People of the Moon(51)

It would take time. Assuming his turkey bones lasted. Assuming they didn’t come to check on him. And if they didn’t hear him scratching away.

He pressed the sharp end of the turkey bone to his thumb, testing it, and then turned, beginning the laborious task of chipping off the plaster. In the silence bits of it pattered onto the floor.

Voices!

He turned, staring up at the high ceiling. Faint yellow light reflected from the square opening overhead. He could hear steps.

The First People’s tongue sounded like grouse squawkings to him. Then came the higher lilt of a woman’s voice. Gods, not Fir Brush!

Ripple lowered his turkey bone to the floor and braced his back against the wall to hide where he’d pried at the plaster. He squinted as the flickering light appeared over the high entry. Then it was lowered, casting its yellow glow into his narrow room. Through the glare he could just make out the faces: Deputy Sunwatcher Water Bow scowled; War Chief Burning Smoke looked stern; and Horned Lizard was smiling with anticipation. The pretty young woman who accompanied them looked curious, her eyes gleaming in the light.

Ripple swallowed dryly, knowing her: Blessed Larkspur, Blue Dragonfly Clan Matron of Pinnacle Great House, cousin to the Blessed Matron, Desert Willow. He had seen her from afar. For the most part she traveled by litter, being carried up and down First Moon Mountain by her Made People porters. She was a beautiful creature, doe-eyed, slender, with delicate bones and round breasts.

Horned Lizard bent and lowered the ladder. He turned, climbing down first, the lamp in one hand. Behind him Burning Smoke followed, a fabric bag over his shoulder. Then came the Priest and finally Larkspur.

Ripple stared up as they crowded around him.

“We no longer have the option of waiting on you,” Water Bow said in his accented voice. “Things are happening beyond our little valley that concern all of the First People. Someone has dared to mock the Blessed Sun’s authority and goodwill.”

Ripple swallowed hard as Burning Smoke said something to the Priest and lowered the bag. Larkspur’s musical voice asked a question. When she glanced at Ripple, it was as if she were idly studying a crippled camp dog; pity tempered the curiosity in her large dark eyes.

She was a striking woman, broad-shouldered but thin at the waist. She wore a kirtle belted low. Her navel was a dark shadow in a flat belly. Strings of turquoise, jet, and coral beads hung at her throat, the lowest of them draping the tops of her high breasts. Her face was triangular; four small spirals were tattooed on her chin below full lips. The delicate nose was straight, her eyes like polished obsidian that accented the thick wealth of her gleaming black hair. It hung loose down her back and swayed lightly with her movements.

Burning Smoke lifted something from the sack, raising it so that Ripple could see.

“Do you know this?” Water Bow asked.

Ripple glanced at the soot-crusted thing, fought the urge to recoil, and nodded. “It is a man’s skull. Someone has ground off the bottom of it, leaving only the top.”

Burning Smoke turned it, showing how it had been so perfectly ground and polished. It looked like someone had cut straight through from the bridge of the nose, through the eye orbits, and around to the far back of the head. Lamplight cast shadows over the inside of the braincase, revealing hollows and the imprint of veins.

Water Bow smiled. “Yes, as I understand, the back of it, just here”—he placed a finger to the swell of Ripple’s skull just behind his ear—“was damaged. Broken. Crushed. So they discarded it.”

Ripple wiggled away from the Priest’s finger, his heart beginning to race.

“This particular skull was used as a cup for a great many ceremonials,” Water Bow continued. “I myself have drunk from it on occasion.”

Burning Smoke grinned and uttered something in his lilting tongue.

“The war chief,” Water Bow translated, “was just telling me that the man’s name was Falling Cone.”

Ripple’s pulse leapt as he stared at the use-polished skull cup in Burning Smoke’s hands.

Dear gods! That’s my father’s skull!

The image flickered in his souls’ eye: A war club raised against the blue of a spring sky. Then it began its descent, whistling down through the air in a graceful arc. Like a diving falcon it sliced straight and true. The red-shirted warrior stood with his foot pressing down on Father’s neck, pinning him to the ground.

Ripple jerked at the memory of the impact: a snapping smack as the stone crushed the skull behind Father’s ear.

Ripple closed his eyes, seeing back to that day. Father had been on his belly, hands bound behind his back. As the body bucked and jerked in death, the warrior had failed to keep his foot atop the straining neck.