The Shaman and the Droll

by Jack Lasenby

  The Shaman lifted his head and sniffed, but I ran past him to the door and the bright clean air. The snow had stopped. In the smooth drifts, Nip leapt and disappeared, coughing, spluttering. Gullies, hollows filled in, it was all one enormous level plain surrounded by humped rows of blue and white mountains. And somewhere, the sound of bells. Faint, precise as a frozen decoration across the white sky.

  The Shaman nodded when I told him. “The Seal People will be here tomorrow.”

  “But the bells… They must be close.”

  “They only sound close.”

  All day the air carried the faint jingle, an occasional cry. We rolled out and scoured huge cooking pots. Sometimes I heard voices, barking, whips. And always the bells.

  They appeared next afternoon, black dots that grew to sledges, their runners whining across the hard-topped snow. Drawn by tall dogs. Thick-furred, erect-eared, bushy tails arched over their backs, and staring from pale eyes. I had tied Jak and Nip inside the cave. “Their dogs are fierce,” the Shaman said. “Let them get used to Jak and Nip’s smell.” He had hidden me inside the outer door, where I could see through a crack.

  Wrapped in furs, old people and babies rode the sledges. The others ran beside them shouting, shoving, cracking whips. In hooded tunics and trousers of fur, the Seal People all looked the same. Then I saw the women had strings of beads braided through their hair and sewn in patterns across the shoulders of their tunics, red and blue. They wore long boots that came above their knees and gave a strange gawkiness to their walk. The men’s boots were shorter, of sealskin. No beads on their tunics. The children had tiny bells sewn all over theirs.

  In all this vast white world, how had these people found their way to the Shaman’s cave? If I looked away would they vanish? Air shaking with cries and a distant jingle?

  The great dogs dropped in their traces. Here and there one stood and looked towards the cave. Scenting Jak and Nip.

  The Seal People prodded the snow with spears. “Here!” one called and the others ran with long knives. On a wide terrace below the cave they drew circles in the snow. In pairs they cut out slabs of snow and stood them in circular walls leaning inwards. I thought of my clumsy shelters… These men cut a slant on their slabs so the walls grew in a continuous spiral, so fast the first dome was almost finished. A glance at the hole in the top. A quick trim with the knife, a slab of snow shoved up: perfect fit! The man inside carved his way out through the curved wall, digging out a tunnel, walling and roofing it at the same time. The entry faced away from the direction of the wind that had brought the storm.

  Children drove pegs and tethered the dogs. Women tossed snow over the domes, patting it into the cracks. A dog bristled and snarled at another, but lay again. An occasional one stood and looked towards the cave.

  People carried inside furs, baskets, bags, harness, and cooking pots. Spears leaned against the walls, the sledges with their leather bindings pushed up on top of the snow-houses, out of reach of the dogs. Everyone vanished. Out of a clear sky, snow drifted. The dogs tucked noses under tails. Thick coats speckling white, they began to disappear.

  Jak and Nip whined as the Shaman strode to the door. His bone mask showed through the bear’s eye slits. Tall before the cave, the Shaman stood. Dogs leapt, scattering snow. Barking. People bursting out of the tunnels, running, throwing themselves prone. The Shaman turned towards them, that peculiar movement – the whole body turning with his head.

  “What brings you here?” His voice flat across the snow.

  From one of the figures, face down: “We have need of our Shaman.”

  “What need?”

  “Sickness. Of mind and body.”

  “Bring me your sick,” said the bearskin-covered head. “If they can be cured, I will make them well. If they cannot recover, I will tell you. This is the Shaman’s promise.”

  I followed him inside the inner door, dropped the curtain across. Scratching sounds, whispers. The Shaman nodded. I drew back the curtain. A body lay on a stretcher in the outer chamber.

  We dragged it in by the fire. A young man. Unconscious. Clawed down the side of his head, left ear torn off. A loose flap of scalp. Deep slashes continued down his neck, shoulder, back.

  I filled a large bowl with hot water and brought the soap the Shaman called for. Not like the brown soap the Travellers made from mutton fat and ashes mixed with pumice dust to help it scour clean. Neither scented nor coloured like the soap in the Garden of Dene. This soap was white with a fishy smell.

  “Clean your hands before and after healing,” the Shaman said, “to protect the sick and yourself. Many illnesses can be cured with soap and hot water.”

  I copied him, scrubbing with a harsh piece of trimmed bearskin, cleaning under my fingernails with the tip of my knife.

  The Shaman ran his fingertips over the wounds. “White bear clawing.” His fingers traced, tested the flesh. “Too late to stitch. Feel the heat coming off?” He put my hand to the proud flesh. “Infection. Feel his head.” It, too, was hot. The Shaman leaned forward and smelled the wounds.

  “Train your nose, Ish. Every illness has its own smell. Your nose is as important as your hands, your ears, if you are to be a healer.”

  I leaned forward and sniffed.

  “Remember that smell. Infected flesh beginning to rot. We will clean the wounds, dress them with salves. But first examine him all over. There might be other things more urgent.”

  The Shaman’s fingers ran over the man’s entire body. Somebody with sight would watch his fingers, but the Shaman kept his head up, so his fingers seemed to move by themselves, as if they decided what to do. I told myself that was a silly idea. Then I saw the Shaman seemed to be listening, holding his head like that, not looking down at his fingers while they ran over the man.

  The Shaman leaned forward, ear to the man’s chest, listening to his heart, I thought. But he also listened to his belly. And, as he felt and listened, he smelled. He took my fingers, guided them over three ribs on the same side as the bear’s slashes. I could feel they were cracked. The right leg was sewn inside a tight bandage of sealskin. I slit it off with a knife, and the Shaman led my fingers to where the leg was broken.

  “To the left of the shelves of little pots, the split sticks. Bring a bundle with the lashings hanging beside them.”

  We washed the man all over. The Shaman made me bring together the broken ends of the leg bone. My hands worked under his, my fingers learning from his touch. We straightened the leg, got it into the right position. I lashed the splints alongside so it could not move, the Shaman’s fingers moving lightly over my work.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “a broken arm or leg heals stronger than it was before. The ends of broken bone grow back together like broken flesh. But they must match so the man will not limp, one leg short.”

  Around the man’s chest we strapped bands of sealskin to support the cracked ribs as they repaired themselves. Some of these things I had done before when Taur and myself or the dogs had been hurt.

  “The smallest pot on the second shelf down. The large pot on the floor beneath the shelves.” I fetched them. “The jar to the right of those shelves, on a shelf of its own. With three rings around its neck.”

  We spread the wounds with a sweet-smelling ointment from the large pot. From the jar, I drifted a fine, yellow powder over the inside of the flap of scalp, as the Shaman told me. I sniffed it and remembered the yellow stuff Hagar used for dyeing cloth.

  “Sulphur,” said the Shaman. “Now, work the flap back into place. Hold it there with a bandage.” I smeared the strip of cloth with ointment, and we wound it around the man’s head.

  “Cloth!”

  “The bandage?” said the Shaman. “Yes. The Seal People used to trade for cloth, to make bandages. The people they traded with were killed out by Salt Men. Once the last of these bandages are worn out, we will have to use sealskin strips.”

  “I can make cloth.” The Shaman turned to my voice, as if looking at me
, that strange movement. For a moment I thought I felt his gaze and felt foolish.

  “You can make cloth?”

  “If I could get goat hair, or wool. I know how to weave.”

  The Shaman nodded and knelt over the sick man, chanting something half-aloud. The man’s eyes opened.

  “I am the Shaman. You are in my cave. I am making you well.” The Shaman pointed to the fire where a small pot hung. I tipped its contents into a bowl, stirred it. The Shaman gestured again, and I held it to the man’s lips. My hand trembled.

  “You are going to sleep,” said the Shaman. “Healing sleep. Each day you will wake stronger.”

  His voice so calm my hand steadied. The liquid filled the man’s mouth, and he swallowed. Gagged a little, swallowed again.

  “All of it.”

  I tipped up the bowl.

  “Now, sleep!” The firm voice comforted the man. The fear had left his face. Breathing easy, he slept.

  We carried him to one of the bunks. His body so relaxed, one arm fell heavily. I tucked it under the furs.

  “His sleep will be deep. ‘If the mind be not satisfied, the body can never be cured.’”

  I looked at the Shaman. “I read that in a book,” he said. “Wise words from long ago.”

  “I would like to read that book.”

  “You will. And many others.”

  I put the splints, the lashings we had not used, the pots and bowls and bandages back in their places. The Shaman ran his hands over the shelves. Checked everything.

  “A time will come when you, too, will have to work in darkness. Your fingers and hands must be able to find everything you need. Now, wash your hands and look in the outer chamber again.”

  “There is a woman. Tied down on a stretcher. She is screaming without sound.”

  “Heta.”

  We dragged in the stretcher. The woman tossed her head, babbled as the Shaman undid a leather strip over her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Mouth frothed. Shrieked. Words that made no sense.

  While the Shaman examined her, I heated more of the same drink we had given the man. The Shaman put his hands one either side of the woman’s head, steadied it. She snorted, spat out the liquid, but calmed at the Shaman’s voice and touch, long enough to empty the bowl. The tossing and shrieking began again.

  “You are going to sleep, Heta.” He repeated the words till her eyes closed.

  Her body was fouled. We washed her all over, wrapping her in clean furs. Carried her to another bunk. The Shaman felt and smelled her skin all over from head to foot, listened to her body as he had the man’s. She slept, but uneasily, twisting as if in torment.

  “Can you see anything wrong with her body?”

  “No.” My voice sounded unsure to me. I felt the flesh on her arm again, down one side. “It’s as if…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s slack. Her flesh…”

  “Yes?”

  “As if it’s lost something. Its strength.”

  “That could be because she has been lying a long time.”

  “More than that. Here, on her arms, and her sides, as if the flesh itself has sagged away from her skeleton. The same thing here. And yet she’s not old.”

  “Good. Do you know what hell means, Ish?”

  “Hagar told me stories of hell, a burning underground place where some say the wicked go.”

  “Some people used to believe that. Another thing I read in the book I mentioned before: ‘If there is a hell on earth it is to be found in a melancholy man’s heart.’ This woman is suffering hell in her heart. We cannot even begin to understand what she suffers.”

  “What can we do?”

  “She has gone into another country, too far for me to reach. I cannot cure her, cannot relieve her for long, cannot comfort her except with sleep. And that only for a few days.”

  They lay there on the fur-covered bunks: the man’s wounds upon his body; the woman’s inside her head. He slept unmoving. She writhed, dreaming something so terrible I had to look away.

  The Shaman was listening to her movements. I looked at him, and it was only then I remembered his blindness. All he had done was with his hands, his touch, and other senses. Especially his sense of smell.

  As if he could hear my thoughts, he said, “You will learn confidence, too. Now,” his voice sharp, “what did you say about weaving?”

  “The Travellers,” I told him, “were weavers, the women. They made cloth to swap with the Metal People. Old Hagar taught me to weave because we were the last of the Travellers. I can spin wool and hair into yarn. And the yarn I can weave into cloth.” Had I said too much?

  “You must have been sent to help me.” Surely he was smiling! Ever so slight, but a smile. A deepening of the wrinkles, the slightest stretching of the lines that marked his face, their crackled pattern.

  “The Seal People do not weave, but they make yarn, string, from their hair. They are clever-fingered. They would soon learn to weave, if you could show them.”

  He laid a hand on the woman’s head. “Heta’s illness began as unhappiness, deepened, fixed into what some call madness. Some of the books call it depression. I have treated it before. Sometimes I succeeded, though I think it was time and the sufferer who cured it themselves. Now I must admit failure with Heta. There is something said by a healer, in another book: ‘To cure sometimes; to relieve often; to comfort always.’

  “You must learn to ask questions of yourself, Ish, if you are to become a healer. Have you the right to keep somebody alive, who is not just unhappy but in deep misery? Whose life is everlasting torment? Whom you cannot even comfort?”

  He strode to the door and called a name. “Kala!”

  A man ran from one of the snow-houses. Knelt. “Heta has only got worse since the last time,” said the Shaman. I have made her sleep, but can do nothing more. Here is something to make her sleep again, when she wakes, but she will wake from that sleep, too. You must make Heta a house of her own.”

  The man’s hood was over his face, but I heard his voice, low, urgent. “It is the Droll. Heta offended her.” The fringe of dog hair shook around the edge of his hood.

  “Heta fell ill in her mind,” said the Shaman. “After young Kalaiti’s birth. It sometimes happens. She has never recovered. That is all.”

  “She offended the Droll!”

  I helped the man carry his wife out to the sledge. Under his hood, I saw a dark face, shadowed eyes, drawn cheeks. He did not look up.

  Whine! Strain! Paws scrabbling the hardened snow. The man heaved against the handles at the back of the sledge. A crack, the runners breaking out of the ice. The dogs barked as they shot out on to that white plain. I watched until they became a black dot that disappeared. I thought of how the Travellers used to leave their old and sick behind and shivered.

  We were sitting in front of the fire when the Shaman said, “There is no such thing as the Droll. These people believe in her. But there is no such thing.” His voice sounded strained.

  “The Droll? Nonsense!” He muttered something else.

  The curtain hanging over the inner door had blown open. I checked the outer door, made sure it was fastened, and dropped the heavy inner curtain back into place.

  “Superstition!” said the Shaman. “People like to scare themselves. If they do not understand, they invent. And what they invent is often worse than the truth. Superstition!”

  He was quiet, but I waited. I knew he was going to speak again.

  “That is why you must learn to read. Then you can help these people. Curing their bodies is one thing. Curing their minds another. Curing them of superstition – even harder.”

  Two days later, I saw a black spot out on the white plain. All that morning it grew until it became a sledge. Coming fast because it was empty.

  Would the woman have woken and known she was abandoned before the cold stopped her heart? Was it a kindness to leave her there? Kinder to try and keep her alive in torment?

  And I rem
embered Hagar’s last illness. The foul killer inside her belly. How I gave her the Dark Shrub which released her. Was I any better than the Shaman? Than the husband who had built a snow-house and driven away leaving his wife to die? When I asked the Shaman he turned up his hands in the firelight.

  He brought in Kala, took him to his own seat by the fire, sat him down. “What you did was right,” said the Shaman. “Kind. Heta is free of unhappiness, the pain which was all she could ever know.”

  The Shaman held Kala in his arms, bent his own head against the Seal Man’s. When I noticed something – perhaps a fleck of snow – that glistened under the mask and slid down the Shaman’s blind cheeks, I felt myself just a boy, one with much to learn.

  Chapter 17

  Risk and Responsibility

  We got up early and swung the cooking pots from great hooks that dangled in the chimney. Filled them with water, lowered in joints of meat. All morning the cave filled with the comfortable smell, and I heard the pleasant plop! plop! from the simmering cauldrons.

  At midday, the Shaman stood outside, both arms raised. Like gaudy flowers blossoming from their white domes, brightly-clothed people burst out. Shouting. Laughing. Calling. Children tumbling like pups, bells ringing through their cries. The Shaman beckoned, and I ran back and stood by the fire. The Seal People jostled in, chattering, exclaiming when they saw the sick man asleep in his bunk.

  Earlier, I had changed the dressings on his wounds, checked the strapping around his ribs, the splints on his leg, the bandage around his head. His name was Taka, and he was going to live.

  “I am Ish,” I told him, as the Shaman had taught me. “You are getting better, but you must lie still because your leg is broken, and several of your ribs. We have set the leg so it will grow straight and strong again. Your ribs will start to feel better in a few days.

  “The bear clawed your head, down your neck and shoulder, down your side. All that is healing. You had a fever, but it has gone.”

  Taka had a blunt round face, a flat nose, small round eyes. As I helped him piss into a metal bowl, as the Shaman helped me slide a large flat bowl under him so he could shit into it, I remembered where I had seen that face before. I washed and dried him with a piece of bear skin and thought of the Guardians’ moon faces high in the mountain pass between the Western Coast and the land of the lake.