The Shadows of God (8 page)

“Corncrib,” Red Shoes repeated.

Grief actually giggled. “We have them, too, but ours aren’t big enough for
this
.”

He lowered himself down on her again, and the ears of dry, shucked corn beneath Grief shifted as the weight of his body came down. Back and forth, she rolled, as he continued.

“That feels good,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“I meant the corn rolling under my back.”

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

Later, they lay panting in the smoky comfort of the place. The corncrib was like a little house, raised well above the ground on stilts, with a narrow ladder leading up to it. It was one of the few places two people could actually get privacy. Red Shoes’ first taste of a woman had been in a corncrib, and he had led Grief here, once the sun was down and Chula was asleep.

“Lots of corn in here,” Grief observed. “Your people are rich. No two houses had this much corn amongst my people.”

“We are rich,” Red Shoes acknowledged. “And while that is good, it also means others will want what we have. Especially our corn.”

“You mean the army of the Sun Boy. The iron people.”

“Yes. Even they need to eat.”

“You will defeat them.”

“I hope so.”

“No. You will. Because you promised me you would.”

“So I did,” he said, and kissed her.

“Strange, this white man custom, kissing,” she said, “but nice.”

They slept there, and in the morning Red Shoes heard voices, lots of them. He peered down from the corncrib.

“Ah,” he said. “They’ve come.”

“Who?”

He pointed to gathering outside his sister’s house. “The old man, with the wreath of swan feathers on his head. That’s Minko Chito.”

“That means ”great chief‘?“

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“Yes. Chief of all the Choctaw, though that doesn’t mean much, really. He can’t tell the district or village chiefs to do anything they don’t really want to. But he’s a great persuader. That thin fellow with the broken nose next to him, that’s Tishu Minko, the assistant to the chief. The big warrior behind him is Bloody Child, a man who doesn’t like me very much. The thin man with the snake tattoo is Paint Red. Red is a war title, a sort of captain.”

“Like Red Shoes?”

“Yes. ”Red Shoes’ is usually a title for the war chief. Red Shoes walk the warpath.“

“Are you a war chief?”

“Of a sort. I took the title when my uncle was killed, because I was the only one to carry it. Everyone still calls me that—they say I’m the war leader against the spirit world. The Red Shoes of the nation is him, there, with the sun tattooed on his arm.”

“What was your name when you were a boy? Before the war name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I never knew the boy you were. At least I could know his name.”

Red Shoes shook his head. “As I said, the boy I was is dead. We don’t speak the names of the dead.”

She rolled her eyes. “Who are all those other men?”

“Village and district chiefs. Shamans. Taken together, they are the leaders of the Choctaw.”

“Who are those four? With the black streaks around their eyes?”

“Ah, you notice them. They are rarely seen. Those are the Onkala priests from the House of Warriors, where the bones are kept. We also call them the Bone Men.” He reached for his loincloth and match-coat. “They are the men I came THE SHADOWS OF GOD

to see.”

“Some of those men are from far off, yes? How did they know you were coming?”

“I made shadowchildren, each with the name of a chief or priest beneath its wings. Each carrying a vision of the Sun Boy and his army.” He fastened the breechcloth and shrugged the deerskin match-coat over his shoulders. “Stay here with my sister.”

“I’m going with you.”

“You can’t. Stay here.”

“And if you don’t return?”

“Then I don’t.”

She looked at him silently for a moment. “Return/” she said.

“Very well.” He kissed her, then went down to where the leaders of his people awaited.

They watched him descend in silence. When he stood facing them, Minko Chito clasped his hand.

“You’ve come. It’s good.”

“I hope that it is,” Red Shoes replied, flicking his gaze across Bloody Child and Paint Red. The two brothers seemed to think his return was anything
but
good.

But no one had tried to kill him yet.

“Is it true?” the chief asked. “The dreams we’ve had? Did you send them?”

“I sent them, and they are true. With my own eyes I’ve seen the army. With my own hands I’ve fought against them.”

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

“He is a brother to the owls,” Bloody Child snarled. “Any dream he sends is a lie.”

“We’ve heard other things,” Tishu Minko said. “The Shawano trader who stayed with the Yellow Canes told of strange things beyond the Water Road.

And what would it profit Red Shoes to make such a lie?”

“To lead us away from our villages, perhaps,” Bloody Child said. “To leave our women and old men defenseless against his English friends.”

The chief cleared his throat. “Red Shoes, why does he come, this Sun Boy?

Why is he our enemy and not our friend? Many have joined him.“

“Yes. Those who join him become his warriors. Those who do not, die.”

“Why not join them, then,” Paint Red asked, “if they are so strong? We’ve fought for the French, when it was in our interest, and with the English as well.

If he offers us glory and scalps, why spurn him, this child of the Sun?”

“He shines, but he is no child of the Sun,” Red Shoes said. “He is the black man, who lives in the West, the chief of the night-goers, the god of ruin. He is the serpent with wings of blood.”

“Perhaps
you
are the serpent with wings of blood,” Paint Red said. “Perhaps you are not who you say you are.”

“It is the danger of being a
hopaye,”
one of the Onkala priests said quite suddenly. “Sometimes they walk out into the woods human and return as—something else.” He turned to Minko Chito. “We cannot hold this council here, great chief. We must go where the truth lives, to the navel of the world.”

The chief nodded. “To Nanih Waiyah. Yes. We will go there now.”

An involuntary chill crept up Red Shoes’ back, the snake in him moving. For an instant, the winter rage came on him, and he knew he could kill them all, that perhaps he should. His sister’s warning came back to him. •

But if he killed them, he failed. And the Bone Men might surprise him. They THE SHADOWS OF GOD

remembered things no one else did. They might destroy him.

Besides, the rage wasn’t his. The anger wasn’t his. It was in him, but he did not have to accept it. Each time he used the snake’s venom it became easier to swallow, and it tasted better.

He remembered the Wichita village, where he had killed everyone, from the smallest child to the oldest man. That could not happen here, even if it meant his own life.

“To Nanih Waiyah,” he said. “Let us go, then.”

5.

King Philippe’s Reception

It was several seconds after the crackle and thunder of weapons faded that Franklin understood that he was alive and well and that the volley had merely been a welcome, a sort of friendly handshake.

“Silly,” he muttered. “And wasteful. Why not drums and fifes, or bugles or shofars or what have you, if a noisy greeting is needed? That volley could have been spent more wisely. I, for one, will be quite cross if this war is lost by one volley.”

“Will that be the opening speech of your parley?” Robert asked.

The French captain on shore shouted something. For all the ringing in his ears, Franklin could scarcely hear it.

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

“He says we are welcome, and to follow him in to dock,” Penigault translated.

“Said the spider to the fly,” Robert muttered.

Franklin got his wish, albeit belatedly, as they marched up the muddy street to the sound of trumpets and drums. Negro page boys in filthy stockings scattered flower petals before them, but that did nothing to keep the earth from sucking their shoes half off. Throwing down a good layer of gravel or sand, Franklin reflected, would have been an infinitely more practical use of time and labor.

Once inside the gate, the same page boys scrupulously cleaned the Carolinians’

shoes. Embarrassed, Franklin shooed his away, taking the rag to do the cleaning himself. A bit later, they were offered some sour but drinkable wine.

Franklin took it in moderation, worried about poison but very much in need of something to drink, as sweet water had become scarce near the salty Mobile Bay. They were at the mercy of the French now, and if he was to die, poison was probably as pleasant a way as any.

The grand hall was dimly lit by alchemical lanthorns in motley shapes. Indeed, the lack of theme—here an angel, there a sort of pumpkin, there a naked woman—suggested that the lamps had been salvaged from various places rather than made to suit the particular architecture of the place. The inconstant glow of some of them suggested the same—most had probably been made more than twelve years ago, before the comet fell, and were nearing the end of their usefulness.

But for those uneven lights, the hall might have been a troglodyte’s cave, so little could he see of it.

They were ushered into an anteroom, this one better lit and decorated with fleurs-de-lys wallpaper. There they waited for half an hour, if the sun-faced pendulum clock on one wall kept proper time. At last a thin fellow with a ridiculous periwig and vivid green frock coat came out and had a look at them, though he didn’t say anything and ignored Voltaire’s overtures. He vanished, and a few moments later, the pages reappeared with fresh clothing for all of them.

“It seems they have their standards here,” Franklin remarked, “and we are not THE SHADOWS OF GOD

up to them.”

“It’s a good sign,” Voltaire said, “in a way. It means that they will see you even if you aren’t up to snuff.”

“Hmm.”

The outfit he was given was all of bright red watered silk, reminding him of his one-time master, Sir Isaac Newton, who had favored rich, scarlet garb. It fit him loosely and had an unpleasant odor. Franklin wondered, unhappily, if its last wearer had died in it.

Then more waiting, and finally the thin man appeared again.

“The king will see Mr. Benjamin Franklin now.”

“And my companions?”

“He will see Don Pedro of the Apalachee at another time. All others are invited to dine this evening.”

Franklin looked to his friends apologetically. “I suppose this means I’ll see you later, fellows.”

He followed the thin man through a warren of corridors and chambers, which he supposed were meant to be grand. Actually, they seemed somewhat askew, with corners not quite square and tilting floors. Each step felt like a league separating him from his companions.

“How do you find the royal palace?” the thin fellow asked.

“Large,” Franklin said truthfully.

The man smiled indulgently. “Yes. Large.”

“You pardon, Monsieur—”

The fellow stopped. “My deep apologies. I am d’Artaguiette, the minister of THE SHADOWS OF GOD

New France.” He paused in the darkened hall. “I wonder what you must think of us.”

“Monsieur d’Artaguiette, I have little basis on which to think anything.”

“You will find this court rather—despondent. I would not hope for much.”

“Well, we all must hope. I think I have things of great importance to say to His Majesty.”

“His Majesty is not often disposed to hear important things. I wish you luck.”

Franklin thought the minister could have sounded more sincere.

They continued on, eventually reaching two large doors that admitted him into not a throne room, salon, or council chamber, but a bedroom with a huge, canopied bed. The walls were light and papered, and the room cheerfully lit by a rather large, misted window beyond the bed. Seven men in florid clothing watched him enter with varying degrees of disapproval. The room reeked of perfume. In the bed lay the man Franklin supposed to be the king.

At first he thought the king might be dead, for he seemed motionless, glassy-eyed, dressed in a high wig and silk gown, covers drawn to his waist. He sat propped against pillows in such a way that did not require life to maintain the position.

But then the royal head nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Monsieur Benjamin Franklin,” the thin man announced, “I present you to the most glorious king of France and her colonies, Philippe VII.”

“Your Majesty,” Franklin said, bowing in the complex fashion that he had learned at court in Prague.

Everyone in the room took in sharp breath, followed by titters of laughter.

“I was not told Mr. Franklin was a grandee of the Spanish court,” the king remarked, a little smile on his plump, red face.

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There was louder giggling at the king’s remark. It occurred to Franklin that he should have had Voltaire instruct him in the French style of bowing, but it had been a long time since court etiquette had concerned him, and the steaming forests of America had not encouraged thoughts of such.

“Your pardon, Majesty, but as I understand it, you are also Philippe VI of Spain, are you not, and thus due the Spanish genuflection?”

“A good point,” the king replied, a certain weariness entering his tone, “and one not to be giggled at.”

The courtiers fell immediately silent.

“Well, Mr. Franklin. You have come here for some purpose other than entertaining my courtiers, I suppose? It has been long since we heard from the English colonies. We thought our friendship with you quite abandoned.”

“Far from it, Your Majesty. I have tried without pause to communicate with you by aetherschreiber. I fear, from your remarks, that some agency intercepted all.”

“Indeed?” Did his gaze flicker suspiciously about the room? Franklin could not tell for certain.

“Is Your Majesty aware that our colonies are under attack by foreign powers?”

“As I understand it, you are in most indecent and unlawful rebellion against my beloved cousin James.”

“Your Majesty, then, received the embassy of Mr. Sterne and his fellows?”