Twenty-four

The fact that a couple of warriors were watching Night Shadow Star’s palace really annoyed Seven Skull Shield. And what did they think? That he was some three-fingered fool who’d just go tripping down the stairs and into their arms?

By Piasa’s hanging balls, no way. He and Farts had waited until after midnight, slipped out the dark doorway, skirted around to the back of the palace, and eased down the mound’s steep slope. In addition to being bundled in a mottled gray, completely unremarkable but very warm blanket, he carried a hemp-cord sack that dangled from a thin rope that secured its top. The contents he had carefully chosen from among the boxes of Night Shadow Star’s wealth as he helped replace the carelessly tossed items left by Blood Talon’s warriors.

For the time being, the problem of Willow Blossom was taken care of. She’d been awestruck at the notion that she could live in Night Shadow Star’s palace, safe from retribution from her husband, surrounded by wealth.

This hadn’t been approved of by the rest of the household staff, but they’d heard Night Shadow Star’s order.

“Look, it’s a simple fix to your problem,” Seven Skull Shield had told Green Stick. “You take care of Willow Blossom, keep her fed, happy, and safe, and I’ll stay gone and out of your hair.”

“Are you insane? We don’t know who this woman is. Only that her husband is hunting her. Why should we allow a stranger to just live in our lady’s palace?”

Seven Skull Shield had grinned. “You’re right. She might get lonely. Maybe I should leave Farts here, too. You know, company for Willow Blossom while I go about my business of—”

“No! You’re right! She’ll be no problem at all.”

Just thinking back on it had Seven Skull Shield grinning. As he trotted down the cold Avenue of the Sun, he told Farts, “See, that’s the thing about people. There’s always a lever, a way to manipulate them to your purpose.”

The big dog glanced up, darkness obscuring his blue-and-brown eyes, the tail lashing like a phantom in the night.

But that still left the problem: What to do about Spotted Wrist and Rising Flame.

“Sometimes I wish I could go back and sew my mouth shut,” Seven Skull Shield muttered into the night, his breath clouding around his head. “Pus and blood, who does that arrogant overfed excuse of a Keeper think he is? Sending warriors to kidnap Night Shadow Star? Then trash her palace? Flip through her things, paw around her bed?”

He made a face, admitting to the dog at his side, “Old Five Fists was right. I’m going to remember embarrassing that weasel-shafted Spotted Wrist for a long time. And there won’t be a person in that room who forgets it either.”

And that was a problem. It was one thing to embarrass an influential man like Spotted Wrist. More worrisome that he’d also showed up Rising Flame. And even more vexing and dangerous, everyone who’d been in that room had seen him do it. All nobles, Lords of Cahokia. Four Winds and Earth Clans chiefs.

Depending upon who demanded what, most of Cahokia would be hunting him within the next couple of days.

As always, he turned his steps toward Crazy Frog’s, finding himself in the gambler’s front yard as Mother Otter stepped out with a pot. The woman gave him a disgusted look as she emptied the contents of the brownware pot into the latrine behind the ramada.

“I could name a thousand disagreeable ways to begin a morning, like having the cramps or a bloody flux, or maybe a toothache, but no, there’s even worse afoot, and here it stands in my doorway.”

“Good morning, Mother! Assuming that you’ve come to your senses and want to leave that rather sketchy husband of yours, I’m ready at this very moment to steal away with you. Show you the way to true love.”

“The only thing I’d truly love is to see your burned, sliced, and twisted corpse in a square, thief. Stop where you are. And if that misbegotten beast you call a dog sets so much as a paw in my yard, I’m using a club to brain him. Then I’m feeding him to the crows, his meat being unfit for human consumption.”

Seven Skull Shield looked down at Farts. “You might want to linger out here by the road. Stay.”

As he took a step toward the house, Farts cheerfully leaped past, raised his leg, and peed on one of the ramada poles, wetting a roll of nearby blankets in the process.

“Foul four-legged beast!” Mother Otter cried in dismay. In her passion, she threw her pot at the dog, missed. It hit one of the hearthstones on the big central firepit. With a loud pock it shattered into a hundred shards.

Farts, having ducked as the pot sailed past his head, paused only long enough to lift his leg on a second post, and then ran as Mother Otter charged his way, her hands clawing at the air in an attempt to grab him.

Like a shot arrow, the big-boned dog was gone, stretched out with each leap, his floppy ears flapping like wings.

“Well, don’t blame me,” Seven Skull Shield told her thoughtfully. “I did tell him to stay.”

The woman, panting with either rage, exertion, or both, just glared, her fingers working. “If I could have just one wish, it would be your polished skull tied above the doorframe. I would look up, smile, wave at it on occasion. A simple reminder of how much nicer the world was without you in it.”

“I know you just say these things. It’s a way to convince yourself that staying with Crazy Frog is in the children’s best interest.” He gave her a wink. “It will be our secret.”

The look of wild rage slowly faded in her eyes. Then she shook her head. “You never cease to amaze me. Every time I think I have finally observed the most incomprehensible of human behaviors, you have the ability to prove me wrong.”

“I just need to see Crazy Frog. I have something to give him … unless, of course, you’d like to run off with me.”

“And you’d give it all up? For an older married woman who’s getting thick in the hips? I’ve just got to hear how even you could delude yourself into desiring me.”

Seven Skull Shield cocked his head. “If you could take all the things that make a woman and roll them into one individual, it would be you: strong, maternal, provocative, self-possessed, and competent. Makes you the end-all to womanhood.”

She shook her head, sighed as she stared at the shattered angular bits of her pot. “They should have hanged you in a square years ago. Go on. Around back. I’ll send him your way as soon as he has finished breakfast and had his fill of playing with the children. Meanwhile, I don’t want you standing around out here. Gives the place a bad name.”

“I meant it. I’d run away for you.”

“Go. Before I change my mind.” A pause. “And if I see that dog, I will beat his brains out of that oversized skull.”

Never one to squander an opportunity, Seven Skull Shield beat a hasty retreat across the yard, past the firepit, along the wall, and into the narrow passage created by Crazy Frog’s house and the warehouse next door. The space was a small triangular yard culminating at the thick-walled storehouse where Crazy Frog kept his wealth.

A burly Fish Clan man stood back in the shadows, his body wrapped in bear hide. A battered and well-used war club hung from one scarred hand. The look in the man’s cold eyes suggested that he’d never been burdened by a sense of humor.

“Mother Otter sent me back. Said she’d send Crazy Frog out as soon as he finished breakfast.”

“I know you. The thief, right? Heard that rope maker was looking for you. Says you warmed your shaft where you shouldn’t have been keeping it warm.”

“I am so misunderstood.”

“Said he’d give a coil of good basswood rope to whoever turned you over to him.”

“Your boss might not approve.” Why was someone always looking for him? Robin Feather, Spotted Wrist, Rising Flame? The list went on and on.

“Seven Skull Shield,” a voice called from the storehouse door. “It’s all right, Six Claw, let him pass.”

The Fish Clan man, Six Claw, gestured with his club. “Go on. Just be glad I serve Crazy Frog first and my own wants second.”

“Got to say, you’re everything I could never be.” Seven Skull Shield gave the man a touch of the chin in salute as he passed. Not only was humor beyond Six Claw, apparently so was irony.

Seven Skull Shield almost missed the shadowed form in the doorway. He was looking man-height. The dwarf had hands propped on his hips, then he turned and led the way in past the hanging and into the storehouse proper. Here another guard sat with his butt on an oversized carved box, war club ready to hand while the man cradled a cup of steaming hot tea. A mound of coals glowed red in a ceramic bowl set on the bit of dirt floor that wasn’t covered with large wooden boxes, ornate storage baskets, large seed jars, sacks of shell, a stack of copper sheets, and carefully folded textiles. Remarkable wooden carvings and beautifully tanned hides of deer, elk, panther, and bear were belittled by an imposing pile of hair-on buffalo hides in the rear.

Best of all, the place was warm. Seven Skull Shield sighed, bending down to extend his hands to the heat rising from the coals.

The dwarf clambered up onto one of the boxes where the rising warmth bathed his feet.

“Word is that you created quite the scene up in the Morning Star’s palace,” the dwarf noted, his keen eyes gleaming in the firelight.

“Good to see you, too, Flat Stone Pipe. How’s the matron doing?”

“She’s made the biggest gamble of her life. Despite River House’s efforts, either Blue Heron replaces all the food within a half moon—which solidifies Columella’s position—or she’ll be lucky to get away with her life. Me, had I been there when Blue Heron made her plea, I would have advised that Columella respectfully turn it down.”

“I heard that Wind and Five Fists backed it.”

“And against them are Spotted Wrist, Rising Flame, and North Star and Horned Serpent Houses, all of whom would like to see a change in the leadership at Evening Star House. They want someone not so cozy with those overentitled and arrogant rulers of Morning Star House. By backing Evening Star, Round Pot and War Duck could be thrown out of their palace any day now.”

“That would be bad. Old War Duck is about as crooked as a sassafras root, but at least we know his game.”

“To say that their canoe-loads of food came as a surprise is an understatement. My lady was stunned. This sudden thawing of relations is uncomfortable, to say the least.” As if it itched, Flat Stone Pipe rubbed his nose. “But what is this rumor that Night Shadow Star fled in the night?”

“In the light of day, actually. She wished to avoid an unwelcome marriage to the Hero of the North, and, I don’t doubt, having to be in charge of that traveling festival of an expedition. I caught the merest of whispers that somehow Walking Smoke is at the bottom of it.”

“Thought he was dead.”

Seven Skull Shield gave a shrug of the shoulders. “Maybe. If she’s off to kill him, I pray that Power bless her. I still have nightmares after what I saw in that burning palace. I wouldn’t mind gouging the man’s eyeballs out myself. And I’d make sure my thumbs were dirty when I did it.”

“I’d Trade a copper plate just to watch,” Flat Stone Pipe mused, eyes half-lidded. “Odd, but he put us on this path. Set events in motion that brought us to this.” A pause. “You know that Spotted Wrist and Rising Smoke are both after your hide? And then there’s the matter of Robin Feather. I do hope that you have that delightful creature he was married to hidden away somewhere safe.”

“I might.”

“Thief, you need to get a message to Blue Heron for me. Tell her that if she, Wind, and Five Fists can’t get those granaries refilled, it will all come tumbling down. First, they will destroy Columella, then War Duck and Round Pot. After them comes Blue Heron, whose position is already tenuous, and then Wind.”

“I know.”

At that moment, Crazy Frog slipped past the hanging. The gambler wore only a hunter’s shirt. He had a hair-on elk hide wrapped around his narrow shoulders. The man prided himself on looking nondescript and valued the ability to disappear in a crowd more than most nobles valued copper, spoonbill feathers, and seashells.

“Mother Otter said you were infesting my property like hornworms in a tobacco crop. What brings you this way? Or do I take it that I need to help sneak you out of Cahokia before either Robin Feather or Spotted Wrist can catch you?”

“Tempting,” Seven Skull Shield told him, “but I came to give you this.” He handed over the sack. “It’s not what we initially agreed upon but should be fair compensation.”

Crazy Frog loosened the rope tie, reached inside, and removed a huge shell cup made from a conch shell as long as his arm. “Where did you get this?”

“I have a source.”

“And the original items?”

“You have to trust me on this, they are in a much better place for the time being. That cup, however, should be fair compensation.”

“You’d better be right about this.”

“Oh, I think you’ll be mildly entertained by the use I put the original items to.”

Flat Stone Pipe was watching from his box, his gaze fixed thoughtfully on the impressively large cup. “Thief, whatever stakes you are playing for, I hope they’re worth your life.”

Seven Skull Shield gave him a ribald wink. “You and your lady aren’t the only ones playing a deep and dangerous game. Besides, I’ve got a bet with Meander. A big basket of shell is at stake. But either way, I win.”

“How’s that?” Crazy Frog studied Seven Skull Shield with suspicious eyes.

“If I win, he hands over a small fortune in shell. If I lose, I don’t have to worry about paying up.”

“Oh? Figure to just bilk him out of his winnings?”

“I’d never bilk anyone I liked. It’s just that it is very hard to get a basket of shell out of a dead man.”