Blue Heron craned her neck, looking back at the door where Five Fists, War Claw, and party of warriors stood blocking the exit.
“My children did nothing wrong,” Columella insisted in a pained whisper. “Can I save them? Offer myself for the square before he has a chance to come to a decision?”
“For what?” Blue Heron felt her curiosity rise.
“Anything. Everything!” Columella gestured her hopelessness. “Yes, I plotted against you. We all do. There’s no secret in that. Every House in the Four Winds Clan wishes to supplant your House, wishes to serve the Morning Star.”
“And until now I did a pretty good job of keeping the lid on all of you,” Blue Heron growled.
“Quiet,” Flat Stone Pipe hissed. “The Keeper is no friend of yours, Matron. No matter what you offer to save the children, she’s awaiting judgment in the same row as you are.”
The conch horn sounded again, and Blue Heron, like the rest, bowed her head forward until it touched the matting.
She heard the Morning Star as he walked out and took his seat on the raised clay dais.
“Rise,” he called softly.
Morning Star wore a beautiful eagle-feather cape thrown back over his shoulders. The white apron suspended from his waist had been embroidered in a zig-zag lightning pattern on either side of a long-nosed Birdman image. His face was completely painted in white, the two forked-eye designs around his eyes in gleaming black. A black rectangle covered his mouth. Atop his head had been fixed a striking copper headpiece depicting the arrow-through-cloud motif; white-shell long-nosed-god maskettes covered his ears. Sturdy war moccasins clad his feet.
“Where are Night Shadow Star and Walking Smoke?” he asked softly, fixing his eyes on Blue Heron. “Tell me, Keeper.”
She touched her forehead. “I do not know, Great Lord.”
“What went wrong, Keeper? It is your job, is it not, to keep the clans safe, to keep them in line, to keep the plotting and violence to a minimum. Yet now I learn that my banished brother was able to return, operate freely, assassinate his father who was our tonka’tzi. He almost murdered me. You yourself will bear his scar upon your throat. He apparently subverted Evening Star House for his own purposes, and then murdered the tonka’tzi’s daughter, and colluded with the lady Sun Wing. All that, right under your nose.”
Blue Heron ground her few remaining teeth, aware that her ears were burning. “As those things developed, I was prompt in my reports to Lady Sun Wing”—she swallowed hard—“as the Morning Star directed me to be.”
From under her lowered brow she tried to read Morning Star’s expression. She could detect no reaction other than his long pause.
“Matron Evening Star,” he asked next. “When did you learn of Walking Smoke’s arrival in Cahokia?”
“That it was Walking Smoke?” her voice strained. “I learned that on the day he and his Tula warriors walked into my palace and seized it and me.”
“But Chief High Dance knew?”
“Not in the beginning, great Lord. I warned him. Told him that Bead was dangerous.” She took a deep breath. “Great Lord, my children are innocent of everything. If you need to punish someone, I offer myself, having done nothing to accommodate Walking Smoke. Exile them if you must, but take my life in return.”
“I didn’t ask you for your life, Matron. Such protestations smack of guilt.”
“No, Great Lord. Not guilt. But if someone has to pay, to balance the Power through sacrifice…” She couldn’t finish, but prostrated herself facedown on the matting. Her body was trembling, fear eating her alive.
Beside her, Flat Stone Pipe had closed his eyes, head down. What Blue Heron could see of his expression looked desolate.
“Sun Wing?” Morning Star asked flatly. “How long were you working in your brother’s service?”
Sun Wing, however, said nothing. She just sat; her expression as empty as last year’s seed jar. The corners of her lips twitched, her hands clenching and fidgeting. She seemed oblivious of where she sat, who she faced.
“Sun Wing?” Morning Star asked so sharply that Tonka’tzi Wind flinched, her downcast, sidelong glance frantically willing her niece to speak, to at least acknowledge the Morning Star’s presence.
“Sun Wing?” Morning Star demanded once more. “Look at me.”
Blue Heron swallowed dryly, whispering, “Come on, girl. At least admit you’re alive.”
Though the gods alone knew for how long, given her guilt and collusion.
“Sun Wing?” Morning Star’s voice softened. He tilted his head the slightest bit, as if disappointed. “Has she spoken to anyone? Given any hint that her souls remain within her?”