Eagle in Exile E-Book

Alan Smale

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 880

Beschreibung

Imagine a world where the Roman Empire never fell. Where the Goths were pushed back from the walls of Rome. Where the Imperial Eagle spread across the continents.

Leseprobe

Also by Alan Smale and available from Titan Books

CLASH OF EAGLES

Eagle in ExilePrint edition ISBN: 9781783294046E-book edition ISBN: 9781783294053

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First Titan edition: March 2016This edition published by arrangement with Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Alan Smale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2016 Alan Smale.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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FOR MY PARENTS, PETER AND JILL SMALE

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by Alan Smale

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Part I: Haudenosaunee

1. Year Three, Thunder Moon

2. Year Three, Falling Leaf Moon

3. Year Three, Long Night Moon

4. Year Four, Grass Moon

5. Year Four, Planting Moon

6. Year Four, Planting Moon

7. Year Four, Flower Moon

Part II: Mizipi

8. Year Four, Heat Moon

9. Year Five, Grass Moon

10. Year Five, Planting Moon

11. Year Five, Flower Moon

12. Year Five, Heat Moon

13. Year Five, Thunder Moon

14. Year Five, Falling Leaf Moon

15. Year Five, Falling Leaf Moon

Part III: Cahokia

16. Year Six, Crow Moon

17. Year Six, Crow Moon

18. Year Six, Thunder Moon

19. Year Six, Hunting Moon

20. Year Six, Hunting Moon

21. Year Six, Falling Leaf Moon

22. Year Six, Falling Leaf Moon

Part IV: Roma

23. Year Seven, Grass Moon

24. Year Seven, Planting Moon

25. Year Seven, Planting Moon

26. Year Seven, Planting Moon

27. Year Seven, Planting Moon

28. Year Seven, Planting Moon

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Appendix I: Cahokia and the Mississippian Culture

Appendix II: The Cahokian Year

Appendix III: Notes on the Military of the Roman Imperium in A.D. 1218

Appendix IV: Glossary of Military Terms from the Roman Imperium

Appendix V: Further Reading

About the Author

PART I

HAUDENOSAUNEE

1YEAR THREE, THUNDER MOON

THE SKY WAS OVERCAST, the air thick with humidity. The Iroqua captives sweated in their corral in the East Plaza, with the Great Mound and the Mound of the Smoke looming over them on either side. They had been imprisoned there for many weeks in all kinds of weather, with no shelter and minimal food. Water was provided twice daily from a single well-guarded jar. They could drink only as much as their cupped hands would hold.

Marcellinus had seen his fair share of suffering but rarely such extended neglect. Even the slave pens in the ports of Europa and Aethiopia had roofs and reasonably plentiful fodder, but slaves had resale value, and these braves had none.

Cahokian Wolf Warriors ringed the corral. There would be no breakouts or rescue attempts, and even if the gates were opened, the captives would be too weak to run.

These were Cahokia’s sworn enemies, brought as low as men could get. This was the fate the rest of the Iroqua nation would face if Great Sun Man could bring it about.

Marcellinus had little sympathy for the prisoners. Any of these men would have delighted in butchering him and the people he cared about, hacking off their scalps to wear on their belts. On the basis of the atrocities committed by Iroqua war parties in the upland villages, he had no doubt that Cahokians in an Iroqua corral would fare even worse. But he did think it was a waste.

Absently, he fingered the golden amulet that Enopay had found for him. He had turned it over and over in his hands so often over the last several weeks that the image of the Hawk warrior incised on its flat surface was beginning to wear down.

If Cahokia had gold and the Iroqua wanted it, the Mourning War would be comprehensible. But it did not. And if the Iroqua had wanted Cahokian women, they would have taken them after the battle. They had taken a few, but it was obviously not the prime reason for their attack.

Revenge was the only motivation left. But really, revenge for what? Where could such unreasoning hatred have come from?

Marcellinus had been standing for some time before he noticed that he was not alone. Just a hundred feet away stood Pezi, who was also staring at the prisoners.

Deep in his own reverie, Pezi jumped when Marcellinus arrived at his side. Marcellinus had not seen the word slave from Etowah since the previous winter.

Embarrassingly, Pezi fell to his knees. “Wanageeska!”

Marcellinus had forgotten how abject a creature the boy was. “Gods’ sakes, Pezi, stand up and pretend to be a man.”

Pezi stood, eyes still downcast. He had grown an inch or two, and wisps of new hair adorned his chin and cheeks.

“Where were you during the battle, Pezi?”

“I fight for Cahokia,” Pezi said.

Marcellinus regarded him calmly. “Who saw you fight?”

Pezi hesitated. “No. I hide down in a grain pit, under a house. I am not good to fight.”

“Again?” Such a pit was where they originally had found Pezi, in the mound-builder town of Woshakee up the Oyo River.

Pezi was taller and probably stronger than Tahtay, who had valiantly tried to fight and had suffered a terrible injury to his leg in the attempt. Marcellinus swallowed. “What do they want, Pezi?”

“Who?”

Marcellinus waved at the prisoners.

Pezi shook his head. “To die quickly, I think.”

“All the Iroqua. They want Cahokia destroyed, the Mizipian people scattered, scalped, or buried in the earth? Or do they want something else?”

“I do not know.”

“Then let’s ask them.”

Grabbing the boy’s arm, he began to walk forward. Pezi resisted, standing his ground. “No!”

“You still speak Iroqua?”

“Of course. But you will learn nothing from those men. Even if they have anything to tell, they will not tell you.”

“You know the Iroqua,” Marcellinus said bluntly. “You speak their language. And here they are, attacking Cahokia. But really, Pezi, why? For Cahokian land? Cahokian corn and women? Access to the Mizipi? Roman weapons? I don’t think that’s all of it. I really don’t.”

“I do not know.”

Marcellinus loomed over the boy and held his gaze. “You understand your life belongs to me?”

“Yes.”

“And you know I can have you put in there—” He indicated the corral. “—with just a single word?”

Pezi gave a little whimper.

“I’ve lost my legion and most of the friends I once had here. I have very little left to lose, Pezi. And you would not be the first translator I’ve killed for talking out of both sides of his mouth. So tell me the truth before I lose patience. What do you know?”

“The Iroqua fear Cahokia,” said the boy. “There was war in the past. Many Iroqua raids and Cahokian raids. Now, with you here, the Iroqua fear that the People of the Mounds will come and kill them all. So they must strike first.”

“Nonsense.”

“Yes. Haudenosaunee lands and lakes are small, and the Cahokian and mound-builder rivers are long. And now Cahokia rules the air. What else can the Iroqua do?”

Just what Marcellinus had thought when he saw Sintikala’s great map of Nova Hesperia. But hearing the words from Pezi’s mouth made him resist the idea. “Cahokians do not want Iroqua lands. What threat is there to the Iroqua from mound builders? Will Cahokians force Iroqua to build mounds? No. What reason is that to attack mound-builder villages and towns and wage war on Cahokia itself?”

Pezi looked away. “As you say.”

If Cahokia were Roma, the threat to neighboring lands would be obvious. But Great Sun Man was not an Imperator, and surely the Iroqua lands had nothing that Cahokia could possibly want.

“Pezi, how did the Mourning War start between Iroqua and Cahokia?”

“Because of you, making Cahokia stronger.”

“No. Long before me. Generations ago. Was it because the Iroqua wanted Cahokian women?”

Pezi paused. “Long past, many lives ago, this city was not here.”

“And before? Did the Iroqua live here?”

The boy laughed scornfully. “By this big greasy river that bursts its banks every spring? The Iroqua would not live here. But on the Oyo, the Iroqua were strong. Then came Cahokia, and then the Oyo belonged to the mound builders, too, and the Iroqua had only the lakes.”

Marcellinus thought about it. “Pezi, the time may come when I will ask something of you. It will be just one thing, but you must do it. Afterward you will owe me nothing. Your life will be your own. But if you do not do what I ask, the whole of this land will not be big enough for you to hide from me. Do you understand?”

Pezi was already pale and shaking. “What must I do?”

Marcellinus released the boy. “When I am ready, I will tell you.”

* * *

“I am looking for Wachiwi,” Marcellinus said.

The warrior Takoda sat cross-legged on the ground. His left arm cradled Ciqala, his son of two winters; his right arm was splinted and heavily bandaged from the wounds he had received protecting Marcellinus in battle. From the other side of the fire his wife, Kangee, made a wordless grunt of disgust. Their newborn, whose name Marcellinus did not know, lay sleeping in a cradleboard on Kangee’s back as she built the fire.

If it had been only Takoda, Marcellinus might have explained. But he did not really care what they thought, and especially he did not need to explain himself to Kangee, who had always loathed him.

“Is Wachiwi alive? Just tell me where she is.”

“Ask Hanska,” said Takoda.

Marcellinus was taken aback. He would not have thought that the fierce warrior woman Hanska and the gentle Wachiwi would know each other. “And where is Hanska?”

Takoda nodded to the southeast, then sighed. “The way is hard to describe. I will fetch Hanska here to you if you will bring us firewood and water.”

“I would bring you firewood and water anyway if you asked,” Marcellinus said.

Kangee spit into the fire. It fizzled. “We don’t need his help.”

“With two babies, and Ina like that?” said Takoda wearily, nodding toward the hut where his mother, Nahimana, lay. “And me with a smashed-up arm? If we don’t need help, who does?”

Kangee stalked off without another word, squatting in front of a neighbor’s fire and casting foul looks over her shoulder. Once she was safely out of earshot, Takoda said after her, “Hey, by the way, Marcellinus saved my life at Woshakee.”

Takoda was referring back to a conversation many moons ago, a lie that Hanska had suggested he tell Kangee to make her warm to the Roman. Marcellinus smiled, grateful at even the pretense of humor on such a dour day. Shrugging sadly, Takoda put his son on his hip and walked away across the Great Plaza.

Marcellinus fetched a wheelbarrow and packed as much wood into it as he could. On his second trip he brought back four large jars of water. He also brought one of the new metal fire stands and a cooking pot that was the right size to fit it. By the time Takoda returned with Hanska by his side, bouncing Ciqala in her arms, Marcellinus had restarted the fire, heated water, and stepped down into their hut to bathe the still-comatose Nahimana.

Nahimana had survived the sack of Cahokia by the Iroqua with flying colors. She had worked without cease or sleep for the next two days looking after the wounded and then, quietly and with little fuss, had suffered a stroke. Now, two moons later, she still lay unconscious most hours of the day. The left side of her face hung piteously slack. Yet another casualty of war on Marcellinus’s conscience.

Takoda looked sad. “Wanageeska, you don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do.”

Hanska cleared her throat and handed Ciqala back to his father. “Need help, sir?”

It was the first time Hanska had ever called him “sir” as if she meant it.

“Yes. Help me turn her over. Wait outside, Takoda. No son should see his mother like this.”

Gently and almost effortlessly, Hanska hefted the frail form of the elderly woman and rolled her onto her front. As for Hanska, long smears of the white salve on her legs and right shoulder were the only remaining signs of the wounds she had sustained fighting the Iroqua, though she seemed to favor her right side. “So you want Wachiwi?”

“Just to talk with her.” Marcellinus rinsed his cloth in the pot of warm water.

“Talk only?”

“Yes. Believe it or not.”

Hanska plucked the cloth from his hand. “This is woman’s work. I am still a woman,” she said, and took over the task of cleaning Nahimana, doing it more thoroughly than Marcellinus would have dared. Grateful, he looked away.

When they left the house, Kangee was back.

“Hey, little Kangee,” Hanska said. “If the Wanageeska wants Wachiwi, he wants Wachiwi. Is it for you to sneer?”

“I did not speak of this to you, warrior,” Kangee said.

“Well, I speak of it now. Answer me.”

“It’s all right, Hanska,” said Marcellinus.

Hanska loomed over Kangee, and the shells braided into her hair rattled. “He’s saved Cahokian lives. Made us strong. The Wanageeska has done more for Cahokia than you ever will. All you do is breed and spit.”

Takoda stood. “Hanska. Please.”

“Come on, then,” she said to Marcellinus.

They walked a little west of south, past a flooded borrow pit toward an area of Cahokia where Marcellinus rarely went, the neighborhood of the cloth workers, leather tanners, and makers of moccasins. Despite lying on a line directly between the two main battles with the Iroqua, it appeared relatively unscathed.

Hanska strode beside him. Marcellinus had never been alone with her before. He wanted to thank her for keeping him alive, for standing over him and defending him as he lay stunned from the Huron’s club, but he knew she would say something offhand and contemptuous if he dared mention it. After all, he would have done the same for her. They were warriors. “So you know Wachiwi?”

“Yes.”

Marcellinus eyed her, uncertain. She looked irritated. “What? No. What you are thinking now? All men think that, because they are men. But Wachiwi and I have not been lovers. We were friends long ago, as children.”

This was a surprise. “I would not have thought it. You are very different.”

“You say so? Because I am not pretty like Wachiwi?”

Once again the ground was shifting under his feet. Marcellinus really was “no good chieftain of women,” as Sintikala once had told him. “I did not mean—”

“We were different from other girls. She was Onida, taken from the Iroqua. And I was not girl-like.”

Marcellinus remembered Tahtay’s young friend Hurit, bloodied by bullies the previous year for being too interested in making bricks in Marcellinus’s brickworks. “Yes, I see.”

Hanska threw him another sharp look. I see? Yes, he had said the wrong thing again, implying an insult.

In fact, Marcellinus found Hanska spectacular. Well muscled, statuesque, but still strikingly female, she could have been cast in marble in the Roman Pantheon. But she was one of his warriors. It would not be proper to tell her that.

Futete. He would never lead the First Cahokian in battle again. But still she daunted him. He resorted to hand-talk. You strong. Beautiful. I sorry.

Hanska faltered and dropped her gaze. Perhaps she was regretting saving his life. But when he looked back, he found she was making hand-talk, too. We know what it is to be different. That why you-I friends, too.

Wachiwi, Hanska, Marcellinus. All outsiders. All very different. Marcellinus was embarrassed that he had never before thought of Hanska as a friend.

“I have bearberry tea,” he said. “Let us drink some.”

Finally he earned a grin. “You want to see Wachiwi.”

“At another time, then. As friends.” Her husband, Mikasi, he now remembered, was also an outsider, born far away in the grassy prairies across the Mizipi to the west of Cahokia. How ignorant he was about people that it took him so long to decode such obvious connections.

Hanska leaned in to him. “Maybe. But sir? This time, be more nice to Wachiwi. Or you and I will never drink tea.”

A hot flush filled Marcellinus’s cheeks. Naturally, Wachiwi would have spoken to Hanska of her brief physical relationship with him. All at once the warrior woman’s habitual rudeness and overfamiliarity made sense.

“I mean Wachiwi no harm,” he said. “If I hurt her, I did not mean to.”

They had walked past the last of the leatherworkers and were approaching a single house standing apart from the others, close to a low ridge mound. A small figure had seen them coming and was waiting outside.

Wachiwi and Hanska hugged. It was odd to see, the tall and muscular clasping the petite and shapely.

Wachiwi made no move to greet Marcellinus but regarded him neutrally, her arm still around Hanska’s waist. He cleared his throat. “Hello, Wachiwi.”

“It is all right?” Hanska said to Wachiwi in the tenderest tone he had ever heard from her.

Wachiwi nodded.

“Then I go. Wanageeska. Sir. If there is other help you need, come to me and Mikasi. Yes?”

Once more, breathing was hard. “Thank you, Hanska.”

As she released Wachiwi, Marcellinus added, “In fact, Hanska? Rather soon I might need someone to watch my back.”

“Again?” she said wryly, and strode away.

Wachiwi folded her arms around herself. She had been crying, Marcellinus now saw. “You are really all right? Not hurt?”

“Not hurt by Iroqua,” she said.

“You have lost family?”

“What family? I have none. But many warriors I knew, men who were kind to me; they are dead now, from war. And others, too, who were not warriors.”

“People who are not warriors should not die in war,” Marcellinus said.

She gestured at the blanket that lay against the side of her hut, and, gratefully, he sat. Her hair was loose in mourning. He was used to seeing it like that only after lovemaking. It was appealing, and it distracted him.

“Gaius. Some say that all the death is your fault. But I do not think so.”

Marcellinus grimaced. The unexpected support of Hanska and Wachiwi was almost as difficult to bear as the scorn of Enopay, Kangee, and Great Sun Man had been.

Wachiwi touched his arm. “Your Cahokian is very good.”

“Thank you.” It certainly felt odd to speak to her directly in Cahokian. The last time Marcellinus had seen her, his Cahokian had been rudimentary and they had communicated using simple Latin phrases, gestures, and touch.

She assessed him. “I will spend one night with you, Gaius. For comfort. But not more.”

“That is not what I want.” Sensitized by his clumsy words to Hanska, not wanting to give offense, he added, “You are beautiful, and I thank you. But that is not why I came.”

“Then what?”

“I came to talk. I want us to be friends, Wachiwi.”

“You have so few friends?” she said, unconvinced.

“Few now. And …” He took a deep breath. “You still speak Iroqua? You know of Iroqua things? Then I need your help.”

Wachiwi put her hands up to her temples. “What?”

“Once you were Onida.”

“I am of Cahokia!”

“But once—”

She shook her head violently. “The Onida are not my people.”

“But still you can speak that tongue?”

She hand-talked: No. No.

“Wachiwi?”

“Look at this,” she said. Her sweeping gesture encompassed the whole of Cahokia. “All of our hurt and death. That was Iroqua, all the Peoples of the Longhouse. Caiuga and Onondaga and Mohawk and Seneca … and Onida, Gaius. I remember their words, of course. But to speak them? I would die. The words would choke me.”

“You don’t know why I am asking,” he said gently. “I need to understand. There are many things I need to know about …” He had been on the verge of saying “your people,” but he let his words trail away.

“I do not care.” Wachiwi was shaking. “They have hurt us and killed so many. Do not make me even speak of them, Wanageeska. You will not ask me.”

Even in denial, her arms opened to him for comfort. He pulled her close, kissed her forehead, rubbed her shoulders. “All right, Wachiwi. Shhh.”

“Do not ask me,” she said. “I would die.”

He had thought to get Wachiwi to help him interrogate the Iroqua captives to gain more recent intelligence of their customs, their language, their lands. He needed to understand. But the germ of the plan that had been forming in his mind was hopeless, anyway. It would probably never work, and he would just get more people killed.

Marcellinus gave it up and cared for Wachiwi instead.

2YEAR THREE, FALLING LEAF MOON

THE AUTUMN WAS A season of healing, a time for rebuilding burned houses and mourning the Cahokians who had died in battle. But it was also a time to replace the fallen Wakinyan and improve the Eagles, develop better throwing engines, and belatedly finish the palisade that enclosed the inner part of the city. Make more weapons. Teach more men and women to fight.

Marcellinus played his small part. He helped rebuild the brickworks and bring it up to full production again. When he could, he helped the steelworkers, but by now they were vastly more experienced than he was at forging metal.

The First Cahokian Cohort drilled without him under the command of Akecheta and sometimes directly under Great Sun Man. The Hawk craft of the Catanwakuwa clan trained almost constantly, flying up from the steel launching rail behind the Great Mound to loop and soar over the city.

Marcellinus was allowed to consult on the new, lighter siege engines. The Cahokians were building them two at a time, ballistas that threw huge bolts, like crossbows on wheels, as well as the more ungainly and unpredictable onagers. One afternoon he helped a special team strip a siege engine into its component parts, each of which could be carried by just one or two men, run the pieces up the Mound of the Flowers, and then rebuild it, using it to launch the Hawk warrior Demothi into the air over the great Mizipi River as an encore.

Marcellinus had lit a spark that would never be snuffed out.

The Cahokians were becoming a modern army before his eyes.

Great Sun Man no longer invited Marcellinus to the sweat lodge of the elders, although he was sometimes invited by Kanuna or Howahkan when Great Sun Man was not there. The war chief did not, however, exclude him from councils with the clan chiefs. There Marcellinus had learned that Sintikala and her Hawks were working at a feverish pace to bring back intelligence, map out the Iroqua lands, and help plan for the retaliatory strike the next year. Cahokian confidence was building.

The sick headaches from his terrible wounding in the battle persisted long into the fall and died away only gradually. Eventually Marcellinus could turn his head quickly without feeling dizzy, could even break into a trot without suffering an instant sick pain in his forehead and the back of his neck. There were still days when thinking was difficult and he lived in a fog and even had occasional black depressions that took until evening to shift. On those days he would walk endlessly around Cahokia, across Cahokia Creek to the northern farmlands, or paddle a dugout across the Mizipi and hike west into the grass, growing stronger in his body while he waited for his mind to clear.

His rekindled friendship with Wachiwi grew. He never pressed her to talk about her Onida childhood, but some evenings she brought it up herself. Once begun, her stories dredged up further memories. Some were pleasant recollections of her earliest years, others ugly, jagged images of the fighting between the Onida and the mound builders, the vivid terror of her abduction by Cahokian warriors, her first sight of the great city on the Mizipi, and the subsequent kindnesses of the Cahokian women in her adopted family. Her forced marriage to a Cahokian warrior and her abandonment once it became obvious that she could bear him no children.

It was a tale almost as distressing for Marcellinus to hear as for Wachiwi to tell. Many times he begged her to stop, but spilling her pent-up memories appeared to give her comfort. He, in turn, shared some of the horrors of his own past and his unease for the future, and obtained a measure of relief from that.

His three translator children, his first friends in Cahokia, he saw only rarely.

Enopay, the budding civil servant, had been absorbed into Great Sun Man’s entourage. From what Marcellinus gathered from Kanuna, Great Sun Man had come to rely on the boy for accurate counts of the city’s population, weapons, and food supply.

Now a full member of the Hawk clan, Kimimela was training intensively with Sintikala, Demothi, and the other pilots. She spent most days in the air or walking her wing home from some distant landing, and most evenings she was exhausted. As clan leaderships followed the maternal line, if all went well and she continued to grow in confidence and strength, Kimimela could expect to lead the Hawk clan one day.

As for Tahtay, the youth spent most of his time hiding from Dustu and Hurit and his shame, and limping on his twisted leg, using a stick as a crutch. One day Marcellinus saw him struggling up the steps of the tall Mound of the Sun, where Great Sun Man used to live before he moved back up onto the Master Mound, and hurried to talk to him.

“Oh, you,” Tahtay said on seeing him.

At the boy’s hostility, Marcellinus hesitated. “Can I help? Is there something I can fetch?”

“No.”

They reached the first plateau. Marcellinus was breathing heavily. His head injury had left him unable to train properly, and despite the long walks, his physical fitness had ebbed away.

Grimly, Tahtay turned and began the long walk back down. Marcellinus watched for a moment, confused, then hurried to catch up with the boy.

“I do not need another shadow,” Tahtay said. “The one I already have hurts me enough.”

Marcellinus glanced left. It was true; Tahtay’s long shadow magnified the ungainliness of his halting progress. It looked more like the shadow of Howahkan or Ojinjintka.

“All right. But now that I am here, I must go down, too. Will you sit with me at the bottom? I can get us tea or a pipe.”

“A pipe?” Tahtay laughed bitterly. “You say so? I am not a man.”

“You are a man, and one day you will be a great man.” But as Tahtay’s shadow hobbled beside them, Marcellinus faltered.

“Yes. I will be.”

Even with the stick, Tahtay surely was putting too much strain on his injured leg. How could Marcellinus tell him that?

“I will walk again like a man. I will be a warrior again.”

“Perhaps. But for that you must rest and heal.”

“I am the son of Great Sun Man,” Tahtay said.

Tahtay would never be able to earn the paramount chiefdom of Cahokia. “Of course you are,” said Marcellinus.

“And I will walk again.”

“Tahtay, you are walking now.”

“No. I am not.”

“Let us sit and talk.”

“I will not sit. You can be no help to me. Go and make things for Cahokia. Kill Iroqua. But let me be.”

“Tahtay. You were my first friend here, and you will always be my friend.”

The boy stopped and leaned on his stick. “Please, Hotah. No more talk. I must walk alone.”

“Tahtay …”

“Go away.”

Marcellinus stepped past Tahtay and went home.

* * *

Smoke swirled above the sacrificial fires to the north, south, east, and west, and up high on the mound tops. It was midafternoon in the Great Plaza, and Cahokia had gathered for the rededication of the Mound of the Chiefs and the adjacent Mound of the Hawks that bounded the south side of the plaza. The ceremonial charnel houses at the peak of each mound had been rebuilt in crisp new wood and straw and shone golden in the sunlight.

Tonight would be a new moon again, meaning it was a full four months since the Night of Knives. To Marcellinus it felt like only days. His sense of time was still faulty; he would occasionally raise his head from what seemed a profound concentration and be unsure whether it was morning or evening around him and how much time had elapsed since he had last moved. His headaches had gone, but the confusion remained. He could only hope that he would eventually make a complete recovery with more rest, more quiet, more tea.

Here at the rededication of the mounds there was drumming and flute playing and many songs in the archaic version of the mound-builder tongue that Marcellinus generally heard only at festivals and feast days. Though the sun shone bright, this was the time of the shamans and the storytellers. Marcellinus’s mind wandered.

Then the Wolf Warriors marched in the last of the Iroqua prisoners.

A season of hunger and deprivation had wrought havoc on the fearsome fighters of the Haudenosaunee. The light of life no longer glowed in their eyes. These were hopeless men, their hands bound with lengths of sinew. Blood leaked from their arms and legs, torsos and eyes, where battle wounds had long gone untreated. Nor had they even been permitted to bathe; a strong reek emanated from them, the stench of the latrine mingling with the sickly sweet aroma of gangrene.

Yet again, but as startling as if it were a new thought, Marcellinus realized how easily he could have ended his life like one of these unfortunates if Great Sun Man had not spared him. Marcellinus had been a novelty. He had owned value by virtue of his peculiarity, his incomprehensibility, the odd habits of the fighting force he led, his potential for providing information.

How well that had all worked out.

Time shuffled forward again, like a broken captive. Elders had stepped up and now stood by the Iroqua with knotted cords in their hands, waiting to dispatch the men. The prisoners were lined up in front of a deep trench in the Mound of the Chiefs, where they would be buried to serve Cahokia’s former chiefs in the afterlife. Their blood would fertilize the new grass, and the Cahokian honored dead would sleep more easily in their burial mounds.

Marcellinus was among barbarians. He rubbed his eyes.

An Iroqua screamed briefly before the strangling cord choked off his last breath and he sagged. The prisoner was so light and weak after so many days of starvation that even Howahkan, the elder who held the cord in his hands, could support his weight. Leaning down, the elder sliced open the veins of the dying captive with an obsidian blade. Iroqua blood spilled.

By the Roman’s count there were a dozen Iroqua sacrifices and only eight elders standing ready to slay them. Some of the grand old warriors of Cahokia would have to do double duty. He was grateful that Sintikala was not up there, or Anapetu or any of the other clan chiefs. Women as warriors, deadly and unforgiving in battle, Marcellinus had grown accustomed to. Women as executioners would be too much for him to bear, especially the calm, clever women he relied on to maintain his own precarious sense of reality.

The next prisoner was an Onondaga warrior who could not have been older than twenty winters. His braids were loose, and short hair had sprouted along the temples that previously had been shaved for battle. The fierce tattoos on his chest stood out in stark contrast to his weakened, abject state. He looked like he might throw up or faint at any moment.

No elder stood behind this prisoner. Great Sun Man strode along the line, a cord of death in his hand.

From the crowd, Tahtay hobbled forward onto the sacred mound.

Dead silence fell. Great Sun Man halted. Tahtay kept coming, climbing the Mound of the Chiefs with difficulty until he stood with the elders. The Onondaga brave on his knees squinted up at the boy.

Great Sun Man’s eyes were ashen. “Tahtay?”

“It is my right,” Tahtay said harshly, his voice carrying easily across the crowd. “I am still your son, son of chieftain. Will you tell me no?”

His people watched. Mute, Great Sun Man handed the hempen cord to his son and stood back.

“Me,” said Marcellinus. “I will tell you no.”

Tahtay’s head swiveled, and his mouth dropped open. Around Marcellinus, people gasped. A man he did not know reached for his arm in warning.

As he walked from the crowd and ascended the mound, Marcellinus held the boy’s eyes, not blinking. “I say no, not today.”

“You say?” Tahtay pointed down at his leg. “See? See? And why?” He waved at the people around them, who murmured. Marcellinus did not know what they were saying, did not know if he was shaming Tahtay or profaning their sacred ceremony by interrupting it in this way. He did not care anymore. He was not a savage, and Tahtay of all people did not need to be one, either.

“Yes, Tahtay, we see that you are wounded. You are broken, and you are healing. And yes, it is because you were struck by a cowardly Iroqua in war.”

Tahtay pointed at the Onondaga who knelt at the edge of the abyss. “And so his life is mine if I claim it. Why not? Because I am not deserving? Not my father’s son? Who are you to say so?”

“No, none of that. But Tahtay, your first kill should not be a man in defeat on his knees and almost dead already. Your first kill should be as a warrior in battle.”

“Huh.”

The leading shaman, Youtin, stared at Marcellinus. The crowd was silent. Great Sun Man glared but said nothing. No one knew what to do about this.

“Tahtay, hear me. You will remember your first kill. Make it a kill for Cahokia, a kill you will boast of in the sweat lodge when you are old.” Marcellinus raised his boot and shoved the Onondaga. The captive fell on his side, unresisting. “See? This man is already dead.”

“You do not understand, because you are from another place.” Tahtay raised his chin high. “This is the Mound of the Chiefs, and the death of this verpa makes it strong. This killing is good medicine, brave medicine for Cahokia.”

“Verpa?”

A Roman curse on a Cahokian mound. Rites Marcellinus would not understand if he lived to be a hundred.

Marcellinus bowed to Great Sun Man, to Tahtay, and to the crowd. “If I act wrongly, if I intrude here, I mean no disrespect to you or the elders or your great chiefs of the past.”

Great Sun Man nodded.

The Onondaga lay on the grass. Tahtay looked at the warrior and then up at Marcellinus, who held out his hand.

Tahtay laid the cord gently on his palm, but his tone was still rebellious. “Then why you?”

“Because I have killed many men. Because I have nothing left to lose.”

The prisoners would all die today in any case. Why should their blood not stain Marcellinus’s hands as well? As much as any man in Cahokia, Marcellinus deserved to share the task and the blame. Better even, quicker and more merciful to die at his experienced hands than at those which might be hesitant or ineffectual.

Marcellinus tugged the Onondaga upright. The warrior looked almost relieved that the talking was over and his ordeal was coming to a close.

Marcellinus wrapped the cord around the man’s throat and yanked it tight. His pugio slashed a deep furrow in the Iroqua’s neck, and the gush of blood warmed his fingers. When he was quite sure the man was dead, he pitched the body forward into the trench.

Even as he did it, Marcellinus felt another wound tear open in his soul. Killing Iroqua in war was one thing. But this, this …

Sweat stung his eyes, and his hands began to shake. He had lied. He had told Tahtay that this meant nothing to him, but it did. It meant something.

Marcellinus tried not to let that show on his face.

“For you,” he said tersely to Tahtay. Handing the cord to Great Sun Man, he stepped down to take his place among the common people of Cahokia.

* * *

Sintikala landed on the first plateau of the Great Mound. Even watching from the West Plaza, several hundred yards away, Marcellinus could tell she was weary from the way she trotted to a halt. The wind against the tall Hawk wing on her shoulders nearly pushed her over.

She was in the air almost every day, out on scouting runs. Sometimes she was away for days, having failed to make it home before the warmth and the winds gave out, and then she had to sleep rough and walk back to Cahokia or wait on a ridge for the weather to cooperate.

Now Sintikala looked up the mound. From where she stood, she probably could not see the large new Longhouse of the Sun on its crest, on the opposite side of the top plateau from the Longhouse of the Wings, but she obviously had seen it many times from the air. With its copper-lined walls, the Longhouse of the Sun literally shone.

He could sense her reluctance as she began the walk up the final cedar steps to the top of the mound.

That evening after dark as Marcellinus cooked his beans and cornmeal outside his hut, he heard approaching footsteps. His heart leaped, but it was just Kanuna. Marcellinus tried to conceal his disappointment.

Bundled in furs despite the remaining warmth of the day, the elder squatted by the fire. Perhaps one day Marcellinus’s blood would run thin, too. He was not looking forward to being old in this village in the center of Nova Hesperia, where the winters seemed to last forever.

“Some food, Kanuna? Tea?”

“I do not like the new house of Great Sun Man.” Kanuna rubbed his hands together.

Marcellinus raised his eyebrows ironically. “You come to tell me this?”

“The shaman Youtin, and the rest of the shamans, and Iniwa of Ocatan, they have all told Great Sun Man that he must live at the top of the Master Mound, where he will hear Ituha’s voice and be strong.”

“Yes.” Marcellinus peered left. The permanent flame outside the new longhouse blazed in the night.

“Ituha lived up on the mound, you see.”

“I know, I know.” Marcellinus pulled the cooking pot away from the fire and tossed in some purslane, watercress, and sliced wild onions to season it. “Ituha lived up on the mound when he made one Cahokia out of three, but afterward he chose to come down and live with his people.”

“And a little while after that, he lost his power over Cahokia.”

“Because of bad harvests,” Marcellinus said.

“No, because he stopped listening to the voices of the gods,” said Kanuna, and grinned companionably to let Marcellinus know what he really thought.

“Ah, yes, of course.” Marcellinus dipped a spoon into the pot, blew on it, and took a bite. Even after all this time he still missed salt. “Do we know what Huyana thinks of this?”

“Great Sun Man’s wife agrees with the shamans.” Kanuna shook his head.

“But Kanuna the elder, wise and well traveled, does not.”

“Would I be here?”

Marcellinus got few visitors. He smiled at the elder. “Perhaps. I thought we were friends. Sit, Kanuna, and I will make us tea, and you can watch me eat corn and beans, and we will talk.”

Kanuna remained squatting. Perhaps that was just as comfortable for him. “Do the gods live on high? Is Great Sun Man close to Ituha?”

“You ask me? I have not met your gods.”

“But you know your own.”

Marcellinus, about to reply, hesitated. Eventually he said, “I do not hear them. No gods, no ancestors.”

“What does Sintikala say?”

“Sintikala does not speak to me either.” He kept eating.

“Really?” Kanuna sighed. “I had hoped she did. But I suppose Sintikala is not often here. She flies around too much.”

“She is here tonight. She came home in the late sun.” By the way Kanuna turned and stared to the east of the Great Mound, where Sintikala’s house lay, Marcellinus realized the elder had not known this. “Maybe you should go talk to her instead.”

“Me?”

“You are the one with the questions.”

“But you are the one she will not turn away.”

“You are mistaken. I am not of the Hawk clan, and I have an uneasy treaty with its chief. If anyone, I was Great Sun Man’s friend … but that was before.”

“I do not think so. But either way, I think her tea is better than yours.” Kanuna stood. “And I am safer when I can hide behind you. Well? Come.”

Marcellinus grimaced.

“Wanageeska. I am a wise and well-traveled elder, and you are just a man. A boy, perhaps, since you have never been through the Cahokian coming of age and your hair is very short. I think you have to do as I say.”

“A boy?” Marcellinus said in some amusement. “I see how it is, Kanuna.”

Shaking his head, he got to his feet.

* * *

Over the last moon Marcellinus had not strayed far from the path between his house and Wachiwi’s. Shunned by Great Sun Man and ignored by most of the other Cahokian high class, he had avoided the Master Mound and its environs altogether. The last time he had been in this area, Sintikala’s house had been a smoking ruin, burned to the ground by the liquid flame of the Iroqua.

Her new house was a revelation. Twice as large as the old one, it extended over much of the earthen platform on which it rested. Its clay daub was so fresh that it glowed pale white in the starlight, and its trim palisade looked as stout—if nowhere near as high—as the one that surrounded Cahokia’s central precinct. Great Sun Man was not the only one whose accommodations had taken a turn for the better.

Kanuna called up to Sintikala from the base of her mound, and Marcellinus almost curled up in embarrassment at the realization that she might not be by herself, that Demothi or some other strapping brave of the Hawk clan might be sharing her evening. But she was alone, stepping out to peer down at them over the palisade while still drying her face with a blanket and inadvertently repeating the words of Kanuna, but in a much more tuneful alto voice: “Well, come.”

Inside, the house was less splendid. Built swiftly and hardly lived in since, it contained none of the elegant baskets or fine pots that had adorned the walls of Sintikala’s previous home.

They sat while she built up the fire. Tiredness lined her eyes and she was obviously chilled to the bone, but at Marcellinus’s offer of help she snapped at him to be still. Kanuna gave him a reproachful look for trying to impose on a woman’s hearth, and they waited in silence.

Finally they had tea, which Sintikala slurped down as if she had spent the day sitting out on Mizipi River ice. It must be colder, Marcellinus thought, up high in the air at this time of year.

“Well?”

Kanuna allowed Sintikala to pour him more tea and then explained his concerns: with the Longhouse of the Sun, Great Sun Man was creating a palace for himself high on the Master Mound, like a petty chieftain of a more primitive time; he was growing increasingly distant from his elders and his people, preoccupied with his gods and ancestors.

“Huh,” said Sintikala. “And so now he is a bad war chief?”

“I do not know. The warriors—”

“And you want to be Great Sun Man yourself, Kanuna? Or put another man in his place?”

“No! No.”

“Then what?”

“This does not worry you, then?” Marcellinus interjected. “I have known other great chiefs of their people—by which I mean my own people, of course—who considered themselves far above other men. It does not end well.”

Sintikala did not respond, but loosened her braids and untangled her hair with her fingers. It was matted with sweat and twisted into knots by the wind. Marcellinus had never seen her with loose hair. It softened the lines of her face and made her look unexpectedly vulnerable. Once again, Marcellinus wished Kanuna had not brought him there.

She had been silent for many minutes. At last the knots were out of her hair, and she spoke. “Kanuna, Wanageeska. I agree that it may not be a good thing for Great Sun Man to build his new house. It might lead to jealousy and to him not feeling so easily the heart of his people. But hear me: I believe he feels that the defeat …” She paused and stared into the fire. “He feels that the suffering and hurt of Cahokia are his fault and that they arise from his failures as a man and as a chief. I would think that each of you would understand this, just a little … Wanageeska, are you all right?”

Marcellinus had put up both hands to his temples but had forgotten he was holding a cup. Warm goldenrod tea had splashed onto his neck and shoulder. “Yes. Sorry.”

Certainly Marcellinus understood the idea of failing as a chief. He cleared his throat and pulled himself together.

Sintikala poured more tea into his cup without being asked. “It is nearly winter, with many moons until spring. I think that Great Sun Man will prepare us well and that in the spring he will lead Cahokia into battle with the Iroqua as no chief ever has before. I believe we will win a great triumph.”

“You are young,” Kanuna said bluntly. “I hope you are right, but perhaps you are not.”

She grinned at him, not offended.

Marcellinus’s frustration was rising. “That isn’t the point. The point is that Great Sun Man is living up there to better hear the voices of his gods and his ancestors, which is all nonsense. And taking advice only from shamans … Such men are adept at telling you what you want to hear.”

Sintikala shrugged. “Of course. I fly in the sky all day. If being up on the Great Mound helps you hear the voices of the gods, up in the clouds I should be deafened by them. But that is also not the point.”

“Then what is?”

Her lack of concern was alarming. Marcellinus needed her to be as hard and contemptuous with Great Sun Man as she was with him. The Sintikala he had grown used to would have a clear view of the danger.

Ignoring the question, she turned to Kanuna. “I am tired and hungry. Why did you come? Did you want me to speak to Great Sun Man of this? I will. But Great Sun Man is Great Sun Man.”

Kanuna’s brow wrinkled. “In my life I have been far to the south and the east. I, like Gaius, have seen what chiefs can become when they seek fine things for themselves and the small group of men closest to them and do not live among their people. I would not wish that for Cahokia.”

“It will not happen here.”

Marcellinus said, “But when—”

Sintikala turned on him, and the steel was back in her expression, even under her wavy black hair with its echoes of intimacy and sorrow. “It will not happen! Not while I live. Yes?”

From his seated position, Marcellinus bowed.

She pushed her hair away from her face and appeared to relent. “Eat with me,” she said. “Both.”

“I …” Marcellinus thought of his dinner at home, and had already spent too much time in Sintikala’s presence; between her power and the crackle of the fire, there was no breathable air left in the room. But Kanuna placed his hand on Marcellinus’s arm to still him and replied for them both. “Yes. We thank you, daughter of chieftain, and we would be honored.”

* * *

“Great Sun Man reclaims what is his right. Always before, since Cahokia was made, the greatest chief has lived on the greatest mound. And Great Sun Man sees any clan chief or elder who goes to bring him news or needs his counsel. At least now we always know where he is. He is much easier for us to find than when first you came to Cahokia, Gaius, or any time in the last ten winters.” She looked thoughtful. “And it is easier to safeguard him there from those who might wish him ill.”

Marcellinus spooned fish into his mouth. It was seasoned with a leaf he did not recognize. Sintikala was a better cook than he was, though he doubted she had to catch her own fish or harvest her own herbs.

He said, “How often has Great Sun Man been out of Cahokia?”

Sintikala eyed him. “His place is here.”

“But?”

She took another mouthful of fish and bit at a hazelnut cake. “He has led many war parties deep into Iroqua land, and he has been to smoke a pipe in peace with his brothers in Ocatan and in the river towns to the north and also to the west. And to Woshakee. And many chiefs have come here to visit.”

“No farther?”

Sintikala raised her eyebrows. “It is far that he went, especially to the north. And he has the wisdom of Ojinjintka and Kanuna and others who have traveled. And he has my eyes and the eyes of the other Hawks.”

“I see,” said Marcellinus.

“Perhaps he is ignorant, then,” she said ironically. “With only the three of us to advise him, and all of the other clan chiefs, and the rest of the elders, and Akecheta and Wahchintonka and his men of the Wolf Warriors, and Enopay and Tahtay.”

Marcellinus fell silent.

“I trust Great Sun Man, and I will not make plans against him. If that is what this is.”

“We make no plots and schemes. We merely worry.” Kanuna grinned apologetically. “We are old men. Fretting is our job.” Marcellinus winced at that designation.

“Then talk to the people and not just to each other,” she said. “The people want more strength from Great Sun Man. A war chief who walks among them, who is only a leader when he needs to be, is no Great Sun Man; he is just a man. Kanuna will remember that there was much talk of it when Great Sun Man kept a house with Nipekala, mother of Tahtay, down in the city. Now they see where this common living has brought them. The Iroqua have burned Cahokia and killed Cahokians.”

“That is not Great Sun Man’s fault,” Marcellinus said. “If it is any man’s fault, it is mine.”

She shook her head. “It is not yours. But many think this is a time for a strong leader. They will be surprised to hear that they are wrong.”

“I agree,” Marcellinus said, straight-faced. “Better to sit at home in his big shining copper longhouse. And perhaps you should also stay home here at the top of your mound in your nice new house.”

“All this space.” She shrugged. “It is too big. Too hard to keep warm. But all the clan chiefs have such a house now.”

She had brushed it off, but it was enough for Marcellinus to know that she had understood him. He let it drop. “And where is Kimimela?”

Sintikala smiled at him quickly. “She did not know that I would return home today. She is with Luyu of the Wakinyan clan.”

Marcellinus remembered Luyu. She was the granddaughter of Ojinjintka, a painfully skinny girl who was apprenticing on the Thunderbird flights. “Luyu is almost light enough to blow away into the air without needing a wing.”

The mood lifted, and they gossiped for a while in a much more relaxed vein. But when Sintikala began to yawn, Kanuna immediately got to his feet.

“Thank you for seeing us,” Marcellinus said. “It has been too long.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“I mean too long since we have talked. Not that the evening has lasted too long. Um. Quite the opposite.”

“The opposite of what? I think I am too tired to understand you.”

Marcellinus smiled and stood. “I mean that I enjoyed speaking with you and the food was good.”

He walked to the door with Kanuna.

“Gaius?”

He turned.

“You think that Great Sun Man wants to lead a giant war party against the Haudenosaunee? No. But he must, and Great Sun Man will do as he must until he dies. We must have our vengeance. The humiliation of Cahokia cannot stand. Iroqua blood must flow or they will attack us again. If there was a way to stop this …” She sighed. “There is not. Blood must have blood. He will lead us to victory. But for this he must prepare himself, and for that he cannot always be walking in the city preparing others. It is not so easy to be Great Sun Man.”

“No,” Marcellinus said.

“And you, Gaius? Your worry about Great Sun Man and your anger? I think perhaps you are not happy at being left out.”

That rocked him. Was it true? Did he resent and mistrust the new elite merely because he was not a part of it?

“I will think about that,” he said. “Sleep well, Sisika.”

Sighing, she shook her head.

“I mean Sintikala.”

“Good night, Kanuna, Gaius.”

3YEAR THREE, LONG NIGHT MOON

IN THE DEAD OF winter, Marcellinus floated a thousand feet above Cahokia.

The Sky Lantern he rode in was tethered to a tall platform mound directly east of the Master Mound. The Raven clan now had the launches down to a straightforward routine.

In a few days everyone would be another year older. Tahtay would become fourteen winters. Kimimela would become eleven winters. Enopay? Marcellinus still didn’t know. Despite his threats he had never asked Kanuna how old the boy was. Enopay’s age was Enopay’s business. His Raven clan chief, Anapetu, was right: Enopay was neither a child nor an adult but a new thing all his own.

And Marcellinus? He would be forty-four winters old, but preferred not to think about that. He was so cold up here, he could easily catch a chill and die before the Midwinter Feast anyway.

This feast would be a muted affair. A celebration would seem out of place after the carnage that had followed the Midsummer Feast. Canceling the feast would be disrespectful to the memory of the dead, but it was clear that no one’s heart would be in it.

Of course, to calculate the exact day of midwinter, Youtin the shaman would need to see the sun at sunrise or sunset from the Circle of the Cedars and note where its path intersected the horizon. And nobody had seen the sun for many days.

The land was stark beneath him, the trees bare of leaves. The grasslands across the Mizipi looked more like tundra, flat and desolate. Soft glows of red from scattered fires in the distance were the only traces of color: hearth fires outside the tipis of the braves who lived out on the plains.

To the east was the floodplain with its clusters of houses and the frozen lakes in the borrow pits. Beyond them the river bluffs rose up, with homesteads on their lower slopes. The huts on the crest were far distant specks. Even farther away, Marcellinus saw wisps of smoke from the upland villages.

After their experiences that summer, nobody was about to take chances. An Iroqua raid in the middle of winter would be almost impossible. Ninety-nine guesses out of a hundred had the Five Tribes frozen tight in their lands near the Great Lakes, feasting and gloating in their longhouses and looking forward to springtime. But Great Sun Man would not rule it out, not after Enopay had sketched out a scenario for how it might be done. A series of corn stashes hidden in a line across the land, stealthily prepared; a fair estimate of what each brave could carry in baskets and litters; yes, with determination and ingenuity, it could work. And even a small Haudenosaunee raid in the dead of winter would be yet another terrible blow to Cahokian morale.

So despite the cold, the scouts were out on foot, the Hawks were in the air, and the Sky Lanterns were aloft daily to keep watch. Nobody had seen any sign of Iroqua yet, and Marcellinus saw none today. The land was just as frozen as the river.

Ohanzee perched on the opposite side of the Lantern’s stout wooden frame, muffled in his buckskin and furs. By virtue of hard work and an almost suicidal courage, Ohanzee had become a leading member of the Sky Lantern teams. It was he who had devised the current launching method for the Lanterns, which was much less labor-intensive than the original scheme; it involved three fires in a line, a small bellows, and a steep—and, crucially, portable—wooden ramp to lay the bag on while it was being inflated. It was also Ohanzee who had been the first man to fly untethered. Ohanzee loved heights and had been known to stand up on the narrow frame and walk around on it, adjusting the ropes that held the frame to the bag while the Sky Lantern was careering across the landscape in full flight.

Although Marcellinus respected the broad-shouldered warrior and studied every detail of his operational mastery of the Lanterns, the two men rarely talked. From the very beginning Ohanzee had harbored a deep distrust of Marcellinus, a suspicion that had eased only marginally in the time since. He would never warm to the Roman now, and that was the second reason Marcellinus often chose him as a copilot: Ohanzee was unlikely to start a conversation. Aside from his determination to do his duty by Cahokia and take his turn at the very worst of jobs, Marcellinus went up in the Sky Lanterns for solitude.