People of the Morning Star (43 page)

She chewed at her lip as she thought about it. “Phlegm and excrement! He might have been standing in the crowd at the base of the mound. Watching, waiting to see what we’d do in the aftermath of his attempt on Night Shadow Star. If he overheard the messenger talking about the Tula, or summoning the
Amayxoya,
he’d have known we were on to him.”

Takes Horn FiveKiller threw a speculative glance at the crowd that had grown behind Blue Heron’s line of warriors. “Look. There are hundreds of eyes upon us. He may be out there even as we speak, Clan Keeper. Watching to see what you will do next. Planning who he will kill next.”

Thirty-seven

The soft whimpers brought Fire Cat awake. He blinked, battling nightmares in which he could only watch impotently as his sisters were run down by sweat-reeking men. The sound of fabric had ripped right through his souls as it was torn from their bodies. He’d been hanging in some monstrous square as his sisters screamed for his protection.

Arms and legs spread and aching, he’d only been able to watch in horror as his sisters were thrown to the ground, their bodies bouncing. White Rain’s eyes had fixed on his, her fright and disbelief unmistakable as her arms were wrenched over her head to expose her breasts. Then she screamed as her ankles were pulled apart. The men howled as they pointed and clapped at the sight of her. He’d shot a frantic glance at Soft Moon, seeing her brown young body spread and pinned on the ground as the first man threw himself upon her. She’d screamed as the man’s buttocks rose high and jerked down …

My fault. All my fault.

Fire Cat sat up, relieved to find himself in the dark confines of Night Shadow Star’s Palace. With a shaking hand he rubbed his perspiring face; his heart hammered raggedly at his breastbone. A tingle of adrenaline charged his muscles as he reached out and carefully pulled his blanket back.

A bad dream. Horrors spit up from the depths between my souls.

Swinging his feet down from the bed he took a moment to scan the palace great room. In the central hearth, the fire had burned down to a red bed of coals accented by an occasional flame. Each time it flickered, the polished copper ornaments on the walls gleamed a gaudy crimson.

The two guards stood at weary attention, war clubs in hand, one on either side of the closed and latched door. Here and there a bed was occupied by one of Night Shadow Star’s decimated staff, but all seemed to be sleeping soundly. The number of empty beds proved a grim reminder of the midnight attack. In one of the corners, a rodent was scratching impotently at one of the large ceramic seed jars.

A gasp, as if from panic, carried faintly to Fire Cat, and he remembered what had awakened him in the first place.

He willed himself to rise and pad on silent feet to the door of Night Shadow Star’s personal quarters. He lifted the heavy plank and slipped it soundlessly to the side.

In the darkness, he could just make out her form as it tossed on the bed behind the altar. A miserable sob escaped her throat, and she shifted, kicking the blanket from her long muscular leg.

“No,” she whispered. “Please, don’t hurt me.” Something choked in her throat. “You’re … Chunkey Boy…”

We both have our nightmares
, he thought woodenly.

The suffering sound she made deep in her throat was half strangled, as though she choked on disgust.

He started to turn, willing to let her suffer her own miseries. Then he stopped short, took a deep breath as she whimpered again, and crossed to her bed.

“Lady,” he said gently. “Night Shadow Star? Wake up.”

“Please … don’t…” she whispered hollowly.

He reached out with a foot and prodded her toes, saying, “It’s a nightmare, Lady.”

At his touch, she jerked, sucking a gasp. Coming awake she pawed the hair out of her face. Blinking, she sat up.

“Night Shadow Star,” he told her calmly, “it’s a bad dream.”

“What are…” She frowned up at him in the blackness. “Why are you here, Red Wing?”

“It’s only a dream, Lady. Cast it out of your mind, and go back to sleep.”

“A dream?” She shook her head. “There are no limits to my ability to disgust myself.”

“You’re safe tonight. Well-guarded. And with nightmares of my own to keep me awake, I’ll be sure to spot any Tula before they get to you.”

She ran slim fingers through the black fall of her hair, shaking her head. “Tula are the least of my nightmares, Red Wing. Now get out of my room. Blood and pus, if I thought the Tula could end this I’d help them slit my throat.”

*   *   *

Patience was often the key to opportunity. Those who took their time, concentrated on the world around them, and didn’t allow themselves to be distracted could discover the most interesting things. This morning Seven Skull Shield had dedicated himself to discovering facts about Frantic Lightning’s death that the Keeper, despite all her resources, could not. Blood and spit, the old gal had been too right about him. He just couldn’t turn down the challenges. The greatest, of course, was finding the accursed assassin. The pus-sucking maggot just couldn’t be that good at hiding his tracks.

The second—which would prove absolutely delightful—would be to watch the Clan Keeper’s expression as Seven Skull Shield laid out the information he’d come by.

But first there was the matter of breakfast. Prowling slowly past the farmsteads between Cahokia and River Mounds, he acted true to form: patiently watching for an opportunity.

It came in the form of two little boys, maybe three and five, tossing dirt clods at each other, laughing and giggling. Their mother crouched at the fire just outside the door of her farmstead. She was using a long stick to poke and rearrange the coals. Above them, slowly roasting pieces of turkey projected over the heat on willow-stem spits.

As soon as the screaming and laughing boys ran behind the woman’s house, Seven Skull Shield ambled over, and absently stated, “Um, just thought I’d let you know you’ve got two little boys climbing the latrine screen out back. Not to mention that one or both might end up in the pit, but they’re sure to tear the thing down.”

Her head had jerked up, her suddenly panicked gaze shooting toward the rear of the house. Even as Seven Skull Shield had taken a step in the other direction, she was sprinting for the rear.

He whirled, plucked the spit that propped one of the legs over the fire, and vanished between the houses before she could herd her troublesome little males back into view. Then, proceeding down the Avenue of the Sun, he let the meat cool.

At the conical burial mound, he took the beaten path north between the buildings, and past the residence where Frantic Lightning had been ambushed. Six Yellow Star warriors squatted on the veranda, talking softly, smoking, and gesturing. No doubt they were rehashing yesterday’s events, wondering about the future, and wishing they could get their hands on the culprit.

Seven Skull Shield could almost sympathize. To be foreigners so far from home, to have their war chief assassinated, the whole thing had to be unnerving.

As they fixed their hostile gazes on him, he circled wide and found the path where it skirted Cahokia Creek’s confluence with the lake. There he stopped and looked around. No one would have looked twice at a man trotting along with a bow. It was spring, after all, waterfowl were migrating. Huge Vs of ducks, geese, herons, and cranes were following the river flyway north. Out on breeze-rippled Marsh Elder Lake, several large flocks could be seen safely out from shore.

Turning, he studied the approaches from the east where the assassin would have come after hearing that Frantic Lightning was being summoned. The killer would have hurried to within sight of Frantic Lightning’s residence, then slowed, walked casually to avoid drawing attention to himself. He might have even slashed at the grass with his bow stave in a display of boredom as he eased up to the corner of the house.

Skulking along the back, he would have done the same thing Seven Skull Shield now did: listened to the occupants through the gap between the thatch and wall. Assuming he understood Caddo, he’d have known when Frantic Lightning was ready to leave.

But after the shot, where did he go?

West. Seven Skull Shield stepped back, looking at the lines of tracks through the spring grass. Too many people had walked here since. Back at the path, he followed it west along the lake shore. To feed Cahokia’s immense need, the cattails, willows, and reeds had been harvested long ago for building materials, matting, and baskets. Despite the size of the lake, he could probably count on one hand the number of fish that had avoided the nets, traps, and trotlines. Only the tiniest of minnows darted among the shallows. Even the killifish had been seined out of existence, destined as filler for the city’s stewpots.

Returning his attention to the task at hand, he took another bite from the turkey leg and tucked the spine back to free up more meat. The first fork in the trail led south past one of the charnel houses that served some group of immigrants. Seven Skull Shield took it, finding a mish-mash of tracks in the soft soil. To his right, and not surprisingly upwind, a wizened old man of forty summers sat in the doorway of a small hut with a split-cane roof. No doubt the priest who served the charnel house, he wore a simple smock. His hands cradled a gourd tea cup, and he smiled into the morning sun.

“Greetings, Elder. A fine morning.”

“In First Woman’s name, yes, it is,” the man spoke through an atrocious accent.

“Do you always enjoy the morning with your tea?”

“For the most part. As the winters go by, they’ve started to make my bones ache. I’m ready for the warmer weather.”

“Must have been exciting when the Yellow Star war chief was killed yesterday.”

“Who would have thought?” the old man shook his head. “Can’t tell about these foreigners.”

Seven Skull Shield let the irony pass. “I’ll bet the archer ran right past you with his bow.”

The old man shook his head, his gaze following a young woman who stepped out of the nearest house. “No. I was sitting right here. No one passed. Would have been good to see him, though. Would have been a bit of excitement.” He paused. “Care for a cup of tea?”

“Some other time. First Woman’s blessings upon you, Elder.”

Seven Skull Shield gnawed the last of the meat from his turkey bone as he backtracked to the lakeside trail. He hadn’t hoped to get lucky enough on the first try.

Resigned to a long day, he tossed the bone into the lake and took the next branch that led up from the lake shore.

At the third house he stopped. A toothless old grandmother proved to be his loadstone. She kept reaching up absently with a misshapen right hand, pulling at the few remaining patches of white hair left on her nearly bald scalp. Large brown age spots freckled her lined face.

“Ah, just before the excitement? Yes. A man passed. Walked right there on the trail where you’re standing, but he carried no bow. He had a sleeping mat rolled up. A really clean one. Looked new. Odd, don’t you think? No one around here makes them. Not for Trade. Too hard to get the material. Mostly around here we farm. My grandson, he hunts ducks out in the lake. Ties stones around his waist and breathes through a hollow tube as he sneaks up from below and drags them down by the feet. He can only do that when the water’s clear.”

“A man with a clean sleeping mat?”

“Oh, if he’d been sleeping down by the lake, the mat would have been stained with grass or that dark silt. Like I said, it was a new mat.”

“And what did he look like? Tall, short, young, old, what kind of tattoos?”

“Maybe twenty-five summers?” she guessed. “Tall and muscular. You’ve seen those stickball players? The kind who can run all day? Had his face painted funny, mostly brown. Very pleasant.”

“He spoke to you?”

“Oh, yes. Just like you. Asked how my day was. Then people started shouting about the commotion over east, and he said he’d go see what that was all about.”

“Odd that he’d paint his face brown. How was he dressed?”

“Just a sleeveless hemp-fiber shirt belted at the waist with a rope. His hair was in a bun pinned with a wooden skewer. Looked just about like everyone else.” She frowned slightly. “He’s a noble.”

“And how would you know that, Grandmother?”

“They have that way about them. Like they own the world. Arrogant, haughty, superior … even when they’re trying to make believe they’re just like you. I know this. I was brought here as a girl … slave to serve the Moon Chief, Jenos. He was the ruler at River Mounds back then. I was there the day the mighty war chief Badgertail brought Tharon’s demand for tribute and the return of Priestess Nightshade.” She chuckled. “I hid in a big seed pot as Tharon’s warriors looted and killed the Starborn warriors. So, yes, I know nobles.” Shading her eyes with a gnarled hand, she studied him, as if to see if he believed her.

“Could you recognize the man with the mat again, Grandmother?”

She shrugged. “Probably. It was his eyes. Excited, dangerous, and deadly. I was of less importance to him than something unpleasant he’d have to scrape off his feet. So, why then, did he want to stop and talk to me? Why did he seek to convince someone as unimportant as me that he was something other than he was?”