Orwin Shank had been the first to perceive the change in her. He had held her in a mighty bear hug and rocked her back and forth as they stood in Anwyn's cell. "It's all right, my sweet lamb," he kept repeating softly. Quite suddenly she could not stand the raw-beef smell of blood.
"Unhand me," she had said.
Orwin had paused, surprised. Deciding that her tone was a symptom of grief he had continued rocking her. She had raised a hand and slammed him hard in the ribs. "I said unhand me." He had released her immediately and she left the room. It was the strangest night she could ever recall spending in Blackhail's roundhouse. Dagro's death had not caused the disruption that Anwyn s did. The shattering of the Hailstone had not left the clan as purposeless and bereft. She had always been the rallying point, the one who marched into the middle of a crisis, issued orders, served beer, put a lid on unnecessary fussing, made sure everyone was well fed. They had needed an Anwyn Bird or someone like her to cope with Anwyn's death. Instead they had a chiefs wife who left them to their misery, a kitchen staff who would have roused themselves to make hot food and bring cool beer if anyone had thought to direct them, a chief who was afield at war, and a clan guide who had spent much of the evening locked up in the greathearth with the elder warriors.
Raina had seen the great oaken doors barred by yearmen with crossed spears and had not cared enough to force entry. She understood that some manipulation was happening behind them and that she would learn soon enough its nature.
Cowlmen was the word that came out of the greathearth later in that long night. Hailsmen were tense, their hands returning often to the hilts of their swords as they descended their stairs, their gazes flickering around the groups of people who had gathered in the entrance hall below them.
Robbie Dun Dhoone had sent an assassin into the Hailhouse to spread terror and strike at the heart of clan. The Thorn King had surveyed the strength of the Hailish armies camped on Bannen Field and had judged them too great a threat to Dhoone's reclaiming of Ganmiddich. He was a chief known to have no scruples—look how he had dealt with his rival and uncle Skinner Dhoone—and now he had employed the kind of vicious tactics you would expect from such a man. His plan was to cause sufficient terror to force Mace Blackhail into ordering half of his army home.
"We should expect more strikes," Stannig Beade had warned the sworn clansmen. "The death of our beloved Anwyn is just the start."
He had not addressed these words to the clan, and Raina had only heard them repeated secondhand later. Corbie Meese had given her a brief account of what had happened behind closed doors. "Raina," he had said, his voice low and filled with strong emotion, "Stannig believes there may be a cowhnan concealed in this house."
Raina had simply stared at him. How could it be possible that a good man like Corbie could believe such lies? Cowlmen? Did he not recall the last time there were rumors of cowlmen in the Hailhold how they supposedly killed Shor Gormalin and then left never to be heard of again? How was it possible that both she and the hammerman had lived through that time and come out with two separate experiences of the truth?
She had said one thing to him, because it was the only solid truth she possessed. "Skinner Dhoone was not Robbie's uncle, Robbie was a Cormac who named himself Dhoone after he'd decided that if he looked far enough back into his mother's lineage he would find her related to the Dhoone kings."
Corbie had looked at her strangely. "Stannig said it only as a figure of speech."
She bet he did. She damn well bet he did.
Sworn clansmen had mounted a torch party that night, riding out from the Hailhouse with long flaming firebrands housed in their spear horns. Raina could not discern its purpose, beyond the need of decent men to take action against evil. Stannig Beade had ridden at the party's head, and it appeared that no one else beside herself questioned whether this was fitting behavior for a guide.
The woman with the greatest respect in the clan was dead. He was guide. Didn't he have to grind some bones?
Two days later, whilst Laida Moon and Merritt Ganlow were preparing Anwyn's body with milk of mercury, two Scarpemen had found Jani Gaylo dead. Her throat had been slit from ear to ear and her body had been dumped down the old wellshaft in the kaleyard. It was frozen solid.
If there had been any doubt in Raina s mind, that cleared it up. Stannig Beade had murdered both women. Anwyn Bird had been a threat to him. Her status in the clan was high and she wielded her influence with subtlety, and the day she had decided to take overt action against him was the day she'd ended up dead. "Stannig Beade is no clan guide and must he shown as such. We are many. We can send him back to Scarpe." Those were close to Anwyn's last words, doubtless repeated imperfectly by pretty little Jani Gavin not much longer after they were originally spoken.
Poor, silly girl. She had probably not been much older than seven-teen. Too young to be killed far telling tales. As there were only two people in the roundhouse who understood the relationship between Anwyn and Jani, the maid's death was taken as further evidence of cowlmen. The girl had been tilling the onion beds in the kaleyard, the story went, when she had been jumped from behind by her assassin. He was growing bolder now, people whispered. It was the closest thing to the truth that had been said.
Stannig Beade was growing bold. So where did that leave Raina Blackhail? Three people had been in the widows' wall that day. Two were dead. Sworn clansmen were distracted and tense: a whisper could make them draw a sword. For the first time Raina could remember, the clandoor was shut to tied clansmen. Those who were already within the house were permitted to remain under its protection, but those farmers, miners, loggers, trappers, dairymen, tradesmen, cotters, charcoal-burners, weavers, tanners and millers who applied at the door for safekeeping—as was their right as men and women making their living within the Hailhold—were turned away.
Dagro Blackhail would no longer have recognized his clan.
Or his wife.
Raina stood for a moment at the foot of the great stone staircase and wondered what to do with herself. The Hailhouse was half empty now. Anwyn Bird's funeral rites had pulled hundreds away. Her absence could be felt in dozens of large and small ways. Smoke-blackened cobwebs were collecting in the corners of the hall. The scant torches that were lit had been improperly dried and dipped and were giving off more smolder than light. A sour and greasy smell was wafting from the kitchen; the hearths had not been raked in days. The list could go on, but Raina no longer saw the point of cataloguing the decline in Blackhail's house. Who was left to mind it? Anwyn was no longer here to stand stubbornly against the chaos. Merritt Ganlow might have a go, but she was all sharp edges and would rub people the wrong way. Anwyn Bird had been a block.
Oh gods, Army. Raina breathed in the smoky air and felt the tar settle in her lungs. A Scarpeman sitting above her on one of the steps was taking a breakfast of headcheese and rye bread. He had a chunk of brain-and-tongue loaf and was chipping off pieces with his handknife and popping them in his mouth. His eyes had the yellowish tint of many Scarpes. Chewing and swallowing he watched Raina, daring her to move him. Six days ago when Anwyn was alive he would not have been allowed to block the way to the greathearth, let alone eat on the stairs. The old Raina would have been incensed, but would not have risked the potential humiliation that might occur if she made an aggressive move toward a man. The new Raina didn't care either way. If she'd had the will to stop him she would have marched up the stairs and snatched the headcheese right from his hand and slapped it into his face.
The old Raina had worried too much about what people thought of her. She had wanted to be liked as well as respected— Her mistake was in believing that if she worked hard enough at being a good chiefs wife she would eventually make a good chief.