Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  And of course there was Chedd, who made everything that bit much better just by being here and being his own Chedd-like self.

  “Bring the torch.” Effie said as she ducked into her cell.

  The room was tiny and perfectly dark. Chedd lit the lamp with the torch but it didn’t have much effect. The lamp’s slender wick was damp and the flame produced was as small as a child’s fingernail. As Chedd returned the torch to its coupling in the hallway, Effie prized off her boots. Underneath her toes were swollen. Water had got into her boots and the skin felt fragile and loose. Quickly she dried her feet with the bedclothes. When Chedd returned he did the same, and then sat next to Effie on the room’s only furnishing: a wooden cot topped with the worst mattress in the clanholds.

  Effie smoothed out a square of mattress as best she could, reached down into the bodice of her dress, pulled out the pastry and centered it on the smooth part of the mattress. The pastry looked like it had been chewed on by a dog. Most of its honey and all of its nuts were gone—Effie did think her armpit felt a bit sticky. “Food of the gods,” she said with confidence. She knew Chedd. That pastry was looking a lot better to him than it was to her.

  Chedd looked it over. “Terms?”

  Effie thought about Dagro Blackhail, the old Blackhail chief. He had a way of disguising his negotiations as conversation. He’d talk in his plain and homely way, get people nodding and before anyone knew it they’d agreed to his terms.

  “You need to help me lift the curse.” Not Dagro quality exactly, but then she was only nine. She had thirty years to catch up with him.

  Chedd didn’t blink. He looked from her to the pastry, weighing his options. He was better at this than she was, she realized. He was cool and she was hot.

  “As a Banman my primary responsibility is to escape. So any tasks I undertake must be secondary to that mission.”

  “How can you escape?” Effie blurted. “Thirty leagues of reeds and bulrushes on all sides. It’s a maze. That’s why they let us go wherever we want in the roundhouse, because even if we could get a boat we’d be lost the moment we took to the water. Graymen spend years learning the Reed Ways. We’d be lucky to get to the Isle of Grass.”

  “There’s a quick way out of here somehow. They have to keep their horses somewhere.”

  “The Watermen keep their horses at Clan Hill,” Effie said, balling her fists. “If you’d bothered to learn any history you’d know that.”

  “Oh.” Chedd fell into silence so Effie sized her chance.

  “Very well. You—we—have a duty to escape the clanhold. As long as lifting the curse does not interfere or slow that purpose are you willing to help me, in return for this pastry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Spit and clasp on it?”

  “Spit and clasp.”

  Chedd excelled at the spitting part, depositing a fat gobbet in the palm of his right hand. Effie did what he called “a fly’s piss” and they clamped palms to seal the deal.

  “Sweaty,” Chedd said, working the entire pastry into his mouth.

  “But good.”

  Effie reached down for the water bucket and drank. That was one of the fine things about living in Clan Gray; you never had to haul up water from the well. A bucket left under a crack in the ceiling would be full in half a day. “So,” she said, passing the bucket to Chedd. “Since we’ve been here at least three young ’uns have died. Any adults?”

  Chedd shrugged. “Either no. Or there’s no official song-and-dance when they do.”

  Effie and Chedd exchanged a thoughtful look. They shook their heads at the same time in agreement. It didn’t need to be said. Wherever you were in the clanholds death counted. If a man or woman died, clan reacted. Hearts were carved from guidestones, wrists slit, special fires lit, twenty-year malt cracked open and drunk, ceremonial robes charred, messages sent, songs sung, a body cleaned and arrayed: death was always marked.

  “Newborns are always dodgy,” Chedd said. “At Bannen we’d lose one about every ten or twenty days.”

  “There’s a lot more people at Bannen than Gray.” This quieted them for a while.

  Eventually Chedd said, “If you’re a clan and your babies keep dying then eventually you’ll die too.”

  “Slowly.” Effie stood, replaced the bucket under the drip, and walked a circuit of the cell. This took exactly eight steps. “It’d be a really bad curse, to be doomed to watch your clan die off with each generation.”

  Chedd ran a hand along his chin, picking up a couple of crumbs and a streak of blood.

  “It wasn’t bleeding much,” Effie said, heading him off. “And it’s stopped now.”

  For a wonder Chedd ignored her. “Yet Gray hasn’t died out. And there are children—we’ve seen them.”

  “Not many though.”

  “Doesn’t matter. How long since the curse was laid?”

  “A long time, I think.”

  “Hundreds of years?”

  Effie saw Chedd’s point. All newborns and children couldn’t die, else the clan would be wiped out in sixty years.

  Chedd picked off and ate the crumbs from his hand. Eating helped his brain work. “They were mourning someone the day we arrived, remember? The swamp lights were burning, the cages were up.”

  “Yes,” Effie said, getting excited. “There was a girl—she was crying for her brother.”

  “The girl with the red hair and freckles. She’s always on the dock, mooning and looking east.”

  Effie crossed to the door. “Let’s go see her.”

  “No, Eff.” Chedd shook his head. “It can wait until tomorrow. Buckler told us to go straight to our cells.”

  “You’ve already disobeyed him,” Effie said, “by coming here. A second trespass hardly counts.”

  This logic engaged Chedd. He thought for a moment. “Second trespass has already taken place—the pastry. Buckler told us not to get supper.”

  Effie considered her options. If you were going to be nitpicky, Chedd was incorrect: Buckler’s order had been “Do not tarry” not “Do not eat supper.” As Chedd had acquired the pastry without tarrying he was in the clear. Clear was not a place Effie wanted him to be though. “That’s settled then, we’re going. Third trespass doesn’t count.”

  Chedd hung his head in defeat and followed her from the room.

  It was full dark now and the roundhouse was sparsely lit. Goats and a couple of drunks were asleep in the halls. Wall torches buzzed as they burned; Effie didn’t know why. She and Chedd crept past the Flood Doors, holding their breath. It was a policy that seemed to work. Reaching ground level, they headed across the Salamander Hall to the entrance doors. The hall’s ceiling and two-story-high walls were tiled with turtle shells. About a third of them had fallen off, and what once may have filled visitors with a sense of awe now looked shabby and diseased. Frogs were taking over, laying milky eggs in puddles and calling to each other from cracks.

  Chedd wasn’t happy walking toward the warriors who policed the door. Seeing him hunch his shoulders and slow his pace, Effie decided countermeasures were called for and began speaking loudly about playing dice. “Everyone knows double six beats triple two unless you’re playing on a soft surface like . . . cushions. Then triples win every time.”

  Chedd looked at her as if she’d grown a second head.

  Effie’s mind was on the Graymen who were armed with paired knives and six-foot spears and armored with the darkly beautiful chainmail Gray was renowned for. Effie knew from experience they weren’t interested in the comings and goings of children but she was starting to get worried. The great double doors that were rotting from the base up were closed for the night. And that meant the warriors would have to open them, and from the looks on their faces that didn’t seem likely.

  “I like to spit on them,” Effie continued, approaching the door, “but Drey always said if you want the really best luck you have to snot them instead.”

  Chedd looked genuinely afraid now. The younger of the war
riors, a yearman with a four-toed salamander tattooed along his left cheek and jaw, raised his chin in inquiry.

  “Open, please,” Effie said. It was tempting to say more, come up with some wild-goose reason why she and Chedd needed to be outside, but she didn’t. A half-understood idea about less being more stopped her.

  “Only warriors with oaths cross the Salamander Door this night.” It was the younger guard who spoke, so Effie addressed her reply to him.

  “What if someone without an oath needs entry, say a bairn who missed curfew?”

  The young warrior opened his mouth to reply, but his older companion beat him to it.

  “Sod off.” The words were spoken calmly, without malice. He was a veteran as old as Da, and he wasn’t about to play games.

  “C’mon, Chedd,” Effie said, turning from the door. “Let’s go catch some indoor frogs instead.”

  Chedd’s color wasn’t good. For the first time Effie found herself worrying about the cut on his chin. Buckler had warned them several times about the danger of open sores. “Wounds don’t heal well here. If you get a cut go to the healer to have it doused and stitched.”

  “I don’t want to catch frogs, Eff.”

  She took his arm, directing him toward the ramp that led to the east ward. “We’re going to the kitchen.”

  “No. I’ve had enough trouble. If Buckler sees us we’ll get a beating.”

  “No we won’t because I’ll tell him we’re getting your cut malted.”

  The death rites had subdued the clan and only the baker, a couple of kitchen girls and an old-timer asleep on a bench were in the kitchen. Skinned muskrats were roasting on a spit above the cookfire and their charred pork-like scent filled the room. Effie stepped inside, carefully avoiding the dozen or so fish that were dying in a wire cage near the door.

  “Excuse me,” she said when it became obvious that no one was going to attend her. “My friend here needs some alcohol for his cut.” And then to Chedd: “Chin up. Show them some blood.”

  The baker and the girl cranking the muskrats ignored them, but the second kitchen girl waved them to the nearest bench. “Have some bread and smoked fish and I’ll be with you in a minute.” Her voice was soft but weary. She returned to the business of chopping leeks while Effie and Chedd helped themselves from the platter of food laid out for hungry clansmen.

  The fish was salty and the bread was fresh and full of air. Chedd regained his spirits as he ate, though he didn’t relax his watch on the door. Effie felt her own good spirits draining. Saying Drey’s name out loud in the Salamander Hall made her miss him. “Raif,” she said softly, to herself, so that she missed both brothers equally.

  “Let’s take a look at it.” Done with leek chopping, the kitchen girl had located a jar of spirits and a soft cloth and now approached Chedd. She was sixteen or seventeen and pretty in a fragile way. Gray was one of the few clans where women wore tattoos and a delicate shape etched in tones of green and orange was visible on the curve of her left breast above the neckline of her dress.

  She dealt with Chedd competently, cleaning his cut and then protecting it with paste. “Can’t be too careful,” she said. “The swamp gets into everything.”

  She smelled of leeks and water lilies. Effie stood and asked her about the tattoo.

  “Oh,” she said surprised, pulling up her dress. “It’s nothing. Just some old thing that’s faded next to naught.”

  The more she spoke, the more Effie heard in her voice. Glancing at the baker, who was busy covering dough balls with wet cloth, Effie said, “Orange is the color of Clan Croser.”

  “Hush now,” the girl said, following Effie’s gaze. “They’ve pulled salamanders covered with orange spots from the Stillwater.”

  “Really?” said Chedd, getting interested. “I’d like to see one of those.”

  Effie and the girl shared a glance over his head.

  “Best get back to work.” The girl picked up the jug of spirits and held it to her chest. “You should run along now. Buckler doesn’t like his charges up so late.”

  Reacting to the girl’s discomfort, Chedd rose and crossed to the door. “C’mon, Eff.”

  Effie looked at the girl a moment longer, taking in the details of her hazel eyes and blond hair, and then turned and followed Chedd from the room.

  It was late and Chedd had probably had enough excitement for one night, so Effie didn’t tell him what was on her mind as they returned to their cells. Frogs wailed from the darkness. The noises of the roundhouse, the dripping water and straining wood and hollow echoes, spoke the truth. Clan Gray was failing. Buckler knew it, the warriors sealed in the Salamander Hearth knew it, and Waker Stone and his da knew it too.

  That’s why she and Chedd had been taken. It was why the girl in the kitchen had been taken. They were like the bulrushes covering the broken bits of roof: a stopgap jammed in place. The kitchen girl was from Croser, not Gray. Effie had seen Crosermen at the Hailhouse: their tattoos had the same orange and green coloring. Effie recalled Raina telling her that Croser girls whose fathers were killed in battle were allowed the privilege of transposing their father’s tattoos.

  Gray was losing people. Its halls were empty, its hearths black and cold. Waker had kidnapped her and Chedd to replace what had been lost, and now she was beginning to understand that she and Chedd weren’t the first. Perhaps Waker and his da had been doing it for years—decades even. Children went missing along the riverways all the time. Drowned, fallen through ice, dragged downstream by high or fast water. Croser lay on the Wolf: easy pickings for Waker and his da. Bannen was on the Greenwater. On a quick accounting of clans, only Blackhail, being land bound for leagues on all sides, seemed safe.

  So was Gray forced to kidnap children because of its curse? And what was stopping the kitchen girl from returning to Croser? Effie guessed that she had been here for years. Wouldn’t she know the Reed Way by now?

  The scratchy and uneven mattress helped keep Effie awake. The unease that had awakened in the kitchen wouldn’t go away. What if the curse took children as well as newborns? What if she and Chedd weren’t immune?

  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.

&nbs
p; 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.