A Sword From Red Ice (66 page)

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. She knew then that the news was bad. His voice was
soft and shocked. A fleck of spittle lay on his bottom lip. Crossing
over to him, Raina held out her hand. Orwin Shank had lost three
sons. Bitty, Chad, and Jorry. Please Gods may he lose no more. The
aging hatchetman did not register Raina's hand on his arm. He was
shaking and his flesh felt cool. The big silver belt buckle he always
wore polished and gleaming was stamped with fingerprints.

Quickly, Raina noted who was here. Corbie Meese,
ancient and one-armed Gat Murdock, Brog Widdie, the master smith who
had once been a Dhoonesman, Ullic Scarpe, brother to Uriah and nephew
to the Scarpe chief, Wracker Fox, also Scarpe, and Stannig Beade.
Other men hovered in small groups around them, hands swinging in
loose fists, gazes darting between Corbie Meese, Raina and Stannig
Beade.

The clan guide was dressed in sparrow skins and
black leathers and he wore a thick silver torc at his throat. The pig
hides were gone. He spoke her name and it did not sound like a
greeting.

She ignored him. "What has happened?"
she asked Corbie Meese.

The big hammerman with the dent in his head
glanced once at the guide before speaking. "The Spire army took
Ganmiddich. Then they themselves were routed by Bludd. Between the
two attacks every Hailsman at the Crab Gate was lost."

No. Cold prickles passed up her legs to her womb
and stomach. Mull Shank. The Lowdraw. Rory Cleet. Bullhammer? Had
Bullhammer been there? Dozens more.

Drey Sevrance.

Raina Blackhail held herself very still. She was
no longer touching Orwin Shank. All were watching her. She could feel
the blood behind her eyes. "Where is Mace?"

"He camps on Bannen Field with the two
thousand and plans to retake what has been lost."

She told herself she was not disappointed that her
husband was still alive. "And the Crabmen?"

"No survivors. The Crab chief is dead."

Crab Ganmiddich gone. "Who is the new chief?"

Stannig Beade sucked in air with a small hiss. As
if driven to scorn by such trivial questions he told her, "The
new chief is also named Crab."

She had a choice then for she could have fired
back, Do not tell me what I already know. Who was this man before he
declared himself chief and took the name Crab? Instead she thought of
the dead clansmen, and gave them her silence and respect.

The silence passed from her, breathed out with her
breath like Longhead's drowsy smoke, and passed from man to man to
man. Within seconds everyone on the greatcourt fell quiet and the
silence passed through the greatdoor and into the house. People
milling in the entrance hall stilled. Stannig Beade watched this
happen, his eyes cold and flat.

He is my enemy, Raina understood then. And in some
ways he was worse than Mace. At least her husband did not covet the
power she held in Blackhail's house. Mace was warrior and chief—let
his wife take care of matters of home and hearth. Stannig Beade was
different. He could not rule men in fields of battle. His power
existed only in the confines of clan walls, and that put him and
Raina at odds.

She saw all this in the silence, and then let it
drain away. It would snow again, she decided, glancing at the clouds.
Let it snow.

Drey Sevrance dead. He had brought her Dagro's
last token, the brown-bear pelt Dagro had been skinning when he died.
"Lady," Drey had said, standing at the door of her private
chambers, "I have finished it for you." In all the days of
horror that followed, that act of chivalry had stayed with her. In
the long dark night after the Oldwood she had clutched the bearskin
to her breast and belly, lost. If she had not had the skin for
comfort she might have passed beyond lost, to the place where
insensibility and insanity waited to trap your mind. Since then Drey
had brought her small tokens every time he returned to the
roundhouse, little things he'd won or bartered; a pebble of amber
fine enough to be drilled for a pendant, a pair of mink skins that
could be cut for gloves, an embroidered noseband for Mercy. Drey
Sevrance had handed these gifts to her without words or ceremony, and
she had understood that to him she represented something worth
returning to in clan.

Raina inhaled deeply, drawing back the silence she
had spun. "Orwin," she said. "Come into the house."

With a light touch she guided him round. His
swollen, arthritic fingers grasped her dress sleeve, pinching the
skin beneath, but she did not think he was aware of it. Nor did she
mind the pain. Corbie Meese stepped from the group, meaning to follow
them, but Stannig Beade halted him with a question. "What of the
women and children of Ganmiddich?"

Raina felt the words like stones flung against her
back. Here is the question you should have asked, chief's wife. Shame
on you for not inquiring about the innocents.

Corbie replied that most of the women and children
had been transferred to either Bannen or Croser. Few had been at the
Crab Gate on the day of the attacks.

Raina listened until she moved beyond earshot.
Orwin's fingers continued pinching her arm as she led him into the
roundhouse. Anwyn Bird was there, waiting at the foot of the stairs,
and Raina found herself so happy to see her plain yet pleasing face
that idiotic tears sprang to her eyes.

"Hush now," Anwyn said to both Orwin and
Raina as she approached. And though neither of them was making a
sound they understood what the clan matron meant. I will care for
you.

The three of them climbed the broad stone steps to
the greathearth and passed beneath the granite doorway. Sworn
clansmen stood to attention as they entered the great circular space
of the warriors' hall. "Put more logs on the fire," Anwyn
commanded, and three men sprang into action to do her bidding. One of
them was a Scarpe, Raina noticed. A young man whose hair had that
greenish tint to it that meant Scarpe's black dyes were fading.

Anwyn pointed and nodded with force, and things
were done. Blankets were brought, her twenty-year malt rushed up from
the still-room, Jebb Onnacre, Orwin's son-in-law, sent for. Men who
had no relation by friendship or kin to Orwin Shank were dismissed.
Soon the room was warm and peopled only with Hailsmen and Hailswomen.
The vast, vaulted space with its stone benches arranged in concentric
circles and its horse-size central hearth had probably never known so
few to stand within its walls. Berta Shank, Orwin's only surviving
daughter, sat next to her father and Anwyn wrapped a single blanket
around both of them. Orwin was numb. He had not said a word since
he'd spoken Raina's name on the greatcourt. When Anwyn handed him a
dram of malt he took it from her but did not drink. Raina sat next to
Jebb. Her arm was smarting and she knew she would have an ugly bruise
by morning.

"Here," Anwyn said, passing her a wooden
thumb cup filled with malt. "Drink."

Raina did, throwing the golden liquid to the back
of her throat in a motion that would normally have the clan matron up
in arms. You did not gulp a twenty-year malt. You sipped and savored.
Raina enjoyed the burn as the hard liquor slid down to her gut.

Drey Sevrance dead.

She watched the fire. All in the room were quiet
now, their movements subdued. One of the double doors opened and
Corbie Meese stepped in. Quickly assessing the mood, he found himself
a seat, not close to but within sight of Orwin Shank, and settled
down for a long stay. Gat Murdock came next, and although Raina had
never felt much affection for the crotchety old swordsman, she could
not fault him this day. Silently and without fuss he chose a seat
near the back. Others came, Hailsmen and Hailswomen, and over the
course of the next hour those who had at first been exiled from the
greathearth were allowed back.

Raina felt moved by a strong and invisible force.
Goodness, she decided later. Everyone watched the fire. Anwyn moved
between the benches like a nurse bringing blankets and water and
malt. No one wept, though many had taken losses. It was understood
that Orwin Shank's loss was the greatest and respect was paid by
minding his expression and his silence. Even the bairns who were
allowed in later upheld the quiet of the hearth.

How long they sat and mourned as a clan was hard
to say. The fire was kept stoked and there were no windows in the
greathearth to let in light. When Raina felt someone sit next to her
on the opposite side of the bench from Jebb Onnacre, she glanced
around, prepared to give a silent nod of greeting. She expected the
mourning to continue into night and to be present until its end.

Sitting next to her was Jani Gaylo. "The
guide wants to see you," she whispered. "He awaits you in
the chief's chamber."

The parts of herself that had been buoyed by the
dignity shown by her fellow clansmen sank and Raina stared at the
girl coolly. She stood. Motioning to Anwyn that she was fine and
nothing was amiss, Raina Blackhail took leave of the greathearth.
Jani Gaylo, dressed in pretty orange and blue plaid, followed her
from the room.

"Do not," Raina warned the moment the
door was closed behind them, "make the mistake of accompanying
me to the chief's chamber."

The girl actually took a step back. "Yes,
lady," she mumbled, as Raina turned and left her standing at the
top of the stairs. The wall torches had been lit and the greatdoor
was closed. All was quiet in the entrance hall and the few Scarpe
warriors who were standing in groups, drinking ale, averted their
gazes in something approaching respect as she passed. They must have
lost men, too, she realized. It made her wonder where Blackhail's and
Scarpe's armies stood this night. Did they intend to retake the Crab
Gate? Were they bivouacked in one of the spruce forests northeast of
Ganmiddich, hunkered down in three-foot snow?

The narrow steps leading to the chief's chamber
had been freshly swept of cobwebs and dust, and Longhead or one of
his crew had actually installed a wooden handrail along the tricky
part where the steps buckled forward. Raina abstained from using it.
She had not been here in several months and did not want to be here
now.

The door was ajar and she did not knock, simply
pushed it back and entered the chamber. Stannig Beade sat behind the
big chunk of granite known as the Chief's Cairn, studying a chart. A
mat covered with blankets lay close to the far wall, and Raina
realized with a shock that he was now sleeping here.

Beade rolled up the scroll as she moved forward,
but her eyes were quicker than his hands and she saw it was a map of
Blackhail and its bordering clans.

"Welcome," he said, pushing aside the
scroll.

He must have trained for the hammer in his youth,
Raina decided, for his shoulders were powerful and two big muscles
sloped down from his neck. The tattoos across his eyelids had healed,
but whoever had punctured them had done a hasty job and the
pigment-filled holes looked like bird tracks.

"You know why I have summoned you?"

She could not begin to guess. "What do you
want?"

He stood and crossed over to the sole lamp in the
small oval chamber and rolled back the wick. Light decreased. "Your
behavior in this clan does not befit a chief's wife. People have
noted your forwardness and brought it to my attention. Raina
Blackhail overreaches herself, they say. She makes decisions she has
no right to make. I have tried to let it pass, if you had attended me
at noon as I requested I would simply have reminded you of your
place. But after the scandal you created on the greatcourt I must
take action. I am guide, and my responsibility is to the well-being
of this clan. As Blackhail's armies are away, I have arranged for
those newly housed in the widows' wall to move into quarters vacated
by sworn clansmen. This will leave the widows' hearth free once more
for the widows. After you leave my chamber you will move your
belongings there, and from this night forth restrict your activities
to caring for the bereaved and the sick."

"How dare you."

Stannig Beade responded to the ice in her voice by
moving closer. "Never interrupt a warriors' private parley
again."

"You are no warrior."

The blow was so hard and shocking Raina stumbled
backward. She lost a second of consciousness, and found herself
crumpled by the door.

Stannig Beade was standing over her, breathing
hard. He drew back his hand to strike her again, but the sound of
footsteps bounding down the stairway halted him in his tracks.

The high, girlish voice of Jani Gaylo called out,
"Did Her High-and-mightyness come? I gave her your message but
you know what a bitch she is."

"Get up" Stannig Beade hissed at Raina.
And then to Jani Gaylo, who had just rounded the corner, "Raina
is overcome with grief, help her to her feet."

The girl's red eyebrows went up and her cheeks
turned pink. She stood for a moment, taking in the scene of the
chief's wife on the floor with her skirts and braid in disarray, and
then dashed forward to help. "Lady, I—"

"Hush," Raina told her, looking into
Stannig Beade's cold glittering eyes. "I can help myself."

They watched as she rose to her feet. Shaking and
with the imprint of Beade's open hand flaring on the side of her
face, Raina fled.

Three Men and a Pig

The river was named the Mouseweed and it flowed
between gorges and through brush-choked valleys in the Bitter Hills
and Stone Hills. Herons fished in its shallows and moose picked paths
along its gravel banks as they came to eat tender water weeds and
drink. Bears patrolled the shores, and cracked open the overnight ice
on beaver ponds in search of sluggish fish.