The Firstborn of your clan shall be unto you as the Greater Light. You will bring all disputes and grievances to him and he will resolve them. The law from his mouth will be like the law from the Creator’s mouth. If there arises among you, one who disobeys the Firstborn, that one shall be cut off from the people. You shall not kill that disobedient one but you shall make him outcast because he has disobeyed the Firstborn who is your Greater Light. If there arises one among you who willfully and continually murders, then the Firstborn—the Heir of your clan—shall mark such a one and judge him, for all judgment has been given to the Firstborn, the Heir of your clan. You shall not kill the murderer but you will send him into the cold dark climes or cast him into the night that his Creator might unmake him.
“Are you thinking of the enemy marriage Principle? or the Principle concerning Firstborns?” Psal asked when Lan had finished. “When I met him on the hill just now, I spoke of both principles. He would not heed my counsel either.”
The young warrior sleepily opened his eyes. Psal stroked his patient’s forehead.
“Aythan, you have awakened in time for today’s so-called battle. But, resist the urge to maim and kill until your arm heals. And today you will miss a most ignoble battle.” Kneeling, he helped the boy sit up. “See, now it is all over.”
Aythan nodded and while Lan warned the boy against looking at his arm and nursing any ideas of wasting away in a steward longhouse, Psal called for Satima. She came running immediately.
Empty-handed. “Didn’t I tell you to bring water and cloths?”
“Firstborn, I forgot.”
“Of course you forgot,” Psal sneered. “You’re too busy laying a trap for innocents. Does it satisfy your soul to scheme? You were not born among us, Satima. You were a foundling, rescued and wedded. Why then do you delight in returning vengeance to those who have not personally hurt you?”
“Firstborn!” She lifted her fingers to her mouth and peered nervously toward the gathering room. “Lower your voice. What if they understand you?”
“Then I would raise my voice even higher. Get me water to wash in. Now!”
She muttered some inaudible defense, hurried past the gathering room, then returned later with a basket of cloth in one hand and a bucket of water in the other.
“Where’s Daris?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Firstborn.”
“Find him!”
She dropped the bucket and basket and hastened away, tripping in the hallway in her attempt to escape Psal’s wrath. He watched her struggle to get up. You and the rest of these Wheel Clan women are much too pleased with your treachery. He washed his hands, doused the sick room hearth, then walked with Lan into the keening room where Ephan waited for him. Daris had arrived, and was chewing a piece of grilled honeycomb with bee larva.
“Daris, where were you just now?”
“With the warriors, Chief Studier.”
“You left your mother’s side?” He slapped Daris hard against the left ear. “You’re a studier. You should not stoop to cruelty and deception.” The redness on the child’s cheek and the boy’s tears brought Psal back to his senses. “I’m sorry, Daris. I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t a good studier, Chief Studier.” Daris hastened, crying, from the room.
“Go to your mother, Daris,” Ephan said. “You’re becoming like Nahas, Storm. Striking those who anger you. The child is still young. He yearns to be like the others.”
“He’s a studier, he can’t be like the others.” Psal turned to the tower. “And you, when you realized their tower was coming to a Wheel Clan region, why did you not warn it?”
“The listening tower of the Iden branch lacks crystals,” Ephan said.
“Don’t excuse it!” Psal shouted.
A war whistle sounded. If the Peacock women visiting the Nahas longhouse heard it, they probably thought that in the distance a bird struggled in a water-logged nest. Or that seabirds skated on waves of some far-off river, or night-birds were welcoming the second moon atop high-hanging branches.
“Is there nothing that can dissuade you from this integrity of yours?” Lan asked, walking toward the corridor.
“Nothing.”
Lan bowed and left.
“We cannot remain here long.” Ephan entered the base of the tower and began taking several keening crystals from a shelf and putting them inside his studier’s pouch. “Even if we do not kill, we should be beside our warriors. As a kind of—”
“Compromise?”
“Not compromise. More like…well, I suppose I really don’t know. Today I’ve found myself thinking about the old master and what he said as we journeyed with him night-tossed.”
“He said many things. About women. About valor. Nobility. The stupid Principles.”
“True, he was rarely quiet. But, I was thinking of what he said on the day he named us. You argued with him when he called you ‘Coming Storm.’” He exited the tower’s base, looked at the crystals in his hands, frowned. “These will suffice.”
“And did you like the stupid name he gave you? ‘Cloud?’”
“I understood it to be the right name so I accepted it. We are often unmoored, or tossed, or in danger of drifting, you and I. Our names suit us. You surely didn’t want to be called Rocky or Sandy or some such thing, did you? But, do you remember what he asked us on that day?”
“It’s all a blur.”
“He asked, ‘What do you love, and is your life worth that love?’”
“Ah yes, I do remember.”
“How did you answer him?”
“I said I loved the Wheel Clan, and that my life was worth that love.”
Ephan lifted his studier’s sack. “Can you love our people still? I find no honor in this. And yet, they are my people, who found and fed me. I must stay at their side. All this day as we traveled back and forth, bringing them keening poles, branches, and crystals—did you see how hopeful and happy the Iden looked?”
“They called us their saviors.”
“And now, we kill. And yet, if we refuse, what will we say when Nahas challenges us?”
CHAPTER 11
THE FEAST BETWEEN THE WHEEL CLAN AND THE IDEN WOMEN
Rain was speaking in a Peacock dialect Maharai found easy enough to understand but her discourse was on the war, and Maharai had no interest in war. She only wished to know which of her unmarried sisters would join her and Ktwala in the Wheel Clan.
The beautiful Gidea was already married. Nunu was too old, but she loved Ktwala and might accompany them if Maharai begged very hard. I will cry and pretend to lose my breath, Maharai thought. Then Nunu will leave Grandfather’s side and come with us. Gidea would grieve to be separated from Tolika, but Lan had assured Maharai that the Wheel Clan’s tower science was so great, both longhouses would frequently meet.
Only when the conversation turned to marriage did Maharai tune her ear to listen.
“Why should warriors not share a woman?” Rain defended the Wheel Clan against Gidea’s worry. “Our women are few, our little ones happy and well-fed. Warriors are worthy of wives. They reclaim land from the forest and from wild animals. If it weren’t for our warriors, what would happen to the Wheel Clan?”
Maharai tugged at Rain’s hem. “What if the king tires of my mother?”