“Oddly enough,” Nine Killer whispered for Sun Conch’s ears, “I still trust him. I’m not sure why, but I do.”
“I think it’s because he’s seen through the eyes of Okeus,” Sun Conch whispered. “And what he saw there sent lightning bolts through his soul.”
Half Moon, Nine Killer’s brother-in-law by marriage, was waiting for him inside the palisade gate. Nine Killer gestured to The Panther, saying, “This looks like family business. Why don’t you and Sun Conch go and warm yourselves. Rosebud will have tea for you.”
Panther nodded gratefully, shivering from the cold. Then he shuffled off across the plaza toward Rosebud’s long house Sun Conch walked just to one side, casting about as usual for any sign of danger.
“Busy day?” Half Moon asked. He stood a full two heads taller than Nine Killer. Long ropy muscles covered his limbs, and his shoulders, though stooped, were built for endurance rather than brute force. Half Moon’s lower lip tended to stick out, and his rounded nose and perpetual squint gave him a perplexed look that caused people to underestimate him on first acquaintance.
Nine Killer fingered the handle of his war club, tied to his breech clout “Very. It started first thing this morning with errands for the Weroansqua; then I had to carry some baskets of corn out to Aunt Windleaf. She refuses to live inside a palisade now, claims the air loses its spirit, whatever that means. I guess she thinks it gets worn out being breathed by so many people.”
“And him?” Half Moon twitched his lips to indicate
The Panther. To Nine Killer’s amusement, no one seemed to grant Sun Conch any recognition. As the witch’s servant, she might have become invisible.
“I just took him to a meeting with Shell Comb. She wanted to talk to him.”
“About what?” Half Moon crossed his arms, uneasy eyes watching the old man hobble past one of the Guardian posts outside the House of the Dead.
“I don’t know,” Nine Killer lied. “I don’t listen to the Weroansqua’s business.”
“Ah, the Weroansqua’s business!” Half Moon grinned. “So, Shell Comb wasn’t just being sociable?”
“Brother, I don’t know. Maybe, or maybe not. She wanted to talk to him in private. I serve my clan, just as you serve yours. Now, what can I do for you?”
“Go and see your wife.” Half Moon scratched at his ear lobe. “How long has it been? A week, maybe two? White Star is starting to think she’s a widow. You’ve been spending all of your time at your sister’s.”
“Red Knot’s murder unsettled too many things. That’s clan business. Then we had the raid against Three Myrtle Village. You know how that went.” “Old friend, if we never find ourselves in that kind of mess again, it will be too soon. That raid should never have taken place. It was wrong—ill advised from the beginning. Only that old man saved us … saved us everything, in fact.”
Nine Killer smiled up, at his hr otherin-law. They’d been companions and warriors long before they’d become kin through marriage. In fact, had they not been such good friends, Nine Killer wouldn’t have married White Star. She was nearly six years older than he, and a widow. After her husband’s death, it was found that part of his intestine had broken through the gut wall and into his right scrotum. There it had choked itself, and ruptured, and rot had festered throughout him.
White Star should have remarried to a more prestigious man than a young unknown Greenstone warrior. At that time, Nine Killer was a mere youth, and hadn’t even earned his name in that daring raid on the Mamanatowick’s Weroance at Mattaponi Village. But, because of Half Moon’s influence, and because he came from Greenstone Clan, the marriage was arranged. The youngster who would become War Chief Nine Killer married the most beautiful woman in the village—save, of course, Shell Comb. But in those days, his cousin was still married to Monster Bone, and was living at Three Myrtle.
“Friend, I have to tell you, I don’t know about this Panther.” Half Moon crossed his long arms. “He might have saved us at Three Myrtle, but people are nervous. What’s he doing here? What is he after, brother?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Oh, come on. This is your brother-in-law that you’re talking to—if not your oldest friend.”
Nine Killer gave Half Moon a conspiratorial look. “He’s here because of Sun Conch.”
“What?”
“I told you you wouldn’t believe it.”
Half Moon gave him a disappointed look.