His chortling laugh sent shivers through her as she struggled to pull her sopping wet dress over her head. With a flourish, she sent it sailing to slap down on the waves. Carefully shifting, she turned in the canoe to face him.
His face was possessed of rapturous awe as he stared at her naked body. “You never cease to amaze me, Sister. Oh, yes. I’m up for the challenge. I will have to hurt you, you know. I can’t just forgive the part you played in spoiling my ceremony.”
She opened her arms in an inviting embrace, taunting him by arching her back, spreading her knees against the hull, and leaning back. “I’m yours, Brother. To do with as you wish. If it’s better for you, more pleasurable if you hurt me in the process, do it.”
He raised himself on the gunwales, his blue-stained shaft already rising. As he carefully clambered onto her body, she whispered, “I can’t tell you how I’ve waited for this. Piasa finally says it’s time.”
And with a violent twist of her body, she capsized the canoe. Even as they spilled into the cold water, his hands reflexively clamped on her throat.
Sixty-four
Columella’s palace roared like a cyclone. Flames, sparks, and smoke rose torchlike into the falling rain. The whole roof cascaded down into the walls with a cracking and banging barely drowned by the fire’s howl.
Blue Heron’s cowed servants had rushed up to her immediately after she and Seven Skull Shield had descended the stairs. Now they all huddled around, holding the rain shield over her head where she squatted. Beside her, Columella crouched, knees together, a stunned and devastated expression on her face as she watched the fountain of flame shooting up from inside her walls. Her children, soaked and shivering, watched the palace burn with terror-bright eyes.
The dwarf, Flat Stone Pipe, stood, his small arm over Columella’s shoulders. His pug face was soot-streaked, eyes swollen from the smoke.
“Close one,” Blue Heron told Columella. “From what I saw of the inside, you didn’t want to live there anyway. Walking Smoke’s sense of décor was somewhat limited.” She paused. “Sorry about your brother.”
“What possessed him? To risk everything … his children. My children! All of Evening Star House! I’d hang him in a square myself!”
“How long ago did Walking Smoke contact you?”
She shook her head absently, then at a nudging from Flat Stone Pipe, came to her senses. Eyes narrowed, she gave Blue Heron a hard look. “Pus and blood, but you’re clever.” Then she laughed humorlessly. “No, Keeper, I had no part in this. Granted, I’ve got my own pots in the fire, but this was High Dance’s doing. And worse, the fool had no idea who he was dealing with. He only knew him as ‘Bead.’ Neither Flat Stone Pipe nor I had any idea who he was. I was taken by complete surprise when he walked in with his warriors yesterday afternoon.” She shook her head. “Am I that incompetent?”
“Maybe we all are.” Blue Heron shot her old adversary a measuring look.
Columella’s bitter lips curled. “Oh, I think there was more than enough collusion in Morning Star House to go around. Sun Wing, for one. She bragged to Walking Smoke that she’d ‘given him’ the Lady Lace and fed him information on your investigation.”
Blue Heron looked over where her niece, untied, some use of her limbs restored, cowered under a blanket held by warriors. The young woman looked sick to her stomach, eyes focused on some distant terror.
“I think her life is going to take a turn for the worse, Cousin. The Morning Star trusted her.”
“Did he?” Flat Stone Pipe asked in his high-pitched voice. “The Morning Star plays his games like a master fisherman, with baited lines running all directions. While he sets the hook with one line, he’s letting a fish run on the other to better reel him in.”
On her other side, Seven Skull Shield, holding a split of cedar over his head yawned.
“Tired, thief?”
“Too long since we had any kind of sleep or food. Seems like a lifetime since we were sitting out back of your palace. And I’m cold to the bone.”
She spared the palace another look as something cracked inside the walls and more sparks shot up. The rain seemed to intensify.
“I’m glad you showed up when you did, thief. It’s an irritating admission, but I think once more I owe you my life.”
He gave her a sidelong appraisal, grinning, most of the blood washed from his blocky face. A new bruise reddened his forehead. “You didn’t do so bad yourself. I had him, you know. You really didn’t need to bash his brains out.”
“Yes I did.” She smacked her lips distastefully. “As much screaming and howling as you were making, I’d have done anything to shut you up.”