“Yes, Great Matron.” Pitch nodded, eyes still downcast. “There is indeed an uproar. Our people—”
“I mean about the Spirit Dream. He really did fly on Thunderbird’s back?”
Pitch nodded again. “Yes, Great Matron. Rides-the-Wind and I were both witnesses. As a Singer, I have no doubt. The Soul Keeper thinks Tsauz will be a very great Dreamer someday.”
She let her hand fall.
Pitch looked up.
She had kind, vulnerable blue eyes. “Then perhaps he is the Dreamer I am supposed to listen to.”
Pitch frowned, not sure what she meant.
She smoothed her hands over the cape that covered her knees. “What is the message?”
“Tsauz was told that our peoples are like Eagle and Raven with their taloned feet locked together in a death grip. So long as we fight this way, neither can fly.”
“An apt analogy,” she whispered absently, her blue eyes distant.
Pitch nerved himself. “Thunderbird told Tsauz that all we can do is spiral ever downward, no matter how hard we beat our wings. He said that even if one of us manages to kill the other, we shall still be locked in the death grip.” He winced. “And, in the end, we shall spiral, exhausted, into the waves.”
“Neither an eagle nor a raven can swim,” she noted.
“No, Matron. In Tsauz’s vision, we are swallowed up by the sea. But it does not have to end that way. Tsauz was told a way to stop it.”
Her gray brows slanted down. “How?”
“You must make the most painful decision of your life.”
“What? Must I forgive my enemies? Surrender my position as matron? Deny my daughter her rightful succession?”
“You must take another husband.”
“Another husband?” Matron Astcat’s wrinkled mouth hung open in surprise. “Why?”
“Tsauz did not tell me why, Great Matron. Just who.”
Astcat straightened. Behind her, firelight fluttered over the bark walls in golden waves. “Who is this man I am supposed to marry?”
“Tsauz, Great Matron. You must marry Tsauz to end the war.”
A mixture of anger and disbelief creased her face. “Is this some joke? One of Ecan’s charades? I will not marry a ten-summers-old boy!”
Pitch bowed his head and stared at the floor. Tiny flakes of obsidian, the debris from stone toolmaking, had been pressed into the dirt and glittered around her moccasins. “Tsauz said that you do not have to divorce Cimmis; he will be content as a second husband, but Cimmis must step down as chief.”
“That’s preposterous!” she exploded, then consciously lowered her voice. “Force Cimmis to step down and install a boy in his place! Never!”
Pitch continued staring at the floor. “Tsauz also said to tell you that you must marry and announce him as chief quickly … or within days you will be crying over Cimmis’s dead body, and nothing will stop our peoples from destroying themselves.”
She picked up her walking stick and propped her hands on the polished knob. For a long time, she stabbed the stick at anything nearby: the hearthstones, the woodpile, the tripod holding the tea basket.
Finally, she gruffly asked, “You say the Soul Keeper, Rides-the-Wind, believes this Dream?”
Pitch nodded solemnly. “He does.”
Matron Astcat made an irritated sound. “Did he send a message to go along with the boy’s?”
“No, Great Matron.”
“No explanation at all?”
“No.”
“The old fool. I suppose he just expects me to do it.”
Pitch lifted his eyes. Wan evening light from the smoke hole slanted across her face and shimmered in the last red hairs that threaded her bun. They were the same color as Roe’s hair. This was his wife’s grandmother, yet they’d never met. He felt oddly as though it were his fault. Perhaps he should have made some attempt to run up the mountain to speak with her before his marriage to Roe. Roe would have hated the idea, but …
“Go now.” Matron Astcat took a deep breath and let it out slowly before adding, “Send my husband to me.”
Ecan spun around when voices rose. A chastened-looking Pitch walked out of the Council Lodge to speak briefly with Cimmis, who immediately ducked back inside.
Hunter used his war club to gesture to Ecan. Pitch marched toward him with Hunter and Deer Killer on his heels.
When Pitch approached, Dzoo’s expression softened, as though she was glad to see him.
Ecan stepped deliberately in front of her. “He’s coming to speak with me. Back away.”
Dzoo only gave him a cold smile.
Pitch strode up and bowed respectfully to Ecan. “Greetings, Starwatcher. I bring a message from your son.”