A Sword From Red Ice (89 page)

Stannig Beade was growing bold. So where did that
leave Raina Blackhail? Three people had been in the widows' wall that
day. Two were dead. Sworn clansmen were distracted and tense: a
whisper could make them draw a sword. For the first time Raina could
remember, the clan door was shut to tied clansmen. Those who were
already within the house were permitted to remain under its
protection, but those farmers, miners, loggers, trappers, dairymen,
tradesmen, cotters, charcoal-burners, weavers, tanners and millers
who applied at the door for safekeeping—as was their right as
men and women making their living within the Hailhold—were
turned away.

Dagro Blackhail would no longer have recognized
his clan.

Or his wife.

Raina stood for a moment at the foot of the great
stone staircase and wondered what to do with herself. The Hailhouse
was half empty now. Anwyn Bird's funeral rites had pulled hundreds
away. Her absence could be felt in dozens of large and small ways.
Smoke-blackened cobwebs were collecting in the corners of the hall.
The scant torches that were lit had been improperly dried and dipped
and were giving off more smolder than light. A sour and greasy smell
was wafting from the kitchen; the hearths had not been raked in days.
The list could go on, but Raina no longer saw the point of
cataloguing the decline in Blackhail's house. Who was left to mind
it? Anwyn was no longer here to stand stubbornly against the chaos.
Merritt Ganlow might have a go, but she was all sharp edges and would
rub people the wrong way. Anwyn Bird had been a block.

Oh gods, Anny. Raina breathed in the smoky air and
felt the tar settle in her lungs. A Scarpeman sitting above her on
one of the steps was taking a breakfast of headcheese and rye bread.
He had a chunk of brain-and-tongue loaf and was chipping off pieces
with his handknife and popping them in his mouth. His eyes had the
yellowish tint of many Scarpes. Chewing and swallowing he watched
Raina, daring her to move him. Six days ago when Anwyn was alive he
would not have been allowed to block the way to the greathearth, let
alone eat on the stairs. The old Raina would have been incensed, but
would not have risked the potential humiliation that might occur if
she made an aggressive move toward a man. The new Raina didn't care
either way. If she'd had the will to stop him she would have marched
up the stairs and snatched the headcheese right from his hand and
slapped it into his face.

The old Raina had worried too much about what
people thought of her. She had wanted to be liked as well as
respected. Her mistake was in believing that if she worked hard
enough at being a good chief's wife she would eventually make a good
chief.

Chief's wife was not the same as chief. That fact
was so clear to the new Raina she wondered how it was possible she
could ever have believed anything else. The evidence was there—look
at Mace Blackhail, Robbie Dun Dhoone, and the Dog Lord. You didn't
rule a roundhouse by being nice. The Stone Gods were gods of war. Not
gods of hearth and home.

The old Raina had supported the clan, but never
once thought to lead it. I will be chief. The words could have been
spoken by a child, so little understanding lay behind them. Anwyn had
tried to push her; once that day on the balcony as they'd watched the
Scarpestone roll in from Scarpe, and once in the widows' wall on the
day that Anwyn had died. And she, Raina Blackhail, had not allowed
herself to be pushed.

Always cautious. Always wary of her standing in
the clan.

Her caution had killed Anwyn Bird. I will be
lessened, she had cried when Anwyn had tried to force her into
speaking up against Stannig Beade. She must have had a hole in her
head.

There were no holes there now, but she was not
sure what she was left with. She remembered going to see Laida Moon
in the sickroom while the healer was preparing Anwyn's corpse. Laida
had been holding a glass tube full of mercury in her fist. The metal
pooled and rolled as they spoke, forming shiny beads that rolled from
one end of the flask to the other. When Laida set it down to fetch a
jug of water, it had taken less than ten seconds for the metal to
harden into a dull lump. The room had to be cold, Laida had explained
to Raina later, so the body would not soften and corrupt. The mercury
existed in an uncertain state between liquid and solid, and the
difference in temperature between her hand and the old air was
sufficient to flash between them.

That was how Raina felt, standing by the foot of
the staircase: in an uncertain form between two states. Liable to
soften into hysterics one moment and harden into anger and contempt
the next.

She had not slept through the night in six days.
How could she? Every floorboard creaking in the night might be
Stannig Beade come to kill her. She was the only one left who knew
what he was. The only one in the clan who understood how very little
Blackhail's guide cared about the gods.

For six nights she had slept in the widows' wall
with Merritt Ganlow, Hatty Hare, Biddie Byce and a half-dozen other
widows who had come together to reestablish the hearth after the
Scarpes had left.. Safety in numbers, Raina supposed. Yet she did not
feel safe. And she barely slept.

When you do not sleep eventually you do not eat.
Appetite had left her and she could not recall the last time she had
eaten a proper meal. Yesterday morning she had taken a little milk in
honey offered to her by young Biddie Byce. Biddie was a quiet and
gentle girl, yet quite capable of perceiving the changes in the
chiefs wife. She was afraid of what it meant to herself and her clan,
Raina realized as their fingertips had touched over the milk cup.

She had reason to be.

Uncertain what to do, Raina left the entry hall
and headed for the kitchens. As she passed the doorway leading to the
east hall, her maiden's helper stirred against her hip. Ignoring it
she entered the cavernous space of the main kitchen. Not much was
being done. Two Scarpewomen were skinning a freshly trapped rabbit on
the kneading table. The older woman had pinned its skull to the wood
with her knife while the younger one flensed the legs. Blood was
soaking into the highly polished hickory surface. Poor Anwyn. Six
days dead and Scarpes were not only using her kitchen, they were
bloodying her bread table.

Borrie Sweed, the broom boy, was sweeping spilled
flour halfheartedly across the floor. He looked up when Raina
entered, his expression hopeful, but she passed him by without
greeting. She had an idea that she might simply sleep. Stannig Beade
would be gone for several hours. Anwyn's bying would take time and he
would not dare dishonor her memory by returning from the Wedge
ahorse. No. He would have to walk with the rest of them. Anything
less would be unseemly.That Would give her two or three hours where
she could be sure she was safe. But where to go? The widows' wall
would be too empty and exposed. The greathearth was open to sworn
Scarpemen. Anywhere aboveground seemed unsafe. She would go to the
underlevels, rest in the peace and darkness beneath the Hailhouse,
and see if she could regain her mind. It wasn't much, but at least it
was a decision. And it would stop her having to think about what was
happening to Anwyn's corpse.

Carefully avoiding the area where Anwyn's cell had
been located, Raina grabbed a safelamp and worked her way downstairs.
She smelled dead mice and ripe mud. The air was thick with gases that
were not easy to breathe. The lower she went the wetter the stone
underfoot became, and the deeper the silence. It was soothing to be
in a place so quiet and dark, where she could be sure to meet nothing
except mice and cellar rats. She felt the weight of her exhaustion
pressing against her shoulders and kneecaps. She could tell from the
trembling of the light that she must be shaking. Perhaps she should
have brought a blanket, for it was icily cold, and she had nothing
except her mohair shawl to keep out the chill. Longhead had once told
her that the farther you went underground the warmer it became. She
would go deep then, perhaps even as far as the secret room where she
had hidden the last remaining chunk of Hailstone.

Yes, she would go there. It would be still and
safe, and the few belongings of Dagro's that she had kept for her own
were there as well. To touch them would be good.

The journey was much easier this time as she had
no sixty-pound weight on her back. Within hardly any time at all she
found herself crouching in the low-ceilinged foundation space. It was
a short journey then, past support columns, drain walls, sealed
wellheads and ancient dungeons to the T-junction where she needed to
turn.

The standing water was a foot deep here and Raina
hiked up her skirts and grimaced as cool, gelid liquid flooded over
the tops of her boots. Luckily, Yarro Blackhails strongroom had been
built a half-level higher than the corridor, and when she slid back
the stone tile that concealed the entrance she was pleased to see dry
ground below her. Feeling a spike of girlish energy, she vaulted
through the opening.

The Hailstone stood here. She could feel its
presence straightaway. Hie gods no longer lived there and the small
chunk of granite retained no power, but some residue remained. It
charged the space in the strongroom, lightly, almost imperceptibly
pulsing the air. Raina looked, but did not approach it. It stood in
the corner, a dull stone placed against a wall of dull stone. No dust
had settled upon it and no spider had dared use it to anchor a web.
The old Raina had had some jaw, she realized. To steal the stone:
that took balls.

Quite suddenly she was too tired to think. Pulling
off her boots, she glanced about for a place to sleep. Yarro
Blackhail had built his small square strongroom to house treasure,
not people, and beside the single market crate which she had brought
here herself many months earlier there was nothing to interrupt the
hardness of the stone floor. At least it was dry.

Raina lay down, bundled her shawl into a pillow,
and fell into an exhausted asleep.

She dreamed of the gods. With the empty shell they
had lived in less than ten feet away from her head Aow could she not?

When she awoke she knew what she must do.

The flame in the safelamp was guttering, and she
worried about the time. How long had she been asleep? How much oil
had the lamp reservoir contained when she first picked it up from the
shelf by the kitchen stair? Had it been full? Or half empty? Stiff
and muddy-headed, she found she could not be sure. All was quiet.
Quickly she rose and stepped into her boots. The leather felt like
pulp. Her dress was soggy around the hem and didn't smell good. She
crossed to the tile entrance, placed an open hand on the indents in
the stone and drew it back. Just as she swung a foot up to climb out,
she thought about Dagro's belonging on the crate. Planting the foot
back on the ground, she hesitated.

The light in the lamp could go out any moment. The
oil in the reservoir was gone. A tremor of panic passed along her
spine, and in defiance of it, or perhaps because of it, she turned
back in to the room. The few items she had secreted after her
husband's death lay on the top of the balsa-wood crate, gathering
dust. Raina brushed her fingers over the tops of them, touching them
one by one. She took what she needed and left.

She was going to have to kill Stannig Beade.

The price of regaining her peace of mind was his
death.

The price of avenging Anwyn's murder was his
death.

The price of becoming Hail chief was his death.

This time she did not bother to hike up her
skirts. She had no idea what time it was and uncertainty made her
hurry. Water sloshed at her feet, rippling ahead of her every step.
Light do not go out, she told the lamp. The flame had shrunk to a
small tooth of red. It illuminated a weak circle around her body,
barely touching the walls and the surface of the water. She could
smell decay now. The rot at the heart of the Hailhouse.

Thud.

Raina's head shot sideways to track the noise. She
had just emerged from the foundation space and had climbed the
half-stair to the lower cellar level. The sound had come from a
corridor off to her right. Her gaze could not penetrate the
blackness. She extended the lamp, but its light just created a red
corona around the dark. Rat, she told herself, and moved on.

The second flight of steps seemed steeper than she
remembered them and the weight of water in her dress dragged against
her. Sections of the second, middle, level of the cellars were open
to the space above and Raina realized she was missing the feint pools
of diffused light that would filter down in daylight. It was after
dark. She had slept in the strongroom all day.

Well and good. He would be back by now, and it did
not take a scholar to guess where he would head once the business of
settling the clan was done. Stannig Beade was growing bold in his use
of this house. Raina turned from her usual path, entering a section
of the underworld she had never entered before this night. Then I
will have to grow bolder. And this is my house. Not his.

Strange, but the air was different here beneath
the western quadrangle. Not fresher exactly, but moving. It skimmed
over the surface of the standing water, raising ripples and creating
a scum of foam. The corridors narrowed, and Raina hunched her
shoulders and drew her free arm close to her body. According to Effie
this section had been dug at a later date than the others. Raina
guessed the girl was right. The edges of the stone blocks were sharp
and still square, and the mortar between them was visible as a
network of pale lines. Which chief had ordered this excavation? she
wondered. Which one had been worried about his head?

Raina climbed a short flight of stairs, took a
right turn, and then ascended a ramp. She was moving quickly now. The
standing water was gone, and the drenched hem of her skirt slapped
against the ramp.