by J. V. Jones
Mauger and his companions exchanged glances. They were not men easy with such courtesy. “Aye,” Mauger said gruffly after a moment. “ ’Tis well done. A stableman took our mounts.”
Robbie made a small gesture with his hand. “Good. Now warm yourselves by the brazier. Bram, bring bread and ale. And be sure to tell Old Mother who has come. She would not thank us if these men came and left and she’d missed the chance to greet them.”
“Old Mother is here?” Mauger asked, turning his head to look for her.
“Yes. Out by the river. She gave us her blessing three months back when she came to join our cause.”
“We thought her dead.” Mauger was clearly perplexed. “She went missing with that sorry mule of hers, and Skinner said she’d rode out to the ruinwoods to die.”
Robbie raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, leaving the five warriors to name Skinner Dhoone a liar for themselves. Bram loaded nutbread and a flagon of black ale onto a wood platter, and carried it to the camp table. A cloth map of the clanholds was spread across the length of the table, and Robbie nodded impatiently when Bram hesitated to set a tray upon it. As Bram poured ale into drinking horns, the five warriors sat reluctantly.
“So you are no longer quartered at the Milkhouse,” Mauger said to Robbie, glancing around the tower chamber. “A pity, as it’s a fine fortress.”
“We grew too big for it.” Robbie took the first horn of ale for himself. “Wrayan asked me to stay, but a man would be a fool to overburden his host.”
Mauger grunted his agreement. He was a big man, with all his strength in his shoulders, and a stubble of white-blond hair poking through the blue skin on his neck. Bram saw him take note of the men gathered around the cook fires sanding their armor, fixing pieces of tack, or turning out damp clothing to dry. More men squatted by the doorless entryway, playing knuckle-bones and taking bets, and still others formed small groups around the chamber, speaking softly amongst themselves. Bram took pride in their numbers. Not a day had gone by since the raid on Bludd when a man or small company hadn’t presented themselves to Robbie for service. His fame was growing, and the name Skinner Dhoone had coined for him was known throughout the clans. The Thorn King.
“Count if your master bids it, Mauger,” Robbie said lightly, stretching his legs. “But don’t expect an accurate tally, as you’re seeing less than half of us here tonight.”
It was a lie, but it was well done. Bram marveled at the calmness of his brother’s face. Strange that I never realized before how good Robbie is at deceit.
Mauger colored hotly.
The man named Berold spoke to cover his companion’s discomfort. “We bear messages from Skinner. Would you hear us now, or would you prefer to parley in private?”
It was a challenge and Robbie rose to it. “I hide nothing from my companions. Speak up, man, so others can hear.”
Berold glanced at Mauger. “It was agreed my brother would speak for all.”
Bram looked anew at Mauger and Berold, and saw what he had failed to earlier: the same features occupied both faces. My brother, Berold had said. The words pricked something in Bram, but he did not know what or why.
Mauger held his horn out to be refilled before speaking. “First. Skinner demands that you no longer name him uncle. He has looked into your bloodline and found you to be no cousin to a chief. You are nephew to him by neither blood nor marriage, and any claims you stake are false.”
Whilst Mauger was speaking, men around the chamber turned to listen. Many bristled at this insult to their chief. The big axman Duglas Oger bared a mouthful of broken teeth, and came to stand at Robbie’s back. Even in the company of other axmen, Duglas had no rivals for strength or bulk, and his presence at the camp table caused the five visitors to exchange wary glances. Duglas Oger saw this and casually reached behind his back for his ax.
Robbie gentled him with a hand to his arm as he addressed himself to Mauger. “I take no umbrage. I know the words you speak are not your own. I can’t say I’m surprised by Skinner. It pleased him to call me nephew when it suited him, now it pleases him not to. A nice trick. A pity he’s never tried it on his wife.”
Laughter rippled around the chamber. Duglas Oger chortled; it sounded as if someone were trying to strangle him. The visitors were less easy with this jest at their chief’s expense, and all but one of them kept their faces guarded. Young, whiteeyebrowed Jordie Sarson couldn’t quite manage to keep the grin from his lips.
Robbie’s won him, Bram knew with certainty. So far his brother had done everything right: disarming the visitors with courtesy, impressing them with his cool-headedness, and now refusing to take insult where it was most definitely intended. Bram felt a wave of pride rising, and with it the familiar sinking sensation in his chest. How can I feel so proud of him, and yet not want him to succeed? It was disloyalty of the worst kind, and Bram knew it shamed him. With an effort of will he set his mind away from it and concentrated instead upon the simple task of keeping the visitors’ horns topped with ale.
“Is there more?” Robbie asked.
Mauger shifted uneasily. “Aye. Concerning the kingship.” He downed more ale to give himself courage. “Skinner says your dam was a whore, and if every man who’s seen the inside of her cunt claimed kingship from it then a good half of the clanholds should be crowned.”
Robbie’s blue-gray eyes turned cold. “No,” he said quietly to Duglas Oger who was in the process of raising his ax. Across the room Iago Sake stalked the visitors, his deathly pale skin and winter furs rendering him almost invisible against the milkstone walls. Robbie stood. “No,” he repeated again, this time to all the men in chamber. “Don’t send our brothers back to Gnash thinking we don’t know a lie when we hear one. All here knew and honored my mother Margret. Everything fair and golden lay within her, and she went to her death with the grace of the Dhoone Queens. The words of a scared man cannot change that. Skinner Dhoone is growing desperate, and he sinks to new depths. Does he think me a dog to fight at his command? Insult my lady mother and I’ll froth at the muzzle and strike out without a plan?” Robbie shook his head. “Don’t mistake me, Dhoonesmen. I won’t forget this insult, but I won’t drag one extra sword into this fight. This is between me and Skinner, and it’ll be settled between two men, no more.”
Many in the crowd nodded. Iago Sake rested his ax. Robbie was right. Only a son could defend his mother’s honor, no matter how keenly that son’s companions felt the insult. Bram found he could look no one in the eye. None had looked at him since the visitors had entered, and he did not want to invite their scrutiny now.
Margret Cormac nee Dhoone was not his mother. The golden hair and blue eyes she possessed went solely to her first and only son, along with a well-documented claim to the Thistle Blood. Even before the old Dhoone chief was slain by Bluddsmen, Robbie had forsaken his father’s name and started calling himself Dhoone instead. Bram could still remember hearing the name Robbie Dhoone for the first time, and thinking how much grander it sounded than Rab Cormac. He had been six. “Can I call myself Dhoone, too, Rab?” he had asked on the weapons court as Robbie cleaned pig blood from his sword with a fist of hay. “No, Bram,” Robbie had said, squinting down the length of his swordblade to check for trueness. “We share the same father, but not the same dam. My mother was a great lady with ancestors stretching back to Weeping Moira. Your mother’s just a rabbit trapper from Gnash.”
Bram rested his hand on the camp table for a moment. He told himself Robbie had meant no insult, that his words were just the thoughtlessness of a sixteen-year-old boy. Yet Bram was fifteen himself now, and he knew he wouldn’t have spoken the same words in Robbie’s place.
Mauger was speaking, but it took a moment for Bram to understand him. “Skinner’s tired of the wait,” said the seasoned warrior. “He calls for a meeting with swords, to settle the matter of the chiefship once and for all.”
The call to swords stirred the men. They had taken part in little but raids since the attack
on Bludd, and they were hungry for battle. It mattered little that Skinner Dhoone’s forces outnumbered them, for success at Bludd had made them bold, and their faith in Robbie’s leadership was unshakable. Bram saw and understood all—and he also saw the glint of calculation that passed across his brother’s face.
Still standing, Robbie made a gesture to quiet the men. “Brothers. Companions,” he said quietly. “I’ll not meet Skinner Dhoone on a field of his choosing. He may be willing to set Dhoonesmen against Dhoonesmen, but I am not. Who here tonight can cast eyes upon our visitors and not know them for our clansmen? Kill them and we kill ourselves. Every Dhoonesman dead is one less man to fight against Bludd. Tell me, whose blood is better served on our blades? Dhoone’s or Bludd’s?”
Silence settled on the tower chamber like a spell. Light from the torches hissed and dimmed as the first mists of evening stole through cracks in the tower. The Milk lay less than thirty feet to the south, and river ice could be heard fracturing as air cooled above the surface. Inside the chamber all Dhoonesmen had grown grave. Duglas Oger raised the copper horn containing his measure of powdered guidestone to his lips. Others followed. Iago Sake bowed his head, and began speaking the names of the Stone Gods. Robbie joined him, and by the time the third god was named the entire room was chanting them in prayer. . . . Ione, Loss, Uthred, Oban, Larannyde, Malweg, Behathmus.
The words brought tears to men’s eyes, for Robbie had somehow reminded them that Dhoone was the beloved second son of the gods.
The visiting clansmen chanted along with Robbie’s men, and Bram wondered how many would return to Skinner at Gnash. Jordie Sarson would not, for his gaze seldom left Robbie and there was a light of devotion within it. The bald and big-knuckled spearman Roy Cox, known as Spineback, also looked as if he might succumb to mutiny, for there was a troubled look on his thin, bony face and his gaze traveled around the tower chamber as if assessing it as a potential home.
Mauger and Berold also looked troubled, but Bram did not think they would entertain the thought of switching sides. Loyalty and honor ran too deep within them, and just as they were cautious of Robbie’s courtesy, they were cautious of his well-spoken words as well.
Mauger broke the silence by asking, “Have you any message to send to my chief?”
Robbie reached behind his neck to handle his braids. Bram doubted he was unaware of the figure he cut, the length of muscle in his arm and shoulders, the fine long fingers, unbitten by any ax. “I have no message for Skinner. Any man who would set clansman against clansman is not worthy of my respect. I would speak only to those who follow him. And I would tell them this: All are welcome here as brothers. What has been done and said in the past is forgotten. Join me, and we’ll return in force to our clanhold and reclaim Dhoone.”
Mauger nodded brusquely and quickly, as if wary of the effect of Robbie’s words on his four companions. “A fine speech, but I’ll not do your campaigning for you, Rab Cormac. If you have no message for our chief, then you have none for us.” He turned to his companions. “Come, men. We need to cross the Milk afore moonset.” Mauger bowed his head in farewell to Robbie and Duglas Oger, and then crossed the chamber. Berold and the three others followed him, but not before Robbie had made eye contact with Jordie Sarson and Roy Cox.
Only when those two men had turned away from him did Robbie allow the anger to show on his face. He had ill-liked being called Rab Cormac. Bram had once witnessed him beating Jesiah Shamble bloody when the simple-minded luntman had forgotten Robbie’s new name and called him by the old one instead. No one had dared name Robbie a Cormac since, and no one but Duglas Oger ever called him Rab. Yet it was clear from Mauger’s remark that they were calling him both at Gnash.
Bram Cormac slipped out of the tower unnoticed. He had no wish to witness his brother’s anger over the name their father had given them.
The mist had risen to man-height on the riverbank, and there was a deep chill to it that penetrated every layer of Bram’s clothing and then lay wetly against his skin. Hunching his shoulders, he made his way toward the mossy bank where Old Mother kept a tent and fire. She would not sleep or take meals in the broken tower, and would only enter it at Robbie’s command.
The smell of woodsmoke guided him through the mist. The land east of the Milkhouse was wild and heavily forested, and Guy Morloch said that if a man built a hunt lodge among the trees and left it unattended for a year he’d never be able to find it again. The forest would destroy it. Castlemilk’s farmland and grazes were to the north and west, leaving the land that bordered Bludd-sworn Frees free to create a thick and impenetrable barrier to keep enemies at bay. Even here, only a league west of the Milkhouse, the forest claimed every space it could, and willows and bog oak sent bare limbs out across the river as if they could claim the very water itself.
Old Mother was sitting on a tree stump by a green-log fire, warming sotted oats in an iron pot helm and chewing on a stalk of rue. Her only greeting was, “Does Robbie call me?”
Bram wondered if she knew his name. Her teeth were yellow from the rue, and she smelled unpleasant, like river water trapped too long in a hole. “Robbie said to let you know that Mauger and others from Gnash are here. He thought you might want to greet them before they leave. They’re out by the horse tent. I’ll take you to them if you want.” Bram didn’t truly believe the offer, made in courtesy, still held, but Robbie had not gainsaid it so he decided it was worth the risk.
“Mauger was a colicky baby,” Old Mother said, rising stiffly. “Bald as a vulture that first year and screaming up a storm every night.”
Bram couldn’t think of anything to say to that so he nodded. Old Mother was strange, but he had come to understand that she knew things that others did not. Mostly it was tales about how grown clansmen were when they’d been babes and the scrapes they’d got into as boys, but sometimes she said things that made you think. The day that Robbie had proposed moving from the Milkhouse to the broken tower, she’d been dead set against it, and had flatly refused to sleep there. “Sull stones, Sull bones,” she had murmured, shaking her large, fleshy head. “The smell of it will draw them like flies.”
Bram found he didn’t like to think about who they were, but there was something in the words that excited him. Every clansman knew that the land between the Bitter Hills and the Copper Hills had once belonged to the Sull, but no one spoke of it. It was a mystery. If the Sull were the fierce and death-stalking warriors everyone held them to be, then how had the settling clansmen managed to best them? Bram frowned. Withy and Wellhouse kept the histories: one day he’d travel to both roundhouses and discover the answer for himself.
Holding his arm out for Old Mother to take he guided her back along the bank. For no discernible reason the mist had begun to fail, and Bram found he could see through the retreating wisps. Ahead, the Sull tower sat strange and unlovely upon the riverbank like a broken tooth. At its highest point only four storeys remained, at its lowest less than one.
Out of the corner of his eye Bram spotted the five visiting Dhoonesmen grouped in a circle around their horses, engaged in last-minute preparations for the ford across the river. The horses were irritable, and would not stand easy while their riders greased their flanks against the cold water. The warriors should have stayed overnight and rested them, but Bram knew Mauger was eager to get away. He had seen and heard for himself how seductive Robbie Dhoone could be, and he feared to test the loyalty of his men.
Mauger was tightening his mount’s girth when he saw Bram and Old Mother approach. His smile was genuine upon recognizing the old woman, but there were signs of weariness around his eyes. “So it’s true, Old Mother. You have left us . . . and now we must fight alone.” He bent to lay a kiss on her forehead, and then seemed to force himself to speak lightly. “In truth, I’m glad that you and that ugly mule of yours are still alive.”
Old Mother accepted the kiss as her due, with her arms folded over the great barrel that was her chest and her mouth pressed into a lin
e. She showed so little emotion that Bram wondered why she had come. Then she said, “He’ll use Skinner. He canna help it, it’s just the way he is.”
Mauger’s gaze flicked to his companions, checking that he and Old Mother could not be overheard. “How will he use him?”
It was telling that no one mentioned Robbie by name.
Old Mother wagged her head. “Ride on his back, that’s how. Have Skinner for a workhorse, and himself for its master. He always was a canny child, quick to get others to do his bidding. Year of the long drought he had Duglas and his crew dam the Fly. Stayed away all day practicing with his ax, then came and took the credit when it was done.”
Mauger frowned. He did not look comfortable with Old Mother’s ramblings. “If you cannot say anything clearer, Old Mother, then best speak naught at all.” He thrust a foot into a stirrup and hefted his bulk over his stallion’s back. His companions did likewise, and began trotting close to hear what Old Mother had to say.
“Be careful you and Skinner don’t fight his fights for him, Mauger Loy. Else I’ll be laying heather on your cairn afore we’re done.”
Bram bowed his head. He wished he had not brought her, for she had picked the worst possible moment to lay a doom upon Mauger—when his brother and three companions could hear.
Mauger breathed hard, his bronzed and ax-dented breast-plate rising along with his chest. With a short rein he turned his horse. “Brother. Men. West to Gnash!” Kicking spurs into horsemeat, he forced a starting gallop from his stallion and led his party west along the Milk.
Bram watched him disappear into the swirling, unsettled mist. Brother, he had said again, and for the second time that evening Bram felt something inside him freeze at the word. Brother. And then, quite suddenly, he understood. It had been over a year since Robbie had said that word to him.
