Walking Smoke smiled lazily and walked over to the sweat lodge. Slipping his breechcloth over his hips, he let it slide down his legs and stepped out of it, naked.
For some reason, he glanced at her, gave her a wink, and shook his head. “Sorry, Matron,” he called. “You’ll have to remain in frustrated denial. It’s all about purity, you see.”
She bit off a hot retort, forced her gaze away from his, and realized her mouth had gone dry. By clenching her fists she was able, for the moment, to still the shivers and terror that ran along her bones.
Where the Tula still struggled to elevate Cold Water’s body, the flow from his gaping neck was now down to a threadlike stream. One of the Tula thumped Cold Water’s chest over the heart, and a couple of breaths later, another gush of blood drained from the severed arteries.
“Why?” High Dance rasped. “In Hunga Ahuito’s name, why?”
To her relief Walking Smoke had ducked into the sweat lodge and sealed the interior. She could hear the explosion of steam as he poured water onto the white-hot statuary stones and began his sweat. He was singing to himself, some sort of Power song.
She whispered, “It’s just … barbaric.”
That’s when the Tula finally dropped Cold Water’s body to flop loose-limbed on the floor, his dead eyes seeming to lock on hers with a pleading she couldn’t stand.
Every eye in the room was on the Tula as two of them lifted the pot and walked over to the south wall. Dipping their fingers in the hot blood they began drawing on the naked plaster. Crude though the work was, dripping and poorly rendered, she nevertheless recognized images of tadpoles, caterpillars, mudpuppies, frogs, butterflies, salamanders, and long red snake images.
* * *
Sun Wing’s litter was born up the trail from the canoe landing by eight strong men. Calling on the authority of the Morning Star House, Feather Wand, her head of household, had simply ordered canoes to be made ready. Sun Wing, her litter, and porters, had been ferried to the great river’s western shore.
The sun had set by the time they started up the steep bluff trail; she glanced up at the mottled clouds that darkened the sky. Two slaves bore smoky, resin-ball torches to light the way as she was carried past the two-headed eagle guardian posts and into Evening Star town proper.
Passing through the temples, society houses, and around the charnel mound, her porters trotted across the dark plaza. As she was carried past the World Tree pole Sun Wing touched her forehead in respect. Her porters bore her to the base of the stairway ramp in front of Evening Star House palace where High Dance and Columella held sway.
Two heavily armed warriors and a single man holding a staff of office stood by the guardian posts at the foot of the stairs leading up to the palace.
Sun Wing’s porters lowered her litter to the hard-packed clay. Feather Wand helped her to her feet before he turned, lifted his staff of office, and announced, “The Lady Sun Wing, of the Morning Star House, of the Four Winds Clan, of the Sky Moiety demands audience.”
The two warriors, both young Tula, tightened their grip on their war clubs while the third man stepped forward and raised his own staff, saying, “High Chief High Dance and Matron Columella are involved in ceremonies and purification, and will not be disturbed until mid-sun, two days from now. That is the order of the Evening Star House.”
Sun Wing stepped forward, motioning Feather Wand back. The two Tula warriors gave her a slit-eyed inspection that unsettled her—the kind of look wolves gave a whitetail deer fawn. To the man who carried the Evening Star House staff, she said in a low voice, “Go inside and tell my brother that Lady Sun Wing, his sister, is here.”
“By order of the Evening Star House—”
“Do you know who I am?” she snapped. “Go tell him Sun Wing is here. Do it!”
The man hesitated, clearly afraid.
“I know you were hired for this. Tell Walking Smoke, or White Finger, or whatever he’s calling himself, that his sister is here, or he’ll have you skinned alive.”
The man murmured something to the Tula, then turned, almost running up the steps.
Not even twenty breaths later, he was back, crying, “He’ll see you, Lady. But you alone.”
She turned to Feather Wand. “Stay here. I’ll call you when I need you. It may be awhile so don’t worry.”
“Yes, Lady.”
Taking a moment to ensure her hair was pinned properly, and to arrange her skirt and cape, she then climbed the stairs, back straight, moving with all the regal grace expected of a Morning Star House lady.
Two more warriors were waiting at either side of the closed door, bows and quivers of arrows at hand, war clubs slung. They, too, watched her with those same predatory eyes. She forced herself to ignore them as if they were nothing more than bugs.