In Zuangua, doubt held no purchase, but she recognized by the flicker of his eyes that he had not expected her to meet his challenge.
“Are you finished?” she asked him. The infant stirred, smacking and searching, and without breaking her gaze from his she helped it find the nipple. Its suck calmed her.
He said nothing.
“War will come soon,” she continued, still looking at Zuangua. “Today, it comes.”
“Have you seen this in a vision, Feather Cloak?” asked Eldest Uncle.
“I do not need sorcery to see what stands right before my eyes. Choose now, councillors. I can argue one way, but my voice will soon be drowned out.”
“Five,” said Zuangua.
Abruptly he broke the gaze, gestured to his followers, and vanished up the tunnel leading to the entrance.
“Five objections,” commented Green Skirt with the sardonic tone mastered only by women who have reached a certain age. “Did he speak ‘five’? And leave the words unsaid? Or were we meant to understand him by his actions?”
White Feather sighed as she rocked her baby in her arms, the child fussing, getting hungry. “I do not remember the days before, except in the stories told by the grandparents. Now it seems I am sick of hearing about them. The land in exile is the one I know. Yet I am glad we have come home.” She patted the child’s back, and it murmured baby syllables, content to be held. The older girl had opened her eyes, gaze fixed on the woman who was now her mother.
“Everything has changed,” said Feather Cloak. “It must, and it will. But the qualities and objects we valued in exile will not be valued here on Earth. As one strand straightens, so twists the other. That is the way of the world.”
They nodded. Eldest Uncle regarded her with a fond smile, Green Skirt with the savor of regret. White Feather wore an exasperated frown and Skull Earrings looked tired, jowls drooping in the fashion of men who have finally hit their decline. The others sighed and murmured soft words meant to cheer her, but no one sounded cheerful. Above, wind moaned through the hole, and roots stirred as dust danced in the changeable light.
“I have one more question,” she said as they looked at her. “What happened to the last of the blood knives?”
At first there was silence, a form of speaking measured only by gazes shifting between them, words left unspoken. At length White Feather’s lips twitched in that flutter smile that suggested a grim sort of laughter, or a laughing kind of anger, or maybe a joke.
“We were very hungry,” she said, “so we ate them.”
3
FIVE days only, hardly any time at all. The horn was blown to summon a council at which Feather Cloak must preside.
Kansi-a-lari entered the underground chamber accompanied by bells and by Zuangua and a dozen of his adherents. Behind them, remarkably, walked the joined forces of Cat Mask and Lizard Mask. Many, warriors and craftsmen, female and male alike, walked in via the tunnel to stand in the cavernous council grounds facing the Eagle Seat where Feather Cloak presided. Blood knives huddled in clusters. More people waited outside who had walked all the way from their scattered settlements and newly populated towns. The cavern was jammed to bursting and could fit no more than those standing shoulder to shoulder. All had, of course, left their weapons outside, according to the law.
All but one.
Kansi-a-lari strode forward with a stone-tipped spear in her right hand. She halted five paces from the Eagle Seat, set the haft against the ground, and raised her left hand toward the ceiling and the distant sky, visible through the jagged gap in the roof. Dust motes painted the air with a red-gold haze.
“Say what you have to say,” said Feather Cloak, repeating the ritual words.
“I challenge your right to sit on the Eagle Seat and preside over the councils of our people,” said The Impatient One. “In the past six turnings of the moon we have rested and made offerings of our own blood. We have planted our fields. We have built and repaired our houses. We have numbered our craftsmen and our warriors and made an accounting of spears and swords. We must strike while humankind struggles.”
“They outnumber us,” said Feather Cloak.
“Yes! We must strike first, and swiftly.”
“Just as you have done today.”
Kansi glanced back at Zuangua, who shook his head, looking impatient and bored. “We have waited long enough,” Kansi-a-lari said. “We have waited too long!”
Like her uncle, The Impatient One attracted the eye. Hers was the beauty of the jaguar, deadly and fascinating. She prowled among men, and few had the strength of will to resist her. With women, though, Kansi-a-lari behaved differently, knowing she could not sway them with a hard stare or a provocative hand placed on her hip. She liked men better, because she found them easier to control.
“If we strike,” Feather Cloak asked, “to what purpose do our warriors fight and die?”
“To test the strength of humankind. I have sent scouts east and west. West is wasteland, but there is a great city northeast of here that we may profitably strike. They are rebuilding. They will not be ready for us.”
“So you have said, but what do you intend?”
“Kill those who resist. Bring worthy captives home to offer to the gods. Fill our storehouses with their grain and their treasures. Set in place a governor to rule their farmers and merchants. That way their taxes will serve us, not our enemies.”
Feather Cloak waited while the assembly discussed this proposition in low voices, among themselves, all the blood knives who remind silent, as if they had already known what she was going to say. In the cavern, no wind blew, and despite the cool weather it had gotten stuffy. The great golden wheel of the assembly, resting behind her, remained still. Only in the wind did it turn. In this way it represented the people: each discrete emerald feather was visible at rest, but when in motion the many individual parts blended to become one bright whole, indivisible to the eye’s sight.
She sighed, seeing that she must speak although she knew it would do no good. “So soon you will press past the White Road? It is better to rebuild our own cities and till our own fields until our feet are firmly planted in the roots of this Earth.”
Kansi-a-lari shrugged. “Human slaves can plant and build for us. With their labor, we leave more of our own people free to fight. So it was done in the days before.”
“In the days before,” said Feather Cloak, knowing her words clipped and short and irritated and knowing as well that to show annoyance was to weaken her own argument, “we made enemies who worked in concert to cast us out of Earth entirely! Have we learned nothing from the past?”
“Yes!” Kansi had that jaguar’s grin that made men wonder and sweat. “They hate us. They fear us. But we have to learned to strike while they are weakened so they cannot attack us again! It is time to leave the ways of exile behind and embrace what is ours, this world we were sundered from for so long!”
“No. It is too soon. Let the young ones grow. Let us rebuild and make ourselves strong first.”
Kansi turned in a circle, marking each person standing in the council chamber: the elders and the younger leaders, the warriors and the craftsmen, those born in exile and those so recently returned from the limbo of the shadows. The blood knives watched her hungrily.
“I have walked among humankind, those who live in these days, not the ones you remember from the past. I was born in exile, but I have not waited in exile and lost my spirit and my anger.”
Eldest Uncle tugged on an ear, perhaps only to hide his irritation with his only child.
“Do you insult us, who have endured exile with you?” demanded White Feather.
“I say what I have to say. Listen! I have seen that humankind cannot be trusted. Especially not those who call themselves the mathematici. They are the ones who know the secret of the crowns. They are the ones who could harm us again. Therefore: strike now! If she who sits as Feather Cloak will not lead us, then I will.”
Among the warriors came
a general stamping of feet and pounding of spear butts on the ground, but Feather Cloak shushed this rumble by raising a hand.
White Feather stepped forward. They had prepared for this.
“I say what I have to say!” White Feather displayed Feather Cloak’s twin daughters, one in each arm. Their black hair peeped out of the striped cloth wrapped around those plump baby bodies. The little ones were alert, watchful, quiet. “Those of you who walked in the shadows do not truly understand what became of this land in exile. We endured a great drought. Of water. Of life. We died! The carcasses of our mothers and aunts and fathers and uncles littered the land because none had the strength to send them to the gods!”
She swept her gaze around the chamber, challenging any to interrupt her. None did. “Know this! Feather Cloak bore a son and now twin daughters, although most of our people became barren. Even The Impatient One had to couple with a man born of humankind in order to conceive a son!”
“Done at the urging of the council!” cried Cat Mask, out of turn. “Not out of lust for power!”
“Do not throw sharp words at me, young one!” said White Feather. She was old enough to be his aunt, and he frowned, head twitching sideways just once, as he suppressed his annoyance. “We must not ignore how powerful Feather Cloak’s magic is, that she retained her fertility when the rest of us ran dry. There is wisdom in choosing as leaders those who seek life, not death.” She stepped one pace back. “I am done speaking.”
Kansi-a-lari smiled.
Feather Cloak felt a cold current in her blood as at ice released into a summer stream. That was a predator’s smile, having seen that its prey is now cornered.
“I have no argument against White Feather. Feather Cloak’s magic and power served us well in exile. But we do not stand in exile any longer. I say what I have to say: I have walked in both worlds. Humankind is a threat. They outnumber us. We must move swiftly or be overrun. Our sorcery is stronger than theirs. I battled their strongest warrior, and I defeated him because I possess magic and he had only brute force. Our scouts suggest there is great destruction in their land. If they are in disorder, leaderless, and struggling to rebuild, even to survive, then now is our best chance. We may not get another.”
Feather Cloak stood. The heavy feather cloak fastened over her shoulders spilled around her body, whispering in the tones of conspirators. She had regained her physical strength since the birth of her daughters, but as she faced her rival she knew that The Impatient One had chosen the right time to attack. Her resolve still suffered. She had not yet adjusted to what it meant to be home, on Earth, a place she knew only in story.
She raised both palms. The assembly stilled, not even a foot shifting on dirt, not even a hand scratching an arm. She still had that power.
“Let it be put to the vote,” she said coolly. “Let each household delegate a speaker to cast their stone into the black basket or the white, as the gods decreed at the beginning of time. The assembly will meet on an auspicious day as chosen by the blood knives, at the Heart-of-the-World’s-Beginning. I have spoken.”
4
ANNA tasted dry grass as they rode through an archway of light into dawn. Chaff coated her moist lips. A smear of red lit hills and she stared, wondering what that light might signify.
“The sun!” murmured scarred John, who rode ahead of her. As her ears cleared, popping, she heard the other soldiers exclaiming at their first glimpse of the sun in months. Above, clouds obscured the night sky, but the eastern dawn rose with a startling glow as though the far hills were on fire.
Blessing snorted and, kicking, came awake. “Put me down!”
Anna twisted. “Your Highness! I pray you! Keep still, Your Highness! I am with you.”
“Don’t fight,” said the one called Frigo, getting hold of the girl’s ear and pinching.
She shrieked, a sound that ought to have woken the dead and certainly made every man there clap a hand over an ear as she sucked in air to shriek again. Without the slightest expression of anger or pleasure, Frigo tweaked her ear a little farther and she subsided into coughing and mewling. He let go, and she stayed quiet.
The archway of light sprayed fountains of sparks as Lord Hugh strode out of the circle of stones. Twilight shrouded him, but it was lightening quickly. He counted his party, nine soldiers and two prisoners, before turning to survey the crown. It had ten stones standing in eerily perfect order, as if recently raised.
“Where are we, my lord?” asked Frigo as Blessing sucked on her little finger and stared at Hugh with a look meant to slay.
“According to my map, we are many days east and somewhat north of Darre, but south of the latitude of Novomo.” He consulted his memory; Anna could tell by the way his gaze went vacant as though he were looking at something inside himself. “‘Four leagues beyond Siliga, eleven stones.”’
He marked each stone and gestured toward a vast tangle of bramble that lay a stone’s toss east of the circle just where the hillside had collapsed. Beyond, the land sloped down into a coastal plain. Anna thought she could see water to the south beyond a desiccated landscape of pale grass and stands of paler bush, which were almost white, like stalks of slender finger bones.
“There must be a stone there,” Hugh said.
Scarred John dismounted to investigate. The presbyter lifted the golden disk. He fussed with it, moving one circle on top of another, turned a crooked bar on the back, sighted toward the eastern horizon, read—lips moving—from the back, then shook his head. After this, he fished in the pack he wore, withdrew a square of waxed canvas, wrapped the disk up inside, and returned it to the pouch.
“Are we lost, my lord?” asked Frigo.
“I hope so,” muttered Blessing.
“My lord! There is a stone under these brambles!” shouted John, withdrawing his spear from the mass of vines and thorns.
“We are not lost,” said Hugh. “We are exactly where I hoped to be. I only wish to know what day. According to my earlier calculations we should have lost three days in the passage. Yet I can’t be sure. So be it. From here we ride east.”
They nodded.
“Where are we going?” Blessing demanded.
Hugh looked at her, nothing more. Anna shivered, not liking the weight of his gaze. He was capable of anything. Blessing hadn’t seen Elene murdered. Better, for now, not to mention it to the girl. It was hard to know how Blessing would react.
“Let me be precise,” Hugh continued, catching each man’s gaze to make sure he had their attention. “We will be pursued.”
“My lord,” said John, “if we’ve come so far as you say, how can any catch up to us?”
“I do not fear human pursuit.” Hugh smiled patiently, as though he had heard this question a hundred times and would happily answer it a hundred more times without losing his temper. His amiable demeanor was what scared Anna most about him. “When the alarm is raised, you must retreat immediately within the circle. I cannot protect those who remain outside.” He nodded to one of the other men, a sturdy fellow with broad shoulders and spatulate hands. “It is then that we rely on you, Theodore. We have but one arrow for each man in the party.”
Theodore nodded. “Eleven in all, like the stones, my lord.”
“But there are twelve of us!” said Anna.
Hugh’s gaze was like ice, yet his smile remained. “You are expendable, Anna. If you are marked, then you will be killed. You must hope that Antonia does not think of you at all when she sends her pursuers.” His gaze moved away from her. She was not, she saw, important enough to linger on. The red dazzle of dawn faded as the sun moved up into the sky, not visible as a disk but seen as a bluish glow behind a blanketing haze.
“Theodore? Do you understand your part?”
“I do, my lord,” said the man stoutly. “I will not fail you.”
“No,” he said, with a nod that made the archer sit up straighten “I believe you shall not.”
Beyond the standing stones lay a village, a substant
ial settlement with a score of roofs surrounded by a livestock palisade and a ditch. No guard manned the watchtower now. They rode across the earthen bridge that spanned the ditch and pulled up before closed gates.
Theodore shouted a few times, but there was no answer. The silence made Anna nervous. The horses flattened ears and shifted anxiously. She did not hear anything except the wind, not even a dog’s bark. Finally, scarred John volunteered to get inside. He dismounted and offered his reins to Liudbold, then tested the gate. It was, indeed, barred from inside. He tested the palisade, moved off around until he found a listing post that offered a place to fix rope. Soon he clambered up the side with bare feet braced against wood and hands advancing up the joined rope. They watched him keenly. His soft grunts were audible because it was so deathly quiet. Once, a few oddly shaped fields had been tended by farmers. There was a vineyard and a stand of twoscore olive trees scattered along a nearby slope. The road east cut up into a defile, quickly lost to view. From here they could not see the coastal plain.
John reached the top and balanced himself there on his belly as he scanned the village. His mouth opened. He jerked, as at a blow, and slipped backward. Anna shrieked, thinking he would fall, but he caught himself awkwardly and hand over hand rappelled down, hitched the rope off with a flip and a yank, and ran back. He didn’t reach them before he bent to one knee and retched, although he hadn’t much in his stomach to cough up.
“Move the men back, Captain,” said Hugh to Frigo. He took the reins from Liudbold and waited while the rest turned their horses and moved off.
“Plague,” said John when he came over with Lord Hugh. “Got the dogs, too, them that had eaten the dead folk left lying in the street. Good thing that gate is closed.”
“We must be cautious,” said Hugh. “Let’s leave this blighted place. Frigo, set your scouts. We can’t be sure we won’t stumble across bandits. We’ve few enough in our party that a smaller group taking us unaware could do great damage.”