People of the Morning Star(33)
“They are the last,” Blue Heron whispered as she took another sip and felt the tea’s Power slip through her body.
“Look at them.” Sun Wing almost giggled. “Those pitiful wretches dared stand against us?”
Matron Wind shot her niece a narrow-eyed look. “There’s a lesson there, girl. Misguided she might have been, but Matron Red Wing was a cunning and worthy adversary. Even the greatest among us can fall if Power favors another.”
“Morning Star would never let that happen,” Sun Wing asserted primly, and lifted her head to look down her nose at the huddled captives. About her shoulders she clutched a priceless cloak made from painted bunting feathers. A skirt crafted from prime winter martin hung at an insolent angle from her hips.
“Nothing is forever, niece,” Blue Heron added in a sibilant whisper. “As we almost learned last night. But for Night Shadow Star’s peculiar timing and fast reflexes, not even a god is safe.”
Sun Wing’s expression conveyed her irritation. “Of course my sister got here in time. Power protects the Morning Star.”
Blue Heron jabbed a hard finger into the young woman’s breastbone. “Power is just Power, simple idiot. It goes where it’s called. Nothing, no one, not even a spoiled little sheath like you should forget it!”
“Sister,” Matron Wind warned. “Don’t be so hard on the girl.”
Blue Heron willed all the threat she could into her expression, refusing to back down. “Pay attention, Lady Sun Wing. Your father may be the tonka’tzi and may run Cahokia, but I know its passions and secrets. It has fallen to me to read the deep and dark currents. You think the Morning Star protects us, but you’ve a whole world full of cousins in the other Houses who bow to you and smile while their hearts burn with envy and desire. Why, simple girl, do you think the colonies are so pus-dripping important to us?”
“They’re a symbol of Morning Star’s Power,” she asserted positively. “With them we spread the miracle of the resurrection. By means of their warriors and temples, all the world will come to him.” But Blue Heron could see the building uncertainty behind the young woman’s eyes.
“You’ve never listened to a single important thing your entire life, niece,” Matron Wind groused. “But I’ll try one more time. Yes, the colonies are a symbol of Cahokia’s authority. They’re also a vent, like a hole left in a newly made clay figurine, so that when it’s fired, the steam has somewhere to escape without exploding the sculpture.”
Blue Heron gave her niece a wicked grin. “The ambitious ones want to rule? Well and good, we’ve been able to use that to our advantage. They get to govern their own towns, build their own legacies, and do it without tearing Cahokia apart.”
“For the time being.” Matron Wind rubbed her nose as if it itched. “But we’ve missed something. No one has ever gotten this close before.”
“And that is exactly why we need to talk,” Morning Star announced as he entered through the door behind them. White paint covered his face; the starkly contrasting forked-eye designs had been painted in midnight black. He wore an iridescent cape made of spoonbill feathers. His spotless white apron sported tassels of black-tipped winter-weasel tails. He carried two copper-clad chunkey lances in one hand, his polished red-granite stone in the other.
Blue Heron, Matron Wind, and Sun Wing all touched their foreheads respectfully. From the corner of her eye, she watched Matron Red Wing. The woman had her head down, but her eyes were slitted like a hunting wolf’s.
Morning Star walked around the fire, heedless of the bloodstained matting, and laid his chunkey equipment to the side as he mounted the raised clay dais behind the central fire. Like a young panther, he settled himself on the cougar hides that covered his chair. Finally composed, he cocked his head, eyes lost in thought.
“What service might we render?” Matron Wind asked.
He fixed his eyes on Blue Heron. “You have informants throughout the Four Winds Clan?”
“I do.” Why was he asking what he already knew?
“You once told me that, like a living body, a clan had a pulse and life of its own.”
She nodded, a tingle of unease growing in her breast.
“You stated that emotions ran through a clan like blood, that you only needed to keep your finger on the various parts to know where discontent might be brewing. In your words, by your sensitive feel, you could tell which parts were festering.”
Blue Heron swallowed hard and nodded.
“Tell me, Clan Keeper, did your extraordinary touch give you any warning that someone would try to kill me last night?”