A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2)

by J. V. Jones

  Pushing back her sleeves so the raised skin around her wrists showed, Raina said, “You and I both lost husbands in the badlands, Merritt Ganlow. Would that their deaths had generated kinship, not distrust.”

  “You found yourself a new husband quick enough.”

  Other women looked up at Merritt’s words and nodded. Someone at the back whispered, “Quick as a bitch in heat.”

  Oh Dagro. Why did you leave me alone to bear this? Steeling herself against emotion, Raina said, “Life goes on, Merritt, and the clan needs strong women to guide it. Perhaps your place is here, with the widows weaving cloth, but mine is not. I have been too long at the fore of things to retire to a life of wool and stitching. Losing a husband does not change who I am. And it’s not within me to claim the widow’s privilege of sitting near the fire and growing old.”

  The shuttle in Merritt’s hand slowed. “Aye, you always were a hard one, Raina Blackhail.”

  “Hardness in a man is called strength.”

  “Aye, and strength, as you would have it, isn’t solely the preserve of those who lead. There’s strength to be found here, in the act of weaving quietly and carrying on.”

  “I know it, Merritt. That is why I have come.”

  For the first time since she had entered the widows’ hearth, Raina felt a lessening of the tension. Slender and lovely Moira Lull cleared the space beside Merritt on the bench. The women at the back returned to their tasks as Merritt took both hands from her loom and turned to face Raina full on. “You’re looking thin,” she said.

  Raina sat. “Food is scarce.”

  “Not for a chief’s wife.”

  “I’m busy.” Raina shrugged. “There’s little time to stop and eat.”

  “Anwyn says you’re wearing yourself out.”

  “Anwyn should look to herself.”

  That got a smile from Merritt. No one worked harder or longer than Anwyn Bird. When the grand matron of the roundhouse wasn’t cooking or butchering, she was down in the armory, tilling bows.

  Merritt pushed a flagon of sheep’s-milk ale Raina’s way. “So, what brings you here this early?”

  Raina drank from the jug, savoring the milky coolness and the bite of malt liquor buried deep beneath the cream. As she wiped the froth from her lips, she wondered how best to approach this. Guile failed her so she came straight to the point. “You have kin at the Orrlhouse?” Merritt’s nod was guarded. “And your son travels back and forth, trading skins and winter meat?”

  “Only Orrlsmen can bring home fresh meat from a deep-winter hunt.”

  “Aye.” There wasn’t a Hailsman in the roundhouse who wasn’t in awe of Orrl’s white-winter hunters. No one could track game across snow and ice like the men of Orrl. “So your son must have knowledge of what’s happening at the Orrlhouse?”

  This time Merritt’s nod was slow in coming. Her clever hands tied off a length of thread. “What’s it to you what my son knows, Raina Blackhail? Don’t you learn enough of Orrl’s business abed with your husband at night?”

  Careful, Raina cautioned herself. Think what Dagro would have done here. “I learn only what Mace chooses to tell me.”

  Merritt sucked air between her teeth. “So you come here seeking what he will not?”

  “I come here seeking the truth.” Raina met and held Merritt’s gaze. “We go back a long time, you and I. You and Meth danced swords at my first wedding, and when Dagro went hunting that last time it was Meth who shared his tent. I might be married to Mace Blackhail but my loyalty lies with this clan. You might think I gained much upon marrying him, but you cannot know all I have lost. What I’m asking for is information when you have it. I know the steadfastness of this hearth. None here will go running to my husband with tales of his wife’s deeds.”

  “He watches you.” Ancient turkey-necked Bessie Flapp did not look up from her carding as she spoke. Skeletal fingers combed and stretched, combed and stretched, as a chill crept upon Raina. “Eyes everywhere. Little mice and little telltales. Meetings by the dog cotes and the stoke holes. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Who goes where? Who does what? Little mice with weasels’ tails.”

  Raina took a breath. She had not known it was as bad as this.

  “Biddie. Fetch Raina some of the griddle cakes from the hearth. And bring honey to sweeten the ale.” There was mothering in Merritt’s voice and Raina wondered what was showing on her face to change the woolwife so.

  Biddie Byce’s long blond braids whipped the air as she went about Merritt’s bidding. She was too young to be a widow, barely nineteen winters old. Cull had wed her the spring before he was slain on Bannen field. Now Cull’s twin, Arlec, had begun to pay her court in small and unassuming ways. After the taking of Ganmiddich he had returned home with a necklace strung with green marble beads. Shyly, he had pressed it into Raina’s hands. “See Biddie gets it. She need not know it’s from me.”

  Raina smiled as Biddie returned with cakes and honey. She didn’t want the girl to see the envy stabbing softly in her chest.

  “Here. Pull this round you. Your skin’s as blue as Dhoone.” Merritt arranged a fine wool shawl across Raina’s shoulders, pulling it here and there until it covered all the bare skin. “Hatty. Bring one of the pieces you and your sisters are working on—Raina needs to see it.”

  Silent and big-boned Hatty Hare snapped a thread with her teeth. Slowly she rose from her embroiderer’s stool to place a fist-sized panel in Raina’s hand.

  The Hail Wolf, worked in silver against a black ground. The Blackhail badge; only no clansman since Ayan Blackhail had worn it.

  “All the needlewomen have been set to work on them, under order of the chief himself.” Merritt poured honey into the milk ale. “We were warned to sew in silence and let none but the silversmiths know it, as they’re needed to stretch the wire.”

  Raina’s fingers traced the line of the wolf’s jaw, expertly worked in silver wire so fine it moved as if it were thread. Almost she knew Merritt’s next words before she spoke them, for it took a fool not to see what this meant.

  “This is how he keeps them loyal, this man whom it pleases you to call husband. He gives our clansmen back their pride. Five hundred years ago in the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes, all the chiefs in the clanholds met to strip Blackhail of its badge. Ayan Blackhail slew a king, they said. A coward’s shot to the throat. No Hail chief has challenged that judgment since; not Ornfel, or Mordrag, or Uthan . . . not even Dagro himself. Yet along comes a Scarpe-born fosterling, winning wars and gaining territory, daring to wear the Hail Wolf at his breast. And that’s not all. He wants every warrior in the clan to wear it; a whole army of Hailsmen bearing their badges with pride.

  “He’s a subtle man, Mace Blackhail, I’ll give him that. And he knows the value of small things. For five hundred years our warriors have ridden into battle without badge or banner. We are women, and we cannot know the shame they endured.”

  Raina hung her head. She felt Mace’s cunning as a weight upon her. Was there nothing he could not arrange? A chiefship. Loyalty.

  Marriage.

  Do not think of it, a hard voice inside her warned. Put the day in the Oldwood behind you. Hate is all it will bring, and hate is like acid; it only burns the vessel that holds it. Raina raised her head. She would not be burned.

  “I’ll be on my way now, but I thank you for your straight words. I’d like to visit you from time to time, to talk and exchange news.” She waited for Merritt to nod before standing. “It’s good to find a hearth free of my husband’s sway.”

  “Squeak, squeak, squeak,” croaked Bessie Flapp. “Little mice with weasels’ tails.”

  Merritt frowned at the old battleax. “Come.” She beckoned Raina. “I’ll walk with you to the stair.” When they were out of earshot, she said, “What is it you sought to know about Orrl?”

  “Who is chief now? How are they coping with our hostilities?”

  “Stallis stood Chief Watch ten days since. By all accounts he’s a sharp one, Spynie’s sixt
h grandson, the white-winter warrior with the most kills.”

  “Does he hold Blackhail in favor?”

  Merritt made an odd sound, almost a laugh. “Come now, Raina. Do you honestly think Stallis will forgive Mace for ordering his grandfather’s slaying?”

  “But—”

  “But what? No one can say for certain who sent the hammer into Spynie Orrl’s brain? ’Tis said in the Orrlhouse that the Scarpe hammerman Mansal Stygo did the killing, and that the marks of Mansal’s hammer were stamped on Spynie’s skull.” Raina made to speak, but Merritt forestalled her again. “And it is also said that a burned-out campfire was found east of where the bodies lay, and amidst the campfire’s ashes lay tokens of Blackhail and Scarpe.”

  “Stone Gods.” Raina touched the horn of powdered guidestone at her waist. She wanted to deny it, but it sounded like the truth. Orrlsmen were not given to wild stories and swift conclusions. They were stoic men, preferring to save their energies for hunting, not loose talk.

  “None of this looks good, Raina. Orrl against Blackhail. War on more war.” Merritt Ganlow’s ice-green eyes studied her. “Best be gone now. Keep the shawl about you. It’s cold in this roundhouse . . . and days darker than night lie ahead.”

  Tiny hairs on Raina’s arms lifted. Merritt’s words were old and she did not know where they came from, but they stirred something within her. Unnerved, she turned to go.

  Merritt caught her wrist. “You are welcome at this hearth, Raina Blackhail. Remember that when you return to your world of husbands and wives.”

  Raina nodded. She could not speak to thank her.

  The journey down through the roundhouse was long and tiring, and she found herself making stops along the way. She saw the casual glances from charwomen and alewives differently now. Were they watching her for him?

  Lost in thought, she almost missed the broad and misshapen form of Corbie Meese, crossing the entrance hall with enough firewood strapped to his back to build or burn a house.

  “Corbie.”

  The soft word made the hammerman turn. A frown had started upon his face, but upon seeing Raina he grinned. “Are ye mad, woman? To halt a man whilst he’s toting a ton of logs?” Bending his back as he spoke, he resettled the load. Leather straps whitened with the strain.

  Raina grinned back at him. “That old load? Why, there’s more air in there than wood.”

  Corbie laughed. “By the Stones, woman! You’d drive a man hard if ye could.”

  Now he had Raina laughing along with him, and it felt good. Good. It was suddenly difficult to talk of other things. “Corbie. Can I ask something of you?”

  “Aye. If I can ask something of you.”

  “You can.”

  Serious now, the hammerman put a hand against the stair-wall to brace the weight of his load. The great dint in his head where a training hammer had clipped him as a boy showed up starkly in the torchlight. “It’s Sarolyn. She’s near her time now ... and ...” His gaze dropped to his feet.

  Raina nodded quickly, knowing full well what he meant to say and knowing also that mannish reticence kept him from it. “I’ll watch her day and night, Corbie. And both me and Anwyn will be there during her confinement.”

  Relief showed itself plainly on Corbie’s face. “I thank you for that, Raina Blackhail. It does a man’s heart good to know that his wife will be well cared for whilst he’s riding far from home.”

  Such a good man. He does not speak of his own death, but the thought is there inside him.

  “Name what ye would have of me.”

  She met the gaze from Corbie’s light brown eyes, feeling as if she had trapped him. “It’s said that only a dozen hammermen in the North are capable of the blow that killed Spynie Orrl. Is Mansal Stygo one of them?”

  Corbie’s whole body stiffened at the question. To ask a hammerman to speak against a fellow hammerman, even one from a foreign clan, was calling for blood. There was a close honor amongst them. Hammer and ax had been wielded in the clanholds before the first sword-blade was forged, before even there was metal, just stone and wood and bone. And neither Corbie nor Raina could pretend this was a casual question about a man’s skill.

  The chief’s wife asked much of the hammerman, but the hammerman had given his word and he was bound by honor to answer her . . . even though he knew he named a murderer as he spoke. “Mansal trained for a season with the Griefbringer, here in this house.”

  Naznarri Drac. The Griefbringer. Exiled from the Far South, granted asylum by Ewan Blackhail, victor of Middlegorge, trainer of Corbie Meese. Six years dead now, the last man he’d trained was Bullhammer, the strongest hammerman in the North.

  Knowing she had her answer, Raina bowed her head.

  Corbie watched Raina for a moment, then shouldered his burden of quartered logs, turned and walked away.

  Raina stared at the great slate tiles that formed the entrance-hall floor, letting the knowledge settle inside her. Two meetings, both good and bad. Would that somehow she could avoid the third. There was nothing for it, though. Mace Blackhail had summoned her and she would be a fool to defy him. Gathering Merritt’s cloak about her, she made for the Hail chief’s chamber.

  The crooked stairway was narrow and poorly lit. Once Raina had rushed down the steps, eager to be with Dagro to talk about her day. Now she moved slowly, noticing the mold on the walls and the defensive capstones overhead. Too soon she was there. The tar coating the chief’s door seemed to ooze from the wood in the torchlight, and she did not want to put a hand upon it. Mace saved her the trouble by pushing from the other side.

  “Wife,” he greeted her, a smile flashing oddly upon his face. “I had expected you sooner.”

  He did not make way to let her enter and she was forced to reply while standing at the door like a child. “Did the girl not tell you I had business elsewhere?”

  “She was sent to fetch you, not your excuses.”

  “Then that’s her failing, not mine.”

  Almost she thought that he would hit her. The anger was there in his eyes, but it shifted as quickly as it was born, leaving nothing but the hardness around his mouth. Turning, he bade her enter with a crook of his wrist.

  She watched him move. The leathers he wore were as fluid as cloth and they curved to his spine as he walked. Wolves’ eyeteeth had been mounted around the hem of his greatcloak to weight it, and the fist-size brooch that held it to his throat was fashioned as a wolf pup, carved and silvered and packed with lead. Coming to stand behind the block of sandstone known as the Chief’s Cairn, he bade her seal the door.

  Even now, after fourteen weeks of marriage, she feared to be alone with him. But she could not let him know that so she closed the door and drew the bolt.

  “I see you have discovered one of my schemes.” He nodded toward her left hand. “I take it you approve?”

  Feeling like a fool, Raina glanced down at her hand. The badge. She had not realized she had brought it with her. Feigning casualness, she tossed it onto the Chief’s Cairn. “A pretty plan.”

  Mace’s strong, blade-bitten fingers closed around the badge. “I thought so.” He observed her coolly, and she knew he had seen through her bluff.

  She spoke to dampen the gleam of knowing in his yellow-black eyes. “So, what would you have of me?”

  “A wife.”

  His words seemed to stop the air itself. Dust and heat and lamp smoke ceased rising. Mace’s gaze held hers, and for the first time since he had returned from the badlands she saw the man behind the wolf.

  “You were a partner to Dagro,” he murmured, reaching for her hand. “Be one to me.”

  Raina closed her eyes. Sweet gods, how can he say this to me? Does he not remember what happened in the Oldwood? Yet she saw in his eyes that he did, and that, given a chance, he would speak soft words to reverse it. I was desperate, I acted rashly, I thought you wanted it too. She shuddered, unable to find her voice.

  Mace watched her closely. Minutes passed as he held her hand. And t
hen, at last, he released it. “I have my answer, then.”

  She drew in breath. There was no anger in her, just sickness. She thought that she might faint. “I’ve done my duty by you.”

  A hard sound issued from his throat, and suddenly he was beside her, his hands on the small of her back. “Do you think I am grateful for your duties?” Sliding his fingers across her breast he turned the word into something obscene. “Don’t flatter yourself, Raina. There’s more warmth to be had in the heart of the Want than in your bed.” Abruptly, he let her go. “Have no fear, I shall make no call upon your duty again.”

  Blood burned in her cheeks. She turned to leave.

  But he had not done with her. Returning to his place behind the Chief’s Cairn, he said, “We have matters yet to discuss.”

  She kept moving toward the door. “Such as?”

  “Such as what’s to be done with the Sevrance girl. All who saw her that night by the dog cotes swear she’s witched.”

  He knew he had her. She had to turn and face him.

  Casually, Mace rested his hand upon the Clansword that was pegged low upon the wall. Wielded by Murdo Blackhail and Mad Gregor before him, forged from the crown of the Dhoone Kings, and symbol of Blackhail power, the unsheathed sword shone blackly in the torchlight.

  “I’ve protected the girl as best I can, but tempers show little sign of cooling. You know how superstitious the old clansmen are. Turby Flapp would see her stoned. Gat Murdock thinks she should walk the coals. All seek her gone.” Mace shrugged. “I cannot set aside the will of the clan.”

  You bring Scarpemen into this house, she wanted to say. No Hailsman wills that. She said, “Not all in the clan condemn her. Orwin says the Moss woman deserved what she got, and that his dogs attacked her of their own free will.”

  “It’s hardly surprising that Orwin defends the girl. All know he does so out of love and loyalty for Drey.”