The Reindeer People Read online

  He glared at the smug old najd and then started as Carp’s eyelids slid up and his snoring stopped in midrasp. The shaman sat up smoothly, regarding Heckram with his blank stare. He didn’t yawn or stretch or scratch himself. He simply sat up and announced, ‘And now we go to see Tillu the healer. Bad infection, yes? Face hurts a lot, right?’ He grinned at Heckram amiably. ‘Tillu’s a healer. She cannot tell a man with an infected face to go away.’ Carp laughed jovially, as if at a marvelous prank. Heckram did not join in.

  The path to Tillu’s hut seemed longer than he remembered it, and better trodden. To either side of them, the afternoon sun was melting the soft snow that lay in the open places between the trees. In the shadows snow lingered, more icy than soft now, and the path itself was a packed ridge of ice that meandered under the trees. He tugged at the collar of his tunic, loosening it to let more of his body heat escape. He wished he were alone. Give his revenge to Wolf? He needed to mull over that idea. He needed to know what Wolf would ask in return.

  He had expected Carp to complain when they set out on foot, but the old man scuttled willingly along. Heckram had never seen legs so bowed or an old man so spry. But then, he had ridden down from the mountains on the back of a harke, and he hadn’t made a wild dash with a wolf at his heels in the dawn. Heckram sighed away the memory of the encounter, pushing it down with all the other things he didn’t want to consider. Vainly he tried to just keep on living his life, ignoring all the events that tried to jar him into action. He wanted, if he wanted anything, to just keep on being himself; to hunt the wild herd for more animals to add to his stock, to sit of an evening and plait a lasso or fletch an arrow, or carve a spoon. Kerlew and his spoons. How was he doing with his carving? he wondered. Then he shook his head at himself, marveling how once more he had dragged himself back to thinking of his problems. Could he just give them over to Wolf?

  He took a deep breath of the air. Spring smells. Moss awakening to life after its frozen dormancy all winter. Sap was moving in the trees, their buds just starting to swell, yet the bite of their odor scented the air. And why was Kerlew one of his problems? he suddenly asked himself. Forget it.

  ‘Top of this rise and we’ll see Tillu’s tent.’ He spoke over his shoulder to Carp. He had taken the lead, ostensibly to show the way, but mostly to prevent conversation. He’d be glad to be rid of the old shaman. Then he felt a twinge of guilt at leaving his problem at Tillu’s door. Ridiculous. Carp was not a problem to Tillu, he was her son’s mentor. And the old man had hinted that he was more than that to her. He glanced back at the crook-legged old man with his foggy eyes. He frowned to himself. Well, it wasn’t any of his business, anyway.

  He paused at the top of the hill to let Carp catch up with him. Wordlessly he pointed through the trees to the just visible tent. Heckram spotted a harke, then two grazing to one side of the tent. Probably hobbled there. He recognized one as Joboam’s and felt a tightening in his gut. He remembered Ristin’s warning and set his jaw carefully. No trouble. No problems. Take the old man to Tillu, get his face tended, and then go home and sleep. And sleep.

  He had been so deep in his own thoughts, and the sight that greeted him as he stepped into the clearing was so unexpected, that he stood staring.

  Kerlew, rolled into a ball, lay on the melting snow and exposed earth before Joboam. His long narrow hands were clasped over his head, his eyes squeezed shut, and his mouth quavered as the long ululating wail of a very small and frightened child escaped them. Even as Heckram stood frozen by consternation, Joboam, unaware of them, stooped to grip Kerlew’s tunic and drag the boy up. He lifted him high, his dangling feet clear of the earth, his leather shirt tightening about his throat and stifling his cries. ‘When I tell you to do something,’ Joboam said in a deadly, pleasant voice, ‘you will do it. Swiftly.’ The great muscles in his upper arm bunched, and then Kerlew was flying through the air. He landed, rolling, and curled into a ball. He made no sound, only gasping for the air knocked out of him. Joboam advanced on him, and suddenly Heckram knew that what he had witnessed was a repetition of what had gone before and was about to happen again. A rush of angry strength flooded him.

  ‘Joboam!’ he hissed as the big man reached again for Kerlew.

  Joboam’s attention twitched up from the boy to Heckram moving in on him. Joboam set his weight and crouched like a snarling wolverine, and the same unholy anticipation lit his face.

  ‘Heckram!’ wailed Kerlew with the first breath he drew. With the resilience of children and madmen, he scrabbled to his feet and raced to intercept Heckram, flinging himself at him. Kerlew gripped him around the waist, dragging at him, panting into his shirt, wordless with fear. Caught between strides, Heckram all but fell over the boy. He lurched to a halt and put his hands on Kerlew’s shoulders. He tried to loosen the boy’s grip, but he clung like lichen on a rock. Beneath his touch the boy was shaking still; Heckram glared wordlessly at Joboam, no words strong enough for the promises he wished to make the man.

  For a moment Joboam was likewise wordless, expecting Heckram to cast the boy aside and come after him. When he knew that Kerlew’s clinch had stopped him, Joboam bared a mocking grin. ‘Two of a kind,’ he sneered. Then, as he studied Heckram’s frozen face, he added, ‘The cut’s an improvement. Wish I had done it myself. If you want Tillu, she’s busy now. You’ll have to come back later.’

  ‘I can tell she isn’t here,’ Heckram growled so low that the words were barely intelligible. ‘You’d never dare to treat the boy that way if she were.’

  Joboam’s smile never wavered. ‘No? Things have changed while you’ve been gone. The little healer has come to appreciate me. I’ll be seeing that she travels comfortably when she joins us for the spring migration. And I think that the boy will have learned some manners by then.’

  Kerlew made a fearful noise and buried his face deeper in Heckram’s shirt. He tried to untangle himself and step around the boy, but Kerlew only gripped tighter.

  ‘You are wrong, big man. I am the one who will be giving the boy his lessons from now on. Come, Kerlew. Look up. Have you no greeting for me?’

  For a long moment Kerlew didn’t move. Then his face lifted from Heckram’s shirt front and he peeked warily at the source of the voice. ‘Carp!’ he cried out, relief and joy in his voice. Abandoning Heckram, he flung himself toward the twisted old najd. ‘Every day I have sung the calling song. Every day!’ the boy rebuked him gladly.

  ‘And every day I have heard you, but some days not as loud as others. It was a long way for me to come. And some trails an old man travels by ways longer than a boy’s, and somewhat slower. But here I am. I have come.’ His old hands patted the boy, smoothing the tousled hair, lightly touching his shoulders and arms as if to reassure himself that the boy was real. Kerlew wriggled under his touch like a pleased puppy. Heckram watched them, trying to decipher the emotion spilling through him. Hadn’t he believed Carp when he said Kerlew was his apprentice? Hadn’t he known Kerlew would be glad to see him? Then what was this he felt; surely not jealousy? His hands hung empty.

  Joboam stared at the old man whom Kerlew greeted so strangely. There was appraisal on his face and bafflement. The scrawny little man spoke so boldly, but had nothing visible to back up his authority. He did not keep a wary eye toward Joboam; he dismissed him altogether. It made no sense. No one treated him so. No one dared to ignore him. As if reading his thoughts, Carp suddenly lifted his eyes from Kerlew and fixed Joboam with an ice-white stare. Joboam expelled air from his lungs as if he had been struck. He could not meet that stare. But when he looked away from Carp, he found Heckram, his arms now free, staring at him. He was not smiling, or glaring. His face was impassively cold as he stepped toward Joboam.

  ‘Carp!’

  The word that cut across the clearing was more a cry of disbelief than a greeting. All eyes turned to Tillu. She stood at the edge of the clearing, an armload of white moss held to her chest. Her face was as white as the moss, and she rocked where she stood. Yet
the old najd looked up with a grin to her cry, while Kerlew danced about him, fairly shouting, ‘He’s come, mother, he’s come, just as I knew he would! Didn’t I tell you he’d come to us! And this time he will teach me all of it, all the magic, all the songs!’

  Heckram had halted at Tillu’s cry. Now both men looked from her to the najd. Silently she came across the slushy clearing. Bits of the moss she had gathered dripped from her arms; she paid no heed to it. Her face was white and strained. As if she looked upon a ghost, Heckram thought, and felt a night chill creep up his back. From what he knew of the old man, he very well could be from the spirit world. The najd gripped Kerlew by the shoulders, turned him to face his mother, and held the boy in front of him, like a shield or a hostage. There was defiance in the cold smile he turned on Tillu over the innocent boy’s head. The contrast between Kerlew’s ecstatic grin and the najd’s sneer grated on Heckram and raised a strange guilt in him. What had he guided to Tillu’s tent?

  ‘You did not forget me so soon, did you Tillu? Surely you knew I would be coming for my apprentice?’ Carp asked sweetly.

  ‘Your apprentice?’ This from Joboam. ‘You’ve come to take him away?’ There was appraisal in his voice, and Heckram didn’t like it. Why was Joboam so interested in Kerlew?

  ‘He is mine, yes. Mine to train. But not to take away. No. A shaman must have a people to guide. I have chosen the herdfolk for Kerlew.’

  ‘Shaman?’ Joboam tried the strange word on his tongue.

  ‘Najd.’ Heckram filled it in softly and enjoyed the look of sudden wariness that spread over Joboam’s face.

  But in another instant, Joboam was hardening his face and asserting an authority that was not his. ‘And what does Capiam say to this?’

  ‘Nothing, yet, for no one has told him. But I expect the headman will be most welcoming. I have never yet met a headman who was inhospitable to me.’

  There it was again, that arrogant assumption of authority and power. This najd, with his manner so like Joboam’s, already made Joboam’s jaws ache. Heckram could tell, and he took a furtive delight in it.

  ‘Kerlew,’ Tillu said brokenly.

  The boy reached up to pat one of the wrinkled hands on his shoulders. He seemed impervious to her distress as he asked, ‘May I take Carp into the tent and give him tea and some of the salt fish that Ibba brought us? I am sure he is both hungry and weary.’ His speech had a new fluidity to it, his face a new confidence. As if his encounter with Joboam had never occurred.

  ‘No, no,’ the najd cut in. ‘Heckram has fed me well and I have rested. I would rather walk with you, Kerlew, and speak privately of things that are not for women’s ears. Besides, your mother has a healing to do. Heckram has an infected cut on his face. Let her practice her craft while we discuss ours.’

  Carp put his arm around her son, smiled at her as he turned the boy and walked him away, showing her how easily he took her child away from her. Kerlew did not look back, and Heckram felt an echo of the abandonment that sliced Tillu’s soul. She aged before his eyes, the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes going deeper. She shut her eyes, shook her head slowly.

  Joboam snorted. ‘Don’t be a fool, woman. Let him have the boy. I see no problem with that. But he may be surprised when he announces to Capiam that he will be our najd.’

  Tillu waved a hand at Joboam, in an angry gesture of dismissal, heedless of the moss it spilled.

  ‘So now you tell Tillu what to do with her son, as well as advise the herdlord about najds,’ Heckram observed, ‘I wonder if she knows how you discipline Kerlew when she is absent?’

  Joboam turned to him. Color rose in his face, but his words were calm, ‘I wonder what would happen if I hit you on that slash.’ Looks as if your whole face would break open.’

  ‘I wonder if you have the courage to try?’ Heckram met his gaze. ‘Here I am, Joboam. There’s nothing hampering you.’

  ‘Shut up, the both of you!’ Tillu whirled on them suddenly, anger flaring. ‘Do you think I have nothing better to do than mend your stupid heads after you’ve broken them? Make me extra work, Joboam, and Capiam will hear of it. Yes, and of other things, too.’ Her dark eyes snapped from Heckram to Joboam. Joboam’s eyes narrowed at her threat. ‘Now. Joboam, you may tell the herdlord what I have told you several times already. That I am not decided to go. You may even tell him that your daily visits here have reminded me of all the reasons that I have for avoiding people. And Heckram. If you want me to clean up that gash, then go to the tent. But if you stand here and fight, I shall do no healing for either of you. And I shall tell Capiam you interfered with my gathering of supplies.’

  She turned, clutching the moss to her chest as if it were a child. She walked to her tent without looking back. Heckram saw her shudder once, as if she held back a sob or a cough. He turned to look at Joboam through narrowed eyes.

  Joboam snorted. ‘Let her stamp and shake her head now. She’ll learn the harness soon enough.’ The look he sent after her was proprietary. Heckram’s anger went one notch tighter.

  ‘Aren’t you still wondering about my face?’ he asked softly.

  Joboam turned aside from him. ‘You’ll keep,’ he said casually. ‘News won’t. Since you haven’t informed the Herdlord Capiam of the troubles you have dragged home, I will. A najd. Even a simpleton knows the problems that can create. And you had to bring him here. Still, if he takes the healer’s son with him when he goes, that may solve a problem. For me.’ Joboam’s voice had become speculative. He began to walk back toward the talvsit.

  ‘Joboam!’ Heckram called. The man stopped.

  ‘Stay away from Kerlew. Not because he’s the najd’s apprentice. Because I say so. And one more thing. If you won’t fight me now, be ready to later. A time will come.’

  ‘That it will,’ Joboam agreed. He started to walk away, but Heckram’s voice stopped him again. ‘Be sure to give Capiam all the healer’s message. I’ll be stopping by his tent this evening to be sure it was delivered correctly.’

  Before Joboam could walk away from him, Heckram turned and walked toward Tillu’s hut.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was dark and stuffy inside the tent after the bright coolness of the spring afternoon. The earth floor had softened with the warmer weather. It gave beneath Heckram’s heavier tread. Moisture, unlocked from frost, damped the furnishings of the tent, giving them a musty smell. Tillu should take everything outside into the early sun to air. The herdfolk always aired their possessions before packing for the migration. Heckram wondered if Tillu were really coming with them, but couldn’t muster the courage to ask. He stood awkwardly inside the door flap, feeling an intruder. Tillu hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even acknowledged him with a nod. She crouched, stirring herbs into a pot of water beside her hearth. Something in her physical attitude was familiar; her back bowed like a shield, chin tucked into her chest as if she awaited the next blow. Recognition hit him. She, too, tried to go on with her life as she struggled with an insolvable problem.He looked around, trying to think of some neutral comment. Her poverty had given way to meager comfort. There were more hides on the pallets, and dried meat and fish hung from the tent supports beside utensils of wood and bone. Her dealings with the herdfolk were prospering. The thought recalled the last time he had seen her. The day after Elsa died. They had had little to say to one another amid the hubbub of grief. And just as little now. The things he shared with this woman were not the things that drew folk together. He wished suddenly he hadn’t come. She was ignoring him, crouching with her back to him, stirring something in a pot. He wondered if he could simply back our of the tent and return to his own hut.

  As if she had heard his thoughts, Tillu spoke. ‘Leave the tent flap up. The light is better that way.’ She glanced over her shoulder at him, irritable. ‘Sit down on the pallet. You’re too tall for me to work on that slash if you stand.’

  Without a word, he looped the door string around its support. A narrow triangle of light spilled into the tent
and across one pallet. He went to it and sat, silent. Not talking seemed easier.

  She lifted the steaming pot and set it on the floor by his feet. As silent as he, she took a handful of white moss from a basket near the fireside. Her capable fingers picked through it quickly, discarding bits of twigs, a pellet of rabbit dung, the skeleton of a leaf. He watched her. The rising steam from the pot had a pleasant fragrance, like the forest in true spring, when the rising warmth from the leaf mould smelled of generations of pine and alder. He relaxed, until Tillu knelt suddenly before him. It put her face on the same level as his. She dunked the moss into the water and let it soak as she studied his face.

  It was an uncomfortable arrangement for Heckram. He had no place to put his eyes and he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He folded his arms across his chest, then, feeling foolish, let them fall to his sides. Her face was close to his as she examined the cut. Her mouth was impassive, and when he did look into her eyes, she didn’t notice. The injury had all her attention. He started slightly when she took his chin in a firm, cool grip and turned his face toward the light. Her fingertips rasped lightly against his chin. She kept her hand there, holding him steady, as she moved her head to study the injury. He stared at her frankly, noting the fineness of her hair, the way it pulled free of its binding and strayed around her cheeks. Her nose was narrow and more prominent than was thought attractive among the herdfolk. Much like his own. Her cheeks were not broad and flat, but were molded back over high cheekbones. Her dark eyes were sharp and bright as they peered at him. Like a vixen, turning her head and cocking her ears as she watched and waited at a vole’s burrow.