Pine Drop pursed her lips. There were so many things she didn’t know about her husband. With the exception of one magical day, they had never talked. Never spoken as a woman did with her husband.
You never made the effort.
Was it her fault that he had married the barbarian? The morning after she had left the Woman’s House, she had passed that way, seen the new house he had built Anhinga on the location of his mother’s old one. Just the sight of that building had stung something in her souls.
Spiders and scorpions, why? What did it matter? Why did she care what Salamander did, or who he did it with, so long as it did not reflect on her, or her clan? It was an arranged marriage only, the interminable result of an attempt to align her clan with his. Or, it had been until Wing Heart’s souls had fled. Now it was a political relic. Owl Clan was effectively emasculated. She, herself, had done her part in their undoing. She had helped to lower her husband’s prestige by her dalliance with Three Stomachs.
It had been her duty to her clan, ordered by her mother and her uncle, not some wild impulse generated from her loins. She had done as her elders wished, and done it well. She had enjoyed coupling with Three Stomachs; he had conjured sensations she had never experienced with a man.
Then why don’t you feel happy about it?
Memories of Salamander’s face haunted her. She remembered the expression he had worn every night when he entered their house. He might have strapped on a mask so that no one could read the thoughts behind it. With it, he had seemed impervious to her viper’s tongue, and oblivious to her disgust when he climbed into her bed to perform his husband’s function for her clan.
It takes two to lie together with pleasure. She had at least had a husband to teach her the ways. Embarrassed, she remembered her first fumbling attempts at coupling and how Blue Feather had patiently shown her the body’s secrets. From the awkward manner Salamander had come to her, it had been his first time with a woman. He had been rudely jerked from boyhood and placed in his dead brother’s bed, to sire children on his wives. Wives who took every opportunity to mock and belittle him. One day he had been playing with toys, the next he was Speaker. Then he had been thrust forward in the Council to explain his mother’s very public spiritual disintegration to a hostile audience that wanted nothing more than his and his clan’s destruction.
That was the same young man who had brought her here to see a marvel. In a face that should have reflected revulsion at her mere presence, he had instead displayed delight as a heron hunted the shallows and a spider built a web. She recalled the happiness on his face as they paddled the canoe load of fish traps out into the channel, baiting and dropping them into the still waters.
When did I ever see magic? It wasn’t a prerequisite for being Mud Stalker’s niece.
For a few hands of time, she had been free. That notion surprised and saddened her. In an entire lifetime she had never enjoyed happiness like she had out paddling around with Salamander. At the height of it, she had ruined everything with a carefully crafted question when she tried to trick him into betraying his clan.
She reached down, patting her stomach below the navel. The cramps were gone. After this last period, she felt better than she had in moons. Had it been guilt over spearing herself on Three Stomach’s giant member?
By the Sky Beings, I’m tired of all this. Perhaps this morning she could begin to put things right. A future might not exist for her and Salamander. She was, after all, Snapping Turtle Clan, and no matter that she might now disapprove of what her mother and uncle had asked her to do, she was nevertheless in line to one day become Clan Elder. If the clan leadership ended her marriage with Salamander, as they soon would, it did not mean that Salamander should have to hate her for the rest of his life.
If this were handled right, they might be able to make some agreement between them, a way to balance the competing needs of their clans with an understanding of each other. Surely a woman who might someday become Clan Elder could manage that.
Was it her imagination, or was the eastern horizon now gray? Yes, indeed it was. It would be soon, or not at all.
His form was a murky shadow among shadows as it passed the ramada. She could hear the soft whisper of his feet on the packed clay.
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and rehearsing the things she wanted to say.
“Masked Owl?” he asked plaintively. “When you came to me last night, you told me to climb the Bird’s Head at dawn.”
Pine Drop started, staring around in the darkness. Was there someone else up here? Or was he talking to the Sky Being?
Salamander called, “Can we go flying again?”