“Then you believe the Trader’s story that he freed Flint captives and fled into the forest?”
“Yes.”
Zateri shifted to look up at him. There were people who would say she was not a great beauty. Her two front teeth stuck out slightly, and she had a flat face with a wide nose and brown eyes that could melt a man’s soul … at least his soul. He considered her to be the most amazing and beautiful woman in the world. But he saw more than others. Or perhaps it was that he’d known her since she’d seen ten summers, and understood her better than they ever could.
“What makes you think he’s alive?” She always spoke slowly, as though considering each word before she uttered it.
“A feeling. And if he is, he needs a refuge and a friend.”
Ordinarily she would have hugged him and wished him well, perhaps even decided to go with him. Instead, Zateri seemed to be staring at the dried cornstalks, bean vines, and sunflowers. They hung from the roof poles, drying in the warm sooty air that rose from the fire pits. Her breathing had gone shallow. Whatever she was tracking in her thoughts, it was dangerous.
He said, “Rumor says the council meeting in Atotarho Village this morning was grim. What happened?”
She shook her head lightly. “I need to think more on the consequences before I speak of it.”
“What consequences?”
She reached out to twine her fingers with his, but did not answer.
Someone coughed at the far end of the longhouse; then a baby started crying. It seemed to awaken Zateri from her thoughts. “When are you going after him?”
“After tomorrow’s War Council.”
For a time, the silence was broken only by the whistling of Wind Mother as she scurried around the house chasing her two wayward twins, Gaha and Hadui. Even if he had not known his wife would be upset by his intentions, he could feel her muscles go tight with the uneasy knowledge that enemy warriors filled the trails.
“I love him, too,” she said. “You know I do. But if you are killed while searching for Sky Messenger, what of our daughters then?”
He propped himself up on one elbow to gaze down into her eyes. His shoulder-length black hair caught a thread of light from the fire and gleamed with an amber brilliance. “I could be killed by your father tomorrow or War Chief Yenda from the Mountain People the day after. I could even be stupid enough to fall into the icy river and be swept downstream so that you’d never find me.” He added, “I am not so easily killed, my wife. I’ll be back. I give you my oath.”
Beneath his hand, he felt her suck in a deep breath. “Who will serve as war chief while you are away?”
“Kallen has been an excellent deputy to me. She will guard our people well.” He tenderly kissed her forehead and saw lines of worry etch the skin at the corners of her dark eyes. “Why won’t you tell me what happened in the council meeting today? Was it that bad?”
She rolled away from him onto her back and stared up at the thick smoke that eddied along the ceiling. Drawn to the smokeholes above the fire pits, it would be sucked out into the night. “Grandmother is ill.”
Her grandmother, High Matron Tila, had ruled the nation for thirty-three summers. “How ill?”
“Father says she will cross the bridge to the afterlife soon.” She paused as though not wishing to say the next sentence. “Grandmother asked me to return to Atotarho Village and fulfill my responsibilities to the Wolf Clan.”
Hiyawento’s shoulder muscles hardened. He waited a full sixty heartbeats before he asked, “Will you?”
The day she’d become a woman at the age of fourteen summers, she’d left her father’s village and moved a short distance away to establish this village, Coldspring Village. Many people had followed her, depleting Atotarho’s ranks of warriors, potters, hunters, and builders, as well as the most powerful holy people, the shamans who called the rains from clear blue skies, and Healed the sick. While the Wolf Clan had refused to condemn her, the ruling matrons had relegated Zateri to the lowest status possible in the Women’s Council. She was the matron of Coldspring Village, deserving of respect, but her words were always ignored. This would change everything. If she accepted the high matron’s offer, she would step into the role of her dead mother and become the next woman in line for the position of high matron of the Wolf Clan, the most powerful woman in the Hills nation.
“Do you think Father is telling the truth?” she asked. “Do you think Grandmother is that ill?”
Hiyawento tightened his arms around her. “I think your father is a liar and a murderer. But my opinion doesn’t matter. What do you think?”