“Did he die well?”
“Yes, Lady,” he lied, wondering why he’d spare her. “He died well.”
For long moments she stared down at the chunkey stone. Then, stroking it reverently, she turned away, walking toward her private quarters. She hesitated, back toward him, and said, “I need you to go to the Morning Star. Tell him that I must see him tonight, after dark. You can do that?”
“I can, Lady. Assuming they’ll let me past the gate.”
“They’ll pass you, Red Wing. They know you are mine.”
“What a charming fate,” he muttered under his breath.
She must have heard because her sibilant whisper carried, ghostlike on the still air: “Piasa tells me that Power condemned both of us to this before we were even born.”
Twenty-seven
In her room, Night Shadow Star dropped the hanging back in place and collapsed onto her bed with its soft hides. In the eye of her souls, she struggled to replay her husband’s last moments, imagining him as he marched out at the head of his squadrons. His eyes would have been bright with anticipation as he emerged from the oak-and-maple forest to find cornfields spread before him. In the distance, the waiting Red Wing squadrons would have been crowded before the town walls, right where he’d hoped they’d be.
Women, children, and old men?
She could see his smile, wide and assured, as he ordered his ranks of warriors forward and down the path between the cornfields.
War Chief Makes Three’s image filled her souls with a remarkable clarity as he led them forward, his wooden battle armor jerking with every pace. In her imagination he headed down the slope from the terrace, heedless of the head-high rows of corn to either side. That familiar grim smile curled his lips. The glint of conquest had been alight in his eyes, for he’d always enjoyed a challenge. His men would have shouted their encouragement.
And then the boom of the drum.
“No, Husband. Please. Step back. Order them to retreat.”
But he wouldn’t.
He hadn’t.
In pain, she clutched the smooth chunkey stone to her breast, aware of its odd warmth against her skin. A knot of grief hardened under her tongue; her heart went hollow. A sob caught in her throat, and then another. Unstemmed the flood of hot tears burst from her eyes. Throwing herself on the bed, she cradled the chunkey stone and wept.
* * *
A deep-seated worry crawled around in Blue Heron’s gut like some sort of multilegged insect. She fingered the scabbed wound on her throat where Rides-the-Lightning had removed his stitches less than a hand of time before she’d been summoned to the Morning Star’s high palace. This time, she’d happily abandoned her litter at the foot of the ramp. Better to wheeze her way to the top than ride up the long stairs in the abject terror that one of her porters would slip in the darkness.
The ornate palace great room was illuminated by a leaping fire, its sparks flickering out long before the rising smoke vanished into the soaring heights of the towering ceiling.
Five people sat in a semicircle before the fire: herself and Five Fists, Night Shadow Star and her new Red Wing slave, and finally Seven Skull Shield who’d returned from his peregrinations.
Across from them and behind the fire, Sun Wing reclined on her litter where it had been placed to the right and slightly forward of the Morning Star’s raised dais. Morning Star had seated himself on a black panther hide, and now leaned forward, elbow propped on one knee, chin resting in his palm as he listened.
His eyes took them in one by one as firelight shone in the copper headdress attached to his tightly coifed hair. A wolf-hide cape was thrown back over his shoulders; a white apron clung to his narrow hips. Like always, his face was immaculately painted, the forked-eye design prominent on a light blue background. The two familiar white-shell face maskettes covered his ears.
“I’ve ordered the farmstead and bodies burned,” Blue Heron continued with her report. “Corn Seed and Chief Right Hand are ensuring that the dirt farmers are following through. You can see the fire from the bastions outside when you look off to the east and slightly north on the bluff.”
Sun Wing fiddled with the thick shell necklaces hanging at her throat; she’d been riveted as Blue Heron gave her report. Her gleaming eyes had taken on a hawkish intensity as Blue Heron described the wounds and disfigurement of the dead.
“Some sort of ritual?” Morning Star asked in an absent voice, his eyes fixed on the distance. The shell maskettes covering his ears had taken on an orange hue in the firelight.
The Red Wing slave, Fire Cat, kept his head bowed, but Blue Heron noted the man’s absolute hatred, radiating like a white-hot stone from behind those narrow-lidded eyes.