Bonds of Vengeance (50 page)

“I know it’s not. But you’ll have to find a way. The hardest part will be finding a way to maintain his trust without killing Cresenne. She’ll be guarded, of course, even more heavily now that he’s made one attempt on her life. Finding an opportunity to get close enough to kill
her will be difficult. That should allow you to put him off for several days. Perhaps more. In the meantime, we’ll have to think of some way to keep both of you alive.”

“And what about you?”

“As I said, he won’t have you kill me. He knows for certain now that I’m a Weaver. If I’m right, and he does want you to win my confidence, you’ll do just that. And when the time comes, you can tell him precisely where I’m going. You won’t have to lie, at least not about that.”

Keziah desperately wanted to believe him. But she couldn’t keep the image of Cresenne’s agony from her mind. She couldn’t forget the sight of Paegar, Kearney’s traitorous minister, lying dead in his chamber, his head resting in a pool of blood. That had been the Weaver’s doing as well. She felt certain of it. Just as she was certain that whatever Paegar had done to earn his death paled next to her own deception. And she couldn’t help wondering how the Weaver would exact his vengeance on her.

When Tavis awoke midway through the morning, Grinsa still had not returned to the chamber he and the young lord shared. The boy knew that there had been something wrong with Cresenne—the guard who came to find the gleaner had told them that much—but he could be certain of nothing more. And for the moment at least, he didn’t care. Out of respect for the gleaner, he would spare the Qirsi woman the tongue lashing his father had given her, and the icy indifference shown by his mother. But after what she had done to him, he wasn’t about to run to her offering comfort. Besides, there was another he wished to see.

His parents had arrived from Curgh the previous day with a small contingent of soldiers and Hagan MarCullet, his father’s swordmaster. The king wished to speak of the Qirsi conspiracy and how best to defeat it, and Tavis’s father wouldn’t have engaged in such a discussion without Hagan by his side. And knowing that Tavis would be in Audun’s Castle, Hagan wouldn’t have made the journey from the north coast without Xaver, his son, who also was Tavis’s pledged liege man.

The two young friends had seen each other the day before, though only briefly. Almost immediately upon their arrival in the City of Kings, Javan insisted on seeing Cresenne, and Tavis, not yet ready to
face Xaver and the questions he knew the young man would ask, had followed obediently. There had been a feast the previous night, the first of many, no doubt, as Eibithar’s dukes converged on the castle, but again, Tavis managed to avoid his friend, sitting between his mother and father and enduring their questions as best he could. Did you find the assassin? Yes, but he slipped away. Has the gleaner been kind to you? Very. You’ve proved your innocence; are you ready to come home with us? No, not yet.

It was easier with his parents. They feared pushing him too hard, challenging his easy answers. Xaver would be different, his questions more difficult, his ability to hear the truth behind Tavis’s words more finely honed. Even after all this time, no one knew him as Xaver did, though Grinsa came close.

He would have liked to put off this encounter for several more days, but he knew that he wouldn’t. It wasn’t just that he didn’t wish to hurt his friend. Though he feared Xaver’s questions, he also longed for the young man’s companionship. Despite all they had been through, all that Tavis had done to hurt him, Xaver remained his most valued friend. So he searched the castle, soon finding Xaver at the edge of the inner courtyard, watching Gershon Trasker work the royal guard.

He wasn’t certain that Xaver saw him approach—the young man never turned his gaze from the soldiers—and Tavis stopped a few strides from him, uncertain as to what to say.

“I didn’t think you wanted to see me.” Xaver glanced at him for just a moment, as if looking for changes in his appearance.

“Of course I do.”

The ghost of a smile touched his lips, and a soft wind stirred his light curls. He looked just as Tavis remembered. Broader in the shoulders perhaps, his face a bit more square. But it was still Xaver. Youthful and handsome and a little bit sad, just as he had been every day since his mother’s death nearly nine years before.

“Then why have you been avoiding me?”

Tavis looked away, his gaze traveling the courtyard, seeking a safe place to land and settling at last on Gershon. “Who says I’ve been avoiding you?” But he couldn’t help grinning.

“You look . . . you look well, Tavis.”

He let out a small laugh. “No, I don’t. I’ll never look well again. Aindreas saw to that.”

“I’m not talking about the scars. You seem older, like you have purpose, like maybe you’ve found peace.”

Tavis shook his head. “I haven’t. I had the assassin, Xaver. I had my blade at his throat, and I let him go.”

Xaver gaped at him. “Why?”

“Grinsa made me do it. The assassin had been hired to kill a member of the conspiracy—Aindreas’s former first minister, actually. If the assassin hadn’t killed him, Grinsa would have had to, at considerable risk to both of us.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” his friend said, frowning.

“It doesn’t matter. I had him and I let him go. The rest isn’t important.”

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the soldiers, Gershon’s commands echoing off the castle walls.

“You’ve managed to prove to the king that you’re innocent of Brienne’s murder,” Xaver said, as if searching for any good tidings. “Surely that’s brought you some peace.”

“I think Kearney has believed in my innocence for some time now. But if we can convince the other dukes—or at least most of them—I’d be pleased.”

“That’s all? Just pleased?”

Tavis looked away again. “I don’t expect more than that anymore.”

Xaver said nothing.

“You think I pity myself too much.”

His friend hesitated. “I think you’ve been through a terrible ordeal.”

“It’s not over.”

“It can be, if you only allow it.”

“You want me to surrender? Do you think I can just return to Curgh and resume my life there, knowing that Brienne’s killer still walks the land?”

“The conspiracy killed her, Tavis. You know that as well as anyone. The man you’re after is a hired blade and nothing more. You said yourself that he killed Aindreas’s minister. He doesn’t care about the conspiracy or the courts. He cares only for gold.”

“You sound like Grinsa.”

“Then maybe it’s time you started listening.”

“The assassin killed Brienne, and I’ve sworn to avenge her.”

“Sworn to who?” Xaver demanded, his voice rising.

“To myself.”

Xaver seemed to know better than to question this. “So where will you go?” he asked, his voice dropping once more.

“I don’t know. Something happened to Cresenne last night. At this point I might not be able to get Grinsa to go anywhere.”

His friend gave a puzzled look. “Who’s Cresenne?”

It had been a long time since they last spoke. Too long. Tavis told Xaver what little he understood of Grinsa’s love affair with Cresenne, and explained as well the woman’s role in Brienne’s death.

“I don’t know if he still loves her,” he said. “I suppose he does. But I’m certain that he won’t leave here unless he’s convinced that Cresenne and their baby are both safe.”

Another long silence, which was broken at last by something Tavis never would have expected.

Xaver cleared his throat, then said, “I’ll go with you if the gleaner can’t.”

It was more than Tavis could have asked; more, in fact, than he was willing to accept. But still, he was moved beyond words by the offer. His gaze fell to the dark thin scar on Xaver’s right forearm, a scar Tavis himself had given the boy in a drunken rage.

“Your father would have my head, Stinger.”

“He’d have both our heads, but in the end he’d understand.”

“I’m grateful. Truly I am. But I can’t let you do this.”

“I’m your liege man—I’ve sworn my life to you. Under the customs governing such things, I’m not sure that you can refuse me.”

Tavis smiled. “And yet, I have. You said yourself the first time we spoke of my desire for vengeance that I was mad to go after the man. You said he’d kill me. Do you really think that two boys would fare any better against him than one?”

“I’d wager that I’m as good with a blade as the gleaner,” Xaver shot back, sounding young.

“I have no doubt that you are. But Grinsa is more than just a gleaner.”

“What do you mean? He has other powers?”

“Yes. Mists and winds, shaping, healing.” He didn’t dare tell his friend more than that. As it was, he had probably said more than Grinsa would have liked, though he wasn’t telling Xaver any more than the gleaner himself had revealed during their escape from Solkara several turns back, and during Cresenne’s difficult labor in Glyndwr.

Xaver lowered his gaze, chewing his lip as he so often did. After some time he nodded, as if convinced at last that Grinsa was a worthy travel companion for Tavis.

“How’s your arm, Stinger?”

Xaver put his hand to the scar, rubbing it slowly, as if the question itself had rekindled his pain. “It’s fine. I rarely even think about it anymore.”

Tavis wasn’t certain he believed that, but it wasn’t a matter he wished to pursue.

“And I trust my father’s treating you well?”

“Yes, very.”

Tavis wanted to ask more, but he didn’t have to. It seemed that his friend still knew him better than anyone else.

“He misses you, Tavis. He doesn’t say so, but I can tell. Whenever he asks my father to join him for a meal or a ride, he asks me as well. It’s as if having me with him is the next best thing to having you.”

The young lord wanted to believe this, but he and his father had been at odds for too many years. “He probably just knows that your father wants you there. After Kentigern, Hagan hardly let you out of sight.”

Xaver smiled at the memory. Hagan MarCullet had been in Curgh when Brienne died, and had ridden with the duchess to face Aindreas’s army, knowing that if Curgh’s army was defeated, Xaver, Javan, and Fotir would probably be executed.

“That’s true,” he admitted. “But the duke isn’t doing all this for my father. He often asks me if I’ve had word from you, or if I have any idea of where in the Forelands you might be.”

Tavis could think of a thousand reasons for this—maybe it was a way for his father to make conversation with Xaver; perhaps he sought information to mollify Tavis’s mother, who would have asked similar questions of the duke with some frequency; or perhaps he was merely curious. “Does he speak much of the crown?” he asked, eager to change the subject.

“Tavis—”

“It’s all right, Stinger. I’m just asking. I expect he wishes every day that he were king.”

“He’s never said anything about it in front of me, not that he would. But I think you’re wrong about him, Tavis. He always speaks well of Kearney, of the need to protect Glyndwr’s hold on the throne. I think he’s made peace with all that happened in Kentigern.”

“You didn’t see the way he looked at Cresenne yesterday.”

Xaver shrugged. “So he blames her, and the conspiracy. But that doesn’t mean that he blames you as well. You were as much a victim of her actions as he. More, really. I’m amazed that you don’t hate her.”

“Who says I don’t?”

“You’ve hardly spoken of her, except to tell me what she did and that she was Grinsa’s lover.”

“That’s all that matters now,” Tavis said, surprised by how little rage he felt. “Even if I did hate her, even if I wanted to exact a measure of revenge, I couldn’t. Grinsa wouldn’t allow it.” He kicked at the grass, squinting in the early morning sun. “To be honest, I can’t bring myself to be angry with her. I know that she hired the man who killed Brienne, but I also know that she’s confessed her crimes to the king. Without her, Kearney would still have his doubts about my innocence. For all I know, my father would as well.”

Xaver started to object, but Tavis raised a hand stopping him. “Forget I said it. The point is, she’s trying to mend some of the damage she’s done. I’m grateful to her.”

“Well, you’re more forgiving than I would be.”

“If Qirsi and Eandi can’t forgive each other, we’re doomed,” he said, surprising himself a second time. It was something the gleaner might have told him.

Xaver looked at him for a long time, a slight smile on his lips. “You have changed, Tavis. I can see it. I think you’ll make a fine duke someday.”

He merely nodded. The young lord had been thinking for some time now that his life was on an unknown path, one that neither he nor even the gleaner had anticipated. He couldn’t say where it was leading, but he no longer believed that he’d ever be duke of Curgh.

Bells began to toll in the distance, beginning at the north gate, the Moorlands gate as it was known in the City of Kings. Soon all the bells in the city were pealing, as if presaging the beginning of a siege. In the center of the courtyard, Gershon Trasker shouted a command, and the king’s soldiers began to line up by the far gate.

Tavis looked at Xaver, who was already watching him, seeming to gauge the young lord’s reaction.

“That’s probably Shanstead,” Xaver said. “Your father thought he would be the first to arrive.”

“How many are supposed to arrive today?”

“In addition to the thane? Only one or two. Lathrop, and possibly Shamus.”

Only two. That was more than enough. Tavis still remembered how the other dukes had looked at him during Kearney’s investiture. Aindreas had convinced all of them that he was a butcher, a demon more deserving of torture and death than the mercy of exile.

“You can prove your innocence now, Tavis. You’ve been waiting for this since the last growing.”

“I’m not convinced that they’ll believe her, Stinger. She’s a Qirsi traitor. Aindreas will say that she’d confess to anything to save herself and her child. He’ll say that Kearney is so desperate to justify his actions on my behalf that he’d gladly believe her lies. And many of them will agree. Galdasten, Sussyn, Rennach. Before this turn is over, a majority of the dukes may be calling for both Cresenne and me to be hanged.”