A Sword From Red Ice (39 page)

"No," Raina protested. "It's not
the same."

Merritt Ganlow raised her chin. "Tell me
why."

She could not. The words needed to convey the
complex and ephemeral ideas in her head were beyond her. What Stannig
Beade did was wrong, she felt it in her gut—he'd come here and
looted the heart of clan—but if she said that she would sound
like a peeved child.

All the while Raina was thinking Merritt watched
her with keen green eyes. When the silence had stretched overlong,
she said, "Your nose is put out, Raina. Simple as that. With
your husband away you thought the mice would play, but now there's
another cat in the house."

Raina had to give it to Merritt: the woman was
sharp. It was true, Raina had been hoping to run things while Mace
was away. Return some order to the house, banish the Scarpes to
outbuildings, make plans of her own for the Hailstone. She'd wanted
the chance to guide Blackhail back . . . to clan.

Breathing deeply, Raina tried to replace her
waning strength with air. A woman whom she had trusted and called
friend had been cleverly turned against her. Almost it was too much.

She tried one last time. "You are right,
Merritt, I'm not happy that Stannig came here. He's Scarpe's
guide—let them have him. We're paying tribute to a foreign
stone whilst Scarpemen are grinding down the Hailstone and carting it
away."

Merritt must have heard something close to
breaking in Raina's voice, for she was gentle in her reply. "Who
better to do that job? Name me one Hailsman who would relish breaking
down the ruined stone? Stannig hopes to spare, not deceive us."

How had he got to her? Raina wondered. What tales
had he spun? What promises had he whispered in her ear? Whatever he
had done it was subtle, for Merritt was too clever to fall for
obvious ploys. Did he know how close Merritt was to Raina herself?
Was he trying to isolate the chief's wife? Raina tucked that thought
away for later consideration. To Merritt she said the only thing she
had left. "Stannig Beade is a Scarpe. I thought you were my ally
against them."

Tutting softly, Merritt shook her head. "Think
clearly, Raina. My position on Scarpes in the Hailhouse is unchanged.
Tomorrow, through that very door, two hundred Scarpes will come and
kick me out of my hearth. They've done some sort of swap-around with
the tied Hailsmen who were due to take it. It's a disgrace, and you
underestimate me if you think that Stannig Beade can convince me
otherwise. He hasn't tried to. I doubt if he'd dare. What he did do
was come to me and ask my opinion on some things. And for a wonder he
actually listened to the answers. That, I respect. It's fitting that
a new clan guide acquaints himself with matters of clan, and also
fitting that he takes the time to introduce himself to its widows. He
knows there are things wrong in this clan. But right now he doesn't
have time for that. His priority is the new guidestone—and
rightly so. We must be settled as a clan before we can move forward,
have a heart beating before we can breathe. You know that and if you
would look beyond his colors, you would see that Stannig Bead is
guide first and foremost. Not a Scarpe."

Raina felt a little stunned, as if someone had
knocked her with some force on the head. How on earth was she to deal
with this? At least now she knew how Stannig Beade had got to
Merritt: he had flattered her and opened up a channel to power. It
was telling that Stannig Beade had made no such overture to the
chief's wife, no cozy little talk, no confessions of uncertainty, no
delicate request for information. He wouldn't dare. Five days ago on
the greatcourt they had met eye-to-eye, and she had seen through him
and he through her. Stannig Beade knew the chief's wife for his
enemy, and Raina Blackhail knew that before her stood a man who
coveted Blackhail's power.

It was then, looking into Merritt Ganlow's
superior face, that Raina had decided to steal the Hailstone. She'd
be damned if she'd stand by and let some clever, scar-faced Scarpeman
have his way with the remains. And Merritt could go to hell too.

Now, one day later, Raina had lost the bravado
she'd felt outside the widows' hearth. Strange, but when she had
actually stolen the stone from the nibble that was heaped against the
roundhouse's east wall, things had begun to change for her. She had
chosen her moment carefully, for the night crews were still working
on the wall and her only opportunity to be alone was when one of
Anwyn's kitchen girls had called the crews inside for ale and supper.
Oil lamps and guarded candles had been left burning on poles and on
makeshift pedestals of piled stones. A big vat of tar was bubbling on
a slow green flame and buckets of white lime had been arranged in a
loose half-circle around it. Timber boards and split logs were strewn
across the ground, and Raina could smell the itchy, dry-skin odor of
sawdust. A second scaffold was now in place, bridging the gap
between bare ground that had once held the guidehouse and the
shattered remains of the stable block. Raina had to be careful to
duck her head as she crossed toward the scrap pile of granite.

Stannig Beade's mule-powered stone mill cast its
big blocky shadow against the remains of the Hailstone. The new clan
guide was wasting no time and Raina could see that the largest chunks
of stone had already gone under the mill. What remained were pieces
no bigger than a man's head, and even these had been sorted and were
lying in a separate pile close to the millstone. Stannig would be
grinding at dawn. A charge of anger ran down Raina's spine. How could
Merritt Ganlow not see what this man was about? Snapping her head
once, as if to shake off some unpleasant insect that had alighted
upon it, Raina approached the remains. She had thought, wrongly, that
it might be difficult to tell Hailstone from roundhouse stone; the
explosion had blasted and commingled both types of rock. Yet there
was no mistaking guidestone. If she was ever asked what the
differences were, she would not be able to provide an answer that
would satisfy anyone other than a clansman. It was guidestone. It was
different.

She picked the largest piece, how could she not?
And struggled to lift sixty pounds of dead weight to her chest. She
had not thought to bring a saddlebag or pack, and had only her shawl
to conceal the stone. Now that she no longer had fine chambers to
call her own she slept in one of the dry cells beneath the kitchen
that Anwyn used for storing herbs. She took the stone there, walking
around the exterior of the roundhouse and not through it. When she
rapped on the kitchen door Anwyn answered. The clan matron did not
know what Raina carried and did not ask.

Later Anwyn brought her supper, hot onion soup and
a wedge of fried bread, and nodded briskly at Raina's request for
white spirits and a shoulder pack sturdy enough to carry a small
child.

Something had already begun to change for Raina
that night, but when she poured white spirits onto a soft rag and
began to polish the largest remaining piece of Hailstone, she finally
realized what it meant. This was no longer about spiting Stannig
Beade and thwarting his plans. This was about Blackhail. This was
about preserving its heart. Someone someday would need this and when
they did, Raina Blackhail could tell them where to find it.

Crouching amid the flickering shadows of Yarro
Blackhail's hidden strongroom, Raina Blackhail slipped the Hailstone
from its bag. It was an edge piece from the exterior of the stone and
the old chisel lines were still upon it. Raina thought of Inigar
Stoop; his body had never been found. Would he be glad she was doing
this?

I do not know.

Glancing around the small rectangular-shaped room,
Raina wondered where to stow the stone. Over in one corner, perched
atop a wooden market crate, were the items she had taken after
Dagro's death. Small things, tokens for herself; gifts of modest
jewels he had given her, his personal handknife, his belt buckle, a
letter Norala, Dagro's first wife, had written to them both before
her death. Raina had not been able to bear the thought that Mace
Blackhail might claim them as his own, so she had removed them from
her chambers and his gaze. Once he had asked her quite pointedly
about Dagro's handknife, for it was well made and handsome with a
translucent ivory handle and double-edged blade. She had told him
that Dagro must have taken it with him to the Badlands for she hadn't
seen it in over a month. She had been new to deception then and it
had been a very bad lie. He never challenged her on it: any mention
of the Badlands left him cold.

Mace had been gone five days now, riding for
Ganmiddich with a thousand men. Tomorrow a second thousand would
leave with Grim Shank at their head.

Realizing she needed to attend the departing
warriors, Raina made a quick decision about the stone. She would
leave it in the far corner, uncovered, and in full sight. To slide it
back in the pack and conceal it would only draw attention to it if it
were found. This way it would just be a wayward chunk of stone. She
doubted very much that any Scarpeman besides Stannig Beade would be
capable of recognizing it as Hailstone. But a Hailsman or Hailswoman
would know it, and that was perhaps enough.

The wedge-shaped piece of Hailstone fitted
perfectly in the corner and to Raina it seemed as if it were drawing
shadows around itself, for when she stepped back she could no longer
see it clearly. It had become part of the foundation, a slightly
irregular chunk in the wall. She had thought she might speak a prayer
but now that it came to it she had none to offer. The Stone Gods
either knew what she did, or didn't. They either judged it right or
wrong. No poorly worded prayer would change that.

Scooping up the shoulder pack and the safelamp,
Raina crossed to the entry portal. The stone tile was easier to set
in motion from inside for a small depression cut into the face
provided traction for the fingers. Within seconds Raina was back in
the foundation space, once again knee-deep in water. Freed from the
weight of the stone she felt oddly light and miscalculated the force
needed to walk. The water sloshed a lot and twice she nearly tipped
over. Drunk she decided. Alcohol optional. Now she came to think of
it though, a good strong dram of Anwyn's twenty-year malt would be
just the thing. Her nerves deserved it.

Reaching the narrow gap between stone pillars that
led up toward the living spaces, Raina let down her skirts. It
wouldn't do for a chief's wife to be seen baring her thighs. It
wouldn't do for her to be seen down here at all, but once she reached
the upper cellars where the dry cells were located she was in the
clear. "Just checking on the butter stores for Anwyn" would
do it, either that or "Longhead's still worried about flooding,
and I thought I'd take a look at it for myself."

When she reached the stairs she sat, pulled off
her boots and drained the water. Her toes were white and wrinkled.
The boots were drenched and would need to be carefully stretched as
they dried. Once they were back on her feet she ran up the stairs and
along the landing, the safelamp swinging giddily in her hand. One
more flight of stairs to go and she'd be aboveground in the land of
the living.

"Woman."

She spun in the direction of the voice. Along the
corridor all was shadow. The person who spoke did not carry a light.

Stannig Beade stepped into the halo created by
Raina's lamp. As always she was surprised that he was a clan guide,
for he had the shoulder breadth and muscle of a hatchetman. He was
wearing his ceremonial cloak, the black boarskin burned ragged at the
hem. His tattooed and needle-pocked cheeks trapped the lamplight and
gave you nowhere to look save his eyes.

"Stannig." Raina was pleased with how
strong her voice sounded. Resisting the urge to draw the shoulder
pack behind her skirts she said, "If you will excuse me I have
work to do in the stables. Good day." She turned her back on him
and nearly got away, but he stopped her with a question.

"Did you fall?" He waited until she had
turned back to face him before dropping his gaze to her sopping
skirts.

She shrugged. "Work."

He let the silence spin out, breathing
possessively, claiming the air between them. "I see." His
hands twitched. Raina could see the stone dust wedged beneath his
fingernails. "I have been looking for you. Someone said they had
seen you slip belowground at noon." He paused, letting her know
that it was now a long time after noon. "I had not thought to
find you here."

"Yet still you looked." It was a mistake
to challenge him and she wished she could take it back.

Again his hands twitched. "I believe you are
unhappy with the removal of the Hailstone."

Merritt Ganlow. Raina could hardly fathom it. She
and Merritt had been friends for twenty years; their husbands had
shared a tent the day they died. How could Merritt do this? How could
she talk to this man about their private conversations?

Stannig Beade watched Raina compose herself, his
expression fixed, his dark eyes gleaming with animal triumph.

Raina took a deep breath. Think, she told herself.
Think. "I have some concerns, I will not hide that. To grind the
stone to nothing and dump it in the lake seems . . . unceremonious."

Stannig Bead brought a hand to his face and tapped
his chin. "Unceremonious," he repeated, giving the word a
sharp little twist. "A chief's wife concerned with matters of
the gods . . . how . . . unusual."

Raina felt her face grow hot.

It appeared to be the outcome he was hoping for,
as he nodded once, to himself. "Seems I have chosen the right
person after all."

She would not give him the satisfaction of asking
what he meant. Stomach sinking, skirts dripping water onto the floor,
she waited.