“You will dishonor our dead if you spare them,” Cyrt said, his eyes challenging Nahas. “And what will the Qerys longhouse and the others say of such sparing? Or have you forgotten that battle?”
Nahas looked up. The sky treacherously blue, the air fresh, the wind lovely. “No, I have not forgotten.” He took a deep breath, coughed. “The warriors of both clans will hunt together.”
“Father, they are hardly ‘warriors!’” Psal snapped.
“When night comes,” Nahas said, “all the males from both clans will feast together in the Iden longhouse. We’ll kill them there. Then we will send their tower to our stewards. The Iden women will not know of it. Rain is a wise woman. She will convince them their warriors are still alive even though they themselves have been kidnapped.”
“I will not allow it,” Psal insisted.
“Rain will inform them that we’re at war with the Peacock Clans and that their Iden brothers were spared because of their marriage to our warriors,” Nahas continued as though Psal had not spoken. “The Iden women will understand the implication.”
“Wheel Clan heir,” Psal said, grasping Netophah’s shoulder. “Brother, you should not allow it.”
“Firstborn,” Netophah replied, “Father rules our clan and his will is our will, even when it is not our will. Our king understands warfare. Perhaps he’s right and these Iden would have joined the Peacock alliance in time.”
Words useless, brotherly pleading useless, Psal turned toward the bottom of the hill where the Iden men were gathering the tools Nahas’ warriors had brought them, unaware the gifted knives and axes would soon be used to slay them. They laughed with Wheel Clan warriors, strapped their pouches to their sides, readied themselves to hunt, unaware they were Wheel Clan prey.
The Iden girls, lithe and graceful, innocent, were carrying baskets of grain on their heads, their contribution to the planned feast. They sang loudly, dancing as they walked, their hemp or grass skirts swinging around them:
We have met strangers who are friends
We have met family from afar
Daily the world spins
Daily it turns
And today it has brought us to you.
Nahas called to five Wheel Clan youths standing at the entrance of the Iden longhouse, then pointed to the Iden boys. “The fish in the lake are abundant now. Bring pole hooks.” He turned to his captains again. “The Iden male children must be killed also.”
“The little ones as well?” Cyrt and Psal spoke at once.
“Why kill the children, Nahas?” Cyrt continued. “Yes, the adult warriors must be killed but let the night take the little ones. We should not be as that treacherous clan and murder little ones.”
“Truly, this treachery offends me as well,” the king answered, sighing. “But caves abound in this region. Today, the young ones will surely search the place out and discover them. If we kill their fathers in the field, will they not know? Will they not hide within those caves and remain in this region? Will they not gather against our own stewards? If we kill their fathers in the Iden longhouse, will they not know soon enough?”
“You speak wisely,” Cyrt responded. “Yet, I wish it was not so.”
The king continued. “Every male three years and older must be killed. Wait until the second moon rises, when the Iden men are well drunk and celebrate the hunt. Do nothing until you hear my whistle. We attack…only when I’m at your side.”
Psal began walking away from the group. “Father, the Orian wounded await me in our longhouse. Let me be far from this cruelty.”
“Stay here, Firstborn. You must fight with us. You and Ephan both.” Nahas shaded his eyes from the yellow-white midday sun as they walked downhill toward two trees. “Firstborn, you wear both the studier’s cap and the prince’s cap. A chief must learn to kill…even if he has taken a studier’s vow.”
At the bottom of the hill, Ktwala approached and the king, smiling, took her hand. Together they walked toward the eastern meadow. Nearby Netophah spoke to Lan and Ephan, then he and Kwin led Maharai away, together with the Iden boys toward the western caverns. Fuming, Psal walked to Lan and Ephan.
“So they will kill the children in the cave?” Ephan said. “What Netophah spoke just now, that the king has commanded these innocents be killed…it is difficult to believe. I cannot—”
“He means for me to kill, Cloud, not you.”
“The air crackles,” Ephan said, looking about ominously. “Do you hear it?” He smiled, a sad smile. “These Peacock children are always dancing.”
Psal looked in the direction Ephan pointed. A little girl no older than three tugged at Maharai’s skirt and was swept into Maharai’s arms. They danced together, swaying round and round, as Maharai’s grass skirt swung around her tiny waist. Beside them stood Netophah.
“The heir stalks the daughter as the king stalks the mother,” Ephan said. “To love and to deceive all at once. It is a thing to learn, I suppose, if one chooses to become a chief.”
* * * *
In the far meadow, Nahas and Ktwala lay naked at each other’s side. Ktwala had asked him the reason for the corpses. He had told her of the war, how the women in all the Wheel Clan, including his children, had been slaughtered in one treacherous day. But the name of his enemy he would not speak.
Ktwala had wept to hear his tale. “A hard and long task, burying one’s dead,” she had said. And she had told him of her life and had answered his unasked question about the marriage tattoo.
“My husband lost his footing in one of the cold climes. He has gone to The Permanent Place.”
That morning Ktwala had dreamed a dream full of foreboding, a dream in which a great wheel rolled into the longhouse and crushed it. One of her brothers had dreamed of the Iden women marrying men from another clan. Her father’s interpretations had piled warning upon warning. How wrong they all had been! Each day brought surprises, of course. Fears as well. But Ktwala had not expected the pleasure of a sudden love. And now she had to steel her heart to lose the very love the day had brought. It had been years since she felt both the joy—and the fear of losing—love. Yet, if the day had to take Nahas, it could leave her with some good: some improvement in the clan’s tower science.
“When night comes, my Tender Friend,” she said to Nahas, “we’ll be lost to each other forever.”
“We need not lose each other.” He played with her graying hair, played with it as if it were not graying, and as if she was still young. “I lost one whom I thought time would never replace. I had not thought I would ever love another.”
“Not lose each other?” she asked. “Do you mean…you will…that our towers will meet again. Yes, yes. Do return to me. When our longhouse warred against itself, my father’s brother took all the elders with him and all our knowledge—tower science, herbal knowledge, all other knowledge too—and left us bereft of all wisdom. Family as well. We have not met our brothers again in more than ten years. And always those we meet, we never meet again. Who would have thought Odunao was so large?”
“Surely not all your wisdom was lost?” His eyes—sky blue and sky bright—examined her face. “Did I not see the old studier, Jion by name? Does he not know how to keen?”
“He was no true studier. And what he once knew he has forgotten.” Her fingers found the juncture of his thighs, wet, moist. A mass of red hair, darkly-bright like the sunset. “We do remember a few things.”
He burst out laughing. “I am glad of it.”
“I never knew a Peacock Clan