People of the Morning Star (40 page)

She blinked hard, as if by the very effort, she could drive the insanity of what she’d just heard from her head. “How many people are in on this plan of yours, brother?”

“Currently? Just the two of us.”

She squeezed the bridge of her nose, knowing full well what the flattening of his gaze meant. He was digging in his heels, his old way-too-familiar obstinate streak asserting itself.

“Don’t,” she whispered, raising a hand to forestall what she knew was coming next. “Don’t say it.”

“I
am
high chief,” he insisted, despite her attempt.

“Step back, brother. Pause and think. This time, if you’re making a mistake, it’s not a matter of inconvenience or embarrassment. We’re talking about potential disaster for our House, lineage, and families.”

“I thought you didn’t mind taking a little risk? That you were ready to act yourself?”

She let her gaze burn into his. “I am,
you fool
! But on our terms. And I’m still not sure that Night Shadow Star and that simpering Sun Wing aren’t the fatal links in the Morning Star House. Matron Wind has been elevated to
tonka’tzi.
That’s bad for us because she’s so much smarter than her brother ever—”

“She might ‘die in her sleep’ some night, too.”

Columella’s heart skipped. “Tell me you had nothing to do with the
tonka’tzi
’s assassination.”

He set his stubborn jaw, lifting his chin defiantly. “What if I did, Sister?”

“Then more than just the two of us know about it.” But she read his posture for what it was. “He did it, didn’t he?”

“Who?”

“This mysterious person you’re meeting. Bead. I think that’s what you call him.”

A center hit! His pupils briefly dilated in time with that telltale twitch of the lips.

“How do you know that?” he asked softly, a deadly fear now filling his eyes.

“Flat Stone Pipe has his sources, Brother. Even supposedly blind and deaf ones like that old blind man outside the temple.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “By Horned Serpent’s dripping poison, be thankful that old beggar wasn’t one of Blue Heron’s, or our entire family would be decorating squares in the Great Plaza.”

She had him now, watching his eyes flicker with uncertainty. “The old beggar couldn’t hear everything you and Bead said, just bits and pieces about how everything wasn’t working the way you’d planned. That you and Bead argued. And that Bead, as I was told, ‘put you in your place’ through some sort of threat.”

High Dance took a deep breath, finally wilting in partial surrender. “If you know all this, why are you asking me?”

“Because I just
heard
! Because like water down rivers, information has to flow through Flat Stone Pipe’s sources. Because a great many things are happening just now. Like this attack on Night Shadow Star. Which, if you didn’t do it, perhaps Bead did?”

“I don’t know.”

“But I’m sure you know how he ‘put you in your place?’”

High Dance glared at her. “He, or one of his wolves, took Fast Throw’s chunkey stone out of my sleeping son’s blanket and hid it in a meal jar under Brown Bear’s bed. He was
in here
! He could have slit my boy’s throat …
any
of our throats, for that matter.”

“Tell me,” she managed through a strained whisper, “everything he said to you, everything you’ve committed to. And brother, since our lives are now threatened from
two
directions, by the Piasa’s balls,
don’t
leave anything out.”

Thirty-four

What is happening to me?
Night Shadow Star clamped her eyes tight, fists knotting, as Piasa’s voice whispered at the edge of her hearing. Tensing her muscles, she managed to drive the Spirit Beast’s presence back. Then, trying to take a casual breath, she opened her eyes and glanced around the Council House interior, desperate to see if anyone had noticed.

“I’ve barely heard the name,”
Tonka’tzi
Matron Wind remarked as one of the recorders produced a series of rolled deer hides and laid them out on the floor before the raised daises. Around them the Council House was silent, but a handful of the most trusted recorders sat in the back, and several runners waited along the ornate room’s walls.

Blue Heron and Seven Skull Shield crowded forward as the recorder began unrolling and arranging maps across the floor. Each was covered with a series of black lines, inverted Vs, and other squiggles.

“We really need to do something about these maps. They are all drawn to different scales,” Blue Heron muttered as she cocked her head.

“No, we don’t,” White Brow, the recorder, replied. White Brow and his fellows maintained maps in their society house several bow-shots to the east. “The details of each region are more important than making everything fit. Otherwise we’d fill the entire room.”

“You’d think you were an engineer,” Matron Wind responded. As the new
tonka’tzi
she didn’t look at all at ease wearing her dead brother’s stunning jewelry, or his ornate trappings of office.

The recorder gave her a patient and suffering look as he explained, “All you need to do,
Tonka’tzi,
is keep track of the relationships between the maps. Look. You start here at Cahokia and follow the river south, past the chains, past the confluence with the Serpent Water where it comes in from the east. This next map takes you south to the Pacaha nation. And just below that is the confluence of the great western river. Following it west, its course runs past all these nations, strung like beads on a string just south of the Granite Heart Mountains.

“Then you move to this map of the Yellow Star Mounds and the Caddo towns it controls. But here, go north, into the grassy plains. And that’s where you’ll find the Tula.”

Blue Heron was fingering her chin as she followed the logic of the maps. “About as wild a bunch of men as exist, I suppose. What do we know about them?”

Matron Wind lifted an inquiring eyebrow at another of the recorders. Sky Shoulders stepped forward bearing a heavy stack of beaded belts. With the help of one of his assistants, Sky Shoulders lifted several off the top and produced six beaded record belts from the middle of the pile. These he lay to one side and began going through them. He carefully lifted the top three layers away and ran his fingers over the patterns of beads.

“They are an exiled Caddo people who Trade mostly in bison,” he said as he deciphered the patterns and colors. “They don’t grow corn or other food plants. They move with the land, seasons, and herds.” He set that record to the side lifting the next, before continuing. “They raid Yellow Star Nation as well as Trade. Relations are undependable. Punitive raids from Yellow Star sometimes get lucky and take a few slaves. Tula are very fierce warriors.”

Sky Shoulders lifted the third. “Ah, here. Once they fought Yellow Star for dominance in war. Upon their defeat they fled into the grassland prairie to avoid complete destruction.”

“That’s it?” Blue Heron asked.

The recorder touched his forehead in reply, indicating that he had read everything in the bead mats.

“Yellow Star Mounds.” Matron Wind said after considering. “They have an embassy here.” She turned and beckoned to one of the runners standing along the back wall. “Go find that emissary the supreme chief of the Kadadokies nation sent. What was his name?”

“Frantic Lightning, or as close as it translates to our tongue from the Caddo,” one of the recorders replied from the back.

“Yes, well, politely ask if Frantic Lightning would be so kind as to come and tell us about the Tula.”

Night Shadow Star watched the messenger leave before she stepped forward, saying, “I’m sure I’ve heard of the Tula before, but I can’t remember when. Why would they wish me ill, let alone attempt my murder in such a fashion? They are a distant people, and if they had succeeded, and my death were tied to them, the Morning Star would send an entire army to destroy them.”

“Assuming we could ever catch them out in the buffalo lands,” Blue Heron grunted. “They might be like night mist on a hot morning and simply evaporate every time we got close. If Yellow Star can’t destroy them, what makes us sure we could?”

From the back of the room, Seven Skull Shield added, “Keep in mind that Gray Mouse, the arrow maker, told me they were carrying Tula bows. While he recognized the weapons, he wasn’t sure if the men holding them were really Tula.”

“No tattoos?” Matron Wind asked. “What people have we ever heard of who do not tattoo their men, for recognition if nothing else?”

“Wild barbarians have their own ways,” Blue Heron noted.

You miss the essence of the question.
Piasa’s voice insisted from the depths of Night Shadow Star’s souls.

“The essence of the question?” She was aware of eyes turning her way.

Why?
Piasa’s sibilant hiss sounded from within her.

“Of course,” she whispered to herself. “What would motivate Tula warriors to come all this way to attack us? Not just Cahokia, but the Morning Star and Four Winds leadership?”

The growl of Piasa’s satisfaction vibrated down between her souls.

“The Yellow Star?” Matron Wind mused. “Could they have perhaps hired these Tula? Paid them to come here and attack us?”

“For what reason?” Blue Heron countered. “Seriously, Yellow Star is four to five moons’ distant by land, and perhaps four by river. We have no interest in their politics, nor do we meddle in their affairs. They not only share our reverence of the Morning Star, but we Trade priests back and forth.”

“They might want to free the Morning Star from his current body and resurrect him in a body of their own,” Sun Wing pointed out. “Those people are uncivilized.”

Tonka’tzi
Wind gave her niece an irritated look. “Is everything so simple for you?”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Blue Heron decided after considering it. “If they attempted a resurrection, they know that we’d hear about it and take offense. All of Cahokia would be incensed. The Houses and Earth Clans would unite to produce an army such as the world has never seen to march on Yellow Star Mounds. The colonies would send squadrons, and no matter the distance, tens of tens of thousands of vengeance-minded warriors would descend on them. When the wrath of Cahokia had finally exhausted itself, their city would be nothing more than a barren flat devoid of even grass.”

“What of this ‘young noble’ as Gray Mouse called him?” Seven Skull Shield asked. “The arrow maker said he spoke our language. He guessed him to be in his midtwenties.”

“We’re supposed to take his word?” Night Shadow Star asked. “He knows a noble when he sees one, this arrow maker of yours?”

Seven Skull Shield shrugged, then reached into a sack that sat next to him. “Maybe. The man in question Traded two of these for the arrows that were shot into your party, Lady.”

Night Shadow Star watched him remove a ceramic bowl, and felt her souls jolt at the sight of the Piasa image molded into the ceramic. The glinting mica eyes seemed to drill right into her. Piasa’s shadow flexed within her breast.

“It’s southern workmanship.” Seven Skull Shield rotated the bowl in his hand. “After I lifted this one from the arrow maker, I had a friend of mine look at it. He specializes in exotic pottery. Said it was made by a renowned potter in a town in southern Pacaha on the Western River.”

Night Shadow Star fought for breath, hearing Piasa whispering,
He mocks me. Even now. He knows I will see this.

“Mocks you how,” Night Shadow Star asked, almost shivering as Piasa’s rage built.

He thinks himself invincible.

“No man is invincible.” She closed her eyes, struggling for control, desperate to damp the rage bursting through her. “He’s just a man.”

A very, very dangerous man. If he succeeds …

“Succeeds in what?”

A chaos beyond repair.

“Night Shadow Star!” The sharp voice, coupled with a loud clap of the hands, brought her back to the Council Room. She blinked, slightly off balance. Slowly the room swam into focus. Blue Heron laid hands on her shoulders to steady her, and was looking her hard in the eyes.

“What’s
wrong
with you?”

“Piasa,” she mumbled, the beast’s words still vibrating within her. “The bowl. It’s a message to the Piasa. An affront.”

Heart pounding, she glanced around, aware that everyone was watching her with wide eyes. Her legs weak, she sank slowly to the floor, then glanced at Seven Skull Shield. With a wave of the hand, she added, “Go on. About the bowl. What makes you think it was a noble?”

“He Traded two of these bowls,” Seven Skull Shield said unsurely. “Never even bargained when one would have been more than enough.”

Sun Wing asked, “Why is that important?”

Seven Skull Shield seemed to shake himself as he managed to shift his gaze from Night Shadow Star to Sun Wing. “Lady, no one who’s been in the Trade, or had anything to do with moving goods, would offer
two
such bowls for a bundle of arrows, no matter how good they were. The Power of Trade is served by haggling to find fair value. Don’t you barter for things you want?”