"Jones, J V - Sword Of Shadows 02 - A Fortress Of Gray Ice V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones J. V)

Raina felt a rush of pleasure and relief, then told herself she was a fool. “You’re making it up.”
“Am I now? Well we’ll see about that. In the meantime I’m going to tell you what you should do with that child, and you’re going to sit there and listen.” Mad Binny spoke with the calmness of one who had seldom been contradicted. Raina supposed it was a benefit of living by oneself.
“Effie Sevrance should be delivered to the cloister at Owl’s Reach. It’s in the mountains, east of Hound’s Mire—the locals can tell you where. They teach the old lores; herb and animal, far-seeing and far speech, summonings and compulsions and other ancient magics. She has the quickness for it, and I need not tell you she has the power. The sisters there will value her, and she’ll grow to become one of them, accepted for what she is.”
Raina stood. She was sick of people telling her what to do about Effie. This was a child they spoke of, not some dangerous animal that must be either trained or caged. “I’m not sending Effie to a place full of strangers who are not clan. Who will love her? Not some cold-eyed sorceress who seeks to control her. No. Dregg will be good for her. I was only a year older than she is now when I was fostered from my birthclan; it will be no different for her. She’ll make friends, and all this sorcery nonsense will be forgotten.” In her agitation, Raina knocked over her cup.
Mad Binny caught it before it rolled to the floor. “It’s a pity to see a woman as clever as you fool herself. Look at me. Thirty years alone here. Would you want the same for the child?”
No, she would not. The two women looked at each other, the older one calm, the younger shaking. Raina almost knew what Mad Binny would say next, and she did not want to hear it.
“Dregg is a young clan,” Mad Binny said quietly. “Its warriors are fierce and they wield the heavy swords with the broad blades. Its women are held to be passing fair, and dress in bright clothes they weave with their own hands. It’s said their chief is a good man, and their roundhouse is well set and well built. All this is known, yet clan is still clan. Tell me, when was the last time you were there, Raina? Ten years ago? Twenty?” The spinster’s green eyes were knowing and there may have been pity in them. “Do you really think they will treat Effie any differently than Blackhail once they know the power of her lore?”
Raina made a small gesture with her hand, pushing the words away. It will be better for her at Dregg, she told herself. There’s no Mace Blackhail there. Yet the thought gave her little comfort, and she found her mind returning to the morning after Effie had fled. In her haste to escape the roundhouse, the girl had dropped the bowl of liquid she had used to threaten the men. It had landed on the great court, just outside the clan door. Effie had since told Raina that the black liquid was nothing more than charcoal mixed with malt liquor, and Raina believed her . . . yet it had burned the stone clean through.
Raina shivered. She was afraid, and she had run out of words to argue with this woman.
“A child such as Effie Sevrance comes along once in ten lifetimes,” Mad Binny said, running a finger slowly around the rim of the cup so it began to sing a note. “She holds wisdom and power beyond her years. And she is young yet; there’s no telling what she will become as she matures. Many will fear her, more still will seek to use her, and if you do not see her safely placed then fate will take you to task.”
“Fate is fickle, chief’s wife, you know that. It can take a good life and turn it into a battlefield overnight. It can snatch a child in the blink of an eye, and drag her down to hell. The girl’s ripe for the taking. Cutty Moss tried to kill her, your fine husband sought to feed her to the fire—even Inigar Stoop has made a play for her. So you need to ask yourself this: Who else would benefit from her power?” Mad Binny took her finger from the cup, killing the note.
Raina looked away, uncomfortable with the question. Who could possibly want Effie? And why? When Effie’s voice came from outside Raina was relieved. “Drey! Raina, it’s Drey!”
Mad Binny had the decency to look only slightly triumphant. Raina Blackhail left her and went outside to greet Drey.

CHAPTER TEN
Condemned Men
Penthero Iss stood on a stone platform cushioned with silk and horsehides, waiting to sentence a grangelord to death. It was high treason the man was charged with, and so rightly the trial and the execution should be held within Mask Fortress, and the man’s head laid upon the obsidian block known as Traitor’s Doom, but Iss, Surlord of Spire Vanis, Lord Commander of the Rive Watch, Keeper of Mask Fortress and Master of the Four Gates, had thought to assemble a larger crowd. You could fit only so many bystanders into the quad. Whereas the Quartercourts spread out before him, with its circle of gibbets know as the Dreading Ring, its baiting pits, statue garden, market stalls, cattle folds, gaming courts and slave blocks, could accommodate half a city.
And today it nearly did. Even though the sky was steel-gray and a high wind was blowing off Mount Slain, the city had come out in numbers. Thousands of merchants, apprentices, laborers, prostitutes, priests, pot boys, mercenaries and lords milled in the great expanse of the square, growing restless. They had eaten from the cook stalls, gamed at dice and sticks, drunk beer and strong white liquor, inspected the corpses strung high on the gibbets, watched the spectacle of a hundred grangelords assembling themselves on the steps of the Quartercourts, and now they were ready for blood.
Iss sympathized with them. John Rullion, the High Examiner, was reading a list of the charges, and the man’s dour and powerful voice rose high above the wind. “Maskill Boice, Lord of the Hunted Granges and Master of the River Crossing at Stye, you are here today charged with high treason against the lord of this city and its people. Knowingly you met with others at the Dog’s Head in Almstown, and knowingly you plotted to assassinate the Surlord on the last day of Mourns, as he made his progress through the city, bequeathing alms. Seventeen days hence you made contract with Black Dan, master bowman of Ille Glaive, and paid him ten gold rods for his service. Furthermore, on the same day you reached agreement with the coarsehouse bawd Hester Fay, otherwise known as Big Hetty, thereby allowing Black Dan use of her three-storied house on the Spireway which overlooks the Surlord’s progress, in return for a payment of six silver spoons. How say you?”
The crowd stilled, restless and ready for anger. Corpses on the gibbets swung wildly in the rising wind as they waited to hear what the accused man would say.
Maskill Boice stood at the foot of the Quartercourts, an iron collar around his neck that ran chains down to his wrists and ankles and forced him to keep his head up. Boice was a big man turned fleshy, with the high color of one who drank too much and the contemptuous sneer of a grangelord. He had been held in custody for the accustomed twelve days, and Iss had made sure the man was well treated, even going so far as having Caydis Zerbina deliver cooked pheasants, fortified wines and hothouse plums to his cell. Caydis had also seen to his attire, ensuring that of all the grangelord’s considerable wardrobe, it was the richest, finest clothes he wore today. Rubies glittered on the grangelord’s doublet, and the unmistakable opulence of ocelot could be seen lining his cloak.
It was an interesting picture he made, standing there below his fellow grangelords. There could be no mistaking that Maskill Boice was one of them, with his riches and arrogance displayed for all to see. Indeed if it weren’t for the matter of his chains he might simply mount the steps and take his place amongst them. And Penthero Iss sincerely doubted that this irony went unnoticed by the crowd. They knew a rich lordling when they saw one.
By contrast Iss was dressed moderately, his robe of swansdown a stark gray trimmed with executioner’s black. At his back, Marafice Eye was cloaked in maroon leathers that had seen battle and hard travel in their day.
The Protector General of the Rive Watch had brought his men out in force for the trial, and the deep red of their forge cloaks could be seen in numbers, patrolling the crowd. Iss was gratified by their presence. The city had swelled these past months, taking in mercenary companies, men-at-arms, knights, footmen, sappers, engineers, armorers, and every farmer’s son in five hundred leagues who thought to make his fortune seizing battle trove rather than sowing grain.
Marafice Eye was doing as he promised at midwinter: raising an army to invade the clanholds in late spring.
The timing was ripe. The clanholds were weak and distracted; Iss allowed himself to feel a small measure of satisfaction over that. Those foolish clansmen had been so easy to play. Even the great Dog Lord himself had fallen prey to the Surlord of Spire Vanis. When Iss had approached Vaylo Bludd with an offer to aid him in the seizing of the Dhoonehold, Vaylo Bludd had not hesitated. The Dog Lord had been as easy to lead as a pup. It had never occurred to him to question Iss’ motives, so anxious was he to get his paws on Dhoone.
And now that you have it, Dog Lord, where is the joy in it? Iss pulled on fine bird-skin gloves to protect his hands from the wind. By helping Bludd take Dhoone he had destabilized the entire clanholds. Every clan from tiny cursed Clan Grey to mighty Blackhail was scrambling to fill the power void left by Dhoone. When a strike came from the south the clanholds would be caught unawares, and too busy scrapping amongst themselves to mount a united defense.
Iss was well pleased with what his Knife had accomplished so far. Camps had been established to the north of the city; makeshift towns where men lived under canvas and spoiled the neighboring fields. Training was under way, with large groups of men-at-arms being drilled on how to fight in formation with shields and spears, and raids had been mounted as far east as the Hound’s Wall for provisions and arms. Still, there was danger in having so many free lances in the city. Danger also in those hundred grangelords assembled in costly splendor upon the Quartercourts’ limestone steps. And a wise man could see further danger in Marafice Eye and his redcloaks. All in all Spire Vanis was a hazardous place to be in. And for no one was that more true than Maskill Boice. The accused man looked defiant, rattling his chains as he declared himself innocent of the charges. Iss felt Boice’s gaze come to rest upon him, challenging him to meet his eye, but Iss was not about to engage in such theatrics. It was time to move the proceedings along. He nodded once to John Rullion.
“Bring forth the witnesses,” ordered the High Examiner in response. Rullion was a hard man, not gently born, and he bore no love for the grangelords. His arrogance came from his belief in the One God, and although he had been High Examiner since the time of Borhis Horgo and had amassed vast wealth over the past thirty years, he still dressed like a priest.
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 redcloaks 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 Quartercourts 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 the forethought to wear armor this day.
Iss felt the familiar burn of resentment as he looked over the Lord of the Eastern Granges, a mere boy of eighteen, untested in battle and stateship, 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 after the Founding Wars, and his ancestors had been adding to their holdings ever since. Rannock, Owaine, Haider, Connor, Harlech the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth: All had massed 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’ place.