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."
"No. I don't want that. I was just hoping that the Southlands would be different."
He laughed at that. "I gather that it is."
She smiled, too. "You know what I mean. I had hoped that all of this wouldn't be as bad down here, that maybe the races had found a way to live together, without conspiracies or blood wars, or anything else of that sort."
"Well," he said, "from what the captain says I gather the Blood Wars have been over for a long time. There's peace now. Maybe in building separate societies, they've found the answer. It's not what I had in mind either, but it's working. Really, that's all that matters."
She lifted her head and looked at him. "I wouldn't have expected that from you."
"And I wouldn't expect you to mind."
He was right. He had worked so hard to defeat the conspiracy, forging an alliance of loyal Qirsi and Eandi who waged war against the renegades. Since the day she met him, he had devoted himself to bringing the two races together. And though she owed her life to his success, and admired his courage and resolve, she knew that she wouldn't have sacrificed so much for the same ends. She had expected herself to welcome this change in him, seeing in it the promise of a quieter, more peaceful life. Instead, she was unnerved.
"It's not that I mind," she said, holding his gaze. "I'm just not sure that I understand."
"I'm tired, Cresenne. It's that simple. I'm tired. We came here to start over, and that's what I want to do. I don't want to worry about whether the person standing next to me in a marketplace knows that I'm a Weaver. I don't want to spend Bryntelle's childhood worrying all the time about what powers she's going to develop." He reached up and brushed a strand of hair from her brow. "Even Weavers don't live forever. I don't know how many years I have left, but I want to spend them with you, without having to worry all the time about what the rest of the world is doing to destroy itself. If the Qirsi and Eandi of the Southlands have found peace by living separately, so be it."
She gazed at him another moment. Then she kissed him, and once more they gave themselves over to the passion they shared. And for a time she couldn't tell the rhythm of their movements from the gentle motion of the ship as it sailed Amon's waters.
Chapter 7
True to his word, the captain had steered his ship into Eagles Inlet by the time Grinsa and Cresenne emerged from their quarters the next morning. Cresenne carried Bryntelle up onto the deck; Grinsa bore a travel sack on his shoulders. The remnants of the previous day's storm had long since blown out to sea, and the sky above the inlet was sapphire blue. Sheer red cliffs rose on either side of the channel, their reflections staining the brilliant aqua waters as if with blood. Flocks of gulls circled overhead, their cries echoing off the stone, and cormorants sat on the narrow strip of rocky shore, holding out their wings to dry and eyeing the ship warily.
There was no wind, no ripple upon the water, no sign of any other vessel. Searching the cliff faces, Grinsa saw nothing to indicate that anyone lived here, or ever had. The crew of the Fortune Seeker went about their business without a word, and even the captain, apparently seeing no need to shout orders at men who already knew their duties, held his peace. Aside from the calls of the gulls and the rhythmic splashing of the sweeps as the men below rowed the ship through the inlet, all was silent. The effect was both peaceful and eerie, and when at last the ship turned a gentle corner in the channel, revealing a large settlement at the end of the inlet, Grinsa felt himself relax just a bit. Until that moment he hadn't been aware of the tension in his neck and back.
"Yorl," the captain said, breaking the stillness.
Grinsa turned and nodded, before facing forward again.
It was the largest city Grinsa had ever seen, and though it looked welcoming from a distance, the closer they drew to the end of the inlet, the more he came to realize how misleading this initial impression had been. Several wooden piers stood at the water's edge, and boats both large and small were moored beside them. Just behind them, however, a ponderous stone wall guarded the better part of the settlement, its color a match for the great cliffs surrounding the inlet. The terrain behind the wall sloped upward, so that the jumble of buildings and homes comprising the town seemed to have spilled haphazardly from the highlands above. Near the top of the dale a great fortress stood watch over the city, its towers built of the same red stone, its walls as massive as those of any castle in Eibithar or Aneira or any of the other realms of the Forelands.
A pair of flags, one of them purple and gold, the other blue and red, flew above the towers of the fortress, stirring lazily in the light wind. Soldiers stood on the ramparts of the fortress, their helms and spears glinting in the morning sun, but Grinsa couldn't imagine an enemy daring to attack such a place.