The Dog Master (23 page)

There was a gasp as the truth of this hit home.

“We have a duty. I am heartbroken to pronounce it. But I must,” Albi claimed. “The curse must be taken to a watering hole and submerged until it can no longer threaten our lives.”

Calli's heart sank as she saw that the women were looking into each other's eyes, but not at hers. Bellu glanced up at her and then quickly away—even her best friend had been persuaded.

Albi's expression turned into a smirk as she turned toward Calli, inviting rebuttal. “A curse, you say,” Calli replied loudly, still seated. “And yet despite the fact that we have come to winter quarters when the days are still long, earlier than ever before, the men found birds to feed us. The time of greatest danger, you say, and yet the only threat we suffered was when you came to me with the ridiculous notion that a newborn should be thrown in the river, so that the hunt master had to come and threaten you with death to get you to stay quiet!”

This was confirmation of a rumor that had been flying around, and the women reacted with startled expressions.

“You bring my father's death to the council. A tragedy, but you bend it until you find meaning, the way a wet elk hide, twisted in the hands, will eventually be wrung of drops of water. Did he not choke on our abundance? Is he the first man to die from eating too eagerly? Are we to believe that every person who finds a small bone stuck in the throat is cursed? Yes, it is true, he joined the chorus of hunters who threatened you with spears if you would not stop talking at the river juncture.”

“Oh, that is
not
—” Albi began angrily.

“The Kindred,” Calli shouted, leaping to her feet and overriding the council mother, “has never put to death one of its own! Not even you, Albi, when your arguing could have brought the Cohort down upon us. Yes, the hunters wanted to kill you, but they ultimately stayed their hands. The
Kindred,
” she continued, pointing a finger at Albi, “has a long-standing tradition that until a child has been named during the third summer of his life, he is attached to the breast of his mother and is hers and hers alone. You, Council Mother, would have us defy the way of the Kindred, all to extinguish a curse that you say has led us to such misfortune, though the only evident hardship I can see is that you have brought us to winter quarters too early!”

No one had ever spoken to Albi this way in council, and there was a long, stunned silence.

“She is right, sister,” Droi spoke. She turned to Sopho, who was sitting next to her. “Sopho and I are the oldest women in the tribe, and we cannot recall the council ever interfering with a living mother's choices for a child who had not yet been named. Why, remember Mors, your oldest boy, Ador? He would not stop biting the other children, but the council gave you leave to find your own measures to stop him, which you did, and now he is stalk master. This is how it has always been.”

Sopho was nodding. “Yes, this is true,” she murmured. “And my own father died when he tried to swallow a fat piece of elk meat too large for his throat. He was a good man, a spear master, who loved his family. He was not cursed.”

The council mother, her eyes slits, drew in a breath, but she hesitated before speaking, taking in the women's faces in a quick survey of opinion. Calli was clever—faced with a difficult decision, the women would always choose inaction if they could. There would be no forcing this issue now, not with Sopho weeping into her hands over her gluttonous father. “Very well,” Albi proclaimed smoothly. “It is of course true that as council mother, I simply speak for us—I do not decide for us. It is evident to me that the women's council's will is that no decision be made concerning the cursed child until his third summer, when he is named, joins the Kindred, and might then do the greatest damage to us.”

The tiny infant in Calli's eyes stirred, blinking blearily at the world. She stared back down at her son, smiling.

She had three years.

 

TWENTY-SIX

Year Nineteen

The wolf puppy knew nothing but the cave. The smells wafting down the crevice were tantalizing and mysterious, but she had forgotten any connection between them and her brief experience frolicking with her brothers outside in the vast world. She knew the cave and her mother and the man.

The man was not here—he had vanished up into the sky, taking his scent with him as he climbed up the shaft.

She was hungry. The last time she had fed, she had tasted blood on the teat and her mother had punished her savagely, turning and snapping at her so that she broke away and ran to the man, leaping into his lap, seeking reassurance.

“You have teeth now, little girl,” the man said. “It hurts her too much. And I am sorry to say I have just finished the last of the food from my pouch.”

The puppy liked it when the man made his sounds, and she playfully pounced on his hands, chewing his fingers.

“Sharp teeth,” he said, snatching his hand away. The puppy watched him alertly, wondering what game they were playing now.

“A lion has a far-ranging territory. We have been hiding in here many days. I cannot imagine it is still lingering out there, waiting for me to emerge. But I need food, and now you need food, too.”

And that was when the man stood, pushing her from his lap. He made some more sounds, but eventually he left.

Alone with her mother, the puppy whimpered. She could smell the milk, and it drew her forward, until the mother-wolf snarled and growled in warning.

She did not understand where the man was and she did not understand why her mother would not let her feed. She only understood that she was hungry.

Year Four

The hunt felled a winter mammoth, whose ample flesh pulled the Kindred back from edge of starvation. Lean reindeer meat could be smoked and dried and would keep for many days, but mammoth, with all its fat, needed to be consumed not long after cooking, though snow retarded spoilage. This meant the families had ample food, but Palloc was nonetheless surprised—and perhaps even suspicious—when his mother invited him to her fire for a meal.

“Did you ever wonder about Dog? His coloring? And your new child, the deformed one, the same is true,” Albi bluntly asked her son as he took his first bite.

“I do not know what you are even suggesting to me,” Palloc replied slowly, chewing.

“Why, when your skin is so pale, your eyes such a light brown, are both boys so dark?”

“They look like everyone else in the Kindred,” Palloc answered, baffled.

Albi shook her head. “Do not be so stupid. Should a boy not resemble his father? Does Bellu's child not look like Urs? Do Bellu's brothers not resemble Pex?”

Palloc frowned. In his mind, Bellu's baby looked like a baby. He tried to mentally compare Bellu's brothers with Pex, their father, but Pex had a deep white scar across his forehead and had lost a lot of his teeth, and that was all Palloc could think of.

Albi made a contemptuous noise. “What about their eyes?”

“Their eyes,” Palloc repeated, not understanding.

“Calli's children all have dark eyes. Neither of them have light eyes, like yours.”

Palloc considered this. “Calli ate no fish while with child,” he reasoned. “That is why Dog and the baby have normal eyes.”

“Do you think I ate fish when I was pregnant?” Albi demanded.

He was startled. “Are you saying my father had eyes like yours, like mine?”

“A boy looks like the father. A girl looks like the mother. That is why you men all think Ador's child, Bellu, is so pretty,” Albi informed him.

Palloc tried to remember his father, who had died after being trampled on the hunt a long time ago. Truthfully, his memories were fleeting and without definition; glimpses of a heavyset, broad-chested man. Palloc simply could not remember the eyes. He focused on his mother. “Is this true? I have never heard such a thing. Children usually look like themselves.”

“Ask any woman who a child resembles and she will tell you,” Albi replied confidently.

“And my father…”

“You resemble him exactly. As I look at you, I see a younger version of him.”

Palloc inhaled. His mother's words hit him hard, like a club to the stomach. Dog, not his son? The new baby?

Urs.
He felt the rage heating his face. Palloc always suspected Calli had been with another man before their wedding night. And, in his heart, Palloc had always known who the other man was. The idea that the relationship had continued into adultery made him sick with a vile mix of emotions.

Albi was watching her son with a satisfied expression, which she quickly changed to concern when he raised his hot, wet eyes to hers. “Palloc, my son, I am so, so sorry to be the one to tell you this,” she murmured.

Palloc stood. “I am going to kill her,” he vowed.

Albi nodded at her son's fury. “Yes, exactly,” she agreed. “That is exactly what you must do.”

*   *   *

Denix was actually trembling as she went to stand next to Silex, a look of nervous dread on her face. She was still so much a child Silex wanted to hug her and assure her that all was good, but that would not befit what he was about to say to what was left of his tribe.

Silex spoke more loudly than necessary, feeling they needed to hear decisiveness and power in his voice. “I have wondered why the magnificent she-wolf who accepts our tribute is so forthright and bold, dauntless as she approaches the Wolfen. And now I understand, because there is a message in her circumstances. She, like Brach and I, split from the main tribe. And she, not the male, is the leader of a pack, one that grows with a successful litter.” Silex put a hand on Denix's thin shoulder. “My father stated that we are People of the Wolf and must always live as they do, but in our hunting we are more like the Kindred, leaving our women behind while the men track game. The message of the she-wolf is that this is wrong. We must consider our resources.” Silex moved Denix forward with a subtle push, pausing so everyone could remember how she had gone alone to see what had happened to Duro and the men. What he was trying to tell them was so unorthodox, he could see noncomprehension on almost every face, but he nodded as if everyone had shouted assent. “Yes. Denix. She has proven herself brave as any man, going out to risk her life to see if she could save anyone.” Though this was not exactly what had happened, the concept stirred his people, and they were now regarding Denix with precisely the sort of appraising respect he had hoped for. “We cannot ignore such bravery. Denix will go with the hunt.”

Silex smiled at Denix, who appeared thunderstruck. The men were glancing at each other and frowning, but Silex ignored them, deliberately fixing his wife with his eyes. “Fia is clever and fast, and she, too, will accompany us, as will any woman who can master spear and club. The children can find the berries and gather the acorns, but, like the wolves, Wolfen—male and female—will hunt together.”

Year Nineteen

Her mother's thumping tail awoke the puppy from a fitful sleep—the hollow pain in her little belly prevented anything other than light dozing. The instant her eyes opened she smelled the man and was there to greet him when he landed on the cave floor. She jumped and spun and yipped, overjoyed that he had returned.

“Yes, all is good, little girl. I have something for you, and your mother as well.”

The puppy's mouth filled with saliva when the man offered her a small morsel of fresh meat. She chewed it rapidly, swallowing and looking up expectantly.

“I am sorry I allowed you to become so hungry. I was afraid of the lion, though I saw no sign of it.”

With the sounds came more food.

“That is enough for you. I want to see how well you fare on a solid meal before I give you any more.”

The puppy raised herself up on her rear legs, sniffing eagerly, but backed away when the man knelt at the mother-wolf's head.

“I know you are no longer allowing your puppy to your breast, but will you still eat?” he said softly. He reached out and the mother-wolf accepted a larger hunk from his hand, the puppy watching enviously.

Later, the man put some meat into the fire, an odor both familiar and delicious to the puppy, who could not remember a time when the smells were not present. Then he ate, pushing her away when she thrust her nose at his meal. He did, though, give her another bit of food. And then he sat quietly, so the puppy put her head in his lap as she often did, closing her eyes when his hand stroked her head.

“I am challenged to explain even to myself what I am doing, living in a wolf's lair, sharing my food with two animals. Yet it is as if we are family. When I return to the cave, you both shake your tails with high energy. I know it means you are glad to see me, that you missed me. It is as if I have left one family for another—a wolf family. But what would happen if I allow you to live?”

The man's sounds were as soothing as his hand, and the puppy only drowsily knew he was making them.

“You are little now and I do feel for you as if you are a little sister, a baby. But you will not always be a baby and a grown wolf is a fierce killer. Would you do that to me, little girl? Would you one day see me as prey? If we somehow manage to survive the rest of the summer, evade the lion, and find a way to live through the winter, would it only be to have you turn on me and tear out my throat?”

Year Four

Calli, holding her newborn son, was sitting with Bellu when Palloc strode up to her. Dog was off somewhere—his laughter could be heard over the calls of the other children, playing among some sparse trees.

“Come with me,” Palloc commanded curtly. When Calli was slow to rise he reached down and yanked her roughly to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Calli demanded angrily. “You will wake the baby and I just got him to sleep.”

Palloc's response was to reach for the child and pull him from his mother. Calli was too shocked to resist. Palloc turned and walked away from her.