Clash of Eagles (34 page)

Again she jabbed the pugio blade into his skin. “Eyes to me!”

Reluctantly Marcellinus met her acid stare. She looked deep into his soul once more. His heart jumped.

Sintikala rolled off him and stood, leaving his pugio resting on his breastbone. He sucked in a long, painful breath.

“Go now,” she said. “Do not talk of this again. I have spoken. Yes?”

He struggled to sit up.

She surged toward him dangerously. “Wanageeska! Yes?”

“Yes. Yes.”

She stalked away, out the back door of the longhouse, and Marcellinus did not follow her.

“And now I am
nine
winters,” Kimimela concluded.

“And I am
seven
winters!” said Enopay.

Nahimana looked at him skeptically. “Yes? You sure?”

“Winter only half done,” Marcellinus objected. It was the day after his confrontation with Sintikala and still only two days after the Midwinter Feast; he wasn’t sure this counted as living through a winter.

“And
you
are a hundred winters, Eyanosa!” Enopay said.

“Beat the child for me,” Marcellinus said to Nahimana, and Enopay screeched cheerfully.

Lessons had restarted after the midwinter break. Today the four of them were writing together; Tahtay was off bossing around the other boys and girls at the brickworks.

Marcellinus considered. Everyone was in a good mood, and he was not going to wait forever. Now was as good a time as any.

“Kimimela?”

“Yes?”

“Where is your mother?”

She shook her head. “At the Great Mound? I not know.”

The resentment welled up inside him again. “And why is your mother not a mother to you?”

“Gaius.” Nahimana leaned over Enopay, guiding his hand as he smeared charcoal over bark. His early proficiency with writing had faltered a little; learning the alphabet was one thing, but spoken Cahokian was light on some consonant sounds,
R
,
B
, and
V
for three, and sounds that Enopay didn’t recognize well with his ears he forgot to write with his fingers.

Kimimela shook her head.

“Kimi, where is your father?”

Nahimana stood, thunder on her face, charcoal clutched tightly in her hand, and Marcellinus was sure that if the children hadn’t been present, she would have thrown it at him.

Good. He must be on the right track.

“My father killed by Iroqua,” said Kimimela. She said it quietly and almost formally, as if still reciting a lesson, but her eyes were suddenly hooded and tired.

He thought about it. “Were you there when he died?”

“No.”

“Was Sintikala?”

“I not know.”

“How old were you?”

“Two winters. Three.”

“So, Sintikala could not … blame you?”

“Gaius,” Nahimana said.

“No.”

“But, perhaps you look like him?” Marcellinus said. “Or Sintikala was protecting you when … it happened?”

“I not know. How I know that?”

Nahimana stepped up, inserting herself between him and the girl, eyes flaring. “Yes, Gaius. Yes. Kimi look like him. Now
shut up.
”

Kimimela’s father, Sisika’s husband, killed by the Iroqua. And the daughter reminded Sisika too much of the father. The older Kimimela got, the more she would resemble him. A constant reminder. Could that really be all it was?

“Damn it,” Marcellinus said. “The Iroqua. Always the damned Iroqua.”

“No, no,” said Kimi. “Gaius, not be angry, please …”

“I am not angry with you, Kimimela.”

“Not be angry with Iroqua,” she said unexpectedly.

“Please,” Marcellinus said, and Nahimana stepped aside.

Marcellinus sat down next to Kimimela. She dropped her gaze, and he put his hand under her chin, gently raising her head to look in her eyes as Cahokian women had so often done to him. “No?”

“No. Do not join the Mourning War.”

He did not understand. Had he not already killed scores of Iroqua? “Too late. I already joined.”

“But do not be angry,” she said in a voice he could barely hear. “Do not be killed by Iroqua, Gaius.”

“… Oh.” His mind stalled.

Nahimana cleared her throat. She was looking past him. He turned, and there she stood in the doorway to his hut: Sintikala.

In his mind she would always have two names. Marcellinus could certainly address her as Sintikala, the warrior, a daughter of a chieftain and the leader of the Catanwakuwa clan, but part of her would always be Sisika to him.

Even if Sintikala hated Marcellinus forever, he would still owe a debt of feeling to Sisika.

Kimimela did not react to her mother’s presence. Looking down, she again calmly started work on her writing.

From the doorway, Sintikala stared long and hard at Marcellinus. The fur-lined cloak she was wrapped in made her look small, but Marcellinus could still feel the abrasion at his throat where she had forced his own pugio against his skin, the commanding strength with which she had trapped him on the floor of the longhouse.

“Yes?” Marcellinus said.

Sintikala looked at her daughter. “I came to speak with Kimimela.”

“Really?”

Sintikala’s eyes narrowed. “Really.”

He could not read her intent. He hardly ever could. Kimimela’s face was similarly unreadable. “Kimi? Is it all right?”

“Yes,” the girl said almost inaudibly.

For the first time, Marcellinus realized it was entirely within Sintikala’s power to ensure that he never saw Kimimela again.

He swallowed and stood. “Fine. Enopay! Come. We must check the heating in the Big Warm House. Make sure we do not cook any elders.”

The boy did not laugh; the tension in the room was high enough to quench even Enopay’s natural exuberance. Soberly, he stood and followed Marcellinus out into the sharp, icy light of the day.

Nahimana moved to leave, too, but Sintikala held up her hand, and Nahimana stayed. For that, at least, Marcellinus was grateful.

“Here it is like sweat lodge, always,” said Ohanzee the warrior to Marcellinus via Enopay, a sneer on his face showing his contempt. “Make men weak.”

“Wait till you old,” retorted Howahkan, one of the elders of Cahokia, with white hair and a face like leather. “You strong now, nothing harm you. You make many winters, then we see what you say.”

“Huh,” said the brave, and pointed at Marcellinus. “You don’t fool me, Wanageeska.” And with that, he stalked off toward Cahokia Creek.

Howahkan hobbled around the Big Warm House with Marcellinus, watching him raise his hand up to the bricks, searching for cracks in the mud-and-clay mortar where heat might escape. “You don’t fool me, Wanageeska,” he mimicked, and cackled.

“He was certainly in there a long time, making sure the house was so terrible,” Marcellinus said, and had to wait for the belated laugh once Enopay translated.

“Yes. He is a careful fighter, Ohanzee is. Studies his enemy long and hard.”

“Is that one my enemy?” Marcellinus was constantly surprised at how few enemies he seemed to have. In his first few days in Cahokia the animosity toward him had been so great, he had felt like he was swimming through it, but those days were long behind him. Today, many grumbled about the pace of change, many made sarcastic comments, and occasionally people asked him painfully pointed questions about his past. But with the possible exception of Sintikala, none were
so genuinely antagonistic that Marcellinus felt he needed to guard his back.

“Ohanzee talks only. He will not become one of your ass-licking warrior boys, but neither will he harm you or plot against you.”

Marcellinus looked at Enopay in astonishment. Enopay looked back at him innocently. “Howahkan said that. I only translate.”

“Not in front of the boy, Howahkan,” said Marcellinus reprovingly, and walked into the Big Warm House.

It certainly was warm, warmer than he had intended, and the air was stale. None of the thirty or so Cahokians who were sitting in there chatting seemed inclined to complain, though. “Question: Here, too hot?” Marcellinus asked.

“Much,” said Enopay, pulling his tunic off over his head.

“Not
you
 … Ask
them.
”

The older folk were all happy enough with the humid, foggy atmosphere in the house. Marcellinus supposed Howahkan was right; when he was their age, perhaps a room like this would be exactly what he’d need to thaw out his old bones after a night spent huddling in a hut around a dying fire. For a moment he wondered whether he’d survive long enough to feel the cold quite that badly and whether he’d still be living here in this mounded city when he did.

“This is a good house,” Enopay was saying to Marcellinus, pointing at the graying Cahokian woman who originally had said the words. “Last winter, and last-last winter, many more people die than this year. This house saves our old and clever.” A man spoke next, and Enopay pointed at him. “Now we live longer to irritate our grandchildren. Eh? Eh?”

Marcellinus laughed, nodded cheerily to the creaky Cahokiani who were still conveying their polite thanks to him either through hand-talk or through Enopay’s good graces, and moved on. In the furnace room he gave instructions to the boys who were keeping the fire going that they could afford to work a little less hard. “Go for a swim or something instead,” he said, and they all cheerfully shouted “Brrrr!” at him.

“Come, Enopay,” he said. “We go foundry. Play with some iron!”

But Enopay pointed and said, “Daughter of chieftain.”

She walked across the plaza toward them, head down, arms wrapped around herself against the cold. The wind had picked up out of the east while Marcellinus had been in the Big Warm House, bringing clouds with it. It probably would snow again this afternoon.

“Ah. Off you go, Enopay,” Marcellinus said, and the boy grimaced and discreetly walked away.

Sintikala stopped and regarded him with those vivid eyes.

Marcellinus cleared his throat. “I say wrong words before. Your daughter is your daughter. I am sorry.”

A long silence fell. Marcellinus suspected that Sintikala could tell he was merely saying the words, was not really sorry at all, not for any of it. And if she brought out a blade again, Gods help him, Marcellinus would do his best to take it away from her, peace pact or no. He would not hurt her, but this could not go on. He eyed the ground to see where the snow was thickest, where footing would be the least treacherous.

“It is a good man who helps children,” she said, and his eyes swiveled up from the ground to meet her gaze again.

“Walk,” she added, and set off without waiting.

Marcellinus followed.

They cut off the corner of the Great Plaza by wading through the foot-high snow that separated them from the northward path to the creek. Marcellinus’s moccasins let in a little snowmelt, but early on this winter he had raided the wagons for some Roman-style leggings and his feet stayed warm. The leggings looked a little odd when worn with a Cahokian tunic. Then again, Marcellinus looked odd to the locals whatever he wore.

The trail led them by three tall platform mounds, obviously not grave sites since each one had a single house atop it. Sintikala pointed at the leftmost of the mounds. “I live there.”

“Oh?” said Marcellinus, and pointed back over his shoulder at the Master Mound. “I thought …”

Sintikala was shocked. “The longhouse? Nobody lives up there!”

Marcellinus had hardly seen her anywhere else. “Natural mistake.”

They came to the creek. It was frozen over for most of its width; only in the central few feet did open water still run, though in several places near the bank people had broken holes in the ice to collect water.

Sintikala turned along the creekside path. They were headed, Marcellinus realized, toward the charnel pit and the growing mound where a thousand years ago he had helped bury the Cahokian dead.

“Kimimela likes you,” she said. “So I won’t kill you.”

She turned, birdlike, and twitched her face briefly. Perhaps it was supposed to be a smile.

“Thank you.”

“And so, you want to know of my husband now?”

She was like a coiled spring next to him. Marcellinus cleared his throat. “No. He is not my concern. That is your life.”

“Yes. And so?”

Above him, the loaded clouds. Beside him, the Hawk chief. Within him, sour memories of long ago.

His wife, Julia, had found love elsewhere and eventually left him because of his long absences on campaign. Julia had poisoned Vestilia against him, and Marcellinus had never stepped forward to try to mend the breach between them. Now he never would.

For his whole adult life the army had been all-important to him. He had done his duty; he had put Roma’s fortunes above his own and in the process risen to be a tribune and finally a Praetor. But now his legion was destroyed and the wreckage of his family was ridiculously remote.

Marcellinus could barely put it into words for himself. He certainly could not explain it adequately to anyone else.

So he chose simple words. “Sintikala, I had a daughter once. I was often away from home, fighting battles. We grew apart, and now we do not know each other. She … despises me now. I was foolish.”

Sintikala nodded. “And so you say I am foolish.”

Marcellinus would have tried to smile, but his face was frozen. “Perhaps you are.”

She looked at him searchingly for a long moment. Marcellinus braced himself, knowing how quickly she could move. Any moment she
could take his legs out from under him. He would need to lash out and counterattack immediately rather than trying to break his fall.

Eventually she said, “I will tell you something. Something Kimimela does not know. And if you tell her, I will kill you. It is for me to tell her, one day. Yes?”

No,
he wanted to say. He was already out of his depth. But … Sintikala was ready to trust him with something. “All right.”

“My man was Cahokian, but he was half Iroqua.”

This was a surprise. Marcellinus felt questions on his lips but swallowed them and waited for her to say more.

“That is how I speak some Iroqua words. And my man wore Cahokian war tattoos and went in a war party to revenge on the Iroqua when they raided our homesteads upriver on the Mizipi, nine winters ago.”