Clash of Eagles (39 page)

“I bow to you,” Marcellinus said, and did so.

“And then,” she said with a sigh, “sometimes I have to walk back.”

“I’m working on that. We will talk of it. But … then, after we met, you walked back through Iroqua, alone?”

“The Iroqua know me. And I am not warrior.”

“What?”

“If I carry no weapon, I am not warrior. If I am not warrior, I am safe.”

Marcellinus shook his head, not comprehending.

“Yes. Trails are safe for traders, people who travel. To all people who are not warrior. People can walk everywhere in the land. A man or a woman with a child, all are safe if not carry weapons.”

Traveling unarmed through barbarian territory was an odd definition of “safe.” But Sintikala was the living proof, and so were the merchants who traveled considerable distances to the Cahokian markets or passed through on their way north or south. “All right. So you spoke Algon-Quian and hand-talked with Fuscus. And after I freed you, you warned the Algon-Quian and Iroqua villages in our path. And they avoided us, every single one of them, until the Iroqua warriors were ready to attack us. And you passed safely through all those Iroqua villages without harm.”

“Yes.”

“And so my plan worked.”

“Big clever plan. Brave Roman.”

“Yes, yes … But even so. And, of course, the Iroqua were happy to let us march on and fight you instead of them.”

“We wanted you to go past us, too. You said you would. Pass through to west, you said. But once you saw corn, once you saw Cahokia, we knew you and your hungry men would not pass through. Not leave us in peace. Not ever.”

Far above their heads, heavy clouds were gathering. Marcellinus
might not have long before their conversation—and their map—was washed away.

“Sintikala, it is now the Flower Moon. For all I know, a Roman legion could already be ashore at Mare Chesapica, in Powhatani lands, or anywhere along the coast to the north or south.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You think so?”

“I don’t know. But today-now, this is about the very soonest it could be done, if news of my defeat reached Roma quickly.”

“And what does Great Sun Man say?”

“Great Sun Man cares only about the Iroqua. He fights only the enemy he can see. He cannot see the Romans yet. They may not come this year or even next, so he does not worry about them. But we must. We need to make a plan.”

She nodded soberly. Once again, her perspective was different from Great Sun Man’s; she had seen a Roman legion at the peak of its power and efficiency. Great Sun Man had only seen one burned, wrecked, destroyed.

Marcellinus looked at the crude map in the mud again. It had taken his legion weeks to march from Appalachia to Cahokia, and Sintikala had done it in a day? It still boggled his mind. “Well, then. When they land, I must know as quickly as possible. And then I need to get a message to their Praetor, their commander. I will go to them myself as soon as I can, but—”

“You, through Iroqua lands?”

“Yes, but … 
you
can fly over those lands. When the Romans come, we must get word to them, perhaps a written message, with the finger-talk, words in Latin on bark?”

“You would send me again to a Roman Praetor?” she said, her face dark. “Into the middle of their army of men?”

“With a letter from me …” Marcellinus stopped, faintly appalled that he could have suggested such a thing. Send Sintikala into the maw of Roma again, alone?

“A message for the new Romans,” she said slowly. “And what would you say to them?”

“That the 33rd Legion was defeated but that I am alive and have allied with you in peace and am … helping you. That war is not necessary. Perhaps that Cahokia will feed the Roman troops and help them on past Cahokia and beyond? We can talk with the elders, agree on what to say. But perhaps we would send someone else. Another Hawk. Not you.”

Sintikala put her head on one side. “Now you think I am afraid?”

“I think
I
am afraid,” he said.

“Other Hawk clan fliers could not fly half the way to Appalachia.”

From Great Sun Man, it might have been boasting. From Sintikala, Marcellinus accepted it as simple fact. “Perhaps you fly over them and drop the letter.” An aerial messenger would certainly get the attention of any Roman commander.

“Or perhaps if you ask me instead of telling me.”

Sintikala was sitting very still. Marcellinus knew her well enough by now to recognize the danger he was in if he said one more foolish thing. “I am sorry. What should we do?”

The Hawk chief brooded, stabbing her index finger in the mud to make an irregular line of holes linking the coast and Cahokia. He thought she was merely doodling until she spoke.

“The Romans will bring their big ships to where you landed. They will want to use the bay, and the road you made. They will not land far north or far south and do extra work. One place.” She stabbed the Mare Chesapica with her finger. “And so we send words now to the Powhatan or the Nanticoke, and when Romans come, the tribe chief can give it to the Romans.”

“Ah,” Marcellinus said. The coastal chiefs would have no love for Marcellinus, but it was certainly in their interest to help if it would prevent further bloodshed.

“Then smoke and runners.” She indicated the line of holes. “These are really hills. We put firewood on the hills, and when the Romans come, we make signals. Words in smoke. In these other places we will need runners instead. And so we will know within two hands of days when the Romans arrive and how many, and they will get your finger-talk
letter as soon as the local people can take it. You, we can take along the Oyo River in canoes much quicker than you can walk, with some of your First Cahokian warriors so the Romans will see you are still a leader of men.”

“I see I’m not the only one who has been thinking about this,” he said, and bowed to her again.

Sintikala met his eye. “And then?”

“Then what?”

“You and your Roman Praetor brother?”

“We talk. Sintikala, I will not betray you. I will not betray Cahokia. I swear this.”

She grunted. “But perhaps he will not want to hear what you want to tell him.”

Marcellinus nodded. That was indisputable.

With extreme good luck, this new incoming Praetor would be a calm and rational man—perhaps even someone Marcellinus already knew—who would accept him as the incumbent legate over the mound-builder cities. He would take the freely offered Cahokian provisions to resupply his legions, maintain discipline in his ranks, and march past the Mizipi and into the west to continue the task of opening up Nova Hesperia.

And ideally the Cahokians themselves would embrace the benevolent hegemony of Roma and even tolerate Roman taxation in return for the advantages in goods, trade, education, and wealth the alliance would bring. They certainly had shown no lack of enthusiasm for the changes in their fortunes so far.

Reality could not possibly be so tidy; it never was. More likely, the incoming Praetor would summarily arrest and execute Marcellinus for losing his Legion and fraternizing with barbarians, and that would be that. Only slightly less harshly, Marcellinus might be taken into custody, formally stripped of his military rank, and kept in chains, eventually to be shipped home in disgrace. Roma was not kind to its failures.

Finally, Cahokia could reject Roma. Marcellinus had never raised the topic of Roman hegemony with them. Could Great Sun Man and Sintikala accept Imperium? Sometimes Marcellinus thought it might work. At other times he thought he was insane for even contemplating it.

But already so much had changed in Cahokia. Marcellinus had to hope.

He pointed to the map in the mud, to the land beyond Cahokia, on the side of the Mizipi closest to her, the western side. “So, what is here? The plains, more peoples, then what? How much farther to the edge of this land?”

“Here are mountains.” She used both hands to raise a tall ridge of mud. “Not like Appalachia.
Big.
Big-big, white. Cold with snow.”

“And then?”

Sintikala knew that eventually there was another sea. But that was from the casual conversation of traders; she did not know how far, or what the land on the other side of the snowy mountain range might look like. She had never been so far herself.

“A long way, then. A very long march for the Romans. They might be willing to take help rather than fight all the way.”

Sintikala looked dubious.

“They must,” he said.

Marcellinus looked again at the crude muddy sketch of the giant land he was in and shook his head. So large, yet Sintikala could travel so far through it, flying high in the skies.

Marcellinus was an army man, and his adult life had mostly been nomadic. Aside from the war party to Woshakee, he’d lived in Cahokia almost a year now.

“I show you more.” Sintikala stood. “A better map. One day. Not today.”

As the raindrops began to fall, Marcellinus traced the line of the Mizipi with his finger. So much here to see, and he had seen so little of it.

“All right,” he said. “One day. Thank you.”

“T
his pipe? Older than city. Before Cahokia.”

Marcellinus took a long pull from the carved flint-clay pipe, and the acrid smoke expanded to fill his lungs. His ears buzzed, but he no longer coughed. It was midnight in the sweat lodge, and his skin already had a sheen of wood and pipe smoke. Perhaps he ought to take a speedy visit to the baths by lamplight after this.

The pipe was carved with the figure of a man. Could it really be older than the city? Marcellinus passed it with exaggerated care just in case. “Great Sun Man, I have been thinking that I need to see more of this land. The river, other towns, villages. I should train centurions in other Mizipi cities and build forges for them so all mound-builder peoples of the Mizipi can be stronger against the Iroqua. They have their Haudenosaunee League. The Mizipi people must have a league, too.” And against Roma, he thought unwillingly, but knew better than to speak it aloud.

“Um,” said Great Sun Man, caught unaware by the magnitude of the suggestion. “Yes? No?”

Howahkan came to his war chief’s aid. “Instead, the warriors from other cities should come here, from north and east, south and west. All could train here together and then return to their cities.”

Smoke trickled from Marcellinus’s nose and mouth. “Great Sun Man. Speak me the truth. Am I a prisoner here?”

“A what?”

“If Wanageeska wanted to leave Cahokia, you would stop him?”

Great Sun Man waggled his hand at the wrist, the gesture for uncertainty. “Where do you go? Why?”

“I think that you say yes.”

“Wanageeska … If my son Tahtay wants to leave Cahokia, I would stop him. If my brother Kohana or my mother, Patachee, wants to leave, I would stop them. This is Cahokia. My people belong here.”

“Great Sun Man, I will always return to Cahokia. You have my word. I have nowhere else to go. But I will not be chained here. Yes? I mean tied up, bound, as with sinew. Cahokia is just one city, and the Mizipi is long. To help you, I need to know many things.”

“Cahokia is best city.”

“Cahokia is biggest city. When I have seen others, I will tell you which is best.” He punched the chief lightly on the shoulder to rob the words of any sting and indicate that he was teasing.

Great Sun Man frowned.

Quickly, Marcellinus said, “Do not say, ‘No, I have spoken.’ There are many good reasons why I should see other towns and better understand the great peoples of the Mizipi. So let us talk more of this. Here, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. Yes?”

Kanuna looked from Marcellinus to Great Sun Man and back to Marcellinus. “Yes, let us all talk some more. Pipe?”

Two more hours passed with a conversation that ranged near and far, as was the habit in the sweat lodge. Marcellinus did not raise the subject of his leaving Cahokia again, but others did. Kanuna, the best-traveled of the elders, mentioned towns Marcellinus might visit where he could see things they did not have in Cahokia: canals for irrigation, different designs of gates and bastions for their palisades, rafts, wings of a different style. Ogleesha mentioned the dangers that such travels might bring: bears, rapids, getting lost, roving Iroqua bands. Howahkan praised the initiatives and public works that he would be loath to have Marcellinus ignore for the time it would take to paddle down the Mizipi and back.
To all of this Marcellinus smiled and nodded, satisfied that the topic was at least being discussed and knowing that more direct pressure on his part would be counterproductive. The Cahokian political system had many chiefs and, except in matters of war, largely ran on consensus. By raising the issue in this group Marcellinus had assured that the decision would not be Great Sun Man’s alone. Although as far as Marcellinus could see, the only times the elders or the clan chiefs truly owned their power was when Great Sun Man chose to step aside and relinquish his.

Eventually the pipe was empty and their throats were dry, and Marcellinus’s head hurt. Ogleesha had wandered home long before, and Matoshka had fallen asleep sitting up. At this point there could be no loss of face in calling it a night. Bowing, Marcellinus got up to leave.