The Reindeer People (25 page)

The hoarse cry rang in Tillu's ears and jerked her from sleep. It was inside the tent. She heard the rustle of flung hides and the sound of quick movement, panting breath. Tillu rolled from her pallet onto her knees and came to her feet with a short jabbing spear in her hands. She gripped the close-quarters weapon, glaring with sleep-blurred eyes around the darkened interior of the tent. Nothing stirred. Her eyes probed the shadowed corners. All was still and quiet. Her heart slowed its hammering. Kerlew was a hunched bundle under his sleeping furs. She saw him twitch them in closer and guessed he was awake. Awake and hiding from wolves. She sighed as she stepped to the tent door and peered out into the darkness. Nothing at all. Just the cold and the empty darkness under the trees beneath the starry skies of early morning. She turned to Joboam. He was propped up on one elbow. His wide eyes shone black.

'What did you see?' she demanded.

'I ... yellow eyes. Staring at me.' His breathing was coming in ragged gasps. Tillu set down the spear and stepped to the firewood stacked neatly by the door. She tossed a few sticks onto the dying coals of the fire and then crossed the tent to kneel by Joboam. She touched the side of his neck and then his bandaged arm with quick, cool fingers. His face was still heavy with sleep and the pain of her healing.

'Your fever's broken. That's all. Sometimes when one goes from fever sleep to dreaming, the dreams are bright and hard. There's nothing here. Go back to sleep.'

'I ...' Joboam seemed both dazed and exhausted. He looked about her tent in bewilderment. 'What am I doing here?'

Tillu hunkered down on her heels beside him. The earth was cold under her bare feet. 'You came to have me heal your arm, remember? I gave you a tea to relax you, and dug a bone splinter out of your arm, and bandaged it. Your arm bled again, you were sleepy from the tea, and draining the swelling of your arm gave you a fever. That sometimes happens. We healers say the body burns itself clean. So I let the fever burn, but not too high. And now you are better. Remember? You woke twice and I gave you water. Remember?' She spoke soothingly, as if to a frightened child. After a moment Joboam relaxed.

'Yes. Yes, I remember now. Drink and rest, you told me. But the wolf ... I felt his hot breath in my face. His eyes were yellow and he laughed at me ...'

'A dream. Only a dream.' Tillu pushed the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, checked once more for fever. The man smelled sour with fear. 'You've sweated out the poisons. That's good. Sleep now, and by morning you'll be ready to go home.'

'Yes. I'll sleep.' His words started to drag, and then suddenly he was up on one elbow again, deep creases furrowed between his brows. 'A bone fragment? From my arm?'

'Not your own bone. A piece of worked bone or horn.'

'Where is it? Let me see it. I want it.'

'It's here, it's right here, just a moment,' Tillu soothed him. Shadows in the tent were deep. She was tired and sleepy and growing impatient with his dream fears and compulsions. Her fingers trailed along the earth floor, finding first his knife, then a piece of bark, then some bits of the moss she had used to clean his wound. She groped some more, her toes going numb against the cold earth. 'I'll find it in the morning,' she promised, wondering why he was so anxious. She offered him the knife, hilt first, 'I borrowed your knife to open your arm. My own is old and dull, and a sharp blade is best for such work.'

He took it from her wordlessly, stared at it in puzzlement, and then let it fall from his fingers back onto the dirt floor. He rolled onto his back and stared into the shadowed point of the ceiling. 'Wolf. It was Wolf, and he showed me two knives. One was whole, and one was ... broken. He showed them to me, and then he laughed. He said ... he laughed. That was all.'

'A dream. Just a fever dream.' She wished he would go back to sleep. She was getting cold, crouched here in just her long shirt. She was taken by surprise when his good arm shot out suddenly and his hand gripped her upper arm hard.

'Tell no one,' he ordered her fiercely, if you tell anyone you healed me, I'll kill you.'

'Easy.' She pulled at his digging fingers, wincing as his grip only tightened. 'You're dreaming still. Let go, you're hurting me. Let go!'

'Tell no one!' he repeated insistently. His eyes blazed.

'I won't tell anyone. Why would anyone be interested? Let go.'

'Good. Don't tell.' He stared at her. His grip loosened but he did not free her. Instead he pulled her close, until she was leaning over the pallet. His eyes darted to the shadows behind her, then came back and moved slowly down her body, 'I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry.'

'Let go of me.'

'Don't be angry. I was ... it was just the dream. I didn't mean to hurt you.' His voice was low, soft.

'I know that and I'm not angry. Just let me go.'

'Why?' His eyes still burned, but with a different fire. He winced slightly as he moved his other hand up to touch her face, 'I saw you looking at me. Before you healed my arm.' She pulled back from the caress, baring her teeth.

'Let go of me, or I'll hurt you.' She spoke quietly.

'You? You're no bigger than a child!' He smiled indulgently. His free hand touched her breast through the thin leather of her shirt, pinching her nipple. Then he gasped as her hand fell on his injured arm and tightened on the bandage.

'I'm not pretending. Let go of me, or I'll give you pain.'

His grip dropped from her arm and she sprang back instantly. 'You leave my tent tomorrow morning.' She bit the words off. She could feel Kerlew watching, listening. 'As soon as it's light. Do not come back.'

Joboam eased himself back onto the pallet. He stared at her with round eyes. 'Like a little wolverine. I didn't mean to hurt you, Tillu. And you shouldn't try to hurt me. Come here.' He smiled crookedly, only encouraged by her rebuff.

She stared at him. He had actually believed she wanted him. Still believed it, still believed her reluctance was a game. Had she wanted him? She turned her back on him and went silently back to her pallet. She could not hide from his eyes; they followed her as she lay down and covered herself again. Her heart beat a little faster and she felt more vulnerable lying down. He was a big man, and strong. She let her arm slip down beside her pallet, to find the short spear. She closed her eyes, but listened for movement. She would not sleep again this night. She opened her eyes slightly, peered through her lashes at the fire as it devoured the sticks and fell into coals again. Beneath her lashes she glanced at Joboam. His face was turned toward her, watching her. Smiling.

She pulled her eyes away. Had she wanted him? No. A man, yes, her body hungered for a man. She was a woman, she had her needs. Desire swelled and ebbed inside her with the cycle of the moon. Some nights her thoughts were filled with images of men, and her thighs tingled and her nipples grew hard with longing. But not this man. It had been a long time for her, but it would never be so long as to make her want a man like him. Even if he had not been so arrogant and rude, she would have turned him away. He was too large, too daunting. He would make her feel helpless and childish. Again she felt the suffocating weight of a man's body atop her, pinning her to the earth, smelled the smoke of a burning village.

Her desires vanished. She shook her head, banishing the old memories. Never again. She wanted nothing of men larger than herself, nothing of dominant, crushing men.

There had been Raduni, of Benu's folk. He had been a small, quick man, his smile almost bigger than his face. When she had first joined Benu's folk, he had smiled at her often. She had admired his litheness. She had marveled at his quickness as he lay on his belly and scooped shining trout from the stream. And offered a share to her, unasked. She had hoped he would approach her. But too soon he had become aware of Kerlew. Strange Kerlew. His strangeness had been enough to make Raduni hesitate and then turn aside from her. Her son tainted her. She wondered what made men behave so. Raduni was not the first. Did men believe all her children must turn out as Kerlew had? Did she believe so herself? She wasn't sure. She only knew the outcome. She had been left with the attentions of Carp, another man she did not want.

She shifted in her bedding, sighing. Rolke's offer came to her mind. She wondered if the offer would be extended again. And if it was? Did she want to travel with these herdfolk? She did not think so. Kerlew was not ready for such a life. Nor was she. Why would she wish to give up her independent life for a place within the herdfolk? With men such as Joboam, so ready to assume control of her household? With men like Heckram, so quick to assume the decision of life and death?

Something very like betrayal squeezed her heart. She had thought better of the man. Her mind roved back to that night, to chew again at the puzzle bone. She had warned Heckram that too much of the medicine would kill. Why had he given it to Elsa? Because he could not watch her suffer, because he cared for her? Or had it been colder than that? Was that the fate of women among the herdfolk when they became disfigured or useless?

Neither piece fit. She had seen Heckram when Lasse was injured. He had not tried to hide the sympathy and concern he felt. She had sensed his friendship with the youth. And with Elsa? With Elsa, it had been just the same. A deep friendship, a loyalty. Not a relationship of the kind that presumed power over life and death. Yet the same friendship was what made her sure that the killing had not been a casual disposal of a useless chattel.

Only recently had Tillu come to understand the strange status of women among the herdfolk. In no other tribe had she encountered women who not only possessed their own property, but retained their private ownership even after marriage. The meat Leyna had paid her with had been meat from Leyna's own animal. The women made their trades independently of their men, hunted alongside their men, or alone. Her weaving and sewing had the same value as his carving and building. In a society where a man could not assume possession of his wife's handiwork, a woman of the herdfolk knew her own worth. For the first time in her life, Tillu had encountered women who took pride in their independence. She envied them.

But always the speculation took her back to Heckram and Elsa. It could have been no one but him. The women in the tent did not know what the brew was, would not have given it to Elsa without asking. And there had been the way he turned aside from her that next morning. His eyes had been empty when he looked at her, his face held straight. Guilt. Useless to tell herself it did not matter, that Elsa would have died anyway. Sometimes she tried to convince herself that Elsa had simply died, that she had let go instead of lingering in pain. She wanted to believe that, but couldn't. Even more, she wanted to understand why he had done it, why he felt guilty about doing it. Then perhaps she would know why she thought less of Heckram since then. Perhaps she would even understand why it saddened her that he could no longer meet her eyes.

What did it matter? She sighed to herself. A glance at Joboam showed that sleep had claimed him again. Good. Tomorrow he would be gone and, soon after that, all the herdfolk. Gone from her life, leaving her to her independence. Alone again. She remembered her terror of being alone when she had first left Benu's folk. But she had overcome it. A small pride swelled inside her. She could take care of herself and her son. Could hunt for them, sew for them. Could even repulse the advances of someone like Joboam. And Kerlew was doing so well lately ... In some ways, she qualified it to herself. He carved now and even tried to hunt, though as of yet he had had no success on his own. He remembered things now, to gather the wood, to watch the fire. And he remembered them on his own. It was good he had not become attached to Heckram, it was good that he was doing things on his own. She felt they were nearing a day when Kerlew would make his own decisions, would see himself as a person independent of her. She waited, watching him silently, conscious of the small changes in him. She smiled to herself and realized she had no regrets. Let the herdfolk go.

Morning found her none the better for her sleepless night. Her eyes were reddened and itchy as she steeped the inner bark of alder, brewing a reddish tea from it. It was a useful tonic for anyone trying to recover from illness. Or after a sleepless night, she told herself as she poured a cup.

She drank it standing, staring around the tent. It was not the poor place it had been in midwinter. Everywhere she looked were the signs of her trade with the herdfolk. Their mark on her life could not be denied. She cut up the last of Leyna's meat and dropped it into the very battered bronze kettle that Bror and Ibba had given her for worming his best harke and mixing a herbal wash to discourage lice. She stirred the simmering meat with a ladle of knurled birch with bright colors carved into the handle. These things were hers, even if the herdfolk left her. She did not need to go with them, for summer was near, the time of plenty. She did not need to go with them.

She woke Kerlew and he ate. As was usual when they were alone, they spoke very little. Few words were needed. It was only after he had eaten that she had to speak to him. He had finished his bowl of stew and sat crouched on his heels, running his finger around the greasy inside of the bowl and licking it. This Tillu could have ignored. But Kerlew had chosen to perch at the end of the pallet where Joboam still slept. He stared at the sleeping man as he licked his fingers. When he noticed Tillu watching him, he snickered his brittle little laugh.