Ivory and Bone (9 page)

I
’m brought to your camp, but I don’t see you again. Instead, I see no one but Pek, Chev, and your clan’s healers—Ela and her twin brother, Yano. They are young for healers—maybe just a few years older than I am. Both wear their hair pulled into a single long braid; both are dressed in plain tunics of black bearskin.

“You will stay in my sisters’ hut,” Chev says. “It is large, close to
the healers, and close to me. You have done a great thing for this clan and I want to be sure you are comfortable while you heal.” Despite the gnawing ache in my back, something in my chest stirs. My senses sharpen as I enter the place where you sleep each night, the place where you dream.

The hut is cool and well lit—a flap has been opened in the side wall facing west, letting in a shaft of
sunlight. I’m struck by the rich array of pelts—not just forming the beds
but also elaborate rugs and banners—furs and skins cut and sewn into ornate patterns, spread across the floor and hung from the walls. One design suggests the stars in the sky, another the sea.

The healers help me undress and lie facedown on one of the beds, arranged on the floor in just the right spot so the light will
fall directly onto my back. A rich, musky scent floats in the air; some of these pelts are new. Ela and Yano stand on each side of me, helping me ease my aching body onto the bed. My hands reach out to brace my weight and I notice a blanket of sealskin. Despite my pain, inwardly I smile, knowing that you and your sister accepted Pek’s gifts.

The healers begin their work of examining the gashes
in my back. They clean each one with the edge of a sharp blade, picking out small flecks of dirt and debris. The process sends spikes of pain through me, but I force myself to stay alert. “Deep cuts,” Ela says, either to Yano or herself—I can’t be sure. She calls for a certain type of leaf, but the name of the plant is unknown to me.

The process drags on, each individual cut painstakingly opened,
painstakingly cleaned. Sweat drips from my face and neck and pools in the small of my back. I struggle to stay silent and still, but I can’t suppress every flinch or hold in every gasp. Now and then, pressure is applied to my back with a soft pelt that’s been soaked in cold water, opening a brief window of relief. Chants are offered by Ela and Yano,
sometimes in turns, sometimes in unison.

Pain
thrums a drumbeat in my temples, mixing with a roar in my ears, drowning out voices. I know that Chev is speaking, but his words fade to a hiss and I cannot distinguish what he says. All I catch is the tone of his voice, but even that is enough to startle me. His voice is gentle and warm, a tone reserved for a beloved child, or, more likely, a spouse. Could he be speaking to Ela? Could it be that
she is Chev’s wife?

I lose track of time. The light in the room grows dim as the healers methodically work at their task, until finally, I feel the even pressure of fingers smoothing cool strips of leaves across my skin. And then, at last, there is no pressure at all. The task is done.

Through the throbbing, through the roar, through the hiss and buzz that fill my ears, whispered words reach
me. It’s the voice of my brother Pek; I feel his breath on my cheek. “Chev has sent for our family,” he says. “Rest well, knowing that our parents and brothers will be here soon.”

With the music of these words pushing back the din of pain, I fall into a deep sleep.

When I wake, my back feels tight—scabs have formed beneath the protective layer of leaves. I open my eyes to see you—just you—sitting
on the bed across from me.

“Look who’s awake.”

“Have I been sleeping long?”

“Not really. Maybe half the night has passed. The healers wanted to be called when you woke.”

You stretch before you stand—your muscles are stiff. How long have you been sitting here? Have you been on watch the whole time I’ve slept? As you brush back the door, you call to me over your shoulder. “I’ll be right back.
I’m just going to let Chev know to bring Ela and Yano—”

“Wait. Before you go, I want to ask you . . . Is Ela Chev’s wife?”

You stop and turn to face me. In the weak light thrown off by the sputtering flame of an oil lamp in the center of the floor, I think I see you smile. No—not smile . . . smirk.

“You’re correct in guessing that one of the healers is Chev’s mate, but Ela is not my brother’s
wife. Yano is Chev’s spouse. He is the one my brother loves.”

You pause a moment in the doorway, watching my face, smiling as bewilderment is replaced by clarity.

It makes sense now. Of course, I know that love is sometimes like that—some men love men, some women love women. But I hadn’t put it together. Now I understand why I always perceived that Chev was a man with a mate, yet no one had
mentioned his wife.

“I’ll be right back,” you say again. “I’ll bring your brother, too.”

And then you push back the door, and I feel a door in my
chest pushed back at the same time. You step out, leaving darkness and quiet and emptiness behind you.

A void opens up in this room—opens up in my chest—from the lack of you.

A short time later, Ela and Yano stand over me. The large leaves that had
been draped across my skin are removed, but I feel nothing more than a slight pull when one occasionally tugs at a scab.

“Very nice,” says Yano, admiring his own work with a smile and a nod. “You should sit up and drink now. And take some honey. Honey will give you strength.”

Chev hands me a heavy skin full of water. “Mya, run to the kitchen for honey,” he says.

As much as I enjoy the thought
of you being sent to the kitchen to bring back the honey that you claimed was so plentiful here in the south—the honey that is apparently so superior to mine—I stop you before you can rise to your feet.

“I have some,” I say. Pek rummages around in my pack until the pouch—the very same pouch I’d tried to give you—is found.

My own honey never tasted as good as it does at this moment. I gulp down
a greedy portion of the water Chev offers and stretch out again. I’m just wondering where you
and Seeri are staying while my brother and I occupy your hut when I drift off to sleep.

The following day I sleep until the sun is glowing gold against the wall that faces west, waking well after the midday meal.

Pek and Chev bring me a mat full of elk and caribou meat and sit with me to keep me occupied.
“If you would like, your brother can sleep in here.”

If I would like?
“Where have you been sleeping, Pek?”

Chev answers before Pek has the chance. “We made room for him in the storage hut. We moved some firewood. But he can join you in here, if you wish.”

The storage hut. I had wondered how well Pek had been received. If he’s sleeping next to the supplies, I think I can guess the answer.

The healers stop in briefly to check my progress. They both seem pleased, but neither will relent when I request that I be allowed out of bed. “Not until the evening meal,” Yano says. He tries to remain stern, but at the door he looks back and gives me a brief, sympathetic smile. “It won’t be long,” he adds, before ducking out behind his sister.

I learn that boats left at first light, heading
for my camp. They are to bring back my parents and my brothers, “to help celebrate our triumph over the cat,” Chev says. I had
suspected my family had been sent for because my injuries were so grave, in case I had gotten worse instead of better. I have seen injured hunters fail quickly. I’m sure Chev has, too. But I don’t say anything about that. Instead, I simply smile. “A celebration will be
wonderful, but I’m not sure what you mean by ‘our triumph over the cat.’”

Your brother sits forward. “This cat, it was a rebel,” he says. I study his face. Chev is older than you and Seeri by maybe as many as six or seven years. Like the other Olen men, his hair is always pulled back tight in a braid. This differs from the style of the men in my clan—we generally cut our hair with sharp blades
to keep it short and out of the way. Something about this style gives Chev a stern look, his features exposed and his eyes intense, as if he is constantly forming a plan. There is a sadness, too, that shows in the set of his mouth and the lines at the edges of his lips.

“This cat no longer had a taste for bison or elk.” He raises his face and stares at the hides on the wall, but I know he is
looking at something else—a memory. “It was not long after we returned from your camp. This cat killed a hunter who was stalking game. After that, this cat stalked all of us. No one could go outside of camp. I had to forbid it.

“But one did—a child. She tried to sneak off to the river in the valley beyond the hills. We found her that night. Her own mother could not recognize her face.”

Chev
goes silent as his eyes darken.

“That’s the reason I stayed,” says Pek. “I’ve been helping patrol the camp and hunt for the cat. I promised to stay until he was no longer a threat.”

“The Spirit of this cat was a demon,” Chev says. “We offered prayers and chants to the Divine, and now the demon has been slain.” He gets to his feet and strides for the door. “My clanspeople are busy in the kitchen,
preparing the evening meal for you and your family. This meal will allow us to express our thanks.”

With that, Chev ducks quickly through the door and is gone.

“So he’s happy?” I ask Pek, half joking. Chev is not a man who is open with his emotions.

“Maybe with you, but not with me.”

Pek sits cross-legged on a pile of pelts that make up the bed across from me. His head is bowed, but he raises
his face slowly and gives me a smile completely devoid of joy.

“Seeri?” I don’t need to ask. Of course it’s Seeri.

“He’s quite serious about her betrothal to his friend. I believe that he sees me as unsuitable and unworthy.”

“And you know this how?”

“His words, carried across the space between huts as he shouted at Seeri.”

My brother—the one who was born with a spear in his hand, the one
who could always out-throw me—seems beaten. The lowered head, the drooping shoulders—I’ve
seen that only once before in him, on the first day we hunted seals so he could bring the pelts to your clan. Even that day, Pek had started out hopeful. It had taken defeat and a near drowning to weigh him down.

“I’d planned to win him over by killing the rogue cat, but you’ve solved that problem. I think
there’s little left that I could do to change his mind.”

I lean forward and feel the scabs across my back tighten as I reach for Pek’s shoulder. “Sorry for killing the cat before you could, but it really left me no choice—”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” I say. “But don’t give up. After all, aren’t you the one who said there’s still hope? She isn’t married yet.”

I turn and lie down again, my body
suddenly heavy. I press my chest against the sealskin blanket, my wounds open to the air. My eyes close. I catch myself just as I drift into a dream and I shake myself awake, but Pek is already by the door.

“Sleep,” he says. “Don’t fight it.”

“I’ve slept all day—”

“And you walked all of yesterday. And fought a cat. And dragged its body to camp. And now you’re healing. So sleep.”

I want to
argue—my mind begins to form the words—but before my lips can give them shape I fade into a deep,
dreamless sleep. I wake only when voices reach my ears, calling from shore.

I open my eyes. Light in the hut is fading, but judging by the sounds I hear, I woke just in time. The boats that were sent for my family must have finally returned.

I find myself alone for the first time, but the solitude
of the hut has a texture all its own—rich and comforting. I climb to my feet and find a clean parka at the foot of the bed—one crafted from the pelt of a cat so soft it won’t irritate my wounds.

I pick it up and hold it in the light, confused by the mystery of it. But then I notice the details—the way the light brown fur fades to pale tan at the edges, the swirled pattern in the grain of the
hide in one corner, the slight blemish where a drop of blood dried into a permanent stain of red.

This was made from the pelt of the cat you killed, the one I tanned and sent to you.

I
follow the mix of voices to the beach, drawn along by the singsong tones of my mother’s lilting laugh. Though I’ve rarely given any thought to the sound of my mother’s laugh, at this moment, its familiarity quenches a thirst inside me I didn’t even know was there.

I realize as I slow my steps that I haven’t heard anyone laugh in so long. My mother could be laughing at anything—perhaps
the boat rocked as they stepped out and someone was splashed—her laugh comes easily most of the time. Here in your camp, my injuries have been treated with such seriousness, and I’m grateful for it, but there’s a warmth and affection in the music of my mother’s voice that heals me from the inside out.

Yet as I approach and catch my first glimpse of them—not just my mother but my father and brothers,
too—I
know they are being told about my injuries for the first time. Chev is speaking to them, gesturing as he tells the story. His back is to me, his words carried away by the sea breeze, but I can read the tension in my father’s shoulders, my mother’s sudden silence. She reaches out for Pek and holds on to him as if she might fall if she let go.

Thankfully, Yano and Ela are there, too, and
as Chev quiets, Ela steps up. My parents’ eyes turn to her, and from my vantage point—close enough to see but far enough away that I haven’t yet been noticed—I can tell that her words reassure them. My father steps forward. My mother nods.

I take a tentative step in their direction and my mother’s attention shifts.

She spots me on the path, and when she speaks my name—just my name—it’s as if
an entire song has been sung.

She lets go of my brother and hurries to me. Her face glows red with windburn and her gait is uneven after a long trip on the sea. She falls against me and her arms encircle my back.

Over her shoulder my eyes are drawn to your face as you react to the pain you imagine I feel—your teeth dig deep into your bottom lip as she embraces me. But although her touch stings,
it also brings relief to another kind of pain, and I won’t pull away. Instead, I clench my jaw and lean into my
mother’s embrace. The pelt of the new parka presses against the cuts in my back, but the pain recedes to the edges of my mind as contentment crowds it out.

As we head back up the path together, I manage to get close enough to speak to you without others hearing. Standing so close, I
notice a scent around you, the same scent I’d noticed in your hut—the warm fragrance of musk.

“Thank you for the parka,” I say.

“Of course,” you answer.

For the briefest of moments the world around me holds its breath—the breeze dies away; birds quiet their songs. The only sound is the crunch of gravel beneath our feet as we walk side by side.

But it doesn’t last. It’s only an illusion; one
that fades as soon as you speak again. “I started it the day Pek gave me the pelt. I couldn’t accept it—the cat was killed on your land. It belongs to your clan. I figured the parka was an efficient means of returning it to you.”

Efficient?

“The pelt was meant as a
gift
—”

I stop myself mid-sentence. Hot, angry words rush to my lips but I bite them back. Why bother? What could I possibly say
that might reach you? “Excuse me,” I say instead, and hurry to catch up to my family.

We join the rest of your clan in a large meeting area at
the center of the circle of huts, strikingly similar to our meeting space at home, though there is one significant difference. Your clan has erected four large poles carved from the trunks of trees in the corners of the meeting place, and pulled tightly
overhead is a roof of hides pieced together with cords of sinew. The sides are open to allow both the breeze and your clanspeople to easily pass in and out, but the covering overhead ensures that you will always be sheltered from sun or rain while gathered. At home, we simply huddle in the kitchen or eat our meals in our huts if the weather is foul. I remember a fleeting look that crossed your face
when you first saw my clan gathered in the open air after the hunt. Now I suspect it was disappointment—or worse, disdain—at our lack of sophistication.

Just as there are differences in the space, there are also differences in custom. Unlike home, there is no music, no singing. A solitary drum calls people to the evening meal. Even conversation is muted. At home, some people in my clan—especially
my mother’s family, who tend to be big in size and big in voice—greet each other at the evening meal with an enthusiasm that suggests they haven’t seen each other in days, when it’s been only since morning, if that long. In contrast, the few bits of conversation I catch among your people are exchanged in hushed, polite voices—a comment on the hearty fragrance of cooking meat coming from the kitchen,
a question about how a sprained ankle is healing.

At least the children are a bit noisy. I overhear a trio of boys chattering about the traps they set this morning. One boy brags that he has already caught a squirrel, and I smile, thinking of me and my brothers at that age. Pek was always the one bragging.

Once we are all collected under the roof, your brother Chev motions for us to be seated.
Pelts have been scattered across the sandy soil, and I find myself sharing one with my mother and Roon. Kesh and my father sit beside us. Your clan is bigger than ours—maybe thirty to thirty-five people, counting babies and small children—where our clan is twenty-four in all. With so many people crowded together, I lose sight of you once we are seated, but I know you are somewhere at the opposite
edge of the crowd where I’d noticed you standing with Seeri. Pek is not far from you, seated with strangers he must have befriended while he’s been in your camp.

When everyone sits, I notice the towering lattice of firewood arranged in a large hearth between the edge of the canopy and the kitchen. At home such a large fire would be considered extravagant, even wasteful, an affront to the Spirits
of the trees. But here, wood is much more plentiful, and the tree Spirits more generous.

Chev signals to the drummer, who resumes the slow, even beat that called us to the meal. From the kitchen, two figures emerge, each wearing a huge mask of carved
wood—so huge they cover their bodies from head to waist. I’ve never seen a mask of wood before—Urar makes beautiful masks of bearskin and walrus
hide painted with ocher—but these are so different, so fierce and intensely foreign, a shiver runs over my skin. The face depicted on each mask suggests a cat—a square nose dug out of the center, narrow eyes and sharp whiskers carved at opposing angles, slanting away from a wide mouth framed by long, curved teeth. Each of the masked figures carries a burning torch. As they circle the hearth, moving
with exaggerated steps in time to the beat, they set their torches to the kindling at the base of the firewood.

“Spirit of the cat,” the masked figures chant in unison, “climb this smoke to the Land Above the Sky.” They chant in low, furtive whispers, but I recognize the voices of Ela and Yano. “Climb this smoke. . . . Climb this smoke. . . . Climb this smoke. . . .” They circle the hearth once
as the flames catch and travel over the branches. The chanting stops, but the drumbeat quickens. They circle faster and faster, their steps becoming leaps, the flames climbing higher, billows of smoke rolling outward and under the roof. I pull in a deep breath of soot and a wave of nausea crashes over me. The beat of the drum grows louder, faster, louder still, my heart races and my head swims,
until I slump against the bearskin on the ground. My eyes fall shut, but instead of darkness, the fire’s glow presses against my eyelids, surrounding me in white light.

Then all at once, the drumming stops. My eyes open. Ela and Yano are gone, leaving only Chev beside the towering fire. I sit up groggily, as if waking from a dream.

“Friends,” Chev says, raising his hands, “the Divine continues
to make this a prosperous clan. We thank our visitors from the north, from the clan of the Manu, especially Kol, who with his skill and strength has slain the man-killing cat.”

As these words echo in my head, my younger brothers, Kesh and Roon, pat me on the arms and make a scene of congratulating me. “Quit showing off,” I say under my breath. “It’s bad manners.”

“Kol,” Chev calls. “Come take
your place at the head of the line.”

I search the periphery of the crowd until I find my brother Pek. He looks back for a moment—I know he’s seen me—but then he turns away.

All his life he’s out-hunted me. Now when it really matters, I’ve come and shown him up.

As I try to shake off the feeling that I’ve let my brother down, a girl of about twelve comes up to me and takes me by the arm.

“Kol?”
she says. “I’m Lees. Chev is my older brother. They wouldn’t take me along when my siblings visited your clan, but I’m happy to meet you now.”

Lees looks like a miniature version of Seeri—her face is
crowded with wide eyes and a broad smile. She rounds up my family—all except for Pek, who I see across the crowd has joined up with you and Seeri—and steers us into line ahead of everyone else.

After a short time under Lees’s supervision we each have a mat containing bison meat, roasted water parsnips, and a small portion of the meat from the cat so that we may each take in a bit of its Spirit’s strength. But making our way back to sit, we are stopped frequently by members of your clan who introduce themselves and wish me well. Everyone is friendly and polite, but I can’t shake an eerie
sense of disconnection that started when I first saw the masks—a disorienting sense of being outside myself, looking in. It’s as if the Spirit of the cat still claws at me, as it makes its way to the Land Above the Sky. I cough, and the acrid taste of smoke fills my mouth.

At last, Lees leads us to a place to sit, right beside her brother Chev and her sisters—you and Seeri. Pek is beside Seeri,
and although I attempt to take the place on the opposite side of him, Lees takes it herself and I find myself seated between your brother and my father.

Sitting beside Chev, I notice his demeanor is subtly changed. Maybe it’s because we are in your camp. An aroma of sweetness wafts from his breath, and a skin lies on the ground beside him. Is he already drinking mead? A large knife made of a
heavy point hafted to a bone handle
rests to the right of the skin. Surveying the group seated around him, Chev lifts the knife and with it skewers a piece of bison and stuffs it into his mouth. He turns toward me and a hazy lack of focus clouds his eyes.

His cheeks flush red as he smiles at me.

“Let me introduce you, our visitors from the north, to one of my oldest friends, Morsk.” He stands,
and with the knife he points to a man of about his own age seated directly across our small circle from Seeri and Pek. “He is Seeri’s betrothed.”

My mother’s eyes blink rapidly before her head spins toward Pek, who looks away. My father swallows hard and then coughs into his fist. Like the day we were all introduced in the meadow, a taut silence fills the space between us. And like that day,
I am tempted to fill that silence with tradition.

I could get to my feet and move to Morsk’s side. We exchange nods—the customary formal greeting. I could introduce my parents and my brothers Kesh and Roon. I could break the growing tension.

But is that best?

I have spent long stretches of time with my father, learning what the Divine expects of a leader, what qualities she will bless and honor.
I know that I need to show patience in the face of anger. I know that harmony needs to come before my own pride.

Sometimes these qualities are easy to embody. But not today.

I hope that harmony is not what the Divine requires here, because I cannot bring myself to work for it. Not now. Looking at my parents’ stunned expressions, I see that Chev has used the fact of Seeri’s betrothal as a weapon.
He has claimed control over this meeting between our two clans, but my father will not allow him to keep it.

“We were not aware that Seeri was betrothed,” he says. If he’s trying to conceal his shock at this news and his sense that Pek has been cheated or led on, he doesn’t succeed. It’s quite clear he is offended.

He turns in his seat and scans Seeri’s face as well, though she has turned her
attention to her food and seems to have no intention of ever looking up again. My father lets his eyes rest on her long enough that his glare comes across to all the rest of us as an accusation. “How long has this arrangement been in place?” he asks, his eyes never leaving the top of Seeri’s head.

“For years,” Chev says, stuffing another large piece of meat into his mouth with his fingers. “As
a brother, I want the best sort of husband for my sisters, Seeri included.”

“And what makes the best sort of husband?” my mother asks.

They are so bold. They are teetering on the edge of rudeness, but I can’t blame them. Chev has set them up, and
they are right to fight back.

“Well, in this case, I would say the best sort of husband is one who is familiar. Morsk has been my friend my whole
life. We learned to fish sitting side by side in the same boat. I can trust him. There’s no dark history between our families that has yet to be resolved.”

I startle at this mention of history. Could Chev be using Seeri’s betrothal to Morsk to provoke a discussion of the past? I turn my eyes to you, remembering what you said to me about the specter of distrust and resentment that will forever
overshadow our two clans. Are you glad the past is being dragged out into the light?

It’s impossible to tell. Your head is down. At least for now, you do not intend to join the conversation.

“Plus, Morsk is a skilled craftsman,” says Lees, too innocent, perhaps, to understand the tone of the conversation she’s joining. “He built this roof we’re sitting under. He’s excellent with wood. He can
make a canoe out of the trunk of a single tree. He can build anything.”

“So he can make things out of trees. So what?” says Roon. Pek’s eyes leap to our youngest brother’s face. Though he’s the same age as Lees, Roon is not as naive. He gets the subtext of this discussion, and he intends to jump into the fray. “My brother Pek can hunt down a mammoth, skin it, butcher it, and make a boat from
the pelt and bones.
Can your friend Morsk do that?”