Noticing a flattening-out of an overhead ceiling groin, she straightened her spine and rested a moment. Her back was aching with the strain of carrying her lode and she wondered if she should have asked Jebb Onnacre to help. No, she shook her head. Jebb was a good man and she trusted him, but this risk must be hers alone.
Pushing herself off from the wall she concentrated on remembering the way ahead. The standing water was deeper than when she'd been here last and she was glad she'd had the sense to put on her knee-high leather riding boots. As she moved, the pack strapped to her shoulders kept sliding out of place and she had to constantly reach back to reccn-ter the weight. She wasn't sure how much longer she could carry it Sweat was trickling past her ears, and two dark stains were spreading across the armpits of her dress. The sopping wool felt like itchy mush.
Shunting the weight sideways, she slipped between two stone columns and entered the dark airless labyrinth of the foundation space, the bottommost level in the roundhouse. It was surprisingly warm and some kind of rain was falling—the ceiling must be saturated with groundwater. The safelamp began to hiss and Raina brought it close to her body for protection. Bending at the waist, she cleared the entrance tunnel and followed the passage as it led down.
It wasn't long before oily water started flooding over the tops of her boots. Awkwardly, she hiked up her sodden skirts and tucked them under her belt. As she worked, the safelamp swung lazily in her free hand, sending an egg-shaped beam of light rocking across the walls.
A fuzz of blue-black mold covered the stone. In the corner where the sandstone walls braced the ceiling, moths had laid their eggs. Thousand of white maggots fed on the mold. Some had pupated into pod-shaped cocoons that hung suspended from the ceiling by dusty threads of silk. When a breeze came they clicked together, making a noise like rustling leaves. Raina averted her eyes and resumed walking.
Built solely as a buffer between the roundhouse and the cold earth, the foundation space had not been designed for walking. Raina reckoned the ceiling height was under five feet, and looking ahead she could see it was dropping. The strange thing was she wasn't as afraid of this place as she had been in the past. Old fears were felling away. Fear of rats and other small things now seemed like a silly luxury, like wearing a lace bonnet on a windy day. Vain too, a demonstration of delicacy, an announcement that one has managed to steer clear of the hardships of everyday life. Same with spiders and darkness and thunderstorms: girlish fears for girls who did not know the real things they should fear. Raina could tell them. Sometimes she would like to yell them out loud just to get them off her chest.
Spying a T-junction ahead, Raina took a moment to rest the weight and run over the directions in her head. She did not want to make a wrong turn. Effie Sevrance had shown her this place. That girl knew the roundhouse like the back of her hand. Strongrooms, crypts, wet cells, mole holes, clay pits, ice pits, well heads, dungeons: Effie knew all the dark and secret spaces beneath the roundhouse. She would go missing for entire days and no one, not even her brothers, could find her. When she finally emerged, blinking and baffled at all the fuss, she would say simply, "Sorry. I forgot." Raina had come down hard on her after the time she'd gone missing for three whole days. "You will stay here in my chambers, within my sight, for the next ten days. And you'll spend that time composing apologies for all those you have worried and inconvenienced." Poor Effie had done just that.
Raina became aware of the water in her boots, lukewarm and turgid, congealing like jelly. Effie was alive; she had to be. Raina was sure she would know if it wasn't true. A messenger had come from Dregg only two days ago, and the word was still the same: no sign of the cart containing Effie Sevrance, Clewis Reed, and Druss Ganlow. Raina understood that something must have happened on their journey—a detour, a mishap, a mistake—but it didn't mean that Effie was dead. Just waylaid.
Breathing heavily Raina took the turn. How am I going to tell Drey? She had put off sending a message to Effie's brother three times now. Between his responsibilities defending the Crab Gate and his heartache over his brother's treason, Drey Sevrance had enough on his shoulder. Besides, she owed it to him to deliver the news in person, to look into his eyes and accept the blame. I was the one who thought Effie would be better off at Dregg.
Besides, Drey was gone now, called to war. It was not a good time to give a Hailsman bad news. The rumors from Ganmiddich were wor-rying: whispers of city-men armies on the march from the south whilst Bludd forces were cracking down from the north. Hailsmen would die. Drey might die. If the gods truly loved her Mace Blackhail would die.
