People of the Morning Star (24 page)

Smooth Pebble emerged from Blue Heron’s sleeping quarters, a torch in her hands. The
berdache
stepped over, shaking her head. “I’ve never seen him before. His entire body is painted in black. Rubbing the paint off his face, I was surprised to discover he has no tattoos.”

“All men have tattoos,” Blue Heron growled. “They get them when they are made men. All civilized people mark their men that way. How else do you know to whom you are speaking?”

“Not this one.” Smooth Pebble frowned.

“Um…” Seven Skull Shield glanced back and forth at the guards and the rest of the household staff.

“Yes, what?” Blue Heron barked. “I suppose you’ve got the answer to the mystery?”

“Well, good Matron, I—”

“I’m
not
a matron!”

He gave her one of his ingratiating smiles, touched his forehead, and started side-stepping toward the door.

“Oh, blood and snot! Out with it! What were you about to say?”

She tried to read his canny expression as he said, “Great Lady, there are men without tattoos. Slaves taken as children from among the wild western tribes, for example.”

“And you think this assassin was a grown slave?”

“No, Great—”

“Stop that gushing and insipid fawning. Call me Keeper, if you can’t quite find it in you to use my name. Now, give it to me without the obsequious mish mash.”

“He was anything but a slave.” Seven Skull Shield’s eyes had narrowed, a knowing glint behind his guarded expression. “It was the way he moved, nothing wasted. And, Keeper, he’s done this before. Call it practiced. Whoever this man was, he knew exactly what he was about.”

She kept her eyes on his as Rides-the-Lightning pulled the last of his threads tight and used a cloth to blot up the blood. To the rest of the room, she said, “Leave us. I need to speak candidly with the thief. Smooth Pebble, find Five Fists, have him inform the Morning Star that I’ve got another dead assassin here. He doesn’t have to alert the
tonka’tzi,
Matron Wind, or Lady Night Shadow Star until morning.”

She watched as the others left, stepping out into the darkness of the veranda. Rides-the-Lightning lifted an inquiring eyebrow, but she dismissed him with a word. His assistant took his arm; together they turned and headed for the door.

She focused on Seven Skull Shield. The man looked like a trapped woodrat in a grain bowl.

After the last person was safely outside, she said, “It seems that I underestimated you.”

“How is that, Great … uh, Keeper?”

“I figured I’d awaken in the morning to find you gone along with a selection of my possessions. I’ve already arranged to have several of my agents circulating along the riverfront at dawn offering the most remarkable Trade for Four Winds Clan items, and buffalo blankets in particular.”

To his credit, he didn’t pale, or so much as bat an eye. “Why would the Keeper think that I, of all people—”

“Is it even possible for you to carry on a conversation without a lie passing your lips? I know exactly who and what you are. You’ve a reputation for beguiling and seducing married women, brawling, and you’re a thief. Even my people—and they’re the best—can’t discover what your birth clan was, or where you came from. And incidentally, we’ve recovered all but one of those statuettes you stole. It will take a couple of months for your ‘friend’s’ fingers to heal, but I doubt he’ll feel inclined to deal in the Trade of stolen statues again.”

At that, she detected the slightest tremor in Seven Skull Shield’s expression. Then he said, “Why am I, of all people, here?”

She gestured both frustration and futility. “I haven’t the foggiest notion. I don’t understand it, and I understand everything. I was
ordered
to find you by Lady Night Shadow Star. Something about a deal she brokered with Piasa when her souls were captured in the Underworld and … And why am
I
telling
you
anything?”

His eyes narrowed even more. “Keeper, if Power were everything it’s made out to be by the priests and chiefs, I’d have been blasted dead years ago for the things I’ve done.”

She grunted in affirmation. “So now that we’re talking honestly, why did you save me tonight?”

Taking his time to calculate, he finally said, “His untimely arrival interrupted what would have been a glorious increase in my Trade worth. Would it make sense if I told you that his arrival was like having someone stick a finger in your eye just when you get the first glimpse of extreme beauty? How
dare
he?”

She erupted in laughter. It made the skin pull and sting on her wounded throat. He didn’t share her mirth, but a feral gleam grew in his eyes.

Gaining control of herself, she added, “But I already told you, my agents would be looking for…”

He was shaking his head. “Not down in Pacaha, they wouldn’t. A smart man doesn’t lift the personal possessions of the Four Winds Clan Keeper—and then Trade them in Cahokia. Not without hanging in a square for a most painful quarter moon before pieces of his body become fertilizer for some dirt farmer.”

She said nothing as she studied him, feeling the rightness of his presence, and finally beginning to understand his value. For long moments he just returned her inspection, expression completely neutral. Confident bit of bird shit, wasn’t he?

“What do you want, thief? Call it your ultimate goal in life?”

He shrugged. “I like fine food, good clothes, willing women in a warm bed, and having it all at someone else’s expense.”

“Bah! If I supplied you with your desires, within a half moon, you’d be as frantic as a squirrel without a nut. You like the challenge and thrive on the game. Knowing that you got away with it? That allows you to really savor your success. Therein lies the true sweetness of the food, the added thrill of driving your peg into some woman’s sheath, or the delight in trading off some forbidden trinket. And there’s your weakness, the one that will eventually bring you down.”

“You do me an injustice, Great Lady. If there were any other way for a clanless man like me to survive, be assured that I’d immediately—”

“Now you’re lying again.”

He started to protest, then gave her a sly smile. “Well, perhaps I like a little bit of a challenge.” It broke into a grin. “You’re pretty good yourself, Keeper. Only one other woman has ever picked her way down to my souls the way you have.”

She grunted, then noted, “You may not believe in Power, but I do. Tonight isn’t the first time in recent days that an attempt has been made on someone’s life. Someone very important.”

“I’ve heard nothing, and believe me, I would have.”

“I wouldn’t be the cunning Clan Keeper I am if you had,” she retorted. “But let’s just say that I have a proposition for you.” She paused. “If you’re up for the challenge.”

He crossed his heavily muscled arms, the smile widening. “Working for you comes with considerable risk, Clan Keeper. I’d be tainted, never trusted again. I have a reputation among certain kinds of people. One that serves me just fine, thank you.”

“As do I.”

“I know. You’re known for eliminating individuals once they have fulfilled your purpose and might become a liability.”

“Then perhaps I’m wrong about you.” She reached up to finger her chin, remembered the stitches, and winced in irritation. “I thought you had a better opinion of yourself and your abilities.”

“Oh, I do. That I’m still alive speaks for itself.” He narrowed an eye in what might have been a wink. “At the same time, a man who underestimates his adversaries suffers a short life. And you, Keeper, are one of the most capable and dangerous people in Cahokia.”

She gestured toward her sleeping quarters where the dead assassin still lay. “Apparently not everyone shares your sentiment.”

“Actually, they do,” he countered. “But for my chance presence, you’d no longer be a threat to them.”

She met his eyes and nodded. “You weren’t here by chance, thief. No matter what you think of Power. Nor are you a tool of the Four Winds Clan. You serve Power.”

He shrugged dismissively.

“Believe what you will. The recent attack on the Morning Star, and here tonight, have taken me by complete surprise. The fact that I had no warning from any of my sources tells me that this is something new, and very dangerous. That Sky Power and Underworld Power are aligned, tells me the threat is greater than just politics. Therefore, I’m giving you a choice. Help me find the assassins. Doing so will require all of your cunning and guile, and may very well get you killed. I’d call it the greatest challenge of your life. Or, if you’re not up to it, help yourself to whatever you can carry away, vanish down to Pacaha, or sell them on the riverfront for all I care.”

Oh, yes. She had him. No way he could turn his back on the challenge. Not now.

“I don’t take orders well.” He inclined his head to make the point.

“How could I have missed that?” she asked dryly. “If we can’t work together, that offer to take what you want and leave remains open.”

She glanced back at her sleeping quarters where the assassin lay dead on her floor. “But you might want to consider the stakes, thief. Whatever this is about, apparently they have no hesitation about killing people who get in their way.”

He gave her an irritating grin. “I think I like you, Keeper.”

“By the Piasa’s balls, don’t tell anybody. I couldn’t stand the shame.”

At that moment, Smooth Pebble burst in the door, crying, “Keeper! A runner just arrived from the Matron Wind. Your brother, the
Tonka’tzi,
he’s
murdered
!”

Twenty

Night Shadow Star cast a disdainful glance behind her as she hurried along in the pre-morning twilight. Smooth Pebble had arrived at her palace, rudely shoving the door aside, and calling, “Lady? The Clan Keeper and Matron need to see you now!”

Piasa’s voice had hissed sibilantly within her:
Take the Red Wing!

As she hurried forward she clasped a cloak made of split feathers to her shoulders and glanced uneasily about the misty landscape. Dew sprinkled the grass where it stubbornly grew despite the pounding of thousands of feet, and slicked the mud where even the most hardy of grasses couldn’t withstand the traffic.

Behind her, Fire Cat followed along, his muscular body still not recovered from the abuse of the square.
Why him?
The fact that she hadn’t plunged her long ceremonial knife into his body still chafed.

Piasa, if it were anyone, anything, but you, his corpse would already be chopped up and the pieces sunk to the bottom of the river. You want him? You could put the pieces back together and have him!

In answer, disembodied and eerie laughter wound between her souls.

She shivered as Piasa’s shadow filtered through her. Inexplicably, her thoughts centered on that last instant before the beast had crushed her head between those terrible jaws: the bristly whiskers were spread wide, the great teeth shining and sharp; she almost choked as the stink of the monster’s breath filled her.

If she could only go back and undo any mistake she’d ever made, it would be that day she’d mixed the datura, rubbed it into her temples, and stared down into the well pot in search of Makes Three’s soul.

You cannot go back, Lady. And now I dance within you.

“Go dance somewhere else,” she muttered. “I was happy enough without you.”

Of course you were … so hollow with grief that ripples of it rolled through the Underworld. Had you not been so empty, I could never have filled as much of you as I have.

“Not much of a bargain, was it?”

You’ll never be lonely again.

“Loneliness has somehow become more appealing.”

If I can’t be with you all the time, the Red Wing can.

“I’d rather share my company with a hungry weasel.”

She glanced back again, loathing the man who followed so obediently behind her. Couldn’t he just slip away some night and vanish? Did both word and honor
have
to be so sacred to the piece of filth?

That’s why I chose him for you.

“How about letting me do my own choosing, beast?”

If your “choosing” had been so laudable, woman, how did you end up as mine?

When she glanced back, the filthy Red Wing was giving her the sort of disgusted look he’d give a babbling fool. What? Did he think she’d lost her souls to madness?

“About time,” Five Fists called from the top of the Four Winds Clan House stairs. His figure was silhouetted before the steep-roofed clan house with its Four Winds effigy poles rising from the thatched roof. Night Shadow Star glanced up the ramp and took the wet stairs with care. She didn’t deign to look back at the Red Wing, but demanded, “Why am I here?”

Five Fists gave her a sober look, his crooked jaw even more askew. “We’ll discuss it inside. But first, note the guardians.”

She followed him toward the effigy posts of Sky Eagle and Falcon that guarded either side of the approach. She didn’t need Five Fists’ gesture to see the black sinuous lines that had been painted over the Spirit Beasts’ eyes.