People of the Weeping Eye(120)

“I don’t understand,” Morning Dew complained. “You never say things straight. We’re prisoners! How can I defeat and win the Sky Hand at the same time?”

“Pierce the heart of your hopes and love. Kill what you seek to save. Surrender yourself, Morning Dew. Become the tool of your people.” Mother offered the stickball racquets. “Can you accept your responsibility?”

As the familiar handles were extended toward her, Morning Dew could see the polished wood, stained dark by her sweat. She started to reach for them, but a terrible premonition grew as her fingers hovered above the wood. If she touched them, it would bind her to some awful promise, something she couldn’t quite perceive, but knew lurked down there in the familiar wood.

Her fingers curled, on the verge of seizing the handles.

“Gods! You’d think these clan chiefs were geese the way they honk and flap their wings.” Smoke Shield’s irritated curse brought her bolt upright, blinking as the fragments of the Dream slipped away. She couldn’t help but glance down at her hands. Had she taken the racquets?

“Glad to see you are still here,” he told her as he stepped into the room. “I didn’t think to post a guard.” He tossed a bit of meat onto the matting beside her. She stared at the bloody thing. Gods, was that a toe?

“Your friend,” he told her, stripping off his apron, “Reed Woman.”

Morning Dew gaped at the thing, then stared her incomprehension at him.

“She ran,” he told her. “When they dragged her back, she was fixed so that she couldn’t run again. I thought you might like a little keepsake. Something to remind you what would be in store if you ran, too.”

She swallowed hard. I won’t give you that pleasure.

“It’s as dark as a pit in here. Fix the fire.”

She mustered herself, scuttling to the small pile of wood and adding some to the coals. She blew, managing to coax yellow flickers of light from the wood.

He pointed to the bed, the meaning clear.

She lay back on the soft furs and raised her legs. As he fondled her body, she fixed on the knot again, just visible in the dim light cast by the fire. She winced as he forced himself in and began battering at her sore sheath.

“Is it always going to be like this?” he asked.

“I do my best.”

“Then do better.”

“Yes, War Chief.”

“Tomorrow I’ll bring you your husband’s penis. You can run a stick up the middle to stiffen it and practice.”

His head to the side, he couldn’t see her tightly closed eyes, couldn’t read her sudden panic.

“I would have brought it to you tonight. Another gift to go along with the toe. But the god-cursed Albaamaha and their schemes took up too much time. That and the fog moved in. A man can’t see ten paces in front of him … and that’s before it got dark.”

Fog? She swallowed her disgust as he gasped and his seed jetted inside her. He sighed contentedly and breathed in her ear. “I mean it. You will make yourself ready for me next time. If you don’t I’ll cut your precious little sheath out of your body.”

“Yes, War Chief.”

But how? Then she remembered that he kept a grease jar beneath his bed.

He rolled to the side, pushing her away. She carefully slipped from the pole bed and retreated to her corner. He yawned and reached for the chamber pot. She stared at the matting as he squatted over the pot.

When he finished he crawled back into bed. For long moments he stared at her, firelight like sparks in his dark eyes. She could see fatigue heavy in his eyes. “Go find Thin Branch. Tell him you need something to wear.”

She nodded, climbing to her feet.

“When you’re dressed so that all the men in the palace don’t gawk at you, empty that chamber pot. You ought to have some use besides being a receptacle for my seed. I’m tired. Don’t disturb my sleep.”

Morning Dew slipped to the door hanging, glanced out into the hallway, and tiptoed to the great room. Carefully, she peered around the corner. The place looked empty. Where in the name of the gods was Thin Branch?

“Can I help you?” a voice asked from behind.

She whirled, modestly crossing her arms over her naked breasts. The high minko stood in the dim hallway. He looked her up and down, an eyebrow rising curiously.

“I—I mean no … The war chief …”

“Yes, the war chief?” Flying Hawk asked woodenly.

“He wanted me to find Thin Branch. To get me a dress.”

“And the one you wore in here?”

“Ruined. It’s … torn.”

Flying Hawk sighed. “I can imagine. Just a moment.” He walked back the way he had come, only to reappear a moment later bearing a folded dress. “My wife was about your size. This should do.”