As she glanced up at the sky again, she noticed White Bird coming across the plaza, his sack of goosefoot seeds hanging from one hand, a use-hardened digging stick from the other. Hazel Fire stepped out from the Men’s House, crossing to intercept him. Across the distance she could see the two men wave in greeting, Hazel Fire breaking into a trot to catch his friend.
A satisfied smile crossed Wing Heart’s lips. Her son was married, fresh from his first night in his wives’ house. He was the talk of Sun Town, the culmination of years of her hopes and ambitions. His name was on everyone’s lips—which meant her name was close behind, followed, of course, by that of Owl Clan.
Wing Heart filled her lungs, her breast fit to burst with an ecstasy she could scarcely contain. Had it been but two weeks past that she had been wallowing in misery, sure that her noble son was dead, and her only heir was the simple Mud Puppy?
“Hello, Wing Heart,” Moccasin Leaf greeted as she stepped around the house wall. She carried a wicker basket in which lay several bass, their mouths gaping, dead eyes staring up at the dark clouds as though in last hope for water.
“Moccasin Leaf.” Wing Heart nodded. “Good day to you.”
Gray-haired Moccasin Leaf had lived nearly four tens of winters. She had a wrinkled round face with a jaw that sucked up squat against her nose, the teeth being long gone. Aged and frail, her dark eyes had lost none of the quick wit that had so long bedeviled Wing Heart and her lineage. The old woman wore a light brown kirtle today, the shape of an owl woven into the material. She lowered herself, grunting, and placed the wicker basket with the fish on the ground beside Wing Heart.
“I have come to make amends.” Moccasin Leaf worked her wide shallow mouth and placed her hands on her withered thighs. “You were right, I was wrong. White Bird has returned, and in the space of days, proven his worth not only to the clan, but to the moiety and our people. No one has been voted into the Council at such a young age. He will be twice the man his uncle was.” She paused, looking out to where White Bird had stopped a dart’s cast to the south. He and Hazel Fire were involved in some sort of passionate discussion.
“I was just lucky,” Wing Heart conceded. “It could very easily have gone the other way. He might have been killed upriver.” She paused. “Had he been, I would have declared Half Thorn to be the Speaker.”
“As well he should have been,” Moccasin Leaf muttered, her eyes on White Bird as he gestured a passionate negation in his conversation with the Wolf Trader. “No matter, the good of the clan has been served. I just came by to tell you that I will support you, and your son. So will the rest of my lineage.”
“Half Thorn bears no ill will?”
Moccasin Leaf snorted through her short nose. “What do you think? Leadership of the clan has rested in your lineage for three generations. You have only sons for heirs, and one was missing while the other … well … Half Thorn was already addressing the Council in his dreams. People in the other lineages had begun to accord him a greater authority. Now that is gone. Of course he is upset, but it will pass.” She gave Wing Heart a sharp look. “It would help if he were consulted on certain matters important to the clan. Especially given the youth of the current Speaker.”
The old woman left the hint dangling like bait. Wing Heart considered. On the one hand, she had authority and prestige right now simply to squash her old rival the same way she would a carrion beetle. Perhaps, in another time, she would have. Something stayed her. Am I grown maudlin? Softened by Cloud Heron’s death? Or simply careless in the afterglow of victory?
“Very well, Moccasin Leaf, I accept your offer of support. The Speaker and I shall be calling on Half Thorn. We look forward to sharing his knowledge and expertise.” As if he had any.
She smiled at Moccasin Leaf the way a sister would at the resolution of a petty argument. It was a small price to pay for clan unity. What she and White Bird would spend in time and irritation for the short term would be countered by increased goodwill and the longterm ability to expose Half Thorn for the fool that he was. The man had been too long a fisherman and hunter in the swamp. He had no idea about the complexities of interclan politics or the layers of deception that leaders like Stone Talon, Mud Stalker, and Deep Hunter resorted to. Half Thorn took everyone at their word, thinking in his naïveté that they said what they meant and meant what they said. The idea that a circuitously implied promise might be easily ignored or offered deceitfully had never found even a casual resting place in the man’s souls. Even Mud Puppy was smarter than that, or at least, she hoped so.