Stone came racing through, a small stickball racquet in his hand. Two of his little friends charged after him. Stone threw the ball; the other little boy missed it. Morning Dew remembered her own lack of skill at that age. Proficiency only came with years of practice.
Heron Wing raised her brow in disbelief. “The gods alone know why, but old Builder seems to like her. So, yes. I’ll let him build my room on the back for a Trade, and she can go with him. At least until he throws her out.”
A pause, then Heron Wing continued. “As to you, Morning Dew, when the time comes I think you should go back to your people.”
Morning Dew stopped short, staring with disbelief. “Back to the Chahta? Gods, why?” She swallowed hard.
“I mean, yes. I’d do anything. But, why would …” She shook her head. “Why would you do that?”
Heron Wing studied her from under a questioning brow. “I’m so glad you didn’t choke up like that on the stickball field. I’d have lost everything.”
Morning Dew continued to stare incredulously, her heart pounding.
“It’s simple, really,” Heron Wing told her. “In the end we’re better off having good relations with the Chahta. At first casual glance, you appear to be the only White Arrow woman from the Chief Clan that we have around here. Like it or not, you are the matron. If we can manage to find a way to send you back, you can probably help bring this trouble between us to a conclusion.”
Morning Dew shook her head. “This still confuses me. Don’t you know what happened to me? What your people did to me? What you Chikosi put me through? Do you know what it cost me to …” She bit her tongue and looked away, terrified of what she’d been about to say.
“Now you’ve ceased to think like a matron.” Heron Wing turned back to her roasting shell, using a stick to stir it. “Stop thinking of yourself and think of your people. Of course terrible things happened to you. That’s the way of war. Tell me that you didn’t hang the Alligator Town chief in the square, and that his wives weren’t enslaved, raped, and humiliated.”
Morning Dew sighed. “We did. And, yes, they were.”
“I would really like to know what prompted your people to raid Alligator Town. Looking back, I can’t see the logic of it. If you’re going to pick a fight, think it through carefully. Sometimes war can’t be avoided. Just like once Alligator Town had been destroyed, there was no way the Council couldn’t have sent Smoke Shield to strike back.” Heron Wing again raised that questioning eyebrow. “So what was the reason behind that raid?”
Morning Dew returned to crushing oyster shell. “I think it just grew. A suggestion from Biloxi: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could put the Chikosi in their place for once?’ An answer from my … our war chief: ‘Well, there is a way. No one would be expecting a raid at this time of year.’ And back and forth it went, growing, gaining possibility.” She shook her head. “They didn’t know any better.”
Heron Wing chuckled dryly. “How often has that been said, in how many towns and villages, for how far back in time? Worse, I don’t suppose that it will stop with our lifetimes, either.” She shot a speculative look at Morning Dew. “But I suppose that you do know now. I think you have become someone very different from the girl who married Screaming Falcon. Life hurts, doesn’t it?”
“If it’s lived, I suppose it does.” She put her effort into grinding the shell. “Very well, I’m listening, Heron Wing. How do you see this working? What do you want me to do?”
“Be patient. For the gods’ sake, don’t go speaking of this to anyone! And whatever you do, don’t make a run for it. Do that and I’ll never get you home. At least not while you’re still young and attractive, and certainly not with your tendons uncut above those flying heels. No, for the time being, you just be a good slave. If anything happens, if you get so desperate that you can’t stand this a moment more, you come and talk to me. We’ll find a way out of it.” She made a skeptical face. “Somehow.”
“I don’t think your Council is going to take kindly to this suggestion.”
“Not at present. That’s why we wait.” She grinned. “Selfish she-bitch that I am, it’s going to be tough letting you go even when the time comes. You’re a wonder at stickball.”
Morning Dew smiled at that. She still ached from that last fall.
Heron Wing jabbed her stick in the stinking shell. “No, things are going to have to play out for a while. But Morning Dew, I won’t give you false hopes. This may take some time. Can you work with me, even if it means another winter?”