CHAPTER
10
The
Treasure Hall
TAKE IT, RAINA. By rights this is yours to
do.
Raina Blackhail
recalled Orwin Shank’s words, spoken last night in the privacy of
the chief’s chamber, as she entered the Great Hearth. Noon was the
best time to find Blackhail’s principal chamber, domain of its
sworn warriors, empty. Hailsmen were out riding patrol, practicing
on the weapons court, and hunting in the Northern woods. Raina had
hoped that its great curved benches would be empty, thereby saving
her the trouble of making her business public.
She was out of luck.
Gat Murdock and a couple of old-timers were playing some dusty old
game with pieces on a board. A pair of sworn Scarpemen were
building up the fire, and Corbie Meese was oiling the chains on his
war hammer. The old-timers, who looked half bored to death to begin
with, regarded Raina with interest. Here was something to lively
their game: the chief’s wife, without cleaning crew or kitchen
crew, entering the Great Hearth with purpose. Women were not
disallowed in the hearth, but custom did not favor it. Raina girded
herself, there was no other word for it. She drew air into her
chest, squared her shoulders and sucked in her gut. Gods, this
would be all over the clan by sundown. What was Orwin
thinking?
“Lady.” It was Corbie
Meese, offering a greeting and a question. Can
I aid you?
She couldn’t trust
herself to reply. What would she say? The act would speak for
itself. Nodding briefly, she passed the hammerman and entered the
cleared central space. The Scarpemen attending the fire paused in
their efforts to watch her. As a rule, sworn Scarpemen were more
mannerly than the great unsworn masses of their clan. That wasn’t
saying much. These two had the slender stature of bowmen, and now
that Raina drew closer she could see they were proofing arrowheads:
exposing the steel blades to flames until they turned black.
Neither man addressed her, but their opinions were clear
enough.
Raina allowed
something—she could barely say what—to enter her thoughts.
Tissue-thin muscles controlling her eyes and mouth reacted. Her
left hand was occupied with a lamp, but the fingers of her right
hand twitched. The Scarpemen inhaled, sucking in
information.
Beware, she realized she’d warned them later.
Your guide is dead. You may be
next.
If there had not been
Hailsmen in the room, the Scarpemen would have blocked her. They
detested being threatened. The older of the two thrust a log into
the fire. His small, greasy-haired friend kept his gaze on Raina as
he released his grip on his arrows, letting them clatter noisily to
the floor.
Raina sent her mind
elsewhere, directing her hand to reach for the key hooked to her
belt. Sharp-faced liver-spotted Gat Murdock was the first to
realize what was happening. His occluded and watery gaze jumped
from the key to Raina’s face.
Yes, old man. I have the chief’s key. Watch me use
it.
Walking past the
hearth and the Scarpemen and turning her back on Gat Murdock and
the old-timers, Raina approached the small snakewood door set deep
into the Great Hearth’s west-facing interior wall. It was the only
door made from snakewood in the entire roundhouse. The wood had
been hauled on a cart from the Far South, chosen for its hardness
and its resistance to flames. Fire and axes could break the door:
but they would need more heat, more force. More time.
Raina slid the key in
the lock and turned it. If it were possible to feel gazes on one’s
back, she felt them now. The lock barrel tumbled and she pushed her
palm against the door. Holding the lamp ahead of her, she entered
the absolute center of the roundhouse, the securest chamber in the
clanhold, accessible only through the Great Hearth: Blackhail’s
strongroom.
Dust and stale air
stirred as she turned and closed the door. Chiefs had died here, in
this circular domed space that looked like a tomb. It had no
windows; Raina had not expected it to. She was surprised to see its
walls were painted, though. Blackhail seldom dressed its stone.
Centuries of ash and dust had dulled the paint, but there were
sections where objects had been removed, exposing patches of the
original color. The walls of the strongroom had once been black as
night. The thought gave Raina a chill.
Would she ever
understand this hard and dour clan?
Bending, she set the
safe lamp down on the floor and wondered where to start.
“Mace needs gold and coin,” Orwin Shank
had told her earlier. “He’s running out of
supplies.”
A messenger had
arrived before dawn and demanded private parley with Orwin Shank.
Raina had made herself busy at the stables, but she could not say
she had made herself calm. Jebb Onnacre had brought in the
messenger’s horse and from its trappings and saddle, it was easily
identified as belonging to Scarpe. After the meeting was done, the
rider himself arrived to collect his saddlebags. Muscles in Raina’s
heart stiffened. It was Wracker Fox, one of Mace’s trusted
companions. He looked right through her, as if she didn’t exist.
After leaving instructions with the groom for his horse’s care, he
took himself back to the roundhouse, where he gathered Scarpe
warriors about him in the Great Hearth.
Raina was not proud
to admit she listened to the gossip surrounding Wracker and his
message. It was known he had come from Bannen Field, and she was
desperate to learn whether or not Mace would be returning to
Blackhail. By the time Orwin sought her out in the kitchen, she was
living on nerves. Mace had to know by now about Stannig Beade’s
death. What rumors had flown south with the facts?
Orwin had bid Raina
walk with him to view the repairs to the east wall. Outside, beyond
the hearing and watch of the repair crew, he had handed Raina the
chief’s key. “Wracker has been charged with returning with
sufficient coin to hold the army on the field for thirty days. Go
to the strongroom and portion what to send.”
Raina had been so
relieved to discover Mace had no immediate plans to return to the
roundhouse, she took the key from Orwin without question. The fact
that Orwin had possession of the key in Mace’s absence had not
surprised her—Blackhail’s treasure had to be managed in its chief’s
absence—but now that she was here in the strongroom she wondered at
Orwin’s motives. Had the aging hatchetman intended to signal the
entire roundhouse that Raina Blackhail was now in charge of its
wealth? Or had he simply not wanted to be bothered with the task?
With four sons dead within a year who could blame him?
Turning a full
circle, Raina tried to take it all in. Light from the safe lamp
glinted on stacks of silver ingots piled three feet deep and five
feet high against the wall. A smaller stack of gold began where the
silver ended. An attempt had been made to cover the gold ingots
with an aurochs hide, but the chiefs of Blackhail did not make good
housekeepers and the moldy and maggot-eaten skin had fallen to one
side. Crates and coffers were piled on top of each other. Some were
laid open, exposing dusty armor, metal cups, hammer chains, jeweled
horns, sheathed daggers and swords: the spoils of war. Containers
of every sort lay in heaps; cloth bags, saddlebags, arms cases,
embroidered purses, jeweled boxes, horns and baskets. A Dhoone
Queen’s breastplate was filled with coins like a bowl. No order
ruled here. Chiefs had not been gentle as they searched for what
was needed. There were more boxes open and overturned than sealed.
Carpets, rare skins and bolts of rich fabric had been left to
molder on the floor.
Part of Raina wanted
to roll up her sleeves and send for a broom, but she resisted. That
was her old life, her old self. Only chiefs and their trusted
deputies ever set foot here. A deputy would not dare alter
anything. And a chief would not care.
Raina Blackhail made
herself not care.
How many hundreds of
years of wars, raids, confiscations, ransoms and tributes did this
room represent? A portion of all spoils, inheritances and gains was
demanded by the clan. Once a year, tied clansman, those who made
their living within the clanhold and were defended by its warriors
and roundhouse, paid tribute to the chief. Wealth accrued over the
centuries, and was depleted only in times of hardship and war. One
glance around the room was enough to know that Blackhail had been
fortunate in recent times. More wars had been won than lost, and
harvests, lambing, calving and hunts had been plentiful as far back
as anyone could remember.
It changes.
Raina dragged a
finger through the dust on one of the tabletops. The lambing was
not going well. The ground was still hard, and bitter frosts
cracked down every night. No longhunts in months meant that the
clan had missed the annual migration of caribou and elk. Shorthunts
were still bringing in boar and deer but numbers were down, and
rumor had it that wolves were competing for kills. Raina had seen
for herself how low grain stocks were. In her twenty years at
Blackhail she had never known the wheat level to dip below the
quarter mark. Canna Hadley, the head grain wife, said that if you
removed the moldy bottom layer from the reckoning there was only
three months supply remaining.
It was the Scarpes,
the damn Scarpes. For every Hailsman in the roundhouse there was a
Scarpe. Blackhail’s resources were being consumed at twice the
normal rate. And Scarpes were doing naught to pay for their keep.
Newcomers had dropped even the pretense of gifts. Two families had
arrived this morning with nothing. Not one bale of hay or skinny
sow between the ten of them, and the first thing they did was head
to the kitchen for bread and meat.
Wiping her finger on
her skirt, Raina moved around the room. Railing against the Scarpes
was not going to help get the job done. Where to start? So many
containers, so much jeweled and gilded junk. On impulse she pulled
down a felt bag that had been thrown atop the heap. It was heavy
and she stepped back as it thudded to the floor. Kneeling, she
loosened the cinch rope and pried it open.
I’ve broken it.
A bowl made of some
rich and heavy stone lay in two pieces, split nearly down the
middle. Alabaster? Jade? Annoyed with herself, Raina pushed away
the bag and its contents. What if it was something Dagro had
received as a gift?
The possessions of a
chief and its clan were one and the same.
Dagro had not come
here often. He had cared little for wealth and the show of it, and
the clan he raised around him felt the same. Yet Mace had been here
too. Looking around, Raina realized that no one would ever know
what her new husband had taken. No catalogue of Blackhail’s
treasure existed. Such a thing would be considered petty and
unclanlike.
It did not make
management easy, that was certain.
Raina thought awhile
and then went to fetch Corbie Meese.
Within an hour her
task was done. By the time she and Corbie emerged from the
strongroom, the Great Hearth had more than tripled its occupancy.
Raina calculated a good half of her spectators were Scarpes—as if
they had any right to question a Hailswoman in her own house.
Corbie, gods love him, was a rock. It took two trips to carry out
the items she’d selected and he never by as much as a word or a
look questioned her authority. That meant something. Where Corbie
led hammermen followed, and in Clan Blackhail hammermen were
king.
Descending the stair
to the entrance hall, Raina saw that her audience wasn’t limited to
sworn warriors. Women, children and tied clansmen had arranged
themselves to get the best view of the chief’s wife carrying booty
from the strongroom. Raina recalled some bit of wisdom about
dealing with potentially hostile crowds: Imagine them naked. She
found it worked better to imagine the Scarpes had imbibed fatal
poison and would all be dead within the day. She smiled serenely
after that.
She and Corbie had
packed the treasure in burlap sacks, which only seemed to heighten
interest. Mace must have taken treasure to Bannen Field, but Raina
had no memory of him carrying it through the roundhouse. Stealth
was one of his tricks. Yet . . . yet. She could see this was a
mistake. Blackhail’s chief was absent, its warriors awar, its guide
dead and its guidestone replaced by a lump of foreign granite:
Hailsfolk did not need one more thing to worry them. Watching
Blackhail treasure being hauled from the roundhouse was not good
for morale.
Gods, but Dagro had
made it look easy. He’d hunt in the morning, take parleys in the
afternoon, drink beer with the warriors at sunset and then sleep
like a dog at night. She hadn’t known, hadn’t thought to pay
attention, had lived with one of the greatest chiefs in the
clanholds and hadn’t learned a thing.
Well start learning now, Raina Blackhail. Make a
list.
“Call Wracker Fox,”
she ordered Jessie Mure as she and Corbie reached the stables.
Then, to Jebb Onnachre, “Shut the doors. Allow no one but those
summoned in.”
The stables were
housed in the old cowshed while a new structure was being built so
the effect of closing the smaller cattle doors was not the same as
closing the great iron-and-wood double doors that had once secured
Blackhail’s horses. Still. Seeing the grooms swing the simple plank
doors into motion as thirty or so people watched from the cattle
court was chilling. Stable doors were opened before dawn and not
closed until two hours past sunset. Yet here they were being
closed.
Raina stood in the
dim stillness and waited. Grooms moved around her, lighting safe
lamps. Horses whickered. Jebb walked the rows of boxes, closing
stalls. When he and the other grooms were done with their tasks,
Raina dismissed them and they withdrew to the tack room at the far
end of the stable and sealed themselves in. Corbie attended to the
calls and knocks at the door, granting entry to the handful of
people Raina had sent for. Taking his cue from Raina, he was silent
and grave.
Orwin and Grim Shank
and Orwin’s nephew Drew were first to arrive, followed by the
swordsman Stellan Satchell, who was the head dairyman’s son and had
apprenticed under Shor Gormalin. Wracker Fox, called for last,
arrived last. He did not come alone. When Corbie rolled back the
door, Uriah Scarpe stood at Wracker’s side. Corbie did not need to
look at Raina to know what to do. Taking a step to the side, he
barred Uriah Scarpe from entering the stable.
Uriah was nephew to
the Scarpe chief, Yelma Scarpe, and that meant he was some kind of
cousin to Mace. Raina saw it all on his sharp clean-shaven face:
the sense of entitlement, surprise at being barred from the parley
quickly followed by the understanding that it was she, Raina
Blackhail, who was doing the barring.
Whore, Uriah mouthed for her eyes alone as Corbie
closed the door.
Raina absorbed the
insult. The word did not bother her, but its malice chilled her. He
had been one of the men responsible for burning a Shankshound
alive. She said to Wracker, “You will leave in the morning for
Bannen Field. The three sacks contain silver bars. Some gold. They
will be transported directly to my husband, Mace Blackhail.” As she
spoke she indicated three of the four sacks that she and Corbie had
borne from the strongroom. On her instructions, Corbie had set one
aside.
Wracker had the lean
muscle and ready stance of a swordsman. His hair was raven-wing
black and he wore it part-shaved and braided. His pants and coat
were simple black suede. Two weasel heads attached at the coat’s
lapels were the only decoration. Toeing the closest of the sacks,
he tested its weight.
“The silver needs to
be replaced with gold,” he said to Orwin. “It’s too heavy for my
horse.”
Orwin’s gaze shot to
Raina.
“You will not be
riding alone,” Raina said to Wracker. I’m not
trusting a Scarpe with Blackhail’s fortune.
Again, he ignored
her. Addressing Orwin, he said, “Mace said I was to return with the
loot.”
“I can’t see as a
small crew disavows that order,” Orwin said
reasonably.
Wracker weighed his
options. He was not a stupid man, and had to rate as high his
chances of looking foolish to five sworn clansmen. He couldn’t win
here; Raina had seen to that.
Reaching a decision,
he said, “Very well, I’ll form a party.” Then, addressing Drew
Shank, who was the youngest present. “Fetch back Uriah. He rides
with me.”
Drew Shank, all of
twenty-one and two months into his full oath, hesitated. He looked
to his uncle for guidance. And his uncle looked right back at
Raina.
She might have
laughed if she wasn’t terrified. Quite suddenly she remembered that
Wracker Fox had been in the forge too, the night Effie was tried as
a witch and a Shankshound was sent to the fire. This was no game.
And a win here would bring Mace’s eye upon her more certainly than
any half-baked rumor about Stannig Beade’s death.
Do and be damned. If I were a clan those words would be my
boast.
Putting a hand out to
stay Drew Shank, she addressed Wracker Fox. “I have chosen the
party who will accompany the treasure to Bannen Field.” She
inclined her head, indicating Grim Shank, Drew Shank, Stellan
Satchell and Corbie Meese. All knew—she had bid Corbie and Orwin to
arrange it beforehand—and they gave her the gift of their solemn
silence. It was into this still and proud hush, where men who had
sworn to defend their clan faced the certainty of going to war,
that Raina knew she must speak.
She had to finish off
her enemy.
Looking Wracker
directly in the eye, she said, “It will be your honor to be the
sole Scarpe who accompanies Blackhail’s treasure
south.”
Wracker’s sword hand
flexed and she realized that if he could he would have slain her
right then. She had thwarted his plans, taken charge of his mission
and bested him in a room of sworn men. Little matter that he was
the interloper here, the foreigner from the poison pine clan. He
did not understand the wrongness of a Scarpe sending a Scarpe to
collect Blackhail treasure—for that was what Mace Blackhail was. A
weasel dressed in Wolf clothing.
A rapist. A murderer.
A Scarpe.
“Go,” she told
Wracker. “Make what preparations you must.” Before he could react,
she turned her back on him. She did not need further evidence of
his ill will.
When she finally
heard him move toward the stable door, she allowed herself a deep
breath. Corbie moved close, put out a hand, but did not touch her.
She felt its contact all the same. “Go,” she repeated more softly,
swinging about to address Grim, Drew and Stellan as well as Corbie.
“Spend time with your wives and families. Blackhail does you honor
this night.”
The young warriors
took their leave. All paused or made effort in some way to show her
respect. Stellan bowed deeply, touching the hem of her dress. He
was half in love with her, she guessed. Perhaps they all
were.
It made her feel old
and sad; gave knowledge to all she had lost.
“A word,” she said
quietly to Orwin Shank.
The hatchetman sealed
the door and they were alone. Winter had aged him. Liver spots had
spread across his hands and neck, and cataracts bounced light from
his eyes. Raina counted her own losses as nothing compared to his.
She had lost a husband and a dream of what the future could be.
Orwin Shank had lost sons.
And she had just sent
one of his remaining three sons back to war.
Apologies,
explanations, sympathy: none would do. Words were too small.
Lightly, she touched his swollen arthritic ax hand and just as
lightly moved away.
“The fourth sack,”
she said, nodding toward the water pail where Corbie had set it
down, “contains gold. I would have you ride east to Dregg and use
it as barter for grain and what other supplies you see
fit.”
Orwin Shank had been
head clansman under two chiefs. He was the one both Mace and Dagro
went to when they needed aid or counsel. Without his approval, Mace
could not have claimed the chiefship. More than anyone else, Orwin
understood what she did here. Blackhail’s wealth and its chief’s
wealth were one and the same. The gold and silver in the other
three sacks traveled to Bannen Field on Mace’s command. Mace did
not command the gold in the fourth, smaller sack; Raina Blackhail
did.
In this she had made
herself chief.
Horses shuffled and
nickered in their stalls. One of the safe lamps smoked as it burned
dregs. Raina spared a thought for the grooms, holed up inside the
tack room. Feed to be spread, coats to be groomed, horses to be
exercised: she was preventing them from doing their
work.
Orwin would not be
rushed, though. The hatchetman shook at low frequency as he stood
and looked at her. Hay beneath his feet crackled as he spoke. “I
will leave in the morning—an hour after the Bannen Field
party.”
She nodded and did
not thank him. A moment passed where they regarded each other and
understood each other. She saw his desire to caution her and the
decision to keep his peace. It was too late.
Finally he turned for
the door.
“Orwin,” she said,
stopping him. She had one more power to claim. “While you’re there
seek out Walvis Harding, the Dregg guide. Ask him to send his best
apprentice to us. It’s time Blackhail had a new
guide.”
It did not surpise
him. “As you wish. Anything more?”
“Arrange a watch
outside the stable.”
Orwin glanced at the
burlap sacks. “And inside?”
“Blackhail’s grooms
guard its treasure tonight.”
She had surprised him
. . . but not displeased him. He twinkled a smile at her. “ ’Tis
well done, Raina.”
She basked in those
words for a whole minute after he left. She’d pulled it off.
Everything she’d decided in the strongroom was done. That was what
being a chief meant—having a plan and seeing it through. Smiling,
she walked the row of stalls. The grooms needed to be informed of
their charge.
“Lady.”
Raina halted in her
tracks at the word. As she spun to track the position of its
speaker, the door of the stall just behind her swung open. Chella
Gloyal stood in the box, abreast of her fine gray stallion. Both
she and her horse looked remarkably composed.
“I ask your pardon,”
the Croserwoman said, stepping into the horse walk. “I was brushing
down Rumor and was caught unawares and did not think to make my
presence known . . .” A brief shrug, “at first. By the time I
realized I should have alerted you and withdrawn it was too
late.”
I bet it was. To cover her surprise, Raina
inspected Chella. The Croserwoman was dressed in a dove gray riding
coat and blue silk skirt. The coat was expertly cut to show off her
small waist and full breasts, and its color provided the perfect
contrast to her chestnut hair. She was the sort of woman who could
make you believe she was beautiful. Judging by how swiftly Grim
Shank had married her, she probably made men believe a lot of
things.
Raina said, “It
appears I must rely on your discretion.”
“You have
it.”
Chella Gloyal knew
how to give her word with conviction. Her gaze was steady and
knowing. She had heard everything then, including the command that
would send her husband back to war and the treasonous order to
spend Blackhail gold. Trouble was hers if she wished it, yet Raina
did not think she would break her word.
“Chella.” The word
was a dismissal. Raina Blackhail was done here.
Chella spoke to halt
her. “If I may offer some advice?”
“You are
bold.”
Chella Gloyal did not
deny it. Stepping closer, she said in a low voice, “You made two
mistakes.”
Gods help me not to slap her. Raina headed toward
the tack room. She would not listen to this.
“You should have sent
an archer in Stellan’s place,” Chella murmured, keeping pace. “A
party made up solely of sword-and-hammermen cannot protect their
cargo at distance.”
Raina halted. She was
keenly aware that only twenty paces separated her and Chella from
the tack room door. “Quiet yourself,” she commanded.
Chella raised her
eyebrows. Her voice had barely risen above a whisper and they both
knew it. Who was this clever and self-possessed woman? Raina
wondered. Were the differences between Croser and Blackhail so
great they could explain her?
“When I require your
counsel I shall ask for it,” Raina said coldly. She did not trust
this woman. “Leave me now.”
Chella bowed lightly
and immediately stepped back. Holding Raina’s gaze she said, “I
pray ask soon, for you have just placed yourself at great
risk.”
Raina watched her
walk away, and then went to inform the grooms of their task. Fear
had pierced her heart.