by DAVID B. COE
He loved her. She was certain of it. It had to be the boy’s fault, that stubborn, spoiled brat of a lord. But for all the times she told herself this, there were twice as many when her chest ached as if someone had buried a dagger there. Even now, speaking with the Weaver, when she needed so desperately to hide her feelings, she could not keep the hurt from welling up again, like blood from a wound.
“What is it, child?” the Weaver asked, clearly trying to mask his impatience.
She shook her head, cursing the single tear that ran down her cheek. “Nothing.”
“You’re worried that I’m angry with you.”
Cresenne said nothing. She might be able to lie to him, but if he caught her, he’d kill her right then. And the baby, too. Not for the first time, she used her fear of him to mask her true thoughts.
“I’m not,” he said. “I want to find this man, that’s all. I don’t believe he’s in Aneira.”
“I—I don’t want to go to Caerisse,” she said in a small voice.
He exhaled slowly, as if struggling to keep his ire in check. “Why not?”
“The winds are already blowing cold from the north. The snows are going to be fierce this year. And I don’t want to be up on the steppe when my baby is born.”
There was enough truth in this to conceal her real reason for wanting to stay in Aneira. Snow had already fallen on the steppe, and the cold turns up in Caerisse promised to be brutal. If she was going to travel with one of the festivals after her child came, she preferred to be at least somewhat comfortable.
Besides, she knew that Grinsa was near. She sensed it, just the way she sensed that this baby she carried was going to be a girl. She’d gleaned nothing. She’d had no visions of Grinsa or the Curgh boy. But her body and her heart told her what her mind couldn’t. He was in Aneira. Perhaps she should have explained this to the Weaver, but she feared that he would understand all too well.
“All right,” he said at length, just as she knew he would. When it came to this child, she could get him to agree to almost anything. “Remain in Aneira. Continue your search there. When the rains come and the air grows warmer, you’ll go to Caerisse.”
“Of course. Thank you, Weaver.”
He seemed to stare at her again, his wild white hair stirring in the wind, his features still masked by shadows from the brilliant light behind him.
“If you have a girl,” he said, his voice softening once more, “I hope she looks just like you.”
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 Grinsa 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 midmorning 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.
They were afraid of her now, but she didn’t mind that. It tended to make the gleanings go faster.
The rude Eandi girl was the fourth child to enter the tent. She came in reluctantly, as if pushed by some unseen hand, but then hurried to the empty chair across the table from Cresenne, her eyes lowered and her cheeks pale. The Qirsi woman watched her for a time, saying nothing and allowing the girl’s discomfort to build. It would be some time before this Eandi child said something hateful about her people again.
“What’s your name?” the gleaner finally asked.
“Kaveri Okaan. But everyone calls me Kavi.”
“Is that what you want me to call you?”
The girl shrugged. “I guess. What’s your name?”
The Qirsi hesitated briefly. Most of the children were too afraid of her and the stone to ask. “Cresenne.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
Cresenne had just been thinking the same thing about Kaveri, her hand straying to her belly.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “What do your parents do, Kavi?”
“My father is a cooper in Tabetto, and my mother works sometimes for the village tailor, though usually she just takes care of us. She’s going to have a baby, too.”
Cresenne had taken a few moments when she first entered the tent to read the list of names given by the city elders to Meklud. The list included the last name of all the local children who were in their twelfth year and thus old enough for their Determinings. Next to the names of some of them—all the boys and a few of the girls—were written the words “wheelwright” or “blacksmith” or “seamstress,” the professions chosen for them by their parents. Cresenne and the other gleaners were expected to steer the children toward these professions with the images they summoned from the gleaning stone. That way the children could begin their apprenticeships now, while they were still young enough to master their trades. Cresenne had seen the name Okaan on the list, but as with so many of the girls, the space next to Kavi’s name had been left blank. She was expected to be a wife and mother, but beyond that her parents had few expectations.
“Is there anything you want to ask the stone?”
The girl looked up for an instant, her pale blue eyes widening once more. Looking at her now, Cresenne realized that she was quite beautiful, with fine features and olive skin. She had long black hair that she wore to her shoulders, and her clothes, though roughly made, were clean and fit her well.
“I want to know what my husband will look like. Will he be handsome like my father?”
Cresenne suppressed a smile. “Anything else?”
She shrugged again. “Will he be rich?”
“Only the stone knows,” Cresenne said. “When you’re ready, speak the words.”
The girl nodded, swallowed. “In this, the year of my Determining,” she began, her eyes falling once more to the stone and her voice dropping to a whisper, “I beseech you, Qirsar, lay your hands upon this stone. Let my life unfold before my eyes. Let the mysteries of time be revealed in the light of the Qiran. Show me my fate.”
There was nothing on the list, nothing she was supposed to show the girl, and so Cresenne merely offered her magic to the Qiran, opening herself to whatever the god might send through the stone.
Slowly the white glow of the stone began to change, greens and blues and reds spreading from the center like petals on a blossom opening for the first time. As the image took form, Cresenne saw Kavi, grown to womanhood, standing at its center. She was pretty still, though the years had left their mark upon her. Her fine black hair hung to the center of her back and her face was round and flushed. But there were tiny lines around her eyes and the smile on her lips seemed forced, as if pain lurked behind it. She was nearly as heavy with child as Cresenne. Two small children played nearby, one a girl who looked remarkably like young Kavi, and the other a boy with wheat-colored hair and dark eyes. The house behind them appeared solid and large enough for a family, but something about the vision troubled Cresenne.
“Is that really me?” Kavi asked, a smile touching her lips.
“She certainly looks like you. Don’t you think?”
The girl nodded, her eyes never straying from the stone.
Cresenne continued to look as well. And then it hit her. In the image, Kavi and her children wore light clothing and stood amid flowers and green trees. But the windows of the house were shuttered. There had been a death within the last turn. Kavi’s husband, no doubt.
The gleaner’s eyes flew to the child sitting before her, but Kavi didn’t notice. The image in the stone held her, and the small smile lingered on her face. Cresenne looked into the stone again, hoping, against all she knew to be true, to see a man emerge from the house. None came.
Fool! she railed at herself. This was an image better suited to Kavi’s Fating, four years from now. The girl was far too young to learn of such a dark fate. It would have been so easy to create a vision for her, to give her a handsome man and beautiful children, to put them all in a big house. She conjured such images all the time for children of Determining age—all the gleaners did. Thinking that perhaps it wasn’t too late, the gleaner tried to alter the image. How hard could it be to add a husband to the glowing scene before them?
But the stone would not allow such a thing. Maybe if she had used her magic to create the image in the first place, as she usually did for Determinings, she could have changed it. Once she summoned the power of the stone, however, Cresenne was helpless to do anything more than watch and hope that Kavi would not notice the closed shutters and the look of loss on her own face.
Finally, mercifully, the image began to fade, retreating into the white glow of the Qiran as if swallowed by a mist. When it was completely gone, Kavi looked up at Cresenne, blinking once or twice.
“I was almost as big as you are,” she said. “I was going to have another baby.”
Cresenne nodded, eyeing the girl closely, searching for any sign that she had noticed. “I saw that.”
Her head spun slightly, and her stomach felt hollow and sour. It occurred to her that she had eaten nothing all morning. The baby kicked once and rolled over lazily.
“Did you see my daughter? She looked just like me.”
“She was quite pretty.”
“Did you see the house?”
Cresenne held herself still. “What about the house?”
“I think someone died. The windows were all closed, the way they are when a person dies.”
The gleaner took a breath, making herself hold the girl’s gaze. “Yes, they were.”
“I didn’t see my husband. Do you think he’s the one who died?”
“I don’t know, Kavi. People shutter their windows for a lot of reasons. Maybe a storm was coming, or maybe you were getting ready to leave your home for a time. And even if they were closed because someone died, that doesn’t mean it was your husband. Sometimes we close windows when the king dies or a duke.”
“I looked sad,” the girl said. “I’m not sure I’d look that sad if the duke died.” She looked down at her hands, as if ashamed of what she had said. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“No. And just between us, I know what you mean.”
Kavi smiled again, though she kept her eyes on her hands. “Do you have a husband?” she asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“Did he die?”
Cresenne nearly laughed, though she felt tears stinging her eyes. Grinsa wasn’t dead, though she had done her best to have him killed, sending one assassin to keep him from reaching Kentigern Tor after he left the Revel, and then giving his name to the assassin’s partner, who all but vowed to avenge the first man’s death. She didn’t want him dead—in truth, she never had—but she had pledged herself to serving the Weaver long ago, and his desires ruled her own. Even now she searched for Grinsa, not knowing how she could find him without betraying him to the Weaver and thus endangering his life a third time.