by Sue Harrison
“I thought you knew all the women in this village,” Two Fist said. “You have been with us almost five moons.”
“There are too many to learn so quickly,” K’os replied. Of course, she did know most of the men, many of them because they had visited her when she had lived in the Cousin River Village. Women were usually not important to her. Why should they be? Men held the power.
When K’os had first come to the Near River Village, Fox Barking claimed her for himself, and so she had thought her revenge would be easy. She owed him for much more than that long-ago rape and beating, which had left her unable to have children. Her revenge would also be for what he had done to her people in the Cousin River Village. He would die, yes, but it would not be a quick death. As his slave, surely she would have opportunity to slip poison into his food—a little each day until sickness weakened him and his spirit could no longer stand against death.
But though he had kept most of her belongings, he had soon traded her to Black Mouth. Now it would be more difficult to carry out her plans for revenge, but perhaps Gull Beak was the answer.
“Gull Beak stays mostly to herself,” Two Fist said. “Her husband is not an easy man to please, and all her children have died. Fox Barking keeps her for the sake of the parkas she makes. She is gifted.”
K’os listened as Two Fist continued to speak about the woman, but set her face as though she were bored. Soon, she would visit Gull Beak, but Two Fist did not need to know.
THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE
“You understand that I have no choice,” Sok said to Red Leaf. The two were alone. He had called her outside the birth lodge and stayed several paces from her as he spoke.
“My daughter is well?” she asked, as though he had told her nothing about her fate. The child had been taken from her three days before.
“Strong, yes. Bird Caller feeds her.”
“And Cries-loud?”
“He is good. A fine son.”
Red Leaf raised her eyes to his face. It was, he realized, the first time she had looked at him since he found out she killed his grandfather.
“How will I die?”
He was startled by her question, then reflected that if he were in her situation, he would ask the same thing.
“I have not yet decided.”
“Before…before then,” Red Leaf said, “could I see my children one last time?”
Sok looked up into the sky. It was growing dark; stars prickled their way through a light cover of clouds.
“No,” he said. “To them you are already dead.”
It was nearly night when the boy Cries-loud came to Bird Caller. “My father wants to see his new daughter,” he told her.
“I will come as soon as I feed my husband,” she said.
“He told me to bring the child.”
Bird Caller looked at Sky Watcher. He shrugged. “She’s his daughter, not yours. I have told you many times not to forget that.”
Bird Caller went to the lodge pole where the baby hung in her cradleboard and untied the thongs that secured the board. She was a good baby, slept well, cried little. Her face was strong-boned like her father’s, but she was dark-skinned like Red Leaf.
Bird Caller followed Cries-loud outside the lodge, entrusted the cradleboard to his arms. “Bring her back when she is hungry,” she told him. She watched him head toward Sok’s lodge, then she turned and went back to her husband, setting a smile on her face before she entered the lodge.
“Do not worry, little wife,” Sky Watcher said. He reached for her, pulled her down beside him. “Besides, it will not take me long to put another baby inside you. Then you will have two to help you forget that one we lost.”
Chapter Five
CHAKLIUX ROLLED QUIETLY FROM his bedding furs so he would not wake the others in the lodge. He had told Star he would spend the day near the Grandfather Lake spearing salmon at one of the outlet streams. She had wanted to come with him, but he knew she would be a hindrance. He also knew that if he left her, she would be a problem for someone in the village, most likely Aqamdax.
He slipped on his summer leggings, then took his parka and leister, a throwing board and fish darts. He would stop at his mother’s lodge. She was an early riser. Perhaps she would be willing to spend the day with Star.
He paused as he pulled aside the doorflap, looked at Aqamdax asleep in her bedding furs, allowed his gaze to linger. She was tall for a woman, and he had heard men in the village criticize her First Men features—a nose too small, a face too round, a greedy mouth, for surely a mouth that wide would talk and eat more than its share. But he saw the remembrance of her smiles, her dark eyes spilling out her joy, her stories filled with wisdom, her laughter with mischief.
She deserved better than Night Man.
Ligige’ stirred the hearth coals with a stick and pulled on her parka. In her old age she often seemed cold, and so had taken to sleeping in leggings and a long-sleeved caribou shirt.
Her dreams had been so vivid, they had awakened her. She shivered, unable to forget the scream that had pierced her sleep. It was a man’s scream, she was sure, a warrior’s cry. Why would she dream such a thing?
Then suddenly her heart was beating too quickly. Had the Near River men decided to make another attack? Didn’t they realize there was nothing left for them in this poor village?
She heard voices, then the barking of dogs, so she put on her summer boots and went outside. The hearth fire in Day Woman’s lodge was burning, and then the fire in Star’s lodge also began to glow. Sok ran past her, and Ligige’ called to him.
“What has happened?”
“Our mother,” he cried. “Bring your medicines.”
Ligige’ hurried back into her lodge and grabbed the marten skin that held her plant medicines. By the time she crawled through her entrance tunnel, most of the people in the village had gathered around Day Woman’s lodge. Ligige’ pushed her way through.
Inside, Sok and Chakliux knelt beside their mother. Star was there also, for once quiet, her eyes large and dark, childlike, as she looked up at Ligige’.
“Someone has killed her,” Star whispered.
“No,” Sok said. He had lifted Day Woman’s head and shoulders to his lap, cradled her like a child. “She is not dead.”
Ligige’ passed a hand over Day Woman’s mouth, felt a gentle stir of air. She pressed the tips of her fingers to the pulse point at the side of Day Woman’s neck.
“She is alive,” she said. “What happened?”
There were medicines she could give if some spirit had tried to stop Day Woman’s heart, and teas to strengthen the body, to fight whatever evil had gotten hold of her.
Chakliux gently drew away the blanket, and Ligige’ gasped as she saw the blood.
“A knife, I would guess,” Chakliux said.
There were many slashes along the woman’s arms, even on her hands.
“She was stabbed in the belly several times,” said Chakliux. “Look at her hands. She fought. Her left arm was partially bound when I found her. She must have tried to stop the bleeding herself. I came to tell her where I was going today. I thought I would find her awake, but instead I found this.”
He lifted his head to gesture toward Day Woman’s sleeping mats. “She must have been attacked when she was asleep. Her bed is full of blood.”
“It was not long ago or she would be dead,” Ligige’ said, then handed a packet of fresh bedstraw plants to Star. “Warm these in a cilt’ogho of water. Leave the plants whole. Do not boil them.”
Star took the bedstraw, but only stared at it. In exasperation, Ligige’ grabbed the plants from her, flipped aside the inner doorflap. The old woman Twisted Stalk was on her hands and knees in the entrance tunnel. “Here,” Ligige’ said, handing her the plants. “Warm these in water. Do it now.”
She felt the gentle pressure of Chakliux’s hand on her arm and knew he was telling her to be calm.
How could she be calm when her medicines were not enough t
o save Day Woman, and what good were her prayers? She had done little in her life to earn the power she needed to prevail against such terrible injuries. She was like a child, and the knowledge of her helplessness made her angry.
Ligige’ looked up at Chakliux, her tears so heavy they were like stones resting against her eyes. “I cannot save her,” she told him. But she went back into the lodge, tried to stop what little blood was left in Day Woman’s body from leaking out onto the floor.
THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE
“Gull Beak,” K’os called.
It was morning, but not so early that the old woman should still be asleep. Although what did Gull Beak have to do all day except sew? Why not be lazy?
“I brought you wood,” K’os called, and dropped the armful of windfall branches beside Gull Beak’s lodge. It was a good lodge, well-made, though K’os could see that the caribou hides were beginning to wear at the seams.
K’os picked up a branch and scratched at the lodge walls.
“You, Slave! What do you want?”
She turned and saw Gull Beak walking toward her.
“You think I would still be asleep this late in the day? A wise woman has more to do than sleep.”
K’os set her mouth in anger but said nothing. If Gull Beak was so wise, why did she speak to K’os in such a way? Even though K’os was a slave, she had power enough to take Gull Beak’s life.
“I came to bring you wood,” K’os said in a sweet voice, and lowered her eyes as though she spoke in respect.
Gull Beak stopped at the heap of branches. “Who told you to do this?” she asked. “My husband?”
She was a homely woman, tall and too thin, with large ears, small eyes. Surely her true name was not Gull Beak. Who would choose to name herself for a bird as lazy as a gull? But K’os could understand how she could be given the name by others. Her nose was sharp and long like the bill of a bird, and her voice so loud it carried like a gull’s above the sounds of the village.
“No one told me. Even a slave has time to help others.”
Gull Beak began to laugh. “But no slave would. I am not stupid. I know how it is with the Cousin River slaves. You do not have enough to eat. The fur on your parka is wearing thin and will not be good enough to get you through the winter. If no one made you do this, then why did you?”
K’os narrowed her eyes. Gull Beak was wiser than she had thought—who would believe a woman with any wisdom at all would be wife to Fox Barking?
“In my village, I was a healer,” K’os told her. “I had everything I wanted. My husband was chief hunter. I even had a slave myself, though I took pity on her and arranged that she should become a wife. I do not want to be a slave forever.”
“You do not have to tell me what you were. I know. Everyone knows. We remember your visit to our village and how your husband died in a lodge fire while you were here. How can you hope to become wife when the men saw your husband’s bad luck? Do you think any hunter in this village will risk taking you? Most people think Black Mouth is foolish enough to have you as slave.”
“Has anything terrible happened to Black Mouth?” K’os asked. “Has his hunting been bad? Have his children grown ill? Is his wife dead? No. His hunting skills have increased, two moons ago his wife delivered a strong son, and each of his children is well.”
Gull Beak snorted. “If you are so lucky, why does Black Mouth not marry you himself?”
“Two Fist does not want him to take a second wife.”
Gull Beak shrugged. She kept a hearth outside her lodge, as though she were in a fish camp. She picked up several branches, laid them over the coals and tucked in a bit of birchbark she took from a pouch at her waist. Soon flames were licking into the branches. She adjusted a tripod over the fire and hung a cooking bag, crawled into her lodge and came back with a bladder of water. She dumped the water into the bag.
“Stay for a little while,” she said to K’os. “The wood has earned you something to eat. I took a fine fat duck yesterday with my bola, and my husband was given some moose. Together they make a good stew.”
K’os squatted beside the hearth, but Gull Beak made a rude gesture with her hand and said, “I am not your slave. Do not expect me to do all the work. Take some of the wood you brought and feed the fire. Then tell me why you came.”
“In hopes of a good meal,” K’os told her as she chose branches from the woodpile.
“You are a woman who thinks further than her belly,” Gull Beak said, and K’os smiled. Perhaps she liked Gull Beak.
“Since I was a child, all things have been given to me,” K’os said. “Now, life is not easy. What good is a woman who is slave? The first hard winter, she is given to the wind so her food can be eaten by someone else. But I have been trained as a healer, and I have noticed that there is no healer in this village.”
“Blue Flower,” Gull Beak said. She gave a bowl to K’os, then filled her own and gestured toward the boiling bag. “Do not take too much. My husband will want some later.”
K’os had been watching Gull Beak, knew how seldom Fox Barking came to the woman’s lodge, but if he had given her moose meat the day before, perhaps he would expect to share some of her stew. She filled her bowl only half full, though she was hungry and her body craved fat.
“Blue Flower is not a healer,” K’os said.
Gull Beak flicked her fingers into the wind. “Surely you did not come here just to tell me that.”
“I want to be the healer in this village.”
Gull Beak laughed. “You think they will trust you, a slave from the Cousin River People? You think they will take your medicines? You could kill as easily as heal.”
“That is why I have come to you.”
Gull Beak tilted her head, arched an eyebrow.
“What if I taught you the medicines, and you gave them to the people?”
“Why would you do that?”
“With the trade goods you got in exchange, you would buy me from Black Mouth. I would work with you as healer until the people began to trust me. Then perhaps there would be some hunter who wanted me as wife, once he sees I do not carry bad luck.”
“How do I know I can trust your medicines? What if you do this only to get revenge?”
“I will take every medicine myself before we give it to anyone.”
Gull Beak raised her bowl of meat and ate until the bowl was empty.
When she finished, she smacked her lips in appreciation, then said, “I have food. I have a husband. I am honored in this village for the parkas I make. I do not want to be a healer.”
“I have seen your parkas,” K’os said. “They are beautiful. It is sad that you do not have a slave. Then you would not have to work so hard to keep traplines and catch salmon. You would have more time to sew.”
K’os ate the last of her meat, stood and politely thanked Gull Beak for the food. “I am going now,” she said in the traditional River farewell. “Two Fist will be wondering where I am.” And as she left, K’os said, “It is good at least that your husband is not a lazy man. It is good that Fox Barking always brings you much meat.”
She walked away with a smile on her face.
THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE
After Day Woman died, Sok went to Red Leaf’s birth lodge. She had killed before. What would stop her from killing again? How better to get revenge than to kill Sok’s mother?
He called to her, and when there was no answer, he pulled aside the doorflap, saw Cries-loud alone inside, the boy curled into a tight ball. Sok sighed his relief when, at his touch, his son sprang to his feet.
“She is gone, and she took our sister,” Cries-loud said before Sok could speak. “She left during the night. I brought her food and the baby. I don’t care what you do to me. I could not let you kill my mother.”
Sok closed his eyes. Red Leaf. The woman had caused him more sorrow than anyone should have to bear. She had killed his grandfather, now had stolen his daughter, had probably killed his mother as well. Who el
se would do such a thing?
Had Red Leaf taken no thought of the curse she had put on the boy, his oldest living son? Sleeping in this lodge, a place drenched in birth blood, could draw away his hunting powers for his whole life. And Sok was here, too, cursing himself, just as his son had been cursed.
“Come with me. We should not be here,” he told Cries-loud. He took the boy to Star’s lodge, to his brother Chakliux. Who else was wiser? Who would better know what to do?
Chapter Six
THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE
K’OS LEARNED OF OLD Vole’s ailment only by good fortune. She was sitting outside Two Fist’s lodge splitting a chunk of white whale sinew into strands for thread. Two Fist had bought the sinew from a trader, boasted to the other women of how well-sewn her husband’s boots and parka would be, bound at each seam with strong beluga sinew. But she was not the one who had to tease out the stubborn strands, so much more difficult to split for twisting than caribou sinew.
What did it matter? K’os told herself. In payment for her hard work, she had managed to sneak away a bit of lynx fur from a pelt, only a small piece cut from the belly edge, but enough for her needs. She had tucked it away with the other treasures she had already accumulated—the eye of a fresh-killed fox, now dried so it was only a brittle circle, thin as a leaf; the beak from a kingfisher and the breast skin, still feathered, of a flycatcher.
When she heard Vole coming down the path, K’os did not look up from her work. One advantage in being a slave was that most people ignored her. But suddenly Vole began to wail. Holding a hand under her belly, she crouched for a moment in the path, sobbing like a child. K’os continued to sew, and finally two other women came by, helped Vole to her feet and guided her back to her lodge, but not before K’os had heard the old woman’s lamentations about blood in her urine, pain and cramps beneath her belly.
