Kavio
As he often did in quiet moments at the end of the day, in the peace of his clean and private room, Kavio took out his thinking stones. This time, he was not using them to make a decision. Instead, he painted them with red ochre and moved them around on the floor, like groups of toy warriors.
This group of stones stood for the warriors of Yellow Bear. That group was the Blue Waters warriors. The Blue Waters clans who lived near the border with Yellow Bear had run away from their clanholds. They expected a raid to come soon. Kavio moved more stones. Nargano had invited a peace party to come to the Blue Waters tribehold.
Another group of stones slid across the floor. Two piles, set to the side but still within his sight, showed the Morvae and Imorvae of the Rainbow Labyrinth.
He painted several loose stones with both the maze mark and the sun-and-ladder mark. These were the warriors and Initiates of the Rainbow Labyrinth now staying in Yellow Bear. Hertio still would not let Kavio train the Rainbow Labyrinth kinborn with the other Yellow Bear warriors. So that group of stones stayed separate.
Kavio threw those stones across the floor. They landed in random places and knocked over some of the others. Then he picked them up again and placed them into a tight arrow shape between the Yellow Bear and Blue Waters piles.
A few stones did not fit anywhere easily. The Gremo stone. The Rthan stone.
Kavio had returned the other Blue Waters prisoners to Nargano as part of the peace gift. Before that, he had asked them a few questions. They did not answer the questions he asked. But they did answer the questions he really wanted to know. Questions about family, memory, anger, and debt.
Kavio squeezed two stones in his hand. Hertio had been wrong about one thing. Rthan was not part of Nargano's family now, but he had been in the past.
Rthan's first wife had been Nargano's daughter, Lyass. She was from the Three Pearl Fish clan, one of the chief-making clans of Blue Waters. Lyass and Meira—Rthan's wife and daughter, Nargano's daughter and granddaughter—had both died in the New Moon Raid eight years ago. Yellow Bear had killed them.
After that, Rthan went back to his mother's clan. That ended the formal tie between him and Nargano. Rthan had never spoken to Kavio about that first marriage. Nargano had not mentioned it in his message either. But Kavio was sure that neither man had forgotten. And neither had forgiven.
He sat without moving for a long time. But in his mind, he still moved people and ideas around like stones in dust.
The fire popped and pulled him out of his deep thought. He picked up the stones and put them into the white ceramic bowl Dindi had given him.
I guess my life isn't worth much, Dindi had said shyly when she gave him the bowl. She had compared herself to it.
The words had been truer than she knew. The bowl looked simple, but when you looked more closely, it was made with great care. Tiny silver specks in the stone had been shaped into soft patterns. From one angle, they looked like swans with wings and long necks. From another, they looked like maidens lifting their arms.
He wanted to pick up a stone and mark it for Dindi. But he stopped himself.
What sign should he choose? What color? He didn't know. And really, he told himself, it didn't matter.
There was no place for her in his formations.
Rthan, on the other hand…