People of the River(35)
Nightshade frowned. Between this terrace and the high palisade that surrounded Cahokia, hundreds of new houses dotted the flats between mounds, their shaggy roofs spreading as far as she could see. Even the spaces between houses had been tilled, and fresh furrows waited for the seeding.
No wonder that Mother Earth had abandoned them and that First Woman refused to intercede on their behalf! How could Tharon possibly hope to feed this multitude? They had replanted the fields so many times that the crops never grew very tall anymore, though everything that could be tilled had been tilled: bluff tops and bases, as well as the broad expanse of rich bottomland. Yet Cahokia never had enough to eat, not even with the boatloads of tribute that came up the creeks from villages too frightened to refuse Tharon's demands. Trade provided exotic items such as dried abalone, hides, copper, and pipestone, but the Commonbom immediately exchanged such expendable goods for what food they could get. Only the elite could afford those luxuries now.
The spectators were pointing and nodding as the heavy canoes beached, each piled to the gunwale with tribute from River Mounds.
"Locust?" Badgertail yelled. "Pick twenty warriors. I want them to spread out around Nightshade for the walk into the city. And I'll have no accidents! If any of the Common-born so much as raise a bow, I expect your warriors to kill immediately!"
Badgertail came to stand at Nightshade's side, glancing at her uneasily as warriors formed around them in an irregular diamond, with Locust in the front.
The group began moving, cutting a swath through loops of warriors to the main pathway that led into the city. Nightshade felt desperately tired. With every ounce of strength remaining, she forced her feet to plod forward. A pack of dogs careened up the trail to greet them, barking, wagging tails, vanguard for the horde of children that followed. The children peered at Nightshade like hunting weasels, asking a thousand questions of the warriors surrounding her.
"Who is she. Locust? Why have you brought her?" a little boy demanded.
"Where are you taking her?" Another bobbed his head up and down, trying to get a good look at Nightshade. "Did you catch her in the battle at River Mounds? Is she a sacrifice?"
A girl of about fourteen summers ducked low to peek around the warriors' legs. Her eyes opened wide before she shrieked, "It's Nightshade! Run! Run!'' and the children scattered like a school of fish at a thrown rock, racing away to shout the news. It seemed only moments before a crowd had gathered along the route. Even the old and sick were hefted onto shoulders and carried out to watch the spectacle of Nightshade's return to Cahokia.
"Stay close to me," Badgertail ordered.
"I've nowhere else to go." She noticed that he had taken his chert-studded war club from his belt before they even reached the storehouses.
The ring of carved and painted cedar posts forming the Sky Circle appeared on her left. Old Marmot had been adamant about charting the exact courses of Father Sun, Moon Maiden, and the Star Ogres so that he could determine the correct days for planting and harvesting, as well as the great ceremonials—^and other things. Marmot had believed that if you could chart the sacred Dance of the sky gods, Bird-Man would help you decipher all of the mysteries of Light and Dark in creation. Legends said that Bird-Man had been evil in Hfe, that he'd fought a devastating war against Wolf Slayer and been condemned after his death to helping humans stay on the path of Light and Harmony. Part of his duty was to carry messages between humans and the sky gods and the Underworld.
Nightshade bitterly recalled the winter nights when Old Marmot had forced her to sit in the fi-eezing cold waiting for Father Sun to climb over the Temple Mound so he could pinpoint the position on the leather sky map that he guarded with his life. He had been keeping that map for forty summers before Nightshade's arrival. With it, a priestess or a priest could chart the precise path of the sky gods on any given night during a period of nineteen cycles.
"Look! It is Nightshade. Oh, Blessed Mother Earth! Why is she back?" someone wailed, and Nightshade turned to see an old woman with gray hair fleeing through the crowd, running with all of her strength. People surged in to fill the old woman's place, but Nightshade peered after her. Did she know her? Checkerberry, perhaps? The old woman had taken care of her in the first cycle of her life in Cahokia. But perhaps it hadn't been. Nightshade hadn't known many of the Conmionbom. Old Marmot had forbidden it, saying she hadn't time for the lowly tillers of the fields, the makers of crude pots and ugly arrow points. The only Commonbom she had been acquainted with had been the clan leaders, or the privileged artisans paid by Gizis himself: the flintknappers of special points and ax heads; the stone grinders, who polished celts, hand maces, and effigy pipes; certain gifted potters; and the shell-bead workers, who produced almost all of the necklaces, ear-spools, and bracelets worn by the elite in the city.