A Sword from Red Ice

TWENTY-TWO The Menhir Fire

Raina soaked in the copper bath and let her thoughts drift with the steam. It was good to be weightless. Her breasts floated on the surface, hot and pink, as her hand idly passed between her legs. Later her presence would be needed at the Hallowing of the guidestone, but for now she could simply float.

Jebb Onnacre had brought the tub to her chamber and Anwyn had drawn a bath with rosemary and precious ambergris. The scent was sweet and peppery, like baked fruit. Oil swirled on the water, trembling as Raina breathed. Dagro had liked to watch her bathe, and she had learned over time to enjoy being watched. Boldly she would raise her legs from the water and ask if he found her clean.

Pushing her toes against the base of the tub, Raina rose to standing. There was too much confusion down that path. Mace Blackhail had robbed that pleasure from her, the remembering of her first husband's lovemaking. She could glimpse it but if she looked too long, newer images were overlaid over the old ones. Son instead of father. Dead leaves between her legs. Stepping out of the bath, Raina twisted her wet hair into a knot and wrung it dry. She had never returned to the Oldwood. When she was chief she was going to have it chopped down.

Anwyn had laid out all manner of pretty things for Raina to dally with. Shell combs, silk ribbons, perfumed unctions, a silver mirror, rouge—how in the name of lone had she come by that? Toweling herself dry with a yellow shammy Raina frowned in mild puzzlement. There was a message here, in all these maiden's gewgaws and paints, and if she thought about it long enough it wasn't flattering. Yes, Anwyn meant to treat her. The clan matron was one of the very few people in this roundhouse who knew what Raina felt about being forced to participate in tonight's events. Yet a hot bath alone would have sufficed as a treat. This armory of prettiness laid out on a crisply pressed sheet was something more.

Anwyn must have called in some favors, for she was a woman who when presented with a pot of rouge would use it to grease cow udders. The one thing she had in her comer was her total mastery and control of the clan kitchen. The clan maids might turn up their noses at mutton stew and boiled pork, but they'd hand over valuable equipment for honeycakes, dried and sugared apricots and plum wine. Raina sat on the corner of the bed and picked up a weapon at random. It was a needle of bone with a flat end that felt like sand paper. A buffer? Experimentally, Raina brushed it against her teeth. Dear gods, either Anwyn had made a mistake and included a woodworking tool amongst the trinkets or maids today had declared tooth enamel outdated. Raina put it back in its place and picked up the hairbrush instead. Her hair was tangled from lack of care so she rubbed a little unction on the toothcombs. That was better. It even smelled nice. By the time the waist-length, honey-colored locks were finally combed out the ends were beginning to dry.

Still naked, she reached for the rouge, sniffed it, tested it on the back of her hand, rejected it, then put some on her cheeks anyway. And then rubbed it off. Crucial seconds passed as she inspected herself in the mirror. No, she did not look like a city bawd. Her face actually looked better with some color, as if she'd been out riding or had an hour or two of sun.

Of course now that she saw herself she realized Anwyn's point. Tonight everyone in the clan would be gathered to watch the Hallowing of the new Hailstone. It was a ceremony you could live entire lifetimes and never see. People would be excited and expectant. It had to go well; the future of Blackhail depended upon it. Many clansmen and women would participate in the Calling of the Gods, but only one person would bear the Menhir Fire, and up until an hour ago that person had been walking about the roundhouse as pale and grubby as a cellar maid. Even if she did not honor the stone she must honor her fellow clansmen: that was the catch of tonight. Wisely, Anwyn had understood this and given Raina a gentle push in the right direction.

Raina Blackhail, wife to two chiefs, must welcome the new Hailstone with reverence, properly groomed and attired. Everyone in the clan had sons, fathers or brothers at war. She must honor them It was as simple as that She must think of Blackball, not Stannig Beade and Scarpe, must imagine the wishes of her first husband Dagro, not those of her second husband Mace.

Fanning her hair over her shoulders to encourage it to dry Raina crossed to the cedar chest that she'd ordered brought down from her old chambers. It contained cloaks, dresses, shawls, smallclothes blouses, boots, stocking, skirts, heeled shoes and other items of cloth-ing. Dust rose as she pushed back the lid. The layers were packed with dried wheat seeds, though she could not recall why. The seeds created a snowfall of gold as she pulled out one dress after another. It had been a long time since she'd cared about how she looked. The old Raina— the one that existed before Dagro's death and the rape in the Oldwood—had been young and carefree and had not realized her own good luck. Raina felt tender toward her, indulgent of her girlish taste in dresses. Periwinkle blue silk! Such finery had probably cost Dagro an entire horse at the Dhoone Fair.

She would never again be the woman who wore this dress to the Spring Lark and pretended not to notice clansmen's admiring glances as she whirled around the dance floor. Such delight had forever passed. Prettiness and the politics of attracting, yet appearing to disdain, male attention seemed like child's play. The blue silk would not do. She rummaged further, thrusting arm-deep into the seeds. Finally she found it, right at the bottom keeping company with dried-out spiders, a dress spun from finely woven mohair, russet-colored, with a panel of silver tissue that peeked through a split in the skirt.

"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."

She held herself steady as he turned and left, realizing that the stiff formal dress with its silver panel and waist chain had turned her into a symbol of her clan. And little was required of a symbol save to evoke pride in that which it represented. Only when he was out of sight did she allow herself to breathe. She had not realized how much had rested on her statement. Corbie Meese had not acted alone. Even as she stood here, breathing the quick shallow breaths necessary to survive in such a dress, the hammerman was carrying word upstairs to the greathearth and the men who waited there. Raina Blackhad supports the Hallowing.

Heart do not break, she warned it sternly. All she had to do was get through this evening with dignity. She could not allow herself to tank of Stannig Beade and his perfect manipulation, must focus solely on the drawing together of her clan. A group of Scarpe women with dyed black hair and dresses of various shades of red watched her with cool insolence as she stood and thought. The women had been cracking open hazelnuts with armorer's pliers, and Raina was willing to bet that the pliers had come straight from Brog Widdie's forge. Unable to stop herself, she marched right up to the women. "Leave this hall," she commanded. "Only Hailsfolk are allowed here this night."

A girl who might have been pretty if it wasn't for her dyed hair and ugly sneer, shot back. That's not what we heard."

Raina felt the blood rush to her face. She wanted to smack the girl and grab the pliers from her skinny little friend. Luckily the dress would not allow it; its fabric would not accommodate stooping so low. Keeping her head level, she spoke one word. "Go."

Until that moment Raina had not known she possessed such a voice. Utterly cold and hard as nails, it served up exactly what was ordered. After snatching brief glances at each other, the four women turned and fled.

Raina just blinked. She felt as if she had discovered a secret power.

I must wear this dress more often, she thought as she went outside.

Torches as tall as two men were already burning in a great circle around the roundhouse. Phosphorus had been sprinkled on the oil-soaked twigs and the flames shooting up were silver. Hot sparks sailed on the breeze, and the crackle of burning minerals filled the air. It was just beyond sunset and natural light was receding, and despite everything Raina found herself stirred. The scent of boiling pig's blood triggered primal urges in her brain. She wanted to feed. And flee.

The large paved greatcourt in front of the roundhouse was where the ceremony would take place. Stannig Beade and his helpers were busy with preparations. The almost square-shaped chunk of Scarpestone had been raised on a platform that had been entirely plated in silver. Brog Widdie and his assistant Glynn Goodlamb had spent the past four days hammering the sheet metal into place. Glynn was still there now, lying by the foot of the platform, polishing the silver with white vinegar. The stone itself was covered with rich skins; sable, bearhide, musk ox and lynx. The skins were held together by an intricate network of silver wire that glittered along the seams like running water. A deep, rectangular-shaped trench had been dug around the platform at a distance of seven feet. Raina could only imagine the work it must have taken, for the baked clay stones that paved the great court were huge.

Stannig Beade was squatting by the trench, pouring in fluid from a wooden cask. He was dressed in Blackball colors, his pigskin coat dyed black and freshly collared with a roll of silver cloth. Raina had heard that he had commissioned a new line of tattoos to honor the ceremony. As he finished his task and turned toward the light of the torches she saw it: a band of scarified flesh stretching across both eye-lids. She had to fight the urge to step back. Some of the pinholes were still oozing blood.

The clan guide of Scarpe noted Raina's revulsion and turned his back on her. Raina felt dismissed. She moved away, past the platform and the smokefires and the vat of boiling blood. People were gathering now, spilling through the greatdoor and around the sides of the roundhouse. Raina walked against the crowd. People made way for her, moving from their paths so she need not veer from her own. Faces were grave and excited. Torchlight and blood fumes charged the air. Children and pregnant women were forbidden from attending the ceremony. Rumor had it that Hallowings had taken place where the unborn had dropped from women's wombs. Raina herself knew little of what was to come. Two days back Stannig Beade had summoned her to his stonemill and told her what she must do. It was a simple task—just carry the Menhir torch to the guidestone—and she found herself much relieved.

It was a good night for it. No clouds marred the sky and the stars were scattered in immense and sparkling waves. A faint and shifting band of green to the north might have been the Gods' Lights; Stannig Beade would be happy as a crow about that It was hard not to be bitter. All the fine preparations; the sea of silver plate, the clanfolk in their rarely used finery, the wild call of the pigs blood. Stannig Beade had done an excellent job. Perhaps he believed the gods would come. Perhaps I should try believing that myself.

Smoothing down her hair, Raina headed over to the small crowd that had gathered around Anwyn Bird and Jebb Onnacre. The clan matron was handing out the booze: a half-dram of her five-year malt to anyone who fancied it. She was dressed rather curiously in many layers—a dress, a bodice, an overtunic and an elbow-length cape-all sparkly and richly embroidered and bearing no resemblance to each other. Two peacock feathers were stuck like pins in her hair. Acknowledging Raina with a flat nod, she said, "I believe you shut down my kitchen."

Raina's instinct was to apologize but she she stopped herself and there was an awkward silence as the two women faced each other over the upturned barrel containing the half-drams.

"You look like a queen," Jebb Onnacre said shyly to Raina, breaking the silence.

"She does" Anwyn agreed, her light blue eyes still intent upon Raina. "So we must forgive her for acting like one."

Poor Jebb. His two favorite women in the world were regarding each other coolly and he didn't know what to do about it. He made a hmm-ming noise, opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then reached for a half-dram and downed it.

Raina and Anwyn laughed at exactly the same time. 'Thank you for the bath and the pretty stuff," Raina said to her.

"Good luck," Anwyn replied.

It would do. Raina left them and mingled with the growing crowd. People seemed to know not to greet her and offered instead brief bows of respect. It was getting cold now, the air dry and crisp. The green lights in the northern sky tantalized: Now you see us, now you don't.

Suddenly there was a soft popping sound and a ball of white light shot straight up into the air.

"Blackhail!" screamed Stannig Beade. "Attend the stone!"

Everyone fell silent, and began moving like a cinched thread toward the center of the greatcourt. Raina hurried around them, anxious to take up her position.

Stannig Beade's helpers kept the area twenty feet around the stone clear of people. They were Scarpes, Raina noticed, but wisely wore no tokens of their clan. When they spotted her, they let her pass.

Stannig Beade had made Brog Widdie silver-plate a second, smaller platform that had been dragged into position before the Scarpestone. Stannig Beade stood upon this metal dais, flanked by iron torches that hissed as they burned gas. The clan guide noted Raina's presence but did not greet her. He glared at the crowd, a big man once trained to the hammer, with bloody eyes and twitching neck muscles.

"Blackhail!" he cried out when all were still. "Tonight we are gathered to present our new guidestone to the gods. It is not enough that it be delivered into the clanhold. The gods must be called to judge it."

His voice was grinding and terrible, filled with accusation as he prowled back and forth between the torches. "Look to yourselves, Blackhail, look into the center of your hearts and ask if you have cause for shame. The gods will come this night and they will know you. They will know this clan and every man, woman and child within it, and if they judge the sum of Blackhail unworthy they will reject its stone.

"Do not expect to fool them." He shot a brief, unreadable glance at Raina. "The gods come from stone and are stone hard. They will crush you down if you are false, smash the foundations of this clan." At the word clan, Stannig Beade's arm shot backward. Air rushed in toward the Scarpestone and the trench ringing its platform ignited in a sheet of flames.

Raina's ears roared. Heat beat against her cheeks. The crowd stepped back, fearful. One clan maid, Lansa Tanner by the look of her golden hair, fainted and had to be carried away.

The fire burned more fiercely than any fire Raina had ever seen. It dragged air from her lungs to feed itself and its flames shivered and leapt upward, alive. Stannig Beade's raised dais was only a few feet in front of the trench. Raina wondered how he stood the searing heat. He had become a dark profile againstethe light. A bear against the sun.

Screaming, he named the gods. "Ganolith, Hammada, lone, Loss, Uthred, Oban, Larannyde, Malweg, Behathmus. Hear me! See me! Come to this clan."

The words were Raina's cue and she took the simple torch of green wood from the Scarpeman Wilder Styke, but she was confused, for she was supposed to approach the Scarpestone and light the Menhir stack that lay prSed and ready by the foot of the stone. Beade had said nothing about a wall of flames. Unsettled, she took a step forward. From his position upon the second platform, Stannig Beade glared down at her.

"Walk forward and light the Menhir Fire so the gods will know where to enter the stone."

Raina felt-the pressure of thousands of gazes upon her back. Her face and neck were slick with sweat. A spark from the torch fell upon her hand, sizzling as it scorched a tiny black hole in her skin. She took another step forward.

Stannig Beade called out to the gods. "Behold Raina Blackhail, the chosen emissary of this clan. Judge her and allow her to step through the flames."

Rama could feel the silver thread in the front panel of her dress growing hot She was almost abreast with Beade now and had a choice between walking over the dais he stood upon, or around it, to get to the Scarpestone.

"The Menhir Fire illuminates the hole I will drill deep into the rock n he had told her two days back. "If all goes well I will tap into a vein, and the gods will be able to make their journey to the heart of the guide, stone. When they are present I will seal up the hole"

She did not know what to do. Instinct warned her not to take another step, that once she passed Beade's dais the heat would be too great to bear. Yet her clan was watching, needing her to step forward. Stannig Beade had manipulated her once again. Had he actually told everyone that if the gods judged her worthy they would kill the flames? The guide scowled ahead, giving nothing away. He was a man who knew how to intimidate a crowd.

And she was his enemy, and he had placed her in a position where he could not lose … and she could not win. Flee and she would let down her clan on this most sacred of nights. Stay and she would be burned.

Raina took the step required to raise herself onto his dais. She turned her head and looked at him, but he would not acknowledge her.

He was a coward then, in the end.

The silver plating on the dais had been so highly polished that standing upon it was like standing on a mirror. Raina glanced down and saw her face staring back. She looked like a puzzled child.

Taking another step, she moved behind Stannig Beade. One more would bring her down on the other side of the dais. She was perhaps two feet off the ground, yet the flames in the trench towered over her. They burned ruthlessly, lashing and curling like blazing whips. Their heat dried Raina's eyeballs, and blew back the hair from her scalp.

Not one sound came from the crowd. She knew what they would see: the rigid black silhouette of a woman bearing a torch. What did they know of such a ceremony? Blackhail hadn't had a new guidestone in seven hundred years. For all anyone knew Stannig Beade could be making it up as he went along.

Raina began the forward motion that would take her oft the dais. Of all the thoughts that were swirling in her head, one came to rest.

Do and be damned.

Rotating her hips, she shifted her momentum and stepped sideways instead of down. Suddenly she was right there, beside Stannig Beade in the center of the dais. Before he had chance to react, Raina held her torch aloft and addressed the crowd.

"Blackhail," she cried. "Our old guide, Inigar Stoop, had hoped this day would never come. Yet he swore to me that if it did he would walk through the fire with his chief. The gods must judge the guide as well as the clan. So I call upon our new guide to accompany me through the flames."

A moment of quiet followed, where the only noise Raina could hear was the pounding of her heart. Stannig Beade made a jerking movement, and filled his lungs to speak.

Someone in the crowd murmured something. There was a gentle push of people forward. And then quite crisply, Anwyn Bird's rang out from the back.

"Yes, guide as well as chief. Inigar always did say that."

"Raina and Stannig," came a second voice, very possibly belonging to Corbie Meese. "Raina and Stannig. Raina and Stannig."

Others took up the chant and it spread like its own kind of fire, rolling out across the crowd. Even one of the Scarpemen near the front began to mouth the words

"Raina and Stannig. Raina and Stannig."

Stannig Beade's neck muscles were twitching like scorpions as he turned to look at her.

Raina did him the courtesy of looking back. "Shall we?"

This was her clan and he had misjudged her influence here, but after this moment he would never underestimate her again. She saw this in him and perhaps later it would make her afraid, but for now she felt triumphant.

She just hoped she wouldn't burn.

Beade did not take her offered hand. Instead he punched a fist into the air, silencing the crowd. "Blackhail! You dishonor the gods. This is not a horse race. Yes, I will walk with the representative of our chief, but beware the ire of the gods " He seared the crowd with stare, replacing anticipation with shamef They ill like clansmen thwarting their

"Woman," he commanded Raina, "step in time with me " She was not a fool and knew not to challenge him any further and they began a solemn walk toward the fire. Flames jumped at them.

Once they were down from the platform the heat hit their faces in waves. Raina kept in perfect time with Beade, matching his stride length and swing. She held the torch high between them, following his example of making a show for the crowd.

Dagro's dress would be forever ruined with sweat, she thought sadly, as perspiration poured from her body into the fabric. Perhaps it was just as well. It made her act like someone else when she wore it.

Stannig Beade knew something Raina did not, for when they drew close enough to the flames to smell their hair and clothes crisping, he made a small gesture with his finger and stepped ahead of her.

As he moved forward the flames died and he entered a world of smoke. Confused, Raina followed him. The stench of burned soil was sickening, and the ground she stepped on was hot. Fire had dazzled her eyes and she thought she saw a figure slipping away from the opposite side of the trench.

"Light the Menhir Fire," Beade ordered, his voice ugly now that they were out of earshot of the crowd.

Raina was glad to get away from him and crossed the short distance to the platform. Fire had tarnished the silver, and the platform's walls were almost black. Above them, the hmes covering the Scarpestone were smoking. Bending at the waist, Raina pushed the torch toward the small stack of sticks laying on the platform's edge. With a jolt of surprise she realized the hides did not reach all the way down to the hole. The foot of the Scarpestone was visible and she could clearly see the pale circle of new stone that had been exposed by Stannig Beade's drill. The hole in its center was the blackest thing Raina had ever seen in her life. It was the color of all things forsaken.

Stannig Beade is right, she realized with a chill. This is no game we play. That hole was a passage for the gods, and if they did not like what they saw tonight they would not take it Yes, Stannig Beade had his tricks—someone had flash-doused the flames for him—but this was no trick. And he and she wanted the same thing: the gods to return to Blackhail.

Sobered by her thoughts, Raina lit the Menhir Fire and prayed for the Stone Gods to notice.