Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  “We’ll just escape,” Effie said, faking confidence. She’d taken the front seat because that’s where the turtle was and she didn’t want Chedd having to look at it on the trip. Now she found she didn’t want to look at it either. Its little black eyes were still open. “We’re not stupid. We can learn the Reed Way.”

  Rime paddled deftly through the water. “Of course you will. Our hope is that by the time you learn it Gray will be your home.”

  Effie thought about the Croser girl in the kitchens. She hadn’t appeared to want to get away. Was it possible that if you spent enough time in a place it became your home? “We’ll never forget we’re from Blackhail and Bannen,” she said defensively.

  “No. And I’ll never forget I was a landsman from Dhoone.”

  Effie turned to share a glance with Chedd. Dhoone?

  Rime, who was in the middle seat, intercepted the look. He smiled. Turning his left hand toward the sky, he revealed a newt’s-head tattoo on the palm of his hand. “They got me early. I was six. At first I felt like you—that Gray’s too wet and broken-down for me—then I began to pole around in one of the boats. No one ever stopped me, though I was warned about the four rules. Once I got the hang of it I’d be out here for days, floating from island to island, sleeping under the alders, toasting turtle and sweet mallow for breakfast.

  “Gray is like no other clanhold: no two days are ever the same. She changes. Islands rise and sink. Water opens and channels close. Beavers dam downstream and suddenly there’s a flood. Every morning I come out here and I’m not certain what I’m going to see. I’ll never go hungry, I know that for sure. Fish, waterfowl, muskrats, turtles: a boy or girl with a cage can catch many things.”

  As he spoke, Rime turned onto the main channel and headed back toward the roundhouse. His paddle strokes were light and swift, propelling the boat at surprising speed. “By the time I learned the Reed Ways it never occurred to me to leave. This is my home. Dhoone doesn’t need me. She’s strong. Gray needs me. This marsh needs me. The people in the roundhouse need me. And that being needed, that’s what makes a life worth living.”

  Rime fell silent as he paddled onto the Stillwater. The wind had died and the lake’s surface was glossy and black. Fishing craft glided across it, heading home ahead of the dark.

  “You are needed and wanted here,” Rime said, guiding the boat toward one of the landings. “It is our hope that Gray will become your home.”

  Effie spoke the word Blackhail to herself as Rime tied up the boat. She felt a bit sorry for him and Clan Gray, but couldn’t imagine this place ever being home. And she wasn’t sure she trusted him either. There were things he wasn’t telling.

  “What’s the fourth rule?” she asked as he helped her off the boat. “You only gave us three.”

  Rime gave her a long, speculative look. When he blinked, you could see that even his eyelids were tattooed with scales. “Never head more than an hour east. The Sull border is no place for a clansman.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Hailstone

  “ROBBIE DUN DHOONE has crowned himself a king.”

  Raina walked through the roundhouse, thinking about the latest news from the south. Warriors had arrived an hour earlier. She had settled them in the Great Hearth and and spoken with them at length, and now left them in the company of Ballic the Red and the senior clansmen. Her face burned at the thought of what Ballic might be telling the four warriors at this very moment. Raina’s closed the house to Scarpes. She’s turfed out every one of them, and Yelma’s camped by the Oldwood, spoiling for a fight.

  Raina snorted. Either she was going insane or it was somehow possible to feel worry, fear and delight at exactly the same time.

  Gods, but the roundhouse was better without them. No more stinking cookfires and foul witches’ brews. No more hard-faced children hissing “Bitch” behind her back. No more pigs and chickens running wild in the hallways. No more being watched and criticized and accused.

  If time could freeze in this moment, as she walked through the peaceful and orderly halls of Blackhail, passing Hailsmen and Hailswomen who greeted her with respect, it would be a good kind of life. She wished she could live it and not have to think of the future, and the terrible things waiting there.

  Dagro, my love, I miss your wisdom today. Reaching the entrance hall, Raina took a turn toward the kitchens. She needed to think what effect this latest news had on Blackhail. Dun Dhoone was now a king. Bludd forces had been occupying the Withyhouse and according to Glynn Sellwood, one of the warriors newly arrived from Bannen Field, Dhoone had annihilated them. Two of the Dog Lord’s sons—Thrago and Hanro—had been slaughtered. Glynn had mentioned a third son, Gangaric, who had managed to flee south with a small force. Raina crossed the kitchen, nodding absently at Merritt Ganlow and the head cook. What could she learn from this? Dun Dhoone was ruthless and ambitious. And he kept winning.

  Arriving at a small flight of stairs, Raina unhooked a safe lamp from the wall and headed to the underlevels of the Hailhouse. How would Mace react to Dhoone’s victory? He would probably make a push for Ganmiddich, try and gain the Crab Gate before Dhoone marched south. It was possible that he might turn and head for home, but he’d lose standing with his fellow warriors by doing so.

  Hailsmen did not back down from fights.

  Raina moved quickly through the narrow corridors belowground. The Hailhouse was aging. The explosion in the guidehouse had opened huge cracks in the foundation. First water came in, and now the earth itself was forcing its way through. Black mud oozed from the walls. Raina could see insect carapaces and bones in it. She tried to avoid stepping in the sludge as she made her way to the foundation space and the small, airless store room where she had hidden the last fragment of the Hailstone.

  It sung to her in her dreams. It told her not to forget it existed and warned her that a guidestone hidden from sight was an affront to the gods. As soon as she entered the store room, she could feel it pull on her. How it had remained hidden all these months was a mystery. Surely any clansman or clanswoman walking above it would feel the steady discharge of power?

  Raina knelt. The room was cool and dry, like a tomb. Setting down the lamp, she studied the wedge-shape fragment of granite. Dust had not gathered on it. It was an exterior corner piece and you could still see the chisel marks. Raina reached out and ran a finger along the ridges. Something deep beyond the stone, and older than the clanholds, reached back. She wasn’t afraid or surprised . . . she was sad. The Stone Gods and whatever power they laid claim to were retreating from the world of men. They still occupied space, would continue to occupy space, but that space was getting smaller as an Age turned. She did not question how she knew this. It was guidestone. Touch it and truth was revealed.

  Withdrawing her hand she waited as the knowledge worked on her mind. She had hoped that Orwin would return soon with Blackhail’s new guide, some earnest young boy or girl who had been trained by the fierce mind and drill-sergeant tactics of Walvis Harding, clan guide at Dregg. Orwin’s return was no longer a simple thing though. A man in a cart loaded with food and grain would not be allowed to pass Yelma Scarpe’s line. The Weasel chief had already intercepted shipments from tied clansmen. Farmers bringing winter kale, storehouse roots vegetables and dried grain, ewemen bringing the first new lambs of the season and cattlemen bringing calves: the armed camp at the Oldwood had blocked and seized them all.

  It was a problem, and one Raina knew she would have to deal with. She had caused this, and if she had thought in advance about the implications of sending Yelma and her Scarpers from the Hailhouse she would have—should have—acted with some diplomacy. Instead she had got angry and let herself react to Yelma’s pinched and unlovely face. Now she had an unlovely mess on her hands. A thousand angry and hungry Scarpes were on her threshold. And short of declaring out-and-out war she could not think how to be rid of them.

  What was becoming obvious with every passing day was the fact that Yelma was digging in for the
long haul. Trees were being felled, shanties were being raised. Rumor had it that a fight-and-tourney circle had been cleared. And why not? Why not claim the old briar meadow and ruined farmhouse east of the Oldwood? Scarpes did not possess a roundhouse: they might as well camp here instead of there.

  Raina rubbed the tip of her finger. It was still tingly where it had touched the stone. Camp here and Scarpes could feed their hungry, lazy selves by seizing Blackhail-bound goods coming in from the east or south. So far they had not killed any tied Hailsmen in the process of relieving them of goods, but they had not treated them kindly. One eweman had taken a spear through the side. Laida Moon was tending him. She said he was lucky the blade missed his gut. Raina’s heart ached to think of it: a man alone and outnumbered protecting his sheep.

  What had she created? And how was she going to fix it? Yelma Scarpe was contending that she, Raina Blackhail, was illegally occupying the Hailhouse. According to Yelma, Mace Blackhail had asked the Scarpe chief to look out for Blackhail while he was away, and by barring the door to her and her Scarpemen, Raina was effectively usurping Blackhail’s chiefship. So by staying close to the Hailhouse and monitoring the situation, Yelma was simply acting in Mace Blackhail’s interests.

  Raina took a deep breath. Yelma Scarpe was driving her to her wits’ end—literally. She did not have the wit to deal with her. Raina supposed she should be grateful that Yelma had so far refrained from intercepting sworn warriors returning from Bannen Field. Such an act would be an irreversible act of aggression. But Yelma was slowly gathering power at the Oldwood and Raina wouldn’t put anything past her. She had looked into the Weasel chief’s eyes and seen the treachery there.

  Yelma Scarpe wanted Blackhail for herself.

  Leaning forward, Raina grabbed the last fragment of the Hailstone in both hands and lifted it a foot above the ground. With a small downward movement of her wrists, she drove it into the floor. A single piece broke off and shot across the storeroom. Raina released her hands from the Hailstone and stood. She could see the path the splinter had taken. It had cleared a straight line in the dust. Bending at the waist, she picked up the fragment. It was the size and shape of a grain of wheat. She looked at it a moment, turned it to see all sides, and then slid it under her tongue.

  “I pledge to defend Blackhail and stop at nothing to save us and give my last breath to the Heart of Clan.”

  The old words of oathspeaking had power, even now, as the gods who heard them were withdrawing from the clans. It was First Oath, spoken by young warriors who were not yet deemed ready to commit themselves wholly and for life to one clan. For one year and a day, ended the oath.

  Raina Blackhail of Clan Blackhail stood in perfect stillness, thirty feet belowground, within the roundhouse of her adopted clan and tasted the bitter salts in the guidestone. She would never see the walled gardens and painted halls of Dregg again, she knew that now. Her hope of returning to her birth clan and living a peaceful and sunlit life was dead.

  Peace was not in her future.

  War was.

  Raina opened her mouth and spoke the words that would seal her fate. “I give myself wholly to Blackhail for one lifetime and a day.”

  The stillness did not break, nothing on the surface of the world changed, so she couldn’t understand why tears sprang in her eyes. After all that she had been through, wasn’t this a very small thing? She loved Blackhail, loved it with a fierce and possessive love. Now the clan she wanted to possess, possessed her back.

  Raina brought her hand to her lips. This was where the oath’s second should step forward and take possession of the swearstone. She had no second. No one to keep the swearstone. No one to support her oath.

  I keep it alone.

  Closing her eyes, she swallowed. Muscles in her throat contracted, pushing it down. She felt the swearstone pass down her esophagus and enter her stomach, felt it sink against her gut wall and start burning a place for itself in her body. Within a day it would seal itself off, her flesh closing in around it: a piece of Blackhail and its failing gods in the center of her being.

  Somewhere Inigar Stoop’s body was turning in its grave.

  Raina’s smile was shaky. Dagro, Anwyn, Inigar, Orwin away at Dregg: all the wise people of Blackhail had gone. That left the unwise to rule.

  I’d better get started then. She scooped up the lamp and exited the chamber. As she made her way up through the underlevels she couldn’t understand why the swearstone made her feel lighter, not heavier. Did it not increase her burdens? When she passed a narrow, recessed flight of stairs leading up toward the chief’s chamber, she began to understand what the gods had given her in payment for her life.

  A clear conscience.

  Any act, big or small, hot-blooded and reckless or cold-blooded and ruthless, was justified in defense of her clan. Ancient words now commanded her to stop at nothing to protect Blackhail. Stannig Beade’s slaughter fell within their mandate. Just like Yelma Scarpe, Beade had been a threat to Blackhail, sneaking power while its chief was away at Bannen Field.

  Some long-held tightness in Raina’s chest—she did not know if it was guilt or shame or fear of being caught—relaxed. Sworn warriors did not weep over their kills or worry what others though of them. They slept well and deeply at night.

  Raina ran up the stairs to the kitchen. Funny how you could have a burden and not know it until it was suddenly and surprisingly removed.

  Merritt Ganlow was overseeing the cleanup and removal of Scarpe debris from the roundhouse. Today she had turned her considerable attention toward the kitchens, where she was supervising a handful of pretty girls as they scoured butcher blocks, fire irons, cauldrons and cook pots. Raina considered most of it a waste of time. The girls could be better used in the kaleyard planting greens or in the Wedge setting traps. Merritt knew this and as Raina walked toward her, the clanswoman folded her arms in expectation of a fight.

  “We’ll be doing the entrance hall next.”

  Raina looked at Merritt’s clever face, with its green eyes and wrinkled skin, and realized that the clanswoman was in some fundamental way different from her now. Merritt’s folded arms and bristling manner in no way engaged Raina. In the past Raina knew she would have bristled right back in response and a battle of wills would have ensued. Today, in the kitchen, with the swearstone burning a hole in her core, she said only, “Good.”

  Merritt blinked. Her eyes and ears registered a change in Raina, but she did not understand what that change was. Raina saw worry in the older woman’s eyes.

  She had no time for it, and bowed and left Merritt to her domain. She was so anxious to be outside that she took the kitchen’s rear door. With its bloodstained sawdust and chicken feathers, the kitchen court was not a place she cared to be. A boy was collecting eggs from the chicken coops. Raina bid him stop and find Chella Gloyal. As the boy ran to do her bidding, Raina walked off the kitchen court and turned toward the kaleyard.

  She had not been in the yard since Jani Gaylo’s death. The poor, silly misguided girl had fallen under the spell of Stannig Beade and ended up dead in a well shaft because of it. Raina’s gaze went to the well as soon as she opened the wood gate. Beautifully cut and fitted rosestone surrounded the wellhead, and two curved stone benches hugged it on either side. They looked as little used as any tomb, and Raina found no desire to approach them.

  She was pleased to see vegetable beds had been raised. Crossing to inspect them, she searched for the first shoots of the season.

  “Just as well there’s nothing yet. The frost would only kill them.”

  Raina looked up to see Chella Gloyal standing next to her. She had not heard the Croserwoman approach.

  Surprise made Raina sharp. “It’s too late for frosts.”

  A single look, not ungently given, reprimanded Raina for making the mistake of applying the past to now. Chella looked healthy and alive. Color was glowing in her cheeks and her lovely dark hair was loose. “Glynn brought me a message from Grim,” she sai
d, explaining her high spirits and color and perhaps making an effort to change Raina’s mood. “He, Corbie, Stellan and Drew are safely at Bannen. But then, of course, you would know.”

  Raina did know. Mace had received delivery of the Blackhail treasure, and by at least one account was ill pleased. He had expected more gold. Raina wasted no thought on that. “Is Grim settling in for the long siege?”

  Chella Gloyal was sharp. She knew, she just knew, what the question really meant. “Oh, I would say so,” she replied, keeping that gray-green gaze of hers on Raina. “I don’t expect him back anytime soon.”

  So Chella thought that Mace would stay put on Bannen Field. Raina was glad to hear it. She was beginning to suspect that Chella had access to sources of information that she, Raina Blackhail, did not. This morning, while she was settling Glynn Sellwood and the other three clansmen in the Great Hearth, Glynn had handed her a leather satchel.

  “I’m sorry, lady, to trouble you with this task, but I normally give them to Anwyn.”

  The satchel contained messages for people in the clan. Raina had never spared a thought for who controlled delivery of messages in the roundhouse. If she’d stopped to consider it she would have said that returning warriors either delivered the messages themselves or set children, or whoever was close and unemployed, to the task. She would have been wrong. Sweet Anwyn Bird, always ready with beer and fried bread whenever warriors walked in the door, was the one who took possession of all messages entering the roundhouse. Raina reeled to think about it. Had Anwyn opened and read messages sent to her by Dagro, Mace, Shor Gormalin, Drey Sevrance? Were a clan’s worth of secrets sharing Anwyn Bird’s grave?

  Even without opening the messages you could learn things. Emptying the contents of the satchel, Raina had discovered three separate letters addressed to Chella Gloyal. One of the messages had Croser’s pike seal upon it and another had the thick parchment and fancy blue ink of something sent from a mountain city. Chella Gloyal had a faraway friend, one who had gone to the trouble of sending a message onto Bannen Field.