“To come to you, to explain what I did, and why. To tell you that I am not your enemy.”
“Nor my friend, I dare say.”
“You’re wrong, Nine Killer. I will be your friend from now until I am dead and my bones stripped of their meat and placed in the ossuary with the rest of my people. You saved my life.”
“But yesterday you would have watched my death.”
He nodded sadly. “It would have been the most terrible thing I ever witnessed.”
“Again, I ask, what are you doing here, talking with me?” Stone Cob straightened, head held high. “My honor demanded no less of me. I could not be party to the murder of my clans people or my friends here. When you arrived, I could not be party to your murder, or the murder of my kin and friends accompanying you. That is over, but my part in it is not. I came here to serve you, to-repay my debt to you. You may do with me what you will. Restore me to your side, cast me out, or kill me. Whatever serves you best, War Chief. The decision is yours.”
Nine Killer stared into those level brown eyes. His first instinct was to raise his war club and beat Stone Cob’s brains from his skull. But he couldn’t, not after all the times they had worked, fought, and laughed together. Nor could he welcome Stone Cob back with open arms. A betrayal, despite the circumstances, could not be countenanced.
Nine Killer rubbed his grease slick hands together. “You betrayed me, Stone Cob. No matter how justified your actions, I cannot—”
Sun Conch trotted like a ghost out of the fog, her face dour.
Nine Killer said, “What can I do for you this morning?”
She stopped, breathing hard. “The Panther requests your presence in the Weroance’s Great House, War Chief. He asks that you come and discuss some matters with him before we depart for Flat Pearl Village.”
Relief stirred Nine Killer’s soul. The problem of Stone Cob wasn’t solved, but at least he didn’t have to deal with it this instant. “Very well, Sun Conch, I’m ready.” To Stone Cob, he said, “I’ll be back as soon as I deal with The Panther. Your fate will be decided then.”
Stone Cob nodded and seated himself by the cold fire pit. When Nine Killer looked back, he could see Stone Cob pulling his blanket tight against the chill.
Just be gone when I come back, old friend. That would be best for the both of us.
Whatever Stone Cob had done, he had done it from an overwhelming sense of honor. And if Nine Killer told him to drown himself in the bay in penance, Stone Cob would do so. There would be no easy solutions, for either of them.
The Panther scratched and considered his night. The faint glow of morning shone through the smoke holes, like shining eyes through the soot. Low voices could be heard from the other room as the slaves went about preparing food for the day. Above him, the pole frame curved ever inward, like a rude webbing held together with dried roots. The wood had browned with age, trimmed knots swelling like old knuckles beneath the thatch.
Similar to a big basket, he thought. And considered it an oddity that he’d never seen a long house from that perspective before. He shifted, feeling Sun Conch’s bottom cuddled against him. The girl’s warmth comforted him. He reached out and patted her gently, his soul oddly at peace.
What curious need did another human body fill when it lay close like this? He absently fingered a strand of her shining black hair, and watched as her chest rose and fell with gentle breathing. Not sexual, not at his age—and definitely not for an immature moonstruck girl like Sun Conch. This was some elemental craving, an emptiness that lurked in the center of the human soul. A need to touch, to hold, to feel another person close. It soothed-partially filled the gaping wound that had been torn in him so long ago.
Panther patted Sun Conch again and pulled back the musty deer hide smelling of smoke, human, and must. The overhead light cast square beams through the smoke holes, blue and hazy in the smoke. The guard, a different man now, watched him with suspicious black eyes.
Panther had accepted Black Spike’s hospitality in hopes that he might have a word with the old slave woman. Now, with the morning fires crackling and spitting sparks at the roof, he’d had no word with her, and worse, he’d had to listen’ to High Fox whine. How was he supposed to sneak over to the old woman when he and Sun Conch had been watched by guards the whole night through? The observation hadn’t been subtle, either. An armed warrior had stood within feet of their sleeping platform, a strung bow in one hand, and a studded war club in the other. When Big Noise had started to yawn and blink, another, freshly awakened and vigilant, had replaced him.
In the coming years Panther would no doubt derive some amusement from it, but for now, he groused over the affair. In all of his life, he’d never tried to sleep with an armed, suspicious, and hostile man staring at him through hard black eyes and an expressionless face. How could a man sleep when the idea that the unconscious twitch of a lip, or the wrong gasping snore, might be the trigger for getting his head caved in?