Bonds of Vengeance: Book 3 of Winds of the Forelands (Winds of the Forelands Tetralogy)

by DAVID B. COE

  “More than I can say.”

  Grinsa sensed that they were now straying into dangerous terrain, and he thought it time to end their conversation. “Again, my lady, you have our thanks.”

  “Will you continue to search for him?” Tavis asked her.

  The woman shook her head. “I’ve already been away from my sister for too long, and I’ve nearly run out of gold. Even if he is in Helke, I haven’t the means to get there. And I’m not certain I want to be anywhere near the two of you when next you meet.”

  “No,” Tavis said. “I don’t believe you do.”

  She glanced at the gleaner, her expression grim, her cheeks still pale. Then she left them, walking quickly down the narrow lane that led back to Duvenry’s marketplace.

  “You were right,” Tavis said softly, as they watched her go. “We do want to be in Helke.”

  Grinsa wasn’t so certain. He had no doubt that they would find the assassin there. Even had the vision that came to him in the City of Kings not been enough to convince him, this conversation with the woman would have been. But after listening to her description of the singer’s fight with the road thieves, he was more certain than ever that Tavis had been fortunate to survive his first encounter with the man. Chances were that he wouldn’t fare so well the second time they met.

  “You heard what she said about the brigands.”

  The boy nodded, still gazing down the lane.

  “And still you’re sure that you want to pursue this matter?”

  “You said yourself that he’ll kill again, given time.”

  “Maybe he will. But the last time he killed, he struck at the conspiracy.”

  “I need to do this, Grinsa. I need to clear my name.”

  Grinsa turned to face him. “Stop saying that. Your name has been cleared, at least to the extent that it ever will be. Cresenne saw to that when she admitted to the king what she’d done. Aindreas may refuse to believe it, and the lords of Galdasten as well. But for any reasonable person, her confession should be enough.”

  “So you think I should just let Brienne’s killer go free?”

  “I think you should admit that this is all about vengeance, nothing more, nothing less. The singer killed your betrothed, and because of that you suffered greatly, not only from grief but also from her father’s thirst for revenge. I, of all people, know how much pain you’ve had to endure. I healed you, and I’ve journeyed the land with you for the better part of a year. I have no sympathy for Cadel, and I understand why you want him dead. But that doesn’t change the fact that you only pursue him to exact a measure of revenge. No good will come of his death, should you manage to kill him. And chances are, you’ll die in the attempt. All for nothing. You can tell me that you want to clear your name, to reclaim your place in the Order of Ascension, but in the end, you’re driven solely by your need for retribution. You’re no different than Aindreas.”

  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 h
appened 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.

  Because when Dusaan spoke to him of this second Weaver, in a dream less than a turn before, he didn’t hesitate to tell Tihod to kill the man if he had the opportunity.

  “Remember that he’s a Weaver,” Dusaan told him that night. “Take great care in approaching him. But he’s seen my face and so must die, and as much as I’d enjoy killing him myself, I can’t risk waiting that long.”

  Tihod may not have been a Weaver, but he was not without formidable powers of his own. He was a gleaner and a shaper, and he also possessed the power of mists and winds, a valuable asset for any sea captain. He had some skill with both sword and dagger as well, and one did not brave the storms of the Scabbard and the unpredictable currents and winds of the Narrows without growing strong and agile. Watching Grinsa and the boy make their way from the pier toward Duvenry’s marketplace, he had every intention of following them and making an attempt on their lives this very night.

  But Dusaan had also told him to find the assassin. The man had not plied his trade on behalf of the movement in some time, though Dusaan’s servants had sought to hire him for the past several turns. Few even knew where he was, and so when word reached Tihod that a man matching the assassin’s description had been seen in southern Wethyrn two turns before, he steered his ship southward, past the Crown, to Grinnyd. He soon learned that the singer had been there only a half turn before, but had moved on. Rumor at the time placed him in Ailwyck, too far inland for a sea merchant to venture without calling attention to himself, but near enough to send a courier. Once again, however, the assassin resumed his journeying before the movement’s gold reached him, and for much of Amon’s waxing Tihod was at a loss as where to search next for the man.

  But just a few nights before the Night of Two Moons, word reached him of another singer, a woman named Kalida Betzel who had sung with the assassin in Ailwyck and who, it was said, might even have been his lover. This woman had left Ailwyck shortly after the assassin did, journeying north to Duvenry. Having no other clues as to the man’s whereabouts, Tihod came to the royal city as well, and soon found Kalida. He kept his distance, not wishing to raise her suspicions, but he gathered that she was inquiring after the singer, and the merchant guessed that if he waited long enough, she would lead him to the man.

  It seemed to Tihod that more than coincidence and good fortune had brought Grinsa and this woman to the same city and, ultimately on this night, to the same tavern. But only when he heard the gleaner asking the barman about the very singer she had been seeking, did he finally understand. He remembered now that the assassin had been paid to kill Lady Brienne of Kentigern, and that Tavis had been blamed for her murder. Thus, it didn’t surprise him when Kalida followed Grinsa and the boy outside, or when creeping to the doorway himself, he saw the three of them speaking in the lane just beyond the tavern door. He didn’t step into the street himself, though he would have given a good deal of gold to hear their conversation. He merely watched, noting Kalida’s shock at what they told her—was she just learning now of the singer’s true profession?—and when the Curgh boy raised his voice in anger, hearing snatches of conversation. From what he observed, he could only assume that the Qirsi and the lord intended to continue their search for the man.

  It seemed he wouldn’t be killing Grinsa jal Arriet here in Duvenry after all. Clearly, the gleaner still had to die—Dusaan had left no question of that and Tihod was more than happy to strike the killing blow. But first, Grinsa and his companion were going to lead Tihod to the assassin, Cadel Nistaad.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Eight

  Helke, Wethyrn

  “He’s a good ’un, tha’ singer at the Grey Seal. Best I’ve heard in some time.”

  The peddler took another long pull on his ale and wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. He had been talking to Grinsa and Tavis for the better part of an hour, drinking ales bought with Curgh gold and regaling them with tales of all the taverns in Helke.

  “If it’s music yer lookin’ fer—good music, mind ye—tha’s where I’d begin.”

  It had been Grinsa’s idea, and Tavis had to admit that it had worked quite well.

  “The closer we get to Helke,” the gleaner had said a few days before, “the more likely it becomes that we’ll run across people who know of Cadel. So rather than asking about him in particular, and possibly drawing attention to ourselves, I’d like to try just asking about the musicians in the city. From what we’ve heard, this man can sing. If he’s there, we’ll hear of him.”

  At the time, Tavis hadn’t been convinced that the strategy would work, but on this night the peddler had given them all the information they would need to find the singer. And then some.

  “Now, if ye like the pipes,” he went on, draining his tankard and beckoning to the serving girl with his free hand, “then I’d send ye t’ the Mainmast, over on the south end o’ the city. Tha’s a rougher place, though.” He grinned at Tavis, revealing broken yellow teeth. “From the looks o’ the boy, I’d say he’s had enough o’ tha’ kind o’ tavern. Better t’ stick wi’ the Grey Seal.”

  “Well, friend,” Grinsa said, digging into his pocket for coins to pay for all the ale the man had drunk, “we thank you for your advice. When we’re in Helke, listening to all this fine mus
ic you’ve told us about, we’ll raise an ale and drink to your good health.”

  Tavis and the gleaner pushed back their chairs.

  “But wait!” the peddler said with widened eyes, no doubt fearing the loss of his free drink. “I’ve told ye nothin’ o’ the taverns in Strempfar. The musicians there aren’ as fine as those in Helke, but there are a few worth mentionin’.”

  Grinsa stood and motioned for Tavis to do the same.

  “Perhaps another night, friend.”

  The peddler’s face fell. “Very well. I thank ye fer the ale.”

  They left him there, sipping this last ale far more slowly than he had the previous ones and looking around for his next patron.

  Tavis and the gleaner didn’t speak as they wound their way through the crowded tavern to the door. Once they were in the street, however, Grinsa smiled, looking pleased with himself.

  “I told you it would work.”

  “If you were half as clever as you think you are, you would have thought of this while we were still in Aneira, asking questions of barkeeps who refused to speak with us.”

  “I’m not certain it would have worked as well in Aneira. We didn’t know what city he’d be in, and I wouldn’t have wanted to listen to tales of every tavern singer in the realm.”

  Tavis nodded, conceding the point.

  It was a warm night, the air heavy with a light mist and the faint scent of the sea. They were already in the dukedom of Helke, though they still had another two leagues to travel before they reached the ducal city. The sky flickered briefly—lightning from a distant storm—but they heard no answering rumble of thunder. It had been like this for several nights now, the pale glimmering of the sky holding out the promise of rain, but as of yet none had fallen.

  “So now we know where to find him,” the young lord said.

  “Yes, I suppose we do.”

  Something in the gleaner’s voice made Tavis falter briefly in midstride. It almost seemed that he didn’t believe what the peddler had told them. Or perhaps he hoped that they wouldn’t find the singer, fearing—knowing?—that Tavis wouldn’t survive their encounter.