The crowd whistled and cheered.
Sunlight glinted from the lance as it arced toward the fleeing target. The stone slowed, wobbled, and flopped on its side; an instant later the sharpened point of the lance embedded itself in the smooth clay no more than a couple of hands away.
More cheering from the crowd.
Blue Heron smiled with a deep satisfaction. After the capture of Red Wing Town, the heretic war chief, Fire Cat, had been brought to Cahokia—specifically so Night Shadow Star could torture him to death. Retaliation for the murder of her husband, Makes Three. Instead she’d cut Fire Cat’s half-dead body down from the square, bound him to her service as a slave, and somehow saved Cahokia and herself.
“Interesting relationship they have,” Blue Heron mused under her breath as she watched Fire Cat jog down the chunkey court to recover his lance and stone. In public both Night Shadow Star and Fire Cat maintained that they were implacable enemies forced together only by the machinations of Spirit Power. To Blue Heron’s notion it was a miracle that two people who loved each other as much as they appeared to could even maintain such an illusion, let alone refuse to admit it to themselves.
Whatever the original cause of their association, somehow Fire Cat’s epic chunkey skills, and Night Shadow Star’s spooky Underworld ties, had saved the city from coming apart at the seams during the recent tenure of the Mayan lord. Night Shadow Star had ended up the richest woman in Cahokia as a consequence.
The irony wasn’t subtle.
Blue Heron should have been on her way to the Four Winds Clan House to confirm Night Shadow Star as the new clan matron. She’d been groomed for the position since she was a girl. Had shown remarkable aptitude right up until her husband, Makes Three, had taken a Cahokian army north to defeat the Red Wing. When word of his death and the destruction of his army had come filtering down the river, Night Shadow Star had disintegrated into a grieving wreck. She’d surrendered herself to the narcotic embrace of Sister Datura, sending her dream-self to the Underworld in search of her dead husband’s souls. In that dark underwater labyrinth—so she claimed—the Underwater Panther had seized her and devoured her. Made her into his creature: a woman of darkness and death.
To the Four Winds Clan, Night Shadow Star was now a sort of pariah. They were a Sky Clan whose Power, Spirit, and essence came from the celestial realms of Hunga Ahuito. Of the Sun, Moon, Stars, Clouds, Thunder, and Rain. Of the sacred birds including Eagle, Falcon, Hawk, and Heron.
Blue Heron pulled on the loose skin under her chin and frowned at the crowd at the base of the Four Winds Clan mound. They parted and made way for her arrival at the foot of the stairs leading up to the palace.
The clutter of litters, bearers, attendants, advisors, and observers shuffled, shoved, and shouted at each other in the process. But move they did. No one wanted to incite the Keeper’s ire.
Blue Heron—conscious of the theater she was creating—sat for a moment after her litter had been lowered, a thoughtful frown on her face, eyes distant. The crowd went silent, as if waiting for some demonstration.
She rose to her feet, refusing to so much as glance at them. Attention on the stairs, she climbed in a slow and stately manner, her shining copper staff before her. Taking her time not only projected authority, it ensured she wasn’t panting like a ragged dog when she reached the top. But the whispering crowd needn’t know that.
“Ah, the games we play,” she muttered as she reached the head of the stairs. Bowing her head, she touched her chin in respect as she passed between the two Eagle guardian posts. Immaculately carved, painted, and poised to strike, the Eagles glared at her through eyes of inset shell with black stone pupils.
The walkway to the veranda was lined with lower-status and younger relatives of the participants: sons, daughters, cousins, and nieces. For reasons of family politics, they had come in support of their House or lineage—or just to say they’d been present when the new clan matron was chosen.
As she passed, she heard the ripple of whispers run through them, “Look! It’s Keeper Blue Heron!”
She kept her expression neutral, but let her eyes dart suspiciously from face to face—and was satisfied to see them cringe or quickly look away. Life was good when you still commanded respect.
Higher-status attendees crowded the veranda. Mostly older, these were siblings of the matrons and chiefs who waited inside. Blue Heron knew most of them by name—often because they were either old enemies, or allies, or both at the same time. These men and women were the real strength behind the Houses, the clan’s people who did the work of running the districts, supervising the harvests, construction, work levies, and redistribution of food and goods. The ones who ensured the Earth clans maintained discipline, order, and peace among the always-volatile dirt farmers.
And, of course, it was among these individuals that the plots, schemes, and trouble were hatched. Their petty jealousies, ambitions, grievances, and feuds fueled the fires that kept Cahokia’s cauldron at a slow boil. These were the people Blue Heron was tasked with keeping in line.
That she had done so was evident in the thinly veiled hostility, and oftentimes the outright anger, with which they viewed her approach. Oh, they tried to hide it with forced smiles and nods, but were she to ask, each could name a friend or relative that Blue Heron had contrived to exile to the colonies, or disgrace, or discredit, or even—on rare occasions—assassinate.
As they called out greetings, she nodded, acknowledging them by name and returning their pleasantries, making sure she paid attention to each, adding some platitude to which they replied with equal insincerity.
Then she stepped inside the doorway where a young woman announced, “Clan Keeper Blue Heron of the Morning Star House.”
The din of conversation died down as the House matrons and high chiefs swiveled her direction.
“Hello, Green Chunkey,” she greeted the corpulent high chief of Horned Serpent House. He gave her a smile, the fading serpent tattoos on his cheeks barely covered with a forked-eye motif in white paint.
“Keeper, good to see you on this auspicious day.” He touched his chin with a fingertip, as if in the barest of acknowledgment.
Beside him stood Robin Wing, his sister and the Horned Serpent House clan matron. Unlike her brother, her long face and tall, thin body almost looked emaciated. She’d had a hard life, bearing seven children by a Deer Clan chief, all of whom miraculously had survived to adulthood.
“Good to see you, Keeper.” Robin Wing gave her a wistful smile. “Should be an interesting couple of days.”
“Should indeed,” Blue Heron replied before moving on to High Chief War Duck, who ruled River House and its bustling port. He was a big man, thick-framed. What she’d call meaty. Over the course of his forty years, war and sport had left him with a scarred left cheek, a missing right eye, and a furtive if amused manner.
“Good to see you, Keeper,” he told her, and pasted a smile across his square-jawed face.
“Keeping an eye on the Trade at the canoe landing, are you?”
“Of course. And forwarding a share of what my agents take from the chunkey courts to the Morning Star’s warehouses. But then, you’d know all about that.” He paused. “Haven’t seen that Red Wing back recently. Saw him play a couple of times on my chunkey courts. He caused quite a stir, didn’t he?”
“Night Shadow Star’s servant has had enough to do just healing up from his combat with the Itza. I’ll give him your regards when I see him next.”
“Please do. Tell him he is welcome on my courts any time. Oh, and next time I see Crazy Frog, I shall give him your fondest regards,” he added graciously.
Of course he knew she was dealing with Crazy Frog. An inveterate chunkey fanatic, gambler, and scoundrel, Crazy Frog had a finger in most of the illicit behavior on the waterfront. River City Mounds, after all, was the buzzing economic hive of Cahokia, situated as it was on the levee overlooking the canoe landing. At times a thousand canoes a day landed there, disgor
ging Trade from the saltwater gulf in the south clear up to the distant frozen north. From the far Shining Mountains in the west, and all the way to the eastern ocean. The place was a hive of Trade, manufacturing, gaming, entertainment, graft, and industry.
But it was Matron Round Pot—War Duck’s younger sister and House matron—who was the brains behind keeping the froth that was River Mounds from foaming over. War Duck might have kept his one eye on the goings-on, but Round Pot quietly brokered the deals between the societies, workshops, temples, and warehouses. If anyone could be said to be the master of the compromise, it was Round Pot. War Duck, to his credit, was smart enough to follow her advice.
Now the woman—still in her late thirties—turned to Blue Heron, inclining her head respectfully. Like her brother, she was tall, thin, and graceful. The long black hair that she wore in an unfashionable braid hung down to her knees in the back. But for the oversized square jaw and flat nose she shared with her brother, she would have been an uncommonly beautiful woman.
“Keeper,” she greeted. “Good to see you in health.”
“And you, Matron. I hope your husband and children are well.”
“Grass Seed has them downriver for the time being. It is my belief that all young people should learn the art of Trade. In addition, they need to see the southern Nations for themselves. Meet the chiefs. Learn something of the people they will eventually have to deal with.”
“A wise policy.” She paused. “Think you can find a compromise in this?” Blue Heron tilted her head to indicate the others.
Round Pot’s dark eyes glistened. “Of course, Keeper. Dig deep enough and mutual interest can be found. If things become contentious, you might see the wisdom of suggesting that someone with the ability to broker deals take the matron’s chair.”
“Indeed.” Figured that she’d offer herself. But then each of the House matrons was no doubt envisioning herself being seated in the matron’s chair.
“Keeper.” High Chief Wolverine interrupted her thoughts as he strode over and bowed at the waist; the move made his muscular body tense. Wolverine ruled North Star House and the district around Serpent Woman Town north of the oxbow lakes. Now he gave her a crooked smile, and amusement danced behind his hard brown eyes as he straightened. His face and arms were a weblike tangle of white scars from his years of trapping eagles, holding them by the legs, and plucking out feathers before releasing the birds back into the sky.
“Haven’t heard from you recently. How are things in Serpent Woman Town?”
“Nice and quiet, Keeper. Just the way we like it. We’ve enjoyed a sense of relief since Spotted Wrist captured Red Wing Town. The fear has always been that if the Red Wing and their barbarian allies sneaked down the river, they’d attack us first hoping to gain a base to use against the Morning Star. The defeat of the Red Wing and the pacification of the north has removed any such notions among the barbarians.”
“I’m glad the Morning Star’s warriors have finally banished that worry. But sometimes I envy your location up north. The lakes provide a bit of buffer between your House and the rest of Cahokia.”
“And sometimes that distance can be an impediment,” Wolverine’s sister, Matron Slender Fox, remarked as she stepped up beside him. Her long fingers tapped lightly on her pointed chin. She studied Blue Heron through languid brown eyes, a faint smile on her lips. As clan matron, she was known to be vindictive, often playing favorites. It was said that her husband—Cut Weasel of the Panther Clan—had given up on his attempt to keep other men out of her bed. Rumor had it that he stayed married to her only as a matter of status for his clan—and because on those occasions when she did call him to her bed, her performance made up for his humiliation.
Had Blue Heron her choice in the matter, she would rather have had Slender Fox’s younger sister, Ripe Woman, as House matron. Ripe Woman was remarkably pragmatic and didn’t let an itch in her sheath overload any vestige of good sense.
“Ready for me to become clan matron, Keeper?” Slender Fox asked in a saucy voice. “’Bout time someone came down and put these southern Houses in order.”
“I’ve heard your name being floated for the position. The decision will be thoroughly discussed. Though you’ll need a bit of luck, I suspect.”
“Too bad about Night Shadow Star, isn’t it?” Slender Fox’s expression had turned thoughtful. “Hard to think that someone who was so adept and gifted as a girl could choose such a disappointing change of direction as a woman. Must be difficult to stomach for those close to her.”
Long practice kept Blue Heron from grinding her teeth. Not that she had that many left to grind. “Her palace still sits—literally—at the Morning Star’s right hand. A circumstance apparently agreeable to both of them. Far be it from me to judge what Power does to people.”
“No,” Slender Fox said softly. “You just judge what people do to people.”
A familiar voice called, “Rot and pus, Slender Fox! You never have had the sense Power gave a rock. Baiting the Keeper is like tapping a rattlesnake on the snout with a stick. Eventually you’ll get bitten.”
Matron Columella elbowed Slender Fox to the side, a finger jabbing at the woman’s delicately shaped nose. “I still owe you for the time you lured Red Sturgeon into your bed. The poor man couldn’t manage a stiff penis for months afterward. Said you shamed him.”
Slender Fox shrugged. “He’s your husband. Thought he might like to slip into a real woman’s … Well, I can imagine what he’s been dealing with all these years. No wonder you like little men. I hear Red Sturgeon’s vanished off into the west somewhere.”
Columella’s eyes were thinning, her jaw going tight. Wolverine took his sister by the shoulder, easing her away and saying, “I think we should offer our respects to High Chief War Duck. He’s been good to some of our nephews who think they have a future playing chunkey.”
Even as he artfully sought to remove Slender Fox, the woman shot Columella a saucy wink.
Blue Heron placed a restraining hand on Columella’s elbow as she started after her. “It’s not worth it. That camp bitch hasn’t a chance at the matron’s chair. Doesn’t matter what deals she’s brokered with the other Houses. Between us … Well, enough said.”
“Doesn’t she think? Doesn’t she understand?” Columella took a calming breath, her high breasts rising. She had piled her thick black hair atop the back of her head and secured it with a single feather-shaped copper pin. For a woman closing in on forty, she remained attractive and had kept her figure. In preparing for the council she had painted her face with the left side white, the right in red, as if she, too, worried how the meeting would proceed.
“You well know that she not only thinks, but understands. Charming opponents has never been Slender Fox’s strength,” Blue Heron told her. “She says and does what she does to mislead. To cause people to underestimate her. Then she finds a way around them, seeking to render them impotent in the process.”
“Yes, yes, Flat Stone Pipe tells me the same. It’s just that she infuriates me.”
Blue Heron shot her a sidelong glance, lowering her voice. “I’ve heard nothing from Evening Star House. No strident voices calling for you to be clan matron. I thought—given Flat Stone Pipe’s network of informers—that you’d have your rivals sorted out and made the subject of scandal and rumor by now.”
Columella’s calculating stare mixed with a slight shake of the head. “Walking Smoke dealt us too hard a blow. I barely kept Evening Star House together as it was. Might not have without your help. We’re too weak. And then there’s the matter of a debt we owe you. My children would be dead but for you and your thief. Now is not my time.”
“So … who will you support?”
Columella’s slight smile had an ironic turn. “Why … whoever offers me the best deal.”
“Tonka’tzi Wind of the Morning Star House!” the woman at the door announced with enthusiasm.
Blue Heron bowed with the rest as they touched their foreheads in
respect for the Great Sky. Wind stepped ceremoniously through the door.
Dressed to the hilt for the occasion, Wind barely nodded to the others as she strode past the fire and into the rear of the room. There, a dais had been raised and a litter placed atop it.
Tonka’tzi Wind seated herself, the copper-clad staff of office in her hands. Taking her time, she looked around the room. “Welcome matrons and high chiefs. Today we begin the important task of appointing a new clan matron. The best of us. To take up leadership of the Four Winds Clan, its lineages, and holdings.”
She clapped her hands, voice raising. “Let us prepare ourselves. Bring the sacred pipe and the prepared black drink.”
“It’s going to be a long day,” Blue Heron whispered from the corner of her mouth.
“As if Power were waiting on our every move and could care who we pick,” Columella shot back in a murmur.
That was when Blue Heron noticed that Five Fists, the Morning Star’s war chief, sat in the shadows beside the door. The man wasn’t even Four Winds Clan and shouldn’t have been allowed admittance in the first place. So, if he was here…?
A bitter inevitability washed through her.
What was the Morning Star’s game? And why was he interested in the deliberations?
Five
“She spread her firm thighs as wide as she could, and at the sight my shaft hardens like wood,” Seven Skull Shield sang with gusto. “With hands that are soft, she gives it a squeeze, which hammers my heart, and weakens my knees.”
He took a deep breath, belting out, “My balls turn to jelly as I leap on her belly, then I slide it inside, for a magical ride.”
Moon Hunt Page 5
