"Thank you, Captain. You've been very kind to us." He turned to look at Pelton. "Mister Fent."
The first mate gave a curt nod.
When they'd gone, Rois closed the door and exhaled heavily.
"I'm sorry, Captain," the mate said. "I'd 'ave done better t' keep my mouth shut."
He returned to his seat and poured the rest of the wine into his cup. "Ye did fine." He felt weary. The storm, this supper with the Qirsithey'd worn him out.
"It could be dangerous for 'em in Aelea," Pelton said. "An' Stelpana's even worse. They should sail farther south."
"I know that," Rois said. "But it seems they've made up their minds." He sipped his wine. "I have th' feeling they can take care o' themselves. Seems they came through all tha' trouble in th' Forelands all right. And I'd wager there's more t' both o' them than meets th' eye."
"Maybe," the first mate said. "But th' Eandi sovereignties are no place for a Qirsi family, 'specially one what doesn' know th' ways o' th' land."
They walked back to their cramped quarters without saying a word, except for Bryntelle, who fussed and cried and would have given
both Cresenne and Grinsa an earful had she been able. Once they were alone, a candle lit and the door closed, Cresenne pulled off her shirt, sat on the small bed, and began to nurse the child. Grinsa stood in the center of the chamber, his eyes trained on the floor. After a moment, he looked up at Cresenne and smiled.
"The captain was right. It's calmer."
"You were nicer to them than I would have been," she said.
"It's really not their fault that we know so little about where we're going. It's mine. Entirely."
He was always doing this: finding reasons to forgive people for their failings, be they friends or utter strangers. It was one of the reasons she loved him, and yet she often found it annoying. She did now.
"I'm not so sure I agree with you. I think they were so eager to take our gold that they gave no thought at all to anything else."
"And they should have?"
She frowned. "Yes! Of course they should have! We have a child with us. It should have been clear to them that we were strangers to the Southlands. Our accents alone mark us as being from the Forelands."
"Yes, they do. But I doubt many people embark on a voyage like this one without learning a bit more about their destination. I certainly wouldn't have had we been given the choice."
Cresenne could hardly argue with that. They'd been forced by circumstance to leave the Forelands. She had once been party to a Qirsi conspiracy that very nearly succeeded in toppling the Forelands' Eandi courts. Grinsa was a Weaver, a sorcerer who could bind together the powers of many Qirsi into a single tool. Or a single weapon. Since the Qirsi invasion of the Forelands nine centuries ago, Weavers had been feared, persecuted, and, when captured, put to death, along with their families. Yes, the two of them had allied themselves with the courts, risking their lives to fight the conspiracy, but the law of the land was clear. Eibithar's king had shielded Cresenne from punishment for her earlier crimes against the courts, and he had refused to treat Grinsa as anything other than the hero he was, but his land was riven by conflict and he could not risk civil war by summarily doing away with nine centuries of legal tradition.
They might have made a life for themselves in another realm of the Forelands, but the other Eandi courts were every bit as fearful of Weavers as was Eibithar. And so they chose the Southlands.
There was something romantic in the notion, something mysterious and wonderful. The Southlands. Home of the first Qirsi to come to the Forelands. True, they had come as would-be conquerors, but that did nothing to diminish the allure of the place, at least not as far as Cresenne was concerned. Perhaps here, Grinsa wouldn't have to hide the fact that he was a Weaver, as he had done in the Forelands, making his way through Eibithar with Bohdan's Revel, pretending to be nothing more than a festival gleaner, a Qirsi who used his power to offer others glimpses of their futures. Perhaps here, if Bryntelle grew up to be a Weaver like her father, she could wield her powers with pride rather than fear. Perhaps here, Cresenne could forget the shame of having been labeled a traitor by Eandi and Qirsi alike, of having joined the movement to overthrow the courts only to realize that the man who led it would prove to be a worse despot than any Eandi monarch in the history of the Forelands. She had such great hopes for this journey, all of which made what they had learned tonight from the captain and his first mate that much more disturbing.
"I'm still angry with them," she said at last. "And I still think you're being too…" She trailed off, shaking her head.
Clearly Grinsa knew what she was going to say, because he smiled, looking away.
Too forgiving. That was another of his faults. Cresenne shuddered to think what her life would be like if it wasn't. For he had forgiven her.
Their love had begun as a seduction, an elaborate deception on her part so that she might learn from this man what he knew of the courts and the gleaned fate of one particular noble. Twice, while still a part of the conspiracy, she had sent assassins to kill him, and even after Bryntelle's birth, when she should have been doing all she could to reconcile with Grinsa, she had instead railed at him, calling him a traitor to his people and worse. Yet still he loved her, and she him. She had finally found the strength to admit as much both to him and herself. She had loved him from the start, and-gods be praised-he had forgiven her for all that she had done to deny and destroy that love, which she had once mistaken for a weakness.
"If it makes you feel any better," he said after some time, "I didn't like Pelton any more than you did. But I do feel that the captain was trying to make amends. And I promise to make certain that he gets us those mounts at a fair price."
She had to smile. Would that she could be as fair-minded.
"And will you hold him to his promise of smoother seas?" she asked.
He sat beside her on the bed and kissed her shoulder. "I will. And if he breaks his word, I'll summon a wind and smooth them myself."
"Well, all right then." She looked down at the nursing child. "In that case we'll let him stay, won't we, Bryntelle?"
The baby paused in her suckling to look up at her mother briefly. After just a moment she resumed her meal.
"That's a yes," Cresenne said.
Grinsa laughed. "I'll take your word for it."
For some time, they sat together, watching Bryntelle eat, smiling as the baby's pale eyes gradually closed and she fell into a deep sleep.
Cresenne carried the child to the small crib the captain had found for them before departing Rennach and gently placed her on the bedding, taking care to cover her in case the night turned chill. Then she re-
turned to Grinsa's side and kissed him softly on the lips. She lay down on the bed and pulled him to her.
"Are you feeling well enough?"
She nodded, smiled. "I'm fine, and I have it on good authority that we're done with rough waters."
They kissed again, deeply this time. Then she undressed him, and quietly, tenderly, they made love.
After, as Cresenne rested her head on his chest and stared at the small bright flame atop the candle, she began to ponder once more all they had heard this night about the new land to which they'd sailed.
"It never occurred to me that things might be worse in the South- lands," she murmured.
Grinsa stirred, as if he had nodded off briefly. "What did you say?" he asked, sounding sleepy.
"Nothing. I just was thinking about supper. About what they told us." "Are you having second thoughts?"
She shrugged. "Would it matter? Where else can we go?"
He seemed to consider this for a few moments. "We could go back to the Forelands," he finally said. "We could find a small town in Sanbira or Caerisse. Some place where they wouldn't know us."