David Coe - Bonds of Vengeance

It’s not too late to turn back . Grinsa had spoken the words so many times that Tavis now heard them in his dreams. And sometimes, late at night, when Grinsa was asleep and Tavis should have been as well, he considered returning to Eibithar without facing Brienne’s killer. He wanted to avenge her. Ean knew he did. But he also wanted to live, to reclaim his place in the court of his forefathers and pass his years as a noble, as he once had thought to do. Certainly Grinsa would have leaped at the chance to leave Wethyrn. Even traveling in silence, Tavis sensed how much Grinsa longed to be with Cresenne and their daughter. He was equally certain that if he returned to Curgh without facing the assassin, his parents would welcome him back without question, as would Xaver and Hagan MarCullet and anyone else whose opinion mattered to him.

A few days before, Grinsa had said that Tavis pursued the man out of vengeance and nothing more. But in the days since the young lord had come to realize that he wasn’t doing this for revenge, or for pride, or even for love of his lost queen. He did it for himself, because he knew that if he turned away now, and never faced the assassin, he would curse himself as a coward for the rest of his days. Was it better to die a fool’s death than to live a long life hating oneself? The question had kept him up the last four nights running, and probably would again tonight.

“It shouldn’t be hard to find the Grey Seal,” Grinsa said after some time. “Chances are Cadel will be staying there-musicians often take a free room as part of their compensation. Perhaps we can find some way to gain access to his chamber-”

“You know that’s not going to happen,” Tavis said in a low voice. “We fight on the seashore. You’ve already seen it.”

“I’ve told you before, Tavis. When I have a vision of someone’s fate, be it in a dream or during a gleaning, I’m merely seeing one possible future among many.”

“Then why tell me all that you did about my fight with the singer?”

Grinsa gave a small shrug, his mouth twisting. “Because if what I saw turns out to be real, I want you to know what to expect.” He started to say more, then appeared to stop himself.

“You don’t want that vision to be real, do you? You’ve said all along that you never saw the end of our battle, but you don’t like what you did see, isn’t that right?”

“When it comes right down to it, I don’t like the whole idea of you fighting this man. But yes, given the choice, I’d rather you fought him elsewhere, somewhere a bit less-”

He halted abruptly, falling silent and turning his head slightly, as if listening for something behind them.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“Hear what?”

“Footsteps.”

Tavis looked back down the lane they had been following. They were near the inn at which they had taken a room and the street seemed to be empty. Actually the entire town, the name of which he had already forgotten, struck him as rather desolate.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve had this feeling.”

“What feeling?”

“That we’re being followed, watched. I even had it in the tavern just now, while we were sitting with the peddler. It seemed that someone else was listening to our conversation.”

Had it been any other man, Tavis wouldn’t have been alarmed. Even coming from the gleaner, it sounded like little more than irrational fear born of too many days worrying about assassins and conspiracies. But he had never known Grinsa to speak of such things without cause, and though he wasn’t certain that a Weaver’s powers of perception were any stronger than those of other Qirsi, he felt certain that they were more finely honed than his own.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

Grinsa continued to stare down the street. Finally he shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do. If we were being followed, whoever it was will have seen us stop and will be ever more cautious.” He started walking again, a bit more quickly than before, and the young lord hurried to follow him. “I should have been more careful,” he murmured, more to himself than to Tavis. “Next time I won’t turn until I’m certain that I can catch him.”

Tihod watched them from a shadowy alleyway between a smithy and a wheelwright’s shop, cursing his own foolishness and fearing that at any moment the gleaner might start back up the lane toward where he was hiding. He had already determined to his own satisfaction that Grinsa and the Curgh boy were returning to their inn. After their conversation with the drunken peddler, he was certain that they would be eager to retire for the night, so as to begin the final leg of their journey to Helke with first light. Once he realized the direction in which they were walking from the pub, he should have stopped following and gone back to his own room. Instead, he had continued after them, ignoring the risk.

It had been no more than the scuff of his boot on the dirt lane that made Grinsa stop, a slight misstep that other men would have missed. Certainly Tavis hadn’t noticed it. Dusaan would have, but the Weaver was not like other men-it seemed he and Grinsa had more in common than just the extent of their powers.

Perhaps wielding such magic-knowing that if the extent of their power were discovered by the Eandi they would be executed-made men like Dusaan and Grinsa more cautious than others, and thus more aware of their surroundings. Or maybe possessing so many magics that were linked to the land and the elements-fire, mists and winds, language of beasts-also served to heighten a Weaver’s perceptions of the world in which he lived. Whatever the explanation, Tihod knew that he would have to be more careful if he were to make an attempt on Grinsa’s life without getting killed himself.

He couldn’t hear what the gleaner and Tavis said to each other, but after a few moments they started walking again. Without leaving the alley, Tihod watched them enter the inn. Still he didn’t move, lest Grinsa was watching for him from within the tavern. Only after he had waited for some time did he finally step warily into the lane and make his way back to his inn and the small, dingy room he had rented for the night.

He missed his ship. For a man accustomed to sleeping in the comfortable cabin of his own vessel, being carried into his slumber each night by the gentle rise and fall of the sea, a tavern bed was a terrible place to pass the night. He hadn’t slept well since leaving Duvenry, nor did he have much of an appetite. He knew that many found the sea unsettling to the stomach, but he, of course, did not. He didn’t understand how anyone could live and sleep and eat on this dead rock they called land. On the ocean Tihod felt that he was riding the back of some great living beast, moving as she did, living by her rhythms and off her bounty. The pitch and roll of his ship on the ocean waves, the taste of sea spray on his lips, the scent of brine in the wind-these gave him more than a livelihood, they gave him life. They fed his appetite and his thirst, they told him when to sleep and when to wake, they gave life and color to his dreams at night. They even enhanced the act of love. He had once lain with a woman on land, in some tavern bedchamber in Aneira, and the experience only confirmed for him what he had already known. Women, like food and wine, like storms and sunsets, were best enjoyed on the sea.

Dusaan, who had never traveled well by ship himself, had nevertheless come to appreciate Tihod’s passion for the sea, and so had been deeply surprised three nights before when he entered the merchant’s dreams.

“You’re not on your ship,” the Weaver had said immediately, a look of concern in his golden eyes. “Why?”