“The girl aside,” Copper Thunder said, “what do you think of this arrangement between your clan and mine?”
Shell Comb considered her words carefully. Traps lay on all sides and she dared not make the smallest of missteps. “We welcome this match, of course. Greenstone Clan gains as much as you do, Great Tayac. Your country lies upriver, controlling the trade route to the interior. You are closer to the resources we need for tools. The hunting is better in your forested hills. Your corn crops are more reliable than ours. In return, you gain access to our shell beds, our fishing grounds, and all the wealth of our rich lands.” She forced an artful smile. “I doubt that my daughter, with her sense of responsibility, would allow her husband to starve to death.”
“Perhaps not, but the Mamanatowick, the High Chief, Water Snake, will be uneasy about Copper Thunder’s foothold so close to his country. You may be visited by his warriors.”
“Greenstone Clan cares little about Water Snake’s concerns. He, and the Weroances, the Low Chiefs who serve him, have attempted to meddle in our affairs before much to their regret.” She paused. “Great Tayac, we considered all of these things before we agreed to the marriage. We’re not the simple waders in shallow waters that you seem to think us.” Shell Comb used a helmet crab shell to ladle his plate full of steaming stew, then called over her shoulder to several of the slave women, who came to scoop the thick stew into the wooden bowls. One by one, Copper Thunder’s warriors accepted their food. Only when all the men were served did the slaves take their own fill and retreat to their side of the long house to eat.
Copper Thunder sipped at his stew and said, “I don’t think you—of all people—wade in shallow waters, Shell Comb. No, you go very deep ..”. down where the water is dark and murky.”
Shell Comb smiled, as if hearing a compliment, and said, “It is only when we’re down there in the darkness that we know just how fleeting life is.”
Hunting Hawk ran her tongue over her toothless gums as she hobbled painfully around the bark-covered wall of the House of the Dead, heading for the entry. The dampness in the chill air masked the odor of decay, but its pungency still hung sweetly in her nostrils.
The morning remained gray, cold, and threatening. Patches of fog rolling in from the bay crept up the river, and feathered through the trees beyond Flat Pearl Village.
Hunting Hawk leaned against the weathered bark wall, and breathed deeply, trying to remember when she’d ever felt this tired—not even after the birth of her children. But childbirth, like so much of life, was a compromise. The Creator, Ohona, had made women to create life in a joyous process. The capricious Okeus had meddled, as he did in all things, assuring the pain and agony that process took. But a woman usually forgot the pain within days of delivery.
“You always liked a good joke, didn’t you, Okeus?” she asked, raising her eyes to the blustery sky. Dark clouds scudded across the blue.
Well, no matter. Having passed fifty-three Comings of the Leaves, and placed three husbands in the House of the Dead, her time for sex—fun or purposeful—was long gone. Her breasts now lay flat on her chest and sagged down even with her navel. Her skin, after years of painting with puccoon root, had darkened into a red-black color and wrinkled into the texture of cedar bark. Once sharp, her eyes had lost the ability to see anything at a distance. Some said her nose looked more like a shriveled mushroom than a shriveled mushroom did.
She shook her head and rubbed a hand over her sore hip. Walking, even for a short distance, shot pains up from her ankles, knees, and hips to blur with the burning ache in the small of her back. She used a walking stick, one made of sassafras that she could lift and sniff—at least her nose still worked, well enough—for the pleasant aroma.
She reached up and tugged at the gray-shot braid that hung down to her shoulder. Once upon a time her hair had been long and glossy like Red Knot’s.
Red Knot. She winced sorrowfully, a dull pain in her heart. She’d always liked the girl, so young, bright-eyed, and mischievous. Being Weroansqua meant doing a great many unpleasant and distasteful things. Her first responsibility was to Greenstone Clan. She had gambled everything on the alliance with Copper Thunder—including Red Knot. Besides, she’d seen plenty of pretty children during her long years. Seen a lot of them grow into dull eyed adults, worn down by the cares and trials of life.
Life meant pain: it hid behind every smile, every sigh at the beauty of new day, or the chortle of a baby’s laughter. Okeus had seen to that just after the Creation, too.