David Coe: Bonds of Vengeance

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.”

Glyndwr, Eibithar

Tavis had thought that when Grinsa called the herbmaster back into the chamber, the woman’s labor was near its end. But though she no longer screamed out with such desperate anguish, she continued to moan and cry, as if pushed beyond endurance. The soldiers who stood with him in the corridor had long since stopped talking among themselves. Mostly they kept their eyes lowered, exchanging looks occasionally, when the Qirsi woman sounded particularly wretched.

After a time, the duke of Glyndwr entered the hallway and the men straightened. He nodded to them as he walked past, but he didn’t stop until he reached Tavis.

In most respects, Kearney the Younger was the image of his father. He had the king’s bright green eyes and fine features, but his hair was a soft brown, perhaps like Kearney the Elder’s had been before it turned silver. Though still two years shy of his Fating, the boy was already nearly as tall as Tavis. He was thin as a blade, however, and awkward. He wore the silver, red, and black baldric on his back, as did all Glyndwr’s dukes. But the baldric and the sword it held appeared far too large for him. His father had chosen to give him the dukedom rather than appointing a regent to oversee the realm until Kearney the Younger’s Fating. As Tavis looked at the young duke now, he couldn’t help but wonder if the elder Kearney had placed too great a burden on the boy.

The Qirsi woman groaned again and Kearney glanced at the door, the color draining from his face.

“She labors still?”

Tavis nodded. “She doesn’t cry out as she did earlier, but I’ve heard no babe yet.”

Kearney faced him. “I’ve posted guards as you suggested, but I’d like to know more of this woman. You say she’s part of the conspiracy?”

“We believe so, yes. My companion, the gleaner, knew her in the Revel. When he left for Kentigern, intending to win my freedom, she sent an assassin for him.”

“So after her child is born, I should imprison her?”