The moon cast an iridescent silver rime around the clouds, accenting their black bodies as they rode in clotted masses across the night sky. Only the brightest of the stars sprinkled in the open patches. For the moment, Horn Lance’s way was moonlit as his porters followed two guides carrying lit torches.
He’d been on the road since midday, his porters trotting west along the Avenue of the Sun behind a Natchez escort. Cutting through River Mounds City, he’d arrived at the canoe landing just after sunset. There one of the Trade canoes was hauled down to the water, and he and his party were paddled across the churning, rippling Father Water to the western bank.
The guides had been waiting to lead the way as his litter was unloaded. Borne up the bluff trail, Horn Lance had been led past the guardian posts to the Evening Star Town plaza, across its corner, and past a conical charnel mound, a cluster of society houses, and to this narrow avenue.
The torch bearers slowed before a large trench-wall structure with a low, split-cane roof, one calling, “Master?”
“Here,” a voice returned, and Flat Stone Pipe stepped out from the shadowed entrance of what looked like a warehouse.
“Set me down,” Horn Lance ordered.
He stretched and rose as the litter touched the ground. At that moment the moon’s ghostly white face vanished behind a raft of inky clouds.
“How was your journey, Lord?” Flat Stone Pipe asked.
“Hot and sweaty for the first part, hot and muggy for the second. By crossing the river after dark, we should have left any spies behind. No one knows I’m here. Is everything in order?”
“It is, Lord Horn Lance. The Lady Columella sends you her greetings and salutations.”
“I rather thought she might meet me in person.”
“She considered it more prudent to welcome the high chief and her children, nieces, and nephews on their homecoming from a pilgrimage to the Underworld caves. Fewer questions that way.”
“Well, let’s get this over with.”
“This way, Lord Horn Lance.” The little man was barely visible in the low flicker of the torches; the pitch was nearly consumed.
Horn Lance waited while the two guides lifted a plank door to one side, and as the torches guttered, he was led inside.
A small fire snapped and crackled in a puddled-clay hearth. Its illumination cast the room in flickering yellow, but the place was sweltering. Around him were bales, sacks, boxes, and ceramic jars. Some were filled with corn, dried roots, coils of fiber, and the other basics of Trade. Others were sealed, their contents unknown.
In the center of the room, behind the fire, stood a wooden frame consisting of two upright posts sunk into the floor, a top crosspiece, and a second crosspiece lashed across the bottom to make a large wooden square. Inside it hung a brawny naked man, wrists bound to the upper corners, feet lashed on either side at the bottom.
Horn Lance smiled in anticipation as he walked forward. Reaching out with a hand, he wrapped it in loose hair and lifted the hanging head.
The man’s face was thickly caked with dried blood, the nose swollen and plugged with black clots. The cheeks were puffed out, as if swollen. Then the eyes blinked, swimming into focus as they stared into Horn Lance’s.
“Hello, Seven Skull Shield.”
The hanging man showed no reaction.
“What? No witty reply? No threats?”
Silence.
“You know, you never really had a chance.”
“What are you going to do to me?” the thief finally asked through stained and dry lips.
“Me? Nothing. I couldn’t care less. I just needed you out of the way. Another preoccupation adding to Blue Heron’s worries.” He shook his head in amazement. “It still amazes me. I’d have never believed she was capable of friendship of any kind, let alone caring for a worthless bit of two-footed flotsam like you.”
He glanced down at the thief’s unusual endowment. “Or perhaps I do understand. She was always a hot-blooded thing under the covers. She’d have ached to ride a lance like that. I even heard that she called you ‘Tow Rope’ out of admiration.”
He paused before adding, “Such a pity. My suspicion is that Columella, or the dwarf here, will be burning that remarkable shaft of yours into ash over the next couple of days.”
“Why are you here?” the thief rasped.
“Actually this is just a quick side trip. A chance to gloat. I’m on the way to visit an old friend of yours—the lovely Wooden Doll.” He gestured at Seven Skull Shield’s hanging pride. “Another woman who will never sigh as you slip your rod inside. I suppose she’ll ask about you, but I can tell her honestly that neither I, nor my people, have you.”
“Leave her alone,” the thief said through a dry swallow. “You’re just using her.”
“Of course I am.” He leaned close, placing his lips next to the thief’s ear. “I’ll have plenty of witnesses to verify that I spent a pleasant night sliding my shaft in and out of her delicious sheath.”
“You seem to have an unhealthy preoccupation with that subject.”
“It’s not about coupling,” Horn Lance whispered so that only the thief could hear. “I needed to be somewhere else while Swirling Cloud slipped poison into the Keeper’s stew. It’s a bit of root from deep in the Itza forests. People just die. Best of all, your Rides-the-Lightning won’t have a clue.”
The thief puckered and spat, more a statement than an act since his dry mouth evidently couldn’t conjure the spit.
Horn Lance chuckled in amusement. “You’ve lost, thief. Night Shadow Star’s floating in a mist spun by mushrooms. The Itza is preaching to rapt crowds. The kukul’s Power is filtering like a haze through Cahokia’s warrens. Your Morning Star is about to be exposed for the fraud he is, and replaced by a god king backed by Itza wealth. Blue Heron gone today. Tonka’tzi Wind a couple days after that? It’s just like the Natchez all over again.”
“There’s something else,” Seven Skull Shield whispered.
“What’s that?” Horn Lance leaned his head close to hear.
The thief bucked with unanticipated vigor, slinging his head sideways. The man’s skull hit Horn Lance’s with enough energy to drive lights through his vision. He staggered in pain and surprise. Barely caught his balance before tumbling backward into the fire.
In anger, he backed a step. Bracing himself, he swung his right leg and kicked the thief in the crotch with everything he had.
Seven Skull Shield bucked and strained against the bindings. The wooden frame creaked. A rattling came from the thief’s lungs as he sucked for air. For a moment it seemed the square would crack and collapse.
Horn Lance turned. To Flat Stone Pipe he said, “I don’t care what you do to him—just make it last for as long as you can.”
“Of course, Lord Horn Lance. My matron would expect nothing else.”