Bonds of Vengeance

Chapter One

Glyndwr Highlands, Eibithar, year 880, Eilidh’s Moon waning

An icy wind whipped across the road, screaming in the spokes of the cart like a demon from Bian’s realm and tearing at Cresenne’s wrap and clothes like a taloned hand. A heavy snow rode the gale, shards of ice stinging her cheeks and forcing her to shield her eyes.

The two great geldings pulling the cart plodded through the storm, their heads held low, the slow rhythm of their steps muffled by the thick snow blanketing the highlands. Occasionally the cart swayed, jostling Cresenne and ripping a gasp from her chest, but for the most part the snow had smoothed the lane, a small grace on a day more miserable than any she could remember.

Pain had settled at the base of her back, unlike any she had known before. It was both sharp and dull; she felt as if she had been impaled on the blunt end of a battle pike. Every movement seemed to make it worse, and more than once as the cart rocked, she had to fight to keep from being ill. She lay curled on her side-the one position in which she could bear each new wave of agony-cushioned by the merchant’s cloth. She propped her head on the satchel in which she carried what few belongings she had taken with her from Kett: a change of clothes, a bound travel journal that had once belonged to her mother, a Sanbiri dagger, and the leather pouch that held the gold she had earned as a festival gleaner and chancellor in the Weaver’s movement.

It was too cold to sleep, and even had it not been, the pain would have kept her awake. That, and her fear for the baby inside her.

“Are ye sure ye don’ want t’ stop, child?” the merchant called to her from his perch atop the cart, turning slightly so that she could see his red cheeks and squinting dark eyes. “There’s plenty o’ villages a’tween here an’ Glyndwr. One’s bound t’ have a midwife for ye. Maybe even a healer, one o’ yer kind.”

I’m a healer myself, she wanted to say. If this pain could be healed, don’t you think I’d have done so by now? “No,” she said, wincing with the effort. “It has to be Glyndwr.”

“If it’s a matter o’ gold, I can help ye.”

She would have smiled had she been able. The man had been kinder than she deserved, sharing his food willingly, though the twenty qinde she paid him for passage up the steppe and into Eibithar hardly covered the expense of half her meals. The gloves she wore were his; an extra pair, to be sure, but still, no Eandi had ever treated her so well.

“Thank you,” she said, trying to sound grateful. “But it’s not the gold. I just need to get to Glyndwr; I need to have my baby there.”

Even through the snow, she could see him frowning.

“I don’ know how much farther the beasts can go,” he said at last “I’ll do my best for ye, but I won’ kill them jes’ so ye can get t’ Glyndwr.”

She nodded and the man faced forward again. Then she closed her eyes, her hands resting on her belly, and tried to feel the child, even as she weathered another surge of pain. She remembered hearing once that a baby’s movements decreased as the time of birth approached. It made sense. The larger it grew, the less room it had. Where once it had turned somersaults like a festival tumbler, it could now only wriggle and kick.

But with the onset of her labor, the baby’s movements had ceased altogether, and panic had seized her heart.

“Just a bit longer, little one,” she whispered in the wind. “We’re in the highlands. It won’t be long now.”

Cresenne had known for some time now that she would have a daughter. At first she had assumed that such knowledge came to all gleaners who were with child. But speaking with the other Qirsi of Aneira’s Eastern Festival, she learned this wasn’t so. Yet this did nothing to diminish her certainty. There had been no dream, no vision to confirm the affinity she already felt for her child; she had wondered briefly if she might have been mistaken. She quickly dismissed the idea. It was a girl. The more she thought about it, the more confident she grew. Perhaps, she thought, her powers as a gleaner ran even deeper than she had known.

No sooner had she thought this, however, than she dismissed this notion as well. If her powers were so great, wouldn’t she have realized sooner that Grinsa, the child’s father, was a Weaver rather than a mere Revel gleaner? Wouldn’t she have realized that this man she was supposed to seduce so that she might turn him to the purposes of the Qirsi conspiracy could not be used so easily? No, hers was an ordinary magic. Her powers had served her well over the years, and because she wielded three magic’s-fire, in addition to healing and gleaning-she had drawn the attention of the other Weaver, the one who led the Qirsi movement. But the power to know that her child would be a girl? That lay beyond her.

Instead, she was forced to consider a most remarkable possibility. What if she knew she would have a daughter because this child, begotten by her reluctant love for Grinsa jal Arriet, had communicated as much to her? What if the baby she carried already possessed enough magic to tell her so? She had never heard of such a thing. Most Qirsi did not begin to show evidence of their powers until they approached Determining age. Then again, most Qirsi women never carried the child of a Weaver.

Cresenne hadn’t told anyone that her baby would be a girl-she hadn’t even revealed it to the Weaver when he entered her dreams to give her orders or hurt her, though by defying him in this way, even over such a trifle, she invited death. It was her secret, hers and the baby’s. Perhaps when she found Grinsa, she would tell him. Perhaps.

She would name the girl Bryntelle, after her mother. Even the child’s father would not have any say in that. Bryntelle ja Grinsa. A strong name for a strong girl, who would grow to become a powerful woman, maybe even a Weaver. For if she could already tell her mother so much about herself, wasn’t she destined for greatness?

“You won’t have to fear anyone,” Cresenne said, whispering the words breathlessly in the chill air. “Not even another Weaver.” Provided you survive this day.

The cart lurched to the side forcing Cresenne to grip the nearest pile of cloth. The effort brought another wave of nausea. An instant later, they stopped, and the merchant climbed down from his seat to examine the geldings.

“What happened?” Cresenne called through clenched teeth.

“One o’ the beasts stepped in a hole,” the man said, squatting to rub the back leg of the horse on the left. “He’s lucky he didn’ break a bone.” The man stood again and walked back to the cart. “It’s no good, child. We have t’ stop, a’ least until the worst o’ this storm is past.”

She shook her head. “We can’t.”

“We’ve no choice. The beasts can’t keep on this way.”

“How far are we from Glyndwr?”

He stared past the horses as if he could see the road before them winding through the highlands. “Another league. Maybe two.”

“We can be there before prior’s bells.”

“We won’ ge’ there at all if the beasts come up lame!”

“My baby-”

“Yer baby can be born in a village jes as easily as in Glyndwr.”

“No, listen to me. There’s something wrong.” She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “There’s so much pain.”

He smiled sympathetically. “I saw six o’ my own born, child. It’s never easy.”

“This is different. I feel it in my back. And the baby hasn’t moved for a long time.”

His smile vanished, chilling her as if from a new gust of wind. “Yer back, ye say?”

Cresenne nodded, wiping tears from her cheeks with a snow-crusted glove.

The merchant muttered something under his breath and glanced at the geldings. Then he forced another smile and laid a hand gently on her shoulder.

“All right, child. Glyndwr i’ ‘tis.”

He started to walk back to the front of the cart, then stopped and bent close to her again. “Yer too young t’ be doin’ this alone. Where’s the father?”

“Glyndwr” she managed. “He’s in Glyndwr.”

The man nodded and returned to his seat atop the cart. In a moment they were on their way again, the jolt of the horses’ first steps knifing through her like a poorly honed blade. Her stomach heaved and she scrambled to the edge of the cart and vomited into the snow until her throat ached. She sensed the merchant eyeing her, but he had the good sense not to say anything.

When her retching ceased, she crawled back to her frigid bed of cloth and lay down once more, hoping that what she had told the old man would prove true.

After the murder of Lady Brienne in Kentigern, and Tavis of Curgh’s escape from the dungeon of the great castle, Kearney, then duke of Glyndwr, granted the young lord asylum. Kearney had since become king, and Tavis had traveled through Aneira with Grinsa, no doubt searching for the assassin responsible for Brienne’s death. But if Grinsa and the Curgh boy had returned to Eibithar-and Cresenne had good reason to believe that they had-they would have to stop first in Glyndwr and ask the king’s leave to venture farther into the realm. Getting word to the City of Kings and waiting for Kearney’s reply would take time, especially during the snows. Even with all the time it had taken her to find a merchant who was headed north from Kett, Cresenne thought there might be a chance they were still in Glyndwr Castle. And if they weren’t, at least she’d be able to find healers.

Gods, let her live.

The ocean of pain within her began to crest again, like a storm tide in the Aylsan Strait. There had been no jarring of the cart, no movement on her part. Her time was approaching. This baby was coming, whether or not they reached the castle. She let out a low cry, squeezing her eyes shut and gripping the cloth beneath her.

“Steady, child. We’ve still a ways t’ go.”

“Faster,” she gasped. “Can’t you go any fester?”

“I can, but it’ll be a rougher ride.”

“I don’t care!” She cried out again, feeling her stomach rise, though there was nothing left in it.

The merchant called to his beasts and snapped the reins. The cart leaped forward, jouncing her mercilessly. Cresenne clung to the cart, trying to keep herself still and whimpering with each breath. The tide had her now. Agony was all around her; she was drowning in it.

She heard the merchant speaking to her again, but she had no idea what he was saying. Snow and wind still stung her face and she fixed her mind on that, for cold and miserable as it was, it was better by far than the appalling pain in her back.

“It’s the promise of that baby that keeps you going,” someone had once told her, speaking of childbirth. Had it been her mother? “All the pain in the world can’t match the joy of that moment when your child is born.”

All the pain in the world. Yes.

Except that she still didn’t feel her daughter. Not at all. Bryntelle. Somewhere in this ocean she had to find Bryntelle. Before her babe was lost to the tide as well.

Grinsa stood at the open window, the biting wind off Lake Glyndwr making his white hair dance around his face like a frenzied child. Snow drifted into the chamber and a candle on the table near the window sputtered and was extinguished. It was a fine chamber, larger and more comfortable than one they might have expected had Kearney the Elder and his wife still lived in Glyndwr. But with the old duke now king, and so many of his advisors with him in Audun’s Castle, Glyndwr Castle had a preponderance of empty chambers. This one, they were told, had once belonged to Gershon Trasker and his wife. No doubt they would not have been pleased to see snow covering the woven mat on the stone floor.

“Close the shutters,” Tavis said, standing before the hearth. “The fire’s barely warming the room as it is.”

The gleaner watched the snow for another moment, then pulled the shutters in and locked them.

“I suppose we can wait another day,” he said, facing the young lord. “Though if you’re willing to brave the storm, I’m happy to go.”

A messenger from the City of Kings had arrived at last just after the ringing of the midday bells. They had leave from the king to journey north to Curgh, though Kearney had warned that they would be safer if they remained in Glyndwr. He even went so far as to recommend that, if they chose to leave the highlands despite his misgivings, they take a small contingent of guards. “I have sent separate word to my son, Kearney the Younger,” the king wrote, in a message addressed to Tavis, “instructing him to make available to you as many of his soldiers as you deem appropriate. I urge you to accept their protection.”

Kearney wrote nothing of recent events in his realm; he didn’t have to. His offer of an armed escort told Grinsa and Tavis all they needed to know about the state of the king’s relations with Aindreas of Kentigern.

Tavis rubbed his hands together. “Let’s wait another day. It’s late now to be setting out. We’ll make our preparations today and be ready to go with first light, regardless of the weather.”

“All right. And the king’s offer of guards?”

The young lord appeared to weigh this briefly. Then he shook his head. “We’ll draw more attention with an escort than we will alone. And I don’t want reach the gates of my father’s castle with Glyndwr’s men in tow.” He smiled sadly. To those who hadn’t grown used to the lattice of scars that covered his face, he might have looked bitter. “He’ll think I don’t trust him to protect me.”

Grinsa smiled as well and shook his head. “I doubt that. But I understand.”

The smile lingered on Tavis’s face, but he kept his dark eyes fixed on the flames crackling in the stone hearth. “Do you think we’re safe here for another night?”

There would have been no sense in lying to the boy. Ever since the day Kearney first granted Tavis asylum, when the armies of Kentigern, Glyndwr, and Curgh marched from the battle plain at the Heneagh River to Kentigern, where the duke of Mertesse had laid siege to Aindreas’s castle, it had been clear to all of them that Glyndwr’s men thought Tavis a butcher. Most of Eibithar believed that he had murdered Lady Brienne, and though it would have been an act of brazen defiance, many of Kearney’s men would have thought themselves justified in killing him. Grinsa had little doubt that if Tavis had chosen to remain here in exile, rather than journeying south into Aneira, the young lord would be dead by now.

“We’re safe here, yes,” he said.

“But only because you’re powerful enough to protect me.”

Grinsa shrugged. “I don’t think Glyndwr’s men would act against you in the castle. To be honest, the real danger lies in our departure, after we leave the castle and city, but before we’re out of the highlands.”

Taking a long breath, Tavis nodded.

“We’ll be all right,” the gleaner told him. “It shouldn’t be any worse than Aneira.”

“That’s a fine thing to say about my own kingdom.”

“Do you want me to tell the duke that we won’t need an escort?”

For a moment Tavis didn’t respond. Then he shook his head, like a dog rousing itself from slumber. “No,” he said, glancing at the gleaner. “I should speak with him, courtesy of the courts and all. There may come a day when we’re both dukes under his father, or when I have to pay tithe to his throne. My father would tell me that this is a friendship to be cultivated.”

“Your father is probably right.” Grinsa stepped to the door. “I’ll see if I can convince the kitchenmaster to give us a bit of food for the journey north.”

The gleaner left the chamber and made his way to the kitchens. Before he reached them however, he nearly collided with an older man turning a corner in the dim corridor below the chambers. It took Grinsa a moment to recognize the castle’s herbmaster.

“Forgive me, herbmaster,” he said, stepping out of the man’s path.

The man frowned at him and continued on his way. After just a few strides, however, he stopped.

“Say there,” he called, narrowing his pale eyes. “Are you a healer?”

Grinsa hesitated, but only for an instant. Eibithar was his home, but he could ill afford to reveal too much about his powers, even here. “No, I’m not. Doesn’t the castle have a Qirsi healer?”

“It does, but I haven’t been able to find him.”

“Is the need urgent?” Preserving his secret was one thing, letting an innocent die to preserve it was quite another.

“Not terribly,” the herbmaster said, turning to walk away. “A woman at the gate in a difficult labor. I’ll see to it.”

“If I see the healer, I’ll send him to you.”

The older man raised a hand, but did not look back again. Grinsa watched him briefly, then resumed his search for the kitchenmaster.

The head of Glyndwr’s kitchen, like most men in his profession, proved rather reluctant to part with any of the food in his realm. Grinsa had anticipated this, however, and had brought with him the message from Kearney. Though the king’s words had no direct bearing on Tavis’s need for food, they had the desired effect on the kitchenmaster, who, upon reading the letter, began barking orders at the servants around him. Suddenly, there wasn’t a man or woman in Glyndwr who could give the gleaner what he wanted fast enough. Within a short while, Grinsa had two satchels packed full with dried meats, cheeses, hard bread, dried fruits, and even some wineskins, filled from the duke’s private cellar.

He carried the satchels back to the chamber he shared with Tavis, intending to talk next with the stablemaster. The journey to Curgh would be easier and faster if they had mounts. Reaching the room, however, he found the door ajar and a pair of guards speaking with the young lord. Fearing for the boy’s safety, he shoved the door open.

“What’s all this?” he demanded, eyeing the soldiers warily and resting his hand on the hilt of his blade.

“This is the man you’re looking for,” Tavis said evenly, nodding in the gleaner’s direction as the guards turned.

“What do you want with me?”

“There’s a woman come to the south gate, sir. She’s with child.”

“Yes, I’d heard. I’ve already told your herbmaster that I’m not a healer.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s not why we’ve come. She was asking for you.”

Grinsa narrowed his eyes. “What? By name?”

“Yes, sir. She even knew you was with Lord Curgh.”

For some time, the gleaner didn’t move. It hadn’t been too long since he traveled with Bohdan’s Revel, Eibithar’s great festival. Certainly he knew a few people in the highlands, but none he could think of who had a daughter of age to bear children. Could it be a deception of some sort, an attempt by Tavis’s enemies to leave the boy unprotected? Or had the Weaver found him already and sent this woman to kill him?

“Did she give her name?”

“No, sir. She came with a merchant, but he’s gone now. We don’t know who she is.

He didn’t like the sound of this at all.

“All right,” he said at last, gesturing toward the door. “Lead the way.”

The soldiers stepped from the room and Grinsa started to follow.

“Do you want me to come?” Tavis asked.

The gleaner hesitated. “Yes.” The boy would be safer if they were together.

“You have no idea who it could be?” Tavis asked.

He shook his head.

“Guess he’s been busy,” one of the men whispered, drawing a snicker from his companion.

Even as Grinsa felt his face redden, realization crashed over him, cold as Amon’s Ocean in the snows. He faltered in midstride. It had been Elined’s turn when he left her in Galdasten, and they had been together for nearly a full turn before that. Certainly it was possible. .

“Grinsa?” Tavis asked, stepping closer to him. “Are you all right?”

“Is the woman Qirsi?” he asked the guards.

“Yes, sir.”

“You know who-?” The boy stopped, staring at him. They had spoken of Cresenne only a few times. The pain of her betrayal still scored his heart and though he had cursed her name a thousand times since their last night together, the very thought of her still made his breath catch. Tavis had asked few questions about her, but for all his faults, the boy was observant and uncommonly clever.

“It’s the woman from the Revel, isn’t it? That would have been about the right time.”

“It would have.”

They started walking again, then broke into a run.

“Does your duke know of the woman’s arrival?” Tavis asked the men, his voice carrying over the beat of their footsteps.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Tell him that Lord Tavis suggests he post guards outside her room at all times. She may be a member of the Qirsi conspiracy.”

Grinsa looked at the boy sharply, but then gave a reluctant nod. Tavis was right. If this was Cresenne she needed to be watched, no matter her condition. He had loved her-perhaps he still did-but that did nothing to change the fact that she was a traitor, that her gold had bought Brienne’s death.

They reached the herbmaster’s chambers a few moments later and were greeted by a breathless scream from within. Grinsa reached for the door handle, only to draw back his trembling hand. His heart was a smith’s sledge hammering in his chest. He tried to take a breath and nearly retched.

“Stay out here,” he managed through gritted teeth.

“Of course,” Tavis said.

Another scream made them both wince.

Grinsa gripped the door handle and entered the chamber. It was far too warm within, and the air smelled of sweat, vomit, and an oversweet blend of healing herbs. The gleaner gagged.

The herbmaster looked up at him, his face pale, a sheen of sweat on his brow glowing in the candlelight. “Are you the one she’s been asking for?”

Grinsa nodded, unable to tear his eyes from the figure propped up in the bed next to the man. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her damp face a mask of pain, her white, sweat-soaked hair clinging to her brow. Her breath came in great gasps and she rocked her head from side to side as if trying to break free of some great evil.

Yet through it all, Grinsa could see the exquisite woman with whom he had fallen in love ten turns before. Silently he cursed Adriel, goddess of love, for smiting him so.

“Well, come on, then, and help me,” the herbmaster said, laying a wet cloth on her forehead. “She’s worsening, and the child may be lost already.”

At that the gleaner hurried to the bed.

“What do you mean, it may be lost?”

“The baby is blocked somehow. I’m not a healer, and it turns out the duke’s healer is gone from the castle. There may be an outbreak of Murnia’s pox in one of the baronies and he’s gone to check on it.”

“So there’s no one here at all?”

“I’m doing the best I can. I’ve given her dewcup and groundsel to stanch the bleeding, and dittany and maiden’s weed for the blockage.” He handed Grinsa a cup of pungent, steaming liquid.

“What’s this?”

“A brew of a bit more dittany, as well as some common wort to calm her and ease the pain. She barely kept any of the first cup down. See if you can get her to take more.”

The gleaner knelt beside the bed and carefully raised the cup to Cresenne’s cracked lips.

“Drink,” he whispered.

She took a small sip, choked on it, and turned her head away. An instant later, though, as if his voice had finally reached her, she turned to him, opening her eyes. Pale yellow they were, the color of a candle’s flame, the color of passion and love and, ultimately, deepest pain. Unable to hold her gaze, he looked away, though he raised the cup again.

“You need to drink this,” he said.

“You came.” Her voice was scraped raw from her ordeal, and even as she spoke, her body convulsed.

“Yes. Drink. It will ease the pain.”

“Save our baby, Grinsa. Please. She’s dying. I know she is, and I’m not strong enough to help her.”

“The herbmaster-”

She reached up and grabbed his arm, her slender fingers like a vise. “He can’t save her,” she said in a fierce whisper, forcing him to look into those pale eyes again. “He knows it, and so do you. But you can. We both know that as well. Whatever you may think of me-however much you hate me now-you must save our daughter.”

“What does she mean?” the herbmaster demanded, leaning closer. “I thought you said you couldn’t heal her.”

A moment before Grinsa had been unwilling to meet her glance. Now he felt powerless to look away. “I told you I wasn’t a healer,” he answered, his eyes never straying from hers. “And I’m not. I’m a gleaner by trade.” And a Weaver by birth. No doubt Cresenne knew this by now. She might have reasoned it out for herself, or she might have been told by the other Weaver, the one who led the conspiracy. The one for whom she had betrayed him. “But I do have some healing power.”

“So you can help her?”

“Perhaps.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. Her skin felt cold. “Perhaps together we can save the baby. You have healing magic as well. I remember from. . from before.”

Cresenne nodded slowly, her eyes widening at what he was proposing.

“How can you both help the baby?”

First, though, Grinsa knew, the Eandi had to leave the chamber, at least briefly.

Grinsa looked up at the man. “This may take some time, herbmaster. Lord Tavis of Curgh is in the corridor just outside this chamber. Please tell him that we won’t be leaving in the morning as we had planned.”

The herbmaster frowned. “But-”

“I assure you, herbmaster, she’ll be fine. Your brew has seen to that.”

The man straightened, and, after a moment’s hesitation, turned toward the door.

“Give me your hand,” Grinsa whispered, looking at Cresenne once more.

She slid her hand into his, their fingers intertwining like lovers. Closing his eyes, Grinsa reached for her power with his own, entering her mind as he might have stepped into her dreams had she been sleeping. Instantly, the pain hit him, excruciating and consuming, as if Cresenne had struck at him with her fire magic. He couldn’t imagine how she bore it. As he struggled to keep from succumbing to it himself, the gleaner followed her anguish to its source at the base of her back. . and doing so, he encountered something utterly unexpected.

His eyes flew open. “I sense her!”

“She’s alive?”

“Yes.” He could feel the baby’s pain as well. It wasn’t nearly as severe as her mother’s, but it was real nevertheless and growing worse by the moment.

“I’m going to try to stop the pain,” he said. “I need you to help me, and then I need for you to relax all your muscles.”

“Do you know what’s wrong?”

“Yes.” He lifted his head and called for the herbmaster, who returned immediately. “The blood cord is around the baby’s neck,” he told the man. “You’ll have to slip it back over the baby’s head before she can be born.”

“How can you know this?”

“I just do.” He exhaled, sensing that the man wasn’t ready to accept such a poor explanation. “In trying to heal the mother’s pain, I sensed the child’s as well. Now please, as you told me before, there isn’t much time.”

“I’ve never done such a thing before.”

“You have to try, herbmaster. She needs my healing magic. There is no one else.”

The man stared at him for several seconds, then nodded reluctantly.

Grinsa looked at Cresenne again. “Are you ready?”

She nodded, and together, their hands still clasped, they turned their powers toward her pain, so that magic flowed over the tender muscles and bone like cool water from the steppe. After a time, he began to feel her muscles slackening.

“Now, herbmaster. Quickly.”

For several moments the room was silent, save for Cresenne’s breathing and the low conversation of the soldiers in the hallway beyond the oak door.

Finally, the herbmaster exhaled loudly and nodded to Grinsa. “It’s done.”

“Thank you. You should be all right now,” he told Cresenne, releasing her hand. He tried to stand, but she reached for his arm once more, her grasp more gentle this time, but no less insistent.

“Don’t leave me.” She faltered, her eyes holding his. “If. . if something goes wrong again, I may need you.”

He didn’t want to stay. He still loved her. As much as he wanted to hate her, he couldn’t. And now they were bound to each other by this child she carried, the daughter whose mind he had touched just a moment before. He knew that he should run, that he and Tavis should leave Glyndwr this night and drive their mounts northward heedless of the wind and snow.

But all he could do was nod and smile, taking her hand once again.

“All right,” he said, the words rending his heart. “I’ll stay.”