Carefully avoiding the area where Anwyn's cell had been located, Raina grabbed a safelamp and worked her way downstairs. She smelled dead mice and ripe mud. The air was thick with gases that were not easy to breathe. The lower she went the wetter the stone underfoot became, and the deeper the silence. It was soothing to be in a place so quiet and dark, where she could be sure to meet nothing except mice and cellar rats. She felt the weight of her exhaustion pressing against her shoulders and kneecaps. She could tell from the trembling of the light that she must be shaking. Perhaps she should have brought a blanket, for it was icily cold, and she had nothing except her mohair shawl to keep out the chill. Longhead had once told her that the farther you went underground the warmer it became. She would go deep then, perhaps even as far as the secret room where she had hidden the last remaining chunk of Hailstone.
Yes, she would go there. It would be still and safe, and the few belongings of Dagro's that she had kept for her own were there as well. To touch them would be good.
The journey was much easier this time as she had no sixty-pound weight on her back. Within hardly any time at all she found herself crouching in the low-ceilinged foundation space. It was a short journey then, past support columns, drain walls, sealed wellheads and ancient dungeons to the T-junction where she needed to turn.
The standing water was a foot deep here and Raina hiked up her skirts and grimaced as cool, gelid liquid flooded over the tops of her boots. Luckily, Yarro Blackhails strongroom had been built a half-level higher than the corridor, and when she slid back the stone tile that concealed the entrance she was pleased to see dry ground below her. Feeling a spike of girlish energy, she vaulted through the opening.
The Hailstone stood here. She could feel its presence straightaway. Hie gods no longer lived there and the small chunk of granite retained no power, but some residue remained. It charged the space in the strongroom, lightly, almost imperceptibly pulsing the air. Raina looked, but did not approach it. It stood in the corner, a dull stone placed against a wall of dull stone. No dust had settled upon it and no spider had dared use it to anchor a web. The old Raina had had some jaw, she realized. To steal the stone: that took balls.
Quite suddenly she was too tired to think. Pulling off her boots, she glanced about for a place to sleep. Yarro Blackhail had built his small square strongroom to house treasure, not people, and beside the single market crate which she had brought here herself many months earlier there was nothing to interrupt the hardness of the stone floor. At least it was dry.
Raina lay down, bundled her shawl into a pillow, and fell into an exhausted asleep.
She dreamed of the gods. With the empty shell they had lived in less than ten feet away from her head Aow could she not?
When she awoke she knew what she must do.
The flame in the safelamp was guttering, and she worried about the time. How long had she been asleep? How much oil had the lamp reservoir contained when she first picked it up from the shelf by the kitchen stair? Had it been full? Or half empty? Stiff and muddy-headed, she found she could not be sure. All was quiet. Quickly she rose and stepped into her boots. The leather felt like pulp. Her dress was soggy around the hem and didn't smell good. She crossed to the tile entrance, placed an open hand on the indents in the stone and drew it back. Just as she swung a foot up to climb out, she thought about Dagro's belonging on the crate. Planting the foot back on the ground, she hesitated.
The light in the lamp could go out any moment. The oil in the reservoir was gone. A tremor of panic passed along her spine, and in defiance of it, or perhaps because of it, she turned back in to the room. The few items she had secreted after her husband's death lay on the top of the balsa-wood crate, gathering dust. Raina brushed her fingers over the tops of them, touching them one by one. She took what she needed and left.
She was going to have to kill Stannig Beade.
The price of regaining her peace of mind was his death.
The price of avenging Anwyn's murder was his death.
The price of becoming Hail chief was his death.
This time she did not bother to hike up her skirts. She had no idea what time it was and uncertainty made her hurry. Water sloshed at her feet, rippling ahead of her every step. Light do not go out, she told the lamp. The flame had shrunk to a small tooth of red. It illuminated a weak circle around her body, barely touching the walls and the surface of the water. She could smell decay now. The rot at the heart of the Hailhouse.
Tht.
Raina's head shot sideways to track the noise. She had just emerged from the foundation space and had climbed the half-stair to the lower cellar level. The sound had come from a corridor off to her right. Her gaze could not penetrate the blackness. She extended the lamp, but its light just created a red corona around the dark. Rat, she told herself, and moved on.
The second flight of steps seemed steeper than she remembered them and the weight of water in her dress dragged against her. Sections of the second, middle, level of the cellars were open to the space above and Raina realized she was missing the feint pools of diffused light that would filter down in daylight. It was after dark. She had slept in the strongroom all day.
Well and good. He would be back by now, and it did not take a scholar to guess where he would head once the business of settling the clan was done. Stannig Beade was growing bold in his use of this house. Raina turned from her usual path, entering a section of the underworld she had never entered before this night. Then I will have to grow bolder. And this is my house. Not his.
Strange, but the air was different here beneath the western quadrangle. Not fresher exactly, but moving. It skimmed over the surface of the standing water, raising ripples and creating a scum of foam. The corridors narrowed, and Raina hunched her shoulders and drew her free arm close to her body. According to Effie this section had been dug at a later date than the others. Raina guessed the girl was right. The edges of the stone blocks were sharp and still square, and the mortar between them was visible as a network of pale lines. Which chief had ordered this excavation? she wondered. Which one had been worried about his head?
Raina climbed a short flight of stairs^ took a right turn, and then ascended a ramp. She was moving quickly now. The standing water was gone, and the drenched hem of her skivl slapped against the ramp.
For a wonder, the lamp was still burning. Raina thought about that as jte reached the top of the ramp, recalling something Effie had said many months ago, when asked how she made her way through the underlevels. Don't know. Never seem to need a light You just see after a while. And no one can sneak up on you.
But you could sneak up on them.
Raina turned the lamp key. Her steps grew more certain … and more hushed. The passageways appeared to her as a series of shadowy frames, and after a while she could walk without brushing against the walls. Effie had told her about the route to the chiefs chamber while Dagro was still alive, but a sense of propriety had forbade Raina from taking it in until now. It had been Dagro's domain, and she'd had no wish to violate his privacy. Later, when Mace had become chief, her overwhelming desire had been to avoid any place where she might encounter her second husband. With Stannig Beade it was different. The Scarpe guide could—and would—go to hell.
On impulse, Raina set down the lamp. She had no need of it now. She had remembered something that old, turkey-necked Gat Murdock had said the morning of the Sundering while dust from the Hailstone still blew in the air. "The Hail Wolf has returned." She had paid no attention to it at the time. Gat was Gat; known for his good riddances, not his good sense. Now she realized she had missed an essential truth. The badge of Blackhail wasn't two swords crossed in parley. It wasn't a she-bear suckling her cubs. It was a lone wolf, scribed in silver on a black field. She, Raina Blackhail, had to become that wolf.