Eighty-six

The crickets were making a racket, as loud in the hot and muggy night as Willow Blossom had ever heard them. She rode in splendor on her litter, lounging as her porters trotted up the avenue that ran along the base of Morning Star’s mound. She wore an intricate lace veil—the delicate crochet made from finely combed cottonwood fluff. The thing was a masterwork, had taken years of detailed craftsmanship and could have been Traded for a fortune at the canoe landing.

Fortunately, it had been a gift from Spotted Wrist. One she particularly valued because from here on, appearance was everything. “And it keeps me from being pestered by these hideous mosquitoes.”

That was the thing about traveling at night. The nasty little bloodsuckers weren’t as bad in the heat of the day—then it was the flies that were the nuisance—but at night? When it was cool, they came in swarming clouds.

Knowing the way, her porters veered off, passing between the Panther Clan Council House and a copper workshop, winding their way back through a section of smaller Four Winds palaces belonging to a not-so-well-to-do lineage—distant cousins to the tonka’tzi—and finally to her own modest dwelling.

She was carefully lowered to the ground, rose on her own, and said, “That will be all.”

“Thank you, lady,” her head porter replied, touching his chin. She reveled in the gesture, usually reserved only for nobility.

As they vanished into the night, she stepped up onto her veranda: a sign of her newfound fortune, constructed as it was with split planks. She undid her door and entered the dark house, stepping down to the subterranean floor.

It wasn’t much, just a single room, earth-banked trench-wall construction with wall-bench beds and a split-cane roof. But it was hers. And it would do for the time being.

Some things, however, still had to be dealt with personally. She wasn’t wealthy enough to Trade for a good slave. That, like all things, would come.

She bent down, fished for the stick she kept by the hearth, and used it to dig around in the ash until she found a glowing coal. Then another.

Using shredded juniper bark as tinder, she blew, watched it catch, and added kindling until the fire was a leaping tongue of flame. Adding a bundle of twigs ensured it would ignite the two short sections of oak branch she placed on top.

Clapping her hands to clean them of ash, she straightened, and froze. Her heart skipped, breath caught with sudden fear.

“Who are you?”

“A visitor,” the woman said.

She was seated in the dark corner, back to the wall. In the growing light, Willow Blossom could make out that she was tall, very well formed, her hair up in a bun and pinned with polished copper skewers in the form of feathers. The fire barely did justice to the colored lines of feathers that ran down the back of her exquisite cape. The woman’s skirt was a gauzy thing, intricately embroidered, and worth a fortune in Trade.

“You’re in my house.”

“So, you’re observant as well as talented.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a businesswoman, as are you. I work in the same profession. Men pay me for my body’s talents. They pay me very well.”

“I am not a paid woman!” She felt the hot flush of anger overcome her fear.

“Indeed? Your litter just dropped you off from an evening of servicing the Keeper. I’ve been through your little jar, found the herbs you use to keep from conceiving, the menstrual blood–covered knot you sleep over. You don’t have much, but what you do is quality. The bedding—for those instances should he ever come here—is kept separate from what you normally sleep in, the oversized sleeping bench, even the fact that he gave you this house for your service is pretty much a dead giveaway.”

“If you think Spotted Wrist would give a woman a house just for milking his shaft, you don’t know a thing about him.”

“Ah, that was for turning the thief over to him, wasn’t it?”

“Who are you? What do you want?”

The fire was leaping now, filling the room with light. Willow Blossom watched the woman rise, the action stately, somehow reminiscent of smoke lifting, so fluid was she.

She stepped over, head cocked.

Willow Blossom drew herself up to her full height, still having to look up into the woman’s midnight eyes. “I said, what do you want?”

“Yes, I see,” the woman mused. “You are very beautiful, good breasts, that narrow waist. Given your background, I’ll bet you’re still learning the arts your sheath is capable of. But the thief would have taught you a lot about that.”

“Why do you keep going back to that thief? What do you want from me?”

“I have a professional question. When you work them, do you feel anything for them? Any fondness, any delight in their company?”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s just a means to an end, isn’t he? A job. Like shucking corn. I’ll bet you even consider it something that has to be endured. An unpleasant reality. No love, no hate, no human connection. Men are just objects to be manipulated.”

“Oh, I get it. Is that a paid woman thing? Listen, it’s the only way to the finer things in life.”

“Along with the occasional betrayal of someone who makes the mistake of caring for you.” She gestured at the surrounding walls. “Especially if it will get you a house. I should have been so lucky.”

“Maybe I’m just better at this than you are.”

“Maybe you are. Tell me, would you assassinate the Keeper? For the right price, of course.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I’ll give you a stack of copper plate as high as your knee.”

Willow Blossom hesitated, tried to understand if the woman was serious, sensing some trap. Pus and blood, Spotted Wrist hadn’t sent her, had he? Best to be safe. “No.”

“Is it because you care for the Keeper?”

At that she laughed. “He’s old enough to be my grandfather. Did he send you?”

“He would be most upset to know that I, of all people, was talking to you.”

And then it made sense. She had been in his bed, too. “Oh, jealous, huh? Afraid I’ll take your precious Keeper? Well, you’d better be very good with that sheath of yours, because I’m going to be the perfect woman. Wind him up tight and make him think I’m the end of his Dreams.”

She enlarged her eyes, adopted her adoring expression, parted her lips in anticipation, and expanded her chest so her breasts rose as she took small breaths to make them rise and fall.

The woman’s smile was knowing, somehow sad. “A stack of copper plate, and I’ll even throw in an Itza blanket. You do know who the Itza are, right? All you have to do is drop a potion into the Keeper’s tea.”

“Get out of here. You don’t have anything I’d want. But something tells me Spotted Wrist is going to be very interested in knowing you’re trying to kill him.”

“Seriously? You don’t care about the man. All you want him for is what you can use him to get. And I’ll make you rich.”

“Not as rich as he will.” Willow Blossom walked to the door. “You want to give me your name so it’s easy for the Keeper’s warriors to run you down, or do you want to make it hard for them?”

“I’m all for easy,” the woman said, starting to step past her for the door.

The movement was low, quick, barely caught from the corner of Willow Blossom’s eye. The sting, lancing deep and up just under her ribs, could be felt right through her lungs, excruciating. She could feel the thing as it speared her heart, felt her chest quiver as each heartbeat wiggled it in her flesh.

She tried to scream, her mouth agape. Pain filled her chest, heavy, pulsing. Breath wouldn’t come.

She was staring into the woman’s eyes. Practiced, the woman caught Willow Blossom’s weight, turned her, eased her onto the closest bench.

“You could have made a fortune,” the woman told her. “You had the body, the raw talent. You even had the heartless part right, but to be a success in this business, you have to be smart enough to know when a better offer comes along. Had you, I might have forgiven what you did to Skull.”

The smile was back, somewhat wistful this time, and then she said, “Or perhaps not.”

Willow Blossom’s body twitched and shivered as the long deer-bone stiletto was pulled out of her chest. The eeriest feeling she’d ever known, that bone sliding out.

She blinked.

The woman had disappeared.

She ran a hand to the wound, felt the hot blood bubbling out as she struggled to catch her breath.

The room kept growing darker and darker, her fire now dim, fading. A final spot of light in an encompassing …