People of the Morning Star(8)
She’d been advised to have the slaves bring her sun shade, an affair crafted from shaved buffalo-calf hide atop poles that could be extended to shelter her.
Probably should have listened, she thought bitterly. But her mind had been absorbed with the problem of her niece, the lady Night Shadow Star. With the exception of the occasional oddity when she’d respond to a voice that wasn’t there, or suddenly glance off to the side and frown as if she’d seen a movement no one else did, the young woman had been progressing nicely—a logical successor to leadership should anything unexpected happen to her aunt, Matron Wind.
Until Makes Three was killed last fall.
It’s not like she’s the first woman to ever lose the man she loved.
Blue Heron made a face. Pus and blood! As if she’d know. For a time in her life she’d gone through husbands at the rate of one or more a year. A few had been able to stand her for less than a moon before they’d picked up their belongings and walked out of her house.
She squinted at the sun again as her litter swayed in time to the porters’ gait. Enough fluffy patches of cloud soared over Cahokia to provide just a taste of relief before they marched on across the pale blue sky. Shadows moved lazily below them, slanting through the smoke-hazy air that forever cloaked the city. She raised her hand to block the blinding light, and estimated the angle. From long practice she guessed she had another five hands before it slipped behind the high bluffs west of the river. Time enough.
Blue Heron tapped her long brown fingers on the litter arms, scowling across the plaza in the direction of Night Shadow Star’s tall wedge-roofed palace. What silliness possessed the woman? She’d been sent no less than three messengers and not a reply in return!
“So help me, Night Shadow Star,” she threatened under her breath, “if you’re moping around, feeling sorry for yourself, I’ll give you some real grief.”
She took a deep breath. The breeze came from the southwest, carrying the damp scents of wood smoke, cooking corn, and boiling meat. Spring grass, so recently crushed by the stickball games that had culminated the Planting Ceremony, gave off its characteristic odor.
Her porters avoided the carefully manicured chunkey courts where young boys sprinkled the clay with water. They carefully tamped down the old lance impacts with their bare feet before they rolled the surface smooth with a perfect cylinder of oak log. When finished they would either sift clean white or red sand over the surface depending on the court. This, too, would be carefully smoothed to eliminate the least imperfection.
These were the Morning Star’s personal chunkey courts and the finest in the world. The gravity with which the boys worked was almost comical to her.
She cast a sidelong glance up at the Morning Star’s palace where it rose skyward atop the great black mound. As usual, a crowd thronged at the base of the stairs leading up the south-facing ramp. The giant construction dominated the northern edge of the plaza. Behind the walls of the first terrace, the second rose against the northern horizon; its white-walled palisade was studded with intricately carved and painted guardian posts. Each depicted and concentrated the Power of one of the Spirit Animals from the Creation. Among them were Crawfish, Vulture, Eagle, Mother Spider, Horned Serpent, and the Piasa. There, too, were the Spirit creatures of war: Falcon, Snapping Turtle, Woodpecker, and Rattlesnake.
The great lightning-scarred World Tree pole—the highest point in Cahokia—rose like a lance into the sky. Behind it, the roof of Morning Star’s palace with its graying thatch cut the heavens like a great ax. Even as she watched, she could make out tiny figures of men suspended on ropes as they worked on the thatch. Given the immense height of the palace, its huge wedge of roof was constantly savaged by wind and storm.
On the stairways a steady stream of people, like brown dots, were coming and going. Here and there a speck of color denoted a noble or high-ranking individual. She grunted to herself at the similarity to an ant pile.
“Did you think of something, Elder?” Smooth Pebble, her aide asked. She was berdache, a woman born into a man’s body. A distant cousin, Smooth Pebble had come to Blue Heron’s attention more than two-tens of winters ago and had worked her way up to become Blue Heron’s most valued advisor, administrator, and confidant. Now in her forties, Smooth Pebble wore her graying hair in a bun pinned at the back of her head with an ornate shell comb. A black skirt embroidered with chevrons, bits of mica, and shell hung from her too-narrow hips. An opossum cloak was thrown back on her broad shoulders out of respect for the warm temperatures.
“No,” Blue Heron answered. “We’ve just enough time to fetch Night Shadow Star. May Horned Serpent take us if we’re late to the Morning Star’s reception. It’s that new emissary from Yellow Star Mounds. Some war chief, what the Kadohadacho calls an amayxoyo. Frantic Lightning is his name.”