Lightning Shell--A People of Cahokia Novel, page 28
He barely noticed when Cut Weasel climbed up to the bastion platform and called, “Lord Keeper, if you have a moment.”
“Come, Squadron First. I was just pondering my options. Do I declare Green Chunkey’s assassins to be liars and their statements to be an Evening Star House deceit? Or do I respond with outrage, demanding the immediate dismissal of the foul and profane Green Chunkey? One way, it will cast doubt on Columella. The other, well, if Green Chunkey and Robin Wing go down it’s no great loss. The problem is the timing and how their replacement would affect the situation when Heart Warrior finally comes trooping into Horned Serpent Town with his squadron.”
“I don’t understand, Lord Keeper.”
“We want the town in ferment so that Forest Squadron can march in and restore order, stabilize it, be welcomed as the solution instead of be seen as a threat. If Green Chunkey and Robin Wing are taken out too quickly, their replacements might be capable enough to have the situation well in hand by the time Squadron First Heart Warrior finally arrives.”
Cut Weasel asked, “Could we take the assassins ourselves? Steal them away from Columella? If we had them, we could use them against Green Chunkey whenever we wanted.”
“Not so easy.” Spotted Wrist gave the western horizon a dismissive slit-eyed glare. “Columella keeps a lot of protection around them. It would almost take a surprise raid with a full squadron to pull them out of her sticky-fingered grasp.”
“Doesn’t mean that when the time is right we couldn’t slip someone in close, Keeper. Maybe close enough to slip a deer-bone stiletto between the ribs and into the heart? Or perhaps give them each a quick knock to the head? Killed like that, it can be played against Horned Serpent House. We can howl in outrage about Green Chunkey covering his tracks through murder most foul, and at the same time denying Columella valuable assets.”
“You don’t have a knack for this, Squadron First. We’d lose control of the situation. Columella would have their dead bodies dragged down the Avenue of the Sun so that everyone could see, crying all the time, ‘Look what the Keeper and High Chief Green Chunkey have done! Tried to cover their cowardly tracks!’”
Cut Weasel made a face. “I suppose.”
With a knotted fist, Spotted Wrist pounded the fire-hardened clay plaster, irritated to see a big chunk spall off to fall down the wall, bounce, and tumble down the slanting side of the high earthen mound. When it slammed into the avenue at the bottom, it exploded into clods and dust. Worse, it did so under the feet of a procession of dirt farmers come down from the north with burden baskets on their backs. Spooked and startled, they jumped and shrieked, and several dropped their loads to spill onto the hard-packed avenue. Wide-eyed, they looked up, shaking their fists and screaming insults.
“Rot in Piasa’s jaws, you two-footed vermin!” Spotted Wrist bellowed in return. As he uttered the name of the Underworld Spirit Beast, he gave Night Shadow Star’s tall palace a glance. The thing stood to his left, across the avenue, its roof weather-grayed, grass growing on the flat behind the guardian posts. Night Shadow Star’s slaves and servants still lived there and mostly kept it in repair.
But when it came to Night Shadow Star? The woman seemed to have vanished. Blood Talon should have run the Keeper’s errant bride to ground. Should have had her captured, tightly bound, and paddled back upriver and right into Spotted Wrist’s bed.
“What’s that look?” Cut Weasel asked.
“Night Shadow Star.” Spotted Wrist gave his second an inquisitive glance. “Blood Talon isn’t one to fail at carrying out an order. Just track Night Shadow Star down and bring her and her slave back to Cahokia. But it’s what? Almost six moons?”
“What have you heard from the Tenasee expedition?” Cut Weasel asked. “They should have sent word about either Blood Talon or Lady Night Shadow Star. You gave War Leader Tall Dancer specific instructions in that regard. That’s a lot of eyes and ears. They should have come across something.”
“I’ve had reports from the various messengers regarding the expedition’s progress. The last word was from Big Cane Village. No one has seen her. Not in any of the colonies, not even in any of the riverside towns. To hear them tell it, no Cahokian lady passed up the Tenasee ahead of the expedition.”
“So … maybe she went south? Down the Father Water?” Cut Weasel spread his hands wide.
“Why?” Spotted Wrist countered. “Her agreement with Morning Star was that she was supposed to go kill Walking Smoke in Cofitachequi. But I thought Walking Smoke was supposed to have died in the river the day Columella’s first palace was burned. I tell you, none of this business makes sense.”
“Blood Talon had an entire squad with him. Twenty warriors. Not the sort of party to travel unnoticed. What do you hear about that?”
“At Red Bluff Town, Blood Talon asked for help. Mobilized the entire chiefdom, and then paddled upriver.” Spotted Wrist continued to glare at Night Shadow Star’s palace where it overlooked the Great Plaza.
I should be living there.
“Doesn’t make sense,” Cut Weasel agreed.
“The last anyone can tell, they made it as far as Big Cane Village. That was the final word to reach here. And by that time, Blood Talon still hadn’t run the woman down.”
“It shouldn’t be that hard, Keeper. She’s a Four Winds lady, from Black Tail’s lineage. That kind of woman is hard to miss.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you?”
“Or … not.” Cut Weasel straightened, obviously onto something.
“Squadron First?”
Cut Weasel squinted down at the city as he rubbed the back of his neck. “The reason I came to find you, Keeper, is that I’ve had word of old Blue Heron. A Panther Clan chief came to see me. Said he had information to sell. Said that Blue Heron once used him and his kin badly. He claims she’s alive, Lord. Not only that, but she’s traveling freely about the city.”
“Impossible! How?”
“According to the Panther Clan chief, she’s dressed as an old lady. Wearing rags. Passing as a dirt farmer. Or a Trader, or some such.”
“Lady Blue Heron?” Spotted Wrist raised a mocking eyebrow. “Posing like some clanless old wretch?”
“Maybe she learned it from the thief, Lord?”
“This Panther Clan chief would have me believe that one of the most important and feared women in Cahokia willingly disguises herself as a bit of human flotsam and is slipping around the city with impunity?”
“That’s what the Panther Clan chief says.”
Spotted Wrist turned, fixing his troubled gaze on Cut Weasel. “Do you think this is true?”
The Squadron First raised his muscular shoulders in a shrug. “We didn’t find her body in the remains of her palace.”
Spotted Wrist craned his neck, looking north along the base of the Great Mound to where the charred wreckage of Blue Heron’s palace blackened the top of her mound.
Looking like a homeless old woman? It would be the perfect disguise. He frowned. But surely, she couldn’t pose any kind of threat.
He came to a decision. “If she’s out there, I want her run down, Squadron First. Even if you have to interrogate every little old lady you run across.”
Forty-five
It didn’t matter that he knew he was Dreaming, Fire Cat heard the voice as clearly as if he were standing in the Morning Star palace great room. He could feel the heat from the eternal fire on his back, was staring into Chunkey Boy’s dark, gleaming eyes as the young man reclined on his panther hide–covered litter atop its dais.
“Perhaps I am preparing you—by the most cunning means—for the day that I will need you to do me some terrible service. Molding you so that when the time comes you won’t hesitate to strike.”
That same cold rush, so familiar and haunting, crept up Fire Cat’s spine. Chunkey Boy’s eyes expanded, grew empty and yawning until Fire Cat felt himself falling into the void, weightless, plummeting into the stygian …
He jerked awake. His heart hammering fear. Every muscle in his body pulsed, electric.
“Fire Cat?” Night Shadow Star shifted beside him as he bolted upright in the blankets.
As the Dream shattered, Chunkey Boy’s hollow voice vanished under the onslaught of birdsong, the chirring of insects in the ash, hickory, and gum trees around their camp. The smoky pungency of Morning Star’s palace surrendered to the scents of the forest and river.
“You were having a bad Dream,” Night Shadow Star told him, her slender brown hand resting on his shoulder. Her gaze—in some ways so like her brother’s—was filled with concern.
Fire Cat rubbed his face, winced, and took a deep breath. Yes, he was on the river. Camped just up from the low bank on a grassy flat that Winder had pointed out the night before. Around them, the Traders they were traveling with had laid out their bedrolls. Occasional traces of the foul-smelling puccoon-and-sassafras-root rub they used to discourage chiggers and mosquitoes carried on the faint breeze. The fire was a gray bed of ash, fingers of smoke rising from the hardwood embers.
“I was back in Chunkey Boy’s palace. Standing there before his dais. Those words he spoke that day. So clear, like he was right here, speaking them into my ears.”
“Which time was this?” She shifted, and he could see the long scab peeling from her cheek. The scar it would leave, along with her slightly misshapen ear, would only make her beauty even more exotic. But it did make a mess of her Four Winds Clan tattoo on that side.
“Remember that time after we returned from the Sacred Cave? When he had the copper spike from my war club? The one Chunkey Boy couldn’t have had because I left it in the Underworld?”
“I remember that day perfectly.” She pulled herself up to sit beside him, her shoulder against his as she stared up into the sweet gum tree where a mockingbird raucously greeted the morning, flitting from branch to branch in pursuit of a darting butterfly.
“His words,” Fire Cat said softly as he arched his neck, eyes slitted to the silvering dawn. “That it was all an elaborate hoax to prepare me for some future task.”
“Doesn’t make sense. He knows you think he is a fraud.”
Fire Cat stared at the lavender sky. “He went to such lengths to tell me how he could have orchestrated the fraud in the cave. How he could have had a priest steal my war club so that he could give me back the copper spike.”
“Give me one reason why Morning Star would put that kind of effort into deceiving you?”
He shook his head. “I can’t. And, I have to tell you, Lady, I’ve thought it through up and down, back and forth. What were his words? Something about my skepticism served his purposes? That maybe it kept your ambitions in check? What ambitions? You had no designs on Cahokia, let alone challenging his authority in any way.”
“I remember. But he also said that using you might be a reminder to skeptics that they’d end up as slaves, that your situation provided an object lesson to the heretics.”
Fire Cat chuckled. “If sharing my life with you is punishment for heresy, I’ll…”
He knew the moment that Piasa possessed her, felt it in the sudden rigidity where her shoulder pressed against his. Could see the vacancy grow behind her eyes, the slackness in her face. It was Piasa’s voice, guttural and deep, that parroted Chunkey Boy’s words that day in the palace: “Having Danced in the merging of light and dark, I now understand his Power. And yours. I finally know who you are. What you might become.”
Fire Cat turned, grabbed Night Shadow Star by the shoulders, and shook her. “Leave my Lady alone! Get out of her. Let her be. It’s enough that she serves you, Lord. How much more do you want from us?”
When Night Shadow Star’s dark eyes fastened on his, it was Piasa who peered into his very soul. “All that you have to give, Red Wing. And then more. So go on. Live. Now that you know the price.”
“Price? What price?” He was shouting, shaking her with such intensity that her hair was bouncing.
And in an instant, Night Shadow Star was back, eyes panicked by the vigor of his assault. A look of terror gave way to a hard swallow as he let go of her.
“Did you hear?” Fire Cat demanded.
She nodded, seemed to collect herself as she fumbled with her thick locks. “They’re in it together. Piasa, Morning Star. Some grand game. And you and I, and Walking Smoke. Like it’s all been arranged from the very beginning. And we’re just … just…”
“Gaming pieces cast out on the blanket? To see which way the carved bones fall? Win or lose?”
She gave a defeated shrug, wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Around them, the entire camp was awake. The Traders they’d hired to carry them down to Big Cane Town were half out of their blankets, watching with wide and somber eyes.
Winder and Blood Talon—also sitting up in their beds—shot each other knowing glances, then rose.
Fire Cat rubbed his face. “All you have to give. And then more.”
But that could mean anything. And none of it was good.
Forty-six
Seven Skull Shield was sitting in his usual place with Blue Heron just off the avenue on the southeastern side of the Great Plaza. Their blanket of Trade lay spread before them. The sun was playing hide-and-seek with a series of towering thunderheads moving in from the northwest. Considering what they’d started with, Blue Heron had proven a most successful Trader. Her acumen had increased the value of their goods by at least tenfold. Some of the statuary, carvings, and copper pieces alone could have been Traded for a year’s worth of corn, beans, and squash, or bought them passage clear down to the Koroa lands at the mouth of the Father Water.
As it was a slow day—with only a scratch stickball game out on the grass—Seven Skull Shield had plenty of time to enjoy gazing at the women passing by. Looking at women was one of his favorite pastimes. He would wink and grin at the children, and periodically pet Farts.
He had cast his gaze on a particularly voluptuous young woman, who’d shot him a smile in return. As she made her way north on the avenue, she’d added a bit more swish to the skirt that hung down to her knees. Seven Skull Shield, scratching Farts’ ears, watched her vanish as she made the turn west on the Avenue of the Sun.
Which is how he saw the warriors start out from the base of Morning Star’s Great Mound. Must have been twenty of them, all wearing armor and moving with a definite plan. From the foot of the Great Stairs, they fanned out in groups of five along the northern edge of the Great Plaza, avoiding the chunkey courts.
Mostly they just passed people, nodding, but each time they encountered an older woman, they stopped, inspected her closely, scrubbed at her cheeks. Asked her harsh questions and searched her possessions. If she was accompanied by her husband or others—and they objected—the warriors ensured that protective friends or family didn’t interfere. Even if it meant a whack or two with a war club to make the point.
Giving Farts the command to stay by the Trade blanket with Blue Heron, Seven Skull Shield rose, sauntered up the avenue, and eased close, pretending to be inspecting some brownware jugs at a dirt farmer’s Trade stall.
He could just hear as the closest band of warriors surrounded a gray-haired woman with Hawk Clan tattoos on her cheeks. She had a blanket of Trade laid out just up the line. The top of the woman’s head was barely even with Seven Skull Shield’s navel, and her back looked painfully curved. But she greeted the warriors with a smile, gesturing at the coils of vines her son had carried in to stack atop her blanket. “Can I interest you in fresh green vine? Strong and supple. Just cut yesterday. Perfect for lashing roofing poles, house staves, or tying sections of wall together. Finest grape, I tell you.”
The leader—might have been a squadron third—reached out, grabbed the woman by the jaw, and yanked her forward. Almost toppled her over the coils of vines as she squawked.
“You Blue Heron?” the warrior demanded as he used a thumb to scrub at the squealing woman’s age-wrinkled cheeks. “That you hiding under those fake tattoos?”
Seven Skull Shield’s heart skipped a beat. He turned, ambled slowly back to the blanket of Trade where Blue Heron was sitting and smiling at the passersby. Farts wagged his tail, each thump raising dust as it slapped the packed clay.
“Warriors are coming,” Seven Skull Shield warned. “They know you’re alive and disguised as a Trader. Run! Now.”
Blue Heron’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”
“Look for yourself.” He jerked his head as the warriors abandoned the vine Trader and grabbed a hapless old female dirt farmer with a sack of unshelled corn over one shoulder. They were twisting the howling woman’s head this way and that, searching for tattoos.
“Rides-the-Lightning’s palace,” Seven Skull Shield told her. “They won’t search there.”
She artfully scrambled to grab up the corners of their Trade blanket.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Hey! I worked too hard to build up this Trade. Think I’m leaving it behind?”
“It’s your life we’re talking about!”
“It’s my pus-dripping dignity, Thief.” She lifted the corners, which tumbled the bits and pieces of Trade into the middle for carrying. This she extended to Seven Skull Shield. “Come on. Let’s go.”
He glanced back. Saw another group of warriors cutting across the stickball field after questioning an old woman who’d been watching the scratch game.
“There’s no time. You take the Trade. Farts and me, we’re going to create a little distraction.” Seven Skull Shield gave her a grin. “Just get to Rides-the-Lightning.”
And then he turned on his heel. They were closer now, not a stone’s throw away. If they looked up, saw Blue Heron hobbling away under her load of Trade … Well, that couldn’t be allowed to happen.
Seven Skull Shield stepped over to the pot Trader, picked up one of the jugs. The thing was spherical, with a vertical neck, and as wide across as his forearm measured from elbow to fingertips. Looked like it would hold a week’s worth of water. The sides had been burnished to a fine gleam. The workmanship—if Seven Skull Shield was any judge—was superb.
