CHAPTER 3
Do
and Be Damned
STANNIG BEADE LEFT
the Hailhold in the same cart he’d arrived in, a six-axle
wheelhouse with walls of poison pine. He was dressed in the same
narrow-shouldered robe of polished pigskin collared with mink and
shod in the same nailhead boots. His hair and beard had been
freshly dyed, his nails clipped, and his skin unctioned with resin
harvested from thousand-year pines that grew in Scarpe’s Armored
Grove. His ceremonial chisel was mounted in his right fist, and it
was a testament to Blackhail’s wire-pullers that you had to look
very closely to see the steel thread holding the fingers in place.
No such subtlety marked the stitching of his wounds. Thick black
sutures tracked the length of his throat, disappearing beneath the
glossy mink collar, cinching hardened crusts of skin.
Raina Blackhail was
relieved to see the last of them. As she stood on the paved court
at the front of Blackhail’s roundhouse and watched the team of
horses pull the wheelhouse south, she prayed they wouldn’t
stop.
Go, she wished.
All the days of
living with fear.
Go.
Sunlight flickered in
and out of existence as bands of clouds passed overhead. It was
close to midday; two hours later than planned. There’d been a
problem with the wheelhouse—one of the rear axles had required
remounting—and repair had caused delay. Raina had not known what to
do with herself during those hours. She could not sit and wait.
Walk? Ride? How could you go about your life when you feared being
discovered for a murderer? In the end she had worked, taking
herself off to the cattle shed to assist the spring calving. It was
hard, bloody work and it had helped. A distressed cow in labor
required one’s full attention. Two calves had been born, but only
one had stood and suckled. Raina and the head dairyman, Vern
Satchell, had been been lifting the second calf to encourage it to
stand when the call had come from court.
“All ready with the
wheel house.”
Raina had left the
sick calf to Vern Satchell and now she was here, outside the
Hailhouse, watching the wagon lurch into motion. Orwin Shank,
Corbie Meese, Gat Murdock, Merritt Ganlow, Sheela Cobbin and other
senior clansmen and clanswomen formed a silent company at her back.
Scarpes were out in force. The dead man, Stannig Beade, had been
their guide for seven years and respect was due. Scarpes in full
mourning were a strange and unlovely sight. Over three hundred men,
women and children had dyed their left hands black. Arranging
themselves in single file around the great paved court of Blackhail
they swayed from side to side as they named the Stone Gods out of
order.
It was chilling to
hear Behathmus, the god of darkness, named first.
They have not finished harming us, Raina realized
as she watched them. All, even children, were armed with knives and
lean-bladed swords. Their roundhouse had burned to the ground.
Their chief had plundered her own clanhold, seizing livestock and
grain from tied clansmen and distributing the spoils amongst her
favorites. Now their guide was dead—killed, rumor had it, by a
Hailsman.
Or
Hailswoman.
Raina forced herself
not to react. She was getting good at that. Harder. Cooler. Less
like herself. More like a chief.
Rumors had infested
the roundhouse like mice; squeaks here, a trail of droppings there.
Ten days ago at dawn Stannig Beade had been found dead in the
chief’s chamber. That was fact. Everything else was up for grabs.
Mutilated, the rumors went, drained of blood, decapitated, his
heart carved clean from his chest. Cowlmen, Hailsfolk said. Anwyn Bird and Jani Gaylo
had already been taken by them. In this very house. It had to be a
trained assassin from an enemy clan. Who else?
One of your own, countered the Scarpes. Beade kept
his chamber door bolted while he slept. He opened it only for those
he knew and trusted. And then there were the bloody footprints
leading up the stairs from Beade’s chamber. The killer had been
barefooted, and small if he were indeed a man.
Raina had kept her
mouth shut and her eyes averted. She found manual labor during the
day and kept company with the widows by night. Even bone tired she
could not sleep. Leaving the chief’s chamber that night, after
killing him, she had been filled with a sense of her own power. It
hadn’t been enough to take Beade’s life, she was going to destroy
the monstrosity of a guidestone he’d hauled here in that very
wheelhouse from Scarpe.
Something had
happened to her as she climbed the stairs from the chief’s chamber,
though, and her thoughts had turned to self-preservation. She could
feel Beade’s blood drying to a sticky paste against her legs.
Footsteps sounded as she reached the top of the stairs, and her
heart jumped. Light was filtering into the entrance hall and she
could hear the clan awakening. Soon warriors would come and push
back the door, luntmen would begin snuffing lamps, kitchen boys
would fuel the bread ovens and children would run down the
halls.
Scarpes would stir
right along with them. One of the many silly girls who worshipped
Beade would bring the guide a breakfast of warm milk and fried
bread. In all likelihood she would be the one who’d find him dead,
and if Raina wasn’t careful the girl would also find the person who
killed him standing at the top of the stairs with bloody feet.
Raina hurried. Slipping through the roundhouse’s shadows, she made
her way to her chamber beneath the kitchens. Once there she had
stripped and cleaned herself with a wet rag, and then slept until
she was awakened two hours later with the word of Beade’s death.
Orwin Shank broke the news and quietly returned the
knife.
Raina regretted
leaving the guidestone intact. From her position on the court she
could view it; the halved monolith that had once belonged to
Scarpe. Thick seams of bitumen made it weak, and its newly exposed
face was already eroding. When Beade was alive he’d directed it to
be covered when it rained and snowed. No one bothered now. Birds
shit on it and bitumen leached from the granite, staining it black.
As Raina watched, a raven landed on its west corner and
goose-stepped along the top. The guidestone was a worthless hunk of
earth, and Hailsmen knew it. In the cold spring sunlight it looked
like an abandoned shack.
Raina returned her
attention to the departing wheelhouse. The wagon had cleared the
court and was now on the dirt road heading south. Dust smoking from
beneath the wheels soon obscured it from view. Raina took a deep
breath and then another one. It was foolish she knew, but she had
convinced herself that once Beade’s body was gone from the Hailhold
she would she be safe. Out of sight, out of mind.
We are Scarpe. Our tongues cut as deeply as our swords.
Wrong us and you will feel the swift lash of both. The
Scarpe boast. Raina had always thought it a nasty set of
words.
Raina studied the
Scarpemen and women. They stared back with dislike. It was no
secret that the chief’s wife barely tolerated their presence in the
Hailhouse, and with Beade, their biggest champion, gone, they were
vulnerable. Scarpes had made themselves cozy in the Hailhouse. They
were well fed by Hail farmers and cooks, and protected from the
cold by the roundhouse’s nine-foot-thick walls. Return to the
Scarpehold and they would be forced to find food and shelter for
themselves. Yelma Scarpe, the Scarpe chief, ran a lean clan. She
offered little incentive for refugees to return home.
And she’s coming here, Raina reminded herself. What
had Longhead said? She will travel when the snow clears? Raina
looked from the dry pavestones at her feet to the increasingly blue
sky. A woman can always
hope.
“Warriors
returning!”
The cry came from
lookouts stationed on the great domed roof of the round house.
Everyone who heard it looked to the southern horizon. The Scarpe
mourners continued wailing and swaying, but their postures became
alert.
“Five,” said the
hammerman, Corbie Meese. At over six feet tall he saw farther than
most. “I think Ballic’s among them.”
Unable to help
herself, Raina asked, “And Mace?”
It was a long three
second before Corbie said, “No.”
Raina exhaled. Quite
suddenly her nerves could no longer stand the sound of wailing
Scarpes. “Empty the court!” she cried. “All inside.”
For a wonder they
actually shut up. Unarmed Hailsfolk began to make their way
indoors. They knew and respected the custom of warriors greeting
warriors. At first the Scarpes hesitated to follow them—they were
keen to see who was arriving—but the Hailsfolk left them little
choice. Herded was the word for it.
Hailsfolk herded Scarpefolk into the house.
No one, not Corbie or
Orwin Shank, made a move to herd Raina Blackhail. Glancing over one
shoulder and then the other at the remaining warriors, Raina
realized they were arranging themselves in formal ranking around
her. Orwin, acting chief of the roundhouse and senior warrior, did
not shift from his position at her right hand. Orwin’s
brother-in-law Mads Basko, hero of the River Wars, took up position
on her left.
Raina took a breath,
raised her chin. It was possible, she realized, to feel relief and
apprehension at exactly the same time.
The returning
warriors rode through dust raised by the wheelhouse. As Corbie had
promised, one of the five was the head bowman Ballic the Red. Grim
Shank, Orwin’s eldest was also in the party, together with the
young swordsman Jessie Mure, who had been apprenticed under Shor
Gormalin, and the young hammerman Pog Bramwell. The fifth rider was
a woman. Bareheaded with gleaming chestnut hair fanned out across
her shoulders, she attracted the gazes of the men. Her mount was a
full-grown stallion, dock-tailed, and discreetly trapped in gray
suede. As she drew closer, her facial features came into view.
Pretty was not a word you could use for
her. Her cheekbones stopped sunlight from reaching her lower face
and her chin was strong like a man’s.
Raina could not tell
if she was clan. Certainly the woman knew how to hold herself in
the saddle, knew also her formal place in a party of four sworn
clansmen: middle rear. Raina could feel the warriors’ interest.
Glorious hair, skill at horse: Here was a woman Hailsmen could
admire.
“Welcome,” Raina
called, as the party slowed to a halt on the court.
Ballic the Red bowed
his small neat head and dismounted. As was proper, the remaining
three clansmen followed his lead. The woman regarded Raina boldly,
with interest. Dismounting a beat later than the men, she
demonstrated her recognition of Raina’s status as chief’s wife by
meeting her afoot.
Clan then, Raina
decided. Such subtlety of custom was seldom understood outside the
holds.
“Lady,” Ballic said,
coming forward and grasping her forearms. Hazel eyes accustomed to
spotting and tracking prey over distance inspected Raina. The
bowman’s grip tightened. “I am at your service,
always.”
So he found her
changed. In need of service. Raina nodded a response. Accepting the
greeting of the remaining three warriors she kept her face still.
In the distance, the wheelhouse turned west onto the old clan road,
a black phantom trailing dust.
One Scarpe down. A thousand more to
go.
“Lady. Da.” Grim
Shank broke into her thoughts. The huge fair-haired hammerman had
caught the strange woman’s hand in his own and was bringing her
forward. The woman’s cloak was heavy and very fine. Gray velvet
gleamed like pewter as she moved.
“This is Chella
Gloyal of Clan Croser.” Like all the Shanks, Grim had a ruddy
complexion that burned easily in sun and wind. As he spoke, his
color was so high across his cheeks it looked as if his face might
explode. “My wife.”
Raina glanced at
Orwin. From the expression on the old hatchetman’s face she guessed
this was news for him too. He rallied himself well, though,
stepping forward and catching the woman in his arms. “Daughter,” he
murmured when his mouth was close to her ear.
“Welcome.”
Beaming with relief,
Grim clamped his father and his new wife together in a giant bear
hug. Chella smiled serenely. Her eyes were gray-green and as cool
as a forest lake. As she disentangled herself from the hug, her
gaze found Raina.
“You have surprised
us,” Raina told her.
Chella took the
coolness in her stride. Bowing at the neck, she set her auburn hair
in motion. “Love marches quickly in times of war.”
“Aye,” Grim agreed,
slipping his hand around his wife’s waist. “Wait and your chance
may be lost.”
All the warriors
gathered on the court felt the truth of this statement. Silence
fell. Looking at the bowed heads and ax-bitten hands of her fellow
clansmen, Raina felt a welling of love and respect. My clan. And I must protect them.
It was easy then to
be gracious to the self-composed stranger from Croser. She was a
clanswoman, after all. And it made sense that Hailish warriors,
working in alliance with Croser against Bludd, would come into
contact with Croser maids. Dagro had been a firm believer in the
benefits of unions between clans. “Every marriage is a length of
string,” he had told her once. “Enough of them and we tie a rival
to our side.”
Raina said to Chella,
“Today you are a Hailswoman.”
Sometimes she forgot
her own power. Five words spoken by the chief’s wife were enough to
change the mood from somber to celebratory.
“Aye!” called the
warriors in agreement. Bullhammer came forward and clasped Grim’s
arms in celebration. One-armed Gat Murdock hollered to the round
house for beer. Orwin gave Raina a sweet and noisy kiss on the
cheek. Even the sun stayed out.
Chella smiled and
nodded appropriately, but in no way seemed relieved. Why should
she? Raina thought. Chella had not been worried in the first
place.
As they waited for
the beer to come, Bullhammer began the questioning and the mood
shifted once more.
“Who holds
Ganmiddich?”
“Pengo Bludd,” Ballic
replied. “He repaired the gate and is staying right behind it.
We’ve charged twice and he won’t ride out and meet
us.”
Scathing curses
followed this pronouncement. Sitting tight against a charge was
considered cowardly by men who worshiped the Stone
Gods.
“We didn’a do it,”
Mads Basko said softly, referring to the strike against Ganmiddich
by Spire Vanis. Even outnumbered three to one, Blackhail had ridden
from the Crab Gate to engage the army led by Marafice
Eye.
“It’s worse,” Ballic
said. “When Bludd reached the Crab Gate, the Spire army withdrew so
quickly they left their equipment on the field. Pengo went
prospecting and got himself some siege fire and a
thrower.”
Raina felt out of her
depth. She had never heard of siege fire, though she knew by the
men’s reactions that it was something serious. How can I lead clan when I know nothing of
war?
Learn was the only answer. “What
happened?”
“They didn’t know
what they were doing during the first charge,” Ballic said,
loosening the cloak ties around his throat. “Had the thrower up on
the wall, spewing out black oil. No flames—at least not till some
damn fool set a torch to it. Entire wall goes up. The Bluddsmen
manning the thrower get scorched. A handful of hammermen down below
take harm, then the wind switches and the flames get blown back
into the roundhouse. Charge breaks on the wall and we laugh our way
back to Bannen. Pengo’s no Dog Lord. He’s not the brightest lamp in
the hall.
“Six days later we
mount a second attack, thinking that if we’re lucky the Bluddsmen
will burn down their own gate. Someone there knows what’s he’s
doing though. Had the thrower up and working. Waited until we were
right on top of them—even cracked open the gate to goad us—and then
blasted the van with fire. It was hell. Burning hell. Men. Horses.”
Ballic shuddered. “Gods save them.”
Grim, Jessie Mure and
others touched their horns of powdered guidestone. Chella Gloyal
observed this before touching her own guidestone that was held in a
pouch of orange silk at her waist.
“Who took harm?”
Raina asked.
“Banmen formed the
van. The honor was due—Hail led the first charge.”
Raina nodded softly.
The clouds had returned, and a sharp wind gusted around the court,
rattling the hammermen’s chains. To the south, the wheelhouse had
passed beyond view. Good riddance to it.
“How many were
lost?”
“Three hundred and
their horses.” Ballic paused. His short stubby fingers with their
bowman’s calluses twitched when he added, “They were screaming to
be killed.”
Burned and still alive. Raina pictured the horror
of it and fixed the images into place in her memory. Bannen had
been Blackhail’s ally for a thousand years; their losses and
suffering counted as her own.
Orwin said, “Bludd be
cursed for its cowardice.”
“Aye,” seconded his
son. “Siege fire is city evil. It has no place in the
clans.”
“Where do our armies
stand now?”
Grim turned to
address Raina. Not one of these men, she realized, questioned her
right to be here.
“We’re camped a day’s
ride northwest of the Crabhouse, on Bannen Field.”
Raina made herself
think about this. “So Mace plans to re-attack?”
“Aye.”
At either side of her
warriors stamped their feet and nodded. Corbie Meese reached over
his shoulder, uncradled his great war hammer and sent the lead and
iron head thumping against his left palm. Cheered, that was how he
appeared. Raina did not share the feeling. Dark half-formed
thoughts drifted through her head. Eight months ago Mace had given
the order to slay women and children on the Bluddroad. Now Bludd
was blasting Blackhail with liquid fire. Both actions were unworthy
of clan. What next?
With Mace you could
not be sure.
“Any news of Dun
Dhoone?” Orwin asked.
And there it was, the
final distasteful piece in the puzzle: Robbie Dun Dhoone, the man
who had tricked his fellow clansmen into a fatal attack on Withy as
a diversion while he retook the Dhoonehouse. Dhoone had betrayed
Dhoone. There was no greater wrong in the clanholds than a chief
selling out his own clan.
“He’s expected to
move on Withy any day now,” Ballic said. “Last thirty days he’s
been laying siege. Hanro and Thrago Bludd have been sitting tight,
but supplies’ll be running low. Dun Dhoone has the roundhouse
surrounded—and rumor has it he’s salted the wells. Both sides’ll be
getting jumpy. That means one of two things is likely. Either
Thrago will order a charge from the gate, or Dun Dhoone will go
right ahead and force one.”
The dark thoughts
began to coalesce in Raina’s mind. It was surprisingly easy to
anticipate disaster ahead. Dun Dhoone would take Withy. A house cut
off and surrounded was dead meat—even a chief’s wife knew that.
Bludd would be routed. Then killed. Robbie Dhoone was famous for
taking no prisoners; the only Bluddsmen to live through the
retaking of Dhoone were those who had found a secret tunnel and
escaped right under his nose. So Robbie would take possession of
Withy, crown himself a king, and then?
“He’ll come looking
for Crab.”
She was hardly aware
she spoke.
Looking into the
faces of the warriors she was surprised to see that none of them
were ahead of her. Ballic, Orwin and others nodded quickly enough
but she could tell that they were following her thoughts, playing
out in their minds a future where the three northern giants met in
battle over the small but exquisitely placed clanhold of
Ganmiddich. Dhoone. Blackhail. Bludd.
“Robbie knows
Ganmiddich like the back of his hand,” Chella Gloyal said,
surprising everyone by speaking. Her sage gray eyes looked straight
at Raina, and Raina found herself wondering if the Croserwoman
hadn’t been ahead of everyone.
“How so?” Ballic
asked. Raina knew the master bowman well, and could hear the
challenge and impatience in his voice. What business did a
Croserwoman have speaking up at a Blackhail warrior’s
parley?
If Chella heard it
too, it had no effect upon her. Calmly, she pushed her hair behind
her ears before answering. “He lived there for three seasons when
he was fourteen.”
This was news. Orwin
raised his eyebrows at Raina. Ballic frowned. Grim frowned too, but
he obviously knew some things about his new wife that others did
not, for his frown was one of agreement, not
disbelief.
Chella touched his
arm. The wind was pressing her cloak against her body, outlining
her slender waist and full hips. “His father Mabb Cormac sent him
away after he killed his horse. Robbie rode the old mare from the
Stonefly to the Dhoonehouse without stopping to let her rest. She
collapsed on the banks of Blue Dhoone Lake and he left her there to
die. Mabb was furious and beat his son with a birch switch. When
the beating was done Mabb still wasn’t satisfied and sent his son
to Ganmiddich for two hundred and fifty days. Best part of a year
later, Robbie returned riding a stallion he’d won in a race from
the Crab’s nephew Addo Ganhanlin.”
Men nodded. Now
things were beginning to make sense. After being ousted from
Ganmiddich, Addo Ganhanlin and others had taken refuge at Croser.
It was possible Chella had heard Addo’s story
first-hand.
Raina fastened the
ties on her cloak to give herself time to think. Listen first to what people say, and then second to how
they say it. Dagro’s words, spoken fifteen years earlier to
his young, inexperienced wife, echoed in her mind. Chella Gloyal
had told a story and issued a warning: Robbie Dhoone knew more
about Ganmiddich and its defenses than anyone could have guessed.
The second thing was more subtle. She spoke with authority,
assuming equal status with sworn clansmen, and she spoke in an
accent that wasn’t wholly clan. This woman had spent time in the
Mountain Cities.
Glancing over her
shoulder, she saw that anxious clansfolk were beginning to gather
by the door. The meeting was going on longer than anticipated and
Hailsmen were assuming the worst. Addressing the young swordsman
Jessie Mure, she said, “Pass the word inside—no Hailsmen have been
lost.”
She was not prepared
for the bow the lean, dark-haired young man delivered to her,
touching the hem of her cloak in courtly respect. “It is done,
lady,” he said, turning to make his way to the house.
He’d learned that
from the master swordsman, Shor Gormalin. Shor had been dead for
half a year now, killed by crossbolt to the back of the head. Mace
Blackhail had ordered the killing; Shor had been his rival for the
chiefship. And for herself.
Heart be strong, she told it.
“Mace is unaware of
Robbie’s knowledge of the Crab house?” she asked
Ballic.
“Aye.”
“Then a message must
be sent.”
“I’ll see to
it.”
“Good. Chella. I
would have you think on what other intelligence you possess that
may benefit your new clan.”
The Croserwoman
finally had the grace to look surprised. She took a breath,
considering her answer, but Raina halted her.
“Do not speak now.
You are weary from the road. If something occurs to you later visit
me. You will find me in the chief’s chamber.”
Gods do not send a bolt of lightning to strike me.
Chief’s chamber? Where had that come from? Until the very moment
the words left her mouth she had no inkling she would say them.
Heat flushed her cheeks, and there didn’t seem much option other
than to stand there and wait for the condemnation to
come.
It
didn’t.
The warriors seemed
careless, as if she had said nothing out of order. Ballic was
unclipping his bowcase from its shoulder harness. Grim had stepped
back to steady his horse. Others were getting impatient to get
inside the house and greet their kin. Only Orwin and Chella
regarded Raina. Orwin had been present that day in the game room,
when Raina had declared her intention of becoming chief. He knew
her purpose . . . but perhaps this was the first time he’d heard
her claim it publicly. After a long moment of appraising her, he
said, “Come on, lads. Let’s get some food and ale in your
bellies.”
Raina watched as the
group broke up and began heading toward the roundhouse. As Chella
Gloyal passed alongside Raina, the woman murmured, “In the chief’s
chamber. I won’t forget.”
Raina stared ahead.
Her chest was tight. Word would get around. It would get back to
Mace. Raina Blackhail issues commands from the
chief’s chamber.
The wind blew across
the open ground of the graze and the court, cooling Raina’s hands
and face. During the meeting the only thing that had seemed
important was Blackhail’s security. Over two thousand Hailsmen were
camped northwest of Ganmiddich, and if Robbie Dun Dhoone succeeded
at seizing the Withyhouse then Dhoone would march south to retake
Ganmiddich. Dhoone, Blackhail, Bludd: The three giants would meet
on the shores of the Wolf. That was what seemed important—not who
took action or said what.
Do and be damned, that was what Dagro always said
about being a chief. Mostly he said it with defiant
joy—I’m chief, to hell with my
critics—yet there had been times when he’d spoken it softly
with fear, when he’d ridden into battle outmanned and
outpositioned. To lead one had to do,
Raina realized. That was the message of Dagro’s words. Inaction did
not make a chief.
Risk
did.
Settling that thought
into her mind, Raina made her way to the house.
As she passed into
the dim lamplit space of the entrance hall, she spied a group of
Scarpes building a fire in an iron brazier. Bristling, she gathered
herself to engage them. Smoke would choke the ground floor.
Yesterday, when they had dragged the brazier indoors she had done
nothing. Not today though. That was the thing about declaring
yourself chief-in-absentia: Once you did it you had to act like
one.
As she opened her
mouth to issue a command, she realized she hadn’t thought about
Stannig Beade in hours.