her fingers.
'Thin seasons,' he agreed solemnly. He covered Lasse with one of the bedhides and then his own coat.
'Kerlew,' Tillu rebuked the dreaming boy, jerking his attention from the fire. 'Don't sit and watch it burn out. Put some fuel on it.'
The boy moved slowly at her bidding, bringing in frosty wood that he heaped carelessly on the coals. 'Are we going to carve tonight?' he asked her.
She had forgotten her lecture of the morning and was not inclined to do any kind of work just now. The unexpected strains of the day had tired her, and her full stomach was making her sleepy. Evenings for most hunting folk were a busy time of day, for making household items, for conversation and stories. She realized that she had let them become idle times of silence and staring, sometimes because she lacked materials to work with, but more often because she was simply too tired. Heckram was glancing about as if wondering what to do with himself. Although it was dark outside, it was still early for sleep. So Tillu nodded stiffly to Kerlew, who seemed suddenly energized.
The boy darted to his pallet and returned to her with a great armload of sticks and chunks of wood. He rattled them down in a pile at her feet and sat expectantly. She smiled wearily at the boy. 'I tell you to find one or two pieces, you bring me a forest.'
He smiled proudly back at her as she began to sort through the sticks. She felt Heckram's eyes on her, and her reluctance toward the project grew. Her skills for this were rusty; she didn't enjoy the idea of someone being amused at her awkwardness.
Even more daunting was the prospect of someone watching the painfully slow way that Kerlew learned. But to do this was better than to sit idly through the long evening, avoiding the stranger's uneasy glances.
Many of the sticks were plainly unfit for use, dry and brittle ones, ones so small they would be carved to nothing before anything could be made of them, some so full of knots they would defy any shaping. These she set aside, until of Kerlew's bundle there were five pieces of wood left. She chose one at random and put it into his hands. He looked up in surprise, and she had to smile at his expression.
'You thought I would do it while you watched, didn't you? No, there has been too much of that. Now Kerlew starts to do things while I watch. There is the knife, you have the wood. Wait a moment.' She rose to rummage through her possessions and returned with bone scrapers. They were for hides, but they would have to serve. She put them out in a row by the boy. He sat holding the wood and knife in his lap, not moving.
Heckram was watching them both silently, his face mildly puzzled, but friendly. She refused to be ruffled by his scrutiny. Sitting down beside Kerlew, she said, 'First, you strip the bark from the piece.' He met her gaze, unhappy in his uncertainty. His anxiety wrinkled his face, pushing his lip out like a shelf. 'Go on,' she encouraged him, and he took up knife and wood.
She watched the boy attentively, flinching each time the knife skipped over the bark by his fingers. He hit a stubborn knot and tried to hand the work back to her. 'No. Keep trying,' she told him gently. He pursed his lips, his eyes going darkly bitter, and went on picking at the stubborn bark. It would not yield to his awkwardness, and she saw his chin start to tremble. The boy knew failure all too well; even the threat of it could cripple his efforts. She forced herself to sit still and watch him struggle, believing he must learn his own way. Kerlew's breath began to catch. He curled himself around his work, as if to hide it from her, but doggedly continued to dig at the unyielding knot.
Then a large shadow moved between them. Heckram did not look at her, but crouched behind the boy, and when he spoke there was only interest in his voice.
'What do you make?' The meaning was plain even if the words were not.
'Probably nothing,' Kerlew replied sulkily. He was already braced for the expected blow.
The man reached out a slow hand. Kerlew flinched slightly as the hand settled on his wrist, and Tillu readied herself to intervene. Some men thought Kerlew pretended his difficulties and tried to make him learn by cruelty. If this Heckram ...
The boy hastily tried to surrender, pushing the knife and wood into the man's hands, but Heckram only pushed them back, then rearranged them in the boy's hands. He shifted the boy's small hands on the wood, and then his own large hand engulfed Kerlew's small one on the handle of the knife. He guided it as the edge of the knife went under the stubborn knot. 'See?' he asked Kerlew, and, as the boy nodded nervously, he added his strength and the bit of bark went flying across the tent, to bounce off the hide wall. The man laughed easily, and after a moment Kerlew joined him. The piece of wood shone white and smooth in Kerlew's hands. 'What you make now?' Heckram asked easily.
'A spoon,' Kerlew decided.
Heckram tapped the wood gently, asking permission to take it for a moment. The boy released it, and the man took it, turning it this way and that as he perused it thoughtfully. Taking up the knife, he marked the wood with shallow cuts. 'Here cut,' he instructed softly. 'Here cut. Here,' he made a scraping motion of the knife near the knot.
'Make strong. Hard, strong.'
Tillu rose, feeling suddenly excluded. Kerlew didn't even notice her departure. His head was bent over the wood as he carved with more energy than skill. She stepped outside the tent into the crisp cold of the night. The night was clear, the cold settling over the world like a blanket. She gathered an armful of Kerlew's wood and took it back into the tent.
It could have been someone else's tent, with the one youth flung wide in careless sleep, and the other crouching by the man, carving diligently as the adult worked more sedately at a piece of his own. Heckram said something to Kerlew as he tossed a handful of parings into the fire, and the boy grinned, though Tillu was sure he didn't understand the words. She set down the firewood and felt suddenly at a loss for what to do with herself. The two muttered to each other as they carved, ignoring the language barrier. After a moment's hesitation, she took up Lasse's coat, covering him with another hide. She rummaged through her sewing things and then examined the ragged rents the arrow had made. She threaded her needle with a length of sinew and looked up to find Heckram's eyes on her.
'Thank you.' The courtesy was clear and honest.
'Thank you,' she replied evenly, nodding at the intent boy.
Heckram touched his own chest. 'Heckram ... no father. Hard learn man's work.
Understand.'
Tillu nodded and then felt her face burn as she realized she had betrayed herself. He knew no man was coming back this night. He was smiling at her easily, but she didn't return his smile. She sat as frozen as the hare had earlier, but felt her exposure keenly.
For a long moment he watched her, and the smile faded from his face. He made a motion of his hand that seemed to indicate it was no concern of his and went back to supervising Kerlew.
By the time she had finished mending the sleeve with tiny, tight stitches that would keep out wind and weather, Kerlew's eyelids were drooping over his work. He was obviously sleepy, but loath to surrender Heckram's attention and guidance. It was part of his nature to accept people at face value. If Heckram had cuffed him and pushed him away, Kerlew would have seen it, not as an offense, but simply as part of the man. That the older man accepted him and took time with him he assumed just as easily. He held up his rough spoon for inspection as he rubbed at his eyes. Heckram set down his own more finished product and took the boy's. Turning it, he muttered approvingly at some parts, and pointed to others that needed more smoothing. But when Kerlew would have immediately gone back to work on it, Heckram made a show of yawning. He sheathed his own knife, and the boy was quick to follow his example.
'Sleep,' Heckram said simply. He glanced about, including Tillu questioningly. She stiffened with wariness, but held up the mended garment. He crossed to take it from her. He nodded slowly over her work as he ran his fingers over the place where the sleeve had been torn. She was suddenly conscious of his tallness, the depth of his chest as he stood over her, blocking the fire's light and warmth. She shrank before him. But,
'Thank you,' he said again and then stepped away, to spread the coat once more over Lasse. Without a glance at Tillu, he lay down not far from his companion. Kerlew was suddenly at his side, offering a sleeping hide
