Wolf’s Brother
Megan Lindholm

Copyright

Voyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Unwin Paperbacks, an imprint of Unwin Hyman Ltd 1989

Copyright © Megan Lindholm Ogden 1988

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007114344

Ebook Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 9780007397747

Version: 2016-02-22

Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Notes

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

“THE THINGS I must do are not for the uninitiated to witness.”

“But this is my hut!” Heckram protested in amazement. The assumptions of this scrawny old stranger amazed him.

“Out!” Carp repeated, and the big man went reluctantly, wondering why he obeyed at all. Carp remained standing until the door-hide had fallen into place behind him. But the instant he knew he was alone, he sank down to his haunches beside the hearth. Carefully he lowered himself the rest of the way to the earth, feeling the weariness that ate at his old bones, chewed at his strength like Beaver gnaws down a tree. But he would not fall yet. Not yet. He had a people to win.

The old shaman closed his eyes for a moment, tracked his mind back over the long trail he had followed since Tillu had run away with his apprentice. Tillu had not wanted her son to be a shaman, had not wanted to become the shaman’s woman herself. How little she knew of the way the world was structured. The magic was strong in Kerlew, ran through the boy more redly than the blood in his body, was just as intrinsic to his life. She could not take the boy away from the magic. It was the magic that had called to Carp, guiding him down a hundred frozen paths, growing colder and then hotter, but always leading him on. And now he had found them, living very close to these reindeer herders, but not yet a part of their tribe. That was all to the good; it would make Carp’s task easier.

Tonight he would impress these folk, would convince them that they must accept him as their new shaman. Once he had established that, it would be easy to take Kerlew from his mother’s tent, to show her that the magic made the boy his. And if she still wanted her child? Carp laughed noisily through the gaps in his teeth. Then she must have Carp as well. Women. So little did they understand of how the world was put together. Tillu was already his, just as surely as if she were a reindeer and he a herder, notching his mark into her ear. It would be good to warm his old flesh against a woman again, sweet to sleep with his face pillowed on her hair. He nodded to himself sagely, rubbing his chilled thighs with his gnarled hands.

But first he must bring it to pass. His back protested as he reached to seize the strap of his small pack and drag it closer. He studied the knots in the fine sinew that tied it shut. They were his, marked with the signs of his magic. No one had tampered with it. And after tonight, no one would dare. He untied it carefully, the sinew snagging on the rough skin of his hands. His knuckles and wrists ached. Wet snow coming. He rubbed his hands briefly, sighing at the pain the weather brought him. Then he nodded, accepting what the spirit world sent him. He would use it, as he used everything his magic brought him. Every scrap of rumor, every guilty start, every anguished dream-starved stare became the fuel for his magic. He reviewed what he already knew of this people, every gleaning from the few days he had spent among them.

They had been long without a shaman. A najd, they called a spirit bridger, and feared their magic men as much as they revered them. It was time for them to have a najd again, to renew their ties with the spirit world. He would take that place within them and make it secure. And when he was too old to hold them with fear and magics, there would be his apprentice, strange young Kerlew, to take over. Kerlew of the staring eyes and halting speech, Kerlew with his slightly misshapen appearance and the spirits hovering palpably all around him. Then Kerlew would rule as najd, and Carp’s final years would be easy ones. They were a wealthy folk, these herders. They could afford to treat their najd very, very well. He would see that they learned that right away.

The pack was finally open. He sighed as he tugged its mouth wider, reached within. He must choose his garments carefully; they must see him as a najd, not a ragged old man who had been close to starving for half the winter. He drew out the soft leather sacks that held his beads and rattles, chose carefully among the smaller pouches that held the herbs and roots of his magics. There was one small pouch, lighter than the others. He hefted it carefully; it was close to empty, and who knew when he would find more? But he would need the strength it would give him tonight. Better to use it now and win a people to himself than to be chary of it and lose all. He upended the sack over the small fire and drew close to it.

The blue smoke that billowed had an oily cast to it. He leaned forward to immerse his face in it, opened his gray-clouded eyes to it. The vision that was fading in this world saw all the more clearly in the spirit world. Breath after breath he drew of it, feeling the sudden vigor that washed through his body. The pieces of gossip he had painstakingly gathered danced in his head, began to fall into a pattern beneath the clever fingers of his spirit guides. There had been a woman who had died recently, some said by man’s violence, some said by a demon’s touch. Elsa. Yes, this would serve him well. And Kerlew. Already he made the herdfolk uneasy with his pale brown eyes and strange ways. And the reindeer soon to calve, and the snow in the air, the migration soon to begin, and the big man, Joboam, who wished himself already the Herdlord, and the Herdlord’s son, too arrogant and fearful to ever lead this people. Yes and yes and yes. The pieces moved, shifting and tumbling through his mind, fitted together a dozen different ways, broke apart, and formed new patterns. There would be one to suit Carp’s purpose. His vision would find it for him.

The herdlord’s son, Rolke? Kerlew had spoken of him. The youth was a bully, and as such Carp well knew he was the ideal target for intimidation. His arrogance covered his own fears. But he had not the heart of the people. What was the use of ruling a man if the man himself controlled nothing? No. Not Rolke. Joboam. Perhaps. He was big, bigger even than Heckram, who stood almost as a giant among these folk. And he was wealthy and admired. If Carp could find a fitting handle, the man would be a sharp tool indeed. It was a pity that Kerlew disliked him so; but the boy would have to learn to use those he disliked, not cast them aside and destroy them. And Joboam would have to learn to leave the boy alone, not abuse him every chance he got. But Carp could teach him that. Once he found the proper reins to hold Joboam in, the big man would leave his apprentice in peace, yes, and avoid the woman that Carp had marked as his own. He would learn. All Carp had to find was the proper grip upon the big man. He knew the spirits would show it to him, perhaps even tonight.

He inhaled the smoke again, feeling its blueness clear his head and open his fogged eyes to unseen vistas. Capiam the herdlord. Carp must go to him tonight, must present himself and claim his spot as najd for the herdfolk. Carp exhaled slowly through his mouth. Capiam. There was little power to the name, and he sensed no spirits guarding the man. He was alone, nothing at all to be concerned about. The threads that held his people to his command were thin ones. Carp would gather those threads to himself, and then consider if the man himself were worth keeping.

The smoke filled the sod hut, settling densely to the ground instead of rising to find the smoke hole. Carp moved within its blueness, breathing in its strength and vision as he drew his shaman’s garments on over his wracked old body. Heckram. Yes, there was Heckram to consider. This was his hut. Yes, and it was a well-made and large one, with a warm fire and food beside the hearth. Heckram had made him comfortable here, had treated him well. Yet Heckram was not all that useful a man. His ambitions bent in the wrong direction. He dreamed of seeing far places and owning many reindeer. Better to find a man who dreamed of leading, of having power in his hands. Such a one was almost always more useful to a shaman. Besides, had not that Elsa, the killed woman, had not she been Heckram’s? What had he had to do with her death? Carp wondered, and the spirit guides swirled around the thought, seeking handles on it. Heckram was a problem in another way as well. He liked Tillu too well, yes, he did, and he did not fear Kerlew as the other men did. His eyes were keener than he knew, and he saw the worth and power in the boy. No. Heckram was too dangerous a tool to be cast aside. He must be blunted first, must be taught that Tillu and her strange son were not for him. He frowned to himself. He sensed the Wolf in Heckram, lurking about the man, waiting to claim him. Wolf spirit liked him as he had never liked Carp. All to the worse was it that Wolf also showed an affinity for Kerlew. Better that the boy were given to Bear, as he was, or to Wolverine, who did not fear to wield power. Wolf must be kept from bringing the two together. For a moment the old shaman knew doubt. It was one thing to manipulate the world of men; to challenge the spirits and seek to impose his will on them—this was a difficult thing, and far more dangerous.

Carp grinned hard, his narrow lips writhing back from his bad teeth. Difficult and dangerous, but he was not alone. Could not Bear break Wolfs back with a swipe of his great paw? Carp drew closer to the fire once more, settled himself on a soft reindeer hide that was cushioned from the cold earth by a layer of birch twigs. He reached his bare hand into the flames, poked bravely at the glowing coals to stir yet another billow of the strengthening smoke. It wafted away the fears that had sought to weaken him. “Bear!” he called softly, and drew his drum closer. The smoke enveloped him as he took up the tiny bear-tooth hammer and began the beat. His chant flowed out into the smoke and mingled with it as it filled the hut.

Chapter Two

THE YEAR AFTER Capiam became herdlord, he had torn down his old hut and put up a larger one. It was done, he said, so that his folk might gather comfortably in his hut and tell him the things they were thinking. Bror had snickered that it was actually to accommodate his wife’s growing girth. Remembering Ketla’s outrage and Bror’s bruises, Heckram grinned briefly. He lifted the doorskin from the low door. Carp preceded him.

Earlier Carp had dismissed Heckram from his own hut, saying that he must prepare for his meeting with Capiam, with rituals the uninitiated could not watch. Disgruntled, he had taken refuge with Ibb and Bror, and spent the early evening helping Bror deliver a calf. The calving had gone well, and Heckram had returned feeling optimistic.

He had washed the blood and clinging membranes from his hands and wrists, trying to ignore the smell of scorched hair and burnt herbs that had permeated his hut. Carp had been sitting cross-legged before his hearth, once more clad in his garments of snowy white fox furs. Strings of rattles made of leather and bone draped his wrists and ankles. He wore a necklace of thin black ermine tails alternated with bear teeth. He had not spoken a word to Heckram, but had risen with soft rattlings when he suggested that they go to the herdlord.

And now he entered the herdlord’s hut just as wordlessly as he had left Heckram’s. Heckram stepped in behind him and let the door-hide fall. He set his back teeth at the sight that greeted him. He had requested time with the herdlord, not a hearing of the elders. Yet, in addition to Capiam and his family, there were Pirtsi, Acor, Ristor, and of course, Joboam. Men richer in reindeer than in wisdom, Heckram told himself. But Carp detected nothing wrong. He advanced without waiting to be greeted, and seated himself at the arran without an invitation. Once ensconced, he let his filmed eyes rove over the gathered folk.

“It is good that you have gathered to hear me.” Carp began without preamble. Capiam shifted in surprise at this assumption of control, and Joboam scowled. Carp took no notice. “The herdfolk of Capiam are a people in sore need of a shaman. A najd, I believe you say. I have walked today through your camp. The spirits of the earth cry out in outrage at your carelessness toward them.” He let his eyes move over them accusingly. His gnarled hand caught up the rattles that dangled from his wrist, and he began to shake them rhythmically as he spoke. The fine seeds whispered angrily within the pouches of stiff leather.

“Huts are raised with no regard to the earth spirits. Children are born and no one offers gifts or begs protection. Wolves are hunted, and no offering given to Wolf himself. Bear mutters in his den of your disrespect and Reindeer grows coldly angry. A great evil hovers over your folk, and you are blind to it. But I have come. I will help you.”

There was a white movement in the still room as Kari, the herdlord’s daughter, fluttered from her corner. She flitted closer to the najd and the fire that moved before him. Heckram caught the flash of her bird-bright eyes as she settled again. Avidity filled the gaze she fixed on Carp. No one else seemed to notice her interest.

“Spirits of water and tree are complaining that you use them and make no sign of respect. Reindeer himself has been most generous to you, but you ignore him. How long have you taken his gifts, and made no thanks to him?”

Carp’s rattles sizzled as he turned his gaze from one person to the next. Ketla was white-faced, Kari rapt, Acor and Ristor uneasy. Pirtsi picked at his ear, while Joboam looked sullenly angry. Rolke was bored. Capiam alone looked thoughtful, as if weighing Carp’s words.

“The herdfolk do not turn the najd away,” he said carefully. “But—” The sharp word caught everyone’s attention. “Neither do we cower in fear. You say the spirits are angry with us. We see no sign of this. Our reindeer are healthy, our children prosper. It has been long since we had a najd, but we keep our fathers’ customs. You are not herdfolk, nor a najd of the herdfolk. How can you say what pleases the spirits of our world?”

Acor nodded slowly with Capiam’s words, while Joboam stood with a satisfied smile. He crossed his arms on his chest, his gaze on Heckram. He nodded slowly at him. It had gone his way. But Carp was nodding, too, and smiling his gap-toothed smile.

“I see, I see.” The rattles hissed as he warmed his hands over the fire. Abruptly he stopped shaking them. The cessation of the monotonous noise was startling. He rubbed his knobby hands over the flames, nodding as he warmed them. “You are a happy folk; you have no need of a shaman. You think to yourselves, what need have we of Carp? What will he do? Why, only shake his rattles and burn his offerings and stare into the fire. He will eat our best meat, ask for a share of our huntings and weavings and workings.” Carp leaned forward to peer deep into the fire as he spoke. “Like a dog too old to hunt, he will lie in the sun and grow fat. Let him find another folk to serve. We are content. We do not wish to know…to know…”

His voice fell softer and softer as he spoke. The flames of the fire suddenly shot up in a roar of green and blue sparks. Ketla screamed. The men leaped to their feet and retreated from the blaze. It startled everyone in the tent, except Carp, who moved not at all. The fountaining of sparks singed his hair and eyebrows. The stench of burning hair filled the hut. Thin spirals of smoke rose from his clothes as sparks burned their way down through the fur. He swayed slightly, still staring into the reaching flames. “Elsa?” he asked, his voice high and strange. Everyone gasped. Heckram stopped breathing. “Elsa-sa-sa-sa!” The najd’s voice went higher with every syllable. “The calves are still! The mothers cry for them to rise and follow, but their long legs are folded, the muzzles clogged with their birth sacs. Elsa-saa-saa-saa-saa-saa-saa!”

His voice went on and on, his rattles echoing the sibilant cry. As suddenly as the flames had leaped up they fell, and returned to burning with their familiar cracklings. The najd’s head drooped onto his chest in a silence as sudden as death.

“Elsa! He saw Elsa!” Kari’s shrill cry cracked the silence. Acor and Ristor leaned to mutter at Capiam. Ketla sank slowly to the floor, the back of her hand blocking her gaping mouth. Every hair on Heckram’s body was a-prickle with dread. He swallowed bitterness in a throat gone dry and felt an icy chill up his back. It took him a moment to realize it had an earthly source. The unfastened door-hide flapped in a new wind from the north. Heckram pegged it down. Straightening, he noticed another interesting thing. Joboam was missing.

“Najd! What did you see in the flames?” Capiam demanded.

Carp lifted his head smoothly. “See? Why, nothing. Nothing at all. A happy and contented folk like yours, what do they care what an old man sees in a fire? Just smoke and ash, wood and flame, that’s all a fire is. Heckram, I am weary. Will you grant this old beggar a place in your tent for one night?”

His answer was drowned by Capiam’s raised voice. “The herdlord gladly offers you shelter this night, Carp. But certainly it will be for more than just one night?”

“No, no. Just for a night or two, for an old man to rest from his travels. Then I shall take my apprentice and move on. I will stay at Heckram’s hut. It’s a very large hut, for one man alone. A shame he has no wife to share it. Have you never thought of taking a woman, Heckram?” The old man asked innocently.

“Not since Elsa died!” Kari shrilled out. She flitted over to Carp, her loose garments flapping as she moved. She crouched beside him, her dark eyes enormous. “What did you see in the flames?” she asked in a husky whisper.

“Kari!” her father rebuked her, but she did not heed him. She peered into Carp’s clouded eyes, her head cocked and her lips pursed. For a long moment their gaze held. Then she gave a giggle that had no humor in it and leaped to her feet. She turned to fix her eyes on Pirtsi. Her face was strange, unreadable. Even Pirtsi, immune to subtlety, shifted his feet and scratched the nape of his neck uneasily.

“Heckram and I will leave now!” Carp announced, rising abruptly. He took a staggering step, then gripped the young man’s shoulder and pulled himself up straight.

“But I wished to speak to Capiam, about Kerlew,” Heckram reminded him softly.

Carp’s eyes were icy and cold as gray slush. “Kerlew is my apprentice. His well-being is in my care. He is not for you to worry about. Do you doubt it?”

Heckram met his gaze, then shook his head slowly.

“Good night, Capiam.” Carp’s farewell was bland. “Sleep well and contentedly, as should a leader of a contented folk. Take me to our hut, Heckram. This foolish old man is weary.”

A north wind was slicing through the talvsit. Icy flakes of crystalline snow rode it, cutting into Heckram’s face. It was more like the teeth of winter than the balmy breath of spring. Heckram bowed his head and guided the staggering najd toward his hut. The talvsit dogs were curled in round huddles before their owners’ doors. Snow coated their fur and rimed their muzzles. Heckram shivered in the late storm and narrowed his eyes against the wind’s blast. In a lull of the wind came the lowing cry of a vaja calling her calf. A shiver ran up Heckram’s spine, not at the vaja’s cry, but at the low chuckle from the najd that followed it.

It took two days for the storm to blow itself out. There came a morning finally when the sun emerged in a flawlessly blue sky and the warmth of the day rose with it. The storm’s snow melted and ran off in rivulets down the pathways of the talvsit, carrying the remainder of the old snow with it. Icicles on the thatching of the huts dripped away. Earth and moss and the rotting leaves of last autumn were bared by the retreating snow. As the day grew older, and the herdfolk sought out their reindeer in the shelter of the trees, the retreating snow bared the small still forms of hapless calves born during the late storm. Vajor with swollen udders nudged at little bodies, nuzzled and licked questioningly at the small ears and cold muzzles.

Silent folk moved in the forest, leading vajor away to be milked, leaving the dead calves to the relentless beetles that already crept over them. During the storm, the tale of the najd’s words had crept from hut to hut until all the talvsit knew. Carp sat outside Heckram’s door, stretching his limbs to the warmth of the sun as he fondled something small and brown in his knuckly hands. Those who passed looked aside in fear and wonder, and some felt a hidden anger. Heckram was one of them. What demon had guided this old man to him, and what foolishness had ever prompted him to bring Carp back to the talvsit?

“I lost two calves,” he said coldly, standing over the old man. “And my best vaja, who sometimes bore twins, cannot be found at all. I think wolves got her as she gave birth.”

“A terrible piece of luck,” Carp observed demurely.

“One of Ristin’s vajor died giving birth.”

Carp nodded. “A terrible storm.” He tilted his filmed eyes up to Heckram. “I will be leaving in a few moments. I wish to spend the day with my apprentice.”

Heckram was silent, conflicting urges stirring in him. “I can’t take you today,” he said at last. “The bodies of the calves must be collected, skinned, and the meat burned. It is already spoiled. Otherwise the stench of it will draw wolves and foxes and ravens to prey on the new-born ones as well.”

Carp looked at him coldly. “I do not need you to take me. That is not what I said. As for you, you have no reason to see Tillu. Your face is healed. You have tasks to do. To visit the healer would be a waste of your time.” His tone forbade Heckram.

“The healer and her son are my friends,” Heckram countered. “And sometimes a man goes visiting for no more reason than that.”

“Not when he has work. You have calves to skin and bury. Don’t waste your time visiting Tillu.”

Capiam approached as they were speaking. Acor and Ristor hung at his heels like well-trained dogs. Heckram glanced at them in annoyance, wondering where Joboam was. Carp showed them his remaining teeth in a grin, and went on speaking to Heckram.

“Hides from just-born calves make a soft leather. Very fine and soft, wonderful for shirts. It has been a long time since I had a shirt of fine soft leather. But such luxuries are not for a wandering najd.” He moved his head in a slow sweep over the gathered men. Then, with elaborate casualness, he opened his hand. One finger stroked the carved figure of a reindeer calf curled in sleep. Or death. Acor retreated a step.

“You might have a shirt of calf leather, and leggings as well,” Capiam said in a falsely bright voice. “My folk have urged me to invite you to join us on our migration. We will provide for your needs.”

“I myself will give you three calf hides this very day!” Acor proclaimed nervously.

Carp closed his hand over the figurine. “A kind man. A kind man,” he observed, to no one in particular. “An old man should be grateful. But it would be a waste of hides. My teeth are worn, my eyes are dim, my hands ache when the winds blow chill. An old man like me cannot work hides into shirts.”

“There are folk willing to turn the hides into shirts for you. And your other needs will be seen to as well.”

“Kind. Kind, generous men. Well, we shall see. I must go to visit my apprentice today. Kerlew, the healer’s son. I am sure you know of him. He has told me he might not be happy among your folk. Some might be unkind to him. I would not stay among folk who mistreat my apprentice.”

A puzzled Capiam conferred with Acor and Ristor, but both looked as mystified as he did. He turned back to Carp. “If anyone offers harm to your apprentice, you have only to tell me about it. I will see that the ill-doer pays a penalty.”

“Um.” Carp sat nodding to himself for a long moment. Then, “We will see,” he said, and got creakily to his feet. “And you, Heckram. Do not waste your time today. Get your work done, and be ready to travel. The journey begins the day after tomorrow.”

The men looked to Capiam in confusion. “We do not go that soon,” Capiam corrected him gently. “In four or five days, perhaps, when…”

“No? Well, no doubt you know more of such things than I. I had thought that a wise man would leave by the day after tomorrow. But I suppose I am wrong again. What an old man sees in his dreams has little to do with day-to-day life. I must be going, now.”

Carp set off at a shambling walk, leaving Capiam and his men muttering in a knot. Heckram called after him, “Be sure to tell Tillu that I will come to see her soon.” The old man gave no sign of hearing. With deep annoyance, Heckram knew that his message would not be delivered.

“Here he comes! I told you he would come as soon as the storm died!” Without waiting for an answer, Kerlew raced out to meet Carp.

“I told you that he would come as soon as the storm was over.” Tillu offered the truth to the empty air. Kerlew had been frantic when Carp had not returned. He had spent a miserable two days. Kerlew had paced and worried, nagged her for her opinion as to why Carp hadn’t returned, and ignored it when she told him. So now the old shaman was here, and her son would stop pestering her. Instead of relief, her tension tightened. She stood in the door, watched her son run away from her.

She watched the old man greet the boy, their affection obvious. In an instant, they were in deep conversation, the boy’s long hands fluttered wildly in description. They turned and walked into the woods. Tillu sighed.

Then she glimpsed another figure moving down the path through the trees. Despite her resolve, her belly tightened in anticipation. The long chill days of the storm had given her time to cool her ardor and reflect upon what had nearly happened the last time she had seen Heckram. It would have been a grave mistake. She was glad it had not happened, glad she had not made herself so vulnerable to Heckram. The trees alternately hid and revealed the figure coming down the path. He was wearing a new coat. She dreaded his coming, she told herself. That was what sent her heart hammering into her throat. She would not become involved with a man whose woman had been beaten, and then slipped into death by too large a dosage of pain tea. She would not become close to a man that large, so large he made her feel like a helpless child. She would be calm when he arrived. She would treat his face, if that was what he came for. And if it was not, she would…do something. Something to make it clear she would not have him.

He paused at the edge of the clearing, shifting nervously from foot to foot. It wasn’t him. Recognition of the fact sank her stomach and left her trembling. He hadn’t come. Why hadn’t he come? Had he had second thoughts about a woman who had birthed a strange child like Kerlew? Kerlew, with his deep-set pale eyes and prognathous jaw, Kerlew, who dreamed with his eyes wide open. But Heckram had seemed to like her son, had responded to him as no other adult male ever had. So if it was not Kerlew that had kept Heckram from coming to see her, it was something else. Something that was wrong with her.

Whoever it was who had come hesitated at the edge of the clearing. Tillu watched as her visitor rocked back and forth in an agony of indecision. Then suddenly the figure lifted its arms wide, and rushed toward her hut in a swooping run. The girl’s black hair lifted as she ran, catching blue glints of light like a raven’s spread wings. The wind of her passage pressed her garments against her thin body.

A few feet from the hut, she skittered to a halt. She dropped her arms abruptly and folded her thin hands in front of her high breasts. Her fluttering garments of loose white furs settled around her. She stood perfectly still and silent, regarding Tillu with brightly curious eyes. She did not make any greeting sign, not even a nod. She waited.

“Hello there,” Tillu said at last. She found herself speaking as to a very shy child. The same calm voice and lack of aggressive movements. It seemed to Tillu that if she put out a hand, the girl would take flight. “Have you come to see me? Tillu the Healer?”

The girl bobbed a quick agreement and came two short steps closer. She looked at Tillu as if she had never seen a human before, with a flat, wide curiosity, taking in not the details of Tillu’s face and garments, but the general shape of the woman. It was the way Kerlew looked at strangers, and Tillu felt a sudden uneasiness. “What’s your name?” she asked carefully. “What do you need from me?”

The girl froze. Tillu expected her next motion to carry her away. But instead she said in a whisper-light voice, “Kari. My name is Kari.” She bobbed a step closer and craned her neck to peer into the tent. “You’re alone.” She swiveled her head about quickly to see if there were anyone about. Tillu didn’t move. The girl leaned closer, reached out a thin hand but didn’t quite touch her. “I want you to mark me.”

“What?”

“Listen!” The girl seemed impatient. “I want you to mark me. My face and breasts, I think that should be enough. Maybe my hands. If it isn’t, I’ll come back and have you take out an eye. But this first time, I think if you cut off part of one nostril, and perhaps notched my ears. Yes. Notch my ears, with my own reindeer mark. To show that I belong to myself.”

Tillu felt strangely calm. She was talking to a mad woman. The last snow was melting, leaf buds were swelling on twigs, and the trunks of birches and willows were flushed pink with sap. And this girl wanted Tillu to cut off pieces of her face.

“And there is a mark I want you to make on each of my breasts. We will have to cut it deep enough to scar. Look Here it is. Can you tell what I meant it to be?”

From within her fluttering garments, the girl produced a small scrap of bleached hide. She unrolled it carefully, glanced warily about, and then thrust it into Tillu’s face. She was breathing quickly, panting in her excitement.

Tillu looked at the scrap of hide, making no movement to take it. A black mark had been made with soot in the center of the hide. Four lines meeting at a junction. “It looks like the tracks shore birds leave in the mud,” Tillu observed carefully.

“Yes!” Kari’s voice hissed with satisfaction. “Almost. Only it’s the mark of an Owl. A great white owl with golden eyes. I want you to put one on each of my breasts, above the nipples. Mark me as the Owl’s. Then Pirtsi will know I am not for him. My ears will show me as mine, my breasts will show me as Owl’s. Must it hurt very much?”

The pang of fear in the last question wrung Tillu’s heart. It was a child’s voice, not questioning that it must be done, but only how much it would hurt.

“Yes.” Tillu spoke simply and truthfully. “Such a thing would hurt a great deal. Your ears, not so much after it was done. But your nose would hurt a great deal, every time you moved your face to speak or smile or frown. The nose is very sensitive. As would your breasts be. There would be a great deal of blood and pain.”

She peered deeply into the girl’s eyes as she spoke, hoping to see some wavering in her determination. There was none. Tillu felt a tightening within her belly. This girl would do this maiming, with her help or without it. She must find a way to deter her. Slowly she gestured toward her tent. “Would you care to come inside? I made a tea this morning, of sorrel and raspberry roots, with a little alder bark. As a tonic for the spring, but also because it tastes good. Will you try some?”

Kari opened and closed her arms several times rapidly, making her white garments flap around her. Tillu thought she had lost her, that the girl would flee back into the woods. But suddenly she swooped into the tent. She fluttered about, looking at everything, and then alighted on a roll of hides near the hearth. She cocked her head to peer into the earthenware pot of tea steeping on the coals. “I’d like some,” she said decisively.

Tillu moved slowly past her, to reach for carved wooden cups. “What made you decide to mark your body?” she asked casually.

Kari didn’t speak. Tillu sat on the other side of the hearth, facing her. She dipped up two cups of the tea, and offered one dripping mug to Kari. She took it, looked into it, sniffed it, sipped it, and then looked up at Tillu and spoke. “The night the najd came to my father’s tent and spoke, I felt the truth of his words. And more. He spoke of how many of us had no spirit guardian to protect us. I had heard my grandmother speak of such guardians, a long time ago, before she died. Her spirit beast was Hare. He does not seem like much of a guardian, does he? But he was good to my grandmother.

“So that night, I stared into the fire as the najd had and opened myself and went looking for a spirit beast. But I saw nothing in the flames, though I watched until long after all the others slept. So, I gave up and went to my skins and slept. And in the night I felt cold, heavy claws sink into my beast.”

She lifted her thin hands, her narrow fingers curved like talons, and pressed them against her breasts. Then she looked up at Tillu. The girl’s eyes were a wide blackness. She smiled at Tillu, a strange and wondering smile. Tillu held her breath. “The weight of his claws pressed me down, crushing my chest until I could not breathe. The sharp cold claws sank into me. I struggled but could not escape. It grew dark. But when I was too tired to fight anymore, the darkness gave way to a soft gray light. I felt moss beneath my back, and the night wind of the forest blew across my naked body. And atop my chest, near tall as a man, was Owl, perched with his claws sunk into my breasts!”

Her nostrils flared as she breathed, and Tillu could see the whites all around her eyes. The hands that held the wooden mug trembled as she raised it to her lips. Tillu was silent, waiting. Kari drank. When she took the mug from her mouth, her eyes were calm. She smiled at Tillu, a tight-lipped smile without the showing of teeth. “Then I knew,” she said softly.

Tillu leaned forward. “Knew what?”

“That I belonged to Owl. That I didn’t have to let Pirtsi join with me by the Cataclysm this summer. I am Owl’s. When I awoke, I told my dream to my mother, and asked her to explain to my father why I cannot be joined to Pirtsi. It was always his idea, never mine. I never wanted to be joined to any man at all, let alone a man with dog’s eyes. But my mother grew angry, and said that a man was what I needed to be settled, for nothing else had worked. So I have come to you. Mark my face and body, so all will know to whom I belong. Pirtsi will not take me if I am scarred. He would not take me at all, except that he thinks Capiam’s daughter is a way to Capiam’s favor.”

Tillu sipped at her tea, watching Kari over her mug. The girl was determined. In her mind, it was already done. She spoke carefully. “Kari, I am a healer, not one who damages bodies.”

“Damage? No, this would not be damage. Only a marking, like a notch in a calf’s ear, or a woman’s mark carved into her pulkor. Not damage.”

Tillu chewed at her lower lip. “I do not think we should do this thing,” she said softly, and as anger flared on Kari’s face she added, “If Owl had wanted you so marked on your flesh, he would have marked you himself. Is this not so?”

For an instant, Kari looked uncertain. Tillu pressed on, glad for once that Kerlew had nattered on so much about Carp’s teaching. She wanted her words to sound convincing.

“Owl has marked your spirit as his. That is all he requires. You need not mark your face to deny Pirtsi. Or so I understood during the time I spent with the herdfolk, when Elsa…”

“Elsa died.” Kari finished in an awed whisper.

“I understood then that the women of your folk can choose their mates. You have a reindeer of your own, do you not? Are not the things you make yours to keep or trade as you wish?” At each of the girl’s nods, Tillu’s spirits lifted. “Then say that Pirtsi isn’t what you want. Cannot you do that?”

Kari had begun to writhe. Her fingers clawed at her arms as she hugged herself. “I should be able to do that. But no one listens. I say I won’t have him. They pay no attention. Everyone is so certain that we will be joined at the Cataclysm. It is as if I cried out that the sun would shine at night. They would think it some childish game. They cannot understand that I do not want him; that I cannot let him touch me.”

“Why?” Tillu spoke very, very softly.

Kari’s eyes grew larger and larger in her face. She touched the tip of her tongue to the center of her upper lip. She trembled on the edge of speaking. Then, the tension left her abruptly, her shoulders slumped, and she said, “Because I belong to Owl now, and he tells me not to. Why won’t you mark me?”

“Because I do not believe Owl wants me to,” Tillu excused herself smoothly. “Who am I to make Owl’s mark for him? If he wishes you marked, he will do it himself.”

Kari once more lifted her hands, sank taloned fingers against her breasts. “And if I do it myself?” she asked.

“Then I would try to see that you did not become infected. A healer is what I am, Kari. I cannot change that. Let me offer you another idea. Wait. There is much time between spring and high summer. Tell everyone that you will not have Pirtsi. Say it again and again. They will come to believe you. Tell Pirtsi himself. Tell him you will not be a good wife to him.”

“And if they do not believe me, when the day comes, I will show them that I am Owl’s. By the Cataclysm.”

Tillu sighed. “If you must.”

The girl sipped at her tea, suddenly calmed. “I will wait.” Her eyes roved about the tent interior. “You should be spreading your hides and bedding in the sun to air, before you pack it for the trip. Where are your pack saddles?”

Tillu shrugged. “I have never traveled with an animal to carry my things. I have always dragged my possessions behind me. This migration will be a new experience for Kerlew and me.” Tillu spoke the words carefully, tried to sound sure that her son would travel with her. The old shaman had said he would take Kerlew from her. Kerlew himself had said that he was near a man now, and had chosen to go with Carp. But perhaps he would change his mind. Perhaps he would stay with his mother and be her son a while yet, would not slip into the strange ways of the peculiar old man and his nasty magics. With an effort she dragged her attention back to what Kari was saying.

“You know nothing of reindeer then? You do not know how to harness and load them?”

Tillu shrugged her shoulders, looked closely at the girl who now spoke so maturely and asked such practical questions. “There are two animals hobbled behind my tent. The herdlord provided them for me. I suppose he will send Joboam to help me when the time comes.” Tillu could not keep the dismay from her voice.

“That one?” Kari gave a hard laugh. “I was glad when he wouldn’t have me. I knew why. He made many fines excuses to my father, saying I was so young, so small yet. As if that…” She paused and stared into her mug for a breath or two. “I didn’t know my father would find Pirtsi instead,” she finished suddenly. She cocked her head, gave Tillu a shrewd look. “I could show you. Now, today. Then, when the time came, you wouldn’t need help. You could send a message that you didn’t need Joboam.” Kari smiled a small smile. “And I could tell my father that I had already taught you, that he need not spare so important a man as Joboam for such a simple task.” There was frank pleasure in the girl’s voice as she spoke of spiting Joboam’s plans.

Tillu lifted her eyes from her own slow appraisal of the flames. She was beginning to have suspicions of Joboam that made her dislike him even more. She was also beginning to have a different opinion of Kari. The girl was shrewd. As oddly as she might behave, she had wits. And how old was she? Sixteen? “When I was her age, I had Kerlew in my arms,” Tillu thought to herself. “And I thought my life belonged to him as surely as Kari believes hers belongs to Owl. We are not so different.” Kari smiled her tight-lipped smile again, a smile of conspiracy that Tillu returned.

Chapter Three

REINDEER. THE HERD came first, flowing through the trees like water flowing through a bed of reeds. The males led, most with antlers missing or stubby in velvet. Their shedding coats were patchy but they stepped proudly, eyes alert, moving down the hillside and past her with slow grace. At first the sheer number of the animals cresting the hill and pouring down into her little valley had frightened Tillu. It was her first glimpse of the wealth of the herdfolk. Up until now, she had lived apart from them in her own dell, tending to their hurts but not sharing their lives. Now she was to be swept into it as surely as the moving herd of beasts swept past her. She trembled at their numbers. But the flood of beasts paid her and Kerlew and the two laden harkar no mind.

She gripped the damp rein tighter. Either one of the laden animals could have dragged her off her feet. The second beast was tethered to the first one’s harness, as Kari had taught her. If they decided to follow the herd, there would be nothing she could do about it. She glanced at them, felt sweat break out anew. They carried the new tent Capiam had sent, and all her supplies. If they bolted, she would lose all her herbs and household implements, everything. But the two animals stood placidly, regarding the passing reindeer with calm brown eyes.

She had spent the last two days packing her possessions and learning to manage the animals. Kari had been a good teacher, matter-of-fact and tolerant of Tillu’s nervousness. But Tillu was still not comfortable. It was one thing to watch wild reindeer from a distance, or crouch over a dead one to butcher. It was another thing entirely to stand close to a living animal, to hold a strap fastened to it. The harke whose lead she held shifted its weight. Its large, deeply cloven hooves spread atop the ground. It sneezed, spraying her with warm drops and then shook its head to free the long whiskers on its muzzle from the clinging moisture. Tillu forced herself to stand still as the new antlers, encased in pulpy velvet, swept close to her. When they were grown they would be solid hard brown bone. A brow antler would extend forward and downward over its muzzle to protect the animal’s face; the rest of the antlers would be swept back. She had already known that both females and males grew and shed antlers. But Kari had given her the casual knowledge of one whose life had always interlocked with the herd.

The vajor were coming now, mistrustful of everything as they shepherded their gangly calves along. The calves were an unlikely assembly of knobby joints and long bones, of pinkish muzzles and wide, awe-stricken eyes. One calf halted, to regard Tillu with amazement. “Stand still, Kerlew,” she breathed to her son as the mother watched them with hard eyes. She snorted to her calf, and then nudged it along. They merged back into the flow of grayish-brown animals and Tillu breathed again. She glanced up at the crest of the hill, and felt her trepidation rise. Why did she feel more threatened by the people than she did by the passing animals?

“See, Kerlew, there is Capiam the herdlord, leading the others. Soon we shall join them.” Kari had delivered her message that she needed no help to prepare for the journey. Tillu wondered if it had caused any upset in the village. She had seen nothing of Joboam or Heckram since Carp’s arrival.

“If Capiam is the leader,” Kerlew asked, his piping voice carrying clearly, “why didn’t he come first, leading that big reindeer? A different man is leading the herd.”

“Hush. There is more than one kind of leading. The first man was leading the guide animal. Capiam is leading the people.”

Kerlew fixed her with an unreadable look. “I would rather be lord of the herd than herdlord,” he said. “And someday I shall.” There was no doubt in his voice nor sense in his words. Tillu sighed. She put her arm across his shoulders, but he bucked free of her irritably. She sighed again.

Capiam’s shirt was bright red wool and his cap was gay with tassels. His reindeer wore harness bedecked with colors and metal. He led a string of seven harkar, each heavily burdened. He waved a greeting and gestured to her to join them. She nodded her agreement but stood still, watching the parade of people and laden animals. Behind Capiam came a stout woman, leading a string of five harkar. Behind her came Rolke with a string of seven harkar, and then Kari leading two. Kari waved gaily and called something to her. The reindeer made their own sounds of passage; the clicking of their hooves, the creak and slap of branches as they pushed through the woods, their coughing grunts as they called to their fellows.

Next came men and women Tillu didn’t know, their wealth apparent in their woolen garments and bronze ornaments. Each person led a string of animals, usually six or seven to the adults, and two or three for each child. Tillu smiled at a fat babe atop a lurching harke. The infant’s cheeks were very red, her face grave as she held to the wooden pack frame and rode tall. Tillu’s smile faded as her eyes met the next walker.

Joboam led a string of nine harkar. He met her eyes deliberately, and veered out of the caravan line. Tillu kept her face impassive, but her heartbeat quickened. Kerlew took a quick breath and stepped behind her. Joboam gave no greeting until he was a few steps away. His dark eyes flicked from Tillu to Kerlew.

“Here, boy. Hold the lead while I check those pack animals. The loads look uneven to me. And don’t startle them.”

Kerlew didn’t move. Joboam’s eyes narrowed and his color came up slowly. “Boy…,” he began in a savagely low voice.

“I’ll hold your animals if you must check my work. But Kari showed me how to lead, and was satisfied I could do it.”

“Kari!” The word was full of contempt. He glared at Kerlew. Then, he jerked the harke’s head around and slapped the rein into Tillu’s outstretched hand. The animal shied from Joboam’s sudden movement, nearly dragging Tillu off her feet, but she kept hold of the rein.

“Don’t let him jerk you around,” Joboam commanded her as he moved to her laden animals. He tugged and pushed at the bags and bundles tied to the pack frame, tightening the ties, and once moving a bag from one animal to the other. His competence could not be denied; somehow that annoyed Tillu even more. He was talking, voice and words hard as he readjusted the harnesses. “A harke has to know that you’re in charge. You can’t let it doubt it for one moment. If you’re going to insist on doing something you know nothing about, at least know that. Keep a tight grip and make it obey you.” He shot a venomous glance at Kerlew. “If you can make anything obey you.” Kerlew was trying to smile at Joboam placatingly, but fear distorted the smile until it looked like a sneer. Joboam stared at him, his eyes going blacker.

“I can manage them,” Tillu said, surprised at how calm her voice sounded.

“Can you?” He glared at her. “And that boy? Can you make him obey you, keep him from being a burden to all of us?” She could hear the checked fury in his voice. He’d been saving his anger for days. At the least excuse, he’d show it. She looked at his big hands, the thick muscles in his neck, and felt cold fear. But only the chill was in her voice when she spoke.

“Kerlew is my responsibility. I am sure that if Capiam thought he would be a problem, he would have spoken of it to me.”

“And you are my responsibility! I have told Capiam that I will see to it that you…”

“I am no one’s responsibility!” Tillu’s voice flared out of control. Passing herdfolk were staring at them curiously.

“That is not how the herdlord has ordered it,” he reminded her, an odd note of triumph in his voice. “I am to see that you lack for nothing, that you travel easily with us.” He finished tugging at a final strap. Rising, he pulled the harke forward, to put its rein back into Tillu’s hand and take his own animals. He looked down at her. “I am in charge of you and your boy. To be sure that no one harms the najd’s little apprentice. Now you will follow me. And if…”

“Heckram! And Carp!” Kerlew’s voice split Joboam’s words. The boy dashed past her, running headlong toward the line of folk and beasts. Tillu’s breath caught as she watched, expecting the animals to startle and run. But the harkar only looked up curiously at the boy pelting toward them. A few perked their ears foolishly, but there was no stampede. Heckram saw the boy coming, and pulled his animals from the cavalcade and waited. The folk behind him moved past.

Morning surrounded the man and framed him. He wore summer clothes, a tunic of thin leather stretched over his chest and shoulders, rough trousers of leather and leather boots that tied at the knee. A hat of knotted blue wool could not confine his hair; the breeze lifted bronze glints from it. She dared not believe in the wide smile that welcomed her son. The lead harke nudged Heckram for assurance, and he rested a hand on its shaggy neck, waiting. Kerlew halted inches from Heckram, to tilt back his head and grin up at him. It squeezed her heart to see her strange son so confident of a welcome. Heckram reached out a hand. She saw him tousle the boy’s wild hair, then clasp his thin shoulder in a man’s welcome. Carp’s sharp voice parted them, imperiously summoning the boy to his side.

Heckram led a string of four harkar, with Carp perched atop the first one. Up until now, Tillu had seen only the very young and the very old riding the pack animals. Carp’s legs were sound under him. She wondered why he chose to ride. He leaned down to speak to Kerlew, gesturing to the boy to walk beside the animal, and then to Heckram to move on. Heckram looked a question at her. She lifted a hand in a greeting that was an acknowledgment but not an answer to anything. Behind her Joboam made a sound without syllables, a rasping like a beast’s growl. She was shaken by the black fury in his eyes. His hatred was bottomless; she wondered which of the three was its target.

“Follow!” he snapped and jerked his string of harkar to an ungainly trot. She pulled her unwilling animals to match his pace and ran to keep up. He threaded a trail through the widely spaced trees, paralleling the path of the herdfolk. She had no breath for questions, but could only follow in grudging obedience.

She took deep breaths of the scents of early spring. The aroma rose from the humus and early tufts of sprouting grasses and moss in an almost visible mist. Small yellow leaves and shriveled berries still clung to some of the brambly wild roses, beside the swelling leaf nodes that would soon unfurl into foliage. She saw a circle of new mushrooms but could not stop to investigate them. Joboam swung his animals back toward the cavalcade, motioning to Pirtsi to make a space. She followed him, glad to slow to a walk again.

“Keep up,” was the only thing he said. She fell in behind him. His animals separated them, making talk thankfully impossible. She glanced back at Pirtsi but he seemed immersed in simply walking. She set her eyes forward and followed his example, letting the day fall into easy monotony.

Before her the haunches of Joboam’s last harke swayed, its ridiculous white tail flicking. She glanced at the animal she led, surprised at how easy it was. She held the rein, but her beast simply followed the one in front of them. The strap between them was slack. The reindeer’s head bobbed, its moist breath warming the air by Tillu’s shoulder. Its eyes were huge, dark and liquid beneath the brow ridges. They reminded Tillu of a small child’s frank stare. Boldly she put her free hand out to touch the animal’s shaggy neck. She was pleased with the contented rumble the animal made at her touch. She scratched it gently as she had seen Heckram do, and it leaned into her touch.

There was a strange giddiness to striding along on a spring day, unencumbered by any burden. She remembered her staggering flight from Benu’s folk, the weight of everything she owned heavy on her shoulders as she fled from Carp and his influence over her son. This was better. The animals carried their packs easily, and Tillu matched their pace with a swinging stride. Stranger still was that Kerlew was not at her heels. She was not calling him back from investigating things far off the trail, wasn’t scolding him for dawdling, nor answering his pestering questions. Her life had been so intertwined with her son’s since his birth that she could not become accustomed to surrendering him to Carp. At the thought of the old man, her stomach knotted and she glanced back. But Kerlew and the shaman were far down the line. And Heckram was with them. She thought of the smile he had given her boy today. As if he didn’t resent his presence. His tolerance couldn’t last forever, might well be gone by the end of this day. But let Kerlew enjoy what acceptance he could. Soon enough he would know rejection again; soon he would walk at Tillu’s heels again, asking her the same question ten times and never remembering her answer. She forced herself to believe it would be so.

She gave herself up to the forest around her. Once she heard squirrels chattering overhead, and then the hoarse cries of a raven. The forest of the morning was pine and spruce, with a scattering of birch. By midday they were crossing rivulets, swift and noisy with the melt of winter snow. The first few were narrow streams, easily jumped by the humans as the reindeer stoically waded through the icy waters. Then came a wider one, and Tillu found herself stepping from rock to slippery rock. By now it seemed natural to put a hand on the reindeer’s shoulder to steady herself, and the animal evinced no surprise at her touch. On the far bank she paused to stroke its neck once, pleased with the feel of its living warmth seeping up through the stiff hair of its coat. Behind her, Bror was swinging his young grandson up to a temporary perch on a pack animal for the crossing.

Then they were walking on again. Tillu began to feel the complaints of muscles unused to long walking at such a steady pace. The day had warmed, and her heavy tunic was a burden. She halted to drag it off and sling it across the harke’s other burdens. The cool breeze touched her bare arms. Her sleeveless tunic of thin rabbit leather felt so light she had a sensation of nakedness. She stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders in the pleasant sun. Then Joboam angrily called to her to keep up. She pulled her harke back into motion.

Gradually the forest changed. The cavalcade of reindeer and folk wound through valleys and across streams, leaving the steep hillsides behind and emerging onto soft slopes of Lapp heather, with twisting willow ossier now covered with fuzzy catkins and alders with cracked gray bark. The plant life was lusher here, the hillsides open to the blue sky and the softly pushing wind. She thought that the reindeer would lag and graze, but they moved on with a single-mindedness that made her legs ache.

Great gray rocks pushed up randomly on the hillsides through the yellowed grasses of last summer. The earliest of spring’s flowers opened blooms in their shelter and stored warmth. She saw plants she could not name, and familiar plants shorter than she remembered them. She itched to touch and smell. Had she been alone, she would have gathered willow and alder barks for tonics and medicines, and the tips of the emerging fireweed for a delectable green. She glimpsed a violet’s leaves, but could not leave her animals to investigate. She had to pass a patch of stink-lily with its nourishing starchy roots, for when she knelt to dig her fingers into the turfy soil, Joboam yelled to her to hurry. She hissed in frustration. There were drawbacks to having an animal carry one’s belongings and being part of such a great moving group. She took dried fish from her pocket and nibbled it as she walked. And walked, while the sun slipped slowly across the blue sky and toward its craggy resting place.

She heard and smelled the river long before she saw it. The reindeer picked up the pace as they scented the water. Her hips and lower back complained as she stretched her stride, and her buttocks ached as if she had been kicked. The sinking sun glinted off the wide swatch of moving water, rainbowing over its rocky rapids. Tillu saw the line ahead of her pause and drink, but then rise and follow the noisy river and its trimming of trees. Her heart sank. Surely, they must stop soon! She paused at the river to let her beasts drink and take a long draught of the icy water herself. The cold made her teeth hum. Wiping her mouth, she rose to follow Joboam and his string of harkar. They wended through trees, naked birches and willows and oak hazed with green buds, following the river. Shadows lengthened and the day began to cool as the earth gave up its harvested heat to the naked skies. And then, far down the line of animals and men, she glimpsed a sheen of silver through the screening trees.

Abruptly they emerged on the shore of the lake. With relief Tillu saw the red glow and rising smoke of fires. Hasty shelters went up, a mushroom village sprang up from the warm earth. Unladen animals grazed on the open hillside above the lake. Gray boulders, rounded and bearded with lichen, poked their shaggy heads out of the deep grass of the slope. Children raced and shrieked among them or splashed and threw stones along the water’s edge, enlivened rather than wearied by the day’s travel. Dogs barked and bounded with them. Tillu envied them their energy. She would have liked nothing better than to sink down and rest. She watched Joboam glance about the scene, and then move surely into it, his campsite already selected. A child and a dog playing tug with a leather strap scrabbled hastily from his path. Tillu hesitated, wishing she could settle in a less central area of this hive of activity. But she couldn’t risk offending some custom of theirs. She would camp where Joboam told her. She began to lead her harkar after him.

From the shadow of a boulder, Kari rose, startling Tillu and spooking even the stolid harkar. But as it jerked the rein from Tillu’s hand, Kari caught it and turned to Tillu with her narrow smile. “Come!” she said, and put up a swift hand to cover a giggle. Her eyes were bright. Without another word, she led them off up the hill.

One boulder, larger than a sod hut, jutted from the earth halfway up the hillside. To this Kari led her, and then around and above it. On the high side of the boulder, facing away from the camp by the lake, was a shelter of pegged and propped hides. A small fire already burned and a pot of water was warming. A jumble of hides was spread inside the shelter, and Kari’s harkar grazed outside it. Kari grinned at Tillu. “In the talvsit, I live in my father’s and mother’s hut. But here, in the arrotak, I have my own shelter, and invite my own guests. You will stay with me? You and Kerlew,” she added hastily when Tillu hesitated.

Tillu did not relish the idea of company this weary night. But the fire was bright, the sky already darkening, the shelter welcoming and Kari so pleased with herself that Tillu could not refuse. She nodded. With a glad cry Kari sprang to unloading the harkar. Tillu moved to assist her, her weary fingers fumbling at the unfamiliar harness. Kari’s experience showed as she capably stripped one animal, led it to grass, and hobbled it before Tillu could unload the other. Soon both beasts were grazing. Kari stepped into the shelter, sat down on the hides, and patted the place next to her invitingly. Tillu sank down beside her with a sigh. The new aches of sitting down were a relief from the old ones of walking. Tillu slowly pulled off her boots, pressed her weary feet into the cool new grass.

“I should find Kerlew,” she reminded herself reluctantly. “Heckram must be sick of him by now.”

“He will be here soon,” Kari assured her. She leaned back on the hides and rolled onto her side to watch the hillside above her as the night stole its colors.

“It is kind of you to invite me to stay with you,” Tillu observed belatedly, but Kari only shrugged.

“You are someone to talk to, and as you have shared your tent and tea with me, I would do the same for you. Besides, if you are here it will be less problems.”

The last remark puzzled her until Lasse rounded the boulder and dropped an armload of firewood. “I told you I’d find plenty,” he said, and ducked into the shelter with a pleased smile. It faded abruptly, to be replaced with an abashed grin as he found himself face to face with Tillu. She guessed instantly that he had hoped to find Kari alone. She glanced at Kari, but the girl seemed immune to Lasse’s disappointment.

“I wouldn’t call it plenty, but it’s enough,” Kari observed heartlessly. “Lasse, go and find Tillu’s son now, please. He was walking with Heckram. They should be at the lake by now. Bring them here. We may as well all eat together.” When Lasse hesitated, Tillu saw Kari tip her head back and, after a cool silence, suddenly smile at him with such melting warmth that the boy all but staggered with the impact. He nodded quickly, and left, face flushed, to obey her. As soon as he was gone, Kari’s smile faded, to be replaced with her usual pensive frown. “I want to show you something,” she said suddenly. She swiftly unlaced the leather jerkin she wore. She tugged it open and turned to Tillu, a smile of anticipation on her face.

Tillu recoiled. Kari had a long, lovely neck, and proud young breasts jutted high on her chest. But incised into the soft rise of each breast were Kari’s four-stroked symbols, as if indeed an owl with fiery talons had rested upon them. “Carp told me about the soot,” Kari said proudly. “Now the cuts may heal, but the mark will remain.” She looked up from her handiwork to Tillu’s averted eyes and sickened expression. The girl’s smile vanished. “What’s the matter with you? I thought you’d be happy to see that they didn’t get infected!”

“Carp.” Tillu said the word with loathing. “Yes, he’d be glad to tell you how to scar yourself.” And she had left Kerlew with the old man for the whole day. What had she been thinking of? If this was what Kari had learned from him, what grisly marvels was he teaching Kerlew?

“Yes, Carp. Last night he ate at my father’s hut. He spoke of the people he used to live among. At birth, the baby’s spirit guide is found, and the mark of it is sliced into the baby’s thigh, and soot rubbed in. It binds the guardian to the child. Now Owl is bound to me as I am to him.”

“Yes. All will know now.” Tillu’s voice was flat. It was done, there was no sense in rebukes, in making her miserable over what could not be undone.

“Yes!” The hard pride in Kari’s voice challenged Tillu’s regret. Tillu chose silence, letting the challenge pass in the darkening evening. After a moment, Kari laced up her jerkin again. Tillu watched her covertly, marvelled at the intensity of her features. Life roared in the girl, like a torrent of water in a narrow chasm. She was never at peace, for even when she sat still, as now, with her eyes fixed on some distant place and her lips parted over her white teeth, she seemed to be moving. One sensed her mind traveled far and swift while her forgotten body poised here. Tillu could understand how her impassivity would distance many folk. Yes, and intrigue a young man like Lasse.

“It was kind of Lasse to bring firewood all the way up here,” she ventured.

Animation snapped back to Kari’s face. “He is a kind person,” she said softly, and then, with more vehemence, “with most peculiar ideas.” She sat up straight, then crawled out of the shelter. “I am going to cook for us,” she announced, and went to the packs and began to dig through them.

Tillu rose, feeling uncomfortable watching someone work. “I wish I’d had more time to myself today. I could have gathered fresh greens for us, and replenished some of my healing supplies.”

“I suppose you look for your healing herbs in far and strange places?” Kari’s voice had a strange, sly note.

“No. Most of them grow in the meadows and woods among the ordinary plants. Today I saw stink lily, and I think violets. And of course…”

“Violets?” Kari’s voice was incredulous.

“Yes. Picked and dried, they are good against skin rash. They can be used against illnesses of the lungs, also.”

Kari looked at her in wonder. “Why do you tell me this?”

“You seemed interested.” Tillu stopped, confused.

“And you do not mind telling me?”

“Why should I?” In the dying evening, a cuckoo called and was silent.

“The old midwife Kila was our last healer. She would never say what herbs were in her mixes, or where she got them. She learned from her mother, and said it was her wealth, and not to be shared. So when she left, only the commonest healing was known. I thought all healers would be jealous of their secrets.”

“Selfish, if you ask me.” Tillu was appalled.

“Then, if I wanted to learn the herbs of healing, would you teach me?”

“Of course. When we have time, I will be happy to show you how to gather herbs and how to use them.”

“Tomorrow?” she pressed.

“Don’t we move on tomorrow? We’ll both be leading animals tomorrow. We’ll have no time to stop and gather herbs and talk.”

Kari grinned knowingly, looking girlish and less strange. “Oh, we may. One never knows.” Taking wood from the pile Lasse had brought, she built up her fire, and began preparing food. The savory smell as the meat simmered in the pot made Tillu aware of her hunger. She came out of the shelter, stretched, and suddenly felt every pang of the day’s long hike.

“Here we are!” Lasse strode into the firelight, pleased at having accomplished his task.

“You were long in coming,” Kari observed coolly.

“They had stopped on the riverbank, to fish!” Lasse’s voice was between annoyance that they had been hard to find and wonder that they would do such a thing.

“See what we caught! Carp said they’d be there, under the bank behind the roots! And they were. See, Tillu.” The char shone silver in Kerlew’s hands, fat and slippery. They flopped from his grasp onto the grass. Kari eyed them with approval.

“Gut and spit them, Lasse, and we’ll grill them over the coals,” she ordered calmly, never doubting that fish and boy were hers to command. Lasse moved meekly to her directions. Tillu and Heckram both stared after him as he took the fish to one side. When they lifted their eyes, their gazes met, sharing amusement and sympathy for the boy. Then Heckram’s eyes warmed to something else. Tillu turned from him hastily, to watch Kerlew wiping his slimy hands on the grass.

“Did you behave today?” she asked him automatically.

“Yes.” He didn’t seem to feel any need to enlarge on his answer. His deep eyes were guileless as they stared up into hers. She wanted to ask how his day had been, if he had missed her, what Carp had taught him. But she could not in front of all these people. She had been stupid not to put up her own shelter. She would have no time alone with her son tonight, or tomorrow. Deep frustration edged with loneliness overtook her. She was severed from Kerlew, blocked by the layers of people around her. And to have Heckram so near strained her resolution. Every time he caught her eyes, her skin tightened. She had not found a way to let him know that she had changed her mind. He was looking at her again, his brows lifted slightly. The fuzzy beginnings of a beard softened his jawline. She stared at it, wondering if he had known she would find it attractive. Then she asked herself why she imagined he would even think about such things. Did she fancy she was the only woman he might consider bedding? Did she imagine he slept alone each night as she did? The thoughts stung her. She turned aside, avoiding him. Kari was directing Lasse as he cleaned the fish. His eyes were bright with her attention, and neither seemed to mind Kerlew crouching nearby and sorting curiously through the entrails. Tillu dropped to one knee, to crawl into the shelter and rest until the food was ready. Perhaps it would ease her aching muscles.

But Carp was already there, lying on the skins as if he were lord of all. His mouth hung ajar and the light from the fire revealed an occasional tooth behind his slack lips. It reflected off his grayed eyes like a sunset in a scummy pond. He nodded at her, his mouth widening. His hand gestured her in. Tillu drew back, stood again. Until she had met the herdfolk, she had never known how to describe Carp’s smell. But now she knew he smelled just like a wet dog. It did not make him any dearer to her.

The evening was cooling the land; moisture was settling to the ground. The cooking food gave off a marvelous aroma, making her dizzy with hunger. She put one hand against the rough side of the boulder that backed the shelter, and then, without thinking, began to walk around the boulder, away from the firelight and the murmur of Lasse and Kari. The soft lichen on the stone was warm with the day’s heat, like a man’s rough beard against her skin. She leaned back against it, looking out over the lake and wide valley below her.

The small fires of the herdfolk blossomed like white wildflowers on the shore. Their tents were an unevenness in the dark. The people and dogs were moving shadows that passed before the fires. Beyond them, the lake was a shining blackness, and in the deepest part the moon and stars shone. Tillu felt dizzy looking at the sky at her feet. She lifted her eyes and looked beyond it, and realized for the first time how far they had come in one day. Kari had said they would travel for ten days. Where would they be then?

Far behind her were the mountains that were the winter grounds of the herdfolk. Before her was the wide lake that tomorrow the herd would skirt. And beyond it, beyond the last dwarfed trees and bushes, rolled the tundra. It was featureless in the darkness, and it was hard to tell where the lake left off and the tundra began. She had heard of the tundra, in legends of Benu’s tribe, but she had never walked upon its wide flat face. A nameless dread of such a barren place rose in her, followed by a more pragmatic fear. In such a place, where would she gather willow and alder barks, birch cones to burn for a congested head, birch roots to boil down for cough syrup, willow roots for colic medicine, and a thousand other remedies that came from the tall trees of the hills and mountain valleys? A feeling akin to panic rose in her, to be replaced by resolve. Tomorrow she must be free to gather as the herd moved along the forested edge of the lake. She must have her supplies before they left it for the barren vast lands to the north.

She felt more than heard the step of the man who approached her from the darkness. Had Heckram followed her, mistaking her leaving the fire for an invitation? Dread of the confrontation rose in her, even as her body betrayed her with a tingle of excitement. She turned to him in the darkness, taking a deep breath to speak. She gasped in surprise instead as hard hands gripped her shoulders and shook her.

“Where have you been?” he demanded gruffly. She pushed away from him, but he seized her wrist in a grip that numbed her hand. Joboam shoved his face close to hers.

“Capiam tells me to watch over you and see that you are cared for. When I tell you to follow, you wander off, so when he comes to my fire to speak to you, I must say I do not know where you are. I lose his confidence. The healer, the najd, and her idiot boy, all are vanished. Capiam thinks you have changed your mind and left us, that the herd will face another summer without a healer. He asks me if I have offended you. Me! And I must leave my fire and my food and come seeking you, going from tent to tent, fire to fire, like a fool, asking if any have seen you!”

Fury tightened his relentless grip on her wrist, and when she pulled at his fingers with her free hand, he captured it, holding both her hands in one of his as he spoke. He made the differences in their sizes obvious by drawing her hands up high. She stood on tiptoe trying to ease the pull, feeling she couldn’t breathe, made speechless by fear as much as by pain. Joboam’s eyes glittered in the dark. Her aching muscles screamed with the stress of being stretched up.

“Kari…invited me…to stay with her…,” she gasped the words. The man was huge. She stifled the fury that rose in her, the desire to kick and scream and fight. As well take on a bear. If this was all he was going to do, she could stand it. She had endured worse from men just like him and survived. But if she screamed and Kerlew came, if he turned his anger on him—

“Kari?” There was puzzlement in his voice, and a sudden easing in the strain on her arms. Tillu took a gasp of air.

“Yes. Kari. She…”

“Get the boy and your things. And the two harkar. Thank Kari, but say you must join me now, so that her father will know I am doing my duty. Do it now.” His voice was an odd mixture of emotions. There was the anger still, and the hard pleasure he took in domination, but a discordant note of uneasiness as well.

He released her wrists abruptly and Tillu almost cried aloud at the relief. She could not keep from rubbing at them, even though she knew he took satisfaction in it. Which was more dangerous for her, to go with him as he commanded, submit to his control, or to defy him and stay with Kari, keep herself and Kerlew out of his reach? She wished she knew. The night was full dark around her, and all choices equally black.

She turned away from him and headed for Kari’s fire. Her heart pounded still, and the night seemed to tilt around her as the uneven turf rose to trip her. She put out a hand to catch herself. But big hands caught her and set her on her feet. She found herself gripping the front of Heckram’s tunic. He didn’t make a sound. He stared at Joboam over her head. She felt the tension in his wide chest, the catch in his breath, smelled the anger that rose in him. This time she would not be able to stop them from fighting.

Kari swooped past them in the darkness, flying into Joboam’s path. He recoiled from her and when she spread her arms wide, he retreated a step. She hung before him like a hide stretched to dry, her garments as black as the night, her face more pale than the moon’s. A light wind stirred her flapping garments, ruffled her black hair. Even Tillu found herself swallowing dryly at the sight. Heckram’s hands on her shoulders tightened. He moved to step forward, and she found herself clutching at his chest, holding him back. A killing energy coursed through him.

For a long succession of moments, Kari swayed before Joboam. He stood his ground, his fists knotted, his gaze fastened on her face in unnamable dread. With a hissing sigh, she finally lowered her arms. It seemed impossible for her to be so suddenly small. But Joboam made no move to push her aside or step around her. She transfixed him.

“Tell my father.” she said, her voice ringing in the night, “that Tillu the healer takes her meal with me. That I have extended the hospitality of his family. And that Tillu shall be with me all day tomorrow as well, for I am to help her gather herbs for healing. Tell him you found her comfortable and well, and did not wish to disturb her. Do you understand?”

There was a subtle lash to her words. She threatened him just as surely as he had threatened Tillu a moment ago. But Kari did not use physical dominance to cow him. There was something else she wielded, something more than her fey appearance and strangely powerful presence. Tillu wondered what it was, and how long it would be before the girl overplayed it and lost. For though Joboam backed wordlessly away from her, he did not hide the hatred in his eyes. He lifted the look as he moved, and before he turned it included Heckram and Tillu. Tillu shivered in its impact and Heckram pulled her closer. The gesture was the final infuriation for Joboam. He made a sound of hate and determination and vanished into the darkness.

For a long moment no one spoke. Then Kari drifted past them, letting her fingers trail lightly across Tillu’s back. “The fish is done,” she said, and left them.

Tillu felt suddenly the ache of her fingers clenched in the leather of Heckram’s tunic. She loosened her fingers, but he still held her close against him. The smell of him, sweat and leather and the reindeer, filled her nostrils. The maleness of it weakened her knees. His tunic was only loosely laced; the thongs pressed against her cheek, and she felt the prickle of the hair on his chest. His big hands moved slowly down her back, pressing her to him and easing the ache of her muscles with their warm touch. She felt numbed to everything but his touch and the sudden safety it meant. She felt her breasts respond to his body warmth and pressure, the nipples tightening with a pleasurable ache. His breath was warm against the top of her head; his lips pressed her hair as his hands gently kneaded the flesh of her back. A moment more, she told herself, and then I shall have to push him away, have to tell him I do not want this. But as she formed the lie he sighed heavily and gently eased away from her. “The others are waiting for us,” he said, his soft voice like far thunder in his chest. “And you must be hungry and tired.”

She found she could not move. She knew that if he pushed her down onto the earth and took her, she would not resist him. She almost wished he would, that he would master and mount her and take his pleasure of her, so that she could break free of his fascination. He was a man, like any other. This brief play of gentleness was a sham, a trick of human males to lure women closer, like the bright plumage of a male bird. It meant nothing. It lasted but a moment, a prelude to the rut. And afterward, he would either avoid her because of her strange son, or take her as casually as he warmed himself at her fire. She waited, knowing what would happen. She would be glad when he betrayed himself, when she could see him clearly again and know him as the man who had sent Elsa into the death-sleep.

“Tillu,” he said slowly. She felt his breath on her hair. “You’re shaking. But you don’t have to be afraid. He doesn’t dare hurt you. Come. You need food and rest.” And then he carefully stepped away from her, to take her hand and lead her back to Kari’s fire.

He had only meant to help her to her feet, but her touch and nearness had made him want her with a fierce heat. His hands had been on her and her musky fragrance had drowned his senses. He had wanted to smooth Joboam’s rough touch from her body. This woman was strong as a good bow was strong, with resilience and stamina. In an instinctive reaction to her silent courage, he had wanted to mate her. A woman like her would not be a responsibility, but a partner. He had gathered her close, forgetting that she might not feel as he did. Then he had felt her stiffen, become aware of her stillness in his arms. Now, as he groped his way around the boulder, he cursed himself for a blundering fool, and worse. What was wrong with him? Couldn’t he be around this woman for a moment without behaving like a sarva in rut? Her hand was quiet in his, she had leaned against him like a wooden thing. He knew he had frightened her just as badly as Joboam had, and in much the same way. Twice now, this gentle healer had seen him on the edge of violence. Twice he had caressed her, with lust, without her invitation. No wonder then, that she shook when he touched her. She still knew little of the herdfolk. His behavior would make her think the men little more than savages.

He glanced back at her as they approached the fire. She looked away, and his heart smote him again. He tried to find a way through his tangled emotions. He should be mourning Elsa still, not feeling wild lust for this woman. Yet it was not just lust. Lust would have been simpler to face, easier to handle than what this woman stirred in him. Since that day in her tent, he had awakened to her. He still suspected she had eased Elsa into death. How else would the stricken woman have reached the sleeping tea and drunk too much of it? Who besides Tillu and he had known of the tea and its potency? But he could not fit that thought with his other feelings about her. Something about her, and Kerlew, made him want to protect them, to give them shelter and food and an easier life. He did not understand the feeling, had never experienced it before. When he had seen Joboam’s rough hands on her tonight, he had wanted to kill the man. To kill like an animal, to rend him like a wolf fighting for its mate. But he was not an animal, and Tillu was not his.

And now she would not even look at him. He released her hand, felt her whisk it from his grasp as his fingers loosened. Well, and how did he expect her to react? A herdwoman would have struck him for his crude advances. A resolve hardened in him as she walked past him to the fire. He would find a way to prove himself to her. He would show her that herdmen were not savages, but knew how to be patient and await a woman’s attention. The resolve settled solidly in his mind. He took a deep breath. His life, which had seemed so still within him since Elsa’s death, suddenly warmed his veins.

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 cheek 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.

Chapter Five

THE DAYS FELL into a pattern both restful and enervating. Tillu awoke with interest to each dawn, and lay down at night in weary peace. Animals and folk left the lakeside and its brushy banks and emerged onto the wide flats of the tundra. She and Kari gathered herbs and roots by day, and Kari learned the uses for each. Then came the sweet evenings when the folk halted and campfires were kindled and sleeping skins spread on the ground. Heckram’s shelter was never far away. Kerlew migrated in happy circles from the fire Carp shared with Heckram to the one Kari shared with his mother.

Yet she saw less of her son than ever before in their lives. She felt her guilt as an uneasiness, a sense of a task uncompleted. Hidden from herself was the relief she felt at being freed from his constant presence. Tillu began to live a separate life of her own. If Kerlew felt neglected or missed her, he did not show it. The boy was more confident than she had ever seen him. But for his dragging speech, and the strange topics he chose, he might have been a normal boy. His circle of tolerant adults was larger than it had ever been, and his status as Carp’s apprentice gained him a small measure of acceptance by the other children. They did not play with him, but they did not taunt or beat him either. Another boy might have felt his isolation as loneliness. Kerlew only felt relief. He moved through the camp without fear of thrown stones and blows. He seemed unaware of the children who ceased their noisy games to watch his passage with widened eyes.

There was an interlude Tillu was to long remember. She was returning from one of the tundra’s myriad ponds with water for the evening’s cooking. Carp must have been napping somewhere, for she spotted Kerlew alone, atop one of the worn gray boulders that dotted the tundra. He was stretched out on his back on the hard warm surface. Over his face his slack wristed hand held a ranunculus. He was twirling it by its stem, watching the bright petals spiral. His lips smiled foolishly and from his throat came a sound like the happy grunting of a suckling babe.

A few strides away three boys crouched behind a screen of brush and watched him. The grins on their mocking faces were hard and sharp as knives. Their giggling was muffled behind dirty brown hands. Two years ago, Tillu thought to herself, I would have rushed forward, jerked Kerlew to his feet and scolded him. I would have chased the other boys off to their mothers. She blinked her eyes, wondering what had changed, her boy or the way she regarded him. She walked on, water spilling in bright drops from the clay-and-moss-calked wooden buckets she carried.

In the evenings folk came to Tillu, for a salve for a blistered heel or a rub for a wrenched knee. Her healings were seldom more complicated than that. The herdfolk were a stout and healthy people, given to little worry about minor ailments. The runny noses of the bright-eyed children were ignored, as accepted as their ruddy wind-chafed cheeks and the bumps and scratches from their tumbling play. The work did not tire Tillu; she took pleasure in the chance to better know the folk she had joined. Of Capiam she saw nothing. He seemed content to trust her to perform her own tasks, or perhaps he was too busy to be bothered with her. Several times Joboam brought meat to her, the portion allotted to Tillu by the herdlord. He spoke little but the few words he said sounded both superior and threatening. The tension Tillu felt in his presence did not abate; it was like a slowly swelling abscess that must eventually be lanced or burst of its own pressure.

At those times she took comfort from Heckram’s nearness. Whenever Joboam came to Kari’s fire, Heckram, too, appeared. His errand was always an innocent one; to borrow some grease for a harness strap, or to ask the loan of a larger cook pot. He did not confront Joboam, but his very presence seemed to restrain the other man. But as soon as Joboam left, Heckram did also. He smiled at her, he was courteous, but he never lingered for a word with her, nor tried to be alone with her. Tillu could not understand the man. At first she tried to believe that it was the public nature of the caravan. The clustered tents and flat tundra offered no quiet rendezvous, even if the two could have eluded Carp, Kerlew, and Kari. But she noticed other couples left the arrotak, to “fetch water” or “hunt eggs.” Yet Heckram never invited her on such an errand. If he had decided to reject her because of her son, why did he still offer Kerlew shelter and food? Because of Carp? She did not understand, but as the days marched past she persuaded herself she did not care. He was a man, like any other man. Her body had wanted a man, that was all that was between them. But that did not explain why she could not interest herself in the other men in the caravan, nor why it was his image that lingered in her mind in the twilight.

The one variance in their lives was the changing land they crossed. It became increasingly unfamiliar to Tillu, but the others accepted the wide emptiness of the sky as natural. The foothills dwindled behind them, leaving the world a flat and daunting place. The horizon moved away to an unattainable distance. The sun’s warmth thawed the top few inches of the tundra, but couldn’t reach the permanently frozen soil beneath it. Water did not soak into the earth, but stretched in wide flat ponds and pools, or flowed lazily across the near flat surfaces. The thawing earth and running water brought burgeoning life. Birds appeared, ones Tillu had never seen before, and in an abundance she had never imagined. They settled in the wildly sprouting grasses, and mated and fought and made hasty nests on the earth. Their muttered conversations filled the dusky evenings, and their cries of challenge and courtship filled the days. Eggs were added to the herdfolk’s diet.

Plant life sprouted in a bewildering array, familiar plants in dauntingly unfamiliar shapes. But willow ossier, Tillu found, for all its dwarfed and twisted shape, had the same properties as willow. And fireweed greens were as tender whether they stood tall and slender, or writhed flat across the earth.

Not in weeks, but in days the colors of the tundra ripened and deepened, here brown and gold, there purple and mauve, there a green of unbelievable intensity. Even the coldest stone was coated with lichen of white or yellow or dun, while the mosses bloomed frantically in their haste to rise, live and reproduce before winter returned. Heather vied with butterwort, the bells of linnaea rang in contrast to the daisies of arnica. Tiny blue forget-me-nots were trodden underfoot, while cloudberry and tangles of arctic raspberry promised later bounty. Everywhere there were new plants to be crushed and sniffed and tested against the tip of her tongue for healing virtues.

Kari proved an able assistant, and was full of questions. She did not yet help Tillu with the healing, but her bright black eyes took in every detail of mixing and application. After the salved or bandaged folk were gone, Kari would question her: why this herb and not that one? Why a salve and not a tonic? Why had she lanced that abscess, but put a poultice on the one she had seen two days ago? The girl’s mind was quick and retentive, her questions betraying an intellect seldom used. But the wildness never faded completely from her eyes, nor the strangeness from her movements. Her interest could shy suddenly from a pragmatic discussion of bandaging material to her latest dream of Owl. She was so like, and yet unlike, Kerlew.

Kerlew she watched from afar. He was changing in ways she could not understand or control. He was learning and growing, and, she grudgingly admitted, discovering himself as a person apart from her. She watched his relationship with Heckram, and finally accepted that Heckram’s affection for Kerlew was not feigned. He always had time for the boy. Tillu watched from Kari’s fire as Kerlew shifted between Carp and Heckram, testing the reality of one man against that of the other. He shadowed Heckram at the evening chores, eventually carrying one of the water scoops, and even helping prepare the meals, despite Carp’s scornful derision of men doing “women’s work.” He ate at Carp’s side, receiving whispered instruction about the spirit world. An hour later he would be at Heckram’s elbow, watching him mend worn harness or holding the ends as Heckram braided a new leadrope from long, thin slices of leather. She sensed the struggle in him. She longed to help him but during those rare moments when he sought her out, she refrained from advice. Pushed, Kerlew would resist. She hoped he would eventually find Heckram’s attraction the more powerful one.

Yesterday Kerlew had come to her, bringing his shirt to be mended. He had torn out both shoulder seams. She had measured the worn garment against him, and found that the fault was not in her sewing, but in the boy’s sudden growth. She had given it back to him, minus the sleeves, to wear while she pieced out a new shirt for him. For a quiet time he had crouched beside her, watching her select leather for the shirt. She decided to make it from the calf-hide, now scraped and supple ivory-colored leather. Drawing her knife, she cut out the needed pieces quickly. She styled it after the herdfolk’s way, a collarless, loose-fitting garment that could be belted at the waist and worn alone, or over leggings. She had held the leather against him, swiftly marking the length of tunic and sleeves he would need. He moved docilely to her commands, holding out his arms obediently as she checked the cut pieces against him. Then Kerlew had crouched beside her, watching intently as his new shirt took form. With a sigh he leaned against her, and the heavy warmth of his small body was so poignantly familiar that Tillu’s throat closed. She turned her eyes away from her stitching, to watch the light of the fire make hollows and curves of his face. He was losing the rounded chin of a little boy, his cheeks narrowing and flattening as he grew. The firelight gave his skin a sallow cast, and suddenly she saw the faces of the race that had fathered him, the black-haired, hard-eyed men that had killed her mother and carried her away from her home. Fierceness washed through her, and she cried out aloud as her bone needle plowed a long gash in one of her fingers. She jerked the needle free of her flesh, and the blood followed it, rushing from the gouge and staining her work.

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