The Reindeer People Read online

  ‘So merry the bridegroom.’

  The hard cold voice was like a dash of water in his face. Heckram had been looking at little more than the snowy path before him. As the too familiar voice broke his thoughts, he set the buckets down to either side of himself and casually rolled his shoulders to loosen the muscles. He glanced briefly at Joboam, who leaned against an upturned pulkor beside the path.

  ‘Have you come to wish me luck in my joining with Elsa, Joboam?’ he asked pleasantly.

  ‘Would luck be enough, I wonder? It takes more than luck to keep a woman contented and at home. Remember, between now and the Cataclysm, she is still free to leave you without a word. Many’s the woman who has joined a man, to find she didn’t want to make the arrangement permanent.’

  Joboam rose slowly and gave an elaborate stretch. The powerful muscles in his neck and shoulders cracked as he rolled them. Heckram lifted his chin to keep them eye to eye. Joboam was taller than he was, and broader, his muscular build coated with a layer of hard flesh. In contrast, Heckram appeared almost rangy. He’d often wondered which of them was stronger. As Joboam stepped offensively close to him, he wondered if today they’d find out.

  ‘Elsa has said she’ll be contented with me. Unlike some men, I’m inclined to believe women know with whom they’d want to mate.’ Heckram’s voice was low and pleasant. He let his arms hang loose at his sides, waiting.

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me to hear you say that. There have always been men in this sita who have been contented to be ruled by their womenfolk, to live in their mothers’ tents until women come to choose them.’

  ‘Better than to live in my own tent and never be chosen at all,’ Heckram agreed smoothly.

  Joboam’s eyes went a little narrower. Heckram felt his own breathing deepen, and then the swelling and tightening of his muscles. A deep patience rose within him. No haste to this game. It would never be said that he’d provoked the herdlord’s man. A smile bowed his mouth as he waited for Joboam to make the first move. The moments passed, and Joboam’s arms hung limp. A small knowing grew inside Heckram. Joboam would make more words at him, perhaps, but he wouldn’t push the quarrel to blows. Joboam was not anxious to find which of them was the stronger. Not yet, anyway. Heckram’s smile became a grin.

  A small muscle jumped in the bigger man’s cheek. ‘Why be chosen by one woman when a man can choose any, or all?’ he demanded suddenly, his voice too loud and harsh. Bluffing. ‘The bitch in the heat of her season doesn’t go to the slinking dog that whines for her, but is taken by the strongest male.’

  ‘Joboam!’

  Her voice was shrill, and both men jerked to it. Fey Kari, the herdlord’s daughter, perched lightly on a nearby pulkor, looking like some airy bird. Her black hair sleeked smooth to the shape of her skull, pulled so tight that the strain of the braid pulled at her eyes. Her black eyes were raven bright, her lips too red, her teeth too white behind them. The fine bones of her face showed against her skin. ‘Joboam!’ she cawed again.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked grudgingly.

  ‘Capiam requires you. Immediately. Twice he has sent to your hut, but neither time were you there. So he sent me to fetch you. Are you coming?’

  ‘I come.’ He spoke heavily. He turned challenging eyes on Heckram, waiting for him to speak. Heckram only grinned at the larger man. Kari hopped from her perch, her loose tunic of white fox swirling around her as she moved. She had lost weight again and the looseness of her clothing on her body contributed to her ethereal appearance. She came over the snow to the men in short quick steps, coming too close to them both, all but touching them as she insinuated herself between them. She tilted her face up to Heckram.

  ‘I wish you luck in your joining with Elsa,’ Kari emphasized. Heckram wondered uneasily how long she had been listening to them. He tried to remember all he had said, and if any of it could be repeated to make mischief. Surely he would have noticed her perched there. Or had she used the white fox furs of her tunic as well as the snow fox himself did when he stalked his prey? Her eyes probed his deeply, ‘I hope she realizes her good fortune. To not only know who she wishes to mate, but to have the joy of claiming him! Hurry on your way, Heckram, to make yourself ready for her, and to raise the walls of her home.’

  Joboam had backed off a step or two as Kari spoke to Heckram. Now Kari turned back and clapped her hands sharply as if he were a recalcitrant puppy. ‘And you! To Capiam, Joboam. Do not keep the herdlord waiting, after he has sent his own daughter to fetch you. Hurry now! Run!’

  Joboam glared at them both, but as Kari barked the last word, he set off down the path at a grudging jog.

  ‘Joboam!’ Heckram called after him and, when the man glanced back, he said, ‘I don’t know much of dogs. But wolves mate for life. Remember it.’

  ‘No one who hunts wolves should forget it,’ Kari remarked, and her laughter was brittle as icicles in the cold air. She bit the sound off, sighed abruptly, and turned back to Heckram. ‘I shall come to your betrothal tonight,’ she announced suddenly and stared at him hard.

  ‘You will be welcome, as will any of the herdfolk who honor us by coming,’ he replied gravely.

  For a moment longer she stood staring up at him, standing so close that her thrusting breasts nearly touched his ribs. ‘You smell of butchering and reindeer. Go bathe yourself,’ she advised him suddenly. She turned from him quickly and hurried away with her short, hopping steps, her white furs flapping around her like the wings of a crippled bird.

  Heckram watched her as she wound her way between the huts and meat racks, never choosing the well trodden path between the rows of huts, but walking where no one else did. His heart was still beating strongly, the excitement of his near fight with Joboam flooding his veins but finding no outlet. He stooped once more for his buckets and hastened again for Ristin’s hut.

  In the hut at last, he put the water to heat in pots over the fire, set out a large basin, and then rummaged through his possessions for his father’s razor. He poured a bit of warmed water into the basin, then stood looking at the implement in his hand. It was bronze, rare enough in this hut. The razor was almost the only bronze tool he possessed. There was a knife as well, one that had been his father’s. A knife almost too precious to use. The traders said that far to the south now all tools were of bronze, and only the poor used flint anymore. But in Heckram’s village, flint and bone were still the commonest materials used for tools. True, the flint tools were now polished and ground to resemble their bronze counterparts, but stone they still were, and far more brittle than the new metal. More and more bronze was finding its way north these days. Heckram had seen the new bronze axe that Capiam had traded amber and white fox hides for. It was shaped just like Lasse’s axe of polished flint, and its handle curved in the familiar curve of reindeer antler the herdfolk had always used for axe handles. But its head was bronze, and every bit but the actual cutting edge was etched with elaborate patterns. Despite its delicate beauty, it would take punishing use that would destroy Lasse’s stone one. Perhaps he should think more of gathering amber lumps and hunting the thick white furs the southern traders valued and less of gathering up reindeer. But then he shook his head, the traditional measure of wealth too strongly ingrained to deny it.

  The bronze razor had a bone grip carved with close���grained spirals. He damped his face and the blade, then scraped the edged tool over his skin. He ran his fingertips down his cheek, feeling with satisfaction the smoothness that followed the blade. Then, mindful of the time he had already wasted, he finished his shaving hastily.

  He mixed steaming and cool water in the basin to a comfortable temperature, and then stripped hastily. Under his fur garments was his long shirt of woven wool. He could not remember when last he had removed it. Before the chill of fall set in? He dragged it off over his head and stood shivering and naked. He hesitated a moment, then stepped to the chest and opened it. On top of the other contents, as if anticipating him, was a leather poke of aromatic
herbs and a square of coarsely woven fiber fabric. He took them.

  Placing a handful of the herbs in the center of the fabric square, he folded the fabric into a packet. This he dipped into the steaming water. As the herbs took in the moisture, their fragrance filled the sod hut. He scrubbed his face and neck with the rough packet, feeling his skin open to the warmth of the water. Dampening the packet repeatedly, he worked his way down his body. The water turned dingy, and he emptied it and refilled the basin again. He shivered as the water evaporated from his skin, chilling him further, but doggedly finished his bath. Then another basin of warm water, and this time a handful of the herbs floating loose in it. He knelt to pour more water over his thick mane of dark hair and then plunged his head into the basin of scented water. He scrubbed at his scalp, feeling his hair go to silkiness under his hands. At least he had no nits to worry about, as Bror did. Ristin would not have tolerated vermin in her tent. He suspected Elsa would feel the same way.

  His fine hair tangled about his fingers, snagging on the work-roughened surfaces. He pulled his hands free, mumbling a curse, and plunged his head into the water again. He came up for air, and his hair swung forward past his face, streaming water into the basin. His scalp felt clean. He wrung his mat of hair over the basin. Elsa liked his hair. Every time he had spoken to her since their agreement became public, she had taken the opportunity to touch it, to stand twining strands of it around her fingers as she talked to him. His hair was finer than that of the other men of the herd, and when the sun struck it, it shone not blue, but bronze. Heckram found its fineness annoying, for it blew into his eyes and clung to his fingers when he tried to smooth it. He shook it back from his face.

  Shivering, he picked up his woolen long-shirt from where he had let it fall. But as he bunched it to pull it on over his head, the full impact of its aroma hit him. He dropped it, snorting. He had been wearing that? No wonder Kari had told him he smelt of butchering. He tossed it into the scented water still in the basin and looked for something else to put on.

  In his clothing bundle he found two thin shirts of rabbit leather, fine for the mellow weather of summer, but not winter. But when he found nothing else, he regretfully took one and a clean pair of leggings from his bundle. They would have to serve. He tossed them across the hearth so they landed on his bedskins. Picking up his boots, he followed them, then stood staring down.

  The shirt stirred dim memories. Images of his father, always a vague, tall man in his memories, suddenly snapped into focus. Heckram suddenly remembered a tall man, impossibly tall, laughing down at him as loudly as a wind roaring. The man had hazel eyes, and his nose was long and thin compared to the noses of the herdfolk. His big hands spanned Heckram’s childish chest as the man lifted him up, touching his head to the rafters of the hut. A man wearing this brown wool shirt. Slowly he picked the shirt up and sniffed it, smelling the herbs his mother packed into the chest to keep the mice out. He wondered when she had placed it on his bed for him. Cautiously, as if afraid of shattering the memories he associated with it, he pulled it on over his head. He dragged on a pair of leather leggings and tied them and then stood, rolling his shoulders and trying to get used to the feel of it.

  ‘It’s tight on you. You’re bigger than he was, I suppose, though I never realized it until now. Your southern blood must run strong, from both my father and yours. Still, the wool will stretch out to fit you.’

  He turned slowly to find Ristin in the door, looking at him. Her smile was bittersweet. ‘You’ve a lot of his looks. And his temperament, too. I suppose Elsa will learn to live with your moods as I learned to live with his.’

  Heckram found himself nodding slowly. ‘You saved this for me?’ he asked.

  She nodded in return. ‘For this day. As he wore it on the day he claimed me.’ She turned aside from him abruptly, no longer able to look at him. ‘Comb your hair out, and be on your way. I’ll clean this mess up for you, this last time, and wash out your shirt as well. Quickly now. Lasse and the others have been waiting for you long enough.’

  She moved purposefully as she spoke, returning the bag of herbs to her trunk and pushing his shirt under the water in the basin to soak. He knew she didn’t want to talk to him just now, so he ran a bone comb through his hair, slicking its dampness back from his face, jammed his hat over it, and left her tent quietly.

  ‘A fine time of year to be building a sod hut,’ Lasse growled mockingly to the other men as Heckram approached. Heckram greeted the men solemnly, touching hands with some, embracing others, and carefully ignoring the cluster of girls and women who had gathered behind Stina’s hut to watch them. He thought he caught a glimpse of Elsa’s bright blue cap among them, but refused to turn his head and see.

  ‘So, Heckram, you’ve decided to build a sod hut today?’ Bror asked him loudly.

  ‘I might. I thought it might be a useful place to keep my things.’ The men were elaborately casual as they followed him across the clearing and up the hillside. They watched in silence as Heckram brushed the snow away from a patch of ground, then forced a bone turf knife deep into the sod. Carefully he outlined a square in the surface of the revealed turf. Working with tools of wood and bone, he severed the thick mat of roots that held the block of sod in place and lifted it from its cradle. Dirt and bits of humus sifted from it as he lifted it. This first block of sod he carried down the hill in his arms, as if it were a fragile child. Carefully he lowered it to the earth, packing it firmly down where he wanted it. ‘And here’s the start of the wall,’ he said loudly.

  It was all they had been waiting to hear. Tools and sledges suddenly appeared. Some, more impatient than others, had already cut their blocks of sod while waiting for Heckram to finish bathing. These were off-loaded from sledges and set end to end with his starting block. A circle of sod blocks began to rise as the men moved and added more blocks of sod. In size and shape, the sod house would resemble a skin tent, but its thick walls offered more resistance to the wind and weather. Stout poles appeared, to frame in a doorway, and then more poles for the roof struts.

  The roof itself was of birch branches and bark, set over pine poles and chinked with moss. The men returned from gathering the materials to find that someone had hung a hide on the doorframe. They made no comment on this, or on the thick layer of birch twigs that appeared on the floor while they were gone for their second load of roofing supplies. Lasse waved Heckram back from the roof when he would have climbed up to set the final barks in place around the smoke hole. ‘You’re too big. You’ll cave the whole thing in.’ Agile as a squirrel, the boy scrambled up and put the finishing touches on the roof.

  Heckram walked carefully around the outside of the hut, looking for cracks to stuff with moss, or places where the turves might be set unevenly. But it was a good, tightly built hut, made to stand many a year of snow and rain. By the time he returned to it next fall, the walls would have taken on a life of their own. Small plants would cling to them, and the moss that chinked them would be green and growing. He nodded in satisfaction, then pushed the doorhide aside and entered. The bare birch twigs crackled under his feet. The other men clustered in the door, peering into the new hut.

  ‘No hearth stones!’ Bror observed with loud cheerfulness.

  ‘It will be a cold hut with no arran to heat it and cook upon!’ Lasse added, his shout ringing in the cold air.

  ‘That it will,’ Heckram agreed. The other men nodded commiseratingly as Heckram came back to stand in the door of the hut, crouching but still filling it. ‘But what does a man know of building a hearth?’

  ‘Nothing at all!’ Stina cackled. She loved the ceremonies of a joining and was always the first woman to speak aloud. ‘But here comes a woman to show you how! I bring you a stone for your hearth!’ She hobbled forward as fast as her stiffened legs would allow her, to mockingly present him with a crumbling piece of shale no bigger than her fist. But Heckram accepted it gravely and made a great show of inspecting it.

  ‘It looks like a
fine hearth stone to me,’ he declared, inviting a chorus of hoots from the women. ‘Yet it is not like the stones my mother used. I will not take your arran stone or you into my hut, woman!’

  Stina pulled a face of great disappointment and retired to the ranks of the women. Ibba came forward, to offer him a huge round rock as big as his head. Again he examined it gravely, but decided that it was not the same as the stones in his mother’s arran. Woman after woman and stone after stone he inspected and rejected, and the roars of laughter from the gathered herdfolk grew louder as the stones were more and more unfit for a hearth. At last came Tranta, Elsa’s friend, to insult him by offering him a handful of pebbles and bark bits for his hearth. Again he refused, asking loudly of the surrounding folk, is there no woman here who can build a hearth fit for a new hut such as this?’

  The huddle of women parted and Elsa stepped out. Her warm skin was flushed even rosier than usual, her eyes shining bright. She wore a new cap of red wool and her black hair shone where it peeped from beneath it. Instead of a tunic of caribou hide, she wore a cloak of white fox fur over a woven shirt and a knee-length skirt of woven wool with fringes around the hem. A murmur of approval rose from the folk as she slowly approached the hut. In her two hands she held a fine flat arran stone.

  Heckram took it from her gravely, their eyes meeting for a long moment as he received the weight of it. He turned it in his big hands, examining it gravely over and over again, until the crowd began to murmur at the delay. Elsa’s dark eyes were wide when he finally looked up from the stone. He tried to keep the mischief out of his eyes.