People of the Morning Star(2)
“But is he a god?” Matron Corn Seed paused. “Really? Or has the lie been told so often that it now lives on its own?” She let her gaze fix on the distant pimple-like prominence; even through the haze of a thousand smoking fires, Morning Star’s tall temple atop its great mound couldn’t be missed. And that, from where she stood, was still a hard day’s walk. Between her bluff-top vantage point and the Morning Star’s palace, lived perhaps ten thousand people; their houses, temples, mounds, and fields spread like a poorly woven blanket across the wide floodplain with its curving lakes.
The chief extended his good left hand in a grand gesture to include the vast and irregular accumulation of humanity. “They believe it. All these simpletons who’ve flocked here to revel in the god’s presence.” He said it bitterly; a smile barely curled his thin lips. “And as long as they do, whatever we believe … the truth, if you will, is meaningless.”
“It’s not Power, or him, that I fear,” the woman admitted softly. “Even if his Spirit really belongs to the hero god and is reincarnated in that young fool’s body. It’s the Four Winds Clan and that Keeper of theirs who troubles me. Old Blue Heron is like a spider with her bits of web spun everywhere. Make the slightest misstep and an unknown tendril will vibrate just enough to draw her attention.”
“She’s merely a woman.”
“You fear Power. I’ve found people are so much more deadly.” She gave him a sidelong appraisal. “Do not underestimate her. Others have. Hung in a square, people scream the voices right out of their throats when strips of skin are peeled slowly from their bodies.”
“I don’t intend on hanging from a Four Winds Clan square,” he replied, referring to the vertical, open pole frame into which a man’s naked body was tied for torture. “Myself, I’ve taken a lesson from the chickadee.”
“Oh? Learned to chirp melodically, or just flit about in panicked terror when the sharp-shinned hawk comes diving?”
His expression soured at her caustic tone. “When a chickadee is hungry, it carefully plucks at a single strand of silk. Spiders can’t help themselves. It’s in their nature to dash out of their holes toward whatever creature is stuck in their web.”
“You’ve given the problem some thought?”
He barely lifted a scarred eyebrow. The action shifted the beaded forelock that hung down over his forehead. “When the time comes, the Whisperer will draw the spider into striking distance … play her web like a child’s string game. It’s the Morning Star I’m worried about.” He hesitated before adding, “And whatever agreements he has with the Sky World.”
She glanced sidelong at him, suspicion in her eyes. “For all you know, our mysterious ‘Whisperer’ might just be the Morning Star himself! I don’t trust him, whoever he is. Never have.”
Right Hand fixed his eyes on the distant palace, now in shadow from one of the fluffy white clouds that drifted across the spring sky. “The token could come at any time. And when it does, it will be the signal to strike.”
“My chief, no place on earth is more heavily guarded or monitored than Morning Star’s high palace.” She fingered her prominent nose, eyes on the distant palace where it rose above a thousand peaked roofs. “And that’s a weakness all its own. I have a candidate in mind.”
“One of ours?”
She smiled grimly. “Of course not. My agent has been in touch with a man from the Evening Star House, someone who is vulnerable to persuasion. And, well, he happens to have an incestuous relationship with his daughter. A fact he wouldn’t like to have known lest his cousins sneak up and bash his brains out some fine day. He, in turn, has a nephew called Cut String, a proud and vain man who sincerely believed he had earned honors that were not bestowed.”
“They can’t be traced back to us?”
She chuckled hoarsely. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course not! The nephew, along with being vain, has a brother in Spotted Wrist’s squadron. He’s been sent north to try, yet again, to bring Red Wing town and its heretics to heel. If the past is any guide to the future, that young war chief up there, Fire Cat Twelvekiller, he’ll rip Spotted Wrist’s squadrons to pieces. If the Four Winds Clan catches my assassin, it will look like vengeance and lead them down a false trail … right to the Evening Star House.” Another pause. “Blue Heron and High Dance can tear themselves apart over it. And, who knows? High Dance has never had the subtlety to hide his aspirations. Maybe Blue Heron will find something smoldering there.”