She answered with a trailing moan that rode on her breath. It was followed immediately by another. He took her lax hand. The fingers twitched lightly against his rough palm. He closed his hand over them, hoping she could feel he was there.
A rustle of garments, and the healer was beside them. Her hair straggled about her face and her eyes were old as she bent closely over Elsa to peer at her. As she straightened, she looked into his face. Slowly she shook her head at him. 'Don't torment yourself,' she whispered softly. 'Don't hope.'
'She hurts,' he replied.
Tillu said nothing, but returned to the fire. Taking a ladle from her own chest, one stained dark at the dipper end, she scooped a measure from the pot she had kept simmering by the fire. She signed for him to ease her up to drink. Elsa's bandaged head was stiff against his shoulder as he supported her. Tillu held the dipper to her swollen lips, but gave her no more than would moisten them. He frowned at her stinginess.
'Night berry,' she explained in a whisper. 'Too much kills. Little bit, sleep deep.'
He eased Elsa back to the floor, but continued to sit by her, gently holding her hand.
For long moments her breath moaned in and out. Then her sounds became softer and finally were stilled.
'She sleeps,' Tillu told him. 'Heckram sleep now, too?'
'No,' he told her, but lay down once again beside Elsa. He longed to tuck her into the curve of his body and hold her close. He wanted to feel he was protecting her, holding death at bay with the warmth of his own life. But he knew that the pressure of his body against hers could only cause her pain. He contented himself with taking her hand. He stroked her small fingers, pressed them once to his lips. He closed his eyes to the night.
This time he kept her hand in his, followed her down into the darkness of deep sleep.
Morning came, a chill gray beast that nosed Heckram from the comforts of sleep. He kept his eyes closed, resisting consciousness. But his body complained it was chilled, stiff from the cold, from being still all night. He grumbled softly and started to shift to a more comfortable position, only to become aware of a cold hand in his. The events of the night before swept him remorselessly into wakefulness. Heckram jerked his body up, kneeling straight, to stare at Elsa in silence.
She was dead. He had felt her death chill in his hand and known it in his sleep. He had dreamed her dead, watched her walking away through the snow to Saivo. Her bow had been on her shoulder, her embroidered game bag swinging at her hip. Her stride had been easy, carrying her across the crusted tops of drifts. She had pulled her red cap off to the early spring sunshine, and her unbound hair had gleamed brighter than the snow drifts. So beautiful. He had watched her go, smiling after her. He had not called her back.
This morning did not find her so beautiful. He turned from that chiseled face, not wanting to remember these new colors flushed across it. Carefully, he pulled the covers up to hide it from the light seeping in the smoke hole. As he did so, something rolled from where it had rested on top of her bedding. It thudded softly on the floor hides, rolled in an arc to rest against his knee. He stared down at it. There was a grimness to its plain, ungraceful handle and black stained bowl.
His eyes traveled to the hearth, and the near dead embers on the flat stones. The small pot that had held the potion sprawled on its side. His mind whirled slowly as he refused conclusions. He would not check to see how much was left in the pot, would not try to remember if Tillu had put the dipper back in the pot the night before. Had she been asking him something, when she said too much of it would kill? Had she thought she read an unspoken answer in his face? He had a sudden vision of Bruk foundered in the snow, his own calming hand preceding the seeking knife. He moaned softly.
Picking the ladle up by its handle, he carried it back to the pot. He dropped it beside the hearth and it clattered once against the stones. No one else stirred. Ristin and Missa slept side by side, huddled together in sorrow. Elsa had been the last living child of Kuoljok and Missa. With her had gone their grandchildren. They ended today, the unraveled ends of a long line. He thought of poor old Kuoljok, soon to awake in Heckram's hut, alone and puzzled. He had seemed so confused last night. 'What happened?' he had asked over and over again, long after Heckram had wearied of telling him he didn't know. The simple question had stung worse than Joboam's foolish accusation.
And the healer? He turned slowly to find her asleep in a shadowed corner of the tent.
Inexplicably, Kerlew was curled beside her, smiling in his sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Clumps of soft wet snow were dropping from the trees with dull plops. It was an erratic, stealthy sound, as if some great creature were stalking through the woods. It was not the only sign of the change. The papery bark of the birch trees was suffused with a pink glow, while the tips of the reaching willows showed red against the snow.
But the dropping snow load was the most apparent sign. The lightened branches sprang up as they shed their burdens, shaking the trees and triggering a new flurry of falls. Even the small dark spruce of the clearings had doffed their white caps to spring's entrance.
Earlier in the day a falling load had found Heckram's back and shoulders, and some had slipped inside his tunic collar, sliding icily down his chest. He was still chilled and wet. The daily thaws of early spring were miserable. The thin sunlight that softened the snow and tried to warm his back glinted up into his eyes from the sinking snow drifts, making him squint. The wet snow he waded through soaked into his boots and trousers, and clung to his legs to weight his every stride. The change of seasons that used to lighten his heart now only wearied him. He stood on the side of the hill, looking down at the reindeer and frowning.
The reindeer struggled through the heavy wet drifts, sinking in the clinging stuff, surging through it in plunges when they were startled. They pawed through it for lichen, lowering their heads into the snow hollows and nibbling it from the frozen ground. And every night winter returned, to lock the soft snow into a thick icy crust that could chafe and cut the deer's legs as they tried to work through it. Worst of all, when the reindeer did paw through the upper crust, the savve layer, they found flen on the ground. The thick layer of ice on the ground beneath the snow locked away the tender white lichen known as reindeer moss. Stubbornly, the hungry animals pawed up the frozen chunks and ate it, becoming sluggish and sometimes ill from consuming too much ice. His own animals still looked all right, but those of Elsa's parents were beginning to look thin and pinched. He would have to act.
'Heckram!'
He turned, startled, and already irritated with whomever came to break his solitude.
In the last few weeks he had had enough talk to last a lifetime. At first he had wanted only to sleep, to hide from thought in unconsciousness. Then he had roused from his lassitude to anger. Against the advice of his mother and Elsa's parents, he had gone to Capiam. He had boldly voiced his suspicions before Capiam and his elder advisers.
And they had rebuked him. His stomach clenched as he remembered.
Capiam's eyes had shone like angry black gems. His chest had swelled with his wrath, but he had demanded calmly, 'On what basis do you accuse Joboam of this abhorrent act?' Heckram winced as he remembered his faltering effort to put his uneasiness into words. As he told how Joboam had pushed himself upon Elsa, how Joboam moved among the huts by night, and that even since their joining, Elsa had complained that the man followed her when she hunted. Even to his own ears, it had sounded like the querulous complaints of an imaginative child. The elders had listened, exchanging glances as he spoke. And then Capiam had spoken the most scorching words of all. 'Cannot you let it go, Heckram? It is pain enough for Joboam that the woman he desired chose you instead. It is anguish enough for him that she has perished. I will not accuse him of this thing. I know that he was playing tablo with Rolke when first we heard of Elsa's misfortune. It is also known to all of us, Heckram, that you followed her out into the night. Yet, none spoke against you on so slight a
basis. You would do well to follow our example. Set the petty jealousies of childhood aside. Mourn Elsa, as is fitting. But do not seek to set the blame for her death on a man who showed only concern and affection for her. Your father was a man I trusted, Heckram. I leaned upon his wisdom. I wish you had inherited it. Go now. Say no more about this. Whatever beast or demon killed Elsa has escaped us. There is no sense in dwelling upon it.'
So he had left the herdlord's hut and said no more. But it was soon obvious that all had heard of his accusation. Most thought it an act unworthy of a herdman.
But he could not let it go, nor could he lose himself in sleep anymore. His thoughts chased themselves through his brain, leaving him unable to eat or sleep. He had felt his mother and Missa watching him, been pestered by Lasse's repeated efforts to get him to go hunting. He thought occasionally of the healer and her son, but felt no desire to face the boy he had slighted for too long, let alone the woman who had practiced such a deadly healing upon Elsa. His thoughts had run and worried him like a pack of wolves encircling an old sarva. Then one day he had risen and gone out alone into the silence of the grazing herd. He had immersed himself so deeply in work that he could not think beyond the next moment. Except when some fool came to talk to him.
Lasse was toiling up the hill, sinking into the snow with every step. Heckram looked at him critically. The boy was thin, but his hair was glossy in the sun. He still tended to carry the long-healed arm closer to his chest. Fond as he was of Lasse, he wished the youth would go away. Lasse seldom spoke of Elsa to Heckram. But somehow his silences were worse than the consoling words of the others. So he called to Lasse before the boy could come closer and fix him with those sympathetic eyes.
'Keep the deer clear for me, Lasse. I'm going to bring a tree down.'
He fumbled at his belt for his hand axe. The handle was made from the natural curve of a reindeer antler, the head of ground and polished stone. 'Wait!' Lasse called, and Heckram saw that the boy was carrying a full-sized axe with him. He waved it at Heckram, and the man returned his smaller axe to his sheath.
'I thought you might want this,' Lasse panted as he drew close enough for words.
'And I wanted to tell you I saw the godde making for the higher hills. What do you think?'
'I haven't thought about the wild herd for days. I've no time to hunt anymore. I've my own animals to watch, and my mother's, and Kuoljok's and Missa's.' He didn't mention Elsa's. Their ownership had reverted to her parents, though Missa had tried to insist that Heckram, as her intended, should take them. The memory of the painful argument stung again.
'I didn't mean we should go hunting. I meant we should follow them, move our animals up to better pasturage until spring is stronger. The flen is so thick; you can't get a staff through it. I know, I've probed it.'
'That's why I want to bring a tree down for them. Keep them clear, would you?'
He took the axe from the boy with a silent nod of thanks and chose a tree that already had a pronounced lean. Moss and beard lichen festooned its branches. The first few blows brought the heavy wet snow crashing down. It spattered the snow around him and he danced back to avoid it. When he had loosened most of its load, he stepped in, set his feet, and swung in earnest. The axe bit into the wood, sending bits of bark and then white chips flying. Lasse floundered in the snow, trying valiantly to drive back the older animals who knew that the sound of the axe meant food. When the leaning tree began its groan, Heckram roared, 'Get clear!' As the youth rushed to one side, the hungry animals surged forward. With a sudden crack the tree fell, its outstretched branches slapping the muzzles and shoulders of the most eager reindeer. The animals staggered from the impact, but immediately plunged back. In an instant the tree was surrounded by reindeer stripping it of beard lichen.
While the deer were occupied, Heckram and Lasse cut two more trees in rapid succession, taking turns with the axe. Lasse's animals, hearing the falling giants, came from their place farther down the hillside to join in the easy feeding. The two herdmen sat down, panting, on the stump end of one of the fallen trees and watched their beasts feed.
'You're right. It's about time to move them,' Heckram said as if their conversation had never been interrupted. 'The godde know where the feeding is best. A wise herdman sees that his animals follow them.'
'Good. Tonight?'
Heckram considered. Night was the best time to move in this weather. The colder temperatures froze the top of the snow in a hard crust that men and beasts could walk on. He and Lasse could move their animals up higher in the hills, where the thaws of spring had not yet ruined the grazing. Then, when spring reached that high, they would bring their animals down again, to begin their longer migratory trek from the forests across the flat tundra to the summer grounds.
'Tonight. Is your grandmother coming?'
Lasse looked aside, squinting across the bright, snowy hillside. 'No. Not this time.'
It was a bad sign, and Heckram knew it. When the older folk began thinking they were too old to move from the talvsit to the temporary camps in the higher hills for the early spring grazing, it was a sign they were wearying of life. 'I don't think my mother will come this year either. Nor Elsa's parents.'
Lasse considered this gravely. But all he said was: it will make a lot of animals for you to manage.'
Heckram snorted, trying to speak lightly. 'They say our fathers managed this many and more, and all belonging to themselves. We've a way to go before we regain all they had.'
'It's so important to you.'
Heckram gave Lasse a strange look. 'And isn't it to you? Besides, what else is there?
Wouldn't it be nice to kill a fat, strong harke for meat this autumn, instead of having to harvest the sickliest one that might not winter through anyway? How would it be to have fresh, thick hides on the floor of the kator this winter, instead of making do with the old worn ones? Wouldn't you like to load pulkors and harkar with your excess meat and hides, and go south to trade? To have tools of bronze instead of stone and bone, and shirts of warm wool instead of patched leather?'
'Do we live so poorly, then?' Lasse asked softly.
Heckram was startled into silence for an instant. 'No. But it's not so rich, either.'
Lasse stared off across the snow while he spoke, and Heckram wondered if he spoke to him or to himself. 'Yet, there's poor and poor. There's Joboam, with twice the animals that you own, the richest furs, the sleekest vaja, the best of everything. Yet, with all his wealth, Elsa wouldn't have him. And there's you, with enough to go around, if you are thrifty and careful. But Elsa was willing to wait for you to be ready. I think you two would have been wealthier than Joboam or the herdlord himself. Heckram, do you ever wish you hadn't waited?'
Heckram looked at Lasse, seeing him anew. His color was high, and his grandmother had put new braiding on his old hat. He wasn't sitting like a boy waiting for Heckram's reply. His posture said that he was a man now, and they were men discussing the ways of herd life. Idly he wondered who the girl was, and how well Lasse would herd the impulses of his heart. But when he spoke aloud, he said coldly, 'No. I've never regretted my waiting.' Only hers. But he did not add the last aloud, and Lasse would never suspect it.
If Lasse heard, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he abruptly announced, 'Capiam is thinking of asking Tillu to come with us to the summer grounds.'
Heckram stiffened slightly. 'What for?'
'What for?' Lasse echoed incredulously. 'As healer, of course. How long has it been since we've had one? The old women do their best, but all they know is what they have from their mothers. They aren't really healers. And Tillu is good, even if she couldn't save Elsa. Look how well my arm healed.'
After she shot you, Heckram thought to himself. And you'll never know just how effective her 'cure' for Elsa was, my friend.
'Lanya took her son over to see Tillu,' Lasse was gossiping on. 'For that rash he's always had. Tillu asked a lot of questions and then told the boy, "no more reindeer milk or chee
se." The rash is nearly gone now. And she made a rub for my grandmother's shoulder that takes the stiffness out, even in the cold weather.'
'I expect she'll come with us, then,' Heckram observed. He hadn't spoken to her since Elsa's death. His lack of feeling puzzled him. Either he should be grateful to her for ending Elsa's suffering, or hate her for ending Elsa's life. This peculiar emptiness he felt was inappropriate. It was too close to what he had felt at the thought of marrying Elsa.
Did he think the healer was as inevitable? Idly he took out his belt knife to cut a slender whip from a nearby sapling. He began to whittle at it, half listening to Lasse.
'If Capiam asks her, I bet she'll come. There's some talk against the idea. Joboam can't stand her half-wit son. He says the boy has wolf eyes. Some of the others feel the same.
Kerlew didn't seem all that strange to me, but the other -'
'Kerlew is not a half-wit,' Heckram said firmly, and this time it was the strength of his emotion that surprised him. His knife bit deeply into the bark.
'Well, that's true, I suppose. I mean, he doesn't go about drooling or anything like that. But when Missa tried to send him for water that morning, he acted like he couldn't understand what she wanted. Finally she gave him the bucket and pointed at the spring. When he got to the spring, he turned the bucket upside down and sat on it.
Didn't go any farther, just sat and stared at the water, with that spooky look in his eyes.
Then he knelt down and touched the blood-stained snow ...' Lasse's voice suddenly faltered. He cleared his throat, obviously shortening his story. 'Two of Kelr's little boys tried to talk to him, but he didn't answer. So they pelted him with snow, just to stir him, you know how boys are. And Kerlew, twice their age, ran back to Tillu, howling. And wouldn't go back, for the bucket or the water. You can't say that isn't strange.'
'The strangest part is that Kelr would let his sons so treat a stranger.' A chunk of bark flew.
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