A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (21 page)

Two brothers-in-the-watch brought forth the whore, handling her with some care as they knew her to be a favorite with the crowd.

Hester Fay winked at Marafice Eye as she passed him, drawing a great guffaw from the front ranks. She was a large woman, dark and bejeweled like a gypsy, with hoops in her ears and a bodice perilously laced. She had the audacity to call the High Examiner by his first name and ask him how his gout was faring, as she’d heard he’d had an attack at midwinter.

The High Examiner kept his dignity by ignoring her remarks and clearing his throat. The crowd quieted in anticipation: a priest examining a whore. This should be high sport.

“Hester Fay. Do you recognize this man before you?”

“I do.” A small adjustment to her bodice accompanied the words, bringing forth cheers of appreciation. “Used to come into my establishment every week, he did. Liked ’em young. Willing to pay for ’em, too. And let me tell you, those kind don’t come cheap.”

“
What about you, Hetty?
” cried someone from the crowd.

Big Hetty thrust out her hips. “Darlin’, you can have
me
for two silver spoons!”

The crowd roared with laughter, pushing and jostling for positions closer to the steps. Iss suppressed a smile. This was going very well. Who could have guessed the whore would be so amusing?

“Quiet!” commanded the High Examiner. His authority was such that he was immediately obeyed, and his voice soared into the growing silence. “Is it true, Hester Fay, that Maskill Boice caused you to come to the Dog’s Head seventeen days back, and there requested that you rent one of your upper rooms to the bowman, Black Dan?”

The whore nodded. “That he did. Though I can’t say as I knew Black Dan for a bowman at the time. Master Boice said he was a carpenter, lately come from the Glaive, who had need of a small room.”

“And was Maskill Boice particular in his request for a room?”

“That he was. Wanted Kitty’s room, right at the top o’ the house, with the overlook to the Spireway.”

The crowd drew breath. All knew the surlord was due to ride the length of the Spireway the next morning.

The High Examiner, sensing triumph, moved quickly to finish Boice off. “And when did you learn that Black Dan was indeed a bowman, not a carpenter as reported?”

Big Hetty looked contrite. She appealed to the crowd. “Well, you know how it is when a stranger moves in. You don’t know him, you’re worried about your girls. Has he got the means to pay? It’s only natural you’d want to inquire into his finances. All I did was slip into his room when he was out taking his supper—just a quick look through his effects.”

“And you found the crossbow?”

“Aye. A real big ’un. All fancy, with a hand crank and trigger. And ten good quarrels with barbed heads.”

The crowd erupted into a frenzy, drawing weapons and stamping their feet. Marafice Eye made a spreading gesture with his gloved hand, signaling a thousand red cloaks to close ranks around the square. Right on cue the chant began and was quickly picked up by the masses, becoming a thunderous roar for justice.
Kill Boice! Kill Boice!

Iss kept himself still. It was a nice touch, those ten barbed quarrels. The whore had earned her money well.

On the steps of the Quarter Court the grangelords grew pale with fury. They were powerful in their granges—those vast ranging estates they held outside the city—but when faced with an angry mob they were vulnerable. The people loved them not, and from time to time it served a surlord well to remind them of that fact.

Iss looked over their ranks. All the great houses were there: Crieff, Stornoway, Mar, Gryphon, Pengaron. And Hews. There he was, that young princeling Garric Hews, with the badges of his granges surmounted on his shoulder-guards, and the sword named for his great-grandfather strapped to his muscled thigh. The Whitehog. He was the only one of the hundred who had had the forethought to wear armor this day.

Iss felt the familiar burn of resentment as he looked over at the Lord of the Eastern Granges, a mere boy of eighteen, untested in battle and statecraft, yet so certain of his own worth. House Hews was ancient, stretching back to the time of the Quarterlords, when Harlech Hews bore the standard for the Bastard Lord Torny Fyfe. Harlech had been granted lands along the Sheerway following the Founding Wars, and his ancestors had been adding to their holdings every since. Rannock, Owaine, Halder, Connor, Harlech the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth: all had amassed wealth and titles for the house. And all had been Surlord before Iss. Now this arrogant son-of-the-Hewses thought it was his birthright to take Iss’s place.

Raising his hand high, Iss brought the attention of half a city upon himself.
Watch very carefully, Garric Hews. Maskill Boice’s fate might be yours one day.

“Grangelords!” Iss commanded the hundred men on the steps. “What is your decision: freedom or sword?”

The grangelords stared at Iss with fury. They were trapped, and they knew it. Only grangelords could stand in judgment of high treason, and here they were forced to judge one of their own. They did not like it. Most surlords would have taken justice into their own hands and had their attempted assassin summarily executed. But not Iss. He would make a show out of this. The whole of Spire Vanis would learn just what they risked if they lifted a finger against him.

Ballon Troak, Lord of Almsgate, stepped forward from the grangelords’ ranks. Troak was grossly fat and dressed in sparkling green samite. He held one of the oldest granges within the city and was not so easily intimidated by angry mobs. “Surlord,” he said in his high, nasal voice. “Surely you know we need more evidence before we condemn a man to the sword. Where is this bowman, Black Dan? Bring him forth. Let him be examined before the city.”

Iss let his face show no emotion. The crowd had grown settled again, and the chant of
Kill Boice!
was nearly lost to the wind. Pointedly, Iss let his gaze rise to the nearest of the six gibbets where the headless remains of a man were strung. “There’s your bowman, Lord of Almsgate. Perhaps you should ask him how he lost his head.”

Uneasy laughter rippled through the crowd. Blood rushed to Ballon Troak’s cheeks. “You dare to take—”

“I dare much,” Iss hissed, directing his voice solely to the grangelords. “Be grateful I don’t dare more.” Then, to one of the pages, “Bring the bowman’s weapon. Hold it up for all to see.”

The weapon, a fine crossbow made from costly limewood varnished to a high sheen, drew murmurs of appreciation from the crowd. When a second page raised the arrows, they went wild. Ten deadly points, barbed and of Glavish design, just as the whore had said. Stronger than ever, the chant was renewed.
Kill Boice! Kill Boice!

He’s mine now.
Satisfied but unsmiling, Iss returned his attention to the grangelords. “I ask again. How find you? Freedom or sword?”

Sword! Sword! Sword!
screamed the crowd.

The grangelords moved to form a rough circle on the steps. Fergus Hurd, Lord of the Fire River Granges, and appointed Speaker, went from man to man, collecting pieces of killhound bone from each. White for freedom. Red for the sword. Iss could hear them rattle in the Speaker’s silk pouch, watched as the Whitehog unclenched his fist and added his bird bone to the tally. When the hundred lords had cast their ballots, the Speaker descended the steps and came to stand before the accused.

Maskill Boice’s head was high, but there was fear in his pale blue eyes. The rubies set into his doublet glittered in time to the pumping of his heart. Fergus Hurd was old and white-haired, yet he still had power in him . . . and he would not look Maskill Boice in the eye.

As the Speaker shook the silk pouch the city stilled. The mob ceased chanting and the dogs stopped barking. Even the wind died down. Fergus Hurd spoke into the silence, his voice sharp and bitter as he repeated the old words. “The grangelords are servants of the surlord, and the surlord is servant of the city. We speak in the voice of our forebears and we mete justice on behalf of Spire-Vanis.” With that he pulled the pouch open and cast its contents at the prisoner’s feet. Bones rattled and jumped. The crowd pushed forward to
see
. “Look you, Maskill Boice,” directed the Speaker. “Count the bones that speak your fate.”

Red, all red. Iss let out a heavy sigh of relief.
Strange
, he had not realized he had been holding his breath. He had known all along the grangelords would not dare defy him before an angry and indignant mob. But still. You could not be Surlord in Spire Vanis without knowing uncertainty. It was a quicksilver city, and its loyalties ran with the wind.

Sword! Sword Sword!
shrieked the crowd.

Iss shivered. The triumph had gone out of him, and all that was left was the need to see this thing through. “Examiner!” he commanded. “Bring forth the mask.”

Hearing the command, Maskill Boice began to scream. Awkwardly, with movements hampered by his leg-irons, he kicked at the bones at his feet. “Cowards!” he screamed at the grangelords. “Spineless fools! You’ll be next!”

Iss barely heard him. His gaze had been caught by one of the bones that Maskill had sent flying toward the surlord’s platform. White, not red; it must have been buried beneath the rest. Immediately, Iss looked up—to see Garric Hews watching him. The man who had named himself the Whitehog was dark and compact, with hair cropped to a soldier’s shortness, and the unjeweled fingers of a man who expected to use his sword at short notice. Almost the name did not fit him . . . until you saw the craving in his small black eyes. With an elegant gesture, he bowed low to the surlord, acknowledging the white bone to be his.

So he has declared himself against me.
Iss returned the man’s gaze coolly, not bothering to return the bow. Danger upon danger. First Marafice Eye, now the young princeling: both thought they could take his place. Was this how it had been for Borhis Horgo, that year before he was slain on the icy steps of the Horn? Enemies closing ranks around him. The thought chilled Iss. Fourteen years ago he had stood on those same steps, and had looked at the aging surlord with the same keen ambition. Anything was possible in this city of spires and Bastard Lords, and a surlord had to remember that and give his rivals reason to fear.

John Rullion approached the platform, bearing the hideously carved Killhound Mask beneath a sheet of plain white linen. The High Examiner retained all the instincts of a priest and he knew how to awe a crowd. He held the mask high, letting all see it, before pulling back the cloth. A collective breath was drawn as the mask’s blackened metals caught the light. It was the likeness of no living bird, warped and fanged and scaled like a dragon: the Killhound of Spire Vanis.

It weighed as much as a child. Even though Iss had handled the mask many times before, he was shocked anew by its heft and coldness. The last killhound had fled Spire Vanis fifty years ago, and no one but madmen had seen one since. The great predators’ likenesses were carved on gate arches and corbels around the city, and the surlord’s seal was a killhound rampant. It was said the great bird of prey could kill an elk with its foot-long claws and bear it aloft to its mountain aerie. Iss thought of the creature’s power as he fitted the mask over his face and felt the cold-forged iron encase his cheeks. Wearing it, Iss knew what it would be like to be sealed inside a tomb.

It filled him with the desire to live. Raising his masked face to the crowd, Iss pronounced sentence on the condemned man. “Maskill Boice, Lord of the Hunted Granges and Master of the River Crossing at Stye, you have been found guilty of high treason, and I hereby sentence you to death by the sword. May the One True God forgive you.”

The crowd cheered. Priests in the viewers’ gallery made the sign of redemption. A woman watching from one of the Quarter Court’s many balconies fainted; by her dress and appearance, Iss guessed her to be Boice’s wife. Boice himself stood silent and unmoving, finding his dignity at last. Quite unexpectedly, Iss remembered that the man had two young sons. Too bad their father had a liking for loose talk.

Boice had talked for years of assassinating the surlord, always when drunk and in his cups. It had been easy to conspire against him, to create an offense from his drunken boasting. Caydis Zerbina had seen to the details. Black Dan, the Ille Glaive crossbow, the meeting at the Dog’s Head: all fiction. God only knew whose corpse swung from the gibbet. The only thing real had been the whore. And Caydis would slip poison into her milk ale tonight. A pity, really, as she had put on such an excellent show.

Iss gave the matter no more thought. The executioner—brought overland from Hanatta in the Far South at great cost—was taking his place by the block. The man’s skin was dark as night and his bared arms were thicker than most men’s thighs. Still, it wasn’t his strength that made him famous; it was the fact that he had no eyes. Barbossa Assati needed no executioner’s hood to shield him from the sight of death. The exotic gods of the Far South had done that for him, bringing him into the world with two empty sockets where most men had eyes. Watching him, Iss wondered what Marafice Eye must be thinking. The Knife had lost an eye himself, and surely, upon seeing the hollow orbits dominating Barbossa Assati’s striking face, he must value his remaining one eye all the more.

Marafice Eye showed nothing but hard efficiency as he commanded his guards to take charge of the prisoner and escort him to the block. Six red cloaks flanked Maskill Boice, never once laying a hand upon him. Condemned flesh was cursed—everyone in the city knew that.

The block was hewn from a hundred-year oak, rectangular in shape and cut with a curved depression for the laying of a head. As Iss looked on, some aging grange widow brought forth a cloth-of-gold and draped it over the wood. When the prisoner drew close she held out a hand and named him: “Son.”

The crowd was so quiet now, Iss could hear the breath wheeze in their throats. Barbossa Assati had drawn his sword from its felt-lined scabbard, and the sight of the heavy fern-curved blade sent a ripple of excitement through all present.