People of the Morning Star (26 page)

From under his cloak, he produced the small loaf of goosefoot bread he’d stolen. The Hawk Clan woman who’d baked it had laid a whole selection of breads out on a blue-and-white blanket. She’d focused her entire attention on the Snapping Turtle Clan woman who hawked pottery in the spot next her, saying, “If you ask me, the
tonka’tzi
’s sudden death is nothing more than the divine justice of the Sky World for his transgressions.”

The Snapping Turtle Clan woman had shrugged and said, “It’s a lesson. Death comes to us all.”

“But to go so quickly?” The Hawk Clan bread Trader snapped her fingers. “That’s Power taking its retribution, I tell you. There’s something dark about the Four Winds people making the changes they have. I miss the old days under Petaga. And the
tonka’tzi,
he was as crafty as they come. I heard that he
prefers
to share his bed with other men!”

“Why would anyone care if he’s
berdache?
” the potter asked.

“Mark my words. It’ll come out. The
tonka’tzi
had indiscretions. These kind of deaths, they’re drawn to indiscretions, I tell you!”

So the
tonka’tzi
had indiscretions? What normal man didn’t?
Though he’d never met the Great Sky in life, Seven Skull Shield had taken umbrage. The man he’d seen had been murdered sleeping with one of his wives! And besides, Seven Skull Shield more or less worked for the Four Winds Clan now. Stealing a loaf of the old woman’s bread was no more than retribution for her slight, not to mention a chance to keep his fast hands in practice.

After leaving the crowd, he’d retreated to the veranda fronting Night Shadow Star’s palace. The Avenue of the Sun ran along the southern edge of her mound where it stood at the northwest corner of the Great Plaza. The Morning Star’s palace atop its towering mound dominated the view to the east. Looking south across the Avenue of the Sun, he had a clear view of the roaring yellow fire as it consumed the
tonka’tzi
’s palace. A billow of black smoke rose in a slanted column from the crackling timbers.

People stood in a wide ring, held back from the base of the mound by a cordon of red-dressed warriors. The mood in the crowd remained somber.

Even from his elevated perch, Seven Skull Shield could sense the people’s uncertainty, could read it in their shifting bodies, the way they leaned their heads close to whisper their suspicions.

“What do you think?” Fire Cat asked as he stepped out onto the veranda.

“They’re unsure. Apprehensive.” Seven Skull Shield gestured at the crowd. “Look close and you’ll see it, like a faint ripple running through a pond.”

“And you know this? How?”

“I’m one of them, Red Wing.”

“What does that mean, one of them?”

“For a dead man, you ask a lot of questions.”

Fire Cat shot him a measuring sidelong look. “Blue Heron says you’re a common thief.”

“Bah! Common? Red Wing, I could have lifted one of your wives right out of your bed while you slept in her arms. And there’s
nothing
common about talent like that.”

“My wives have been taken as slaves, thief. I am told their labor and bodies now serve Four Winds masters.”

Seeing the man’s pain, he said, “Power must not favor you, Red Wing.”

“Obviously it does not. And as much as I’d like to choke that smug expression off your ugly face, my lady requires your presence.”

Seven Skull Shield hesitated just long enough to give the Red Wing his most offensive smile. “Don’t start what you can’t finish alive and well, Red Wing. I’ve heard all about your precious honor. I grew up in a different world. Where I come from, I learned to do whatever it takes to stay alive.”

He glanced at the Piasa and Horned Serpent guardian posts. The things looked so lifelike they sent a shiver through him. Then he brushed past the fuming Red Wing and entered the main palace. The great room had taken his breath away when he’d first stepped through the door. Nothing had changed. The opulence remained every bit as stunning.

Just a couple of these pieces Traded down south would set me up for life!

Behind the fire pit with its glowing embers, and seated on their litters, were Blue Heron, Matron Wind, Lady Sun Wing, and Night Shadow Star. Off to the right a man named Dead Bird, who served the Morning Star, waited with a frowning face. Blue Heron’s
berdache
assistant, Smooth Pebble, and Night Shadow Star’s head of household, Field Green, stood behind their respective ladies. He wasn’t sure who the other people present belonged to.

“How is the crowd?” Blue Heron asked as he walked closer and stopped just back of the fire.

“Tense, Keeper. Unsure.” He bit another bite off the small loaf. Good. The woman had sprinkled some walnuts into the dough.

“You heard no rumors?”

“Oh, plenty. Mostly idle speculation about divine justice from the Sky World. A couple of the ignorant two-legged turds came up with the notion the Morning Star blasted the
tonka’tzi
over some slight, or found him unworthy, or some such. About what you’d expect. The important thing is that no one is mentioning assassination. By moving as fast as you did, you’ve taken the opposition by surprise.”

“How is that?” young Sun Wing asked, an arrogance in her voice.

He took another bite of bread, chewing as he studied her. She looked like an overdressed child atop her litter. No one that young and stuffed so full of self-important goose excrement should be given her kind of authority. “Lady, if the assassins wanted to create panic they’d have picked people working the crowd to whisper rumors. No one’s doing that, not at the tinder points.”

“What’s a tinder point?” Her too-pretty face tightened in disdain.

“The places people like me gravitate to. Concentrations of the curious, the lunatics, and the slightly addled who can’t wait for a disaster and want to be the first to see it happen. They are the ones anticipating that first spark, anxious to blow it into a bonfire that will flare out of control.”

Night Shadow Star, her poise recovered from earlier, asked, “If they had the opportunity to sow discord, why didn’t they?”

Seven Skull Shield ripped another bite of bread from the loaf, talking through a full mouth. “They thought you’d panic.”

“We almost did,” Blue Heron muttered under her breath, gaze unfocused as she considered what he’d said. She glanced up as Five Fists’ burly form darkened the door.

The broke-jawed warrior gestured his respect and dropped to one knee, saying, “I escorted the
tonka’tzi
’s household staff to the Trader this one suggested.” He indicated Seven Skull Shield with the barest tilt of his head. “I think they believe our story that we’re removing them from Cahokia for their own safety. The Trader has enough muscular young men to ensure they will be delivered to the supreme chief of the Kadadokies at the Yellow Star City.”

Blue Heron granted Seven Skull Shield a thin smile. Her first inclination had been to sacrifice them in order that their souls accompany the
tonka’tzi
to the afterlife. She figured that once dead, their souls could chatter all they wanted about assassination.

The Keeper doesn’t cringe when it comes to getting a bit of blood on her hands. A good fact to remember.

Seven Skull Shield’s counterargument had been that such an action might play into the killer’s hands. With assassins prowling around in the night, prudent potential victims wouldn’t be well served by making their households nervous about their future prospects.

“Then we’ve contained the situation?” Matron Wind asked.

To Seven Skull Shield’s mind, the Matron looked exhausted, stricken, and uncertain. Given her expression, elevation to the
tonka’tzi
didn’t exactly fill her with joy. Still … she’d definitely benefited by her brother’s murder.

Might pay to keep an eye on the good Matron.

But what would she gain by killing the Keeper at the same time? Elimination of the one person who might ferret out her involvement?

Blue Heron fingered the stitches under her chin as she said, “The bodies have been carried to the charnel house. Rides-the-Lightning has already begun stripping meat from the bones. By midday the
tonka’tzi
’s flesh will be feeding the crows and eagles. A fitting tribute to the Sky World.”

“We’ll need to begin clearing the charred rubble of his palace away as soon as the ashes cool,” Matron Wind remarked, a dazed look on her face. “I want the mound recovered with a layer of white clay to signify peace before a new palace is built.”

“What did the Morning Star say?” Night Shadow Star glanced at Sun Wing.

Seven Skull Shield munched on his bread, hawklike eyes fixed on Lady Sun Wing as she absently stroked loving fingers down her cardinal-feathered cloak. No woman should be that taken with herself. His imagination pictured her being plopped down as a dirt farmer’s wife to make due on a freshly cleared farmstead. Laboring day in and out, with nothing but brown burlap to wear, and dirt under her fingernails. It would do her good.

“The Morning Star is terribly distressed.” She put too much emphasis on the words. “He urges Lady Night Shadow Star to hurry her investigation into these mindless and chaotic attacks.”

The rest waited, attention on Sun Wing.

“And?” Blue Heron finally asked. “That’s it?”

“The Morning Star has complete faith in you,” Sun Wing added. “He urges you to give full attention to your duties.”

“As if we wouldn’t when strangers are sneaking into our bedrooms to
slit our throats?
” Matron Wind cried.

“Beware of the tone you use when addressing the Morning Star,” Sun Wing warned coldly, and to Seven Skull Shield’s amazement, Matron Wind paled.

By the Piasa’s balls, Matron Wind is aunt to both the Morning Star and this little tight-sheath, and the girl uses that kind of tone?

Night Shadow Star, however, gave her little sister a scathing look. “Have a care with your tongue yourself, Sister. You can wind up atop a burning pyre as quickly as the rest of us.”

That referred to the act of burning a person alive to send their souls posthaste to the Sky World. The underlying belief was that their freshly freed souls would ride the column of thick black smoke up to the Thunderers’ realm among the clouds.

Sun Wing barely narrowed a brown eye. “Your Underworld master may trust you,
Sister,
but Morning Star knows you for who you really are.”

Seven Skull Shield watched Night Shadow Star’s beautiful face darken, a flat coldness behind her eyes. For just an instant he might have seen the reflection of a hunting cougar in her eyes. The sudden sensation of chill air, of threat and danger, however, felt incredibly real.

“Stop it!” Blue Heron snapped. “Fighting among ourselves isn’t going to solve the problem.”

“Correct.” Matron Wind rubbed her face, then looked around with worried eyes. “Who will be next among us? They’ve tried for the Morning Star, and now in one night they have murdered Red Warrior and would have had Blue Heron but for the work of Power.”

Her quick and nervous glance Seven Skull Shield’s way was met with his bland smile. Let her believe he was Power’s instrument. There might be profit in it down the road.

Five Fists spoke, “In addition to whatever you decide, we’re moving a squad of warriors around each of the palaces.”

“Which will do what?” Seven Skull Shield asked mildly as he slapped the crumbs from his hands.

The astonished look Five Fists gave him was almost better than the outburst: “Why … it will keep our people
safe,
thief!”

“Of course. Silly of me not to have figured that out.” Seven Skull Shield inclined his head in mock salute. “But then I’m just as dumb as that crowd out there. I’ll never make a connection between full squadrons of warriors surrounding the ever-so-exalted Four Winds palaces and the
tonka’tzi
’s burning palace over yonder. Let alone the bodies being de-fleshed up in that charnel house. And I certainly would never begin to spin lurid tales about why Cahokia’s lords were suddenly surrounded by armed ranks of warriors. Or for what purpose the Morning Star ordered it.”

Sun Wing cried, “He is
the Morning Star
! Who cares what the ignorant crowds think? He exists above us all.”

“It’s a wonder they haven’t stormed the great mound and pulled you all down,” Seven Skull Shield muttered, ignoring Sun Wing’s fury. He couldn’t help it, her attitude just
begged
to have someone slap her down.

“Watch your mouth,” Blue Heron warned. Evidently her memory of why she was still alive and breathing had grown foggy.

Seven Skull Shield noticed Fire Cat watching from beside the door, his arms crossed, head cocked in amusement. Ignoring him, Seven Skull Shield calmly said, “I don’t understand you people. Moments ago you were all relieved that you’d fooled the crowd—that they didn’t have a clue that the
tonka’tzi
had been murdered. Now you’re dismissing that crowd out there as insignificant? Going to throw away what advantage you’ve gained by posting squadrons of warriors? And remember, Morning Star exists for them, they don’t exist for him. You do understand that part, don’t you?”

Matron Wind and Sun Wing were giving him a look that communicated a promise of immediate flaying. Night Shadow Star, however, was watching him with large, predatory eyes.

“Why are we listening to this … this putrid
thing
?” Matron Wind slapped her hands on her legs. “I say we hang him in a square, and let him learn a little respect for his betters.”

Sun Wing’s voice strained with anger as she said, “Just because he saved the Clan Keeper’s life he thinks he’s one of us? As good as us? Hang him!”

Seven Skull Shield experienced that familiar warning tickle down in his gizzard. Instinctively he considered his way out. He’d have to kick broken-jaw before the old warrior could grab him. Fire Cat was at the door, and a couple of other warriors could block the exit if he wasn’t fast enough. But once he was outside, and assuming he could keep his feet sprinting down the side of the steep mound—and not break a leg at the bottom—that huge crowd would swallow him like …