DAVID COE - Seeds of Betrayal

She will . “Again, thank you,” Cresenne said, making herself smile.

“We’ll speak again soon. If you find him, or hear anything of his whereabouts, remain in Kett, even if the Festival leaves. Make some excuse, but stay there. I don’t want to have any trouble finding you.”

The dream ended abruptly and Cresenne opened her eyes to a room so dark she could barely see to the edge of her bed. The inn was quiet, as was the street outside her window. It must have been well past the midnight bells.

“Damn him,” she whispered in the blackness. She needed to sleep more, but already she had begun to sift through her conversation with the Weaver, searching for anything that might tell her who he was and where she could find him.

She felt the baby move and smiled, placing a hand on her belly.

“Are you awake, too?”

She sat up, propping up her pillow against the bedroom wall and leaning back against it. These encounters with the Weaver always woke the child. Cresenne thought it must be because of how her body reacted to fear-the quickening of her pulse, the tightening of her stomach. How could the baby not notice? A part of her wanted to believe that he or she woke up to offer comfort. Certainly nothing made Cresenne forget the Weaver and all that he represented faster than feeling that tiny body turning somersaults in her belly like a festival tumbler.

“Don’t you know it’s the middle of the night?”

A tiny foot pushed against her hand, then a second.

“So you know, but you just don’t care.”

The feet moved away, but an elbow dug against her side.

“Where’s your father little one? Is he really in Aneira, or am I just fooling myself?”

Not too long ago she had been ready to concede that she must be wrong, that Grinsa couldn’t be in Aneira. But then she heard of the assassination of Bistari’s duke. Immediately she knew that it had to have been the work of the Qirsi. Others were not nearly so quick to reach that conclusion, and she gathered from what she had heard that the use of the garrote and the scrap of Solkaran uniform had succeeded in fooling Eandi nobles and Qirsi ministers alike, including the duke of Kett. Of course, they didn’t know the movement and its tactics as she did. Cresenne thought it had been poorly done, the signs pointing to the king too heavy-handed. To her mind, it bespoke a dangerous overconfidence. More to the point, however, she felt reasonably certain that the murder had been carried out by the same man she sent to Kentigern. Cadel, whom she last saw in Noltierre when she told him of the death of his partner. The killing so closely resembled an assassination he had been hired to carry out in Sanbira a year or two before that she thought it had to be his work.

And since he had pledged himself to finding and killing Gnnsa in order to avenge Jedrek’s death, the fact that he was still in Aneira gave her some cause to hope that the gleaner was as well. It wasn’t much. It was pitifully little, really. But taken with the nameless sense she had that Grinsa was nearby, it was all she needed.

The baby’s movements began to grow more gentle and infrequent. Cresenne lay down again and hummed a lullaby that her mother used to sing. Eventually, she must have fallen asleep herself, because when she next opened her eyes, sunlight streamed through the window and the mid-morning bells tolled from the city gates.

“Demons and fire!” she whispered, sitting up so fast that her head spun.

She should have been at the gleaning tent already. No doubt the line of children wound almost completely around the tent by now. Aneira’s Eastern Festival had other gleaners, but she had promised to be there early today, having taken the later gleanings the previous two days.

She threw on her clothes and walked as quickly as she could through the narrow winding streets of Kett until she came to the tents and peddlers’ carts of the Festival.

Meklud had already started the Determinings for her, and he glared at her as she entered the tent, a scowl on his narrow, pale features. A small girl sat across the table from him, gazing at the Qiran, though the stone showed nothing yet.

“I’m sorry,” Cresenne said, standing in the tent opening.

“I should think.”

“Do you want me to start now, or wait until you’re done with her?”

His mouth twisted sourly. “You might as well let me finish this one. I’ve already had her tell me most of what I need to know.”

“All right. As soon as you’re done with her, come outside and find me. I’ll do the rest.”

She stepped back into the sunlight, only to find several of the children watching her.

“Are you the gleaner?” a boy asked.

“One of them, yes.”

A girl stared at her belly. “Does that mean you know what your baby is going to be?”

Cresenne almost laughed aloud. Why was everyone so interested in her baby? Everyone except its father.

“No, it doesn’t. I’ll be just as surprised as any other mother.”

“My mother says that Qirsi babies are born so small that they can fit in the palm of my hand.”

Cresenne stared at the girl, fighting an urge to slap her. It was true that Qirsi women gave birth to smaller babies than did Eandi women. Indeed, romances between Qirsi women and Eandi men were forbidden by the gods and prohibited by law in most kingdoms because Qirsi mothers were too frail to give birth to the children of such unions. More often than not, the women died in labor. The sin of the moons, it was called, for Panya and Ilias, a Qirsi woman and Eandi man who defied the gods and loved each other anyway, only to be punished by Qirsar, the Qirsi god, who placed them in the sky as moons so that all might see how they suffered for their love.

Still, though Qirsi babies were small, they were not abominations, as the tale repeated by this girl implied. For centuries the Eandi had told such stories about her people, perpetuating ancient fears of the Qirsi and their magic. No matter what she thought of the Weaver, Cresenne still shared his desire to see the Eandi courts destroyed.

“Your mother is wrong,” Cresenne said, unable to keep the ice from her voice. “And she ought to be ashamed of herself for filling your head with such dreadful lies.”

The girl gaped at her, her eyes wide as an owl’s. Cresenne turned away and merely stared at the tent opening, waiting for Meklud to finish with the gleaning. The old man would be furious with her if he learned what she had said to the girl-Festival gleaners were supposed to be courteous to all the Eandi, no matter how they were treated-but she didn’t care. Let him throw her out of the Festival. At least then she’d have an excuse to defy the Weaver and leave Kett in search of Grinsa.

Meklud stepped out of the tent a short time later, fixing her with a look that made it clear he would have liked to replace her, even without knowing what she had said to the girl.

“You’re ready now?” he asked, arching a pale eyebrow.

“Yes. Again, I’m sorry for being late.”

“I was supposed to replace you at the midday bells,” he said, leaving the thought unfinished, but looking at her expectantly.

You bastard , she thought. It was only one or two gleanings . But he left her little choice.

“I can continue for a time beyond the bells.”

“To the prior’s bells?”

Enough was enough. “No, Meklud, not to the prior’s bells. I’m with child and I have to eat and rest. I’ll go four gleanings beyond midday, but that’s all.”

He frowned, but after a moment he nodded. “Very well.”

The old Qirsi stomped off without another word, but at least he didn’t have a chance to speak with the girl.

Cresenne glanced at the boy who stood at the head of the line. “I’m ready for you,” she said, stepping into the tent.