The Dawn Country(92)
“Look around you, boy!” Gannajero said. “All I have to do is kill you and your friends and the gorget is mine!”
“Yes, but you won’t have everything that goes with it. In exchange for the rights and privileges of owning this gorget, Atotarho wants both of his children back … and your guarantee that our party will not be harmed.”
“He sold me and my brother into slavery when we’d seen eight summers, and he thinks I owe him something?”
The ground beneath Sindak’s feet seemed to tremble. That’s what had happened to the twins? Atotarho had sold the children into slavery? Blessed Spirits, it couldn’t be true.
“He doesn’t think you owe him anything. He thinks you want something. In exchange, he demands his children.” The gorget dangling from Towa’s hand lowered a little. “That is the Trade.”
Gannajero vented a low disbelieving laugh. “When he sent me his four-summers-old son, his only condition was that I keep the boy alive, and keep my mouth shut. In exchange, once a summer, he sent me a messenger with big bags of pearls. Do you understand? He willingly let me have Hehaka. All these summers I’ve treated the boy as if he were his father. I made Hehaka go through every horror I did as a child. Now, suddenly, my brother offers me everything I’ve ever dreamed of? Why?”
Koracoo flexed her fists. “Do you agree to the Trade, or not?”
Gannajero shook her head, as though denying some inner admonition. “It’s not enough.”
Towa shifted. “What do you mean ‘not enough’? He’s offering you the rulership—”
“I know what he’s offering, imbecile. My brother, the great chief Atotarho, grew rich and powerful off spoils that should have been mine!” She thumped her chest. “I’m the one who should have been living in comfort, wielding the power of the clan. But for thirty summers—”
“He only wants his children.”
“You already have Hehaka.” She waved a hand in the boy’s direction and turned slightly away, checking the positions of her warriors.
“M-me?” Hehaka said in a tiny pained voice. He pushed back to stare at Gonda. “The chief wants me?”
“Of course he does,” Gonda said.
Hehaka threw himself into a kicking frenzy. “No! I’m staying with Gannajero and Kotin. They’re my family!”
As though the hidden meaning of the transaction had just dawned on Koracoo, she leveled a glare at Towa. “Hold on. What do you mean ‘rulership’? What are these rights and privileges Chief Atotarho is promising?”
Towa swallowed hard. “The chief, and his clan, are offering to restore Gannajero to her rightful position as matron of the Wolf Clan. If she accepts, she will become the most powerful woman in our world.”
Koracoo’s eyes narrowed, and Sindak knew exactly what she must be feeling: insensible rage. After all the things the old woman had done to their children, and scores of others, her clan was going to reward her with …
Gonda lowered Hehaka to the ground and softly said, “Get in the canoe.”
Hehaka turned to look pleadingly at Gannajero. The old woman shooed him toward the boat. “Do as he says. Get in the canoe.”
“But … don’t you want me? I want to go with you!”
“Want you? I never wanted you. You were my revenge. Get in the canoe!”
Tears filled Hehaka’s eyes. He waited for a few more moments, as though certain she would change her mind. When it was obvious she wasn’t going to, he ran for the canoe. Whimpering, he climbed past Baji and Tutelo, then over the packs to go sit in the rear, as far away from the commotion as he could get. Wakdanek said something to him, and Hehaka jerked a nod, but Sindak couldn’t hear their exchange.
“What about Zateri?” Towa asked.
Gannajero extended her hand again. “Let me see the gorget first. I want to know it’s genuine.”
Towa hesitated. After several moments, he apparently convinced himself it would do her no good to possess it without the rest of the bargain being fulfilled, so he walked forward and extended the thong. Her fingers clamped around it like a bear’s jaws, and she lifted the carved shell to examine it in the firelight. Her lips moved, as though speaking to it, or perhaps counting something. Her eyes widened.
“It’s … true,” she said in a stunned voice. “It’s real.” After five more heartbeats, her cold gaze lifted. “What’s the trap?”
Towa stared at her. “There’s no trap. He wants his children.”
She chuckled darkly. “That hardly seems like him.”