Making an effort, Raina said, "When I spoke with Biddie about using the widows' hearth to house clansmen I recall no talk of barring Scarpes."

"Well you wouldn't, Raina," Merritt replied, cool as milk, "as it was my idea to bar them."

Of course it was. Raina had known Merritt Ganlow for twenty years. Her husband, Meth, had shared a tent with Dagro on that last fateful longhunt, and the two men had been friends since childhood. Merritt had a sharp mind to go with her green eyes, and a prickly way about her. She had taken to widowhood with both zeal and resentment, and had made no secret of the fact that she disapproved of Raina's hasty marriage to Mace.

"You have a habit of putting me in a difficult position, Merritt Ganlow," Raina said to her.

"You have a habit of being in a difficult position, Raina Blackhail. All I do is point it out."

She was right, of course. The damage to the roundhouse meant that both Hailish familiesBnd Scarpe ones needed new places to stay. The widows' hearth was, in Raina's opinion, the finest hall in the entire building. Housed at the pinnacle of the great dome, it had half a dozen windows that let in light. Someone had painted the walls with yellow distemper and someone else had thought to lay wooden boards across the floor. It was a pretty chamber, airy and full of sunlight. Unlike any other room in this dour, lamp-lit place.

Take a hold of yourself, Raina warned herself. It was too late to do anything about where she lived now. The Blackhail roundhouse had been built for defense, not beauty, and she had known that from the moment she first spied its hard, drum-shaped walls all those years ago when riding across the Wedge on the journey from Dregg. What she needed to concentrate on now was space. Families had taken to setting down their bedrolls in corridors and storage areas, and lighting cook-fires and oil lamps wherever they pleased.

Raina glanced around the great half-moon of the entrance hall. A scrawny boy was chasing an even scrawnier chicken up the stairs, two Scarpewives dressed in black tunics and black leather aprons were fussing around a vat full of potash and lye, a handful of tied Hailsmen had claimed the space under the stair as a gaming room and were lounging in a circle, downing flat ale and throwing dice On either side of the greatdoor burlap sacks stuffed with bedclothes, pots and pans and other household items had been stacked ten feet high against the wall.

It would not do. Merritt and her sisterhood of widows knew that too and when Raina had approached them about giving up their hearth they had expressed willingness to do so. Only now, two days later Merritt Ganlow had tied some strings to the deal.

"You like the thought of Scarpes in the widows' hearth as much as I do," Merritt said, her voice creeping higher. "The widows' wall used to mean something in this clan. You needed a bracelet of scarred flesh to stand there." Yanking up the sleeve of her work dress, Merritt thrust out her left wrist toward Raina. The widows' weals were plain to see. Ugly purple scars that would not be allowed to heal for a year. Every woman who lost a husband in Blackhail cut herself, scoring a circle around each wrist with a ritual knife known as a grieveblade. Raina had always thought it a barbaric practice, hailing back to the Time of the First Clans, yet when Dagro had died she had begun to understand it. The pain of cutting her flesh had been nothing—nothing—compared with losing Dagro. Strangely, it had helped. When the blood pumped from her veins and rolled around her wrists she had felt some measure of relief.

To Merritt she said, "You cannot blame Scarpe widows for not practicing the same rituals as we do. Their pain is still the same."

Merritt was contemptuous. "They tattoo the weals—dainty little lines inked in red. And they heal within a week. Then what? They're like bitches in heat. Run off and remarry so fast it's as if they never gave a damn for their first husbands all along. And I tell you another thing"

"Hold your tongue," Raina hissed. She was shaking, frightened by how close she had come to slapping Merritt Ganlow. He raped me! she wanted to scream. That's why I remarried so fast Mace Blackhail took me by force and told everyone I agreed to it They believed him. And if I hadn't married him I would have forsaken my reputation and my place in this clan.

Merritt glanced around nervously. Too late she realized her raised voice had drawn unwanted attention her way. The men under the stairs had halted their gaming and were looking with some interest at the head widow and the chiefs wife. The two Scarpewives pale women with dyed-black hair and lips stained red with mercury, stared at Merritt and Raina with unconcealed dislike.

"Open up! Warriors returning."

Three hard, deep raps against the greatdoor followed the shouted command, and all attention shifted from Raina and Merritt to the half ton of force-hardened rootwood that barred the Hailhold's primary entrance. Straightaway, things started happening. Mull Shank appeared out of nowhere and together he and one of the young Tanner boys began lifting the iron bars from their cradles. The cry "Warriors returning!" was relayed through the entrance hall and up the stairs toward the greathearth. Anwyn Bird, who had the ears of a deer and the uncanny ability to know exactly when her strong beer was needed, emerged from the kitchen cellar, hoisting a two-gallon keg on her shoulder.

As the door was pushed back on its greased track, Raina turned to Merritt Ganlow. "So you're set on opening the widows' hearth solely to Hailsmen?"

Merritt's face had slackened somewhat during all the excitement, and for a moment Raina hoped that it might stay that way. It wasn't to be. Merritt's mouth tightened and her chin came up. "I'm sorry, Raina, but I won't change my mind. This is the Hailhold, not the Scarpehold, and if someone doesn't make a stand against it we'll all be wearing the weasel pelts before we're through." With that, the clan widow stalked away, staring down the two Scarpewives as she passed them.

She was bold and she was right. Raina raised a hand and rubbed her temples. Her head was beginning to hurt. Of course she agreed with Merritt. How could she not? As she stood here waiting to see who would come through the door, she could smell the foreign cookery, see the weasel-pelted Scarpe warriors gathering to discover who had returned and why, and feel the oily smoke from their pine-resin cook stoves passing through the membranes in her lungs. Now was not the time to take action against them, though. Why couldn't Merritt see that? The Hailstone had exploded, taking the heart of the clan with it. The Hailhouse was no longer secure. There was no clan guide. Blackhail was at war with Bludd and Dhoone, and right now, like it or not, most warriors were loyal to their chief.

Realizing she was pressing her head when she should have be rubbing, Raina flung her arm up and out. If Dagro had taught her one thing it was caution, and caution told her to wait for a better time show her hand. It was all very well for Merritt to play at making stand. In reality she wouldn't have the nerve to repeat to Mace what she just said. No, she was banking on Raina Blackhail doing the dirty work for her, delivering a nasty little message to the chief.

Well I won't do it, dammit. Raina stamped her foot, crunching debris from the Sundering beneath the heel of her boot. Now all she had to do was come up with a plan. Surely the tenth one she'd needed this week.

Raina's mind slid from her problems as she saw who walked through the doorway. Arlec Byce and Cleg Trotter, two of the original Ganmiddich eleven who had held the Crab Gate for over a week whilst the Crab chief returned from Croser, entered the roundhouse. Saddle-bowed and weary, the two men thied back when the smoke from the cookfires reached them. Arlec's twin brother had been dead for many months, killed by the Bludd chief himself on Bannen Field, and Raina still wasn't used to seeing him alone. He was wearing his bctrothed's token around his throat: a gray wool scarf, knitted lovingly if rather hastily, by Biddie Byce. When Arlec noticed Raina's gaze upon him, he bowed his head wearily and said, "Lady."