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saw that he did not share Juh’s optimism. “I hope it be so,” he murmured. “I had hoped to dissuade Rannach from this courtship, but …” He shrugged eloquently. “You know my son.”
    â€œIndeed.” Juh smiled. “A warrior proud as his father. And as determined.”
    â€œHeadstrong,” Racharran said. “He sets his own desires before the good of the clan.”
    â€œPerhaps,” Juh allowed mildly. “But marriage between the clans is not forbidden, nor necessarily a bad thing—are your hopes realized, then this wedding may bind the Commacht and the Tachyn closer. And even I am not yet so old I forget what it is to love.” He reached out to touch his wife’s hand, at which Guyan, whose hair was silver as her husband’s, beamed and nodded.
    â€œYes.” Racharran sipped tiswin, his expression thoughtful. “But still Chakthi loves Vachyr fierce as a bear sow her only cub; and I think Vachyr is sorely disappointed.”
    â€œYoung men often are,” said Juh. “But they get over it. Vachyr will turn his attention elsewhere—he’s no choice now.”
    â€œI hope it is so,” Racharran said; but Morrhyn guessed that he, too, thought on Chakthi’s dark face and equivocal toasts.
    â€œAch, is this a wedding feast or a mourning?” Yazte interjected. “The girl made her choice and Rannach has his bride. Let Vachyr and his miserable father whine all they want, they can do nothing.”
    â€œNot in Matakwa.” Racharran nodded, unsmiling. “But after? Our grazing shares a border, and that’s ever easy cause for disagreement.”
    Yazte snorted laughter. “Does Chakthi come raiding, send for me. I’ll bring my Lakanti against him and between us we’ll crush him.”
    â€œBest not speak of war here.” Tahdase made a gesture of warding, his youthful face worried. “That’s to bring ill luck down on all.”
    â€œTrue.” Juh nodded gravely. “The Matakwa is for peace, not talk of war. Nor is this a war council, but a wedding feast. So …” He lifted his cup. “I drink to friendship.”
    They drank, but as he raised his own cup, Morrhyn glanced to where the moon struck silvery against the flanks of the Maker’s Mountain and saw an owl drift silent across the face of the disc. Symbol of wisdom and death, both: he wondered which this bird presaged, and felt a sudden chill. There was too much strange at this Matakwa—the dream, the ill feeling, the absence of the Grannach. All felt to him the disparate pieces of some momentous puzzle that he could not yet comprehend.
    Abruptly, he said, “I’d sit in Dream Council tomorrow or the next day.”
    Across the fire Kahteney ducked his head and said, “I too. As soon we may.”
    â€œThe next day, if you will.” Hazhe, whose years were not much fewer than his akaman’s, smiled and gestured with his cup. “I shall need a while to recover.”
    â€œAnd Hadduth must be informed,” said cautious Isten.
    Morrhyn said, “The next day, then, but no later, eh? There are matters we need discuss.”
    It was agreed and set aside: this feast was not the place for such debate as Morrhyn sought. But still he could not help finding Kahteney’s ear to ask if the Lakanti had seen the owl.
    â€œI did,” he answered, “I believe it was a sign that Racharran was wise to seek peace with Chakthi.”
    Or, Morrhyn thought even as he shrugged and ducked his head, that death shall soon visit us.
    That night—what little was left when the guests finally departed—he elected to pass in his sweat lodge. Less, were he honest, in search of enlightenment than from the desire to sweat out the tiswin, that his head be entirely clear for the talks to come.
    Even so, he dreamed: of a heron that fought uselessly with harrying crows that fell like black thunderbolts