by Robert Adams
“I have been told or admitted into old friends memories in regard to all or most of the information that now I am going to impart to you, child.”
“Lainuh had two sons by Hari Rohz; they were both mere toddlers when their sire was slain and Lainuh married Djahn Staiklee. Dikee and Djahnee and Tim and another son, Gaib, were all born, one after the other, before I was widowed and married out of Clan Krooguh.
“Lainuh doted on the two Rohz boys and early began to groom the eldest of them, Zak, to someday succeed his uncle, Chief Dik. She succeeded in turning both of those boys into spoiled brats, both dead certain that Sacred Sun rose and set, Wind blew, only for them and their personal pleasures. His arrant insubordination got the eldest Rohz boy killed along with several of his cronies in their first raid. Lainuh could not or, more likely, would not recognize her own culpability in the matter and laid full blame for the boy’s death at the feet of her husband, Djahn Staiklee, who had been the senior subchief on that particular raid.
“Then, less than a year later, the one surviving Rohz boy, Hari insisted on riding up into the mountains with a party of seasoned hunters after wild sheep and elk. As you know by now, Djahn Staiklee is a superlative horseman, possessed of an easygoing courage that seems completely natural and supremely unconscious, and has lightning-fast reflexes — a combination which is the more precious due to its true rarity.
“Anyway, in hot pursuit of a wounded sheep. Djahn Staiklee rode his horse down a very steep, shaley slope up in those mountains. Young Han Rohz, disobeying orders from his stepfather and all the other hunters, made to follow, then lost his nerve halfway down and tried to turn, whereupon his mount lost its balance and feet, fell head foremost and rolled full-weight upon the boy. The mishap killed the both of them. boy and horse, then and there, outright.
“No one of those returning hunters was at all anxious to be the one to tell Lainuh Krooguh of the death of her second son by Hari Rohz, but all of them finally did, many going so far as to fully open their minds and their memories to her that she might know that the words spoken were nothing less than the full, unembroidered truth and that no one of the hunters was or could be held in any way — legal or moral — responsible for that headstrong boy’s death.
“Lainuh apparently heard them all out, delved into every proffered mind’s memories . . . then placed full blame upon the undeserving shoulders of Djahn Staiklee, her husband and the stepfather of the dead boy, Hari.
“When, some year or more later, he won the slave girl Dahnah, while gambling with men of Clan Pahrkuh, and made it abundantly clear to all of his yurt that he meant to keep her as a concubine, Lainuh did her utter damnedest to turn her brother. Chief Dik, against his old crony, Djahn Staiklee, but in that particular instance she failed miserably, which failure to continue to exercise a measure of control over her brother in no way improved her general disposition or her attitude toward Djahn Staiklee and his new acquisition.
“And so matters still stand, Behtiloo,” said Ehstrah, then adding, “Your mother-in-law, Lainuh Krooguh, hates and utterly despises your father-in-law, Djahn Staiklee. She is vindictive and conniving and can be violent, so would likely have murdered him long since — though of course using her wiles and exercising her considerable intelligence to be certain that his demise appeared natural — were it not that, according to clan customs, his death would considerably lower her personal status in the camp and vastly lower it in the yurt, making as that circumstance would the first wife of her eldest living son the mistress of everyone and everything in the household. A woman like Lainuh would be unable to abide such an abrupt descent although I and a goodly number of others would dearly love, would give our very eyeteeth, to see such a thing, see the arrogant and overproud Lainuh humbled once and for all.”
Ehstrah stood up and said, “Well, I for one have enough steam for today. You and I, Behtiloo, can go into the other yurt and wash while Gahbee goes out to roll around in the snow, as is her peculiar wont. I watched her once, but never again; it fairly raises the hairs on the neck. Tepid water is more than enough of a sensory shock for me, after the heat in here.”
Back in the yurt of Tim’s family, Bettylou found that affairs looked tranquil enough. Neither Tim nor Djahn Staiklee was about, of course; Tim spent as much time as he could find or make at the side of his sickly uncle, Chief Dik, absorbing the host of things he would need to know when he became chief. Djahn Staiklee, who could not for long abide inaction, had left before dawn with the best hunters of the clans to sweep wide about the area of the camp and search for signs of predators, raiders or any large game animals.
Even before she got really close to the yurt, Bettylou had caught the reek of mutton. Inside, it was all but overpowering, rising from the bubbling pot of sheep fat which Lainuh and Dahnah were using to soften and dress the cured skin of the big brown bear that Djahn Staiklee had killed during the autumn trek from the summer camp to this winter one.
And suddenly in an eyeblink of time, she was again witnessing the events of that terribly terrifying, terribly exciting day.
Hunters had killed three larger screwhorns — beasts each as big as a draft-ox and otherwise looking very much like domestic cattle, save for their twisting horns and peculiar color — field-dressed them all and brought them back to the night camp of carts to be properly flayed, butchered and apportioned out.
The bear had come in from downwind and, with all the hubbub of unhitching teams, offloading carts and otherwise making to set up a camp, no man or woman or child, no cat or horse or mule or ox had seen or scented the great, furry, hungry ursine until, with a roar, he had tried to hook a maiden of Clan Skaht from where she was standing atop a loaded cart with a swipe of his broad, long-clawed forepaw.
The maiden screamed shrilly, mindcalled a broadbeamed plea for help and leaped from off the safer side of the cart all at once . . . and then the campsite was pure pandemonium for a few moments, while the stubborn bear, still trying to get at his originally chosen meal, vaulted to her former place atop the loaded cart.
This action served to stampede the draft horses still hitched to the cart, and the pair raced out across the darkening prairie, vocalizing their terror, with the bear hanging on for dear life and thunderously roaring out his own concern and displeasure, which roars only pumped larger amounts of adrenaline into the team, and the speed of the rocking, bumping, toothjarringly springless cart increased appreciably.
In the wake of the runaway cart came pounding half the folk and all of the cats who had been at the campsite — warriors, maidens, matrons, slaves, everyone who had still been mounted or could quickly get astride a mount — and in their wake came more folk racing on foot, armed with whatever had come easiest to hand at the moment.
The bears portion of the journey had ended when the much-abused cart lost a wheel and he was pitched rolling and roaring onto the hard ground. The mountainous beast lay for a moment, apparently stunned, while the team raced on, still screaming, finally dragging the cart to pieces. By the time the shaken bruin had regained his feet, he was ringed about by snarling prairiecats and the mounted warriors were close upon him.
Despite the broken bones, the crippling injuries that the huge plains grizzly was later determined to have sustained even before the fight commenced, he did put up a fight, enough of a fight to kill two full-grown prairiecats and maim another, so that finally Chief Milo and a half-dozen others started in to settle the bear with wide-bladed wolf spears.
The cats were dancing about, making mock rushes, then springing back to hold the bear in place. His movements never slowed to less than lightning-fast for all that he was so quilled with arrows, his fur all tacky with blood and the ground about him splattered thickly with it.
It was while the seven spearmen were positioning themselves for their deadly-dangerous task that Djahn Slaiklee rode upon a lathered horse, In a trice, he had strung his bow, nocked, and sped a shaft that flew straight and true the seventy-odd yards to strike the beast’s eye a
nd sink deeply into the brain beyond. And the fearsome bear dropped, crumpled bonelessly to the blood-soaked ground he had so well defended.
Lainuh had been working at the bearskin off and on ever since. She had skillfully sewn up each and every hole and tear and puncture from the flesh side with fine sinew, she had painstakingly stretched and cured it and now was hard at work making it supple before she put it to use as her winter bedcovering.
As Bettylou began to shed her outer garments in the warm interior of the yurt, Lainuh looked up and smiled at her, mindspeaking, “You were long at the steam yurt, daughter mine.”
Bettylou returned the smile and beamed, “Yes, I met Ehstrah and Gahbee and we . . . talked, for a while.”
A frown flitted across Lainuh’s face. “Gossip, no doubt. That Ehstrah, she is never happy unless her sharp tongue is employed at the telling of slanderous tales. Who was she maligning this day, daughter?”
Bettylou thought fast and lied glibly, “Oh. some story about a woman in Clan . . . ahh, Morguhn, I think. It all was long ago, she said.”
Lainuh wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “Why would she tell you about such old gossip, I wonder? You’re certain that she made no allusions to folk in this camp? To me, perhaps? She owns a completely senseless dislike or me, you know.”
“Well,” said Bettylou, slowly, feeling her way through these treacherous footings, she had begun by telling me of Horseclans customs and the reasons for them . . .?”
Lainuh’s frown disappeared and she nodded, chuckling. “And so our Ehstrah dredged up a choice bit of slime from her cesspit of a mind to illustrate the point as well as joy her soul in the retelling, I’d assume.
“Well, my dear, here’s a bit more education for you. Come and help me with my bearskin, then Dahnah can go down to the end of the camp and fetch back a load of dung for our night fire.” She had been smiling, but the smile completely vanished as she turned to the other woman, snarling, “You heard me, you slave slut! Get up and go do my bidding. Take the biggest bag and come back with it brimful, if you know what’s good for you! And when you’ve brought the dung back and stowed it as is proper, as you know I like it, you will begin to grind grain for the day. Now, get about it, damn you!”
The two women worked at the bearskin until midday, scraped it with dull wooden spatulas to remove excess fat, then rolled it, and Lainuh laid it atop her bedding rugs. After instructing the widows of Tim’s two dead brothers and seeing them begin preparations for the daily meal, she lit the largest of the fat lamps and took out the cloth and the colored threads and the needles to commence Bettylou’s continuing lesson in the art of Horseclans embroidery.
Then another two hours were spent at the task of stretching fresh sheepskins on the frames, defleshing them and giving them an initial treatment with whey.
Djahn Staiklee returned quite early, well before dark, with his saddle over his shoulder and his other hand and arm filled with his weapons. He moved stiffly, looked to be half-frozen and had concern writ deeply on his weathered face.
After dumping saddle and gear, he stalked over to stand by the firepit, stripped off his mittens and flexed his fingers in the heat beating up from the smoldering dungfire.
Lainuh ignored him, did not even look up from her work. At length, Bettylou levered her swollen body to its feet, took a horn cup from the stack and, after pouring it brimful of herb tea, proffered it to the man.
A concerted hissing gasp of apprehension came from Dahnah and the two widows; all expected a torrent of verbal abuse to spew from Lainuh, but the mistress of the yurt ignored this tableau, too, until Staiklee spoke.
“I thank you, Behtiloo, I thank you kindly.” Then he raised his voice a trifle so that all might hear clearly. “It could get bad, very bad, for us and our beasts. A tremendous pack of wolves is roaming out yonder, fivescore, at the least, probably more. We found a deer yard the devils had visited; there were only scraps of hide, broken antlers and a few well-gnawed hooves left of what had been a sizable number of deer.
“When we reported of it all to the chiefs, they decided that we’ll bring in as many horses as we can fit inside the stockade tonight and we’ll keep watchfires going here and out at the herds, too, all night long.
“Then, tomorrow, as soon as it’s light enough to see, every man, maiden, stripling and matron who’s well and able will hie to the wooded areas and start felling, trimming and dragging or carting back more trees.
The stockade will be enlarged or added on to so that we can protect not only the horses, but the cattle and the sheep, too.
“The herd guards are all exempted, of course, as are the ill, the very young or aged and women close to foaling; therefore, this yurt will furnish one man and four women to the work party, at dawn, tomorrow.”
“One man and one woman!” snapped Lainuh in a voice colder than the icicles festooning the eaves of the yurt. “If you and your stinking, lazy slave slut want to freeze in those damned woods tomorrow, I care not; but I am the mistress of this yurt and, as such, I have a day’s work to do every day here within it and I need the help of my dear daughters-in-law to aid me in performing my many chores. Moreover, I am the eldest sister of a chief and thus the mother of a chief-to-be — unless you, Djahn Staiklee, manage to get Tim, too, killed before his uncle dies . . . as you got all his brothers and half brothers killed!”
Lainuh’s low voice had risen to a contralto shout that fitted the yurt and must surely, Bettylou figured, be easily audible well beyond the felt-leather-and-wooden walls. Nansee, the widow of Djahnee, went softly, hurriedly, to comfort her babe, who hung in her harness and wrappings from the roof frame and just now was shrieking, Lainuh’s angry shouts having awakened the infant to terror.
Djahn sighed deeply and, ignoring the slanders, said tiredly, “It’s not my choice to make, Lainuh. If you want to argue a case, I suggest that you go over and do so with your brother and the others, although I seriously doubt that such argument will do you a scintilla of good this time, for this work is just too important to every man and woman and child and cat and horse in the camp. They have already refused to excuse nursing mothers, so why do you think they’d excuse a hale, healthy woman who just simply feels herself to be too busy, not to mention too exalted, too highborn, to swing an axe?”
“you superilious, mongrel Tekikuhn!” hissed Lainuh. “You go too far. We all know just what you truly are. What do you think yourself to be? I, at least, am pure Kindred by birth.”
Staiklee threw back his head and laughed. “Pure Kindred, hey? You? Lainuh, it is time, I think, to apprise you of the fact that I knew that yarn of yours to be a wholecloth lie even before I foolishly married you — you, with your airs and laziness and tantrums.
Dik Krooguh’s mother never bore a daughter who chanced to live to maturity, so when one of her husband’s concubines bore a baby girl who proved to be of his likeness and of decent mindspeak aptitude, she raised her as her own daughter. Now, my first Krooguh wife — your half sister, Kahnee — was by your sire on his second wife and was of pure Kindred stock.
“But your dam, Lainuh, was nothing save a Dirtwoman slave, and that is why most of the camp laughs at your pretensions, either behind your back or to your face. Were your half brother not chief and deeply attached to you for various and sundry reasons, you’d have not a friend in this camp. You are more or less tolerated by so many because of the love and respect that all bear for Dik Krooguh, and that is the only reason.
“Now you do as you will, wife. But I much fear me that if you are so unwise as to not heed the summons to work tomorrow for the common weal, not even Chief Dik’s stature in this camp will save you the shunning and overt censure of your peers, your betters and even your inferiors.”
Lainuh leaped to her feet, kicked off her embroidered yurtboots and began quickly to don her heavier outside clothing. “We’ll just hear exactly what my brother has to say about this . . . this outrage, Djahn Staiklee! Nor do I think that he’ll be one bit happy or amused t
o hear that you chose to humiliate and degrade his only living sister before her daughters-in-law and your slave. And I’ll not be back under this roof until I hear your full, abject and public apology to me and my dear brother, too!”
Djahn just grinned. “That is a promise, I hope. In that case, wife, you had better take your bed rug and coverings, plus all of your clothes — winter and summer — for horses will sprout horns and oxen will climb trees before you hear me recant what was only truth.
Squatting, her face working. she began to roll her bed for easy carrying, but when she made to include the bearskin, he roughly jerked it from her grasp.
“Give it back, damn you!” she shouted hotly. “It’s mine, mine!”
His reply was cold, “You seem to forget — conveniently misremember, as is your wont — just who killed that bear and then skinned it out, woman, By custom as well as by the law of the Horseclans, I can give this prize to whomever I wish, It is not automatically yours simply because you chose to lay claim to it, as you have claimed or made shift to claim everything of beauty or of value that ever has come into this yurt.”
“But . . . but . . .” she stuttered, too angry for a moment to talk properly. “But me it was who cured that skin, me it was who stitched up the tears of fang and claw, the holes made by the arrows, It has been long and hard, it has taken me months of daily work on it. You can’t just rob me of it now!”
He just shrugged, saying. “You cannot be robbed of something you never really owned, Lainuh. And as for the vast amounts of work you claim to have put into the curing and repair of this bearskin, I am certain that our son and his new wife here will thank you in winters yet to come, for I have decided to give it to them.”
Lainuh did not return that night. The four women and Djahn Staiklee ate the stew and the fried bread, then sat for a long while around the dungfire, nibbling on hard cheese and chunks of dried fruit and sipping tea, while Djahn spun tales of hunting and of his youth on the arid southern plains, where more than a few of the bands of nomads still were neither Kindred-born nor even allied with the Horseclans by marriage.
