by J. V. Jones
Anwyn Bird did not soften. Her arms remained clamped to her chest. “Anywhere is better than here. You should have seen yourself the other night—you could barely speak you were so afraid. And yes, it was just a bruise and bruises heal. But what about next time? When a man shows himself capable of violence it is seldom the end of it. He has cowed you, Raina. Frightened you and made you shrink back. If you step out of line he will do it again. Stannig Beade is no clan guide and must be shown as such. We are many. We can send him back to Scarpe.”
Almost Anwyn won her over, but the memory of what had happened in the greathearth was too raw. Stannig Beade, Mace Blackhail: Scarpes had sharp tongues. You could not win against them in spoken battle. It was true Hailsmen still outnumbered Scarpes in this house, but for clansmen to back the ousting of Beade they needed to believe Raina’s version of events. Raina did not think she had the skills to persuade them. Certainly she had no evidence.
Anwyn saw the answer on her face. “After supper tonight I will go see Orwin Shank.”
Raina felt prickles of tears behind her eyes and did not know why. She said, “You will not be rid of Beade so easily.”
“Do not be so sure.” The words were spoken so fiercely they created their own sense of gravity. Raina felt her heart and mind pull toward them, but stood firm. Having issued them Anwyn herself seemed incapable of further speech. Nodding with satisfaction, she turned on her heels and left.
Raina waited for herself to relax; waited but the sensation did not come. She looked around the widows’ wall, at the carelessly placed looms and benches, the Scarpe filth. I should do something about cleaning this place up. The new widows deserve better. She did not want to be here though, and followed Anwyn’s tracks to the door. Random thoughts were firing in her head. She wondered what use a great big cast iron candleholder was to anyone without a high-ceilinged chamber to hang it. She worried she had parted badly with Anwyn.
As she headed downstairs it occurred to her that the least she could have done was open all the shutters in the widows’ hearth and let in some fresh air to drive out the stench of Scarpe. What had Stannig Beade told her? “Restrict your activities to caring for the bereaved and the sick”? Raina slowed her descent. He had meant to offend her with small work and she had allowed herself be offended. Since when had caring for the widows of slain warriors become offensive to her? Had she become too proud? Unsure of the answer, she decided to go back and throw open the shutters. Maybe she would move some of the looms to their proper places. They were complicated arrays of harnesses and treadles, but generally more air than wood. A strong woman could push them into motion. Feeling her thoughts begin to settle, she headed up the stairs.
And met Jani Gaylo coming down. Instantly, Raina remembered the noise behind the corner loom. Little mice with weasels’ tails. Stepping into the center of the stone step, she forced the red-haired maid to walk around her. Raina stared at her, waiting for the girl to meet her eye, but Jani Gaylo kept her pretty head tucked low as she passed.
Oh gods. Was she up there, listening?
Raina continued climbing the stairs, but her sense of purpose had gone. What had she and Anwyn said? Things that did not bear overhearing by anyone in this clan. Uneasy, she let herself into the widows’ wall. No sign of any disturbance. But would there be? Quickly she unhooked the closed shutters and pushed them open. The outside air was cold and still, crisp with frost. When she reached the corner loom, she halted. It was one of the large upright frames and a panel of bright blue wool was nearly completed on the harness. That was where Jani Gaylo could have hidden, behind that taut yard of cloth.
Abruptly, Raina turned away. She would not think about it anymore. What was the point? I’ll go and saddle Mercy. Get away from this unsafe house.
Hurrying down the stairs she pretended to be busy, waving away those who hailed her and frowning in a preoccupied manner as if she were thinking about hop toasting, milk churning or some other household task. Things had changed since news had arrived from Ganmiddich, and the house was subdued. Men got a little drunker at night. Women had trouble applying themselves to everyday work and would sit morosely and chat. Everyone was waiting on more news. Raina had heard a rumor that Stannig Beade had begun to cut hearts from the new Hailstone.
As she crossed the strange gods-charged space of the east hall, she realized that she had abandoned her task of loading the supply wagon. Orwin Shank had arranged for a cart to be sent south with an armed escort, and Merritt Ganlow and Raina had been in charge of filling it with food, ale, blankets and other home comforts for the Hail armies camped north of Ganmiddich. Merritt would not be pleased. As far as the head widow was concerned, Raina could barely do anything right these days.
Raina suspected she had a point. Ever since Stannig Beade had hit her she had not been able to think clearly. Her attention jumped from one thing to another like a bouncing ball, and she did not like to be alone inside in the house. Jittery was the word she would use to describe herself. It was the first time she had ever felt such a way in her life.
She did not stop to admire the newly completed arch that led east from the roundhouse. The wall scaffolding was in the process of being reconfigured to support the building of the guidehouse and the east ward. Work crews were taking their afternoon break, and men were sitting on chunks of rock and upturned lime barrels, gnawing on bird bones and drinking foamy brown ale. Longhead was the only one still working. The head keep was squatting on a cracked paving stone, drawing a line in chalk.
“Raina.”
She was surprised to hear him call her name, and considered pretending not to hear him. The memory of their last meeting together in the hayloft was not a good one. Longhead had admitted to letting himself be influenced by Stannig Beade. The guide had warned the head keep that Raina might start fussing if she were told about the plans for the new ward. And Longhead had lapped it up. It was a kind of betrayal, that setting aside of all the years they’d spent working together for the good of this house. If anyone should have given her the benefit of the doubt it should have been Longhead.
Halting before him, she was cool. “I have not much time.”
The head keep rose to standing. He was dressed in his usual attire of a leather work apron over burlap pants and a brown wool shirt. Chalk from his fingers was transferred to his forehead as he wiped the hair from his eyes. “Where you off to?”
Raina thought the question impertinent. “I have work in the stables,” she lied.
“I’ll walk a ways with you.”
“Very well,” she agreed huffily, realizing she had misjudged the nature of his question. Longhead did not query where she went or what she did. He just wanted to talk to her alone.
If the head keep had noticed her agitation, he made no show of it, and guided her between piles of logs, cut stones and lime barrels with respectful attention, touching her arm lightly to prevent her from stepping into puddles of tar and gray sludge. Snow had been cleared to a distance of thirty feet around the roundhouse, and only when they had reached the end of the clearing did Longhead speak.
“You told me I should inform you when Stannig Beade wants things done in the house,” he said, wasting no time on small talk, “and I think perhaps you were right.”
Raina’s boots punched through the melted then refrozen snow, leaving deep pits. She did not trust herself to say anything—speak and she would make a mistake—so she kept her silence and watched her feet.
Longhead’s oversize jaw came up as he squinted at the clouds. “Beade has asked me to prepare your old chambers for the Scarpe chief, Yelma Scarpe. She will visit next month.”
Raina’s mouth fell open. Of all the things Longhead could have told her she would never have imagined this. The Scarpe chief, here? It was so astonishing she didn’t know what to think. Glancing up, she saw the head keep was watching her carefully. She closed her mouth. Had he been looking at the remains of her bruise?
“It’s not fitting that she stay in your
chambers,” he said, shaking his head. “A chief’s wife must be allowed superiority in her clan.”
I do not care about my chambers, Raina wanted to tell him, not kindly, but didn’t. She could see that he was offended as a Hailsman. “When will she come?”
Longhead seemed relieved that she had finally spoken and jumped to answer her question. “When the weather clears. Beade says she will not travel while snow is on the ground.”
Let it freeze hard then. Aware that Longhead was waiting for her opinion, she searched for something comforting to say. And found she had nothing to give. Breaking away from him, she murmured, “You must do as Beade bids.”
Raina made her way toward the stables and did not look back. She had no wish to see disappointment on the head keep’s face.
The young groom whom she had spoken with during her last visit to the stables helped her saddle Mercy. Raina asked his name and was informed it was Duggin Lye. He was good with the chestnut mare, speaking to her in soft clicks as he tightened her belly cinch. Raina was glad to have him there, for Mercy knew all was not right with her mistress and was restive. Duggin’s presence seemed to calm her, and she did not fight the bit. “I took the creek trail myself this morning,” Duggin said to Raina, making sure the nose strap was seated properly. “If you’re wanting a fair run you couldn’t do much better. The Oldwood’s sparkly with ice.”
Silent, she took the reins from him. The boy had probably spent most of the day alone with the horses and was eager to talk. How would he know that that Oldwood was not a word she loved to hear? She made an effort. “I believe I will go north instead.”
Duggin Lye, who had to be all of sixteen and had the black-heads to prove it, looked at her with some wisdom. “North’s best when you’re needing to clear your mind.”
Raina walked Mercy onto the court, mounted her, and trotted around the outbuildings. She could smell pigs in their sties, and the loamy sweetness coming from the dairyshed as the cows were being milked. Mercy trod frozen cow pats and clumps of hay into the snow. She was glad to be out and her head was up, but her ears kept flicking back toward her rider.
Deciding she would not think for a while, Raina kicked Mercy into a canter. They were clear of the outbuildings now and free to find a path north. Some old bit of wall stuck up above the snow and Mercy seemed keen to jump it so Raina gave the horse her head. It was then, in midair with her butt no longer in full contact with saddle leather, that Raina began to feel better. The landing was bracing and her spine felt it all the way up to her neck. All the old air ejected from her lungs and she had to fill them with new, outside air instead. This was what she needed. Too much inside, too many whispers, too many calls upon the ragged little bit of herself that was left. When chiefing got too much for Dagro he had simply taken off. A man could do that, go hunting and have everyone agree that it was a worthy thing and that when he got back he would be renewed. During the winter longhunt season Dagro might take off for weeks. He would share a tent with old Meth Ganlow, Merritt’s husband, and the two of them would hunt during the day and get drunk as donkeys each night. There’d be dumb tricks—pants would be dipped in the lake and frozen, straight arrows replaced with ones fiendishly steamed into curves—there’d be earnest talk about the best way to make jerky, and someone would always end up getting lost in the woods, initiating the kind of heroic search and rescue that could be bragged about for days.
It was a release, Raina realized now. Dagro had both needed and deserved it. He did not lead the hunt. Even if he had possessed the expertise he wouldn’t have wanted to. Let Tem Sevrance or Meth Ganlow do that.
Raina dug her heels into Mercy’s belly, whipping her into full gallop. Snow sprayed as high as the saddle and year old saplings were crushed under hoof, releasing the scent of pine. Spying a trapping path running alongside the Leak, Raina guided Mercy northwest. The Leak was running; a thread of crystal clear water overhung by ledges of crackled ice. Tall, desiccated grasses clumped on the bank, and Raina could see peeps of green where the new year’s growth had started. Mercy seemed to enjoy flattening them, even going so far as leaving the path to get to them, and this made Raina laugh. Poor plants. First they had to put up with late snows and sudden frosts, and now along comes a horse and squashes them. It was definitely better being Raina Blackhail than a stationary clump of grass.
She laughed even harder at that. And it felt good. Her fine wool cloak and dress were too skimpy for such icy conditions, and she had not thought to bring gloves, but it hardly mattered. Raina Blackhail had been Raina Kenrick once—and the Kenrick girl rarely dressed for the cold. “Don’t be fussing her,” Uncle Burdo would tell her mother. “As long as she keeps moving she’ll stay warm.”
Raina kept moving, first along the stream and then north onto one of the trapping paths that led into the forest. Mercy was happy to run. When Dagro had purchased her as a filly from a horse trader at the Dhoone Fair he had been told she was “one-sixteenth Sull.” Apparently this number had sealed the deal. Dagro had joked about it later, saying that it meant one of Mercy’s ears and half a knee joint were Sullish, but Raina could tell he’d been secretly pleased. It meant that all of Mercy’s offspring would be one in thirty-two parts Sull. Yet in the end he’d only let her dam the once. She was Raina’s horse by then.
As they approached the first stand of oldgrowth pines, Raina slowed Mercy to a trot. Beyond those trees lay the great northern forest of Blackhail and you had to be in a certain mind and properly equipped to safely enter. An unlined wool cloak would not do. It was one thing to ride carelessly along meadowland. Another thing entirely to take to the woods. Glancing at the sky, she realized it would be dark within the hour and she needed to be heading back. For all she knew Merritt Ganlow was still fuming by the supply cart, wondering what had happened to the goosedowns Raina had promised to deliver four hours earlier.
And then there was Anwyn Bird. As Raina turned Mercy south she wondered what time constituted “supper.” It would be after dark certainly. But whose supper exactly? Anwyn’s? Orwin’s?
Raina thought she should get a move on, and kicked Mercy into a brisk trot. The top layer of snow hardened as the temperature dropped and every hoof fall made an explosive crack.
It was easier at first to think about Longhead. Five days back she had asked the head keep to come to her if Beade took any further action concerning the Hailhouse. Today he had done just that. In return she had been short and dismissive, when perhaps she should have been grateful. Longhead was no friend of Beade’s. Not informing her about the new ward and guidehouse had been a simple error in judgment. Longhead was Longhead: he wanted to get things done. He had come to her hoping she would take a problem off his hands so he could keep working and not have to worry about the distressing events happening in the clan. She had been no help to him. Raina blew air from her nostrils, cogitating. He had caught her at a bad moment. Tomorrow she would seek him out and see if there wasn’t something they could do. With all the damage to the east wall, the broken well shafts, the disturbed underground springs, it would be regrettable, but hardly surprising, if the chief’s wife’s chambers were to suddenly and unexpectedly flood.
Smiling softly, Raina patted Mercy’s neck. Detecting a subtle shift in her rider’s spirits, the mare tossed her head and executed some fancy footwork that took her sideways as well as forward. Raina had always wondered who had taught her that. Maybe it was in her Sull blood.
It was growing dark as they rejoined the path along the Leak. Raina forced herself to think of Anwyn, and found little to like about their conversation in the widows’ wall. Anwyn Bird was her oldest and dearest friend. Even if she wanted to rid Blackhail of Stannig Beade it did not change the fact of her concern. That night after Raina had fled the chief’s chamber it had been Anwyn who banged on the door of her cell, Anwyn who demanded entry, Anwyn who had looked so murderous upon seeing Raina’s inflamed face that Raina thought the clan matron might march through the roundhouse and punch Stannig Be
ade in the head. It was Anwyn who brought the salves and cool water, and informed people the next morning that Raina had a fever and might be abed for a few days.
It was Anwyn Bird, not Raina Blackhail, who had to watch the bruise turn purple and black.
Raina raised her hand to her cheek, touching the patch of skin that had come in contact with Stannig Beade’s fist. A slight tenderness still remained.
He has cowed you, Raina.
It was the truth, she had been cowed. Raina had never told Anwyn what had happened in the Oldwood, but the clan matron must have suspected something. The evening after the wedding had taken place, Anwyn had brought Raina her bride’s cup in the greathearth. “What’s done is done,” she had said, handing Raina the traditional drink of milk, bittersweet and honey. “We’ll just have to make the best of it.”
Raina thought of those words, trying to remember the exact expression on Anwyn’s face. There had been stoicism and . . . disappointment. It was as if Anwyn was disappointed in Raina for not speaking up to defend herself against Mace’s claims. Had she known a few words could have stopped all the misery?
Seeing the safelamps being lit outside the stables, Raina picked up Mercy’s pace. Orwin Shank had been the one who called her in to account the night after Mace Blackhail had raped her. Orwin had been flustered, upset by what Mace had told him, anxious to get the whole mess over and done with, yet still deeply respectful of Raina. If she had spoken up at that moment, told Orwin the truth, would he have believed her? The answer would not come. It was a different time; Blackhail’s chief had just died, Mace was well regarded in the clan and was proving himself capable of taking Dagro’s place. The question that mattered now was: would Orwin take her word over Stannig Beade’s?
She was surprised by how foolish the answer made her feel. We are many, Anwyn had said.
Yes, Raina mouthed. We are.
Duggin Lye was lighting the last of the lamps as Raina and Mercy trotted onto the court. Thrusting the burning edge of the torch into the cobbles, he extinguished the flame.