The Reindeer People (30 page)

He made no move to dismount from the harke either. With a sigh, Heckram tugged at the weary beast's halter. They started down the path to the talvsit. His mother gossiped as they went. Heckram listened numbly, letting the words slide by him, responding to her questions by rote as his tired brain chewed at other mysteries. He thanked her for unloading his gear and putting it in his hut. Yes, he knew they'd have to break a few more harke to pack this year; no, he hadn't decided which ones yet. No, he hadn't had any problems with the reindeer on the grazing grounds; yes, it might very well be an early spring. He nodded as he heard that two of Bror's vajor had already calved. It was early, but calves born now would keep up with the herd better on the migration. He was rather hoping his own vajor would calve soon. It never hurt a calf to have a few days to find its legs before having to follow the herd.

Then Ristin was saying that Capiam had decided they would leave ten days from now. Everyone was in the usual spring uproar, putting winter equipment up on the racks, taking down summer gear, mending the worn or making new harness.

Heckram nodded to her endless commentary as they walked through the talvsit. He noted with detached humor that many folk were turning to stare at his companion. Carp's outlandish garments marked him a foreigner, and Heckram noted how quickly the eyes of the villagers turned aside and down when they met his gray-filmed gaze. Carp was enjoying his grand entrance. He sat up straight on the harke and nodded down on the herdfolk they passed. His mouth hung slightly agape with pleasure. Heckram was torn between being annoyed at Carp and enjoying the stir he caused. Pirtsi watched them with gaping mouth; then the youth whirled and ran up the path. Well, the herdlord would soon know there was a stranger in the village, staying at Heckram's hut. He wondered if he would send Joboam to investigate, or come himself. The old herdlord would have come himself to welcome any stranger, no matter how humble, and to ask news of the far places. That had been in better times, though. Heckram was willing to wager that Capiam would send Joboam.

'Heckram?'

He paused at the questioning note in Ristin's voice, and, as he halted, he realized that he had unthinkingly been making for her hut. His own was off to the left, past Stina's. His tragedy, forgotten for a moment, weighed on his heart again.

'Let me take the harke for you,' Ristin said. 'You must be tired. I'll peg him out near good feed. You take care of your guest and settle down for some rest. I'll come by later this afternoon.'

Heckram felt the sudden weight of Carp's hand on his shoulder. The old man leaned on him as he clambered heavily down. He smiled at Ristin, dismissing her with a benign wave. 'Don't come back this afternoon,' he instructed her grandly. 'Heckram will be taking me to the healer Tillu.'

Ristin's back stiffened at Carp's condescending tone. Heckram didn't blame her. But she turned graciously, seeming to remember that the old man was a stranger to their talvsit. She would tolerate his foreign rudeness and attribute it to ignorance. She looked straight into Heckram's eyes as she spoke her next words. 'The meat on your rack is thawing. Best use it up soon, perhaps to pay Tillu. Though she may have no need of meat.' She paused for half a breath, touched her son's hand. 'Joboam may be at Tillu's. He has been finding out for Capiam what the healer will need for the journey. So, if you do go that way ...' She let the sentence dangle, but her meaning was clear. Avoid trouble. She tugged at the weary harke's bridle.

Heckram felt his mind whirl and questions filled him. 'Joboam is bringing the healer on the migration with us?' he muttered bewilderedly, but Ristin was out of earshot. Carp grinned his gap-toothed smile and tugged at Heckram's sleeve.

'First, eat. Carp is very hungry. Then, sleep, and then we will go find Tillu the healer. Yes, and Kerlew, my apprentice. You are surprised that Tillu is going with the herdfolk? Before the day is over, others will be much more surprised than that. Much, much more surprised!' Carp laughed sprayingly and dragged him toward his own hut.

The hot throbbing of his face woke him. Dim afternoon light seeped in through the smoke hole of the hut. Carp snored noisily on the hides Ristin had placed by the hearth. She had prepared all for them. Soup had been simmering in a pot near the hearth stones, dry firewood piled neatly by the door, the sleeping hides aired and spread smooth. He wondered briefly how it would have been to have come home with Elsa. For a moment he imagined how he might have unloaded the harke as she gathered dry wood and rekindled the fire on their hearth. He stared at the unfinished chest in the corner and then pulled his eyes away from it. Why couldn't he just say to himself, 'That's done,' and let it go? Let it all go and get on with his own life. He tried to roll over and find sleep again, but the press of his swollen cheek against the skins was a throbbing agony. He touched the pulsing swelling with careful fingertips. Last night, he had thought he was healing well. Today, this ugly festering demanded attention.

He glared at the smug old najd and then started as Carp's eyelids slid up and his snoring stopped in midrasp. The shaman sat up smoothly, regarding Heckram with his blank stare. He didn't yawn or stretch or scratch himself. He simply sat up and announced, 'And now we go to see Tillu the healer. Bad infection, yes? Face hurts a lot, right?' He grinned at Heckram amiably. 'Tillu's a healer. She cannot tell a man with an infected face to go away.' Carp laughed jovially, as if at a marvelous prank. Heckram did not join in.

The path to Tillu's hut seemed longer than he remembered it, and better trodden. To either side of them, the afternoon sun was melting the soft snow that lay in the open places between the trees. In the shadows snow lingered, more icy than soft now, and the path itself was a packed ridge of ice that meandered under the trees. He tugged at the collar of his tunic, loosening it to let more of his body heat escape. He wished he were alone. Give his revenge to Wolf? He needed to mull over that idea. He needed to know what Wolf would ask in return.

He had expected Carp to complain when they set out on foot, but the old man scuttled willingly along. Heckram had never seen legs so bowed or an old man so spry. But then, he had ridden down from the mountains on the back of a harke, and he hadn't made a wild dash with a wolf at his heels in the dawn. Heckram sighed away the memory of the encounter, pushing it down with all the other things he didn't want to consider. Vainly he tried to just keep on living his life, ignoring all the events that tried to jar him into action. He wanted, if he wanted anything, to just keep on being himself; to hunt the wild herd for more animals to add to his stock, to sit of an evening and plait a lasso or fletch an arrow, or carve a spoon. Kerlew and his spoons. How was he doing with his carving? he wondered. Then he shook his head at himself, marveling how once more he had dragged himself back to thinking of his problems. Could he just give them over to Wolf?

He took a deep breath of the air. Spring smells. Moss awakening to life after its frozen dormancy all winter. Sap was moving in the trees, their buds just starting to swell, yet the bite of their odor scented the air. And why was Kerlew one of his problems? he suddenly asked himself. Forget it.

'Top of this rise and we'll see Tillu's tent.' He spoke over his shoulder to Carp. He had taken the lead, ostensibly to show the way, but mostly to prevent conversation. He'd be glad to be rid of the old shaman. Then he felt a twinge of guilt at leaving his problem at Tillu's door. Ridiculous. Carp was not a problem to Tillu, he was her son's mentor. And the old man had hinted that he was more than that to her. He glanced back at the crook-legged old man with his foggy eyes. He frowned to himself. Well, it wasn't any of his business, anyway.

He paused at the top of the hill to let Carp catch up with him. Wordlessly he pointed through the trees to the just visible tent. Heckram spotted a harke, then two grazing to one side of the tent. Probably hobbled there. He recognized one as Joboam's and felt a tightening in his gut. He remembered Ristin's warning and set his jaw carefully. No trouble. No problems. Take the old man to Tillu, get his face tended, and then go home and sleep. And sleep.

He had been so deep in his own thoughts, and the sight that greeted him as he stepped into the clearing was so unexpected, that he stood staring.

Kerlew, rolled into a ball, lay on the melting snow and exposed earth before Joboam. His long narrow hands were clasped over his head, his eyes squeezed shut, and his mouth quavered as the long ululating wail of a very small and frightened child escaped them. Even as Heckram stood frozen by consternation, Joboam, unaware of them, stooped to grip Kerlew's tunic and drag the boy up. He lifted him high, his dangling feet clear of the earth, his leather shirt tightening about his throat and stifling his cries. 'When I tell you to do something,' Joboam said in a deadly, pleasant voice, 'you will do it. Swiftly.' The great muscles in his upper arm bunched, and then Kerlew was flying through the air. He landed, rolling, and curled into a ball. He made no sound, only gasping for the air knocked out of him. Joboam advanced on him, and suddenly Heckram knew that what he had witnessed was a repetition of what had gone before and was about to happen again. A rush of angry strength flooded him.

'Joboam!' he hissed as the big man reached again for Kerlew.

Joboam's attention twitched up from the boy to Heckram moving in on him. Joboam set his weight and crouched like a snarling wolverine, and the same unholy anticipation lit his face.

'Heckram!' wailed Kerlew with the first breath he drew. With the resilience of children and madmen, he scrabbled to his feet and raced to intercept Heckram, flinging himself at him. Kerlew gripped him around the waist, dragging at him, panting into his shirt, wordless with fear. Caught between strides, Heckram all but fell over the boy. He lurched to a halt and put his hands on Kerlew's shoulders. He tried to loosen the boy's grip, but he clung like lichen on a rock. Beneath his touch the boy was shaking still; Heckram glared wordlessly at Joboam, no words strong enough for the promises he wished to make the man.

For a moment Joboam was likewise wordless, expecting Heckram to cast the boy aside and come after him. When he knew that Kerlew's clinch had stopped him, Joboam bared a mocking grin. 'Two of a kind,' he sneered. Then, as he studied Heckram's frozen face, he added, 'The cut's an improvement. Wish I had done it myself. If you want Tillu, she's busy now. You'll have to come back later.'

'I can tell she isn't here,' Heckram growled so low that the words were barely intelligible. 'You'd never dare to treat the boy that way if she were.'

Joboam's smile never wavered. 'No? Things have changed while you've been gone. The little healer has come to appreciate me. I'll be seeing that she travels comfortably when she joins us for the spring migration. And I think that the boy will have learned some manners by then.'

Kerlew made a fearful noise and buried his face deeper in Heckram's shirt. He tried to untangle himself and step around the boy, but Kerlew only gripped tighter.

'You are wrong, big man. I am the one who will be giving the boy his lessons from now on. Come, Kerlew. Look up. Have you no greeting for me?'

For a long moment Kerlew didn't move. Then his face lifted from Heckram's shirt front and he peeked warily at the source of the voice. 'Carp!' he cried out, relief and joy in his voice. Abandoning Heckram, he flung himself toward the twisted old najd. 'Every day I have sung the calling song. Every day!' the boy rebuked him gladly.

'And every day I have heard you, but some days not as loud as others. It was a long way for me to come. And some trails an old man travels by ways longer than a boy's, and somewhat slower. But here I am. I have come.' His old hands patted the boy, smoothing the tousled hair, lightly touching his shoulders and arms as if to reassure himself that the boy was real. Kerlew wriggled under his touch like a pleased puppy. Heckram watched them, trying to decipher the emotion spilling through him. Hadn't he believed Carp when he said Kerlew was his apprentice? Hadn't he known Kerlew would be glad to see him? Then what was this he felt; surely not jealousy? His hands hung empty.

Joboam stared at the old man whom Kerlew greeted so strangely. There was appraisal on his face and bafflement. The scrawny little man spoke so boldly, but had nothing visible to back up his authority. He did not keep a wary eye toward Joboam; he dismissed him altogether. It made no sense. No one treated him so. No one dared to ignore him. As if reading his thoughts, Carp suddenly lifted his eyes from Kerlew and fixed Joboam with an ice-white stare. Joboam expelled air from his lungs as if he had been struck. He could not meet that stare. But when he looked away from Carp, he found Heckram, his arms now free, staring at him. He was not smiling, or glaring. His face was impassively cold as he stepped toward Joboam.

'Carp!'

The word that cut across the clearing was more a cry of disbelief than a greeting. All eyes turned to Tillu. She stood at the edge of the clearing, an armload of white moss held to her chest. Her face was as white as the moss, and she rocked where she stood. Yet the old najd looked up with a grin to her cry, while Kerlew danced about him, fairly shouting, 'He's come, mother, he's come, just as I knew he would! Didn't I tell you he'd come to us! And this time he will teach me all of it, all the magic, all the songs!'

Heckram had halted at Tillu's cry. Now both men looked from her to the najd. Silently she came across the slushy clearing. Bits of the moss she had gathered dripped from her arms; she paid no heed to it. Her face was white and strained. As if she looked upon a ghost, Heckram thought, and felt a night chill creep up his back. From what he knew of the old man, he very well could be from the spirit world. The najd gripped Kerlew by the shoulders, turned him to face his mother, and held the boy in front of him, like a shield or a hostage. There was defiance in the cold smile he turned on Tillu over the innocent boy's head. The contrast between Kerlew's ecstatic grin and the najd's sneer grated on Heckram and raised a strange guilt in him. What had he guided to Tillu's tent?