We Will Hunt Together (4 page)

Helgaer tried very hard to avoid the comment that Camille was lucky in not having to worry about controlling errant flesh. "In Vreeland, we wear bodices that narrow our waists and bulk up our breasts to prove that we are 'fine Vreelander women.' Even priestesses, who never marry, are proud to prove they're not men. We live in the shadows of mountains that never lose their snow in summer, and we cover everything except our faces, but you can still tell the difference. My mother never grew tired of proudly telling me I am a 'fine Vreelander woman.'" Helgaer bitterly parroted her mother's voice. "I hated my breasts when they started growing and hated them more when they kept growing. They get in the way."

Camille laughed. "I've known women who would be jealous. But, they have never beheaded a man with a sword."

Helgaer had no answer to that.

There was silence between them again. Helgaer stared into the fire. Camille rested with the air of a cat who is choosing right now to be quiet, but may go hunting at any moment.

With a full belly, the pain in her side forcing her to stay relaxed, and still recovering from blood loss, Helgaer finally relaxed. She was falling asleep when Camille went smoothly from lounging to upright. "I'm going to check my traps again. I'll be back before dusk. Keep the coals warm."

She picked up her quiver and bow before disappearing between the trees while Helgaer was still shaking off drowsiness.

*~*~*

Helgaer spent half an hour walking carefully over the ground until she had filled a pouch with stones roughly the right size for her sling, although none smooth or regular enough to be good for hunting.

Then she walked to one side of the clearing, a decent distance from one of Camille's archery targets.

She untied the sling from her waist, slipped a rock into the cup, and flicked it over and into a full spin.

That was bearable.

More vigorous swings made her grit her teeth, but she was able to keep the movement and the tension to just her arm.

Letting go, however, saw her shoulder lead her torso around. That made her strangle a gasp of pain and nearly double over.

The stone went spinning away nearly sideways to her target.

Helgaer stayed bent over, bracing herself with her right hand on her knee, while she cursed herself for a fool.

When she felt able to carefully straighten up again, she put a smaller rock in the sling's cup as she walked much closer to the target.

This time, she spun it smoothly without trying to be fast, releasing it lightly.

It flew off to the side, but it did not bring another stab of pain.

With this encouragement, she tried again, adjusting her stance, swing and release. She was rewarded by the stone, even a rough and uneven one, thunking solidly into the coiled rope.

By the time she emptied her pouch of stones, she could send one the length of the clearing and not miss the target by too much. Given how high she needed to send it at that low speed, she was prepared to accept that as a good start.

By the time Camille returned, as the sun was dropping towards the trees, Helgaer's arm had the pleasant dead feeling of exertion, but she was not sweating with pain.

Camille insisted Helgaer sleep on the single bed while she lay on the pile of skins again.

Helgaer, more tired than she had realised, did not try to argue.

The next morning, Helgaer was awake earlier than the previous morning, but still much later than Camille, who returned with a large pheasant while Helgaer was sorting through the chest of old clothes.

"You're not good at relaxing, are you?" Camille asked that evening when they were both once more sitting on the bench, enjoying the last of the sun.

"Relaxing means there's something important you're not doing," Helgaer said flatly.

"Your father said that or your mother?"

"All Vreelanders say that."

Camille pushed her legs out and pulled her toes back, stretching. "Ever think maybe relaxing is the important thing that needs doing?"

"Plenty of time for that when the sun's down." Helgaer let it sound like a quote.

Camille didn't say anything for a minute, but her lip quirked. Finally, she sighed. "You're going to dig yourself an early grave if you can't let yourself heal or rest when you have the opportunity. But okay, maybe there is something to be done. I have blades that need sharpening. Care to join me?"

Helgaer relented. She did need to learn to relax while healing, and her blades—all three of them—did need sharpening. She pulled her small stone from her pouch and her knife and dagger from their sheaths, laying them on the bench next to her. Her sword was propped against the wall by the end of the bench. No matter how secure Camille's eyrie was, Helgaer did not feel safe enough to be far from her weapons.

Camille returned from the cabin with several daggers, a bowl of arrow heads and two large stones. On the way back to the bench, she picked up her quiver as well.

Vreeland girls are given knives as young as boys are and care for them themselves. Helgaer sharpened quickly, holding the correct angle by long practice and using bold strokes over the stone.

In contrast, Camille was lighter, moving no less quickly or surely, but treating each blade with care. She seemed to caress the stone with the steel, where Helgaer was firm and authoritative.

Helgaer tested her dagger's edge lightly on her thumbnail.

"Where did you learn all this?" She asked Camille. "I cannot imagine a Danovan woman ever being allowed to pick up a bow from what I've heard."

Camille, intent on her work, snorted without lifting her head. "You'd be right," she said, examining a dagger before returning to drawing it lightly over the finer of her two stones. "Or carry a knife this heavy, or be taught how to sharpen it, or be allowed to wear pants or hose. But anyone not pretty enough to marry rich had to work the fields. I guess I was lucky enough to get some strength," Camille said sourly.

Helgaer looked at Camille's lean body and slender features and almost said something, but stopped herself just in time.

"When I fled my family," Camille continued, "I took a cache of coins father thought he had hidden and a sturdy knife—that one—" she nodded at the old but wickedly sharp knife Helgaer had used to prepare the rabbit—"and a pair of my brother's pants because I knew they would let me move faster.

"I didn't have far to go, though." Camille smiled smugly, almost lost in memory as she checked the dagger she was working on. "I had left to be with a woman whose caravan was camped just outside the gates of our town."

Helgaer nearly cut herself.

"She was a Gharaj. Have the Gharaj traveled as far north as Vreeland?"

Helgaer was so shocked, she barely heard the question. Camille, apparently unconcerned, carried on.

"No? They are travellers, constantly on the move, in elaborate wagons drawn by the sturdiest breed of horses you have ever seen. They pick up colour from wherever they go until they dress like peacocks. Their clothes seem to have multiple layers just to hold all the color and decorations."

Camille's hands were still now, her mind lost in memory. Helgaer was still frozen in disbelief.

"I met Katrin first in the market. She stood out in her Gharaj clothes like a parrot among sparrows, and I was awestruck that anybody could dress like that. She walked past me and said hello. I never could have introduced myself, I was far too … fucking timid.

"Katrin started looking out for me. She 'bumped into me' everywhere. She saw in me what I hadn't admitted to myself, and I was so very miserable. My parents had arranged to give me to a man with no redeeming qualities except money. It didn't take her much effort at all to lay me in the forest at the edge of our fields one day. I was late returning home, so my parents shouted at me and beat me, but I was too happy to care. That was the night I decided to run away."

The admission of what had been unthinkable in not only Camille's culture, but Helgaer's as well, and had required such strength from Helgaer to admit to herself, was so casual, so matter-of-fact, that Helgaer could barely tell she was not dreaming. They had both stopped their sharpening—Camille under the weight of memory, Helgaer so she would not miss a single word.

"I tried to be clever, of course. I started by running away from the Gharaj camp, heading west, before doubling back along a stream, running through freezing cold water for an hour until I could head back to find their wagons—which was easy. Apart from their fires, they were still wide awake. Everybody who could play an instrument was doing so.

"Have you ever seen them dance? Oh, you wouldn't have. The men don't dance. Only the women."

For a second, the look of nostalgia on Camille's face was mixed with naked lust. Helgaer, staring at her, shivered and felt a stab in her guts.

"When I turned up out of the darkness," Camille said with a twist to her lips that Helgaer was not in a position to recognise, "they were not surprised, and they welcomed me, and that was the first night I drank wine. I didn't like it, but I got so drunk I don't remember going to bed.

"By the time I woke up the next morning, they were on the move, already well away from home. I felt so ill that the movement and the sounds made me vomit almost as soon as I was awake. Luckily, Katrin was there and waiting for me to wake up, and guessed how I would be and had a basin ready. I was not the first innocent girl Katrin had taken a liking to. She seemed to have a talent for it."

Camille sighed, tested the dagger she was working on, then swapped it for another one. She went back to sharpening, but did not stop talking.

"We stayed on the road for three days before stopping outside another town. When I wasn't with Katrin, I was talking to the men and the boys. I had never before had men be friendly to me, let alone treat me as an equal. And I found that after so much working in the fields, I was as strong as them and could run fast enough to stay with them. I started borrowing clothes from them, not from Katrin or the other women.

"They started teaching me to sharpen knives. When I could do that well, they taught me to butcher animals. When I could do that, they started teaching me to shoot. I found all of this extraordinarily easy. I was soon shooting more accurately than many of their boys, and I could draw a bow that many of their men could not. Then they started taking me hunting, but first with snares only. Later with the bow.

"Meanwhile, of course, I was spending the rest of my days and all of my nights with Katrin. She was at least as fit as I was. There were a few nights when we did not sleep at all.

"During the day, I was becoming more and more a man." Her face twisted and the dagger she was holding grated over the sharpening stone before she controlled herself with an effort.

"Katrin did not like her women to be men. She grew bored of me while I was falling more in love with her. When I didn't change from pants back to skirts one day, I could tell she was done with me. That night, I couldn't bear to sleep next to her. It was a mild night, so I stayed outside, talking to the guards, then to the next shift. I didn't sleep all night. In the morning, I still didn't need sleep." Camille shrugged with one shoulder, then swapped the sharp dagger for an arrowhead which she began turning over and over in her fingers.

"Everyone in the clan had known it would happen. They had expected it. This was Katrin's pattern, apparently. I was merely the latest. I asked, of course. None of her previous pets," she spat the word out, "had stayed with the clan. But some had stayed with Katrin for as much as three months before she got tired of them. I had lasted nearly four. I think she found me more of a challenge.

"So I left." Camille began sharpening the arrowhead with gentle, smooth strokes, turning it over frequently. Her voice had returned to a calm, matter-of-fact, tone. "When I found out that this was Katrin's pattern, there seemed to be no use trying to hide my intentions or not own up to the fact I had been used. So I just came right out and told the chief that evening. He just nodded and told me to speak with the blacksmith. He didn't give me his blessing, tell me he was sorry to see me go, or say it was about time. He just said, 'Talk to Grueng,' and took another drink."

Camille tested the arrowhead, placed it on the bench next to her and picked up another one. "Half the men of the tribe were by Grueng's caravan. Blacksmiths are always at the centre of any tribe. Villages are the same."

Helgaer, still listening in frozen fascination, found herself nodding in agreement.

"Grueng saw it in my face and went inside his caravan without saying anything. The others began saying their goodbyes. Grueng came out with a bow and a quiver with 20 arrows, a short sword and a dagger, and said 'Here. You've earned these.'" For a second, the ghost of a smile passed Camille's face. "Someone else produced a blanket. I wasn't wearing a jacket. Someone gave me a new one. One of the old women appeared with a sack containing a water skin, bread and cold meat. She greeted me, then farewelled me like she would a man.

"I had been with them long enough to realise that this meant my goodbyes were done—there would not be any protracted scene. So I left." A fierce grin appeared on Camille's face. "I had not gone beyond the light from their caravans before Katrin appeared with an expression on her face like a thundercloud. I think she was angry I had been the first to end what we had and had robbed her of the opportunity.