Fear glittered in the eyes of each one, except Jigonsaseh’s. Her large dark eyes were as calm as obsidian—hard and translucent. Warfare was something she understood better than any of them, and Kittle was heartily glad to have her on the Ruling Council.
Kittle irritably braced her legs. She hadn’t eaten all day—as a symbol—and felt light-headed. Her hunger was exacerbated by the sweet scent of cornmeal mush that filled the air. She’d ordered rations cut by half. No one was happy about it. She looked down the length of the house, surveying haunted expressions.
Finally, Dehot leaned forward. “High Matron, I would speak.” Her short black-streaked gray hair fell around her gaunt face.
“Please do.”
Dehot respectfully dipped her head to Sihata, begging forbearance that she’d asked to speak first. If was generally accepted that Sihata’s sixty summers gave her that right. Sihata gestured for Dehot to go on.
Dehot straightened her blue cape. “We all have different ideas, High Matron. Personally, I think we should send a messenger to Chief Atotarho telling him we agree to surrender if he will grant us the right to—”
“Surrender, Dehot?” Kittle’s fists clenched. “Have you no confidence at all in our warriors?”
“You know I do, Kittle. But I am also a practical person. What good are three hundred trained warriors and a bunch of children with toy bows against perhaps two thousand? Even if we can trust War Chief Sindak, his group only adds another forty-one trained warriors. I do not see the utility in sacrificing our people in a futile cause.”
Kittle started to respond, but Matron Daga said, “You’re a coward, Dehot. You always have been. We should fight until our last breaths! When we surrender, Atotarho will murder our warriors anyway, and then he’ll take the rest of us as slaves.”
Dehot tartly replied, “He’ll take the children and young women. Atotarho makes a point of killing all the warriors and elders of any village he conquers. So—”
In a very quiet voice, Matron Sihata broke in, “May I speak, High Matron?” She was sweating; white hair stuck wetly to her wrinkled cheeks.
“Yes.”
Sihata shifted to face Daga. Both snowy-haired and wrinkled, they would be twins were it not for Sihata’s bulbous nose. “I agree with Kittle and Daga that we should fight for as long as we can before we are forced to surrender—though, like Daga, I have no illusions about our victory.”
A particularly fierce gust of wind shivered the longhouse’s repaired walls, and ash swirled in the firelight.
“So,” Kittle said in a hard-edged voice, “one of you wishes to surrender now, and two of you wish to surrender after we’ve been defeated. Is there anyone else here, besides me, who thinks we can win?”
The entire length of the longhouse went silent. Every person strained to hear. Her question must seem pure foolishness, yet she knew each wanted to believe, and belief was often the difference between survival and death.
Jigonsaseh’s eyes narrowed.
Kittle stared at her. Jigonsaseh always waited until the elder matrons spoke before she addressed the matrons’ council, but tonight she seemed to need time to process every other opinion before opening her mouth.
“Jigonsaseh?” Kittle prompted. “Have you anything to say?”
Jigonsaseh slowly lifted her gaze from the fire and her eyes locked with Kittle’s. “I respectfully suggest that we cease focusing on the end, and start at the beginning.”
“What do you mean?” Dehot asked.
Jigonsaseh extended her arm toward the longhouse entry where the curtain swayed in the night wind. “Let me tell you what’s going on in the hearts of your warriors on the catwalks. They don’t care how much food and water we have, or whether we will surrender or win. Each is concentrated on just one thing. Surviving for the next one hand of time. And that, matrons, is what should concern us.”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t plan in case we are defeated?” Dehot asked.
Jigonsaseh raised her voice. “Defeat is impossible, Dehot.”
There was a stunned moment where people throughout the longhouse just blinked and shuffled their feet. Somewhere in the middle of the house a dog’s tail thumped the floor.
Dehot, incredulous, said, “Why? Because you expect Sky Messenger to save us? I believe his vision, too, but—”
“No, Matron,” Jigonsaseh slowly replied, “because we are going to kill our enemies.”
The power and conviction in Jigonsaseh’s voice rang through the longhouse. Jigonsaseh had been one of the great war chiefs of the Standing Stone nation. Though she had not been a war chief in many summers, people still trusted her.