The Reindeer People Page 18

  ‘This, for a hearth stone?’ he asked dubiously, and at the outraged cries of the women, he dropped the jest hastily and added, ‘will make the finest arran a man could warm himself at. Your hearth stone I will take into the hut, and you with it.’

  He put it gravely back into her hands and stepped back inside the hut to allow her passage. In the center of the hut, under the smoke hole, was an area left free of birch twigs. Here she put the stone. She worked carefully to set it into the earth. All was quiet as she left the hut and then returned with another stone to fit into place beside the first one. Again, and yet again, and then at last she came bearing a burning torch kindled from her mother’s hearth. Her mother, Missa, and Ristin came behind her, bearing wood for the new fire. Early evening was falling, and the torch burned very brightly in the twilight. Once more Heckram lifted the doorhide to let her pass through. This time Missa and Ristin followed her, and faces crowded the door as Elsa knelt to build and kindle the first fire on the new hearth stones.

  When the flames burned hot and high, she moved to Heckram’s side. Together they turned to the folk clustered at the door. ‘Why do you stand about outside in the cold night?’ Heckram demanded. ‘Come in and warm yourself at the fine fire my woman has built on our hearth.’

  ‘Do not stand under the sky. Come into the tight hut my man has built for me and warm yourselves. We are poor folk, newly joined, but we will share with you what we have!’

  The silence broke in a hubbub of voices as well-wishers pushed inside. All loudly admired the tight walls and bright flames of the fire. Then, one after another, they found fault with the new home, is there nothing to sit on but birch twigs?’ demanded Kuoljok loudly. ‘Well, I have here a poor rabbit hide that may keep the twigs from their skin!’ So saying the bride’s father unrolled a finely cured bear hide before the new hearth.

  ‘Will they offer their guests nothing to eat?’ panted Stina. ‘Well, I’ve a small pot of tea I can spare them.’ With a grunt of effort, she set a heavy pot of stew, still simmering from her own hearth’s heat, onto the stones of the new arran.

  ‘And how will they stir it? With a stick or a finger?’ demanded Ibba. She plunged a newly carved bone ladle deep into the savory stew.

  ‘She’ll be a lazy wife that has put aside no cheese for the winter,’ Lasse predicted woefully and proceeded to hang six large ones from the new rafters.

  Heckram and Elsa could but sit on the bear hide before the new hearth, admitting their poverty and incompetence at home building, as their friends and relatives contributed to the new hearth. Tomorrow they would fetch from their old homes their possessions, but tonight their comfort would depend on the generosity of others. Elsa’s eyes shone as her fingers stroked the bear rug they sat on. Ristin bore in spits of meat to set over the flames, all the while telling her neighbors how relieved she was to get her lazy son out of her hut. Missa, cutting cheese and ladling up stew for the guests, loudly confided to them that her daughter knew nothing at all of keeping a home warm and well supplied. Laughter greeted every disparaging remark, and the predictions of misfortune and misery grew wilder as every guest took a turn.

  ‘So poor a hunter will feed his wife on shrews and mice!’

  ‘The hair will slip from the hides she tans and her weaving come unwound!’

  ‘His crooked arrows will fly into the trees, and her cheeses be rank and spoiled.’

  ‘Am I too late to offer a stone for the hearth?’

  All eyes turned to the hut’s door and the late arrival who stood there. Kari was framed there, managing to look at once timorous and arrogant. No others of the herdlord’s family had seen fit to attend this joining. The slight had been felt, though not commented on. Now she was unexpected, and no one moved to welcome her. Her cheeks blushed dark red, and her eyes shone. In her hand she held out a lump of amber as big as her fist. Kuoljok gasped audibly. Silence fell like a heavy snow, swirling among the guests as all stared at the proffered wealth. It was an awkward offering, out of keeping with their tradition. The quiet grew longer and the girl’s discomfort grew.

  Lasse stepped into the awkwardness, ‘I never saw a stone like that in my mother’s hearth!’ he exclaimed. The guests laughed nervously.

  ‘I shall set it by the arran,’ Kari exclaimed loudly, her voice cracking in her nervousness. Eyes and silence followed her as she crossed to the hearth and knelt to set the yellow lump before the new couple.

  Stina looked at Lasse and cleared her old throat. Her voice cracked as she observed, ‘Don’t set it there! Elsa will mix it with the kindling and try to burn it for wood!’

  The jest was close enough for people anxious to be at ease. The moment of embarrassment passed, and the talk and laughter rose again in the night. Kari looked at Lasse gratefully and he responded by offering her some of the freshly roasted meat.

  The talk grew louder; a keg of juobmo and then a keg of beer were opened. Someone brought in sausages from the meat racks. The fuel on the hearth was replenished and the flames leaped high again. Ristin made another trip to the meat racks. The air in the hut grew thick with the odors of people, roasting meat, and beer. Dark eyes shone and wide cheeks flushed as unjoined women flirted outrageously with the young men, and the older couples recalled the warming memories of their own joinings.

  Several hides now graced the twig-strewn floor, and sundry tools and implements hung from the rafters. These, the poorer folk of the herd, had been generous. A komse, of wood and leather, was propped unabashedly in the corner, in the calm expectation that Elsa would fill it before the year was out. Cradle of a nomadic folk, it was fitted with straps so the baby could be hung from a pack saddle or hooked on a tree branch. The buzzing voices and sudden shouts of laughter spilled into the night as the herdfolk rejoiced. And Elsa, squirming closer to Heckram, observed softly, ‘Late as the night is, you would think they would seek their own hearths!’

  ‘But the night is young still,’ he protested and then, as he looked down into her face and saw her warm eagerness, felt a similar impatience stir within him. She knelt beside him on the bear skin. He was suddenly aware of her thigh warm against his. Her mouth parted in a smile as she saw the interest kindled in his eyes. Heedless of the others, he bent suddenly to kiss her. Her mouth was wet under his, and warm, tasting of the southern beer.

  He did not see Lasse’s grin, but heard it in his voice as he yawned loudly and exclaimed, ‘Well, some of us have to hunt tomorrow. And those that do will want to sleep tonight.’ He rose slowly.

  ‘Kuoljok said he saw wolf signs on the south ridge,’ Ristin observed, ‘I think I will hunt there tomorrow.’

  Lasse was holding the doorhide aside as Kari slipped out into the night. Ibba and Bror were not far behind.

  ‘It’s not such a bad hut, after all,’ Kuoljok observed, and Missa nodded, her eyes shining with moisture as she stepped away from her daughter’s hearth.

  ‘The fire burns well,’ Ristin agreed. She followed them out the door.

  Heckram and Elsa sat before their hearth as their guests, with various inconsequential remarks, slipped out into the night. Stina puttered about a moment longer after the others had left, banking the fire and lifting a pot from the hot stones. She stared at the couple a moment longer, opened her lips to speak, and then gave her head a short, hard nod instead. After the doorhide fell behind her, there was silence but for the crackling of the flames on the new hearth.

  Elsa, suddenly shy in the stillness, exclaimed, ‘I should put more wood on the hearth,’ and made as if to rise. Heckram felt the blood thundering suddenly in his veins. The fringe of Elsa’s skirt dangled at the tops of her knees like an invitation. He stood, pulling her up with him, and became suddenly aware of her smallness. When she buried her face against his chest, he felt the warmth of her breath through his shirt. He looked down on the clean skin in the part of her shining black hair. She looked up at him for a moment, her eyes clear and liquid as the dark eyes of a little vaja. His heart leaped like a wild sarv
a in rutting time. He knelt suddenly, pushing his face against her shirt, nuzzling her breasts through the woven fabric as his fingers snagged and fumbled at the lacings. Her hands caught in his fine hair and pulled his mouth against the firmness of her breasts. Her nipples reminded him of raspberries still warm from the noon sun, her thighs sleek and strong as polished ivory to his touch. The warmth from the new hearth flushed their bared skin, and the gift hides were silky beneath them.

  It was late that night when she rose to put more fuel on the fire. He watched her from the warmth of the bedskins as she moved, gold against the dying gold of the flames, her hair a black wave down her shoulders, and was almost content. Then she gave a sudden cry of dismay and sprang back from the hearth.

  ‘Did you burn yourself?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘No.’ She turned worried eyes to him. ‘One of our arran stones has cracked.’

  Between an older couple, it might have been no more than an omen of a quarrel to come, or a day’s bad hunting. But this was a new hearth and their joining was new. There could be no worse portent for a betrothal night than a cracked stone in the newly set arran, and Elsa’s eyes reflected her knowledge of that. He knew she was waiting for him to scold her, to say she had chosen the stones poorly or made the first fire too hot. Instead he only lifted the bedskins and beckoned her back to his side.

  She came in, uncertain at first, but soon was cuddling against him, stroking the hair on his chest. Later they slept. But when he awoke, he could only recall that he had dreamed of watching laden pulkors leaving for the southern trade villages. The morning was cold, and the fire had died on the cracked hearth.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘But I thought we were going to the herd, to check our animals.”It’s on the way. And it won’t take much time.’

  ‘It’s not on the way,’ Elsa said, a bit petulantly. ‘And I don’t see why it should take any time at all. Why do you want to go visiting today?’

  Heckram slid his skis forward through the crisp snow for another three strides before replying. ‘Just to visit.’ His big shoulders moved in a shrug. He was glad he was in the lead and she could not see his face. She would have known he was holding something back. As it was, she suspected.

  It was one of those rare days that came sometimes in the midst of winter, a day that reminded one that spring must come sometime, that the life of the forest was sleeping in the dark rich soil under the blanket of cold white snow. The sky was a bottomless blue, the dark green of the pines a stabbing contrast. The white snow held a light of its own, glinting so brightly that Heckram squinted and felt the water rise in his eyes. There was a perfection to the scene that nothing man-made could even imitate. Each dark-needled branch balanced its precise limit of snow. They crossed an open meadow where the tall heads of grasses poked up through the snow, each tassled stalk frosted with white crystals that emphasized the asymmetrical beauty of each individual. The coldness of the day burned against his cheeks, but the warmth of its beauty numbed him to the pain.

  ‘But why? There’s nothing we need from the healer. And it isn’t really on the way; the herd is more west of here, in those hills.’

  He didn’t look back to see her pointing pole. He knew. A month with her, and already he knew her too well. He wanted her to be quiet, to look at the day as he was looking at it, to share the seeing of the frost on the tassled grasses, to feel the sunlight and the wind touch her cheeks with warmth and cold.

  ‘I want to visit the boy,’ Heckram said, surprising himself with the sudden honesty of his words. ‘He’s too much alone.’

  ‘He’s with his mother,’ Elsa pointed out bluntly, ‘If she thought he was too much alone, she’d move her tent closer to the talvsit. But I think she keeps him alone on purpose.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Heckram’s voice was grim; his shoulders worked more than they needed to as he pushed himself along.

  ‘Well, you know how he is. I don’t think he’d get along with the other children. They’d have nothing in common. So, even if they moved right into the talvsit, he’d still be alone. Heckram, I’ve an idea. Let’s go to the herd first, spend the day checking the reindeer. And then, on the way back, if we have time, we’ll stop and see them.’

  ‘Their tent is just over this hill and down,’ he replied and pushed on, driving himself up the hill with a fury that left Elsa panting in her efforts to keep up.

  The snow around the tent was trampled, and there were other ski trails now, evidence that several of the herdfolk had had reason to seek out the healer’s skills. Tillu was out before her tent, lacing a calf hide onto a stretching frame. She looked very small as she crouched in the snow. Very alone, as if her tent were the only one in the world. Kerlew was to one side of the tent. He gripped a stave and made an elaborate show of stalking a stump. His movements were stylized, more dance than play. His body swayed lithely as he moved, in a manner far different from his usual awkwardness. Now he crouched and plodded toward the stump as if he fought a great wind, now his body lifted on tiptoe, and he menaced the stump with short jabbing thrusts of the stave. A gust of wind carried some words of his chant to Heckram’s ears. It was in no language Heckram had ever heard. He stood still on the crest of the hill, watching.

  ‘See what I mean,’ Elsa said suddenly beside him. ‘What kind of play is that for a boy of his age? Why isn’t he doing something useful to help his mother?’ Her small face was set in a look of disgust, and the condemnation in her features made them hard and old. Heckram pulled his eyes away from her.

  ‘He’s only a boy,’ he observed gently, and he pushed off down the hill. An instant later he heard the sound of her skis cutting the snow as she followed him.

  Kerlew saw them first and with a glad cry raced up the hill to meet them, coming straight at Heckram so that he had to turn his skis in an awkward stop that all but spilled him into the snow. Behind him Elsa exclaimed in annoyance and swerved gracefully around them. Her action carried her past him and into the clearing before the tent. Tillu rose awkwardly, greeting her with obvious surprise. And Heckram was left alone with Kerlew.

  They grinned at one another, in an understanding that was complete without words. Kerlew gripped the man’s wrist with both hands. ‘You have come to see the calf skin. I skinned it from the deer myself, taking it carefully, carefully, with the reindeer knife you gave me. Tillu has no knife so fine.’

  ‘Um.’ Heckram stored the bit of information. ‘Then you hunt well, small man?’

  Kerlew shrugged, a man’s deprecating gesture to cover swelling pride. ‘The calf was small,’ he said casually. ‘But it will feed my mother until I can kill another. Today I do the hunt dance, to bring me luck in hunting.’ The boy paused, then said with elaborate casualness, ‘Perhaps tomorrow you would care to hunt with me?’

  The hidden plea in his words was a thing Heckram could not deny. ‘Perhaps,’ Heckram replied, already planning the day. He glanced down at the tent, where Elsa stood, the set of her shoulders suggesting both annoyance and awkwardness. Both she and Tillu were staring up at them. He’d better get down there. ‘Here,’ he told the boy. ‘Behind me. Put your feet behind mine. No, you have to hold on to me, I need the poles. Now, when I move my feet, you move yours. First the left … now the right. Ready? Here we go!’

  It was but a short run down the hill, but the boy whooped all the way, his grip around Heckram’s waist surprisingly strong. Crossing the flat was more difficult, not so much because of the boy’s awkward weight on the back of his skis but because of the two faces that awaited him. The smile on Tillu’s face was a rare and cautious thing, while the look of warning that Elsa wore was becoming all too familiar to him. She did not approve of this silliness and the time it was taking.

  ‘Jump off,’ he told the boy when they halted before the women. Yet Kerlew’s arms lingered around his waist an instant longer, tightened for a second in a convulsive hug of thanks before the boy stumbled away from him. His small face was shining with excitement.

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p; ‘And now you will see my calf skin, and then have tea in my mother’s hut,’ Kerlew began excitedly.

  ‘I’m afraid we cannot stay that long,’ Elsa cut in smoothly. ‘We have to visit the herd today, so we have still a ways to go. And we must get there soon enough that we can return before dark.’

  The light went out of Kerlew’s face like the sun going behind a cloud. Elsa went on, ‘I was just telling Tillu that we only meant to say hello on our way. It is a nice calf hide; it is only a shame it was cut in the skinning.’

  Heckram tousled Kerlew’s hair in a gesture that was almost possessive. ‘A few cuts in a hide matter little. A clever woman can always sew them shut.’

  Now the look of gratitude on Tillu’s face was unmistakable, if you would care to stay for just a few moments,’ she said, her eyes going swiftly from Heckram’s to Elsa’s, ‘you could have a cup of hot tea to warm you. And I have tallow, from the calf. I could mix the rub for you, Elsa. For your shoulder.’

  ‘I have nothing to trade for it today,’ Elsa said, and there was no mistaking the chill of formality in her voice.

  ‘There is no need,’ Tillu said awkwardly. ‘When you gave me the needles and case, I said I would make it for you. It will take me but a moment …’ She glanced from Elsa to Heckram, plainly puzzled at Elsa’s displeasure. Then her eyes went to Kerlew. He was crouched in the snow by Heckram, his hands tracing the pattern of lines and colors that decorated Heckram’s ski pole. Her eyes narrowed and the light went from her face. Dullness seemed to flood it, muting the life in her eyes. ‘Of course, if you are in a hurry, you could come for it another time. Whenever it is convenient for you. Kerlew. Kerlew! Run into the tent and find the other hide scraper for me. I think it is in the medicine box.’

  The boy moved reluctantly at her bidding. And there it is, Heckram thought to himself as he kept a friendly smile pasted on his face. The vixen senses a threat to her cub, and chases him back to the den. Is this why they live apart? Elsa had been right, he realized. The woman lived alone out here deliberately. Not to deprive Kerlew of company, but to keep him from the danger of other folk. To protect the boy from hard looks and mocking words, and sly blows when no one was looking. Something inside his chest squeezed tight.