A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (33 page)

Full night had risen while the stranger spoke, and only the dimming fire provided light. Grains of salt from the earlier cookery ignited every so often, turning the flames green.

“What clan are you from?” Raif asked.

The stranger shook his head. “Ah. Ah. Ah. No questions, remember.”

“Fair enough. So how about a trade? Your name for mine?”

The stranger considered this. He wasn’t as old as Raif first thought, and there was something vaguely familiar in the set of his jaw. Just as quickly as Raif was seized with the idea, it fled, and he saw nothing but a stranger before him.

“You go first,” replied the stranger. “First name only. And if I like the sound of it I’ll trade mine.”

“Raif.”

The stranger opened and closed his mouth, almost as if he had bitten the name from the air and was tasting it. “Raif. Rhymes with safe, and it’s good and short and not a bit fancy. I’ll take it.”

Strangely, Raif felt pleased by this odd pronouncement. No one had ever said anything—good or bad—about his name before.

“Goods for goods, then. I’m Stillborn.” The stranger stilled, awaiting a reaction. Raif thought the name suited him, and said so. Stillborn suddenly looked dangerous. “A monstrous name for a monstrous man?”

“No. A strong name. Not easy to forget.”

Stillborn thought on Raif’s words a long time, and then nodded. “It’ll do.”

Raif held out his arm and Stillborn leaned over to clasp it.

“So,” Stillborn said, straightening up. “You’ll be wanting the last of the tea?” Raif nodded. The bull-horns clasped around Stillborn’s forearms gleamed wickedly as he deposited the pot by Raif’s feet. “Drink deep. Remember what I said about head blows; tomorrow you might be dead.”

Raif drank. The liquor was very strong and bore little resemblance to any kind of tea. It stripped the lining from his throat on its way down.

Stillborn watched approvingly, and then reached out toward the timber pile to load more logs on the flames. When Raif saw his hand close around the arrow named Divining Rod he put down the pot. “Don’t burn that. It’s very old. It was a gift from . . . from a friend.”

“A gift, eh?” Stillborn inspected the arrow, running a finger along the flights. “I’ll keep it, then.” He shoved it in his pack, and resumed loading logs on the fire. “I suppose you’re out here looking for Maimed Men?”

Raif didn’t answer straight away. The liquor had passed swiftly into his blood, and he reminded himself to be cautious. Tentatively, he felt for the source of pain on the side of his head. A lump, hard and exquisitely tender, made him suck in his breath. “And if I were?”

“Well, you’d need to know a few things first.”

“Such as?”

“Maimed Men is what clansmen call us. And if we heard those words on your lips we’d likely kill you for it. We name ourselves Rift Brothers, and you’d be a fool to think we’re just another clan.”

“I didn’t.”

“Good.” Stillborn pried Raif’s sword from his pack and began to oil it with a bit of rag. “The Rift’s no pretty clanhold with fine oatfields and clipped grazes. And men harder than clan chiefs rule there. We get the throwaways and the bastards and the oathbreakers—and not just from the clans. We get them all: foreigners, city men, pot boys, whores. They all come north in the end. It’s a desperate man who’ll travel to the far ends of the earth in search of shelter, and desperate men don’t make good friends.”

Raif met Stillborn’s gaze levelly. The warning had been given . . . and received. The fire was crackling fiercely now, as a new green branch went to the flames. The wind had calmed with the onset of night, and now it blew the smoke through the space between the two men.

“I wouldn’t expect much of a welcome if I were you. No one’s gonna light a fire for one more clansman. They’ll want to know what you can bring them, and as I’ve already taken your one decent possession you’re going to have to think fast about your answer. Oh, and another thing. You’re too whole.”

There was a light in Stillborn’s eyes that made Raif wary. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Pretty boy like you. All your fingers and toes, and that fine whole nose. The first thing the brothers will do is hold you down and maim you.”

“No one’s ever called me pretty before. I’ve taken my share of scars.”

“Maybe so. But they won’t see that. They’ll just see a whole clansman. Nothing missing, nothing bent out of place, and they’ll hate you for it. They’ll have you pinned and under a knife before you can say
God help me
. And that’s one place you definitely don’t want to be. I’ve seen them take an arm off a man in their frenzy. Hands. Earlobes. Eyes. Depends whether the raiding’s been good. Good season, plenty of spoils, everyone happy and drinking themselves soft, and they might let you off with a toe. Poor season and they’ll take a hand. And I’m sorry to tell you this, Raif, but winter’s been a long, dry season.”

Raif watched Stillborn’s eyes as he spoke, searching for signs of deception. The Maimed Man’s face was hard, but there was nothing hidden within it.

“You have to decide how much it’s worth, becoming one of us. Can you go back? Accept penalty for whatever trespass brought you here, and live a different kind of life? Because if you can,
do
. There’s nothing noble or heroic about being a Maimed Man. The only reason to be here is because you’ve got no options left.”

Raif almost smiled. Bitterly. He wanted to ask Stillborn what brought and kept
him
here, but he was learning the ways of the Maimed Men already: no questions about a man’s past. He said, “If I returned to my clan they would kill me. I have nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I’d say I have no options left.”

Stillborn nodded slowly, weighing the resolution in Raif’s eyes. Abruptly he seemed to come to some decision and stood. “Drink the rest of the brew. It’ll go easier on you that way.”

Raif read the intent in Stillborn’s eyes, and it almost made him bolt.
I made my choice when Ash left me. If this is the price, then so be it.
He cupped the pot in his hands, but in the end decided not to drink. Stillborn was drawing close with the sword, and Raif wanted to savor the blood throbbing through him. He wanted to remember for always what it felt like to be whole.

SIXTEEN

Leaving Blackhail

E
ffie spotted a fly buzzing in the rafters and set her gaze upon it. Mad Binny was naked and she didn’t know where else to look. Of course, that treacherous fly would go and start flitting past Binny’s head . . . and oh dear
no
. . . it landed on Binny’s shoulder. And that meant she had to look at those breasts. Effie tried to keep her face from reacting, but it wasn’t easy and she felt distinctly wooden as she listened to Mad Binny speak. All she could think of was:
I hope I don’t grow any of those.

Mad Binny was sitting in a copper bath with only the shallowest depth of water to cover her, cleaning herself with soap-weed and a cloth. She’d filled the bath for Effie, but Effie had refused to use it—she wasn’t about to be naked while Mad Binny stood over her and watched—so Mad Binny had called her a fool and took to the water herself. Now she was working up a lather on her neck, talking all the while about various herbs and potions that could be added to a person’s bathwater to make them sleepy or refreshed.

“Then there’s the curatives,” advised Mad Binny. “Some of the finest skin cures are best taken in the bath. Let me see now . . .” Mad Binny soaped a deep and extremely hairy armpit while she thought. Effie felt an uncomfortable mix of repulsion and fascination. Once she’d started looking she couldn’t seem to stop. In theory she knew about all the changes a girl went through to become a woman; Letty Shank and Florrie Horn had drawn pictures in the dirt, placing little burrs of thistle where the hair was supposed to grow. But the reality was so much more unsettling. Mad Binny was a large woman and line drawings didn’t do justice to all the squelchy flesh and bristly hair. Effie frowned. She was quite sure Raina wouldn’t look like that. Raina would be beautiful, and quite bald except for her head.

“. . . And then there’s pokeroot. Toss a few hands of the rootflesh in a tub, let it steep a while, and you’ll have a bath for curing scabies. Now this—” Mad Binny leant over the side of the bath and snatched up a handful of fragrant dried flowers “—is for nothing other than making a woman feel like a girl. Sweet lavender. Raises the spirits and makes you unaccountably attractive to men.” Crushing the dried stalks in her fist, she scattered them into the bathwater, releasing a light and pointy scent. “I may steal Drey away from you yet.”

Effie was immediately attentive. “Drey’s coming?”

“Oh, yes. Didn’t I say? That’s what the bath was for. Today’s the day you leave for Dregg.”

No, she had
not
said, and she knew very well she hadn’t. Mad Binny was like that: sly and contrary. She liked to keep her visitors in a perpetual state of confusion. Effie knew better than to let her irritation show: she
would
have taken a bath if only Mad Binny had told her the truth. She’d only seen Drey once since he’d returned to the roundhouse, and that was only for a few minutes since he feared to stay too long and run the risk of discovery by Mace Blackhail.

“Hand me the drying cloth, Effie. And you needn’t look so crab-appled. Not my fault you weren’t listening when I explained about today.”

Effie handed Mad Binny the cloth. She was beginning to realize there were advantages to being considered mad. No one could take you to task. You could say whatever you liked, tell lies till your face turned blue, and everyone would dismiss it with an “Aah well, Mad Binny
is
mad.” Effie didn’t think Mad Binny was mad at all. Effie thought Mad Binny was one of the cleverest people she had ever met. She lived exactly how she wanted to, got clansfolk to traipse leagues through the snow to bring her fresh meat and supplies in return for one of her cures, and she had no responsibilities whatsoever and no one but herself to care for. Effie glanced around the crannog’s main hall, looking admiringly at the low ceilings, the blackened beams and damp-warped walls.
And
Mad Binny got somewhere wonderfully cavelike to live in.

“I haven’t made you a pack for the journey,” Mad Binny warned, thankfully pulling on a dress. “I’m not your mother, you know. If Raina doesn’t bring anything then you’re on your own. No one’s paid me for your keep, and I can’t recall as anyone’s thanked me either.”

“Thank you, Binny,” Effie said innocently.

“Oh, you’re a devilish minx, that’s for sure. Run outside and watch for Drey—and stun me some pike while you’re at it.”

Effie was glad to do as she was told. Outside, on the little rotting pier that stretched over Cold Lake, you could see for leagues in all directions. It was mid-morning, and a light wind blew off the lake, thinning the last of the mist. The lake’s surface was a battleground of wet and breaking ice, with hackled plates riding atop each other and free ice floating against the wind in stretches of open water. Effie liked the sounds the ice made as it disintegrated: the snapping of plates and the fizzing of bubbles as air escaped to the surface. Almost it wasn’t bad to be outside. She was aware of her heart beating a fraction more strongly than usual, but that was all. She was close to the crannog and to safety, could run back any time she chose—and, more importantly, Drey was on his way.

She missed her brothers fiercely. Nothing had been the same since Da had been killed in the badlands. They had been four then; her, Da, Drey and Raif. Now they were down to two.

Soon to be one
, said a little voice inside her.
After today you’re on your own.

Effie picked up the mallet and wished for fish. It would have been good to hit something just then. Now she didn’t know whether to look forward to Drey’s arrival or not. She was going to Dregg.
Dregg.
A stranger’s clan, leagues to the south, with a roundhouse built from birdseye limestone, and the words
We fight as easily as we dance
as their boast. Oh, Raina said it was a fine place and Xander Dregg a fair chief, but it wasn’t home, and the shankshounds weren’t there, and there’d be no Drey to look out for her. Effie ran thin fingers over the mallet head. What was it Raif used to say about Drey? He always waited, that was it. Now there’d be no one for him to wait for anymore.

Feeling something stinging behind her eyes, Effie smashed at the lake water with the mallet—just in case there were fish below the surface.

As she rubbed droplets of icy water from her sleeve, she spied a mounted man approaching from the southeast. Crouching very still, she waited until she could be sure it was Drey.

“Effie,” he called, when she stood up. “I swear you’ve grown as tall as this horse.”

He reined in his mount and dismounted, and Effie dashed down the pier to hug him. He smelled of neat’s-foot oil and tanned leather, and he remembered she didn’t like to be kissed and hugged her double hard instead. When he pulled back and held her at arm’s length to study her, she studied
him
as well. He looked older now, more like Da. His chestnut hair was braided into a warrior’s queue, and it was woven with silver wire. His plate armor was old but well made, its glancing surfaces free of embellishment, its rolled edges lightly silvered to ward off canker. Da’s elkskin greatcoat lay well on his shoulders, the large felted collar brushed and gleaming. Seeing Drey like this, war-dressed and fully armed, it struck her for the first time that her eldest brother was a grown man, not unpleasing to look at, and sure to attract attention from clan maids. An unworthy stab of possessiveness made her want to drive the imaginary girls away. Drey was hers, not the property of some silly and fluttering maid.

He took her hand, and she felt the calluses and scars there. He glanced at the sun still rising in the east and then at the door of the crannog. Effie could see a decision being made on his face. “Little one,” he said finally, sitting down on one of the pier posts so he could be at eye level with her, “you don’t have to go to Dregg, not if you don’t want to. Tell me now, and I’ll put you on Fox’s back and we’ll ride straight home. No one will hurt you, I swear it, even if I have to camp outside your chamber every night.”