by J. V. Jones
The moon rose over the Rift, spilling silver light upon the dying man and the man who would kill him. Traggis Mole spoke the few words that mattered. Raif Sevrance spoke another oath.
Quietly and without ceremony, using Traggis Mole’s own longknife, Raif Sevrance stopped the Robber Chief’s heart.
TWENTY-NINE
Chief in Absentia
Stannig Beade had begun holding meetings in the chief’s chamber. The guide of Scarpe and now Blackhail had let it be known that because there was as yet no guidehouse he needed a place to rest and contemplate, one befitting his rank in the clan. Raina tried not to let it bother her, though in truth she knew that Blackhail’s carpenters could have had a building up and framed within a week. Granted the walls would take another week, and when it was done it would be made of that decidedly second rate material—as far as clansmen were concerned—wood. But a building was a building, and if Stannig Beade had truly wanted to be alone in a place befitting a guide he could have had a guidehouse erected within twenty days. Raina had once heard something about Castlemilk having a wooden guidehouse, but wasn’t quite sure of her facts. Else she might have confronted him with them.
Beade had requested that she attend him in the chief’s chamber at noon. He had sent this message by way of one of those silly clan maids who had the habit of attaching themselves to powerful men. “The guide commands me to tell you,” Jani Gaylo had begun. Raina had stood there, amazed. Since when did a guide command a clanswoman to deliver his messages? Inigar Stoop had had the use of a boy who brought him supper. If he wanted to speak to anyone he left his guidehouse and found them.
Once she had delivered her message, the red-haired Jani Gaylo had dashed off in the direction of the chief’s chamber, anxious to tell Stannig Beade the deed was done. Raina had half a mind to stop her, to tell the girl she would be better employed in the kaleyard digging carrots and onions, or out in the woods setting traps.
Blackhail needed food not meetings. The Scarpes were like rats, gnawing away at Blackhail’s supplies. When they first came they had brought tributes—piglets with runny eyes, damp sacks of grain, sheep that walked in circles, barrels of wormy fruit—yet even these imperfect goods had dried up. Hundreds of Scarpes had been here for months. They ate food, drank ale, burned lamp oil and timber. What did they bring for their keep? Anwyn was beside herself toiling to feed them. And more arrived each day. Just this morning, when Raina crossed to the makeshift stables to brush down Mercy, she’d spied another of their poison-pine carts rolling in.
Knowing that if she thought about it any more she’d drive herself into the kind of state where she’d be likely to challenge the first Scarpe who crossed her path, Raina calmed herself. She had been working in the grain drum, helping the tied clanswomen turn the grain. It was hard, dusty work, standing knee-deep in millet as you shoveled it from one place to another like snow. Some of the women had fastened linen strips across their noses and mouths to prevent the fine millet dust from settling in their lungs. Raina realized she should have done the same, for her throat felt itchy, and when she sneezed into her hand little specks of kernel sprayed against her skin. Turning grain wasn’t a job she was used to, but after Stannig Beade’s message had arrived this morning she’d needed to do something to work off her indignation.
It hadn’t quite succeeded, though she had enjoyed the company of hardworking farm women. None of them, including herself, had mentioned the high grain mark that circled the wall twelve feet above their heads. A spoken reminder of Blackhail’s hardship would have spoiled the easy camaraderie.
Raina left the women to their cheese and ale. Now that the dust had settled they reclined on the grain like queens. Waving farewells as she exited the perfect circle of the grain drum, they called her by the name “Chief’s,” short for “chief’s wife.” Raina felt both pleased and worried by it. The word was uncomfortably close to chief.
The grain drum had been built abutting the roundhouse’s northwestern wall and its main door, located two full stories off the ground, faced north. Emerging into the chill grayness of midday, Raina stood for a moment on the stone landing and gazed across the pine forests of Blackhail toward the Balds. Blackstone pines, bristlecones and black spruce were shedding snow in the quickening wind. Hunters’ tracks cut between the trees led north in white strips. Turning east she saw the Wedge, the great forested headland that rose on granite cliffs. The snow had already fled from those trees, which were a mixture of hard and soft wood. A swath had been logged ten years back, but the new growth had come in so quickly that unless one rode amongst it, it was difficult to tell where the clear-cut had been.
Raina knew the paths through the woods; knew where the clan boys staked claims over fishing holes and swim holes, knew the secret green pool where the clan maids bathed naked and obsessed over boys, knew the hollows where the old women set their traps, and knew the fruit trees where a hunter dressed in field gear might spend a day, waiting for deer. She had been thirteen when she came here from Dregg. Twenty years of her life had been spent here, and looking back now she could not pinpoint the moment when she’d ceased being a Dreggswoman and become Hail instead. Not her marriage to Dagro, for she remembered wearing the hotwall roses in her hair and carrying her portion of Dreggstone in a filigreed silver locket that overhung her tightly laced breasts. Perhaps later then, when she became established in her role of chief’s wife and fell into the rhythm of working hard and receiving respect. But no, if she were honest she still held part of herself back. I will go home to Dregg when I am old and widowed, she had told herself, and the thought had given her comfort. Even when word of Dagro’s death had come south from the Badlands she had borne the ill news by making the sign of the rose. So no. The most likely moment she had become a Hailsman to her core was when she’d spoken the words in the gameroom.
I will be chief.
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 were an apprentice tool-maker 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 guidehouse—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 chief’s 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 her 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 roofspace, 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 greatcourt.”
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, “It’s time we put it all behind us.”
Raina almost agreed with her. But she had walked out on the greatcourt three times since the Hallowing, and each time she touched a stone bereft of gods. Even when the old guidestone 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 c
harged 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.