Nothing in Seven Skull Shield’s life had prepared him to be a noble. Even if he could have seen himself, he wouldn’t have recognized the man who looked back. Clay String had painted his face white, then laid a thick black line from ear to ear over his eyes and the bridge of his nose. A red circle ran across his lips and under his jaw.
Seven Skull Shield worried that it made a perfect target for anyone who wanted to smack him on the chin.
His hair was greased, pulled into a bun so tight that it made his scalp hurt, and a wooden bundle box containing two scalp locks had been affixed to its front. The scalp locks, Clay String had told him reverently, had been taken by Night Shadow Star’s dead husband in mortal combat. She had asked Clay String specifically to honor Seven Skull Shield with their Spirit Power.
No one, ever, had bestowed such an honor upon him, let alone such a high-status individual as Night Shadow Star. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Uneasy, nervous, totally unworthy, and ready to reach down the Itza’s throat, grab a handful of lungs, and rip them out by the roots if the gaudy foreign fool so much as gave Night Shadow Star a disdainful sidelong look.
Nor did the transformation stop there. A fine cardinal-feather cloak lay over his shoulders, and a white hemp-fiber apron hung from a tightly folded cloth breechcloth. Its front had been embroidered with two turkeys facing each other on either side of a spiral-decorated World Tree pole.
White leather wrist guards and feathered ankle bands finished the ensemble.
“I wouldn’t believe it possible,” Blue Heron muttered as they climbed the broad stairway from the packed Grand Plaza. She kept looking back at him, only to shake her head and climb the next couple of steps toward the Council Terrace Gate.
Ahead of them, Night Shadow Star rode in her litter, its sides decorated with strings of sunflowers, lilies, honeysuckle, and morning glory. Her porters advanced in measured step, as though in a slow, orchestrated climb.
Behind her litter, Fire Cat, dressed in full battle armor, followed in his usual position. Seven Skull Shield hadn’t had time to so much as share a word with the Red Wing. But if the man’s expression were any indication of how he felt, he needed only an excuse to let loose with the copper-bitted war ax he carried.
The procession ascended another slow step.
Pus and blood, boys, get it over with. She’s dying inside, and all you’re doing is dragging it out.
He glanced down at the dog. The beast seemed totally unconcerned, looking this way and that, sniffing a slight westerly breeze that carried the musky odor of tens of thousands of human beings.
Atop her litter, however, Night Shadow Star looked as if she were carved of ancient wood. She sat unflinching, eyes forward, knees together, arms braced on the litter sides.
As the procession finally reached the top, the crowd below let out another thunderous roar.
The warriors standing guard at the top of the stairs dropped to one knee, bowing deeply and touching their foreheads in a sign of utmost respect.
Seven Skull Shield, tight on the Keeper’s heels, followed the party inside as if he’d been a noble all of his life. The dog didn’t know he was now on sacred ground.
“Keep your pus-rotted mouth shut,” the Keeper had warned him, shaking a finger under his nose in emphasis. “Remember that you’re there on Night Shadow Star’s sufferance. Don’t you dare embarrass me or the lady. Or, gods rot you, I’ll have your carcass hanging in a square so fast your blood will boil.”
Inside the gate every high chief, matron, and noble from the Four Winds Houses and the Earth Clans crowded the enclosure. Dressed in splendid finery and feathers, their faces painted to reflect their clans, most had chosen brightly colored clothing consisting of red for fertility, white for peace and contentment, and yellow as the symbol of new beginnings. Every form of hairdo could be seen, some elaborate, others subdued.
The ruling lords of Cahokia bowed their heads as Night Shadow Star’s litter was carried past. Their fingers rose respectfully to their foreheads. Only as they looked up did expressions of surprise fill their eyes. Night Shadow Star’s dark garb made an unmistakable statement. So did her tightly coiled hair pinned with copper arrows, and her face, painted light gray with the black tri-forked design of the Underworld surrounding her eyes. She looked less a bride and more an avenging Spirit from the darkest Underworld.
The sight created such a stir that only a few paid any heed to Seven Skull Shield as he walked along behind the Keeper. He kept his expression blank as puzzlement filled the eyes of the few who tried to place him. Then they gave the ugly beast at his heels another look before shaking their heads.
He waited while Night Shadow Star’s litter was placed under the ramada on the central dais usually occupied by Tonka’tzi Wind. Night Shadow Star remained still as a statue while chiefs and matrons crowded around, offering their congratulations. Her murmured acknowledgments were graciously polite, though remote.
Spit and fire, couldn’t the callous fools see she was dreading the whole affair?
Fire Cat had taken his position to the rear, his posture rigid, his face a mask of conflicting anger and distaste.
Seven Skull Shield surprised himself by actually feeling sorry for the man. Fire Cat’s arrogance had always been his worst feature. He constantly projected a self-important, overinflated superiority. The last of the Red Wing Clan, he liked to think of himself as honor incarnate, having vowed to serve his enemy. No doubt the fool had never allowed himself to consider that he might actually be in love with the woman.
Then he’d been skinned by that cocky Natchez Little Sun? Knowing full well the man had murdered his predecessor? That he was in bone-deep with the Itza who was marrying the woman he secretly longed for?
That had to sting like cactus thorns pulled sideways through the man’s souls.
Since Blue Heron was surrounded by Earth Clan nobles come to offer their well-wishes, Seven Skull Shield drifted back to the Council Terrace Gate and glanced out.
The Itza’s procession, led by its Natchez guard, was parting the huge crowd on the Avenue of the Sun as it rounded the Great Plaza’s northeast corner. The sight reminded Seven Skull Shield of a stick being pushed through debris-choked water as the crowd parted around the Itza party and flowed along beside it, only to remerge behind to trail in its wake.
Warriors in the plaza kept the multitudes from trampling the Morning Star’s sacred chunkey courts. Beyond the high World Tree pole in the plaza’s center, a massive stickball game was in progress. The way the teams moved hearkened back to schools of minnows, as players—one side in red, the other black—surged toward the eastern goal.
The society houses, temples, clan houses, and charnel mounds surrounding the Great Plaza seemed to float in a roiling sea of humanity. Seven Skull Shield could feel the Power of them: tens of thousands of human beings come to celebrate Lady Night Shadow Star’s wedding.
People would be talking about this day for the rest of their lives.
The Itza’s party was now climbing the stairs. First came the kukul standard, held high by an Itza warrior decked out in bright red, yellow, green, and blue. The snake totem with its gaping and fanged mouth glared out at the world though baleful green eyes of polished stone.
Atop his litter, and next in line, Thirteen Sacred Jaguar looked like a god himself; his dazzling and oversized headdress, topped with its iridescent feather plume, gave him an otherworldly appearance. His sloped face, protruding lips, and slanting forehead had been painted with a black spot on either cheek. Depending on how the light hit his quetzal-feather cloak, it shone in any combination of green, blue, silver, or purple. The remarkable colors of his apron and the feathered arm guards and exotic necklaces of blue and green stone beads had never been equaled in Cahokia.
Behind came Horn Lance wearing his red-macaw-feathered helmet and his Itza warrior’s armor. An exotically dressed woman climbed at his side, her face painted white with red sunbursts.
Then came the Natchez Little Sun, wearing the feathered finery of his people; the man climbed thoughtfully. And well he might. Nothing he’d ever seen among the Natchez or the southern Nations would have prepared him for the sea of humanity that washed up around the great mound.
Seven Skull Shield narrowed his eyes to slits as he studied the Little Sun. The man had dared to invade the Keeper’s personal quarters, and, by Piasa’s balls, he’d hit her hard enough to really hurt her. Nor was there any doubt that the sneaking little intestinal worm had murdered his predecessor.
Nothing about this entire situation smacked of any good.
At the foot of the stairs, the Itza warriors, led by the one called Red Copal, had stopped in a knot surrounded by the Natchez guard. They’d dressed in armor, carrying shields with curiously designed face decorations. Some kind of cased long weapons were carefully rested on their shoulders.
Word was that they would fight Cahokia’s finest warriors atop the tonka’tzi’s newly recapped mound. Combat to the death? To celebrate a wedding? Unheard-of. And Hunga Ahuito help the luckless Itza who had to face the deadliest of Cahokia’s skilled killers.
The people, however, had gone giddy in anticipation. Food, dancing, games, and celebration were one thing. Blood sport? That was the sweet nectar atop the corn cakes!
Seven Skull Shield stepped back as the kukul bearer marched the standard through the gate. Then the porters had to duck slightly lest the high plume atop the Itza’s intricately ornate mask rake the lintel.
Murmuring ran through Cahokia’s nobility as they made way for the procession.
Seven Skull Shield couldn’t help but grin to himself. It wasn’t just every day that Cahokia’s mightiest were awed by pageantry. It was a good lesson for the over stuffed—
He stopped short, heart skipping as he recognized the woman accompanying Horn Lance: Wooden Doll! Dressed like he’d never seen her before. Her face was perfectly painted, the wealth of her raven hair in a forward bun held in place by a stunning white-swan-feather splay. Her languid walk, hips undulating with each long-legged step, drew the eye of every man and half of the women; they whispered to each other, wondering at her identity.
To her credit, Wooden Doll acted oblivious, leaning toward Horn Lance to subtly indicate certain high chiefs like old one-eyed War Duck and Matron Round Pot from River Mounds House, Kills Four of the Snapping Turtle Clan, and Matron Red Temple of the Fish Clan. As she did she’d whisper additional information to Horn Lance.
“You know that woman?” Blue Heron asked, appearing at his shoulder.
“Wooden Doll,” he almost whispered. “But … with him?”
“Ah, your paid woman. But I’m left to wonder: Why would he bring her here? What’s his game?”
Seven Skull Shield reached up to rub his jaw, realized his face was painted, and barely avoided smearing his red circle. “She’s acting as his guide to the high and mighty, pointing out the chiefs. Explaining to him who they are and why they are important.”
“Surely they don’t all patronize her.”
“You’d be surprised, Keeper, but no, they all don’t. Some, however, do. So do those who serve them, and those who deal with them. And Keeper, just because Wooden Doll is a paid woman, only a fool would underestimate her wits, or what she commits to memory.”
“She’s a most attractive woman,” Blue Heron noted. “She’s almost as much a sensation as the Itza. When you get the chance, thief, I’d like to make her acquaintance.”
And with that she fixed her eyes on where the Itza’s litter was being placed on the dais beside Night Shadow Star’s. Neither of them appeared to be happy. Both kept their stares fixed forward, faces like graven stone, though the Itza’s eyes seemed unfocused and dreamy.
“Oh, happy day,” Seven Skull Shield muttered, seeing the corpulent Green Chunkey nodding as Horn Lance bowed respectfully before his clan chief. The two had walked off, leaving Wooden Doll standing chastely, her hands interlaced before her.
Taking the opportunity, Seven Skull Shield stepped up beside Wooden Doll, his heart in his throat as he said, “Every woman here is diminished by your presence.”
He surreptitiously kicked the dog back when the mongrel extended its blocky nose to sniff at Wooden Doll’s leg.
Startled, she turned, eyes flashing wide with recognition. “Skull? What are you doing here?” She glanced around in sudden panic. “Pus and blood, whatever you’re planning to steal, it’s not worth it! These people know each other. Dressed like a noble or not, someone’s going to ask, ‘Who’s he?’ and you’re going to—”
“Shhh.” He fought the urge to raise a finger to her reddened lips. “I’m not here to steal anything. Lady Night Shadow Star herself had me decked out like this. But your concern touches me.”
Her dismay quickly shifted, a rapid calculation now reflected in her dark gaze. “So … you’re a step deeper into Morning Star House’s deadly swamp?” A pause. “You worry me.”
“And you worry me.” He inclined his head to where Horn Lance was being introduced to High Chief Thin Otter of the Raccoon Clan. “Serving him? He’s the enemy.”
“He’s the Itza’s second … and he pays well.”
“Listen to me, he’s in deep. You remember that cloak? The murder of the Natchez Little Sun? That was just the beginning. There’s a catastrophe brewing here, and Horn Lance is the one throwing oil onto the fire. He’s going to lose.”
Her lips had tightened in that old familiar way. “Don’t bet on that, Skull. You should hear the stories he tells. Our world is about to change forever. This marriage today? It’s the first step in building a relationship with the Itza. Horn Lance sees it as a way of binding the world together. In his words, ‘extending a mighty net of Trade and alliance from Cahokia to Chichen Itza and pulling them tight.’” She paused, a slight frown on her face. “But … I thought you were his friend. He’s asked me a great deal about you.”
“He’s using you.”
“And the Keeper’s using you. Makes us even in a curious sort of way.”
“Please, don’t do this. He’s danger—”
“Ah, Wooden Doll,” Horn Lance asked as he appeared at Seven Skull Shield’s side, “which young lord is this?”
Before she could respond, Seven Skull Shield told him, “Seriously, you’d ask? Figured you’d know, given what you’re paying to have me captured, beaten, and tortured. I’m Seven Skull Shield, high chief of thieves and scoundrels, you sack of bleeding pus.”
Wooden Doll’s expression had frozen, her back stiffening.
“Ah.” Horn Lance smiled grimly. “Should I simply bide my time, or call out that a common thief has slipped past the guards and watch you thrown down the steps?”
“Call out,” Blue Heron interjected as she stepped between Seven Skull Shield and Horn Lance. “Please do. Since Seven Skull Shield is my niece’s guest, the insult might be just enough to stop this farcical marriage. At the very least, it will provide the most sensational fodder for future conversations, don’t you think?”
For long moments the two stared their hatred at each other. Seven Skull Shield shot Wooden Doll a sidelong glance of warning.
Apparently she was way ahead of him, her expression blank, head slightly turned as if unaware of the drama.
“Our time will come, my old love,” Horn Lance whispered softly.
“Until then, perhaps you and Seven Skull Shield should get to know each other. You might withdraw your reward to have him captured as a way to get at me. It might do you good to meet a man with actual integrity.”
She placed a hand on Wooden Doll’s arm. “And while these men get acquainted, let’s wander off for a talk. I’ve heard a great deal about you, and to be honest, I’m curious to know what kind of woman Seven Skull Shield thinks so highly of.”
To the average eye, Wooden Doll’s expression might have appeared composed. Only through his years of intimate association did Seven Skull Shield know how terrified she was as she inclined her head, saying, “You do me great honor, Keeper.”
Seven Skull Shield kept his eyes locked on Horn Lance’s as Blue Heron led Wooden Doll away. “If you harm that woman in any way, by Piasa’s blood and fury, I’m going to—”
“The threats of a two-footed piece of trash like you are meaningless.” Horn Lance smiled. “Enjoy your afternoon of playing high lord, you clanless fool. I’ve taken everything you thought you had: your woman, your freedom, your friends, and next I’ll destroy your beloved Morning Star House. You’re a bunch of pathetic fools, all of you. You’ve already lost, and you don’t even know it.”
Seven Skull Shield heard the low growl, and looked down to see the dog, hackles raised as he lifted his lip in Horn Lance’s direction.
“Don’t waste the effort to bite him, dog. He’s just rotten meat.” To Horn Lance, he added, “Keep right on thinking you’ve won, piss head. It’ll make it hurt all the worse when I finally break you down and snap you in two.”
Throwing his head back, Horn Lance broke into mocking laughter. He muttered “Pathetic idiot” as he walked away.