David Coe: Bonds of Vengeance

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?”