Seeds of Betrayal by David B. Coe

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 Gnnsa 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 mid-morning 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