A Cavern of Black Ice (67 page)

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, Ganmid-dich, 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 pothouses, 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 Tern'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: hand-knives 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 longingly 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 me if my 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 I 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.