A Sword from Red Ice

"I know it's not to your taste, Ray. But mayhap one day you'll grow into it." Raina heard Dagro's voice as clearly as if he were speaking into her ear. He had gone to parley with Threavish Cutler in Ille Glaive and spent the night in the Lake Keep. At the feast he attended, he spotted a fine city lady wearing a dress much the same as this. "She was dancing, and it flashed silver when she moved and I thought to myself: Raina must have one. It was the first time Yd ever looked at a dress and thought ofBlackhail" Raina swallowed. He was a man so he had got the details wrong. A local seamstress had run it up for him, using the fancy city fabrics he had brought her. Raina had never liked it and worn it only once, when the ancient clan chief Spynie Orrl had come to visits had seemed old to her and fuddy-duddy, though it fit well enough around the bodice. Seven years later it seemed just right. Stately and beautiful, heavy as a king's cloak. She pulled it on and struggled for some time with the lacings. Her waist was the same size but her breasts appeared to have gotten larger—had she always worn her dresses this tight?

Her hair was close to dry by the time she'd donned stockings and suede boots and a belt of silver chain, and she set about pinning it back. No matronly, serviceable braids. Not tonight. She would wear her hair in thick, loose hanks at her back, banded with silk ribbon.

She felt strange by the time she was done, not quite herself. The dress stiffened her spine, made her walk with her chin up and chest out. As she lifted the latch of the little cell beneath the kitchen that she now called her own, she realized her fingernails were rough and chipped. That was what the bone thing was for, she realized, smiling as she let herself out.

People fell silent as she made her way through the kitchens. The women punching down dough for tonight's bake stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her. The boy sweeping the floor actually started sweeping his feet. Raina thought for a moment, then halted close to the big center worktable where kitchen girls were assaulting vegetables with wicked-looking knives. The heat from the bread ovens was nearly unbearable.

«Everyone,» Raina said briskly. "Stop work and prepare for the Hallowing. All will be expected to attend."

Clanswomen stared at her, blinking, their hands either powdery with dough or wet with carrot and onion juices. "But the ovens," said Sheela Cobbin, one of bare-armed women kneading the dough. "They're already fired and hot."

"Close them down," Raina said to her. "There'll be no bake tonight." It was like using a muscle, exercising power. The more you did it the easier it became. Everyone obeyed her, setting down knives and mops and and ladles, the dough women throwing damp cloths over their balls of dough, the oven boys closing the air holes with long metal hooks. "Borrie," she said to the boy who had been sweeping his feet "When everyone has left I want you to stay behind and seal the kitchen door."

He understood exactly what she meant and nodded. "I'll let myself out of the back."

"Good." She'd be damned if any Scarpe would steal into this kitchen and sneak away with food from her clan tonight. She was a little breathless by the time she made her way into the entrance hall. Part of her was a bit worried about stepping on Anwyn's toes, yet the clan matron was nowhere to be seen, and ultimately Raina knew that her own authority must usurp that of her old friend's. Do and be damned, that was what Dagro used to say at moments like this. The words had barely concealed his joy at doing exactly what suited him, and Raina only hoped that someday she might feel the same.

"Lady." Corbie Meese fell in step with her as she crossed the hall. The hammerman had elected to stay behind to defend the round-house while Blackhail's armies rode to war. His wife Sarolyn had just given birth to her first baby, a daughter, and although the child was doing well Sarolyn was still abed. "You do us proud."

She stopped to look at him, and saw that he was dressed in formal battle gear, complete with hammer chains, gleaming leather fronts, and armored gloves tucked beneath his hammer harness, high on his left shoulder. Glad and sad she smiled at him. "Tonight is for us—for Blackhail."

He read her face carefully, his hazel eyes earnest. She knew why he had sought her out to speak with her. He wanted to know what she felt about this evening. Could it really be legitimate, this hacked-off stone from another clan? By speaking to waylay him she had prevented them both from having to hear those damning words spoken out loud.

He bowed to her—hammermen who had trained under Naznarri Drac, the Griefbringer, were always courtly. "The warriors follow you in this."