by J. V. Jones
Four hours it took them. Four hours to claim the river and the high bluffs beyond. Afterward they danced in the shallows. Masgro Faa found women, as Masgro always did, and although Vaylo himself didn’t take part in the rapings, he watched as others did. When they had done with the women, they drank themselves stupid on elk milk turned green and beer as watery as piss. In the morning, still drunk with victory and the lingering effects of green milk ale, they headed back to the Bluddhold.
Less than an hour later the Sull halted them in their tracks.
Five hundred of their warriors surrounded them. Pure Sull, dressed in lynx furs so rich and supple, it seemed as if they rode with living predators at their backs. Their horses were like no others: breathtaking, silent, oiled like machines. Long recurve bows gleaming with rendered wolf fat rose above the horses’ haunches like masts.
Until the Sull had shown themselves, Vaylo had not seen or heard a thing, so softly did their horses’ hooves break ground.
Vaylo clearly remembered that not one Sull—not even the foreguard—drew a single arrow from his case. They didn’t need to; Vaylo knew that straightaway. Superior numbers, superior ground, superior weapons, formation, and foreplanning were all theirs. He also knew that if he’d had twice or even three times their number, the Sull would still have bettered him.
It was the first real lesson he had learned as the Dog Lord: The Sull were not to be crossed.
The Sull held their positions for as long as they chose to. To this day, Vaylo could not decide how much time passed as the two mounted camps faced each other. Sometimes he thought perhaps it was minutes. Other times he knew it was hours. Then, suddenly, without an order being called or any signal that Vaylo could see being made, the Sull turned as a single body and headed back into the woods. Vaylo could still remember the breeze of air and clay dust they created, still recall the equal mix of fear and wonder he had felt.
No words had been exchanged, no weapons drawn, yet the message was unmistakable: Trenchland is Sull land. Stay clear.
Vaylo had never set foot on Trenchland since. He protected his borders—vigorously—yet never once had he or any Bluddsman under him claimed as much as a hair-thin strip of Sull land for his own. Sull borders were sacred. He had known that even as he had ridden to Cedarlode with his men that first day, yet he was chief, and he was shiny with new power and brash with jaw, and he’d thought he could take them on.
Thinking back on it now, Vaylo knew he had gotten off lightly. The Sull could have slaughtered them all that day. Yet they had chosen to teach a lesson in might instead.
And the Dog Lord never forgot those.
Frowning, Vaylo studied the Surlord’s daughter from the safe haven of the hearth as she sat on the maid’s stool and held the bloody kerchief to her nose. If she had any Sull blood in her, nothing in her coloring or face betrayed it. Still, he could not discard what his instinct told him. The Sull were not people of earth and clay like clansmen; they lived in a land of cool nights and silver moons, surrounded by oceans of rippling icewoods as tall as mountains and pale as frost. Sorcery lived in their blood. All their cities were built to let in the light of the moon. The Sull were night and twilight, shadow and shade, and Vaylo knew in his bones that the substance he had seen rolling upon Asarhia March’s tongue was something they would recognize and claim as their own.
“Vaylo,” came a soft voice through the wood of the door. “I have brought food and malt.”
“Enter, Nan,” he called.
At nearly fifty years of age, Nan Culldayis moved more gracefully than any other woman in the clan. Vaylo watched her as she walked across the room, her fine head held perfectly level as she bore, then deposited, the tray. He noticed how little lines above her brow deepened as she looked at the girl. The habit of care ran deep within her. Like Cluff Drybannock an hour earlier, she left the room without a word.
Vaylo took the malt and drank from the jar. Food, all his favorites—charred blood sausage and pork leg roasted so slowly that it fainted from the bone—had been laid out on a platter with sotted oaks and the kind of fancy honey cakes that all women loved yet Nan knew he hated. Vaylo took a second mouthful of malt, letting its sweet, hellish flames burn his tongue. Nan thought to slip a treat to the girl.
Shrugging, he tipped a full measure of malt into the hollow jug stopper and handed it to the girl. She drank it in one, then looked up for more.
Vaylo brought the jug. “There’s fancies if you want them,” he said, topping up the stopper. “Honey and spices and like.”
The girl looked at him. “I’d rather have the meat.”
It was then, under the scrutiny of those clear gray eyes, that Vaylo Bludd began to regret what he had done. Asarhia March didn’t belong with Penthero Iss in Spire Vanis, in his world of silk-lined walls, rose-scented candles, and chamber pots with lids that fit so tightly that not even light could escape. Yet he was going to send her back there all the same.
Breaking a knuckle of pork, he said, “I’ve sent an osprey to your foster father, telling him you’re here. It will only be a matter of days before a sept comes to fetch you.”
The girl’s face registered no surprise. “What? No ransom?”
“That’s my business.” Vaylo’s voice was harsh. His teeth ached savagely, and he pushed away the tray of food. The girl was right: She would not be ransomed, just handed over as quickly as copper pennies between a trapper and his whore.
The Dog Lord owed the Surlord. Oh, Iss and his devil’s helper denied the existence of any such debt. It was always My master wants nothing in return for his assistance with the Dhoone raid, or We think that you’re the best man to take control of the clans. Yet the words held no truth. Vaylo had been a chief for too long not to know that all things came at a price. Iss wanted something. Vaylo wasn’t sure what, but he knew enough to suspect that war in the clanholds suited the Surlord nicely. And helping the Bludd chief take the Dhooneseat was as good a way as any to start one.
Whatever the motive, the deed was done. Vaylo would not look back on his past and wish things different. He would not allow himself that weakness. He and his clan were at war, and every day that war got bigger as each and every clan was drawn into the dance of swords. Old hates resurfaced and new hates were created, and Vaylo was cold enough a man to see that if he was canny enough and moved quickly enough, there was much to be gained amid the madness. He, the Dog Lord, bastard son of Gullit Bludd, born with only half a name and half a future, might be the first Bludd chief yet to name himself Lord of the Clans.
Yet for now he had a smaller goal on his mind. Vaylo glanced at the girl. He hated being indebted to any man, most especially when that debt was as cloudy as Trenchland beer and reeked in the same foul way. Penthero Iss held his marker, and now, thanks to the keen eyes of Cluff Drybannock, Vaylo had a way to get it back.
The Surlord’s daughter. Return her to Iss and all debts were paid in full. There’d be no more devil’s helpers scratching at his door, upsetting his dogs, and suggesting courses of action he might like to take in voices more fitting to milkmaids than men. He and the Surlord would be free of each other. And that was fine with the Dog Lord. As fine as fine could be.
The day the news of the girl’s capture had arrived at the Dhoonehold, Vaylo had thrown the osprey into the air himself. She was a comely bird, heavy as a newborn, trained by the cloistresses in their mountain tower, capable of flying the cold currents of dawn and twilight, and inbred with ancestral memories of Spire Vanis. She would be there now, or perhaps even on her way home, her left leg no longer burdened by the message she had carried south. The Surlord’s well-manicured fingers had probably stroked her gray-and-white flight feathers as one of his helpers broke the seal.
Uncomfortable with his thoughts, Vaylo banged on the door with his fist to summon Drybone. He could look at the girl no longer. The message had been sent before he’d met her. What was done was done. So she wasn’t what he had expected Iss’ foster daughter to be: That was no
reason to change his plans.
The girl’s gaze was hot on his back as he waited for Drybone to enter. She did not speak, but he heard the malt stopper she had been holding in her hand roll to the floor. The ghosts of grandchildren lost were suddenly heavy in the room, and for a moment he expected to hear the words Granda, don’t send me away.
Drybone entered the chief’s chamber. His blue eyes met once with Vaylo’s own and took from them what orders he needed. He crossed immediately to the girl, seized her wrist, and forced her to stand.
“Take the meat and see she eats it.” Vaylo jerked his head toward the tray.
Drybone led the girl to the table and picked up the pork joint by the bone. His strength was such that even with one hand he could hold her. One of the dogs whined as Drybone, the girl, and more importantly the bone made their way toward the door.
The girl turned on the threshold. Holding her head high, she waited for the Dog Lord to acknowledge her. “When do you intend to kill Raif Sevrance?”
Vaylo breathed deeply. Suddenly he felt very tired and very old. The girl was exhausted, too; the corners of her mouth hung down as she waited for him to speak. “I will stay his execution until the day after you leave.” His own words surprised him, yet he made both his face and his voice hard as he added, “On that you have my oath.”
The girl looked at him for a moment longer, then turned and walked away.
Putting a hand against the green riverstone wall for support, Vaylo waited to hear the door latch click. He had not expected her to thank him, yet he felt her lack of response like a coldness against his heart. She would draw no more sorcery tonight, he was sure of that, yet he knew she was someone he could not control. Like the Sull that day in Cedarlode, it was a matter of superior might.
Better to have her gone. Soon.
After a time he pushed himself off from the wall and unhooked the dogs’ leashes from the spit hook above the hearth. Part of him wanted to climb up the three flights of stairs that separated him from Nan’s chamber and lose himself in her hay-scented flesh. Nan knew him well. She would offer the kind of familiar, homely comforts he was content with. Yet another part of him wanted to be outside, with his dogs, walking through the sharp river-scented air of Ganmiddich.
No one stopped or spoke to him as he crossed the entrance hall and made his way outside. The Ganmiddich roundhouse was high ceilinged, damp, lit by fish-oil lanterns that made the walls slick with grease. Vaylo was glad to be free of it. As soon as the great door closed behind him, he let the dogs run free. Normally at such a time they would race off in all directions, their massive lungs pulling scents of foxes, hares, and rats from thin air. Tonight they chose to stay close to their master. Vaylo cuffed them, told them to go and find some supper for themselves, as he had no intention of feeding them, yet still they would not go. Cursing softly, he let them stay.
He led them to the river shore, and together master and dogs watched the Ganmiddich Tower through the dark hours of the night.
The assassin sat in a chair well illuminated by the amber-burning lamp, yet Penthero Iss still found it hard to behold her. He thought at first that the light had perhaps dimmed owing to impurities in the fuel, yet he could detect no increase or darkening of smoke. Finally, after several minutes of study, he was forced to conclude that Magdalena Crouch was the sort of woman whom it was difficult to see.
Magdalena Crouch, or the Crouching Maiden, as she was known to the very few people in the Northern Territories who could afford to deal death at the rate of one hundred golds a head, waited for Penthero Iss to speak. She was perhaps twenty, no, thirty, no, forty, years of age, with hair that may have been either brown, red, or golden depending on the vagaries of light. Her eyes he had given up hope on. Looking straight into them when he had opened the door, he had seen nothing but his own reflection staring back. She was slim, but somehow fleshy, small, but with the limb length and bearing of someone much taller. Or was she simply tall?
She was not attractive, yet Iss found himself attracted to her. She was not repulsive, yet he found himself repulsed.
“Did you have a good journey from . . .” Iss let the question trail away as he realized he did not know where she had journeyed from. Rumor had it that she lived within the city. But all rumors surrounding the Crouching Maiden were invariably false.
The maiden did not blink as she said, “Any journey, no matter how brief or prolonged, can tire one at this time of year.”
The voice was one thing she possessed that could be pinned down and classified: that beautiful, honey-poured voice. Iss smiled both in acknowledgment of an answer well given and in satisfaction that he finally had something on her.
He had dealt with the Crouching Maiden before, of course, but only by proxy. Caydis Zerbina—who, with his network of liquid-eyed brothers, priests, underscribes, personal servants, bath boys, errand boys, and musicians, knew most things about most people who lived in or passed through Spire Vanis—had always taken care of the details. Meeting the assassin in places of her choosing, Caydis gave her Iss’ instructions and paid her fees in gold, always gold.
This time Iss had chosen to summon her himself. It had not been an easy task, for the Crouching Maiden ill liked to be summoned by any man and valued her celebrated anonymity highly. Yet she had come. One week following the original summons, she had come.
Why? Iss could only speculate. Beforehand, he had assumed she had come because he was the Surlord of Spire Vanis and one never refused a direct request from a man such as he. Yet now, standing in the switching, blue smoke shadows of her presence, he knew that not to be so. The Crouching Maiden came only because she chose to.
“Would you care for some wine . . . a liqueur perhaps, a cup of rosewater spiked with cloves?”
“No.” The word was spoken easily enough, yet the Crouching Maiden rippled her muscles like a tundra cat displaying to a rival as she spoke it.
She was a woman of business, then. Iss respected that. He found it quite delicious. “I have a problem, Magdalena,” he said, fingers closing around a piece of killhound bone as he spoke. “There are people, a family, whom I would like to see . . . removed, yet I don’t know the exact location of the village in which they live. I have, thanks to one of my informants, a good idea of the whereabouts of the village . . . the general area, should we say.”
Iss paused, expecting to hear some small murmur of encouragement from the maiden. None came, and he was forced to continue speaking. “The family lives in a farmhouse situated a day’s ride northeast from Ille Glaive. My informant named three villages which he thinks are most likely to contain them.” Iss gave the names. “What I need is someone to move about through these villages and discreetly, very discreetly, discover where the family lives, and do what is necessary to slay them.”
A pause followed. Iss, who was not used to being left hanging by anyone, began to feel the first stirrings of anger in his chest. True, the Crouching Maiden was the greatest assassin in the North, her name spoken in whispered awe by those who had used, and continued to use, her services. Yet he was Surlord of Spire Vanis. Just as Iss’ jaw moved to rebuke her, she spoke.
“Ille Glaive is nine days to the north. It will cost more.”
Iss felt a measure of relief but did not show it. “Of course.” “And the family? How many are there?”
“I’m not sure. The mother, one daughter that I’m certain of, perhaps a few more.”
“Uncertainty costs more.”
Iss had expected it would. “I will pay whatever it costs.”
The Crouching Maiden made a small movement with her mouth, flashing teeth that were dry of saliva. Iss resisted the temptation to step back. Her presence was beginning to wear on him. It took too much effort to look at her. It was like staring at a landscape through a distorted piece of glass.
Most held that the maiden’s success lay in her appearance. She looked like everyone’s maid. When glimpsed sideways as she made her escape from assassinations in gra
nges, guildhouses, palaces, and private homes, all who saw her assumed she was a maid, a messenger, an ash girl, an old washerwoman, a nanny, a wet nurse, or a scullion. Unlike the handful of other female assassins who could be hired in the Northern Territories for a handful of golds or a ruby the size of a housefly, the Crouching Maiden did not look like a whore. She never seduced men, never slipped in her blade as the man slipped in his manhood, never used guile or beauty to gain access to forbidden places or hid her knife beneath a froth of lace-bound cleavage. She had no need of feminine traps. Her appearance was such that people who looked at her saw what they expected to see: someone who belonged in their setting.
And of course she was as subtle as a fox.
The night Sarga Veys had sent word that he had the location of the Lok farm pinpointed to a handful of villages, Iss’ first thought was, I must send for the maiden. Sarga Veys would be no good for the job. No one would willingly pour information down the Halfman’s throat, and even if they did, he had no belly for blood. The Knife had the belly, but not the guile. He would break bones for information, scare the entire population of each village he visited, and alert the very people he had come to kill.
Iss returned the piece of killhound to his desk. Besides, the Knife and the Halfman had other business to tend to. They must bring Asarhia home from Ganmiddich. She must not be lost again.
