."
     
    "What about Sergai?"
     
    "You call that red?" He ran both hands back through shoulder-length hair the color of frost-touched leaves. "He's a strawberry blond at best."
     
    They were alone in the kitchen. Very conscious of the warm thigh pressed up against him, Benedikt reminded himself that for Pjazef flirting came as naturally as breathing. He didn't mean anything by it. When the silence stretched, empty and echoing, he swallowed the last truly vile mouthful of herbal tea and said, "You have news from the Hall?"
     
    "The Hall?"
     
    "The Bardic Hall?"
     
    "Oh. Yeah." Mixed messages , Pjazef thought, forcing his attention up off the full curve of Benedikt's lower lip. That's what's wrong with the world . He masked his disappointment behind a superficial, almost arch tone. "I Sang the Hall a report about the flood, or rather the lack of a flood, this morning before you woke up and… What's the matter?"
     
    Benedikt's own report would have to wait until he returned personally to the Bardic Hall and gave his recall. "Nothing."
     
    "Then you shouldn't frown like that. You'll make lines." He took his thumb and smoothed out the skin between Benedikt's eyes—and got the same lack of response he had before. Oh, well, can't blame a guy for trying . "You'll be happy to know that I finally got an explanation for all the lost ship stuff we've been getting from the kigh."
     
    "We've been getting?" Benedikt snorted, staring into the bottom of the empty mug. The warmth of Pjazef's thumb clung to his forehead. He fought against responding and embarrassing himself.
     
    "Oops. Sorry. You wouldn't, would you, 'cause none of the water you've been Singing has come from Elbasan, so the water kigh wouldn't know. It seems that the queen has decided to send a ship southwest from the Broken Islands to find the land the dark sailor came from. She's calling for volunteers. And she wants a bard to go along, but Kovar's against it."
     
    That pulled an incredulous gaze up onto Benedikt's face. "He's not allowing it?"
     
    "You're frowning again. He can't not allow it, now can he? This is the queen we're talking about, not some fledgling who wants to make a quick pile of coin at the Ax and Anchor—which, I'd like to point out, is not half as bad a place as rumor makes it. Anyway, I heard from Evicka that he's really singing low notes and minor keys about it. Nothing but doom and gloom. And Imrich says that you can't really expect anything else when the kigh are referring to it as the lost ship already. But Tadeus said he thinks everyone's overreacting and that if we paid attention, we'd realize that the kigh name any ship lost if it sails out of sight of land, so they're obviously not foretelling the queen's voyage. He also says that asking the kigh their opinion about something is a waste of time since we have no frame of reference for what they believe."
     
    "You