building a fire and looking out at the Wheel Clan fields.
Psal lowered his spyglass. “A Peacock Clan. I counted one hundred and thirty-nine in all. Men, women, and children. No doubt others are inside, but even so…it’s a small longhouse. They aren’t allied to my uncle Bukko’s longhouse, but still…a Macaw marking.”
“And you’re our Macaw peace child,” Ephan added. “And the Wheel Clan’s chief studier. It’s done, then. Nahas will—”
“Nahas will say, ‘In a war, a warrior does not choose which enemy to kill.’” Lan shaded his eyes with his hand. “They’re from the Peacock Clan. Their longhouse is small but not small enough. Innocent or not, they will not be spared.”
“How cynical you are!” Ephan said.
“Not cynical at all, but I know Nahas.”
“Storm, ask Nahas to spare them nevertheless,” Ephan said. “What harm can these do to us? Or, are you still thinking of inheriting the kingship?”
Lan shook Ephan’s shoulder. “As a king’s Firstborn son, it is his right! And if he does not become king, he should at least be made a chief over his own longhouse.”
“Let Netophah rule the Wheel Clans.” Psal leaned against the rampart wall. “Netophah has the mind and the heart to be a king. I’m a studier. The world is my kingdom. But, yes, I do desire to be chief of my own longhouse. So the king’s respect matters to me. If I ask Nahas to spare an unallied innocent Peacock Clan, won’t he think me weak? Nahas has forgiven my trust in Tsbosso. But…to remind him of my foolish youthful mistakes?”
“Fools do not become chiefs. And the king’s memory is persistent.” Lan sighed. “This is my counsel. Search out the king’s thoughts. See what his orders are concerning the Qerys. The ride to their stricken longhouse is far, but it is not arduous. If Nahas hurries to send pharma to the Qerys sub-clan today he has forgiven Qerys’s attempt to usurp the rule. But if he shows no care and seems to perhaps wish that all in the Qerys succumb to their injuries, then his anger is hot within him and neither will these innocents have mercy.”
“How terrifying you are at times, Lan!” Ephan squinted into the sun, then turned toward the tower stairs. “Yet you have spoken wisely. However, Storm, do not let innocents die in order to get your chiefdom.” He glanced at Psal who lingered behind. “Come, Foolish Chief!”
* * * *
Downstairs, the warriors—about four hundred in all—awaited Psal in the gathering room. The longhouse population had changed much since the war began. Death had claimed many. Others, maimed, had been transferred to steward longhouses to guard farmers and stewards from Peacock attacks. New faces had come to the royal longhouse. Warriors, women, and children from destroyed longhouses, adopted children, foundlings. Women from the Macaw, Waymaker, Falconer, Grassrope clans, other Wheel Clan longhouses, and foundling women from mixed clans had married into the clan before the neutral clans forbade the marriages. About seventy new wives in all. There were children also, born from the new marriages, babes who played in the shadow of their treacherously-killed sisters.
Psal approached the hearth and surveyed the chief captains and the warriors standing to the left and right of his father. Broqh and Kwin, Gaal and Cyrt, Seagen and Lebo, Lan and Deyn.
Lan, Kwin, Broqh, and Deyn were his friends; they would support his decision. Cyrt and Seagen would not; they still grieved for the wife they had shared. Lebo would be gentle even if he disagreed with him. Gaal, because many of his fellow stewards had been killed, would cry for vengeance. Chief Orian, lately rescued after a bloody battle with the Bright Sun Peacock Clan, longed for blood. The other warriors in the longhouse, although the king’s kinsmen, generally remained silent. Then there was Netophah and Nahas.
“The Qerys tower is faint,” Psal started. “But it still sings of human life. It’s on the northern edge of our region. Too far for riders to go and return by third moon. Too far to carry the wounded. One of our warriors could ride there with pharma. Lan, perhaps, he has some knowledge of healing.”
“What was the last word from Renan?” Lebo asked.
“That the battle was hard-won, that Chief Qerys was slain, and Qerys’ son Antun was now chief.”
A smile flickered on the king’s face. “Qerys is dead, you say?”
Psal ignored his father’s apparent pleasure that the attempted usurper was dead. “Perhaps that’s why the tower has grown faint. Because it grieves for the old chief or the studier or both.”
“Tonight keen the Qerys tower to join us here,” the king said.
“But Lan and Ephan could bring them pharma,” Psal said, “Even now, they—”
The king interrupted him. “The women of the Qerys understand how to bind up their wounded. Ephan and Lan need not ride to them.”
Seagen whispered in the king’s ear. Nahas nodded then continued. “We heard another tower somewhere in the forest. Seagen says it sounds like a Peacock tower.”
Ephan handed the king a parchment. “Yes,” he said, “we were about to mention that.”
Nahas studied the charts then gestured to Netophah to approach. Psal hoped his brother would ally himself with him. Ruddy, well-liked, tall, the heir of all the Wheel Clans was hard for Psal to decipher at times.
“They’re harmless, Father,” Psal said. “A night-tossed mixed clan.”
“As you can see,” Lan pointed at the parchment. “In the past they made controlled journeys to the thirty Peacock homelands. Then some ten to fifteen years ago, they apparently lost their knowledge of keening. For some reason, their tower—perhaps because it fears arguments—has kept itself reclusive, purposely avoiding encounters with other towers.”
“Probably wounded by some disagreement within the longhouse,” Ephan said.
“As happens with these Peacock Clans,” Lebo said.
“I doubt they’re entirely Peacock Clan now,” Ephan said. “It’s probable that other clans and foundlings have joined themselves to them.” He looked at Psal, and raised his left eyebrow.
“They seem to be allied to a Macaw clan,” Psal added quickly.
“Are they markings of a Macaw longhouse allied to us?” Gaal asked.
“Not any Macaw clan we know,” Psal admitted, “but the longhouse itself seems unimportant. Too small for—”
“You show your weakness, Firstborn,” Cyrt said. “The Peacock Clans have murdered our innocents. Seagen and I have lost a son and you demand they be spared?”
“Demand?” I have not demanded at all.
Orian, who had been in the royal longhouse for only two days but who already had begun to try Psal’s patience, now spoke. “I also have lost a son, my Rask. Killed by the Sky Peacock warriors. His body burned in the Eagle’s Nest pyres! Moreover, two days ago, I engaged the Bright Sun Peacock sub-clan in battle. Who has not seen the corpses of his own kinsmen? You have not asked my opinion, Nahas. Nevertheless, I will give it. And I will speak in words plain enough for all to hear. Kill them. All the Wheel Clan will hear of your weakness if you spare these people.”
