The Reindeer People (31 page)

'You did not forget me so soon, did you Tillu? Surely you knew I would be coming for my apprentice?' Carp asked sweetly.

'Your apprentice?' This from Joboam. 'You've come to take him away?' There was appraisal in his voice, and Heckram didn't like it. Why was Joboam so interested in Kerlew?

'He is mine, yes. Mine to train. But not to take away. No. A shaman must have a people to guide. I have chosen the herdfolk for Kerlew.'

'Shaman?' Joboam tried the strange word on his tongue.

'Najd.' Heckram filled it in softly and enjoyed the look of sudden wariness that spread over Joboam's face.

But in another instant, Joboam was hardening his face and asserting an authority that was not his. 'And what does Capiam say to this?'

'Nothing, yet, for no one has told him. But I expect the headman will be most welcoming. I have never yet met a headman who was inhospitable to me.'

There it was again, that arrogant assumption of authority and power. This najd, with his manner so like Joboam's, already made Joboam's jaws ache. Heckram could tell, and he took a furtive delight in it.

'Kerlew,' Tillu said brokenly.

The boy reached up to pat one of the wrinkled hands on his shoulders. He seemed impervious to her distress as he asked, 'May I take Carp into the tent and give him tea and some of the salt fish that Ibba brought us? I am sure he is both hungry and weary.' His speech had a new fluidity to it, his face a new confidence. As if his encounter with Joboam had never occurred.

'No, no,' the najd cut in. 'Heckram has fed me well and I have rested. I would rather walk with you, Kerlew, and speak privately of things that are not for women's ears. Besides, your mother has a healing to do. Heckram has an infected cut on his face. Let her practice her craft while we discuss ours.'

Carp put his arm around her son, smiled at her as he turned the boy and walked him away, showing her how easily he took her child away from her. Kerlew did not look back, and Heckram felt an echo of the abandonment that sliced Tillu's soul. She aged before his eyes, the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes going deeper. She shut her eyes, shook her head slowly.

Joboam snorted. 'Don't be a fool, woman. Let him have the boy. I see no problem with that. But he may be surprised when he announces to Capiam that he will be our najd.'

Tillu waved a hand at Joboam, in an angry gesture of dismissal, heedless of the moss it spilled.

'So now you tell Tillu what to do with her son, as well as advise the herdlord about najds,' Heckram observed, 'I wonder if she knows how you discipline Kerlew when she is absent?'

Joboam turned to him. Color rose in his face, but his words were calm, 'I wonder what would happen if I hit you on that slash.' Looks as if your whole face would break open.'

'I wonder if you have the courage to try?' Heckram met his gaze. 'Here I am, Joboam. There's nothing hampering you.'

'Shut up, the both of you!' Tillu whirled on them suddenly, anger flaring. 'Do you think I have nothing better to do than mend your stupid heads after you've broken them? Make me extra work, Joboam, and Capiam will hear of it. Yes, and of other things, too.' Her dark eyes snapped from Heckram to Joboam. Joboam's eyes narrowed at her threat. 'Now. Joboam, you may tell the herdlord what I have told you several times already. That I am not decided to go. You may even tell him that your daily visits here have reminded me of all the reasons that I have for avoiding people. And Heckram. If you want me to clean up that gash, then go to the tent. But if you stand here and fight, I shall do no healing for either of you. And I shall tell Capiam you interfered with my gathering of supplies.'

She turned, clutching the moss to her chest as if it were a child. She walked to her tent without looking back. Heckram saw her shudder once, as if she held back a sob or a cough. He turned to look at Joboam through narrowed eyes.

Joboam snorted. 'Let her stamp and shake her head now. She'll learn the harness soon enough.' The look he sent after her was proprietary. Heckram's anger went one notch tighter.

'Aren't you still wondering about my face?' he asked softly.

Joboam turned aside from him. 'You'll keep,' he said casually. 'News won't. Since you haven't informed the Herdlord Capiam of the troubles you have dragged home, I will. A najd. Even a simpleton knows the problems that can create. And you had to bring him here. Still, if he takes the healer's son with him when he goes, that may solve a problem. For me.' Joboam's voice had become speculative. He began to walk back toward the talvsit.

'Joboam!' Heckram called. The man stopped.

'Stay away from Kerlew. Not because he's the najd's apprentice. Because I say so. And one more thing. If you won't fight me now, be ready to later. A time will come.'

'That it will,' Joboam agreed. He started to walk away, but Heckram's voice stopped him again. 'Be sure to give Capiam all the healer's message. I'll be stopping by his tent this evening to be sure it was delivered correctly.'

Before Joboam could walk away from him, Heckram turned and walked toward Tillu's hut.

He looked around, trying to think of some neutral comment. Her poverty had given way to meager comfort. There were more hides on the pallets, and dried meat and fish hung from the tent supports beside utensils of wood and bone. Her dealings with the herdfolk were prospering. The thought recalled the last time he had seen her. The day after Elsa died. They had had little to say to one another amid the hubbub of grief. And just as little now. The things he shared with this woman were not the things that drew folk together. He wished suddenly he hadn't come. She was ignoring him, crouching with her back to him, stirring something in a pot. He wondered if he could simply back our of the tent and return to his own hut.

As if she had heard his thoughts, Tillu spoke. 'Leave the tent flap up. The light is better that way.' She glanced over her shoulder at him, irritable. 'Sit down on the pallet. You're too tall for me to work on that slash if you stand.'

Without a word, he looped the door string around its support. A narrow triangle of light spilled into the tent and across one pallet. He went to it and sat, silent. Not talking seemed easier.

She lifted the steaming pot and set it on the floor by his feet. As silent as he, she took a handful of white moss from a basket near the fireside. Her capable fingers picked through it quickly, discarding bits of twigs, a pellet of rabbit dung, the skeleton of a leaf. He watched her. The rising steam from the pot had a pleasant fragrance, like the forest in true spring, when the rising warmth from the leaf mould smelled of generations of pine and alder. He relaxed, until Tillu knelt suddenly before him. It put her face on the same level as his. She dunked the moss into the water and let it soak as she studied his face.

It was an uncomfortable arrangement for Heckram. He had no place to put his eyes and he didn't know what to do with his hands. He folded his arms across his chest, then, feeling foolish, let them fall to his sides. Her face was close to his as she examined the cut. Her mouth was impassive, and when he did look into her eyes, she didn't notice. The injury had all her attention. He started slightly when she took his chin in a firm, cool grip and turned his face toward the light. Her fingertips rasped lightly against his chin. She kept her hand there, holding him steady, as she moved her head to study the injury. He stared at her frankly, noting the fineness of her hair, the way it pulled free of its binding and strayed around her cheeks. Her nose was narrow and more prominent than was thought attractive among the herdfolk. Much like his own. Her cheeks were not broad and flat, but were molded back over high cheekbones. Her dark eyes were sharp and bright as they peered at him. Like a vixen, turning her head and cocking her ears as she watched and waited at a vole's burrow.

'What happened?' she demanded suddenly.

It took him a moment to reply, 'I scratched my face on a tree branch.'

'Oh?' She turned his chin again. 'It looks like an animal scratch. Not as bad as a bear swipe, not as big, but similar.'

'I stood up inside a branch shelter that Lasse and I had built, and scratched my face on a snag.'

She didn't agree with him. 'Then it shouldn't have become infected like this. But even a mild swipe from a predator usually becomes infected. Like this.'

'It was a branch,' Heckram repeated irritably.

'Mmm. It's close to the eye. You should have come sooner. Now it's going to hurt.' With no more warning than that, she scooped a handful of moss from the warmed water and held it firmly against his face. The heat accented the pulsing pain of the wound. He set his teeth and held himself still. Sweat sprang out all over him.

'I can hold it there,' he offered after a moment.

'I've got it,' she replied, it will take a little while. It has to open. Sit still.'

It was unnerving to sit so close to a woman, face to face, being touched by her. There was the hot pain of the wet moss and its pressure against the swollen slash. But the smell of her hair and skin was another pressure against him, as warm as the poultice, and stirring. Her touch on his face, the brush of her warm breath, the points of her breasts so close to him, and the serious eyes that stared at him but didn't meet his gaze were all combining to disturb him.

His face flushed suddenly and he looked away from her. His sudden arousal surprised and shamed him. He expected better control of himself. He hoped she wasn't aware of it. A drop of sweat tracked a line down his face.

Why, she wondered idly, would a man lie about being clawed by an animal? Most hunters bragged of their struggles with beasts, as if being maimed were a feat to be proud of. She saw the pinch lines around his mouth go deeper and white. 'I know it's uncomfortable,' she said quietly. 'But in a few moments we'll ease the pressure.'

She lifted the spongy moss away to inspect the swollen gash, then dipped it again into the warm water. 'Here. Hold it against your face while I make a poultice to draw out the infection. It may not be as bad as it first looked.' He put his hand against the moss as she lifted hers away. Their fingers brushed in passing.

She stepped clear of him, glad to put a cooling distance between them. I should be thinking of Kerlew, she told herself sternly. I should be worrying about what nonsense Carp is telling Kerlew, and how to get rid of that horrid old man. Instead, she had been lost in Heckram. She had meant to examine the gash. But when she had touched his chin to turn his face, she had become aware of the rasp of his unshaven skin. With a sudden ache, she had remembered the brush of her father's whiskers against her cheek when he hugged her. He had been a big man, strong, like this Heckram. When he carried her on his shoulder, she had been safe. If he had been home the day the raiders came ... but he hadn't, and she had never felt safe since then. She swallowed against a rising lump in her throat and half angrily pulled her thoughts away from those lost days. She should be concentrating on her work. On Heckram.

Like an intruder breeching a broken wall, he had made her aware of the man behind the injury. There was his smell again, as she remembered it, the smell of live reindeer and behind it the subtler musk of his own maleness. She had felt his eyes trying to meet hers and resisted them. Bad enough that she could not bring herself to take her hand from his face. His body warmth had crossed the small space between them, touching her and making her blood quicken. She quenched her rising warmth firmly. It had nothing to do with the man, she told herself. It was only that she was at that time of her days when her body ached for a man's touch, warmed and quickened at the thought of one. Another hand of days and her blood time would come, and this foolishness be forgotten. Was she a girl to be ruled by such urges?

Going to her herb box, she began to sort through it. The sorrel leaves were shriveled brown, nearly too dry to use. Put them in anyway, it couldn't hurt. Yarrow. Willow leaves. Goldenrod root? Well, it worked on burns and scalds. She added a little. She'd be glad of the fresh green herbs of spring. These old gatherings had nearly lost their potency. She began to pound them together on a slab of wood. She could mix them with lichen, cook it with a little water into a soggy paste, and -

'You're angry at me, aren't you?'

Tillu turned in surprise to his question. 'What?'

'You're angry at me. For helping the najd to find you and Kerlew. And for threatening Joboam.'

For a long moment she did not reply. Then she gave a great sigh. She rocked back on her heels, her pestle forgotten in the hand she raised to prop her chin, 'I'm not angry,' she decided. 'You couldn't have known that he wasn't what I would choose for Kerlew. And even if you had ... it wouldn't have mattered. I believe that he still would have found us. Sooner or later.'

'And Joboam?' he pressed. She wondered why it was important to him.

'Joboam is a ... problem,' she admitted grudgingly. 'But it is a problem I have had before. There are always men who like to control things. Men who believe they should rule anyone weaker than they. I wasn't protecting him when I interfered between you. What I said was true. A healer sees so many injuries that could not be avoided. We get weary of treating the ones deliberately caused. And soon he will be gone. Soon you will all be gone.'

She heard the dilemma in his voice as he pushed on. 'Why do you let him ... treat Kerlew like that?'

'Let him?' She let her bitterness bloom in her voice. 'What am I to do? He doesn't strike the boy when I am here. And I try always to be here when Joboam is. But sometimes he comes when the boy is here alone, and then ... but I have told Kerlew not to be alone with him. To come and find me as soon as Joboam arrives, not give him a chance to be angry.'

'And Kerlew forgets.' The understanding in his voice surprised her.

'And Kerlew forgets,' she agreed, it is hard to explain to someone who doesn't know him. The thoughts of this moment drive from his mind the instructions of a moment ago. It is not as if he were stupid. He is always thinking, but of something else. He has his own ideas of what is important and what is not. Two days ago I saw a bruise on his arm, and asked him about it. Three days ago, Joboam grabbed him there. Why didn't he tell me? Because he forgot, because that was the day he found the patch of frozen berries and dug them up and ate them, and I asked him what the red on his mouth was, so he told me about the berries instead. And, to him, that makes sense!'

She heard her own voice shaking. She turned abruptly to Heckram. He was sitting quietly, the dripping moss still cupped against his face. His eyes were brown, she realized suddenly, not black. And there was no pity in them. What she saw in them startled her. It didn't seem possible that he was sharing the pain she felt for her boy. 'The sleeve of your tunic is soaking wet,' she said with a calmness she didn't feel. 'Take it off and hang it by the fire. You'll want it dry to go home in.'

She became aware again of the pestle in her hand and used it with a vigor the dry herbs didn't require. She heard him ease out of his shirt. She mashed the herbs with some lichen in the bottom of a small pot, added water, and put the poultice to heat. She turned to find him naked from the waist up, wringing water out of the sleeve of his woolen undershirt. There was a tracing of hair on his chest, starting just below his throat, widening slightly on his breast, and stretching in a line past his navel.

'The men of my grandfathers' blood,' he said, a husky embarrassment in his voice, 'are hairy, like this. On the face and chest.' She had been caught staring.

She lifted her eyes, tried to meet his gaze nonchalantly. it is so with my people, also,' she admitted.

'The women also?' he asked incredulously.

She laughed aloud, caught the look in his eyes, and wanted to stop, but couldn't. He was blushing, embarrassed by his ignorance. She caught her breath, found a solemn expression, but lost it again. Perhaps it didn't matter. He was starting a smile now, rueful and shy, but a smile.

'That was stupid, wasn't it?' he admitted, chuckling.

'Not really.' She got her face under control. 'You have probably always been with your own people. How are you to know the ways of other folk?'

'I haven't always been among the herdfolk,' he defended. 'When I was very small, I once made a trading journey with my father. It was when he was wealthy, before the plague. I saw the village of the traders, like, like ...' He groped for words. 'Like two great square huts, made into many little huts.'

'Rooms,' she suggested.

He paused, shrugged his shoulders, and gave a tentative nod. 'Two of them, with many families living there, each family with a room. And the wide path between the two great huts. The men had beards that billowed over their chests. And the women had hair like different shades of wood. Some of the children were my cousins, but we could not talk well together. Still, we played.'

'Was it far from here?' Tillu found herself asking.

Heckram frowned to himself, 'It didn't seem so at the time. But I was small, riding in my father's pulkor, so the distance meant little to me. Still, it couldn't be that far. Some years the traders come from that village to trade. Not as often as they used to, but then, we used to have more to trade. Now it is more common for the herdfolk to go to their village. The year my father took me, it was an unusual thing. All the folk in the village were surprised to see us and marveled over our harke and pulkor. Do I have to put this back on my face?'

He had caught her dreaming, her thoughts riding on his tale. She looked at the handful of moss he held out.

'Wet it again and put it back. It will soften that gash.'

He made a sound between a sigh and a growl and sat down again. She heard him slosh the moss in the pot. She bent to study her own pot of lichen and herbs. She poked at it with the pestle, decided it had softened enough, and removed it from the heat. The white lichen was very useful as a binder. It could be used to thicken a stew, or to make a poultice, or even to be cooked into a sort of bread. She touched a finger to it, flinched, and set it aside to cool a bit. She felt both reluctance and anticipation as she walked over to Heckram.