Ivory and Bone (16 page)

I
return to the feast, but it holds nothing for me.

My brothers Kesh and Roon are busy making fools of themselves, taking turns lifting the heavy stones that encircle the hearth to show off to the girls. Shava and Lees applaud and call out cheers of encouragement. The giddy quality of their voices prickles me and I slow my steps. Even our mother calls for a spear-throwing contest between
them, but thankfully the night is growing too dark.

Chev sits near the fire with my parents, my aunts and uncles, and the elders of my clan and yours. A bowl of mead rests within reach of each person. I notice that no one has come from the Bosha except for Shava and her mother—not Lo, not her father, not even Orn or Anki. No one accepted my invitation. Chev stands with a flourish, with the self-importance
of someone about to make an announcement of great weight. I ignore him. Chev’s proclamations don’t interest me.

Instead, I focus my attention on the boys at the edge of the crowd. My eleven-year-old cousins are showing off a handful of spear points they made to a younger boy—Tram. Just seven years old, Tram sits wide-eyed, oblivious to the presence of the man who killed his father. His mother
is also dead, having plunged into the cold sea from a kayak in the middle of a moonless night not long after her husband’s burial. She left the boy in my family’s hut while we all slept, unaware, as she walked down to the shore alone. It was his cries at daybreak that woke us to the horror of the abandoned kayak, floating empty, a dark blue shadow on the dark gray water.

I’m pulled back to the
present by the loud cheers of your little sister Lees. Roon has just beaten Kesh in a footrace down to the beach and back, and as my aunt Ama declares him the winner, Lees throws her arms around his neck and kisses him on the cheek.

Poor Roon. He has no idea what kind of pain she will inevitably cause him.

I turn to head back to our hut. I am in no mood for drinking mead and singing songs anymore
tonight.

I hear footsteps behind me and spin around, somehow expecting to see you there, but find Shava instead.

“Aren’t you staying?”

“I’m tired,” I say. “I think I should go in and rest.”

“Did Pek go back to your hut?”

What kind of question is this,
I wonder. After all, for most of the evening, Shava has been getting reacquainted with Kesh.

“He might have,” I lie.

“Well, if you see him,
tell him I wish him the best. Now that Seeri’s brother has allowed her to break off her betrothal—”

“What? When?”

“His announcement, just before Kesh and Roon raced. Didn’t you . . . You saw them race, right? I felt so bad for Kesh. He says Roon cheated when they were on the beach—didn’t go all the way to the water, like he was supposed to—”

Behind her, from the layered gloom of evening shadows,
Kesh calls her name. She turns and slides away, offering only a vague wave over her shoulder to me.

I head back into my family’s hut, and as I pass through the door I’m surprised by a murmur of voices and the rattle of beaded bracelets on a wrist. My lie to Shava wasn’t a lie after all. Pek stands in the center of the rug, right where your cup of honey had been. Seeri is with him, and as I step
in through the door the two of them spring apart.

“Sorry,” I say, but Seeri nearly knocks me over on her way to the door. The mask of happiness on my brother’s face shatters as she moves out of his reach.

“No, don’t apologize. I . . .” Seeri searches for something
to say, and my heart aches. I hate to be the one coming between them. If what Shava says is true and Seeri will be breaking off her
betrothal, the two of them should have a bit of privacy together.

But before I can say another word, Seeri has said a hasty good night and fled.

I fall onto my bed. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I swear, Pek, if I’d known the two of you were in here—”

“Did you hear? He’s going to do it. Chev’s breaking her betrothal. He said he didn’t want it to stand in the way of a possible alliance.” Pek picks
up one of the ivory harpoons and twirls it. “Father will speak to him for me soon—I’m sure. But Kol, our parents won’t let me marry until you are at least betrothed. You know that, don’t you?”

I remember what you said earlier—that Seeri would not marry until you were betrothed. “Pek, I will do everything I can.”

He’s at the door. It’s so dark inside the hut now; he is little more than an outline.
“I’m going to go find her and head back to the feast. I’d rather sit with Seeri in a big crowd than sit without her in here.”

And then he’s gone.

Songs and laughter go on long into the night. The hut, though empty, feels crowded with ghosts—your mother, Tram’s father, your betrothed. Even Tram’s mother lends her presence, stirring a sense of regret, both for the things
that have happened and
for the things that never will.

Voices still ring out from the feast when I finally fall asleep.

In the morning, I pretend I’m still asleep when I hear my mother rise to start cooking. She moves around noisily behind the hides that divide the hut into a separate sleeping area for her and my father. She groans as she dresses; I can tell that last night’s mead is hurting her a bit this morning.
It takes her longer than usual—her feet shuffle a bit more slowly—and I hear my father’s voice, deep and rough, asking her a question I can’t quite make out. It may be a request to be quieter so that he can sleep.

Eventually, the rustling stops, and she finishes her routine and heads out into the early light.

It isn’t long, though, before she returns. I hear her speaking my father’s name, in
a loud whisper designed to wake him but not the rest of us. “Her mother,” she says. “She wants to speak with you. You better wake up because I believe it’s serious.”

My first thought is that she is talking about Seeri—that Seeri is the “she” my mother refers to. But she said her mother wants to speak, and Seeri has only a brother. Whose mother wants to speak to my father?

After an extended exchange,
my father finally asks in a voice loud enough to be heard by the entire hut, “Well, what’s so important that she has to wake me before dawn?”

“She wants to discuss a betrothal. Not Pek this time, of course, poor girl. She’s had her taste of that disappointment, and she sees what’s going on with Seeri. It’s Kol she wishes to discuss with you.”

At these words I sit bolt upright. They can mean
only Shava. Shava’s mother wishes to discuss the possibility of a betrothal to me.

I’m on my feet and pulling on my pants before my father has a chance to frame an answer. “Excuse me,” I say from the side of the hut I share with Pek, Kesh, and Roon—all of whom appear to be sleeping soundly. “May I please add my thoughts to this discussion?”

My mother pulls back the hide between the two rooms
and stares at me with a look of disapproval. “You’re awake early,” she says. “Awake and listening at doors, I see.”

This reprimand reminds me of the night I offered you the honey and you accused me of the same thing, even said the same words. “I wasn’t listening. It couldn’t be helped. It’s possible Shava’s mother heard you herself. Where did she and Shava sleep last night?”

“The kitchen. There
was nowhere else, since I had ten elders from the Olen to find room for. But it’s comfortable enough, and warm. I assure you they slept fine—”

“They must have,” says my father. “They managed to wake early so they could greet you with this proposition.” My father smiles and leans back on his bed with his arms
crossed behind his head. I can see the thoughts darting around in his eyes. He’s considering
the idea.

“Don’t bother,” I say, and now it’s my turn to be heard all the way in the kitchen. “Don’t bother considering it, because I will not do it.”

My mother turns to me, and her stare carries the weight of a mountain of disapproval. It presses me back into the doorway, but I will not allow her to intimidate me, not on this issue. Not on something as life changing as becoming betrothed.

“Who are you,” my mother starts slowly, “to be choosy about a wife? Do you have a line of possible choices leading to this door? If you do, now might be the time to make your father and me aware of them. Because you are the oldest child of the clan’s High Elder, Kol. Your brother may marry Seeri and help us form an alliance with the Olen, but it is you who is to inherit your father’s position and
your child who is to inherit yours. If you never marry—if you never have a child—”

“Then Pek’s child will be the next High Elder—”

“That might happen. Or the clan might start to question the will of the Divine. The clan might decide that the Divine has ceased to favor us and has chosen another family to lead. Or worse. The clan could splinter apart.
That
cannot happen, Kol. This clan may move,
but it
must not end
.”

“So if my child is to ensure the future of this clan, doesn’t
it matter who my child’s mother might be? You would have me marry Shava? A girl who is so fickle she shifts from devotion to Pek to devotion to me in one afternoon?”

“What makes you think this is about Shava’s devotion? Her mother may simply be trying to find her the best match—”

“If her mother is acting on
her own, then I pity Shava. But it doesn’t matter. Mother, I know Shava is a girl of good intentions. I believe her mother means well, too. But it doesn’t matter. Shava is not at all the type of girl that I would hope to marry—”

“When did you and Pek become so incredibly arrogant?” The voice comes from behind me—it’s the voice of my brother Kesh, standing beside his bed, pulling a parka over
his shoulders. I turn to see him shove the hair from his face and I almost don’t recognize him. His eyes, narrow with reproach, preside over features that seem to have aged overnight. His boyish roundness has been replaced by the angular lines of a tightly clenched jaw. “You are both so blinded by arrogance that you have become incapable of judging the value of a girl.” These last words he says as
he slides his feet into his boots. Without another word, he heads out the door into the brightening day.

I follow him as soon as I can get my own boots on. I run out still pulling on my parka, but summer is upon us, so the morning air has less of an edge to it and the kitchen isn’t far. I’m not certain what Kesh intends to do, but I have
a suspicion. I’m not sure what I’m thinking—whether I intend
to try to stop him or just to be there as his brother.

By the time I reach the doorway of the kitchen, my brother is inside. His unexpected arrival seems to have drawn the attention of not just Shava and her mother, but also the few cooks who rise early to work with my mother in the kitchen. As I burst through the door, I join a group of six or seven people gathered around Kesh. Shava stands
dead center, with a face like the sky as the sun comes up.

“Shava,” Kesh says. “Before anything more is said between our parents this morning, I have something I want to say myself.” My brother, my little brother whose music speaks so eloquently, has never found it easy to put his feelings into words. But he plows forward. “Last night, when you came to sit with me, I felt something change in
my life. I felt like something I’d lost had been found—something I’d lost but had never even known I was missing.” Kesh takes a quick glance at Shava’s flushed face before dropping his eyes back to the floor and continuing. “I’m not sure what you want or what you are hoping for. I’m not sure what kind of man you or your mother would consider a good match for you. But I know that you are the kind of
girl I would consider a good match for me.” He raises his head and finds Shava’s mother. Turning toward her, he continues. “I understand you intend to speak to my parents this morning. I would like to ask if you would be willing to
speak to them about me.”

Shava’s mother smiles, but tears fill her eyes. “I will leave that up to Shava. You will have to ask her.”

A rush of wind whistles in the
vent like a sigh as Kesh turns back to Shava. “If you are willing,” he says, “I would like to marry you.”

The room falls silent when Kesh makes this unassuming statement. At first, Shava doesn’t respond. She stands studying him, her lips pursed, but she doesn’t speak. Then a quiet sob rolls out of her, and my brother Kesh—my sweet, quiet, awkward brother Kesh—steps toward her and takes her by
the hand. Her shoulders shake with sobs until he is close enough for her to set her head on his shoulder. She tips her head up toward his ear and murmurs something, but her voice is muffled against his neck.

Finally, Kesh lifts his head and looks at all of us. He smiles, and in his smile I see the brother I know—not the brother who loses his temper and scolds me and Pek on our attitudes toward
girls, not the brother who runs out of the hut to stop a betrothal, but the brother who plays the flute and finds it hard to talk in front of anyone not in our immediate family.

“She said yes,” he says, and the kitchen erupts in cheers.

And just that fast, my brother Kesh, only fifteen years old, becomes betrothed to be married.

T
he morning meal this day is sparsely attended. Feasts and celebrations at this time of year, with daylight stretching long into night and no cold crash of dark to drive people back into the safety of their huts, often run long toward morning. People sleep late to overcome the effects of the revelry and the mead. But my family and Shava’s family are seated around the hearth in the
gathering place, and a meal of mammoth meat is served. Urar sets to lighting a flame in his oil lamp to draw good fortune to the couple, and my father goes from hut to hut to call the musicians and to personally announce the match.

The musicians, of course, collect quickly, as Kesh is one of their own. They play traditional songs reserved for weddings and betrothals, and more people emerge from
their huts. Even an aching head can’t stop most people from celebrating the announcement of an impending marriage,
especially in a clan that hasn’t heard such news in so many years.

By the time the meal is over most of the camp is awake, but neither you nor anyone from your family has appeared. Members of both the Manu and the Olen have offered up gifts to the couple—the old man who prepared
the food last night gives them a scraper made from red jasper, and my aunt Ama’s family presents them with a fishing net of knotted kelp. All the gifts they receive are personal and painstakingly crafted—an ivory sewing needle, a generous length of twine, a large bison pelt—things that will turn a new hut into a household.

Something hard forms in my throat. I can only suspect that I am jealous.
Kesh and Shava, Pek and Seeri. Even Roon clearly has a prospect in your sister Lees.

But today is not about me. Today is about Kesh. I watch him as he sits cross-legged on the ground in the center of the meeting place playing his flute with a force of joy that bends the notes and turns them skyward, as if they belong to the birds or even to the Divine.

My sister-to-be, Shava, sits close beside
Kesh. Funny, I think, how a girl can annoy two brothers and enthrall the third. Yet at this moment, Shava’s usual anxiety replaced by contentment, I can imagine the sweetness Kesh sees in her. Memories flash, images lighting quickly in my mind’s eye, of Kesh and Shava, eight or nine years old, playing on the
beach. Before Lil gave him the flute, Shava was his partner in digging up worms. And after,
as he learned to play, she was always his first audience when he learned a new song.

Was Kesh in love with Shava even then? Did it break his heart when she fell for Pek? When her family left our clan?

The meal is over but the music plays on. A few of my cousins, too young to remember the last time our clan had a wedding, get up and dance. I move toward the center of the crowd and the sound and
movement swirl around me. The world outside this tight circle of family blurs and loses meaning. My mother’s sister grabs my hands and spins me around. I close my eyes and try to block out any thoughts beyond this ring of happiness and hope.

For a moment—a brief fleeting moment—it works. But then I open my eyes to right myself as I turn in place, and I notice something move outside the circle
of dancers.

A hand pushes back the hide that covers the door to your hut, and a figure steps out into the light.

You.

Chev emerges from the hut behind you and you turn your attention to him, as if the two of you are completely unaware of the celebration going on just feet away. Do you hope to get away to the boats without having to speak to me again—without being noticed?

If this is your hope,
it fades a moment later when Shava calls out Chev’s name.

Chev stops, his eyes scanning the faces of the people crowding the gathering place. He appears surprised, and well he should. It’s almost unheard of for a young girl to so forcefully demand the attention of a High Elder, especially one from another clan. But Shava doesn’t seem to care much for the expectations of society.

My mother, who
was carrying a skin of water around to thirsty dancers, hurries to the edge of the ring and intercepts your brother. “I’m sorry,” she begins. “The girl has just become engaged to our son—”

“Which son?”

“One of the younger ones—Kesh. I believe you met him when we visited your camp. He is only fifteen, so there won’t be a wedding until his older brothers are betrothed, of course.”

Before my mother
can say another word to try to smooth things over, Kesh appears at her side, trailing behind Shava, who walks with a sense of purpose directly to Chev’s elbow.

I can’t help but move closer myself, my eyes on your eyes, but you never notice. You watch Shava warily, sensing, as I do, that this is no usual greeting.

“Sir,” she starts. “I hope you’ll excuse me. This may seem like a strange time
for me to approach you, but what I have to say cannot wait. I’ve been watching your door, waiting for you to emerge from your hut all morning. I have something very important to tell you—a warning, in fact, about
an attack that is planned against you. An attack that could come at any time.”

It seems as if every eye in camp has turned toward Shava—her shocking words release an almost palpable
force of tension into the air. My father must feel the pull even from inside the kitchen. He emerges through the door along with several elders from my clan and yours, their focus locked on the tight gathering in front of your hut.

“What’s going on here? Shava, give our guests some room.” My father’s booming voice announces his arrival, and Shava cringes.

“I’m sorry, it’s just . . . I just .
. . I felt the need to say something, to warn Chev and his whole family about the danger that is coming.” Shava’s expression clouds with self-doubt. Her gaze shifts over her left shoulder and then her right, until her eyes settle on her mother. We all watch as Fi gets slowly to her feet from the spot where she’s been seated all morning beside Kesh and crosses the gathering place with a gravity that
makes something spin in the bottom of my stomach.

“Don’t worry,” says Shava’s mother. “You’re betrothed to a son of the Manu, and this is your clan now. You owe no further loyalty to Lo.”

Lo?

I startle at the mention of her name. What could she have to do with danger and plots to cause harm?

“Shava, if you have something to say, just say it.” I’m surprised by the tone of my own voice, but
I can feel the sudden weight of your eyes on my face—a weight that fell there the moment Shava’s mother mentioned the name of your old enemy. My only thought is that there must be some mistake or even a purposeful deceit. Why else would Shava choose this morning, the morning after you and I argued about Lo, to attach her name to some incredible accusation of a plot against Chev?

“I think we should
discuss this inside,” you say.

I glance around. People stand in the gathering place—members of your clan and mine—listening intently to the developing tale.

“Yes,” Shava says. “Thank you. I think I really would prefer to sit down.”

My father leads us into the now-empty kitchen. Shava is offered a place to sit along the wall, and she drops down beside a pile of discarded eggshells. The room
is warm. Beads of sweat form on Shava’s forehead and temples, creating a frame of moisture around her eyes.

Shava’s mother sits beside her, but Chev does not hang back. He enters the room with purpose, followed closely by you. Without hesitation, Chev takes a seat directly in front of Shava. Kesh is last to enter the shade of the room. A patch of sunlight that clings to the top of his head reluctantly
falls away as the door drapes shut. Even through the
purple shadows of this darkened space, I see the tight pinch of fear across his brow.

Clearly, he knows no more of what Shava is about to say than Chev does.

“Go ahead,” Shava’s mother prompts. “You no longer need to fear. Your loyalties are with your betrothed’s clan now, and Chev is a friend of this clan. He is also the rightful High Elder
of the Bosha clan, as your grandmother has told you many times. Tell him what you know.”

“I know,” Shava starts, but her voice breaks on her words. My mother comes up quietly and hands her a waterskin to drink from.

Shava takes a long, shaky drink with unsteady hands. “I know,” she continues, her voice strong and clear this time, “that someone is plotting your murder.”