A Cavern Of Black Ice (Book 1)

by J. V. Jones

  “Natural springs,” Angus said, pulling alongside him. “Ille Glaive was built on them. They feed the lake year-round.”

  Raif nodded. Following his trip to Spire Vanis he had no love of cities, yet he couldn’t help but admire Ille Glaive’s golden sandstone walls. Savagely he scratched the scars on his chest. The skin was fully healed now, but the ghosts of the Bluddsmen’s swords would not leave him. Two mornings ago he’d awoken to find dried blood driven deep beneath his fingernails and the scars scratched raw and peeling.

  “I think we’ll take the beggar’s entrance,” Angus said, squinting ahead. “We should be safe going through the market at this hour.” Making a small movement to indicate Ash, who was riding at his back, he added, “The sooner we get our wee lassie here to Heritas Cant, the better.”

  Raif made no reply. Cities were Angus’ affair. It was up to him to say how they entered and where they stayed. As long as Ash was seen to quickly, little else mattered to him.

  Glancing over, he saw she was still the same. She sat, slumped against Angus’ back, her eyes closed, her eyelids pale and unmoving, her hair pressed flat where it rested against Angus’ shoulders, and her small pink mouth open just enough to let in air. She had not spoken since the night by the white oaks. Both Raif and Angus had tried to wake her many times in the past four days, yet although her body seemed to respond, sometimes cringing or pulling away from a harsh or unpleasant touch, her eyes seldom opened. Angus had taken great pains to force her to drink, holding her jaw apart and pouring clear broth or water down her throat. Yet he could not make her eat.

  Sometimes, as this morning before they’d broken camp, she became agitated and her arms would slowly rise from her sides. Whenever that happened, Angus would force her wrists behind her back and bind them together with sheepskin, hobbling her as if she were a dangerous horse. Sometimes he wadded shammies in his fist and thrust them so deeply into her mouth that they rested against the back of her throat. Raif hated to see it. What within her was so terrible that she had to be bound and gagged?

  Running a hand over his week-old beard, Raif frowned. Even now, when he wasn’t looking at her and they were separated by twelve paces of air, he was aware of her presence pushing against him. Always he felt her in his lore. Somehow she pushed herself into his mind, claiming space that belonged to Drey and Effie and Tem.

  With a violent shake of his head, Raif stopped his thoughts from moving farther past that point. Last night, when he had taken a damp cloth from the fire and cleaned the road grime from Ash’s face, Angus had said, “You treat her as gently as if she were Effie.” Raif had had to stop what he was doing and walk into the shadows beyond the fire. Asarhia March was no Effie, and he hated Angus for putting them in the same sentence and linking them. He looked after Ash because that was what he and Angus had done since the moment they had saved her at Vaingate. It was a necessary thing, like brushing down the horses and lighting a drying fire for their clothes each night. Ash was not kin. She would never replace Effie or Drey in his heart.

  Yet she had told him the truth. While Angus had danced around the truth like a clan guide around the Gods Night fires, she had told him who she was. That he valued. That was an action worthy of a clanswoman.

  “Hold the reins a nonce, Raif, while I see to our drunken lassie here.” Copper eyes twinkling, Angus handed the bay’s reins to Raif and then busied himself with other things. Yesterday morning he had made Raif wait with Ash in the cover of a grove of sister aspens while he’d visited a farmhouse set a quarter league off the road. An hour later he had returned bearing fresh food, new waterskins, an ancient and crusty leather saddlebag, a pail of fresh milk, and a newly fattened rabbit flask, filled to the cork with the sort of stinging birch alcohol that Angus had a taste for. He took the rabbit flask from his buckskins now, bit the cork free, and began anointing Ash’s head and shoulders with droplets of clear alcohol.

  “If anyone asks, she had a skinful at nooning.”

  Raif nodded. Ash’s breaths were very shallow now, and her lack of response to the icy drops of liquid worried him. Glancing ahead, he judged the time it would take them to reach the city. “Will this man we’re going to see be able to help her?”

  Angus thumped the cork on the flask, then motioned for Raif to hand back the reins. “Heritas Cant knows many things: storm lore, the true names of all the gods, how to read the secret language of prophecies and speak the Old Tongue of the Trappers and the Sull. He can bind hawks to fly on his bidding, recite lists of battles from the Time of Shadows, heal sicknesses of blood and mind, and find patterns in the stars. If anyone can help her, he can.”

  “Is he a magic user?”

  Angus sucked in breath with a small hiss. “He will do whatever he must.”

  Unable to decide what sort of answer that was and in no mood to dance lies and truth with Angus, Raif let the matter drop. Fixing his gaze firmly ahead, he set his mind to contemplating Ille Glaive. The city was set at the head of a narrow plain. Furrow lines in the snow, tarred-log farmhouses, and trails of blue woodsmoke told that the surrounding land was used mostly for crops. A sparse forest, heavily logged, reached westward around the farmland, and the low craggy peaks of the Bitter Hills stretched northeast into the Bannen, Ganmiddich, and Croser clanholds.

  Now that the brilliant light of sunset had faded, Ille Glaive looked older, smaller, and less glorious than it had when Raif had first seen it. Where Spire Vanis had the hard lines, white mortar, and precision-cut stones of a young city built by a single generation of masons, Ille Glaive had the layered, worn, disorderly look of something built over centuries by many different hands. Unlike Spire Vanis, Ille Glaive did not live solely within its walls, and pot-houses, stables, barracks, covered markets, pieces of freestanding stonework, broken arches, and lightning-cracked towers spilled from the split skin of its east wall.

  Angus guided the bay from the road and headed toward the clutter of buildings and markets. Raif smelled woodsmoke and scorched fat, and then the faintly sulfurous odor of hot springs. The wind carried broken bits of sound: a baby crying, meat sizzling on a grill, a pair of dogs scrapping, and the hiss and clang of water forced through pipes. As they approached the first line of buildings, Angus motioned for Raif to dismount. Angus had scraped the oil and wax from his face with the blunt edge of his knife and now began to unravel the leather jesses around his ears.

  Snow was light on the ground, and Raif found walking a relief. He understood why Angus wanted him on foot: Two armed men on horseback drew looks. Discreetly he slid the scabbard containing Tem’s sword along his belt, tucking it into the shadows of his coat. He didn’t need Angus to tell him to avoid everyone’s eyes, and he saw little save the boot leather of the first few people he passed.

  Angus led them through the market, tracing a fox’s path of quick turns and sudden stops. Timber stalls, roofed with hide or woven spruce branches, reminded Raif of the clan markets held on the Dhoonehold each spring. Many of the same items were for sale: handknives with carved boxwood handles, dried fishskins for bow backing, grouse feathers already bound and cut for fletchings, archers’ thumb rings, horn bracelets set with Blackhail silver, pots of beeswax, neat’s-foot oil and bright yellow tung oil imported in birds’ craniums all the way from the Far South, lynx pelts and sea otter pelts, brilliantly colored leathers from a city called Leiss, amber beads threaded on caribou sinew, shimmering purple silks from Hanatta, blue mussels, dried mushrooms, green seal meat, pickled sweetbreads, whole eider ducks, wheels of marbled yellow cheese, warm beer thickened with eggs, hot sausages stuffed with unknowable meats, and fat white onions roasted until they were black.

  Raif’s mouth watered. Food had been sparse and cold for the last three days. Angus showed only passing interest in the food and continued weaving through the aisles in the manner of a man strolling idly through a market. “Here they come,” Angus said under his breath. “Don’t look up. I’ll do the talking.”

  Raif, who had been looking long
ingly at a roasted leg of lamb crusted with white pepper and thyme, had no idea who they were. Slowing down to match Angus’ pace, he found something of interest to stare at on the toe of his boot.

  Footsteps, two pairs of them, pounded against the hard-froze mud. Raif heard the dull ring of metal, thinly couched, then watched as the tip of a knotted willow stick was jabbed at the bay’s coffin bone.

  “What ’ave we here, Fat Bollick?” came a low, rasping voice.

  “Newcomers, Nouse. Poor if ye look to their clothes, rich if ye ken their horses.”

  Raif glanced up. Two men wearing the white of Ille Glaive with the black, red, and steel tears at their breast stood at the bay’s head. Nouse, the man with the stick, had the small eyes and shiny black head of a magpie. Fat Bollick had the plumped-up wrinkly look of fingertips soaked too long in water.

  Angus addressed himself to Nouse. “Good eve to you, gentlemen. If the Master cares for tribute, then he’ll gladly let us pass.” Somehow, despite both his hands resting on the reins in plain view, Angus managed to generate the sound of coins clicking together as he spoke.

  “The Master don’t need no tribute,” Fat Bollick said. “He takes it simply because he can.”

  Inclining his head, Angus once again addressed his words to Nouse. “Naturally I didn’t mean to imply that the Master has need of funds. I just want it to be known that my purse is overheavy, and I would count a favor in its lightening.”

  Nouse’s eyes narrowed as he stroked the oily plumage of his beard. “What d’you ken, Fat Bollick?”

  Fat Bollick shrugged. “The man speaks with respect, and I’d be inclined to lighten his purse and let him pass. Though I must say the girl at his back worries me. We wouldn’t want no foreign fevers brought into the Glaive.”

  Angus glanced over his shoulder at Ash. “Her? Fevered? I wish it were so. She’s as soaked as a brewer’s rag . . . and Maker help my if me lady wife ever hears about it, for she’s handy with her skinning knife and well inclined to use it.”

  Nouse prodded Ash sharply with his stick. “Potted, you say?”

  “Aye.” Angus’ voice was level, but Raif saw how his knuckles whitened around the reins.

  “She smells like it,” Fat Bollick said. “I say we take the Master’s tribute and let ’em pass.”

  Nouse’s sharp little eyes narrowed as he looked at Angus. “I’ve seen you here afore.”

  “Aye, and you’ll likely see me again. And each time you do, you and the Master will end up a wee bit richer for it.” Angus peeled his hand from the reins and reached inside his coat for his purse. It was the size of a sheep’s bladder and bunched full with coins. He threw it, not gently, at Nouse, who caught it like a punch to his chest. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a daughter in need of sobering, an apprentice in need of a wenching, and my own handsome face in need of a good shave and some wifely fussing.” With that Angus kicked the bay’s flanks and started forward. “Kindly give my regards to the Master.”

  The willow stick twitched in Nouse’s left hand as he weighed the purse with his right. Fat Bollick made eye signals to him. Nouse’s gaze dropped to the purse. Finally he cracked his stick on the bay’s flank. “Aye, go on then. Pass. Me and Fat Bollick will be watching ye. Piss too high against a wall and we’ll know it.”

  Raif led Moose past the two men-at-arms, his gaze carefully avoiding Nouse. He didn’t know what to make of the exchange among the three men. The Master of Ille Glaive ruled the cityhold from the Lake Keep, and Angus said he was more a king than the Surlord of Spire Vanis, as the title of Master was passed from father to son. Threavish Cutler likes to call himself the King on the Lake, Angus had said just that morning as the trail they traveled joined the Glaive Road. And his sons and sworn men call themselves thanelords. Mark my words, one of these days old Threavish is going to take all the gold he’s collected in tributes, melt it in a pot, and forge himself a crown. A big one, mind, one large enough to cover his swollen head.

  “That was easy enough,” Angus said once they were out of earshot of Nouse and Fat Bollick. “Cost me my purse and saddle last time.”

  Annoyed at Angus’ humor, Raif said, “I wouldn’t have given them anything.”

  Angus sighed, not heavily. “Lad, you have a lot to learn. Those two practitioners were playing a well-turned tune. They knew we wanted to slip into the city unnoticed; we’d have gone the way of Shallow Gate otherwise. They simply made us pay for the privilege.”

  Raif made no reply. He was pretty sure the tune would have changed in an instant if Nouse had prodded Ash a fraction harder with his stick. “Let’s get Ash somewhere safe.”

  Angus gave him a hard look. “You’re going to have to get used to the way things are done in cities, Raif, like it or not. Stove laws, rights of passage, due respect: They all vanish quicker than snow on a grate the minute you leave the clanholds. Don’t think those two Dhoonesmen who forced us from the road did any different. Their tribute alone will have been enough to keep Fat Bollick in beer and sausage for a week.”

  Heat came to Raif’s face. “They would have taken the gate.”

  “Would they now? Two clansmen armed to the jaws?” Angus shook his head for a long time. “No gatekeeper worth his rations would let a pair of war-dressed Dhoonesmen in the city, not the way the clanholds are at the moment. Nay, laddie. Nouse and Fat Bollick would have taken them for a grand sum.”

  Raif pulled far ahead of Angus, not wanting to hear any more. All the earlier shame he had felt from being overlooked by the Dhoonesmen came back, causing hard knots in his chest. He was so close to the clanholds . . . a day’s hard ride would take him into Ganmiddich territory. It was said that Crab Ganmiddich, the Ganmiddich chief, could row out to his island in the Wolf River that was known as the Inch, climb the watch tower there, and see the lights of Ille Glaive at night. Raif raised his chin and looked north. The sky above the Bitter Hills was already black and full of stars.

  “Through the arch, Raif.”

  Acknowledging Angus’ direction with a curt nod, Raif led Moose through a timber-supported cleft in the wall and entered the city of Ille Glaive. The light level dropped immediately, turning late sunset into darkest night. Raif paid scant attention to his surroundings, heeding only the directions Angus gave at irregular intervals regarding turns and crossings and places to be avoided. Ille Glaive was old, old. It smelled of passing centuries, mildew, butchered carcasses, and slowly rotting things. Roads were cobbled and seldom straight. Sandstone buildings were worn, crumbling, propped up by massive bloodwood stangs, and leaking smoke and lamplight from a thousand cracks and chinks. Mazes of hog-backed bridges connected battlements to ring towers and stone barracks, and far to the west the lead-capped domes of the Lake Keep caught the last of the sun’s red light.

  Raif had little mind for any of it. The only thing that drew his attention was the figure hunched at Angus’ back. Ash’s breathing grew heavier as they made their way along streets no wider than two pigs. When Raif drew close he heard air scraping through her throat. After a time Angus halted and hobbled her arms with rope. He said nothing to Raif, but his face was grave and his movements were hard on himself and the bay. When they started up again, Ash’s wrists strained against the sheepskin tethers, sawing back and forth until the skin began to redden and break. Raif quickened his pace.

  “Here. Through the iron gate.”

  The sound of Angus’ voice pulled Raif’s mind only so far away from Ash. He barely noticed the stone wall and the gated archway they had arrived at, and he dealt clumsily with the heavy bolt and chain on the gate, making much noise. A dimly lit courtyard lay beyond. A narrow three-storied manse, its stonework hidden by the hard clay of five hundred years of bird droppings and a rack of dead vines, commanded the fourth wall. The manse’s windows were tightly shuttered, and its door was banded with cords of iron that were, Raif noticed, the only thing in sight that looked to be well tended. Angus bade Raif go forward and knock on the door while he dismounted
and saw to Ash.

  Raif held his raven lore in his fist as he thumped the wood. He didn’t like the enclosed space of the courtyard.

  The door opened silently, gliding on well-oiled hinges. Momentarily dazzled by the sour light of a goose-fat lantern, Raif took a step back, his hand dropping automatically to Tem’s sword. A moment later he made out the slight, bow-shouldered form of a very old woman. Robed in dark blue wool with a cap of coarse netting pinned against her scalp, she reminded Raif of the clan dowagers who always dressed plainly when washing the dead. Her cataract-stained gaze traveled from Raif’s face to the hilt of his sword. Immediately feeling foolish, Raif snapped his hand away.

  “Cloistress Gannet.” Angus pushed past Raif and nodded curtly to the old woman. Ash was pressed close against his chest.

  “It’s been forty years since I last rendered souls in a cloister, Angus Lok. I have no claim to any title you give me.” The old woman’s voice was dry and hard. The hand that held the lamp did not shake. “Come, enter. I see you have brought a sick birdie for the master.”

  The cloistress led them along a dark corridor toward the back of the house, then showed them into a room where a fire burned with tired red flames. Angus laid Ash on a rug near the fire. Raif knelt by the hearth and warmed his hands before he touched her. He did not hear the cloistress leave.

  “What is this? What is this?” A twisted creature with misshapen legs and too many bones in his chest walked into the room with the aid of two sticks. Click, click, click. Sharp green eyes assessed Raif in less then an instant, then moved swiftly to Angus and Ash. A bone grown high in the man’s shoulder twitched. “I am not in the business of receiving visitors after dark. Warm yourselves, then begone. You shall get no more fire out of me.”

  “Heritas, this is my nephew Raif Sevrance.” Angus spoke in a voice Raif had never heard before, stilted and full of emphasis.