“That’s interesting,” Cactus Flower agreed. “I’d know that shape anywhere. It’s old Creeper. Normally you can’t get him out of bed until midmorning.”
“Maybe Yellowgirl gave him a warm bed last night?” Spots raised an eyebrow. He’d stayed at Cactus Flower’s for a second time last night. She’d been alone when he arrived with his load of wood, and happy to Trade a night for a quarter of his load.
As he watched Creeper approach, he wondered yet again about his relationship with Cactus Flower. He liked her. Apparently clanless, kinless, and irreverent, she made him laugh. Her wry sense of humor, cynical disbelief in anything sacred, and earthy appetite left him completely charmed. Or was he just ensorcelled by her enthusiasm when she tightened her sheath around his shaft? The memory of her face in the fire’s glow, gone slack, mouth open as she gasped and stiffened, would be with him forever. Nor had he anticipated that coupling could go on all night. His penis stiffened just at the memory.
Creeper came plodding past, head down, expression dark and brooding. He never even glanced Spots’s way as he pounded by in a stiff walk.
“Good Morning, Elder,” the guard called from above.
“Yes, yes,” Creeper called back absently. “Clan business. It’s never done.” Then he was inside the walls.
Cactus Flower lowered her voice. “Something’s happening.”
“Oh?”
She pointed. “That’s not how Yellowgirl usually acts.”
The Ant Clan Matron had been standing, head bowed as she kicked at the dirt with a sandaled foot. Now she shook her head, as if at something distasteful, and seated herself on a pile of stacked stone, her head in her hands.
“She looks worried.”
“All the Made People are. You can feel it.” Cactus Flower pursed her full lips, the sunlight casting her smooth face in bronze. “It started three moons ago, clan elders sneaking around in the night, attending meetings in other clan kivas. Not only that, they leave watchers, sentries, to see that they’re undisturbed. Once, when the Blessed Sun walked out from his rooms to look up at the stars, one of the sentries pitched a stone into the kiva where they were meeting. It went silent as a log. Just like that.”
“I thought you stayed at your farmstead.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes a Trader asks me to stay here with him.”
Which left him wondering. How was he going to feel the first time he came in with a load of firewood and found her occupied by another man?
“Do you ever think you’ll want to stay with just one man?”
She gave him a hard look. “Don’t start.”
“Start what?”
“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?”
“I was just asking. It wasn’t—”
“No! And it isn’t going to be, either.” She chewed her lip, glaring at him. “I like you, Spots. Just don’t get any ideas about becoming the one man in my life.”
“Sorry. Don’t yell at me. I was just curious about—”
“Gods.” She sighed. “It’s all right. You’re young.”
“No younger than you.”
“I wasn’t talking summers. I meant in living. It’s different. Time means different things to different people.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’d never get attached to you anyway.”
“Why not?” He winced. “Because of the scars?”
“No, fool.” She jerked her head toward Dusk House. “Because of her. You keep sneaking her food and water, and they’re going to catch you. Any man who’s best friends with a witch isn’t headed for a long and happy life. You’re just lucky I’m brave enough to lay my blanket next to yours.”
He thought about that. “She’s my friend.”
“Make friends with something safe next time, like a rattlesnake or scorpion.”
Spots ground his teeth, frowning at the distant figure of Yellowgirl. She looked as miserable as he felt.
Cactus Flower relented. “Sorry. It’s just that they put her in that cage for a reason. When the Blessed Sun gets tired of her, he’ll haul her out, have her whacked in the head, and buried under a big rock. That’s all.”
Spots shook his head in disbelief, voice lowering. “It won’t happen that way. Trust me.”
She gave him a sidelong appraisal. “Is there more to her than I know?”
He gave a brief nod of the head.
“What?”
He bit his lip, refusing to answer.
“Oh, come on, give it up, Spots. What?”
He kept his gaze locked on Yellowgirl. Was it the distance? Or was she crying?