“Are you saying it’s not true that you mistreated her—”
“Mistreated her? Is that what she told you? That I mistreated her—”
“That you all mistreated her. That you, your brother, your father—”
“My father? She spoke against my father, did she?” Your cheeks flush red, whether with shame or anger I can’t be certain.
“Do you deny it? Do you deny that her safety was neglected by your father on a gathering trip? Are you saying she lied when she told me that she was lost and spent a night alone, outside on the grassland, while she was supposed to be in the care of your father and mother—”
“I do not deny it. I do not deny those events. Yes, she became lost. Yes, she was with my family. But I am convinced that whatever sad tale of mistreatment she told you is completely and utterly false—”
“Then here’s your chance. Free me from my misconceptions. Tell me the truth.”
You stare into my face unflinchingly. Without meaning to, I take a step back. “I will not be made to answer to her lies. She is no longer of any consequence to me.” You pause to catch your breath, the words flying out of your mouth like angry bees pouring from a hive. “Maybe Lo is the perfect girl for you. She certainly wouldn’t hesitate to accept a gift for fear it was an attempt to buy her affections.”
“I have never tried to purchase anyone’s affections. Not hers. Not yours.” I stoop to pick up the honey in its lovely cup made from a leaf of some distant, exotic tree. I had been so happy to see this gift. It had seemed such a fitting peace offering.
If only it could have been.
“You should take this with you,” I say, shoving it into your hand. “I wouldn’t want you to be accused of trying to purchase mine.”
I get only a glimpse of the western sky—the streaks of red having faded, yielding to the hard dull gray of water in winter—before the door drapes closed behind you.
TWENTY
I return to the feast, but it holds nothing for me.
My brothers Kesh and Roon are busy making fools of themselves, taking turns lifting the heavy stones that encircle the hearth to show off to the girls. Shava and Lees applaud and call out cheers of encouragement. The giddy quality of their voices prickles me and I slow my steps. Even our mother calls for a spear-throwing contest between them, but thankfully the night is growing too dark.
Chev sits near the fire with my parents, my aunts and uncles, and the elders of my clan and yours. A bowl of mead rests within reach of each person. I notice that no one has come from the Bosha except for Shava and her mother—not Lo, not her father, not even Orn or Anki. No one accepted my invitation. Chev stands with a flourish, with the self-importance of someone about to make an announcement of great weight. I ignore him. Chev’s proclamations don’t interest me.
Instead, I focus my attention on the boys at the edge of the crowd. My eleven-year-old cousins are showing off a handful of spear points they made to a younger boy—Tram. Just seven years old, Tram sits wide-eyed, oblivious to the presence of the man who killed his father. His mother is also dead, having plunged into the cold sea from a kayak in the middle of a moonless night not long after her husband’s burial. She left the boy in my family’s hut while we all slept, unaware, as she walked down to the shore alone. It was his cries at daybreak that woke us to the horror of the abandoned kayak, floating empty, a dark blue shadow on the dark gray water.
I’m pulled back to the present by the loud cheers of your little sister Lees. Roon has just beaten Kesh in a footrace down to the beach and back, and as my aunt Ama declares him the winner, Lees throws her arms around his neck and kisses him on the cheek.
Poor Roon. He has no idea what kind of pain she will inevitably cause him.
I turn to head back to our hut. I am in no mood for drinking mead and singing songs anymore tonight.
I hear footsteps behind me and spin around, somehow expecting to see you there, but find Shava instead.
“Aren’t you staying?”
“I’m tired,” I say. “I think I should go in and rest.”
“Did Pek go back to your hut?”
What kind of question is this, I wonder. After all, for most of the evening, Shava has been getting reacquainted with Kesh.
“He might have,” I lie.
“Well, if you see him, tell him I wish him the best. Now that Seeri’s brother has allowed her to break off her betrothal—”
“What? When?”
“His announcement, just before Kesh and Roon raced. Didn’t you . . . You saw them race, right? I felt so bad for Kesh. He says Roon cheated when they were on the beach—didn’t go all the way to the water, like he was supposed to—”
Behind her, from the layered gloom of evening shadows, Kesh calls her name. She turns and slides away, offering only a vague wave over her shoulder to me.
I head back into my family’s hut, and as I pass through the door I’m surprised by a murmur of voices and the rattle of beaded bracelets on a wrist. My lie to Shava wasn’t a lie after all. Pek stands in the center of the rug, right where your cup of honey had been. Seeri is with him, and as I step in through the door the two of them spring apart.
“Sorry,” I say, but Seeri nearly knocks me over on her way to the door. The mask of happiness on my brother’s face shatters as she moves out of his reach.
“No, don’t apologize. I . . .” Seeri searches for something to say, and my heart aches. I hate to be the one coming between them. If what Shava says is true and Seeri will be breaking off her betrothal, the two of them should have a bit of privacy together.
But before I can say another word, Seeri has said a hasty good night and fled.
I fall onto my bed. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I swear, Pek, if I’d known the two of you were in here—”
“Did you hear? He’s going to do it. Chev’s breaking her betrothal. He said he didn’t want it to stand in the way of a possible alliance.” Pek picks up one of the ivory harpoons and twirls it. “Father will speak to him for me soon—I’m sure. But Kol, our parents won’t let me marry until you are at least betrothed. You know that, don’t you?”
I remember what you said earlier—that Seeri would not marry until you were betrothed. “Pek, I will do everything I can.”
He’s at the door. It’s so dark inside the hut now; he is little more than an outline. “I’m going to go find her and head back to the feast. I’d rather sit with Seeri in a big crowd than sit without her in here.”
And then he’s gone.
Songs and laughter go on long into the night. The hut, though empty, feels crowded with ghosts—your mother, Tram’s father, your betrothed. Even Tram’s mother lends her presence, stirring a sense of regret, both for the things that have happened and for the things that never will.
Voices still ring out from the feast when I finally fall asleep.
In the morning, I pretend I’m still asleep when I hear my mother rise to start cooking. She moves around noisily behind the hides that divide the hut into a separate sleeping area for her and my father. She groans as she dresses; I can tell that last night’s mead is hurting her a bit this morning. It takes her longer than usual—her feet shuffle a bit more slowly—and I hear my father’s voice, deep and rough, asking her a question I can’t quite make out. It may be a request to be quieter so that he can sleep.
Eventually, the rustling stops, and she finishes her routine and heads out into the early light.
It isn’t long, though, before she returns. I hear her speaking my father’s name, in a loud whisper designed to wake him but not the rest of us. “Her mother,” she says. “She wants to speak with you. You better wake up because I believe it’s serious.”
My first thought is that she is talking about Seeri—that Seeri is the “she” my mother refers to. But she said her mother wants to speak, and Seeri has only a brother. Whose mother wants to speak to my father?
After an extended exchange, my father finally asks in a voice loud enough to be hea
rd by the entire hut, “Well, what’s so important that she has to wake me before dawn?”
“She wants to discuss a betrothal. Not Pek this time, of course, poor girl. She’s had her taste of that disappointment, and she sees what’s going on with Seeri. It’s Kol she wishes to discuss with you.”
At these words I sit bolt upright. They can mean only Shava. Shava’s mother wishes to discuss the possibility of a betrothal to me.
I’m on my feet and pulling on my pants before my father has a chance to frame an answer. “Excuse me,” I say from the side of the hut I share with Pek, Kesh, and Roon—all of whom appear to be sleeping soundly. “May I please add my thoughts to this discussion?”
My mother pulls back the hide between the two rooms and stares at me with a look of disapproval. “You’re awake early,” she says. “Awake and listening at doors, I see.”
This reprimand reminds me of the night I offered you the honey and you accused me of the same thing, even said the same words. “I wasn’t listening. It couldn’t be helped. It’s possible Shava’s mother heard you herself. Where did she and Shava sleep last night?”
“The kitchen. There was nowhere else, since I had ten elders from the Olen to find room for. But it’s comfortable enough, and warm. I assure you they slept fine—”
“They must have,” says my father. “They managed to wake early so they could greet you with this proposition.” My father smiles and leans back on his bed with his arms crossed behind his head. I can see the thoughts darting around in his eyes. He’s considering the idea.
“Don’t bother,” I say, and now it’s my turn to be heard all the way in the kitchen. “Don’t bother considering it, because I will not do it.”
My mother turns to me, and her stare carries the weight of a mountain of disapproval. It presses me back into the doorway, but I will not allow her to intimidate me, not on this issue. Not on something as life changing as becoming betrothed.
“Who are you,” my mother starts slowly, “to be choosy about a wife? Do you have a line of possible choices leading to this door? If you do, now might be the time to make your father and me aware of them. Because you are the oldest child of the clan’s High Elder, Kol. Your brother may marry Seeri and help us form an alliance with the Olen, but it is you who is to inherit your father’s position and your child who is to inherit yours. If you never marry—if you never have a child—”
“Then Pek’s child will be the next High Elder—”
“That might happen. Or the clan might start to question the will of the Divine. The clan might decide that the Divine has ceased to favor us and has chosen another family to lead. Or worse. The clan could splinter apart. That cannot happen, Kol. This clan may move, but it must not end.”
“So if my child is to ensure the future of this clan, doesn’t it matter who my child’s mother might be? You would have me marry Shava? A girl who is so fickle she shifts from devotion to Pek to devotion to me in one afternoon?”
“What makes you think this is about Shava’s devotion? Her mother may simply be trying to find her the best match—”
“If her mother is acting on her own, then I pity Shava. But it doesn’t matter. Mother, I know Shava is a girl of good intentions. I believe her mother means well, too. But it doesn’t matter. Shava is not at all the type of girl that I would hope to marry—”
“When did you and Pek become so incredibly arrogant?” The voice comes from behind me—it’s the voice of my brother Kesh, standing beside his bed, pulling a parka over his shoulders. I turn to see him shove the hair from his face and I almost don’t recognize him. His eyes, narrow with reproach, preside over features that seem to have aged overnight. His boyish roundness has been replaced by the angular lines of a tightly clenched jaw. “You are both so blinded by arrogance that you have become incapable of judging the value of a girl.” These last words he says as he slides his feet into his boots. Without another word, he heads out the door into the brightening day.
I follow him as soon as I can get my own boots on. I run out still pulling on my parka, but summer is upon us, so the morning air has less of an edge to it and the kitchen isn’t far. I’m not certain what Kesh intends to do, but I have a suspicion. I’m not sure what I’m thinking—whether I intend to try to stop him or just to be there as his brother.
By the time I reach the doorway of the kitchen, my brother is inside. His unexpected arrival seems to have drawn the attention of not just Shava and her mother, but also the few cooks who rise early to work with my mother in the kitchen. As I burst through the door, I join a group of six or seven people gathered around Kesh. Shava stands dead center, with a face like the sky as the sun comes up.
“Shava,” Kesh says. “Before anything more is said between our parents this morning, I have something I want to say myself.” My brother, my little brother whose music speaks so eloquently, has never found it easy to put his feelings into words. But he plows forward. “Last night, when you came to sit with me, I felt something change in my life. I felt like something I’d lost had been found—something I’d lost but had never even known I was missing.” Kesh takes a quick glance at Shava’s flushed face before dropping his eyes back to the floor and continuing. “I’m not sure what you want or what you are hoping for. I’m not sure what kind of man you or your mother would consider a good match for you. But I know that you are the kind of girl I would consider a good match for me.” He raises his head and finds Shava’s mother. Turning toward her, he continues. “I understand you intend to speak to my parents this morning. I would like to ask if you would be willing to speak to them about me.”
Shava’s mother smiles, but tears fill her eyes. “I will leave that up to Shava. You will have to ask her.”
A rush of wind whistles in the vent like a sigh as Kesh turns back to Shava. “If you are willing,” he says, “I would like to marry you.”
The room falls silent when Kesh makes this unassuming statement. At first, Shava doesn’t respond. She stands studying him, her lips pursed, but she doesn’t speak. Then a quiet sob rolls out of her, and my brother Kesh—my sweet, quiet, awkward brother Kesh—steps toward her and takes her by the hand. Her shoulders shake with sobs until he is close enough for her to set her head on his shoulder. She tips her head up toward his ear and murmurs something, but her voice is muffled against his neck.
Finally, Kesh lifts his head and looks at all of us. He smiles, and in his smile I see the brother I know—not the brother who loses his temper and scolds me and Pek on our attitudes toward girls, not the brother who runs out of the hut to stop a betrothal, but the brother who plays the flute and finds it hard to talk in front of anyone not in our immediate family.
“She said yes,” he says, and the kitchen erupts in cheers.
And just that fast, my brother Kesh, only fifteen years old, becomes betrothed to be married.
TWENTY-ONE
The morning meal this day is sparsely attended. Feasts and celebrations at this time of year, with daylight stretching long into night and no cold crash of dark to drive people back into the safety of their huts, often run long toward morning. People sleep late to overcome the effects of the revelry and the mead. But my family and Shava’s family are seated around the hearth in the gathering place, and a meal of mammoth meat is served. Urar sets to lighting a flame in his oil lamp to draw good fortune to the couple, and my father goes from hut to hut to call the musicians and to personally announce the match.
The musicians, of course, collect quickly, as Kesh is one of their own. They play traditional songs reserved for weddings and betrothals, and more people emerge from their huts. Even an aching head can’t stop most people from celebrating the announcement of an impending marriage, especially in a clan that hasn’t heard such news in so many years.
By the time the meal is over most of the camp is awake, but neither you nor anyone from your family has appeared. Members of both the Manu and the Olen have offered up gifts to the couple—the old man who prepared the
food last night gives them a scraper made from red jasper, and my aunt Ama’s family presents them with a fishing net of knotted kelp. All the gifts they receive are personal and painstakingly crafted—an ivory sewing needle, a generous length of twine, a large bison pelt—things that will turn a new hut into a household.
Something hard forms in my throat. I can only suspect that I am jealous. Kesh and Shava, Pek and Seeri. Even Roon clearly has a prospect in your sister Lees.
But today is not about me. Today is about Kesh. I watch him as he sits cross-legged on the ground in the center of the meeting place playing his flute with a force of joy that bends the notes and turns them skyward, as if they belong to the birds or even to the Divine.
My sister-to-be, Shava, sits close beside Kesh. Funny, I think, how a girl can annoy two brothers and enthrall the third. Yet at this moment, Shava’s usual anxiety replaced by contentment, I can imagine the sweetness Kesh sees in her. Memories flash, images lighting quickly in my mind’s eye, of Kesh and Shava, eight or nine years old, playing on the beach. Before Lil gave him the flute, Shava was his partner in digging up worms. And after, as he learned to play, she was always his first audience when he learned a new song.
Was Kesh in love with Shava even then? Did it break his heart when she fell for Pek? When her family left our clan?
The meal is over but the music plays on. A few of my cousins, too young to remember the last time our clan had a wedding, get up and dance. I move toward the center of the crowd and the sound and movement swirl around me. The world outside this tight circle of family blurs and loses meaning. My mother’s sister grabs my hands and spins me around. I close my eyes and try to block out any thoughts beyond this ring of happiness and hope.
For a moment—a brief fleeting moment—it works. But then I open my eyes to right myself as I turn in place, and I notice something move outside the circle of dancers.
Ivory and Bone Page 16
