Blue Heron circled the outside of the crowd that had gathered around the great fire in the Morning Star’s courtyard. Firelight illuminated the towering World Tree pole with its lightning-scarred reliefs depicting the Morning Star’s exploits in the Beginning Times. It cast people’s shadows on the clay-coated palisade walls.
She carried on desultory conversations with Kills Four, chief of the Snapping Turtle Clan, and joked amiably with the Bear Clan chief, Eight Scars. The Earth Moiety chiefs treated her, as always, with reserved respect. She may have known them for most of their lives—even been married to some for a while—but their relationship remained a wary thing. Over the years she’d exiled too many of their relatives to the colonies.
To her surprise she caught sight of the dwarf, and walked up behind him. “How’d you get in here?”
Flat Stone Pipe turned, grinning up at her. “I don’t take up much room, Keeper.” He waved a small hand with its stubby fingers. “A live Itza? Who would have thought? My matron will want a full report.”
“But how did you get in?”
He pointed. “Our new high chief, Burned Bone. I just happened to be in this part of the city when news came.”
She glanced at Matron Columella’s youngest brother. The young man had been recalled from a Trading expedition to fill the high chief’s position at Evening Star House.
“How’s he doing?”
“I think he’ll do, Keeper.”
“Give your matron my regards.”
“Of course. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.” He bowed his head, touching his forehead respectfully.
She kept throwing glances at the knot around Horn Lance and his Natchez companion where they stood before the entrance to the Morning Star’s palace. Everyone wanted to hear about the Itza lord. Yes, the Itza were really a people, and yes, one was coming here to see Cahokia for himself. The excitement was palpable.
For her part, Blue Heron had always assumed both the Maya and Toltec existed. That many stories didn’t just pop out of thin air. But the stunning reality that she was about to lay eyes on a living Itza was unsettling enough. That he was coming through the machinations of an ex-husband? A man whose honor and reputation she’d destroyed and whom she’d had banished? That cast the entire affair into a darker and more sinister light.
The Horn Lance she remembered—with greater clarity after an evening of avoiding him—had been a man with clever ambitions.
Which husband had she just divorced back then? Red Mask? No, that had been a couple of years earlier. And how many had come and gone between Red Mask and Horn Lance? Did it even matter anymore? She’d been young, hot-blooded, and always ready for a man to slip his shaft into her seemingly insatiable sheath.
Lost in her thoughts, hands behind her back, she paced the beaten grass.
“What? No greeting and hug?” the subject of her concerns asked as he appeared beside her.
She glanced at him, heart leaping. “You shouldn’t sneak up on a person like that.”
“Or you shouldn’t lock yourself in your head so deeply a man can just walk right up to you.”
“So, he pardoned you? It’s been what, almost twenty years?”
“And how Cahokia has changed in the meantime. A new, young Morning Star, and so much new construction! When I left the Great Plaza was still being leveled, filled, and graded. Today I find a grand plaza, huge new mounds and palaces, and people. People everywhere. And from all over.” He smiled condescendingly. “Maybe I had to come back. Just to see if the wild stories were true.”
“Cahokia has become the grandest city in the world.”
“Hardly,” he snorted. “Compared to the places I’ve seen, I find rude wooden buildings on piles of dirt. But it’s not worth discussing. You’d never believe the Itza, Putun, or Yucatec cities. The marvels they’ve constructed, and have been constructing, while our ancestors were living in huts.”
To change the subject, he said, “So, you’ve become Clan Keeper now? One of the most important women in Cahokia. I always thought you’d end up as matron.”
She gave him a slitted glare, seething at the condescension in his tone. “Was that why you sought me out way back then? Sniffing an opportunity, a tool to elevate yourself?”
Horn Lance had appeared ready, willing, and eager. He had been a good match, coming as he did from Horned Serpent House, and of impeccable Four Winds lineage, but separated far enough to avoid even the hint of incest.
“You had your enchantments.” He cocked his head, tilting the curious headdress.
Not only had he been charming, but he’d made a study of the female body and used that knowledge with remarkable skill the first night she had dragged him into her bed. The experience had been so exhilarating she hadn’t turned loose of him until past high sun the next day.
“And you, it turned out, had your faults,” she shot back. “We had only a moon or so of wedded bliss before I began to notice you were using your newfound preeminence for your own gain.”
He had started asking her for favors, particularly those that would advance his personal prospects and those of Horned Serpent House.
His mouth thinned, eyes hardening. “Let’s say you were in my position—a mere cousin with no chance for a chieftainship. Ambitious and crafty as you are, would you have been any different?”
“I was.” She gestured toward the city. “Look around you. See what we’ve built. After generations of squabbling feuds, after the mayhem of Tharon and Petaga’s civil wars, we’ve had decades of peace. And you know why? It’s because we’ve constantly weeded ourselves of troublemakers. People like you who would have brought the whole thing tumbling down into chaos for their own aggrandizement.”
He pursed his lips, fists knotting. “And what has that made you, Keeper? A worn-out old hag with an exalted position and a scattering of husbands left behind like beads from a broken string. Oh, I watched you just now. Joking and laughing with the Earth Clan chiefs and matrons? They put on a good show, don’t they? But you can see it in their eyes. They treat you like a water moccasin, a Powerful and deadly creature they must appease, but forever fear lest you strike out.”
He paused. “So, tell me, do you have any real friends? Anyone you can truly share yourself with? Or are you just a bitter old woman whose sole purpose is to ferret out plots?”
At his words, her heart skipped, a chill in her gut. Could she call anyone a friend? Her sister, perhaps. But even then they never talked of the commonplace, only the matters of state.
Smooth Pebble? Definitely not a confidant of the soul.
“Ah,” he said, watching his words hit home. “I see.”
“What of you, banished man? What great success have you made of your life? Come crawling home, dressed in fancy feathers, wearing an exotic breastplate. I assume you bought your pardon from the Morning Star, but you’re still wheedling your way into the presence of authority, still longing to be more than you are.”
He tapped the butterfly-shaped breastplate with a thumb. “This is the insignia of a warrior, presented to me by the Kukulkan. He’s a sort of priest and holy advisor to the Brotherhood Council. And while it may not mean anything to you, I have advised the sacred Brothers of the multepal. I have stood on the heights of ancient Tikal, walked the elevated stone causeways they call sacbe, followed in the steps of great lords the likes of which you cannot imagine.”
“And I serve a living miracle, the reincarnated Morning Star,” she replied.
“Is that what he is?”
“Meaning?”
Horn Lance bit off a knowing smile. “You cannot understand.”
“Try me.”
“Perhaps some other time. After Thirteen Sacred Jaguar arrives.” He paused. “You do know what a jaguar is, don’t you?”
“A big spotted cat. Like a cougar. They kill them occasionally in the south. My grandfather had a hide.”
“A cat,” he agreed. “And so much more.”
“Whatever you’re up to, I will stop you.”
“I expect nothing less. But then, given your charge to find the Little Sun’s murderer, it seems to me that you have enough to occupy yourself. Or are you immune from the wrath of your living god?”
Immune? She’d barely escaped the square as it was.
As if reading her thoughts, Horn Lance added, “Perhaps your position is more tenuous than you think. Don’t make a single mistake, Heron, because I’ll be waiting to give you that last shove that pushes you over the edge.”