Wolf's Brother

CHAPTER FOUR

Tillu awoke with her mind still filled with last night's events. They had all eaten, consuming the flaky hunks of juicy fish and the soup that Kari had made earlier. Lasse had reluctantly departed for his own shelter, after Kari had instructed him to return in the morning to take charge of her harkar and the ones carrying the healer's belongings.

The others had slept sprawled in careless proximity on the hides within the skin shelter.

Kerlew had curled up between Carp and Heckram. Tillu had slept beside the boulder's flank at the shelter's back, easing her aching body with its stored warmth. She had been aware of Heckram. scarce an arm's length away, and glad when Kerlew engaged him in a sleepy conversation for it kept his face turned away from her. Kari had been sitting by the fire, humming softly to herself, when Tillu dozed off. And she had risen first to put on tea and stir the remainder of the fish into a soup. Tillu had opened her heavy eyes to find Kari crouched before her, offering her a hot mug of tea.

The others slept on. In his sleep, Heckram had turned toward her. His check was cradled on the crook of his arm and a tousle of hair hung over his forehead. His lips were parted as he slept, and his brow was smooth. At rest his face was youthful, the lines of his smile deeper than the lines that crossed his brow. Tillu tried to look at him impassively. She wondered if any woman could remain impervious to a man who cared for her child.

The solitude of the early morning drew her. She rose, whispering thanks to Kari, who nodded mutely. She sipped the tea as she crouched by the reawakened fire, then rose and left the camp. She needed a few moments alone. She walked, pushing her aching legs to carry her up the hill. The twiggy blueberry bushes scratched her legs and soaked her feet with dew. She paused in a mossy area to look down at the lake. Streamers and tendrils of mist rose from it. The grass and moss sparkled with dew. Tillu ran her hands over the sward and then wiped the chill moisture over her stiff face. It dispelled the last of her sleepiness, and she turned back. The awakening sounds of the camp below reached her ears. She heard a single laugh, and children calling merrily to one another.

She sighed. She still ached from yesterday's walking, and today's would be just as wearying. She forced herself to hurry.

Lasse had already arrived. His face was scrubbed, his eyes as bright as a squirrel's.

Tillu stood uphill of the camp, watching, as Kari poured a mug of tea for him. He took it from her awkwardly, managing to catch one of her hands between the mug and his hand. For a long moment Kari stood very still, looking only at the mug and their two hands. Lasse stood breathlessly silent, too shy to smile, looking down on the dark head bent before him. But just as Tillu believed that a girl's heart beat beneath the owl claws on her breasts, Kari jerked her hand free, careless of the scalding tea that sloshed them both. Kari moved away swiftly, stooping to stir the fish stew. Lasse shifted the mug to his free hand and shook the hot tea from his fingers. Neither one of them had made a sound, and now he gazed after her, looking neither puzzled nor rebuffed, but pleased.

'Like trying to tame a wild bird,' Heckram said softly behind her. 'He has to be content with his small victories, for now.'

Tillu had started at the deep rumble of his voice so close behind her. Now she stared up at him, embarrassed to be caught spying on the two and more embarrassed at confronting him by daylight. His beard was more than stubble now, the hair growing in more bronze than that on his head. She wanted to stroke it, to see if it were rough or soft. She was staring. She tried to keep her voice steady, her comment casual. 'It must demand a great deal of patience. I suspect that if he tried to move too fast, she'd reject him completely.'

'Probably,' Heckram agreed blandly. He lifted a slow hand to her face. Just as she moved to avoid his touch, he plucked a strand of dried grass from her hair. He flicked it away and stood looking down on her. 'Herdmen learn patience at an early age.' He looked out over the lake as he held out a hand toward her. For a long moment it hovered empty in the air between them. Then Tillu put hers into it, watched her small fingers wrapped and covered by his large ones. He lifted his other hand to point.

'There's our herd, already moving. Look at the way patches of white flicker through it and then all is grayish-brown again. All the little white tails flashing. And beyond it, like a brown shadow moving over the earth? That's the wild herd. They'll be far ahead of us before this day's out. We may not catch sight of them again until we reach the Cataclysm.'

His hand was dry and warm. His voice was deep, and he spoke so softly she had to strain to hear. He moved his eyes to look at her. On the hillside behind them, a bird called, its note high and clear in the morning air. She wanted to smile at him, but could not. She looked down, feeling foolish.

'We'd better go down and eat, or there won't be anything left. And there's a long walk ahead of us today.'

She nodded silently. He closed his fingers on hers, holding them firmly a moment before releasing her. They walked down the hill to the camp, not touching, but together.

All the others were stirring now. Kerlew had taken food for himself and Carp into the shelter. He crouched by the shaman, eating and nodding to Carp. He did not look up as Tillu returned. She wanted to call him to her side, to make him talk to her, but could think of no excuse for it. She greeted Lasse and thanked Kari when she scooped out a serving of fish stew for her. It tasted too strong in the light air of morning, but she ate it anyway. She looked up once from her food, her eyes seeking Heckram, but he sat, bowl in hand, staring into the shelter. His brows were drawn together and his eyes were grave as he watched Kerlew rocking with laughter at something Carp had said.

An emotion very like envy washed across his face. In an instant it was gone, and he dipped his head to sip from his bowl again.

The time for rest was suddenly over. Pots were scrubbed out with a wad of grass and packed again onto the patient harkar. The shelter hides were rolled and tied. The harkar were led off down the hillside to be added to Lasse's string.

'I'd best go see to my beasts,' Heckram admitted with a suddenly guilty look. 'I left them with Ristin last night. She'll have words for me, for having to unload and picket them for me.' He addressed the words to all, but Tillu had the foolish notion that he spoke to her. He looked at Kerlew and asked carefully, 'Are you going with me today, Kerlew, or with your mother?'

'Where's Carp going to be?' Kerlew asked immediately.

To Carp, there was no question. 'Come, apprentice, and carry our things. I will ride with Heckram, and you will walk alongside.' The old man stood slowly, and Tillu saw his stiffness. She could make a salve for it; the dampness of the spring nights probably made mornings a torment for him. But ...

She wavered in ambivalence. The najd was good to the boy, kind and attentive to him. But he was stealing her son from her, putting his feet on a narrow, dangerous path. Tillu watched them walk away down the hillside, taking comfort that Heckram at least would be close to Kerlew today. But as she noticed three other boys of Kerlew's age peering from some bushes at them, her heart sank. What did the other children think of this boy who walked always beside the najd, who did not run and play with them, but talked dreamy-eyed to an old man who rode a harke like a baby?

She was startled from her dark mood by Kari's hand on her arm. 'And now you will teach me?' she asked. Her eyes were bright. She had a basket on her arm, and she offered a shoulder pouch to Tillu. Good thing one of them had remembered such necessities. Tillu touched the knife at her belt, and Kari held up hers to show she was prepared. 'First, we need to make digging sticks,' Tillu told her, and was rewarded with a joyous smile. Her heart lifted inspite of herself.

The day reminded Tillu of the days when she and her aunt had gathered herbs and roots together. But this time it was Tillu who pointed and explained, and Kari who rubbed the roots clean on the grass and stowed them in her basket. Yet Tillu did not feel like a mother or aunt, but more girlish than she had felt in her childhood. She tried to worry about Kerlew, but found herself remembering that he was safe with Heckram.

Then her mind would wander to the way the early sunlight glinted on Heckram's new beard, and his smile slowly dawned on his solemn face. A curious anticipation touched all her thoughts of him. Spring, she told herself firmly. Sap was running in the trees, and her blood was racing through her veins. A good tonic would take these imaginings away. But she gave no thought to concocting one.

Instead, they gathered the bark and roots of the birch for cough syrup and acne medicine. Strips of willow bark peeled easily from the trees leaving the slick white cambrium exposed. 'Later, we will gather the leaves,' Tillu instructed Kari. 'Bound on a bleeding wound as a poultice, they stop the flow of blood. But for now we will take the bark, to make a tea for fever, or pound to, a poultice for sores. Get a bit of root, too. I'll show you how to make a colic medicine from it.'

Kari knelt on the forest debris to dig for the root. Tillu continued to peel bark from the branches in long ragged strips. Beyond a thin fringe of trees, the wide blue surface of the lake glinted. Behind them, they could hear the reindeer and folk on the traditional path. The folk did not hurry today. No one minded if a harke paused to nip new buds from a tree, or snatch up a mouthful of moss. Tolerance and good fellowship warmed the air with the spring sun. The adults had stripped back to sleeveless jerkins of light leather and short trousers or skirts. The children were all but naked, their skins soaking up the sun's warmth. Tillu folded her long strips of bark into a bundle and stuffed them into the shoulder pouch. Already it bulged gratifyingly. They would have to hurry ahead to Lasse and change this pouch for an empty one.

Kari shook the clinging soil from the network of roots. Willow roots were tough, and she had had to use her knife to get this chunk loose. She wadded up the tangle of roots and stuffed it into her basket. She smiled up at Tillu. Dirt smudged the side of her nose and the look of distance and mystery had left her eyes. Her face was shining as she said,

'You meant it, then. I thought perhaps you only needed me to help with the gathering.

But you will really teach me the healing herbs.' She reached into the hole and dragged up another hank of willow root.

'Of course I will.' A reckless enjoyment of companionship settled on Tillu. 'If Carp is to have an apprentice, I see no reason why I shouldn't.'

Kari dropped the root she was cleaning, and reached up to seize Tillu's hands in a pinching grip. Startled, Tillu tried to pull free, but Kari did not release her. Her black eyes were wide and shining. 'This is true? You are not making a joke of me? You would take me as your apprentice?'

'If it is what you wish,' Tillu replied, confused by her intensity. The young woman let go of Tillu's hands and sank slowly back on her heels.

'Ah!' she sighed slowly with quiet satisfaction. 'We shall see what my father can say to me about marriage when I tell him this. We shall see.' Then, suddenly grabbing at Tillu's sleeve again, she added urgently, 'But not yet! We shall not tell him until we are closer to the Cataclysm. Not until after you have begun to teach me.'

Tillu did not understand Kari's fierceness. 'Yes. All right, I shall not tell anyone that you are my apprentice, until you wish to tell them. But as for teaching you, well, we have begun that already.' Stooping, Tillu took up the cleaned root and put it back into her apprentice's hands.

Kari looked down on it. When she spoke again, her voice was thoughtful. 'It is what you know, Tillu, that lets you be as free as you are. A woman with no man to bind her, no one to fill her with children and weight down her days.' She glanced up suddenly, her bird-bright eyes pinning 'Tillu's. 'Was that why you became a healer? To be rid of men?'

'No.' The question puzzled Tillu. 'I became a healer because it was what the women of my family knew and did. Just as my father tended animals and crops.' She sighed softly. 'I never, as a child, imagined I would live so often alone.'

'Then take a man.' Kari's voice was as careless as if Tillu had spoken of fashioning a new garment for herself. 'Heckram would have you, if you let him.'

'Heckram ...' Tillu hesitated. 'I know so little of him, Kari. And I wonder so many things. ...'

'He is a good hunter,' Kari told her, as if that were all of a man's worth. 'And a generous man. Even with Elsa, for whom he felt only friendship. When she asked his protection, he gave it to her, and the gifts of joining as well.'

Tillu was silent, staring at her, praying she would go on. Kari smiled slowly. 'I hear many things, when folk come to gossip with the herdlord and his wife. And Elsa, too, was not shy of speaking to me. She was as close to a friend as I have ever had ... and we shared at least one thing. We both wished to be rid of Joboam.'

Kari rose slowly and began to drift after the moving line of reindeer and folk. Her voice was soft, and Tillu hurried behind her, almost ashamed to be so anxious to hear her words.

'Some have said that Heckram only took Elsa to wife because Joboam wanted her. It is not secret that those two hate one another. So many have said in the herdlord's tent, saying it was a shame Elsa was given to one who loved her with friendship but not with passion. Some say Joboam would have cared more for her, kept her within and safe. ...'

'And what do you say?' Tillu prodded gently.

Kari turned bottomless eyes back to her, stared through her as the girl continued walking. 'I say that Elsa knew more happiness in her short months with Heckram than Joboam would have given her in a lifetime. Heckram showed no lack of concern. Elsa but went to the spring at night, to draw water, such as any herdswoman might do. It is not Heckram's shame that she was not safe there. Whatever attacked and killed her within her own talvsit is the shame of all the herdfolk!'

Her words were suddenly fierce. She rounded on Tillu, madness in her eyes, coming so close to her as she spoke that her breath was hot on Tillu's face. 'It is not right that any herdfolk should fear to walk by night. The world, both day and night, is given to all of us. Why should one exist who can say, 'Beware, Elsa, the night is death'?'

'No. It isn't right.' Tillu put calming hands on Kari's shoulders. The girl steadied under her touch. The wild shaking passed. 'What did you see?' Tillu asked gently, sure of her suspicion.

'I?' Kari gave a shaky laugh. 'I saw nothing. I was within that night, inside my father's tent. But Owl saw, and he knows, and what he knows, I know.' She pulled suddenly free of Tillu's hands. 'Take Heckram, Tillu, You could heal him, could purge him of the worm that gnaws at his soul. He looks to you to save him.'

It was Tillu's turn to pull back. She shied from the idea, throwing out words to turn Kari's mind from the thought. 'And you, Kari? Have you never seen how Lasse looks at you?'

'Lasse?' Kari's voice set suddenly, her face going hard. 'Lasse is a child. He has no idea what he wants, but I do. And soon I will tell him. He wants a girl who plays yet in front of her mother's tent, a pretty little thing with wide eyes and easy laughter. A girl who will come to him like a calf sipping clear water for the first time, with wonder and surprise at the goodness of it. That is what he wants ... what he deserves. ...' Her voice had gone softer and softer as she spoke. Now she suddenly lifted her head. 'Foolish talk! We had best hurry, Tillu, if we are to exchange our full baskets for empty ones.'

She turned suddenly and began to hurry up the line.