by J. V. Jones
Would she ever understand this hard and dour clan?
Bending, she set the safe lamp down on the floor and wondered where to start. “Mace needs gold and coin,” Orwin Shank had told her earlier. “He’s running out of supplies.”
A messenger had arrived before dawn and demanded private parley with Orwin Shank. Raina had made herself busy at the stables, but she could not say she had made herself calm. Jebb Onnacre had brought in the messenger’s horse and from its trappings and saddle, it was easily identified as belonging to Scarpe. After the meeting was done, the rider himself arrived to collect his saddlebags. Muscles in Raina’s heart stiffened. It was Wracker Fox, one of Mace’s trusted companions. He looked right through her, as if she didn’t exist. After leaving instructions with the groom for his horse’s care, he took himself back to the roundhouse, where he gathered Scarpe warriors about him in the Great Hearth.
Raina was not proud to admit she listened to the gossip surrounding Wracker and his message. It was known he had come from Bannen Field, and she was desperate to learn whether or not Mace would be returning to Blackhail. By the time Orwin sought her out in the kitchen, she was living on nerves. Mace had to know by now about Stannig Beade’s death. What rumors had flown south with the facts?
Orwin had bid Raina walk with him to view the repairs to the east wall. Outside, beyond the hearing and watch of the repair crew, he had handed Raina the chief’s key. “Wracker has been charged with returning with sufficient coin to hold the army on the field for thirty days. Go to the strongroom and portion what to send.”
Raina had been so relieved to discover Mace had no immediate plans to return to the roundhouse, she took the key from Orwin without question. The fact that Orwin had possession of the key in Mace’s absence had not surprised her—Blackhail’s treasure had to be managed in its chief’s absence—but now that she was here in the strongroom she wondered at Orwin’s motives. Had the aging hatchetman intended to signal the entire roundhouse that Raina Blackhail was now in charge of its wealth? Or had he simply not wanted to be bothered with the task? With four sons dead within a year who could blame him?
Turning a full circle, Raina tried to take it all in. Light from the safe lamp glinted on stacks of silver ingots piled three feet deep and five feet high against the wall. A smaller stack of gold began where the silver ended. An attempt had been made to cover the gold ingots with an aurochs hide, but the chiefs of Blackhail did not make good housekeepers and the moldy and maggot-eaten skin had fallen to one side. Crates and coffers were piled on top of each other. Some were laid open, exposing dusty armor, metal cups, hammer chains, jeweled horns, sheathed daggers and swords: the spoils of war. Containers of every sort lay in heaps; cloth bags, saddlebags, arms cases, embroidered purses, jeweled boxes, horns and baskets. A Dhoone Queen’s breastplate was filled with coins like a bowl. No order ruled here. Chiefs had not been gentle as they searched for what was needed. There were more boxes open and overturned than sealed. Carpets, rare skins and bolts of rich fabric had been left to molder on the floor.
Part of Raina wanted to roll up her sleeves and send for a broom, but she resisted. That was her old life, her old self. Only chiefs and their trusted deputies ever set foot here. A deputy would not dare alter anything. And a chief would not care.
Raina Blackhail made herself not care.
How many hundreds of years of wars, raids, confiscations, ransoms and tributes did this room represent? A portion of all spoils, inheritances and gains was demanded by the clan. Once a year, tied clansman, those who made their living within the clanhold and were defended by its warriors and roundhouse, paid tribute to the chief. Wealth accrued over the centuries, and was depleted only in times of hardship and war. One glance around the room was enough to know that Blackhail had been fortunate in recent times. More wars had been won than lost, and harvests, lambing, calving and hunts had been plentiful as far back as anyone could remember.
It changes.
Raina dragged a finger through the dust on one of the tabletops. The lambing was not going well. The ground was still hard, and bitter frosts cracked down every night. No longhunts in months meant that the clan had missed the annual migration of caribou and elk. Shorthunts were still bringing in boar and deer but numbers were down, and rumor had it that wolves were competing for kills. Raina had seen for herself how low grain stocks were. In her twenty years at Blackhail she had never known the wheat level to dip below the quarter mark. Canna Hadley, the head grain wife, said that if you removed the moldy bottom layer from the reckoning there was only three months supply remaining.
It was the Scarpes, the damn Scarpes. For every Hailsman in the roundhouse there was a Scarpe. Blackhail’s resources were being consumed at twice the normal rate. And Scarpes were doing naught to pay for their keep. Newcomers had dropped even the pretense of gifts. Two families had arrived this morning with nothing. Not one bale of hay or skinny sow between the ten of them, and the first thing they did was head to the kitchen for bread and meat.
Wiping her finger on her skirt, Raina moved around the room. Railing against the Scarpes was not going to help get the job done. Where to start? So many containers, so much jeweled and gilded junk. On impulse she pulled down a felt bag that had been thrown atop the heap. It was heavy and she stepped back as it thudded to the floor. Kneeling, she loosened the cinch rope and pried it open.
I’ve broken it.
A bowl made of some rich and heavy stone lay in two pieces, split nearly down the middle. Alabaster? Jade? Annoyed with herself, Raina pushed away the bag and its contents. What if it was something Dagro had received as a gift?
The possessions of a chief and its clan were one and the same.
Dagro had not come here often. He had cared little for wealth and the show of it, and the clan he raised around him felt the same. Yet Mace had been here too. Looking around, Raina realized that no one would ever know what her new husband had taken. No catalogue of Blackhail’s treasure existed. Such a thing would be considered petty and unclanlike.
It did not make management easy, that was certain.
Raina thought awhile and then went to fetch Corbie Meese.
Within an hour her task was done. By the time she and Corbie emerged from the strongroom, the Great Hearth had more than tripled its occupancy. Raina calculated a good half of her spectators were Scarpes—as if they had any right to question a Hailswoman in her own house. Corbie, gods love him, was a rock. It took two trips to carry out the items she’d selected and he never by as much as a word or a look questioned her authority. That meant something. Where Corbie led hammermen followed, and in Clan Blackhail hammermen were king.
Descending the stair to the entrance hall, Raina saw that her audience wasn’t limited to sworn warriors. Women, children and tied clansmen had arranged themselves to get the best view of the chief’s wife carrying booty from the strongroom. Raina recalled some bit of wisdom about dealing with potentially hostile crowds: Imagine them naked. She found it worked better to imagine the Scarpes had imbibed fatal poison and would all be dead within the day. She smiled serenely after that.
She and Corbie had packed the treasure in burlap sacks, which only seemed to heighten interest. Mace must have taken treasure to Bannen Field, but Raina had no memory of him carrying it through the roundhouse. Stealth was one of his tricks. Yet . . . yet. She could see this was a mistake. Blackhail’s chief was absent, its warriors awar, its guide dead and its guidestone replaced by a lump of foreign granite: Hailsfolk did not need one more thing to worry them. Watching Blackhail treasure being hauled from the roundhouse was not good for morale.
Gods, but Dagro had made it look easy. He’d hunt in the morning, take parleys in the afternoon, drink beer with the warriors at sunset and then sleep like a dog at night. She hadn’t known, hadn’t thought to pay attention, had lived with one of the greatest chiefs in the clanholds and hadn’t learned a thing.
Well start learning now, Raina Blackhail. Make a list.
&nb
sp; “Call Wracker Fox,” she ordered Jessie Mure as she and Corbie reached the stables. Then, to Jebb Onnachre, “Shut the doors. Allow no one but those summoned in.”
The stables were housed in the old cowshed while a new structure was being built so the effect of closing the smaller cattle doors was not the same as closing the great iron-and-wood double doors that had once secured Blackhail’s horses. Still. Seeing the grooms swing the simple plank doors into motion as thirty or so people watched from the cattle court was chilling. Stable doors were opened before dawn and not closed until two hours past sunset. Yet here they were being closed.
Raina stood in the dim stillness and waited. Grooms moved around her, lighting safe lamps. Horses whickered. Jebb walked the rows of boxes, closing stalls. When he and the other grooms were done with their tasks, Raina dismissed them and they withdrew to the tack room at the far end of the stable and sealed themselves in. Corbie attended to the calls and knocks at the door, granting entry to the handful of people Raina had sent for. Taking his cue from Raina, he was silent and grave.
Orwin and Grim Shank and Orwin’s nephew Drew were first to arrive, followed by the swordsman Stellan Satchell, who was the head dairyman’s son and had apprenticed under Shor Gormalin. Wracker Fox, called for last, arrived last. He did not come alone. When Corbie rolled back the door, Uriah Scarpe stood at Wracker’s side. Corbie did not need to look at Raina to know what to do. Taking a step to the side, he barred Uriah Scarpe from entering the stable.
Uriah was nephew to the Scarpe chief, Yelma Scarpe, and that meant he was some kind of cousin to Mace. Raina saw it all on his sharp clean-shaven face: the sense of entitlement, surprise at being barred from the parley quickly followed by the understanding that it was she, Raina Blackhail, who was doing the barring.
Whore, Uriah mouthed for her eyes alone as Corbie closed the door.
Raina absorbed the insult. The word did not bother her, but its malice chilled her. He had been one of the men responsible for burning a Shankshound alive. She said to Wracker, “You will leave in the morning for Bannen Field. The three sacks contain silver bars. Some gold. They will be transported directly to my husband, Mace Blackhail.” As she spoke she indicated three of the four sacks that she and Corbie had borne from the strongroom. On her instructions, Corbie had set one aside.
Wracker had the lean muscle and ready stance of a swordsman. His hair was raven-wing black and he wore it part-shaved and braided. His pants and coat were simple black suede. Two weasel heads attached at the coat’s lapels were the only decoration. Toeing the closest of the sacks, he tested its weight.
“The silver needs to be replaced with gold,” he said to Orwin. “It’s too heavy for my horse.”
Orwin’s gaze shot to Raina.
“You will not be riding alone,” Raina said to Wracker. I’m not trusting a Scarpe with Blackhail’s fortune.
Again, he ignored her. Addressing Orwin, he said, “Mace said I was to return with the loot.”
“I can’t see as a small crew disavows that order,” Orwin said reasonably.
Wracker weighed his options. He was not a stupid man, and had to rate as high his chances of looking foolish to five sworn clansmen. He couldn’t win here; Raina had seen to that.
Reaching a decision, he said, “Very well, I’ll form a party.” Then, addressing Drew Shank, who was the youngest present. “Fetch back Uriah. He rides with me.”
Drew Shank, all of twenty-one and two months into his full oath, hesitated. He looked to his uncle for guidance. And his uncle looked right back at Raina.
She might have laughed if she wasn’t terrified. Quite suddenly she remembered that Wracker Fox had been in the forge too, the night Effie was tried as a witch and a Shankshound was sent to the fire. This was no game. And a win here would bring Mace’s eye upon her more certainly than any half-baked rumor about Stannig Beade’s death.
Do and be damned. If I were a clan those words would be my boast.
Putting a hand out to stay Drew Shank, she addressed Wracker Fox. “I have chosen the party who will accompany the treasure to Bannen Field.” She inclined her head, indicating Grim Shank, Drew Shank, Stellan Satchell and Corbie Meese. All knew—she had bid Corbie and Orwin to arrange it beforehand—and they gave her the gift of their solemn silence. It was into this still and proud hush, where men who had sworn to defend their clan faced the certainty of going to war, that Raina knew she must speak.
She had to finish off her enemy.
Looking Wracker directly in the eye, she said, “It will be your honor to be the sole Scarpe who accompanies Blackhail’s treasure south.”
Wracker’s sword hand flexed and she realized that if he could he would have slain her right then. She had thwarted his plans, taken charge of his mission and bested him in a room of sworn men. Little matter that he was the interloper here, the foreigner from the poison pine clan. He did not understand the wrongness of a Scarpe sending a Scarpe to collect Blackhail treasure—for that was what Mace Blackhail was. A weasel dressed in Wolf clothing.
A rapist. A murderer. A Scarpe.
“Go,” she told Wracker. “Make what preparations you must.” Before he could react, she turned her back on him. She did not need further evidence of his ill will.
When she finally heard him move toward the stable door, she allowed herself a deep breath. Corbie moved close, put out a hand, but did not touch her. She felt its contact all the same. “Go,” she repeated more softly, swinging about to address Grim, Drew and Stellan as well as Corbie. “Spend time with your wives and families. Blackhail does you honor this night.”
The young warriors took their leave. All paused or made effort in some way to show her respect. Stellan bowed deeply, touching the hem of her dress. He was half in love with her, she guessed. Perhaps they all were.
It made her feel old and sad; gave knowledge to all she had lost.
“A word,” she said quietly to Orwin Shank.
The hatchetman sealed the door and they were alone. Winter had aged him. Liver spots had spread across his hands and neck, and cataracts bounced light from his eyes. Raina counted her own losses as nothing compared to his. She had lost a husband and a dream of what the future could be. Orwin Shank had lost sons.
And she had just sent one of his remaining three sons back to war.
Apologies, explanations, sympathy: none would do. Words were too small. Lightly, she touched his swollen arthritic ax hand and just as lightly moved away.
“The fourth sack,” she said, nodding toward the water pail where Corbie had set it down, “contains gold. I would have you ride east to Dregg and use it as barter for grain and what other supplies you see fit.”
Orwin Shank had been head clansman under two chiefs. He was the one both Mace and Dagro went to when they needed aid or counsel. Without his approval, Mace could not have claimed the chiefship. More than anyone else, Orwin understood what she did here. Blackhail’s wealth and its chief’s wealth were one and the same. The gold and silver in the other three sacks traveled to Bannen Field on Mace’s command. Mace did not command the gold in the fourth, smaller sack; Raina Blackhail did.
In this she had made herself chief.
Horses shuffled and nickered in their stalls. One of the safe lamps smoked as it burned dregs. Raina spared a thought for the grooms, holed up inside the tack room. Feed to be spread, coats to be groomed, horses to be exercised: she was preventing them from doing their work.
Orwin would not be rushed, though. The hatchetman shook at low frequency as he stood and looked at her. Hay beneath his feet crackled as he spoke. “I will leave in the morning—an hour after the Bannen Field party.”
She nodded and did not thank him. A moment passed where they regarded each other and understood each other. She saw his desire to caution her and the decision to keep his peace. It was too late.
Finally he turned for the door.
“Orwin,” she said, stopping him. She had one more power to claim. “While you’re there seek
out Walvis Harding, the Dregg guide. Ask him to send his best apprentice to us. It’s time Blackhail had a new guide.”
It did not surpise him. “As you wish. Anything more?”
“Arrange a watch outside the stable.”
Orwin glanced at the burlap sacks. “And inside?”
“Blackhail’s grooms guard its treasure tonight.”
She had surprised him . . . but not displeased him. He twinkled a smile at her. “ ’Tis well done, Raina.”
She basked in those words for a whole minute after he left. She’d pulled it off. Everything she’d decided in the strongroom was done. That was what being a chief meant—having a plan and seeing it through. Smiling, she walked the row of stalls. The grooms needed to be informed of their charge.
“Lady.”
Raina halted in her tracks at the word. As she spun to track the position of its speaker, the door of the stall just behind her swung open. Chella Gloyal stood in the box, abreast of her fine gray stallion. Both she and her horse looked remarkably composed.
“I ask your pardon,” the Croserwoman said, stepping into the horse walk. “I was brushing down Rumor and was caught unawares and did not think to make my presence known . . .” A brief shrug, “at first. By the time I realized I should have alerted you and withdrawn it was too late.”
I bet it was. To cover her surprise, Raina inspected Chella. The Croserwoman was dressed in a dove gray riding coat and blue silk skirt. The coat was expertly cut to show off her small waist and full breasts, and its color provided the perfect contrast to her chestnut hair. She was the sort of woman who could make you believe she was beautiful. Judging by how swiftly Grim Shank had married her, she probably made men believe a lot of things.
Raina said, “It appears I must rely on your discretion.”