Raina glanced at the door. She heard voices from outside but couldn't see anything beyond the great crush of clansmen on the threshold. She heard herself ask in a calm voice, "Do you know what the wagon s about?"
Corbie shook his misshapen head. "I best go, Raina. Meet him at the door."
The east wind was howling through the roundhouse now, pushing men's cloaks against their thighs and blowing out torches. From her place, three steps up, Raina could see the great circle of the entrance hall. She watched Corbie navigate the crowd, listened to the rumble of something heavy approaching.
Suddenly there was a great push toward the door. Raina thought she heard Mace's voice, but she couldn't be sure. Clansmen were shout-ing out the news.
"Bludd rides to Ganmiddich." "Dhoone is retaken."
Raina's heart beat in deep powerful strokes. A lamp close by blew out, then another. She smelled the strong black smoke of extinction. On the other side of the doorframe a conference was taking place. She knew Mace was there now, for his presence could be detected in the silences. Men were quiet, listening.
A lone clansman cheered. Another followed, and soon over a hundred clansmen were shouting, "Kill Bluddl Bill Bludd! Kill Bludd!"
Mace had pleased them. He must have spoken again, for the noise quickly died. A group of hammermen broke away and headed through the roundhouse with purpose. Corbie Meese wasn't one of them. Raina resisted the urge to run after them and discover what was happening. She was desperate to know and desperate not to know, her mind rolling back and forth like a boat in a storm.
Orwin Shank was the next to make his way inside. His face and ears were flushed. As he crossed the hall he saw her, but quickly averted his eyes. Like a sleepwalker, Raina began descending the stairs. Men made way for her, opening up a passage to the door. She was chief's wife, and sometimes she forgot her value. Scarpes had no respect for her, but this was a crowd of Hailsmen, not Scarpes. Walking into the space they created for her, Raina felt the heat of their bodies. Big, powerful men they were, dressed in black wool and worn leather, their bodies weighed down with hammers and longswords, axes and gear belts, knives, ice picks, shovels.
"Do we still ride tomorrow?" she asked no one in particular.
A dozen replied, "Aye, lady."
Sunlight from the door blinded her. "And my husband, does he still ride at the head?"
Bailie the Red placed a steadying hand on her elbow. She had not realized she had begun to sway. "Mace will ride with the first thousand as planned," he told her in his rough burr. "The second force will be led by Grim Shank."
Bailic smells like beeswax, she thought inanely. Probably uses it to waterproof his bow. She stepped outside. For a moment she couldn't see anything, so great was the contrast between the dark, smoky entrance hall and the harsh sunlight of midday. Man-shapes coalesced from the brightness. The blocklike form of the war cart came into view. Seen this close it was bigger than she had imagined, a stovehouse on twelve wheels. The teamster was releasing the lathered and shaking horses from their yokes.
"Who'll be in charge of defending the Hailhouse while they're gone?" she asked the nearest warrior.
"Chief gave Orwin the honor."
She did not recognize the young Hailsman's voice, and did not turn to look at him. Her thoughts were like beads, connected only by the slenderest thread. So far so good. Orwin Shank was the best, most logical choice. He would not interfere with her plans.
When she was ready, she turned her gaze to her husband. Mace Blackhail was standing by the wagon's front axle, speaking with two men. One was the Scarpeman Mansal Stygo, who was never far from Mace's heels. Mansal had killed the Orrl chief with a hammer blow so hard it had driven Spynie's head into his chest cavity. A month later Mace had invited Mansal and his crew to overwinter in the Hailhouse. The second man had his back to Raina. He had the shoulder breadth of a hammerman, but something in his posture warned her there was more to know. His ful-length cloak was narrow across the back and oddly formal. The fur collar was a deep, luxurious brown; she couldn't decide what animal it came from. By contrast the cloak's hem was in poor shape, tattered and black with mud. When the stranger noticed Mace's attention shift away from him, he turned to see who the Hail Wolf was regarding.
Raina Blackhail stared right back.The flesh on the stranger's cheeks had been scarified and tattooed to create the illusion of depth. Sunlight disappeared into carefully manipulated pits in the skin. He was a Scarpe, she saw that now, for black leather traces were woven into his shoulder-length braids and his fur collar was the fancy weasel known as mink. He appraised her, there was no other word for it, looked her up and down and decided what she was worth.
Mace spoke a word and the three of them moved toward her. Three Scarpes. One plan. Raina kept her shoulders straight as the pieces came together in her head. The wagon. The cloak hem. Mace's face.
"Raina." Mace's voice was tightly controlled. Beneath the hardened leather carapace of his riding armor, his lungs were portioning air. "I don't think you've met Stannig Beade, clan guide of Scarpe and counsel to its chief. He's brought us a gift from his clan."
Dear Gods. No. Wind knifed across the greatcourt. Hammer chains rustled, dry snow snaked over the stones. Everything that was Blackhail was being blown away, and she had been a fool to imagine that she could be the one to stop it. Raina glanced at the wagon. The sawn ends of the poison pines were oozing sap. Poor Anwyn. She had not seen this coming. But the gods had. That's why they left.
Unable to find her voice, Raina nodded at the stranger with the darkly watchful face.
"Raina." He did not bow; she had not expected him to. Nor had he offered her the courtesy of "lady."
"Stannig has split the Scarpestone," Mace said, raising his voice so all gathered on the greatcourt could hear. "Today he brings us our half. Blackhail is no longer a clan without guide or guidestone. For a thousand years we've shared warriors and oaths with our brother clan, now we share their stone."
Silence followed. The wind blew. And then Mace Blackhail spoke again. "Stannig will stay in our house until the Stone Gods return.
NINE The Crab Gate
The Ganmiddich roundhouse commanded a bend in the Wolf where the river changed course from west to south. Built from the same green traprock that formed the cliffs and banks of the river, it sat on high ground above a crescent-shaped gravel beach. The great dome of the roundhouse dwarfed the east and north wards, which had been added at a later date. The primary entrance to the dome was through a pair often-feet-high double doors known as the Crab Gate. Carved from seasoned oak and armored with plates of fossil stone, the Crab Gate was held to be one of the great wonders of the clanholds. How the fossils had been fixed to the wood, where they came from, and what creatures they revealed were sources of wonder and myth. Marafice had once seen them up close for himself and they had given him a chill. Segmented eyes, pronged claws, winged fish, cloven tails, serrated fangs, scaled birds, basilisk spines, kraken heads: all displayed in deep relief in bone yellow limestone.
It made for a good show, but not necessarily good defense. Marafice knew the gates were heavy and resistant to flames, but he suspected the fossil stone would crack if barraged with missiles, and double gates, by their very nature, were weaker than single ones. If he remembered correctly, there were two big couplets on the interior of each door that were large enough to accommodate the girth of a hundred-year oak. So a single tree trunk barred the entrance to Ganmiddich. Marafice saw it most nights in his dreams.
Now, though, looking north upriver toward the bend, flanked by an army of eleven thousand hideclads, mercenaries and brothers-in-the-watch, he looked upon the Crab Gate's pale exterior a quarter-league in the distance and felt some measure of fear. He did not believe in the God of priests and knights, of temples and prayer books and a thousand fussy rules, but he did believe in something. Exactly what was hard to quantify, but if pressed he'd call it power. He spoke to that power now. Guard me. Guard my men.