“And, of course, you stepped into a nest of vipers,”
“Interesting phrase for a Serpent sorcerer to use, don’t you think?”
The expected loathing wasn’t rising within him. Try again.
“He must have loved you, though. There had to be instances of tenderness between you. You produced a daughter, after all.” “Tenderness?” she asked wistfully, and shook her head. It made the tumbled black locks shine bluish as they caught the sun. “I’m not sure what I felt. Him? Maybe, but I doubt it.
There’s a difference between making love and the rut. One is intimate, the other is for procreation. Looking back, I’d say that my husband and I started with procreation, and that things went sour from there.”
Pale Snake winced. “I’m sorry, Star Shell. If I could go back and … ” What are you saying? Shut up!
“Change things?” she finished for him. “You’re kind to think of that, Pale Snake. I’m afraid it’s too late. What a naive fool I was.
, Starsky’s pampered little darling. I had everything … station, family, beauty, and admirers. Once, my friend, I reveled in that admiration.
Now I realize it for the curse it was.”
“Curse?”
“What else would you call it? If I hadn’t been so desirable, he wouldn’t have desired me.” She’d grown accustomed to the paddle now, driving it deeply into the water and pulling it strongly. He caught himself enjoying the way she moved, and he forced his attention to the brown fabric of the pack in front of him.
“But you must have had a lover … someone.”
Her laughter carried notes of bitterness. “All right, Pale Snake, I’ll tell you. His name was Greets the Sun, a—”
“Not my demented brother!”
She turned, staring at him, the paddle dragging in the water.
“Your … brother?” She blinked. “Wait. You said your clan was the Many Paints.”
“That was my mother’s clan,” he admitted sullenly. “I was raised among the Paints. Greets the Sun was my half brother.
He lived with a High Head Clan over on the Red Buck.”
“Tall Man’s … son?” Star Shell paled.
“Did you see his mother? If you had, you’d know why Tall Man had to seduce her. She was too much woman for him to pass up. Why do you think they put Greets the Sun way up there in the hills? His very presence was a reminder to everyone in that clan that Tall Man had impregnated a very important man’s wife.”
“On the way out, Tall Man avoided a farmstead, said the man had a vicious dog.”
“I’ll bet. More likely it was a studded war club named ‘ Dog’ … or maybe ‘ of Dwarfs.’ “
Star Shell half-turned in the canoe, and Pale Snake’s heart melted at the fragile look on her too-perfect face. “No matter who Greets the Sun might have been sired by, he was kind. He gave my soul peace. I … I would have stayed with him, enjoyed the solitude of his little valley. I would do anything to see him smile again, to share that humble innocence.”
“Perhaps I underestimated him. I met him but two or three times. The Magician was looking for yet another son to follow in his footsteps, especially after I disappointed him so completely.”
Star Shell glanced up. “In the end, I think he was a trap, Pale Snake. A lure, like a feather on a hook dangled before a bass’s mouth. I snapped it up.”
“What happened?”
“While I was loving Greets the Sun, the Mask was talking to Silver Water. I had decided to stay with him. But when F saw my daughter talking to the Mask, I knew I had to leave.”
Pale Snake ground his teeth, continuing to paddle. “If I’d only known, I’d have come south … rescued you from the little demon. I don’t know what it was about Tall Man. I’ve known other dwarfs … delightful, normal human beings. They weren’t all twisted like he was.”
“Pale Snake, please.” She’d rested her paddle crossways on the gunwale. “He wasn’t all twisted and weird. He knew what to do when my husband hung himself. He saved me a number of times. He wasn’t all bad.”
“Name something he did that was unselfishly good.”
She gave him a look of irritation—a look that thoroughly charmed him. “He offered my father a very beautiful stone tablet for my mother’s tomb. In doing so, he recalled service that she’d rendered to a High Head Clan once during an illness. At the time, that offering was most important to my father.”
“Let me guess. It was then that he asked permission to accompany you back to Sun Mounds, right?”