The Reindeer People Read online

  ‘But that’s another thing,’ Lasse objected stubbornly. ‘Why didn’t he stay in his tent, as he was told?’

  ‘I’d promised I’d send you to keep him company. And, in the rush of things, I forgot to even ask you.’

  ‘That’s not a very good reason to walk all that way in the cold and dark.’

  ‘Perhaps not for one of us. But Kerlew strikes me as a very single-minded young man.’

  ‘Single-minded, you say. Simple-minded, say the others. Well, it’s no difference to me. Tolerating Kerlew is a small price to pay for having a healer with us again.’

  Heckram was silent for long moments. Then he gave a harsh bark of laughter that made Lasse jump. He looked at the crooked arrow shaft he had just fashioned and flung it away into the snow. In a tired voice he asked, ‘I wonder if anyone has ever asked what price Kerlew will pay for us to have Tillu as our healer?’

  ‘What price?’

  Tillu turned slowly from her fire. She had just finished pouring steaming water into a small wooden trough. ‘What you want to give.’

  Joboam thought it was a question. He sat bare-chested on her pallet, cradling his left forearm in his lap. A poultice of cooked and pounded inner bark from a spruce tree covered the angry suppuration on the back of his forearm. The cut was no longer than a man’s finger. But the swelling it had caused had puffed and stiffened his elbow, and made his fingers into fat sausages on a thick hand. Despite his pain, he bartered. ‘Two wolf hides, without the tails. Or a sausage and two cheeses?’

  ‘Whatever you choose. How long, this hurt?’

  Joboam glanced down at the injury and wrinkled his brow, as if looking at it increased the discomfort. He took his time to answer. ‘Long time. Long, long time ago. I was carving, and cut myself. Not bad. It didn’t bleed that much. It heals for a while. Then swells, and oozes. I take my knife, open it, wash it. It starts to heal. Then, again, it swells up, bigger, worse. Again, I cut it. I think it is healing. Then, one morning, sore again, swelling. This time is the worst it’s been.’

  Joboam spoke slowly in simple words, matching Tillu’s speech. She didn’t bother to tell him she understood their language now. Specific words she might not know, but she was comfortable with the flow of the words and their strange inflection. And she could speak it more fluently than she did. She found it easier to speak very simply and briefly. Maybe to keep from having to talk about anything besides healing. Maybe to keep a distance.

  ‘Lucky man. Lucky you’re still alive, not poisoned. Bad kind of hurt. Maybe something in there. If something is in there, we have to find it, get it out. Going to hurt a lot to find it. But going to kill you if we don’t.’ As she spoke, she opened a tiny leather sack and spilled from it a small pile of salt. Biting her lower lip, she reluctantly added more to the heap of gleaming crystals. The salt was precious, not only as seasoning, but for its drawing properties when used in poultices and soaks. From the look of Joboam’s arm, it was going to take most of her supply to heal him. She wondered idly why those with the most were the stingiest when it came to offering payment.

  ‘Stop staring, boy!’ Joboam growled suddenly.

  Tillu glanced up. Joboam had arrived very early. She had been preparing food for the boy and herself, but had set that aside at the sight of Joboam’s arm. Kerlew was waiting on the hides by the fire. He watched her like a hungry dog as she rook out her healing supplies. Kerlew didn’t answer Joboam, but hung his head. His hands toyed listlessly with his precious spoons. Tillu spoke softly.

  ‘Kerlew. Go outside. You can gather firewood for me.’

  ‘But I’m hungry!’

  ‘Then take cheese and sausage with you and eat that.’

  ‘I want hot food.’

  ‘Out, boy!’ Joboam growled. Kerlew’s eyes flickered sideways. Other than that, he gave no sign of hearing the man. He sucked his lower lip in tightly as he looked at Tillu.

  Tillu set her jaw. She forced herself to speak calmly. ‘Go for the firewood, then. Have cheese and sausage now, and pile up some wood. Then I will cook some of the reindeer that Lanya brought us. Go, now. Then I can work faster. Go on!’

  She didn’t look at Joboam as she urged her son from the tent. There had always been men like Joboam, would always be men like Joboam. Men who felt they could take charge whenever there wasn’t another man around. Men who could not meet Kerlew’s peculiar stare, who were offended by his slow speech and odd mannerisms. Men she couldn’t trust not to strike the boy if he came too near or looked at them too long. Men who feared him, as they feared the touch of disease or madness.

  As she dissolved the salt in the steaming water and set out clean white moss, she reminded herself that Joboam was in pain. And probably tired from traveling here, and uneasy in a strange place. She had to be patient and remember that she was a healer. A healer. After a moment, she sighed and let the tension ease out of her shoulders. She would be able to treat him as she did everyone else. And then he would go.

  ‘Hot water. Slowly, slowly,’ she cautioned him as she set the trough before him. It was just large enough for him to submerge the festering arm. She removed the poultice from the wound and motioned toward the water. She watched his face, saw him wince as his elbow touched the hot water. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes, but slowly his arm entered the water. Sweat sprang out on his chest and forehead, but he made no sound of pain. She found herself turning away, unwilling to admire the control he exerted over himself.

  ‘Why didn’t you come sooner?’ She picked through the moss, discarding bits of sticks and dirt into the fire.

  ‘I thought it would heal by itself.’ His voice was slightly strained. ‘How long must I leave my arm in the water?’

  ‘Water let wound open. Wound drain, then we clean out pus, then we reach inside, dig and probe, look for thing inside it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  His reply was soft and Tillu looked over her shoulder to see lines of stress embedded in his face. She started to speak, then bit her own tongue, ashamed. Her description had made him squirm as she had known it would. She was a healer, and she must not be petty. Breaking his control and making him cry out would not gain his respect for Kerlew or herself. It would only make her lose her respect for herself.

  She moved to his side, eased her hands into the hot water, and gently touched the surface of the wound. It opened almost immediately, releasing its foulness into the water, and Joboam gasped at the release of pressure in his arm. ‘Steady. Sit still. Be still,’ she said softly, keeping her eyes on the arm. He smelled of sweat and fear and maleness.

  She worked deftly, using her moistened bits of white moss to clear the pus from the wound. Tillu motioned Joboam to lift his arm from the water. The wound gaped wide and angry in his flesh. ‘Something in there,’ she decided. ‘Have to find it, get it out.’ Rising, she took the fouled water outside to dump it.

  Kerlew was standing beside the tent, looking bored, ‘I’m cold,’ he began whiningly.

  ‘No, you’re not.’ Tillu’s voice brooked no argument. ‘This is the warmest it’s been for days. If you’re cold, work. That will warm you. Bring down more wood.’

  ‘Is it nearly done?’

  She took pity on him. ‘Nearly. I’m working as fast as I can. If I can heal him well, we will have wolf hides to sew with. New leggings for Kerlew, hmm?’

  ‘No one needs new leggings in spring,’ the boy pointed out, but looked pleased anyway.

  ‘More firewood,’ she reminded him, as Joboam’s voice boomed from the tent.

  ‘Healer! Healer, what is keeping you?’

  Tillu didn’t bother to answer as she pushed her way back into the tent. She wiped the trough clean with moss and set it to one side. Measuring more salt, she poured it into the trough and set water to heat again. She came then to kneel beside Joboam and peer closely at the injury. She could guess where the problem was. There were signs of the flesh trying to close over an object, only to break open again when Joboam used his arm. Whatever it was
, it had gone in deep. Yet it probably hadn’t been much of an injury at the time. Just a short, deep cut.

  ‘Going to hurt. Cut open, get it out. I make a medicine first, help with pain.’

  Joboam hesitated, then nodded. Wise. She stood up, measuring his size and weight, and then turned to her herbs. This was going to take a strong brew. She knelt by her fire, measuring out and crushing the herbs. She set raspberry root and willow leaves and bark to soak. Bound on a wound, they controlled bleeding. She hoped she would not need them.

  ‘Where is your man?’ he demanded suddenly to her back.

  She didn’t even turn. ‘Gone.’

  ‘What happened? Is he dead, or did he just leave you?’

  ‘Gone.’ She repeated it flatly, and went on with her work.

  Joboam gave a knowing snort. ‘The boy, eh? Well, it would be a hard thing to live with. But don’t you have other people?’

  Tillu finally turned to face him. ‘Gone.’ Her eyes were flat, her lips thinned to a line. Joboam didn’t falter.

  ‘All alone, hmm? Must be hard. Would you like to join with the herdfolk? Go with us?’ There was a strange note in his voice, a voice like a trader holding up prime merchandise.

  ‘Go?’ Tillu was doubly puzzled. She had seen the talvsit as a permanent village, but now this man spoke of ‘going’ as if they were a wandering, hunting people. Go? With a wrench she realized how accustomed she had become to the idea of living alone, but within reach of a village. She had thought she had a place as a healer, and yet the privacy she needed for Kerlew to be safe. She had thought …

  ‘Yes, go.’ Joboam hadn’t sensed her confusion. ‘Capiam say, you might go with us to the summer grounds, be our healer. Better life for you. You have food and hides and help to move your tent, even if no one needs healing. Maybe even give you some reindeer. Maybe. What do you think of that?’

  It was too many new ideas, too fast. She was trying to juggle the idea of so many settled people suddenly rising up and going somewhere else with the idea of giving reindeer. Since the night she had ridden in Heckram’s pulkor, she had accepted that these people used reindeer as domestic animals. But to be, possibly, the owner of one herself was too strange. Like owning a tree or a spring. And she was not happy to give up her image of planted fields and a settled life again.

  ‘Herdfolk go soon?’

  ‘Yes. Not very long from now. We’ll go to the tundra. We’ll leave the talvsit behind. If you don’t go with us, you’d be alone all summer. Completely alone.’

  There was a subtle taunt to his words. A veiled threat of some kind? Why? For what? ‘Not alone,’ she corrected him calmly. ‘Kerlew with me.’

  Joboam gave a snort of deprecation. Tillu almost regretted the sense-dulling mixture that was now simmering on her fire. She should have dug it out of his arm as he sat. She quelled her temper and turned back to stir the mixture. She could not say exactly why she found this man so irritating. The sooner he was healed and bandaged, the sooner he would leave.

  She poked at the sodden mass in the bottom of the small pot. It would do. Carefully she added warm water, stirred, and ladled off a scoop of the dark liquid that formed. She advanced on Joboam. His nose wrinkled at the odor.

  ‘Bitter,’ she told him, trying not to sound satisfied. ‘Drink all. Make you sleepy, not hurt so much.’

  Joboam took the ladle carefully and stared down at the dark brew. ‘Maybe I don’t need it,’ he suggested.

  Tillu shrugged, ‘I cut, you hurt. You decide. But must not jerk arm while I cut. Maybe Kerlew hold arm down for me.’

  Glaring at her over the rim of the ladle, he drank. A shudder ran through him and he swallowed with an effort.

  ‘Water?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Make you sick, vomit. No water. Lie down. Wait.’

  He didn’t like it. She didn’t care. But she still helped him lie hack on her pallet. He swallowed noisily and looked up at her with wary eyes. She stood over him, waiting for the medicine to take effect. She watched the steady rise and fall of his wide chest. She had been surprised when he took his tunic off. He was more hairy than the men of Benu’s tribe had been. Dark hair formed a triangle on his chest and tapered down the line of his belly. The ridged belly muscles showed clearly, tight with worry. He was cleaner, too. She wondered if all the men of the herdfolk were so. Heckram’s stubble-cheeked face came into her mind. What did his chest look like?

  With a snort of contempt for herself, she turned aside. If Joboam was going to sweat and worry and fight the medicine, it was going to take longer to work. In the meantime, she would cook something for Kerlew and take it to him. She was no eager girl to spend her time staring at a man’s chest and smirking. She was a woman with a son to tend and a healing to do. As Joboam’s breathing became more steady, she cut a generous slab of meat from the chunk suspended from the tent support. It was not that she had so much to spare; it was the recent warm temperatures. The meat was dripping and would soon spoil unless it was eaten or turned into jerky. That was one thing she regretted about the coming spring. Meat would not stay nicely frozen as it did all winter. There was more work to preserving a kill, and more pests that tried to ruin it.

  Skewering the chunk, she put it across the spit supports to roast over the low flames. Drops of blood fell from it to sizzle on the fire below. The rich smell made her remember that she had not eaten yet, either. But she could wait. She had mastered the control of her appetites. She turned the meat, searing it on all sides, and then left it to cook through while she made a quick check of Joboam.

  He lay on his back, his injured forearm cradled on his chest. His eyes were only half open. He was not asleep; he was in that dreaming state before sleep, where wakefulness has lost its importance. Taking his arm at the wrist and elbow, she eased it off his chest and out from his body. She arranged it, palm down, atop a clean piece of scraped hide. Joboam dreamed on, staring at the peak of the tent poles. Tillu laid out clean moss, a damp pack of the herbs that would control bleeding, and finally her knife. She wished it was sharper. She should have told Joboam that she would heal him for a sharp knife. Maybe when he awoke, he would agree to such a trade. Kerlew always carried the knife that Heckram had given him. And he was still adamant that she must not touch nor use it. But the hilt of Joboam’s own knife showed above his belt. Why not? He didn’t move as she eased it free and examined it.

  She had not expected the bone haft to clasp a bronze blade. She stared at it, entranced. The metal was cold and sharper than any blade of bone. Decision tightened her grip on it. She would use it. She set it down beside her own and leaned once more over Joboam. She touched his cheek. He didn’t stir. She pinched it, lightly, and then harder. He grumbled, his eyes still not turning to her. After a few moments, he turned his head aside, pulling his face from her hand. He was ready.

  ‘Mother?’

  Tillu turned. ‘There’s meat on the spit on the fire. Don’t burn yourself. Take it outside and eat it.’

  ‘Good!’ Kerlew bounced in. His nose and cheeks were red from being outside, but his hood had been pushed back, so he was not all that cold. He knelt by the fire, took one end of the spit in each hand, and bore his prize away. He was already trying his mouth against it before he even reached the door, exclaiming as it burnt his lips, but not ceasing in his efforts to eat. Tillu said nothing. He’d learn. She added a few dry sticks of wood to the fire for better light, then took out a stone lamp. She had little fat for it, but it would not have to burn long. She knelt carefully by Joboam. She was just lifting one knee to set it firmly on the back of his wrist when she heard the voices outside.

  ‘Give it back!’ Kerlew, outraged, angry, already close to tears.

  ‘In a moment. Did you tell her I was here?’ A superior, taunting tone.

  ‘Tell her yourself. I’m hungry. Give it back or I’ll kill you!’ Kerlew, already pushed to making wild threats. Tillu sighed.

  ‘And you such a mighty warrior. I tremble. I think I shall eat it while yo
u go inside and tell her I am here. Stop that!’

  She had risen at the first sound, but the struggle had already begun before she was out of the tent. An older boy held the skewered meat out of Kerlew’s reach. His other hand gripped Kerlew by the hair on top of his head and held him at arm’s length as he struggled and swung and yelped. At the edge of the clearing, a reindeer still harnessed to a pulkor stared at the struggle with round, brown eyes.

  ‘Let him go!’

  Neither heard her. Tillu stepped resolutely in, to grip the older boy’s wrist. Her competent fingers squeezed down on the tender spot between hand and wrist bone. ‘Let him go!’ she repeated, and the stranger quickly did. She found herself eye to eye with a youth she suddenly recognized as Capiam’s son. She still remembered that look, both sullen and avid. His tunic and hat were gaudy with bright braid and beads. The amount of it went beyond decoration to braggery. He met her stare boldly.

  ‘So here you are, healer. I asked the boy to tell you I was waiting.’

  She wasn’t going to be sidetracked. ‘Give him the meat back. Now.’

  He refused to be cowed, ‘I didn’t want it. I was just keeping it from him until he did as I told him. Here, boy, take it and stop your sniveling.’ He flipped the skewer at Kerlew as he spoke. He did not intend that the boy should catch it, and Kerlew didn’t. The meat sizzled as it hit the snow and sank from sight. Kerlew howled as if he had been kicked and ran to dig after it like a little dog.

  The older youth smiled snidely at the sight. He twitched his wrist free of Tillu’s grip and straightened his tunic, ‘I am Rolke,’ he announced grandly. ‘And I bring you a message from my father, Capiam, herdlord of the herdfolk.’

  He found he was speaking to Tillu’s back. Kerlew had already retrieved his meat from the snow and was brushing the icy particles from it, sobbing as he did so. She stepped to his side and bent to speak to him. She would not humiliate him further by hugging him in front of this stranger, though she longed to. She knew from past experience that Kerlew would only pull quickly away. She was the one who wanted comfort. He only wanted his meat back, as it had been, hot and dripping. ‘Take it inside,’ she told him softly. ‘And put it over the fire again. In a minute or two, if will be just as hot as it was. Do it!’ she warned him, stepping in front of the glare he was giving Rolke, ‘I will see to him.’