Descending the steps Raina fought the wind's desire to tug away her blue wool shawl. People had said that once the storm was over the temperature would come up and the snow would melt so quickly you'd hardly remember it had been here at all. People were wrong. This was the fifth day the snow had failed to melt-and spring planting was due.
Aware that it was as close to noon as it was ever likely to be, Raina decided she'd go and check on the progress of the east wall. She'd be damned if she were going to attend Stannig Beade's parley as promptly as if she wire an apprentice toolmaker the first day on the job. The path that led east around the Hailhouse had been cleared of snow by Longhead and his crew. The wooden gates of the kaleyard had been flung open and a couple of men stood in the large walled kitchen garden, digging soil or snow or both. Raina waved at them and they waved back. The east face of the roundhouse was where the majority of its outbuildings were located—dairy sheds, hay barns, eel tanks, styes, the oast house, the remains of the stables and guide-house—and Raina encountered many clansmen as she made her way toward the scaffolding.
The hole blasted in the east wall was visible as she drew close, and it gave her an uneasy tick of surprise. Surely by now they could have sealed it? Blackhail was not wanting in stone. Approaching the frame of ladders and plank platforms, Raina hailed the nearest man. Squatting at the top of the scaffolding, he was busy carding mortar. His fingers were wet with slurry.
"When will it be finished?" she asked him.
"Tomorrow," he said chopping the mortar into squares and then flattening it. "Though it'll be a week afore the curing's done and we can start the new ward."
Raina stared at him and then the hole, and had the sense not to ask: What ward? Now that she was closer she could see that the hole had been framed into an arch, enlarged in parts and built up in others. A border of polished granite slabs rimmed this new portal, and as she looked on the workman buttered another slab and plugged it into place. When had this happened? Five days back she had been out here and just seen a hole. Had she failed to look properly? Leaving the man to his work, Raina went in search of Longhead.
It took a while to locate the head keep, as he was performing one of the more obscure tasks of his office: batting. Now that the horses were housed in the dairysheds, the high lofts had to be cleared of bats. Apparently the cows didn't mind the winged rodents flitting around at night, or at least had grown used to them, whereas the horses took fits and started bucking whenever one of the little devils squeaked by. Raina was with the horses, and found herself surprisingly reluctant to climb up the tall ladder to the hayloft.
, "He went up there an hour ago, lady," said one of the grooms helpfully. "You can smell the smoke."
Raina nodded doubtfully. She was having trouble understanding what people were saying to her today.
"For the bats," the groom added, proving that he was a smart young boy, capable of reading his chiefs wife's face. "He's making 'em drowsy."
Raina turned and smiled at him. He was one of the Lyes, a cousin to slain Banron, and you could see the family similarities in his broad cheekbones and wide-set eyes. "Isn't that something?"
"Yes, lady," he agreed. "It certainly is."
The pleasure of that small exchange stayed with her as she hiked up the ladder and landed in the hayloft. The air was warm here and it had some of the same itchiness as the grain drum. Blue smoke rose in bands from two brass smudgers. Longhead was crouching amongst the bales, plucking drugged bats from the hay. With an efficient twist of both wrists he broke their necks and threw them in a steel bucket. As Raina walked toward him a bat dropped right in front of her, landing at her feet. Its leathery wings trembled as its tiny red eyes rolled back in its head. It had a snout like a pig, she noticed, stepping around it, and ears the size and shape of mussels.
"Is it all right to breathe the smoke?" she asked Longhead.
Longhead spun around to face her, and for the second time that day Raina realized she shouldn't be inhaling the air. The head keep of Blackhail was wearing a black felt mask. He shook his head, chucked another bat in the bucket and then picked something from the nearest hay bale and threw it toward her.
It was a mask just like his, and she slipped it over her nose and mouth and tied it tightly.
"Nightshade. It'll make you sleep," the keep said, his voice muffled by the felt.
Raina came and knelt close to him, trying hard not to look at the dead bats in the bucket.
"They'll go to the Scarpes," he said flatly. "They eat them."
Hay pricked jfer knees through the fabric of her dress. "Was it true they wanted the horses?"
Longhead nodded. The black mask made his long pale face seem even paler and longer. Bat's blood was drying beneath his thumbnails. "They came to me, seeing if I could stop the burials. Said it was a waste of good meat."
A dozen horses had died when the Hailstone exploded and five more had to be destroyed because of their injuries. Raina had arranged the burials. She had heard a rumor that the Scarpes wanted the carcasses, but had given it little credit. Butchering horses reared for meat was one thing, but eating riding horses was a practice abhorrent to Hailsmen. She was glad now that she'd had the carcasses carted to the Wedge-she wouldn't have put it past Scarpes to dig up the graves.
Another bat dropped from the overhead rafters as Raina leant in to the keep. "What's happening with the eastern wall? I thought it was being shored." Distorted by the mask her voice snaked over the «s» sounds.
Longhead glanced over his shoulder, checking the long dim roof-space, before answering. "Beade stopped the work ten days back. Says there's no point in sealing the hole as he intends to build a guidehouse and a ward to house the Scarpes off the eastern hall."
Raina pulled down her mask and sucked in drugged air. "He's guide. He has no right to direct the making of this house." You should have told him exactly where to stick his plans.
Longhead's bunion-knuckled hand came up in self-defense. "He says he discussed it with Mace Blackhail before he left. Says the chief gave the go-ahead."
Realizing she was starting to feel dizzy, Raina planted the mask back in place. "Why did you not come to me?"
The head keep puffed air into his body and then let it deflate. "He said not to bother you with it, that you already had enough on your hands …" Longhead hesitated, reluctant to continue speaking. After frowning hard, he spat it out. "Said you might start fussing and putting your foot where it had no place."
Raina sat back, letting her butt sink into the hay. Dagro had once told her about the time Ille Glaive besieged Bannen. The city men had set their tents in bold sight of the Banhouse, and then spent the next ten days building cookfires, holding tourneys and mounting curiously halfhearted attacks. All the while their miners were digging a tunnel beneath the roundhouse. One of the tents had masked the mine head, and when the city men were ready they lit fires in the tunnel and collapsed Bannen's western wall. Undermining it was called, and Stannig Beade was doing it to her.
Knowing better than to reproach Longhead, she said simply, "I am never too busy to hear what happens in this house."
Blackhail's head keep pulled down his mask. He looked older and more serious without it. "I hear you."
She hoped it was a promise to come to her next time Stannig Beade tried to force one of his schemes. Pushing herself onto her feet she bid him farewell. As she took the ladder down through the hayloft floor and into the newly boxed stable space she was aware of a little giddiness a looseness in her joints and a delay in her vision. The Lye boy offered his arm to help her down the last steps.
"A messenger has arrived from Ganmiddich," he told her, full to bursting with the news. 'The guide is meeting with him on the great-court."
Raina knew she disappointed the boy by not responding, but she dared not move a muscle on her face. Stannig Beade overstepped his office. If the chief was away the most senior warrior met with messengers. That meant Orwin Shank, not Scarpe's clan guide.
; Raina left the dairy-turned-stables and made her way to the roundhouse. Ever since the night of the Menhir Fire Stannig Beade had slowly been claiming privileges in the clan. It was as if he had been holding himself back until the tricky maneuver of installing half the Scarpestone into the heart of Blackhail had been successfully completed. He was guide now. He ruled the stone. Time to show his teeth.
Raina was still finding singed hairs amongst her tresses. Part of her left eyebrow had gone, crisped off by the flames in the trench, and the metallic panel in her mohair dress had been burnished black. She did not think the Stone Gods had come that night, but a show worthy of their presence had been mounted. After the stone had been unveiled people in the crowd spotted signs; a series of green lights falling from the heavens, the sudden and inexplicable smell of bitumen, the line of smoke rising from the Menhir Fire, forking so as not to pass the drill hole, and the sound of distant drums beating to the north, seeming to come from a place beyond any seeable horizon. Tricks the lot of them—except possibly the forking of the smoke—carefully stage-managed by Stannig Beade to awe the crowd. He had worked assiduously to get the new Hailstone, and therefore himself, established.
It had been a relief to most in the clan, Raina realized later, to have all uncertainty about the guidestone ended. A ceremony had taken place. The gods had been called. Stannig Beade had done a decent job. Just yesterday in the kitchens Raina had heard Sheela Cobbin say to another woman, "Its time we put it all behind us."
Raina almost agreed with her. But she had walked out on the great-court three times since the Hallowing, and each time she touched a stone bereft of gods. Even when the old guildstone had been dying you not could place your fingertips on its surface without sensing the immense and ancient power withdrawing. Even when gods were barely there you could feel them.
Right now, as she passed under the scaffold and through the new archway to the east hall, she could feel the pull of the charged metals they had deposited as they left. Her maiden's helper, suspended from the leather stomacher at her waist, skipped toward the wall. She put her hand on it, flattening the foot long knife against her hip. The gods had left Blackhail, and despite all of Stannig Beade's fancy footwork they had not come back.
On the night of the Menhir Fire she had made the mistake of imagining he was as concerned as she herself—without a doubt he had been anxious during the ceremony—but now she realized that anxiety had more to do with his desire that the ceremony go well and the crowd be suitably impressed with eye-popping spectacle, than any real care about the state of Blackhail's soul. Stannig Beade might call himself a guide but Raina did not believe he was a man of god.
Yelma Scarpe was probably laughing in the burned shell of the Scarpehouse. Either she had rid herself of a rival for her chiefdom, or sent a trusted agent to run Blackhail in the absence of its chief.
Finding herself in the entrance hall, Raina headed for the door. She could not say why she had chosen to travel through the house rather than around it, other than a vague notion that she did not want Stannig Beade watching her as she crossed open ground. One of the clan widows hailed her from the great stairway, but Raina waved her away. She could see them now, the small group on the greatcourt, and it should have eased her mind that Orwin Shank's fair, balding head was clearly visible amongst the other, darker heads, but new worries sprang to life.
Word from Ganmiddich. Two thousand Hailsmen at war. Had the army reached the Wolf yet? And what about the three hundred Hailsmen who were entrenched at the Crab Gate?
She had meant to be commanding, serene, yet her joints were still loose from the nightshade and her eyesight had not fully corrected, and all she wanted to do was hear the news. "Orwin," she called, knowing she could count on him to make way for her.
The patriarch of the Shanks lifted his head toward the sound of his name. His pale blue eyes were slower to focus than they once had been and it took him a moment to realize who had spoken. "Raina, he said, taking a step away from the huddle of men. She knew then that the news was bad. His voice was soft and shocked. A fleck of spittle lay on his bottom lip. Crossing over to him, Raina held out her hand. Orwin Shank had lost three sons. Bitty, Chad, and Jorry. Please Gods may he lose no more. The aging hatch-etman did not register Raina's hand on his arm. He was shaking and his flesh felt cool, The big silver belt buckle he always wore polished and gleaming was stamped with fingerprints.
Quickly, Raina noted who was here. Corbie lleese, ancient and one-armed Gat Murdock, Brog Widdtie, the master smith who had once been a Dhoonesman, Ullic Scarpe, brother to Uriah and nephew to the Scarpe chief, Wracker Fox, also Scarpe, and Stannig Beade. Other men hovered in small groups around them, hands swinging in loose fists, gazes darting between Corbie Meese. Raina and Stannig Beade.
The clan guide was dressed in sparrow skins and black leathers and he wore a thick silver tore at his throat. The pig hides were gone. He spoke her name and it did not sound like a greeting.
She ignored him. "What has happened?" she asked Corbie Meese.
The big hammerman with the dent in his head glanced once at the guide before speaking. "The Spire army took Ganmiddich. Then they themselves were routed by Bludd. Between the two attacks every Hailsman at the Crab Gate was lost."
No. Cold prickles passed up her legs to her womb and stomach. Mull Shank. The Lowdraw. Rory Clect Bullhammer? Had Bullhammer been there? Dozens more.
Drey Sevrance.
Raina Blackhail held herself very still. She was no longer touching Orwin Shank. All were watching her. She could feel the blood behind her eyes. "Where is Mace?"
"He camps on Bannen Field with the two thousand and plans to retake what has been lost."
She told herself she was not disappointed that her husband was still alive. " and the Crabmen?"
"No survivors. the Crab chief is dead."
Crab Ganmiddich gone. "Who is the new chief?"
Stannig Beade sucked in air with a small hiss. As if driven to scorn by such trivil questions he told her, " The new chief is also named Crab."
She had a choice then for sh could have fired back, Do not tell me what I already know. Who was this man before he declared himself chief and took the name Crab? Instead she thought of the dead clansmen, and gave them her silence and respect.
The silence passed from her, breathed out with her breath like Longhead's drowsy smoke, and passed from man to man to man. Within seconds everyone on the greatcourt fell quiet and the silence passed through the greatdoor and into the house. People milling in the entrance hall stilled. Stannig Beade watched this happen, his eyes cold and flat.
He is my enemy, Raina understood then. And in some ways he was worse than Mace. At least her husband did not covet the power she held in Blackhail's house. Mace was warrior and chief—let his wife take care of matters of home and hearth. Stannig Beade was different. He could not rule men in fields of battle. His power existed only in the confines of clan walls, and that put he and Raina at odds.
She saw all this in the silence, and then let it drain away. It would snow again, she decided, glancing at the clouds. Let it snow.
Drey Sevrance dead. He had brought her Dagro's last token, the brown-bear pelt Dagro had been skinning when he died. "Lady," Drey had said, standing at the door of her private chambers, "I have finished it for you." In all the days of horror that followed, that act of chivalry had stayed with her. In the long dark night after the Oldwood she had clutched the bearskin to her breast and belly, lost. If she had not had the skin for comfort she might have passed beyond lost, to the place where insensibility and insanity waited to trap your mind. Since then Drey had brought her small tokens every time he returned to the roundhouse, little things he'd won or bartered; a pebble of amber fine enough to be drilled for a pendant, a pair of mink skins that could be cut for gloves, an embroidered noseband for Mercy. Drey Sevrance had handed these gifts to her without words or ceremony, and she had derstood that to him she represented something worth returning to in clan.
With a light touch she guided him round. His swollen, arthritic fingers grasped her dress sleeve, pinching the skin beneath, but she did not think he was ware of it. Nor did she mind the pan.Corbie Meese stepped from the group, meaning to follow them, but Stannig Beade halted him with a question. "What of the women and children of Ganmiddich?"
Raina felt the words like stones flung against her back. Here is the question you should have asked, chiefs wife. Shame on you for not inquiring about the innocents.
Corbie replied that most of the women and children had been transferred to either Bannen or Croser. Few had been at the Crab Gate on the day of the attacks.
Raina listened until she moved beyond earshot. Orwin s fingers continued pinching her arm as she led him into the roundhouse. Anwyn Bird was there, waiting at the foot of the stairs, and Raina found herself so happy to see her plain yet pleasing face that idiotic tears sprang to her eyes.
"Hush now," Anwyn said to both Orwin and Raina as she approached. And though neither of them was making a sound they understood what the clan matron meant. I will care for you.
A Sword from Red Ice Page 48