People of the Morning Star(54)
“All men have tattoos,” Blue Heron growled. “They get them when they are made men. All civilized people mark their men that way. How else do you know to whom you are speaking?”
“Not this one.” Smooth Pebble frowned.
“Um…” Seven Skull Shield glanced back and forth at the guards and the rest of the household staff.
“Yes, what?” Blue Heron barked. “I suppose you’ve got the answer to the mystery?”
“Well, good Matron, I—”
“I’m not a matron!”
He gave her one of his ingratiating smiles, touched his forehead, and started side-stepping toward the door.
“Oh, blood and snot! Out with it! What were you about to say?”
She tried to read his canny expression as he said, “Great Lady, there are men without tattoos. Slaves taken as children from among the wild western tribes, for example.”
“And you think this assassin was a grown slave?”
“No, Great—”
“Stop that gushing and insipid fawning. Call me Keeper, if you can’t quite find it in you to use my name. Now, give it to me without the obsequious mish mash.”
“He was anything but a slave.” Seven Skull Shield’s eyes had narrowed, a knowing glint behind his guarded expression. “It was the way he moved, nothing wasted. And, Keeper, he’s done this before. Call it practiced. Whoever this man was, he knew exactly what he was about.”
She kept her eyes on his as Rides-the-Lightning pulled the last of his threads tight and used a cloth to blot up the blood. To the rest of the room, she said, “Leave us. I need to speak candidly with the thief. Smooth Pebble, find Five Fists, have him inform the Morning Star that I’ve got another dead assassin here. He doesn’t have to alert the tonka’tzi, Matron Wind, or Lady Night Shadow Star until morning.”
She watched as the others left, stepping out into the darkness of the veranda. Rides-the-Lightning lifted an inquiring eyebrow, but she dismissed him with a word. His assistant took his arm; together they turned and headed for the door.
She focused on Seven Skull Shield. The man looked like a trapped woodrat in a grain bowl.
After the last person was safely outside, she said, “It seems that I underestimated you.”
“How is that, Great … uh, Keeper?”
“I figured I’d awaken in the morning to find you gone along with a selection of my possessions. I’ve already arranged to have several of my agents circulating along the riverfront at dawn offering the most remarkable Trade for Four Winds Clan items, and buffalo blankets in particular.”
To his credit, he didn’t pale, or so much as bat an eye. “Why would the Keeper think that I, of all people—”
“Is it even possible for you to carry on a conversation without a lie passing your lips? I know exactly who and what you are. You’ve a reputation for beguiling and seducing married women, brawling, and you’re a thief. Even my people—and they’re the best—can’t discover what your birth clan was, or where you came from. And incidentally, we’ve recovered all but one of those statuettes you stole. It will take a couple of months for your ‘friend’s’ fingers to heal, but I doubt he’ll feel inclined to deal in the Trade of stolen statues again.”
At that, she detected the slightest tremor in Seven Skull Shield’s expression. Then he said, “Why am I, of all people, here?”
She gestured both frustration and futility. “I haven’t the foggiest notion. I don’t understand it, and I understand everything. I was ordered to find you by Lady Night Shadow Star. Something about a deal she brokered with Piasa when her souls were captured in the Underworld and … And why am I telling you anything?”
His eyes narrowed even more. “Keeper, if Power were everything it’s made out to be by the priests and chiefs, I’d have been blasted dead years ago for the things I’ve done.”
She grunted in affirmation. “So now that we’re talking honestly, why did you save me tonight?”
Taking his time to calculate, he finally said, “His untimely arrival interrupted what would have been a glorious increase in my Trade worth. Would it make sense if I told you that his arrival was like having someone stick a finger in your eye just when you get the first glimpse of extreme beauty? How dare he?”
She erupted in laughter. It made the skin pull and sting on her wounded throat. He didn’t share her mirth, but a feral gleam grew in his eyes.
Gaining control of herself, she added, “But I already told you, my agents would be looking for…”
He was shaking his head. “Not down in Pacaha, they wouldn’t. A smart man doesn’t lift the personal possessions of the Four Winds Clan Keeper—and then Trade them in Cahokia. Not without hanging in a square for a most painful quarter moon before pieces of his body become fertilizer for some dirt farmer.”