by Sue Harrison
Kiin watched Amgigh, watched as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, saw that he turned his head away from the men when his father told Gray Bird of Amgigh’s strength, of his good eyes, of his skill with harpoon and knife. “What boy, what man, climbs more easily to the bird holes in the cliffs?” Kiin’s spirit whispered. “What man takes better care of his ikyak? And does any man try harder than Amgigh, in throwing the spear, in running? He will be a good husband. A good husband.”
Yes, Kiin thought. He would be a good husband. And he was a handsome man. Much like Kayugh, with long arms and legs, leaner than Samiq, but with shining eyes and white teeth; clear, smooth skin.
Gray Bird and Kayugh were speaking of hunting, of the sea, of the weather. Kiin heard them, but did not listen; she had heard this politeness before; any time men met to discuss more important things, the politeness came first. But suddenly her father stood, strode to the pile of sealskins. She watched as he inspected each skin, and she was thankful that Chagak was not here to see the casual disdain with which he regarded her careful work.
He would not know, Kiin thought, that Chagak’s sealskins were the finest Kiin had ever seen, better even than Blue Shell’s, and Blue Shell’s brought high trades with the Whale Hunters.
“I asked fifteen hides,” Gray Bird said. “There are twelve here.”
“We have these,” Kayugh said and gestured toward the four rolled skins, only partially scraped.
“You bring work for my wife?”
“Chagak will finish them. I wanted you to see that they are waiting for you. We will give them to you when they are finished.”
“So you would take my daughter for twelve skins?”
“Sixteen,” Kayugh answered, his voice firm.
Amgigh’s hands clenched and unclenched. Did he want her so much that his wanting made him nervous? Or was he insulted by her father’s words?
“Sixteen,” Gray Bird said, “but only twelve now. Four on your promise.”
“Three on my promise and an extra skin because you waited for the three,” Kayugh answered.
Gray Bird made a rude noise with his lips. “On your promise?” he said.
“Have you known me to break a promise?” Kayugh asked.
For a moment Gray Bird said nothing, then he looked up at Amgigh. “He hunts?” Gray Bird asked.
“Yes,” Kayugh answered.
“He will be able to feed my daughter, bring in seals for oil and skins?”
“Yes.”
“You see my daughter,” Gray Bird said, and he strode to Kiin’s side and pulled her suddenly to her feet. “She is not too thin.” He pinched Kiin’s legs, her arms, cupped a breast with one hand. His fingers were cold against Kiin’s skin. “You will keep her fat?”
“Yes,” Kayugh said.
“Yes,” Amgigh answered, and Kiin blushed for she knew Amgigh was not supposed to speak. In trading for a first bride, the father traded; the son watched.
Gray Bird pulled Kiin’s new suk from a pile of furs where she had carefully laid it. “You see she does fine work,” Gray Bird said.
Kiin felt blood rise to her cheeks, and the heat from her skin rose to burn in her eyes. Blue Shell must not have told Gray Bird who gave Kiin the suk. And Kiin must remember now to tell her mother what Gray Bird had done. If Blue Shell ever told Gray Bird that Chagak had made the suk, if Gray Bird realized that he had become a fool in his trading, he would beat Blue Shell until she could not stand.
Amgigh took a long breath, and Kiin, looking from the shadows, caught Kayugh’s eyes. She shook her head. Don’t tell him, she begged silently. Please don’t tell him. Think what he would do to my mother. He might, in his embarrassment, refuse Kayugh’s offer, allow Qakan to trade her to people from another village.
Kayugh held his hand up toward Amgigh and stared at his son until Amgigh dropped his head.
“Kiin has many talents,” Kay ugh said. “That is why I want her for my son.”
Gray Bird puffed out his chest, strutted to the center of the ulaq and squatted beside Kayugh.
“He thinks he has won,” Kiin’s spirit said. “He thinks he has bettered Kayugh in his game of trading.”
Kayugh looked over Gray Bird’s head to Amgigh and nodded. Gray Bird turned and watched as Amgigh unlashed a knife from his left wrist. He laid the knife across his palm and held it out to Gray Bird, handle first.
“My son makes knives,” Kayugh said.
Kiin saw Gray Bird’s back suddenly straighten. Amgigh’s knives were treasured by all the men. Big Teeth said he had known no finer. This particular knife was short bladed, the right size to fit inside the sleeve of a man’s parka. The blade was black, nearly translucent at the edges, knapped from Okmok’s obsidian. The knife was hafted with seal gut to a smooth piece of ivory, marbled yellow and white. The end of the handle was plugged with a stopper of walrus ivory. Amgigh pulled the ivory plug from the handle and shook out three birdbone gorges. Amgigh slipped the gorges into the knife handle and pushed the ivory plug back in place.
Gray Bird smiled and reached for the knife. He tested the edge with his finger, held it up to the light from an oil lamp. He pulled out the plug and examined the gorges.
“You will have the four skins back to me in”—he paused— “twenty days?”
“Yes,” Kayugh said.
“Take her,” Gray Bird said motioning toward Kiin, then he turned his back to his daughter and the men, and dragged the twelve finished skins into his sleeping place.
Kiin’s eyes widened. It was done. So quickly, it was done. She stood, uncertain what was expected of her, but when Kayugh said nothing and Amgigh remained with his back toward her, she pulled a seal bladder container from the storage cache and using the flat of her knife blade, pushed the meat she had ground into the container.
She picked up her sewing basket and suk, then taking one of her mother’s largest baskets, filled it with her naming gifts. She hurried into her sleeping place to gather grass mats and sleeping furs. When she came back into the main room of the ulaq, she found that Amgigh was waiting for her. He took the bundle of mats and sleeping furs from her arms and watched as Kiin put on her suk and picked up the basket. Then still without speaking, Amgigh led the way up the climbing log. Kayugh was already at the top of the log, the rolled green skins in his arms.
The wind was strong and it pulled at the basket Kiin held, but for a moment she stood on the top of the ulaq, watching as Kayugh and Amgigh walked to the high mound of Kayugh’s ulaq. Kiin looked toward the beach, listened to the rumble of the waves. The sky was gray, darker near the center and light where its edges met the far limit of the sea. Even the beach was gray, and the tide pools reflected the sky.
Then she saw Samiq standing alone beside the blackness that marked the place of her woman’s ceremony fire. His back was toward her, but he turned. He turned and slowly raised one arm, one hand toward her, fingers splayed. And without thinking, Kiin stretched one hand toward him.
TEN
SAMIQ WATCHED AS KIIN FOLLOWED AMGIGH TO Kayugh’s ulaq. Anger pressed hard into Samiq’s chest, but he was not sure whether he was angry with Amgigh for taking Kiin as wife, with his father for making the trade, or with Kiin for walking so easily in Amgigh’s wake, as if she had always been wife, as if she wanted Amgigh as much as Samiq wanted her.
You are foolish, he told himself. She is safe now, away from Gray Bird, safe in our father’s ulaq. You cannot be her husband; you are going to live with the Whale Hunters. You will be away for the summer, perhaps longer. Would you rather she was unprotected, beaten and abused in Gray Bird’s ulaq?
But he stayed on the beach. The wind turned toward night, cold and bitter, numbing his hands, stiffening his knees, so that he walked slowly, like an old man.
Kiin stroked the whale tooth shell that hung at her side, then folded her hands in her lap. Chagak had given Kiin a corner in the large room for her sewing basket and weaving supplies, and Kayugh had pointed to the sleepi
ng place that would be hers, one near the front of the ulaq. There Kiin spread out her sleeping skins and stacked the grass mats that protected the furs from the packed dirt and rock of the ulaq floor. But now she had nothing to do.
During other visits to Kayugh’s ulaq, she had felt no awkwardness, had helped Chagak prepare food or care for Samiq’s baby sister, but today Wren was sleeping, tucked away in Chagak’s sleeping place, and when Kiin had offered to help Chagak with the food, Chagak motioned her to sit down, to be still. Tomorrow, Kiin would help, tomorrow she would cook and sew, but today was a day to sit, to talk and to do nothing.
Kiin could never remember having a day to do nothing. Her hands could not stay still; her fingers clasped and unclasped until Kiin, embarrassed that her actions were more like those of a child than a wife, tucked her hands up inside the sleeves of her suk and began playing a game in her mind, a game of naming berries—salmonberry, red currant, crowberry—then naming fish—greenling, herring, halibut. .. .
After bringing Kiin to the ulaq, Amgigh and his father went into one of the sleeping places, one to the left of the honored back room, Kayugh’s sleeping place. Kiin heard the murmurings of their voices, but could not tell what either man said. Finally when Kiin had named all fish in the world, all berries on the island, all people in their village and the names of any Whale Hunter people she could remember, Kayugh came back into the main room of the ulaq. He stood for a moment in front of Kiin, smiled at her, then said, “My son will be a good husband to you. What food we have is yours. The furs we have are yours. You belong to this family now. I am your father and you are my daughter.”
For a moment Kiin sat very still. She wished she had asked her mother questions about the giving of brides. Crooked Nose had told her of men’s ways and how to please a man, but nothing of ceremonies. Perhaps Kayugh’s words were only a politeness, but perhaps they were a ceremony and there was something Kiin was expected to say in reply.
Finally she said in a very soft voice, “Is-is th-th-this a ceremony?” She could not raise her eyes to Kayugh’s face, but then he reached down and cupped her chin in his hand, lifted her head so she could see that he was smiling.
“It is a welcome,” he said. “Only that.”
“Th-thank you,” Kiin said. “I w-w-w-will be a g-g-good w-wife to Amgigh. I will be a g-g-good daughter to you and Ch-Chagak.”
“A sister to Wren and Samiq?” Kayugh asked still smiling.
“Yes,” Kiin answered and would not let herself feel the small ache that had lodged beneath her breastbone since she had seen Samiq from the top of her father’s ulaq.
“Then you may help your new mother with the food. We plan a feast,” Kayugh said.
Kiin hurried to Chagak’s side, but Chagak said, “Sit. Rest. Enjoy the day.”
“Please,” said Kiin, her voice a whisper, and Chagak looked at her with widened eyes, then said, “Yes, you are right. Sometimes it is better to have something to do.”
She handed Kiin a basket of eggs that had been boiled in their shells and cooled. Kiin took the basket to the center of the ulaq where the roof hole let in light, and she began to peel the eggs. Chagak was the only woman in the village who made these eggs, and they were one of Kiin’s favorite foods. After peeling, each egg was sliced into quarters and each quarter dipped in seal oil. Chagak usually arranged the slices in a pattern on a grass mat, the egg quarters spreading from the center in a large circle like the petals of a white and yellow flower.
Kiin’s flower did not turn out to be as lovely as the ones Chagak made, but Chagak clicked her tongue in approval when Kiin had finished, and Kiin’s skin warmed with pleasure at the praise. Chagak set out dried halibut, fresh herring fried in seal oil and thin slices of seal meat that she had cooked on sticks over an outside fire. There was a basket of peeled ugyuun stems to be eaten with the fish, and goose fat mixed with dried berries.
Finally Chagak sat back on her haunches and smiled at Kiin. “A feast,” Chagak said and brushed her hair back from her forehead. With her large slanting eyes, full mouth and tiny nose, she was a beautiful woman. The most beautiful in their village, Kiin thought. She was small, but not as small as Kiin’s mother, Blue Shell. And Blue Shell herself had once been beautiful, Crooked Nose had said, though now the woman’s hair was heavily streaked with gray, her nose crooked from one of Gray Bird’s blows.
Chagak looked up at Kayugh. “Bring your sons,” she said, then she and Kiin stood up and took their places behind the climbing log. At this feast, as at most feasts, the men would eat first, the women bringing water, slicing meat. Kayugh called Amgigh from his sleeping place then left the ulaq saying, “I will find Samiq.”
Amgigh squatted beside the food. He did not speak, but sat with his arms resting easily atop his knees. He was wearing a grass apron, the panel edged in a darker grass and woven with a checkered pattern as were all of Chagak’s weavings. Perhaps now that Kiin was daughter, Chagak would teach her to weave like that.
Amgigh’s shoulders and back shone with oil and his hair was combed out straight and smooth, and hung like a fall of black water to his shoulders. He did not look at Kiin but Kiin noticed that his hands were not still, and she heard the snapping sounds from his finger joints as he cracked each knuckle.
Finally, Kay ugh returned with Samiq, the two sliding quickly down the climbing log, Samiq shedding his parka and taking his place across from Amgigh, his back to Kiin. His hair was tangled and his skin was not oiled, but Kiin’s eyes wanted to watch him rather than Amgigh, so that finally she did not allow herself to look at either man.
And when the men had finished, leaving the food to Chagak and Kiin, Kiin sat so she could not see the men, but though she did not look at them, she found herself listening for Samiq’s voice, admiring the wisdom of his comments, hearing his stories with more interest than she had in either Amgigh’s or Kayugh’s tales. So she began to talk to Chagak, saying things about weather and the sea, about sewing and cooking. She asked questions even though the words were broken by her stuttering, anything to pull her mind from Samiq, anything to help her be a true wife to Amgigh, in her thoughts as well as with the work of her hands.
After the food was eaten, after Chagak had brought Wren from her sleeping place and nursed the child, then Kiin knew it must be time. The sky at the top of the roof hole had darkened for the night. By now she was usually asleep. But everyone seemed to be busy, so Kiin pulled a skin from her sewing basket and used her awl to poke holes in one side. She would make Amgigh a pair of sealskin socks, something to keep his feet warm in the ulaq.
But now Kayugh suddenly stood before her, and Kiin quickly put away her sewing. He clasped her hands and pulled her to her feet. Kiin’s heart beat hard, so hard that she was sure Kayugh could see it thrusting against the walls of her chest. Kayugh said nothing but brought her to stand before Amgigh. Amgigh sat very straight, and when he looked up at Kiin, his eyes reflected the yellow flames that danced at the circle of wicks in the nearest oil lamp. Samiq was sitting beside his brother, and Kiin, her head lowered, could not keep from glancing at Samiq’s face.
His eyes, too, reflected the circle of lights but beneath the light, she saw pain, and so she quickly looked back at Amgigh. Her husband, Amgigh. “Not Samiq,” her spirit said to her. “Not Samiq. Amgigh.” And Kiin fixed her eyes on Amgigh’s face and did not let herself look away.
Amgigh stood and Kayugh took his hand, laid it on top of Kiin’s hand, then he raised the two hands, laced their fingers together both arms upraised.
“She is your wife,” Kayugh said to Amgigh, then led them to Amgigh’s sleeping place and pulled aside the curtain while Amgigh led Kiin inside.
ELEVEN
KIIN HEARD THE CURTAIN BRUSH CLOSED BEHIND them. She knew that most nights Amgigh would come to her in her sleeping place, but this night, their first night together, they were in Amgigh’s sleeping place. Soft fur seal pelts were spread from the ulaq wall to the entrance, and when Kiin stepped onto the
furs, she could feel the padding of heather and grass mats beneath.
“Sit,” Amgigh whispered. He squatted down, his back to the door.
Kiin heard Chagak’s voice coming from the other room and Kayugh answering her. They laughed and Samiq laughed with them. A part of her wanted to go to them. To leave this little room and her new husband, to be in the light of the seal oil lamps, to sew and to hear whatever they were talking about.
Kiin sat down facing Amgigh. Light pricked through the weaving of the grass door flap and settled, shining, in Amgigh’s hair.
Slowly Amgigh reached out to her; slowly he touched her hair, then her face. Kiin felt the gentleness of his fingers, and her spirit whispered, “He will not beat you. He will be a good husband; be a good wife.”
So Kiin lifted her arms and pulled off her suk. She had not had time to prepare as she would have wished: to smooth oil over her back and shoulders, to crush dried fireweed blossoms into her hair and comb them out, leaving their delicate smell, or to smooth the calluses of her hands with lava rock, but she knew her hair was shining and her body graceful, breasts round and soft. Perhaps that would be enough.
“You are happy to be my wife?” Amgigh asked, moving close to whisper the words. He pressed his thumbs gently down her cheeks to her lips.
If he had asked whether she wanted him above all other hunters, Kiin could not have answered. Even now she had to pull her thoughts from Samiq sitting in the next room. But since Amgigh had asked whether she was happy, she could give a true reply. Reaching out to lay her hands on the tops of his shoulders, she leaned forward so her breath carried the words to his ears, so that in whispering she would not stammer. “Yes, I am happy, Amgigh. Thank you for taking me as wife.”
Then his hands moved slowly down to the band of her apron, untied hers and then his own. Carefully, Kiin laid the whale tooth shell aside. Then Amgigh leaned her back against the furs of his sleeping place.
Other times, with other men, Kiin had fought. It had seemed the only way to keep her honor, even though it meant bruises—bruises from the trader who had purchased her for the night, and later, when the trader complained, when he showed the marks of Kiin’s teeth on his skin, another beating from her father. Even the few times when a trader had been gentle, she still fought. She fought the trader and she fought against the betrayal of her body, against that part of her that would give in, that would become like the Whale Hunter women, laughed at for their eager ways.
