David Coe - Bonds of Vengeance

As soon as he spoke these last words, the gleaner knew that he had gone too far. But rather than railing at him, the young lord simply stood there for a moment, his lips pressed thin, before stalking past Grinsa and entering the tavern once more.

“I’m an idiot,” the gleaner muttered to himself. He would have liked to return to the inn at which they had taken their room. Tavis needed some time to himself before he would be ready to listen to an apology. But he wasn’t sure that the young lord could find his way back to the inn, this being his first night in Duvenry. Grinsa waited a short while, though he knew it wouldn’t be enough time to cool the boy’s rage at what he had said. Finally, reluctantly, he stepped into the tavern.

He spotted Tavis immediately, sitting alone at a small table by the side wall, his back to the door as he sipped an ale. Grinsa walked to the table and sat.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The young lord stared at the dark ale in his tankard. “I’m not like Aindreas.”

“Tavis-”

“I’m not. Aindreas assumed that I had killed Brienne, and so he tortured me. He enjoyed seeing me suffer, and it never occurred to him to wonder if he might be wrong.” He looked up. “We know that the singer killed her, and I’m not interested in torturing him. I want to kill him and be done with it. This may be a quest born of vengeance, but at least it’s justified.”

“You’re right. I was wrong to say what I did.”

Tavis regarded him briefly, as he often did when the gleaner agreed with him. It almost seemed that the young lord expected Grinsa to argue with him, that he was surprised when the gleaner paid him any compliment or acquiesced to anything he said.

“What is it you saw in your vision, gleaner?”

Grinsa shifted in his chair. “I’ve told you. I saw you fighting with the singer on the north coast of the Crown.”

“Did you see him kill me?”

“No. I didn’t see the ending at all.”

“But you saw enough to convince you that I don’t survive the encounter.”

He shook his head. “I swear to you I didn’t.”

“Then why is it that ever since that dream, you’ve been trying to warn me off this pursuit?”

“It’s precisely because I don’t know how it all turns out. If I knew he was going to kill you, I’d do everything in my power to keep you away from the Crown. And if I knew that you were going to prevail, I wouldn’t be so frightened. But I have no idea what’s going to happen, and that’s a very difficult thing for a gleaner.”

Tavis grinned. “We Eandi live with such uncertainty every day.”

“Yes. And at times I don’t know how you do it.” They sat in silence, Tavis staring at his ale again, Grinsa watching him. “There will be a storm,” he said at last.

Tavis looked up, his eyes widening slightly.

“And the singer will have cut you at least twice, though neither wound looked too serious. You’ll be right on the coast, on rocks that are slick with sea spray and rain. But that can actually work to your advantage if you let it. On even footing, you’re no match for him. You know that. But anything can happen when the terrain is uncertain. Try to use that.”

The young lord nodded. “Where does he cut me?”

“Your neck and your right forearm. But as I said, neither wound looked too deep.”

“Had I marked him?”

Grinsa hesitated, shook his head.

Tavis forced a smile. “Of course not.”

“You can defeat him, Tavis. You have to believe that, or you’re doomed to fail.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of all this, that you didn’t want me to face him.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why offer the advice?”

A barmaid approached the table, but Grinsa waved her away. He was in no mood for another ale. “If I were to command you to leave the Crown without facing this man, would you do it?”

“You know I wouldn’t.”

“Well, there’s your answer. You intend to do this no matter what I say or do. And even if I were willing to kill him for you, I don’t think you’d want that either. This is your battle, for better or for worse. I believe you have a role to play in the coming war, an important one, though I don’t know what it is. I know you well enough to understand that you won’t be able to fulfill that role until you’ve faced the assassin one final time.” He gave a small shrug, opening his hands. “Your chances of surviving this encounter will be better if you know what to expect.”

Tavis nodded, taking a long breath. “Thank you.”

The gleaner stood. “Come on. We’ve a long journey ahead of us, and the sooner we get to Helke the better. We need sleep.”

Tavis dropped two silvers on the table and they left the tavern, making their way back to the inn.

“Did you notice anything else in your vision?” Tavis asked as they walked.

Grinsa faltered, but only for an instant. Best to tell him all, the good and the bad.

“The singer seemed quite confident. He’s not afraid of you, even after what happened in Mertesse.” Then, to soften it, he added. “But that too could work to your advantage. Too much confidence can be a dangerous thing.”

The young lord gave a wry grin. “Then I have nothing to worry about.”

Tihod jal Brossa watched from his table in the back corner of the tavern as they left, keeping his face in the shadows, and his head lowered so that it would seem to all who saw him that he was just another drunk Qirsi, intent on his ale.

He felt reasonably certain that they would be heading back to their inn, and so he made no effort to follow them. He knew where they were staying the night, and he had every intention of following them come morning. For now it seemed most prudent to remain here until the Qirsi gleaner and his Eandi companion had time enough to put some distance between themselves and the tavern. Then he would return to his ship.

He had been fortunate to find them at all. Dusaan had sent him to Wethyrn in pursuit of different quarry, an assassin who had done a good deal of work on behalf of the movement and to whom Tihod had paid large amounts of the Weaver’s gold. But late this day, as he left his ship, the Silver Flame , intending to return to the city marketplace, he saw a strange pair disembarking from a nearby Eandi vessel.

They would have caught his eye under any circumstances, but in his most recent conversation with the Weaver, Dusaan had told him of another Weaver living in the Forelands, a man named Grinsa jal Arriet. Dusaan had described this man briefly, but it was the Qirsi’s companion who made him so easy to spot. He had never seen Tavis of Curgh before, but he couldn’t imagine that any other young Eandi of noble bearing carried such scars on his face.

Usually Dusaan asked little of him. He knew that Tihod would gladly have done more for the movement, but he had made it clear long ago that he dared not risk Tihod’s life on matters that could be handled by others.

“I need you to distribute my gold,” he had once said. “And to do so in a way that makes it untraceable. No one else can do this for me.” Tihod knew that he was right. The payments he made to Dusaan’s other followers were not terribly complicated; any merchant with a bit of sense could have set up a similar network of couriers. But not all of them were so successful that they could absorb all of the imperial qinde Dusaan sent to him and exchange it for common currency, and fewer still had such extensive knowledge of all the major ports in the Forelands. And of these few, only Tihod had known Dusaan since childhood; only he could be trusted with the knowledge that the man was a Weaver in command of a great cause. It was no exaggeration to state that after the Weaver himself, Tihod was the most important man in the movement. This was why Dusaan sought to protect him. This was how Tihod knew just how much the Weaver wanted Grinsa jal Arriet dead.