“Did you know at the time it was Walking Smoke?”
“I did not. Piasa didn’t see fit to share that bit of information until that night when I came here, to your palace. The night when I told you, the Keeper, and the Tonka’tzi. But you knew, didn’t you? That he came so close to killing you, that I thwarted the attempt at the last instant, threw you completely off balance. The impossibility that your life was saved by Underworld Power had you reeling and confused.”
He smiled—a cunning sort of expression. “I wasn’t sure where the truth lay. Was your brother’s alliance with you? Or with Sun Wing? Or with both of you? After we made our bargain, it came to me that you might have hired that man to cut my throat. Accompanied him here that night. It wasn’t unreasonable that you waited until he placed the blade to my skin, and murdered him at the last moment to win my trust.”
“You cast a wide net, Morning Star. The problem with drawing it in is that you have swept up everyone. Piasa, Horned Serpent, and Snapping Turtle could care less who you sacrifice in your plots and games. They sought only to counter the threat to Power.” She stepped forward, placing one foot on the dais.
At the affront, Five Fists and his warriors came rushing forward; the Red Wing whirled and, in a war chief’s voice, ordered, “Hold!” He raised his arm in emphasis and bent it in the Cahokian war signal to maintain position.
Five Fists and his warriors, trained as they were, stopped short.
“But I care!” Night Shadow Star told Morning Star as she peered into his eyes. “Look at me through the god’s eyes, as you will, Morning Star. But we have a history, you and I. As Chunkey Boy or Morning Star, you know my words are true when I tell you my brother came very, very close to destroying our world. He didn’t realize that with the slitting of Sun Wing’s throat, it would have been irreversible. The boundaries and barriers between the worlds would have fallen. Piasa would have been ripped from the Underworld and thrust into ours. My foolish brother thought he needed the blood and bodies of all three of his sisters? Two would have sufficed, because I was already Piasa’s.”
For the first time, Blue Heron, from her angle, could see the cold uncertainty that entered the Morning Star’s eyes.
Night Shadow Star straightened, stepping back. “Yes, you do understand, don’t you?”
She half turned away, then glanced back at him. “You and I have an alliance. Fragile, yes, but an alliance nevertheless. Other threats are looming, great Lord. The danger is not passed. Word of my brother’s actions will travel. Others will try to follow in his footsteps. When they do, we must be ready.”
She gestured toward Blue Heron and her companions. “With the exception of Sun Wing, these people serve you. They serve Cahokia. They are, however, under my protection. No harm will come to them.”
“And Sun Wing?”
“She is yours, Morning Star.”
With that, she turned, walking smartly past Blue Heron, back straight, her long black hair flowing. The hand resting on her war club was white knuckled. Behind her, the Red Wing followed with eyes forward, his war club at the ready.
When Blue Heron looked back at the Morning Star, he was smiling, eyes almost twinkling, as if some great victory had been achieved. And that puzzled her. She thought they’d all just avoided disaster by the narrowest margin.
Or had he planned it from the very beginning? And if he had, what did that say about the depths of Morning Star’s cunning and guile?
Sixty-seven
In the cord-makers’ workshop in River Mounds, Seven Skull Shield threw his head back, singing, “Such a pretty young lass, she lay back on the grass.”
He filled his lungs, booming out, “With her eyes on the skies, I parted her pale-skinned thighs.
“Oh please, she did beg, so I drove in my peg.
“She gasped and she cried, she moaned like she’d died.”
Black Martin, in a pained voice, said, “Enough already! Your voice is as soothing as sandstone grating on wood.”
“But there’s true art to the song, don’t you think? A sweet poetry of the soul. The kind of reflection on my life that—”
“I’d rather hear dogs tortured,” Big Fish muttered from the back of the workshop. He was using a flyer to spin cord from separate fibers.
The way the cord and rope-spinners told it, Cahokia was literally held together by their craft. And there was truth to their claim.
Seven Skull Shield sat on a stump just inside the door and watched the cord makers as they practiced their magic. Everything from thread to string to cord to rope was made here.
Wild Hare worked at separating fibers from a skein of hemp. He was a middle-aged man, thin, with ropy muscles. His head, topped by a black mop of hair, was shaped like a wedge, thick and flat at the top and skinny at the bottom. The way his fingers played over the fibers reminded Seven Skull Shield of a spider fiddling with strands of web.