People of the Morning Star (56 page)

“Come forward,” she ordered, and waved her household staff away. As they scattered, the messenger and his companion climbed the seven steps.

One day soon, they shall have to climb a great many more steps, and they’ll grovel when they reach the top.

“Lady,” the messenger greeted in a low voice, glancing around uneasily. “This man comes bearing a message.”

She glanced closely at the copper-clad staff. Someone had quickly wrapped copper sheeting around a dowel—not the Morning Star’s high standard at all.

“What message?” she asked, a slow smile coming to her lips.

The braided warrior spoke softly, his voice rising and falling in Caddo. As he spoke, the messenger nervously translated, “Your brother, Walking Smoke, sends greetings to his beloved sister. He says to tell you that we have the pieces in place. By the time you are hearing this, The Evening Star House will have discovered the importance of their role. Your presence is requested, and with it, all of Cahokia shall be yours within two days. He asks if you need help eluding your current guard.”

She nodded and stifled a chuckle. “Tell Walking Smoke I am coming, and he need not concern himself. I have everything here in hand. Slipping away will be no trouble at all.”

As her words were translated, the Tula bowed and touched his forehead. As he and the messenger rose and left, she watched the tall barbarian descend the steps.

Turning, she hesitated, glancing east toward the Morning Star’s great black mound with its high-walled palace. Someone stood in the soaring southwestern bastion. Sunlight glinted on a polished copper hair piece, the sort of thing only worn by a high-born chief or lord. The Morning Star? Had he been watching her meeting with the Tula?

Surely the distant figure couldn’t be the Morning Star. He had more important things to do than watch her palace from afar. Most likely, some lord paying tribute had been invited to enjoy the view.

If an important chief was expected, I should have been informed.

She forced it from her thoughts. Not her problem.

“Let’s hope you’re recovered, Husband. This is the last chance we will get to enjoy each other’s bodies for a while. And next time, we’ll be playing with each other in a much nicer palace.”

Fifty-two

Lady Columella had taken her midday meal in her personal quarters, away from prying eyes. She sat on her sleeping bench, a wooden trencher on her lap. Beside her, Flat Stone Pipe, his hair up in a bun, balanced his own dish.

Columella sank her teeth into the succulent white meat. She absolutely loved paddlefish. The curious fish grew to huge sizes, often weighing as much as two men, and was netted from the river’s deep waters. There, down in the depths, they used their long, spoonlike noses to stir the mud for food.

The steak she now ate was cut from the sweet-tasting white meat; not the red, inner meat that tasted like mud. Hers had been basted in walnut oil, sprinkled with onion leaves, and finished with a pinch of salt.

“How’s yours?” Flat Stone Pipe asked. His own plate sat propped on his diminutive lap. He’d requested his to be flame-seared and seasoned with bison gall.

She shot him a ribald wink. “Excellent. I don’t know how you can ruin yours with those gall drippings.”

“Keeps me virile and potent in bed … as you well know. Foods have Spirit and qualities they impart to the body. Gall, roasted testicles from bison and deer, falcon breast meat, wolf hearts, these are foods that enhance a man’s ability to satisfy a woman.” He licked his stubby fingers and studied her from the corner of his eye. “Or would you rather limit yourself to your husband’s hearty ministrations?”

“Considering that I haven’t seen him in two moons?” She tossed her head back, exposing her throat. “I think I’ll let you eat all the gall, buffalo testicles, and onions you’d like.”

“Perhaps this evening?”

“That would be nice.” A flicker of a smile played at her lips. “You should probably know … I’ve missed my moon. At my age, and given the stresses, I rather doubt that you have planted a child. I’ve missed before, sometimes twice in a row, so it’s nothing for certain.”

“No morning upsets?”

She shook her head, staring around her private room with its boxes, carved bed posts, and wall hangings. Across from her, the woven cane wall rose nearly to the roof. She loved that wall, had caught herself staring at the intricate pattern for hands of time. To her knowledge it was the largest, most intricate in all the world. “I don’t feel pregnant. Usually there’s that queasiness, that need to alternately shout or cry. Instead I feel remarkably focused, much too preoccupied with what’s going on over at the Morning Star House, and almost desperate for your company. So eat more gall drippings. Drink it if you have to. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have no relief at all.”

He grinned to himself. “You do sleep better after I’ve worked my magic.”

“That’s only half of your magical qualities. For the moment I need your other talents. What word about Lady Lace?”

“Still missing.” He ripped off a piece of fish and popped it in his mouth. “I don’t understand,” he murmured as he chewed. “The Keeper and the
Tonka’tzi
are tight-mouthed. Something terrible happened that night in Lace’s palace. They wouldn’t have immediately burned it otherwise. And raining like it was? They ordered a lot of oil to be poured on the flames to ensure it burned to the ground. That was a cleansing, my love. An act to counter some terrible pollution like the old
Tonka’tzi
getting his throat cut.”

“So, do you think Lace is dead?”

“If they’d burned her remains along with her palace, they wouldn’t be searching so hard for a young pregnant woman. Warriors are everywhere poking around. And even more interesting, word is out among the less desirable elements. In this case, Crazy Frog, Black Swallow, and their kind. A man can become wealthy, no questions asked, if he provides the Four Winds Clan with information on Lace’s whereabouts.”

He smiled. “Clever, clever. That had to be the thief’s work. The Keeper, aloof as she is, would never have thought of it. No, Lace was definitely taken. Spirited away in the darkness and rain. But whether she remains alive or dead? That, I can’t say.”

“What about Night Shadow Star? Could she be behind this? Conveniently soul-flying while her agents commit havoc?”

Flat Stone Pipe wiped his greasy hands on his apron, then went about meticulously cleaning his fingers. “The presence of Rides-the-Lightning in her palace for so long, and his refusal to leave her side when one of his own kinsmen was sick, argues against that. I’d say she’s really soul-flying. I have heard that the Red Wing is guarding her.” He chuckled. “The fool has her whole household turned upside down and hating him. Clay String is livid. Apparently the Red Wing threatened him with violence if he didn’t straighten up and do his job.”

Columella finished her fish, washed it down with sassafras tea, and nodded. “That’s a good thing to keep in memory. The day may come when we can use Clay String against her.”

Flat Stone Pipe gave her a flinty squint. “I’m hearing stories. That thief the Keeper has taken up with? Apparently he ambushed a foreign warrior in some dead-end passage in River Mounds City. Few details accompany the story, but he captured the man alive and somehow got him to the Keeper’s.”

“And?”

Flat Stone Pipe shrugged his small shoulders and laid his empty plate to the side. “All I know is that the upland Deer Clan chief and matron—the ones called Right Hand and Corn Seed—were escorted by warriors to the Council House last night. My sources were ordered out of the building along with the other messengers and recorders, so I don’t know what was said. I do know, however, that Right Hand and Corn Seed’s bodies were carried out by some of Five Fists’ trusted warriors. Secretly, and long after everyone else had left.”

Columella leaned back on her bedding, eyes tracing the patterns on her beautiful cane wall, trying to fit the new pieces together.

“Lady?” a voice called from beyond her door. “The High Chief asks that you attend him. He has a visitor who needs to speak with you.”

She sighed, set her plate to the side, and stood. “Stay put. Depending upon what stupidity my brother has stirred up now, by the time I’ve dealt with it, I may need to call a recess, send the entire household out on errands, and have you ‘relieve’ my stress with your magic.”

He gave her a mock bow, touching his forehead with his small fingers.

She draped her cardinal-feathered cape over her shoulders, felt to ensure that her hair was fixed appropriately, and swept out into the palace great room with its decorations, smoking central fire, and wall hangings.

The first thing she noticed were the warriors, a solid line of them in the rear. Dressed in battle armor, they clutched weapons; their faces were without tattoos, their posture insolent.

Absolutely unacceptable, brother. What madness—let alone stupidity—convinced you to allow an armed force inside my palace?

Her household servants and slaves were seated uncomfortably on the wall benches to the right. And in the rear were High Dance’s boys, Fast Thrower and White Stem, and his daughter, Two Leaf. Her own son, Panther Call, his brother, Night Wolf, and her daughter, Onion Flower. The children clustered in a huddled knot. From their terrified expressions, they were anything but happy.

Terrified? But why? By whom?

Her anxiety built as she climbed up on her dais and settled into her litter chair. High Dance, rigid as a log, stood just this side of the fire, a tall and muscular man beside him. She thought the man’s face had been painted to resemble Water Panther’s with its yellow circles around his eyes surrounded by a three-forked design in black. What seemed to be whiskers streaked his cheeks, pale red on his nose.

The design unsettled her even more. Humans didn’t meddle with or mock Piasa. The Underworld Lord was a dangerous and Powerful Spirit Creature. Anything that hinted at calling, or representing, his Power could bring disaster.

She met the newcomer’s eyes, shocked to find them filled with amusement, almost insolent in their challenge. He looked to be in his mid-twenties with a spare body that suggested he might be a warrior, stickball player, or runner. Something about his face harkened to the familiar, as if, but for the Piasa face paint, she should know him. Then, a flickering finger of fear tickled her heart as she glanced back at the warriors in the rear.

His warriors. But … is this the enigmatic Bead?

“Very well, High Dance.” She forced her voice to sharpen. “Perhaps you can start by explaining why I have strange warriors in my palace?”

Her brother looked ashen, his hands almost trembling. A spear of panic shot through her as she stiffened on the litter.

“My friend, here, has asked to deliver a message to you.”

She forced herself to relax, to control her rising panic as she met the man’s gleaming, almost triumphant eyes. “Let me guess, you’re the one who calls himself Bead.”

“Among other things, great Matron.” He tapped his fingers insolently off his forehead, a mockery of the gesture. “Recently I’ve called myself White Finger.” He made a face. “But I really didn’t like that. White Finger?” He seemed to be rolling the words over his tongue. “It doesn’t have … how would you say, fire? Spirit? Energy? Is that the word I’m looking for?”

“You said you had a message? Could you, perhaps, find the fire, Spirit, or energy, to finally deliver it so that I could be rid of you?”

He chuckled as if to himself as he placed a foot on the bottom step of the dais.

“That is far enough!” she snapped, extending an arm. “One step closer and I shall call for warriors to remove you!”

His lips flickered, which made that cat-painted mouth seem to sharpen in anticipation. Then he pursed them, as if to stop the smirk from forming. After elaborately and obviously composing himself, he said, “You at least have the presence and character to be a matron. Yes, indeed! You are Four Winds.”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at High Dance. “I’ve begun to worry about him. He’s more like, oh, let me think … soggy clay? The kind you can push and poke and then squeeze through your fingers?”

“Get out of my palace now!” A desperate fire began to rise in her breast.

He grinned and stared into her eyes, meeting her anger with amusement. “Don’t you want to hear my message first?”

“No!”

“That stings me, Matron Columella. Cuts my very souls.”

“Your souls are the
least
of my concerns.”

He made a tsking with his lips, then sighed and straightened as he backed away, raised his hands, and gestured.

Four warriors leaped forward as Columella rose to her feet, crying, “What is the meaning of this?”

High Dance looked panicked, his arms out as he cried, “Bead? What are you
doing
?”

As the warriors raced up and grabbed her by the arms, the man called Bead laughed like a cackling grouse.

“
Let me go
!” Columella shouted as the warriors easily lifted her and carried her, kicking and screaming, to the wall benches on the palace’s side.