Clash of Eagles

by Alan Smale

  On the fourth day they arrived at the hill fort of Ocatan that guarded the junction with the Oyo River, where the war party to Woshakee had turned eastward the previous fall.

  The war chief of Ocatan was easy to identify. A broad-shouldered man who topped even Wahchintonka by an inch, he wore his full ceremonial kilt and headdress and clutched a spiked chert mace with considerably more heft than the one Great Sun Man had held to accept Marcellinus’s surrender almost a year earlier.

  Despite the weight of his regalia, the war chief bounded forward to greet Wahchintonka, who wore only a breechcloth, tattoos, and a considerable amount of sweat. “My brother!”

  “My brother!” said Wahchintonka. “And all my relatives!” He meant the rest of the Ocatan contingent that had come to welcome them at the riverside.

  “And the friend of my brothers.” The war chief assessed Marcellinus carefully.

  “It is an honor to meet you,” Marcellinus said in Cahokian, and for novelty value repeated the sentiment in Latin.

  “We hear of the Wanageeska,” said the chief. “I am Iniwa. You are hungry?”

  Not knowing the protocol, Marcellinus looked around for Wahchintonka, but the leading Wolf Warrior was now talking to the Ocatan elders. Akecheta rescued him. “We thank you, mighty chief, but we are happy to eat when you do, at your time.”

  “Our walls,” Iniwa said. “Are they not great?”

  “Your walls are strong,” said Marcellinus, and they were. The outer palisade of Ocatan was tall and well tended, with firing platforms every twenty feet. The new defenses Marcellinus was overseeing for Cahokia were not as stout as these. Cahokia, of course, had a much longer and more challenging perimeter. “Strong and new. Last year, when we passed your city on the way to aid Woshakee, your palisade was not so grand.”

  “We are strong against the Iroqua,” Iniwa said. “We will not be Woshakee, stolen by the Haudenosaunee.” He held Marcellinus’s gaze. “And we are strong against the silver men of your people.”

  Marcellinus blinked. He was encouraged that the chief of Ocatan was taking the idea of a Roman return seriously. But as sturdy as Ocatan’s stockade was, any legion would smash it aside and overwhelm the town within an hour.

  “Strong indeed. But I hope that when new Romans come to Ocatan, they will come as friends. As do I.”

  Clumsy, but the best Marcellinus could manage. Iniwa put his head on one side as if considering it, then stepped away, spreading his arms wide to address the gathering. “And so, you all are welcome! You will enter?”

  Wahchintonka replied, “We will enter freely.” The sprawling group moved toward the open gates.

  The leading warriors of Ocatan now came forward to greet the warriors of Cahokia. But the elders had moved on without greeting Marcellinus, and the Ocatani warriors stepped around him with polite deference on their way to clasp arms with their fellow warriors of Cahokia. None met his eye.

  Tahtay had run on ahead with Dustu and Hurit. Stepping to Mahkah’s side, Marcellinus murmured, “Stay with me, if you would.”

  Ocatan was a well-kept town, larger than Woshakee but nowhere near the scale of Cahokia. Marcellinus reckoned the population at no more than four thousand, and that included the smaller and equally fortified outpost on the far bank of the Oyo. Most of Ocatan’s houses were the same rectangular wattle-and-daub structures as Cahokian homes, but a significant number were of the simpler pole-and-thatch style.

  Its mounds were small but immaculately maintained. And unlike the case in Cahokia, Iniwa lived in a palatial longhouse on the highest mound, the Temple Mound, with ramparts lining its roof. Two wooden rails graced the back of the mound to launch the Catanwakuwa, but the Ocatani Longhouse of the Hawks had been relegated to the mound’s base.

  Also relegated to the mound’s base was Marcellinus.

  Above them on the high mound, Iniwa and Wahchintonka were talking, feasting, and exchanging gifts. Akecheta was up there with them. Marcellinus had pointedly been left out and was trying not to feel aggrieved about it.

  Worse, most of his other Cahokian warriors had gone to drink beer with old Ocatani friends. Many Cahokians had relatives here; others, like Hanska and Mikasi, had fought alongside the Ocatani in the past. Marcellinus’s dinner companions tonight were Tahtay and Hurit, Dustu, and Mahkah. He was, he thought uncharitably, relegated to eating with the children.

  Mahkah looked around him. “Ocatan is small, and they do not smile much here.”

  “Perhaps having Cahokia so close makes them frown,” said Marcellinus. For all its strategic importance, Ocatan was merely Cahokia’s satellite city, and they must know it.

  “I think that perhaps having Iroqua so close is worse,” Dustu said.

  “The Seneca party on the river?”

  “And others like them.”

  A pair of Ocatani warriors walking past their fire in the dusk eyed Marcellinus and muttered something he didn’t catch. Tahtay glared at them and snapped, “You say so?” and Hurit put her hand on his arm. The warriors glanced down at them in derision and walked on.

  Marcellinus grunted. “It’s all right, Tahtay. No need to go into battle on my account. Perhaps I can win them over tomorrow.”

  “You will not drill them,” Mahkah said unexpectedly. “Iniwa has told Wahchintonka that his warriors will not be taught by you. That will be for Wahchintonka and Akecheta.”

  “Not drill them? Then why did I come?”

  Mahkah raised his eyebrows. “Because you asked? You wanted to see?”

  “Many warriors of Ocatan came upriver to help Cahokia in its battle with your people,” Dustu said. “And of those, many died. You did not know this?”

  “No.” Marcellinus was stunned. It had never occurred to him. Why had no one mentioned this before they arrived? Or Great Sun Man before they left?

  They were equally startled that he did not know. “Of course. As you marched with your army, we had much time to prepare, and so we called for our brothers to stand with us against you.”

  “Yes, but—”

  A female voice interrupted them. “I would speak with Gaius Wanageeska.”

  Marcellinus turned. Behind him stood a striking middle-aged woman with a large nose and a scar on her cheek. She wore bird tattoos on her arms and a cloak of black feathers over her shoulders. She seemed familiar, but Marcellinus could not place her.

  Without a word, his three young male companions scrambled to their feet and were gone. Hurit had also jumped up, but she nodded formally to the woman and remained standing. Confused, Marcellinus put aside his bowl and stood as well. The woman waved him down. “Sit, Gaius Wanageeska.”

  “Either of those names will do. Hello.”

  “I am Anapetu. I am the leader of the Raven clan.”

  “Yes?”

  “In Cahokia, Gaius Wanageeska. Cahokia’s Raven clan.”

  “Ah! Of course!” Now he knew where he had seen her before: standing with the other clan chiefs at the ceremonies. “How are you here? You did not come to Ocatan in our canoes.”

  “I have been here in Ocatan for half a moon for the birth of my daughter’s daughter.” Anapetu sat and rearranged her cloak neatly, and at that Hurit sat, too. “I hear that you are a good man and a fine warrior.”

  He doubted she had heard it from the Ocatani. “Thank you.”

  “Yet still you are a man without a clan.”

  “I am,” he said.

  “And that is why we must talk.”

  “Ah.” Not for the first time, Marcellinus could have used some assistance in social matters. He glanced at Hurit, but she sat in polite deference and said nothing. Tahtay, Dustu, and Mahkah had vanished completely.

  Anapetu leaned forward. “Gaius Wanageeska.”

  At her commanding tone, his gaze swiveled back.

  “Great Sun Man has spoken with me, and he and I have agreed. All in Cahokia must belong to a clan. I am to bid you join the Raven clan if you are willing.”

  “Join?”

 
; Wachiwi, Hurit, even Pezi had been adopted into clans. But Marcellinus was not of the land …

  The breeze moved Anapetu’s feather cloak. “You understand?”

  This had to be a direct result of his conversation with Great Sun Man at midnight a month before. The war chief sought to weld him closer to Cahokia.

  It was, nonetheless, a great honor.

  “Yes, yes. I am sorry, Anapetu. I am still not as familiar with Cahokian customs as I would like. I am … I would be happy to be associated with the Raven clan.”

  “But?” She skewered him with a glare that was, he had to admit, uncomfortably birdlike. “Yes?”

  “I am still …” Roman? “I have not abandoned my own customs. You understand this? And Great Sun Man?”

  Anapetu blinked. Hurit spoke for the first time. “You are still who you were. But now you are also of the Raven clan.”

  “Then I am honored. What must I do?”

  Marcellinus suddenly recalled the rites of passage that Cahokian youths went through to become men. He hoped joining the Raven clan would not involve anything so painful.

  His concern must have shown on his face. “Do not fear, Gaius Wanageeska.” Smiling graciously, Anapetu placed her hand on Marcellinus’s arm. “Come and visit me at my house once we are back in Cahokia. We will drink tea, and we will talk.”

  “I will look forward to it.”

  Marcellinus had acquired a new chief. He examined her with increased interest and decided that he had inadvertently done well. Anapetu seemed a force to be reckoned with. The chiefs of the Cahokian Bear and Turtle clans, whom he had met through Nahimana and her son Takoda, were women of much less substance.

  Anapetu gestured around them. “Ocatan. You like it little?”

  He grinned ruefully. “It is not Cahokia.”

  “No, it is not.”

  “And I had hoped to be useful here, but it seems I may not be.”

  “Useful?”

  “With the troops, preparing them to defend against the Iroqua with Roman spears and tactics. And by bringing skills with steel and brick, as I did in Cahokia.”

  “Hurit, Tahtay, and Dustu are to talk tomorrow with the elders and children of the Fox and Beaver clans here about bricks. That is why they came. Ocatan would have a Big Warm House for its older folk, too.”

  They had not told him that either. Marcellinus glanced accusingly at the unfortunate Hurit, then looked away.

  Anapetu stared at him for so long that he became uncomfortable. “I am known here,” she said eventually. “I will speak with Iniwa. Maybe something can be done. I think not, but maybe.”

  Embarrassed, Marcellinus began, “I would not wish … You should not go to trouble on my behalf.”

  “Trouble?” Anapetu stood, her tunic and feather cloak billowing around her. She looked more like a shaman or a dancer than a clan chief with the feathers and her loose, light clothing. “Nothing is trouble for one of our clan.”

  The First Cahokian and the First Ocatani were doing mass charge-and-retreat exercises in the plaza. Marcellinus watched from the slopes of the Mound of the Cedars, trying to distract himself from striding into the fray and barking orders. Despite Anapetu’s attempts nothing had changed, and a week of inactivity was driving Marcellinus crazy.

  Mahkah had been right: Marcellinus had no opportunity to teach the townspeople anything. Akecheta and his Cahokian troops were having the time of their lives drilling the warriors of Ocatan in how to fight with steel and organize attacks in the Roman style. Tahtay, Hurit, and Dustu talked to them of bricks, and within days they had a small kiln up and running on the riverbank. The gifts of Cahokian iron and Roman steel were accepted gladly, but the townsfolk did not jump at the chance to learn how to smelt and forge such items themselves.

  “Cahokia always provides,” Tahtay said privately. “We give Ocatan hoes and adzes to keep them friends of Cahokia. Now we bring them more shields and spears. Why learn to make something that will come to you anyway if you wait?”

  Marcellinus had been frozen out. He had almost forgotten his ostracism by the Cahokians the year before; now in Ocatan he was back to being an unknown quantity, a social pariah.

  “Still useless, then?” Hurit plopped herself gracefully down by his side, gulping water from a deep wooden cup. The sun was malevolent today, and it was hotter than Hades.

  He scowled at her. “Yes. Anapetu appears incapable of producing miracles.”

  “Miracles?”

  “Never mind.” With effort, Marcellinus forced a smile. This wasn’t Hurit’s fault. “And so we’re clan kin, you and I. Fellow Ravens. Birds of a feather.”

  She looked with some interest at the pugio and wood in his hands. “What are you doing?”

  He put down the pugio and picked up the cloth by his side. “Hurit, this is cotton. It is like the wool I wear, but it grows on trees.” He considered. “Bushes, perhaps. I found this piece in the market today. I have not been able to ask her yet, but I think it is what Anapetu’s tunic is made of.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “And?”

  “We have this in Cahokia? I have never seen it.”

  “Because you have no time for our dancers and stories and celebrations,” said Hurit. “Our Red Horn dancers, our eagle and falcon dancers? They wear it so that it will flap and fly around them as they dance. The shamans wear it, too. Ordinary people, we do not need it.”

  “But cotton can’t grow around here. The frost and the cold would wipe it out. It grows farther south, then?”

  “Down the Mizipi it grows much. In the lands of the People of the Hand it grows even more.” She shook her head. “What?”

  “Hurit, I have never owned a single piece of cotton clothing. Where I come from, it costs far too much for a soldier.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You want some to wear?”

  Marcellinus shook his head. If the common people did not wear it, neither would he. Little point in irritating the shamans or, worse, his clan chief by affecting their style of dress.

  Out in the plaza the Cahokians bowled over the ranked Ocatani, and hoots of laughter filled the air. Nonetheless, the Ocatani were learning from the Cahokians much more quickly than the Cahokians had learned from him.

  “Gaius.” Hurit pointed at the frame. “You still have not told me.”

  “Once we’re away from Ocatan, I’ll show you.” She looked dubious. “Let me finish it first. And we can get more of this cotton somehow if I decide I need it? Lots more? In trade?”

  “Of course. If you have enough swords, or shields, or adzes, or furs, you can get anything.”

  “Gaius Wanageeska?”

  “I …” Marcellinus stumbled to his feet, his face red. “I am sorry.”

  Three days later they had set camp on the muddy bank of the Mizipi, heading home, and Anapetu and Hurit had arrived to find him swearing like a longshoreman in several languages.

  Anapetu looked coolly at the small wooden frame Marcellinus held. “Explain this thing. Is what?”

  “Sorry. When I cannot do something, it makes me angry.” He raised the frame. “The cotton, covering this; it has to be very light, lighter almost than the air. And it must not flap. See? It cannot be loose. I need to sew it to the wood and make it absolutely tight.”

  Hurit squinted at it. Dusk was coming earlier as they progressed into the last days of the Hunting Moon. “It must be tight as a wing? As a drum?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And this is a lantern?”

  “… Not exactly.” Indeed, it did not resemble a Cahokian lantern at all.

  The girl raised her eyebrows, a slightly supercilious expression Marcellinus was beginning to find irritating. “What, then?”

  “Help me, Hurit? Help me to not pull off my own fingers in frustration, and then I will show you what it does.”

  Hurit looked alarmed. “Give it to me,” said Anapetu.

  Marcellinus gave it to her, or rather, Anapetu confiscated it with wry impatience. “We wil
l do this. And you? Go away and do something useful.”

  “Useful?”

  Anapetu had already produced a bone needle and was frowning at the not-exactly-a-lantern. “Not much sun left before dark.”

  Well, that was true enough. Still embarrassed, Marcellinus left them to it and went to help Mahkah collect firewood.

  “We have finished your lantern.”

  It was much later. The sky was clear, but the iridescent blue of afternoon had faded to gray. Low on the eastern horizon Marcellinus saw two planets, wanderers of the skies. True stars would appear later, once the night was darker.

  Tahtay and Dustu sat with Anapetu and Hurit now. Mahkah was arranging firewood into a tent shape, his flint by his side. Soon they would have a fire against the evening cool. Behind and all around them, other warriors were building fires; beyond them, men stood guard, staring into the trees.

  Marcellinus examined the lantern. Anapetu and Hurit had done an excellent job. Neat, tight stitches lined the frame, holding the cotton taut.

  They had invested a lot of effort in getting it right. It was a shame Marcellinus was about to either throw it away or destroy it.

  Perhaps he should have explained.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said.

  At the bottom of the lantern was a thin wooden cross-brace so delicate that Marcellinus could easily have snapped it between finger and thumb. He pulled a small candle from his pack and mounted it with care into the center of the brace.

  “You want the flint for a spark?” Hurit asked, reaching into her pouch.

  “We’ll light the fire first and light the candle from that.” He looked at Anapetu. “Do you know what this is?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t see where I’m going with it?”

  “Going? No. But I hope it was worth our time.”

  So did Marcellinus.

  Mahkah lit the fire. It grew fully dark. Eventually Marcellinus took up a twig and held the end of it in the fire until it smoldered.