Kerlew, his finished spoons in a row before him, crouched on his heels, busily explaining to a nodding Heckram exactly how each had been made. Another stranger, not near as tall as Heckram, stood by the entrance, looking down on the boy with a strange expression on her face.
The woman turned to Tillu as she entered, regarding her with wide black eyes above high cheekbones. Her fine lips parted in an uncertain smile. Her hair, shining black, had been coiled around her head under a bright cap of yellow and red knotted wool.
Tillu could only stare, feeling a strange ache of homesickness such as she had not experienced since Kerlew's birth. Over the years she had grown accustomed to seeing folks in clothing of leather or fur, skillfully designed and sewn, functional, sturdy clothing. Such did this woman wear, also. But at the cuffs and hems and throat, on the band of her hat above her eyes, everywhere there was room for it, her garments were decorated with woven bands of brightly colored fiber and wool interspersed with strips of fur. Beads of glowing yellow amber, of white and brown bone and horn, clicked against each other when she moved. The bright ornamentation woke in Tillu a sudden sharp hunger for a settled life, for villages where crops grew and domestic animals grazed, where a man or woman might spend a few moments of the day in doing more than simply surviving. She remembered her parents in the evening, her mother weaving something for the beauty of the blending colors, her father carving and painting useful objects to transform them into art. For a world she had long believed lay so far to the south of her that she would never again see it, her eyes stung.
'Heckram,' the woman said softly, and he turned on his heels, to nod easily to Tillu.
'Good spoons!' he said by way of greeting, and Kerlew turned a pride-flushed face to his mother.
'They came while you were gone, to pay for your healing the arrow-shot man.'
Kerlew's explanation limped along in his usual halting way. 'I've been showing him the spoons I made. He likes the goose one best.'
Kerlew waved the ladle at her as he spoke. This was his latest creation, with the long curving handle possessing two knots and a stub at the end that suggested a goose's eyes and bill at the end of its long neck.
'Tillu the healer,' Heckram said. 'Elsa my friend.'
Tillu nodded to the introduction, not moving. She had not expected him to return and pay her. Their village must be closer than she thought. She covered her confusion by unloading the game bag from her waist and hanging her bow and quiver from its hook.
'Lasse is better?' she asked as she turned back.
'Much better.' Heckram's teeth were very white in his wind-bronzed face.
'Good. Good.' Her profession came to the forefront, rescuing them both from awkwardness as she asked, 'New bandage? Swell, bleed, hot?'
'New bandage,' he assured her. 'Wound closed. Arm moves, little pain.'
'Good, good.' She bobbed her head like a courting duck.
'You sound like you're talking to a baby,' Kerlew said in disgust.
Heckram caught the gist of his words, for he laughed as he replied, 'Makes easy to understand.'
And you, don't be rude. It's better to be quiet and learn manners when you are young,' Tillu suggested firmly.
Kerlew hung his head and retreated. Heckram hid a grin at the familiar rebuke. Even if he had not been able to decipher most of Tillu's words, he would have known what she said. It was a rebuke he had often heard himself when a child. Tillu sensed that he shielded the boy from further scolding with a change of subject.
'Pay healing,' he said to Tillu. He gestured to a hide that had been rolled into a pack.
Stooping, he unfastened the knots of sinew and unrolled it, revealing various smaller bundles within. Their wrappings were cloth of woven fiber, some dyed in bright colors.
He tapped each as he spoke. 'Fish. Cheese. Reindeer.' He paused and looked up at her as if asking her to make her choice. Perhaps he wanted her to choose what she would take for the healing. She didn't hesitate. She and Kerlew both had a permanent craving for fat of any kind.
'Cheese.' She smiled as she copied his inflection, remembering his word for it from the last time he had been here.
'Cheese,' he agreed uncertainly, trying to understand why she had repeated it. Then he shrugged, rolled up the hide with its smaller packages, and offered it to her.
'All?' she asked, stunned by the size of the offering.
'For Lasse,' he explained.
'Too much,' she refused quickly.
He shrugged innocently at her words, but she was suddenly certain that he was pretending not to understand her. 'For Lasse,' he repeated slowly. 'You healed him. I pay.' He kept his eyes from hers as he set the bundle down on her pallet.
Tillu hesitated, but Kerlew's eyes were on her with mute appeal in them. 'Thank you,'
she said stiffly, but Heckram grinned at the boy as if they shared a secret. All stood about silently for an awkward moment.
Then Elsa spoke. 'I come, trade?'
'Trade?' Tillu asked, puzzled. She had not expected the woman to speak. Was not this Heckram's woman? She glanced toward Heckram to see his reaction. She was accustomed to men handling all such negotiations. But Heckram seemed engrossed in some talk with Kerlew.
'Old hurt.' Elsa was not paying the least attention to her man. Tillu turned back to her words. 'Fall into river, hit rock. Long time ago.' The young woman put a hand to the small of her back, then to her shoulder, miming pain.
'Cold, wet day? Swell?' Tillu asked.
Elsa nodded quickly at each of Tillu's questions. Tillu pointed to her knuckles and wrist. 'Swell, hurt here, also?'
'No.' Again she touched the small of her back, and her shoulder. 'Only shoulder, only back. Fall down, long time ago.'
'Elsa work hard? Lift heavy loads?'
Elsa laughed ruefully. 'Yes. Elsa herdwoman. Hard work, heavy loads.'
Tillu nodded back. 'Tillu see?'
Elsa nodded and bent to draw her heavy skin tunic off over her head. She glanced once at Heckram and the boy, and then turned her back on them to pull off her undershirt of woven wool. Stepping to her side, Tillu ran a careful hand over the shoulder. There was no indication of an injury. She hesitated, then pressed gently and finally probed at the joint. A smooth layer of muscle coated the young woman's back.
Lift heavy loads? Tillu didn't doubt it. Her diminutive size was belied by the musculature of her shoulders and back.
'Not hurt now,' she reminded Tillu as the healer manipulated the shoulder. 'Only cold wet days. Then ache, stiff.'
Tillu nodded, satisfied. This was a thing she had seen before, and often. Her mind was working swiftly. She had some herbs that would make a tea for that kind of pain.
She had others that would work even better if they were blended with fat into a greasy ointment. But fat was something she didn't have.
She made a sign to them to wait and went to the back of the tent for her medicine box. Elsa pulled her shirt back on as Tillu mixed the herbs and placed them into a pouch of dried intestine. 'Mix a little of these with hot water and let them soak, oh, just until the leaves are soft. Then drink, but only one cup, no more. Too much can be bad.' Tillu suddenly realized that she was making no effort to make herself easily understood. She glanced up, but Elsa was nodding, seeming to understand the directions. 'You have bear grease? Wolf fat? Glutton fat?' she asked her.
Elsa nodded slowly, looking puzzled.
'You bring some. I make medicine to rub on. Better kind, help more. Put where it hurts only. Understand?'
'Next time,' Elsa suggested, and Tillu nodded. Next time. So there would be a next time, with people coming
