'I did. I'm sure I did. I told you the healer had a son.'
'That's not what I mean. Why didn't you tell me how strange he was? Lasse said something about it, but when you said he had imagined it, I believed you. But when we first went in there, before his mother came ... brrr. It was all I could do to keep from turning around and leaving. The way he looked at us!'
'He's just a boy,' Heckram snorted, feeling more annoyed than her remarks merited.
'Lonely, probably, and a bit hungry all the time.'
Elsa dropped her hands from her hat and began pulling her mittens back on. 'You actually believe that, don't you? I guess you haven't been around children that much.
That boy is ... well, he isn't like other children. Look how he behaved when we first got there.'
'I don't know what you mean.'
Elsa shook her head at him. Taking a firm grip on her poles, she pushed off, Heckram following behind her and slightly to one side. 'When traders from the south come to the talvsit, what do the children do?' The rhythm of her words matched the rhythm of her pumping arms as she chose their trail through the woods.
'They rush out, chattering like magpies, making the dogs bark and pester them with a thousand questions,' Heckram replied grumpily. He felt as if she were lecturing him and he didn't enjoy it.
'That's right. But what did that boy do when strangers came? He didn't even come out of the tent, although he must have heard us talking outside. Not until you shouted to ask if anyone was home. Then he came silently to the tent flap and let us in, and sat down by the fire and invited us to sit, as if we had come all that way just to see him. He didn't run to find his mother, or call for her, or even mention her until you asked where she was. And the way he showed those spoons he had carved, as if they were some kind of treasure. You know that spoon you took wasn't worth the knife you gave him. I wonder that his mother allowed it.'
'I doubt that she even knows of it yet. It was just between Kerlew and me. And it wasn't the spoons he was showing me, so much as that he had learned from what I showed him last time. As to his manners ... Elsa, they aren't herdfolk. They're bound to have different customs. Perhaps among his people it is unseemly for children to be noisy. And I suppose, living alone as they do, he has learned to behave older than his years.'
'That's not it at all.' Now her voice was mirroring his annoyance. 'That boy is not right. He's ... well, not a half-wit, but only a step from it. Listen to how he talks!'
'He doesn't speak our language!' Heckram put in irritably.
'Even when he speaks to his mother in their own language, he sounds like he doesn't speak the language! Why are you getting so upset? You act as if I were criticizing Lasse or your mother! He's just the healer's boy.'
'Because I ... I don't know. Because, maybe, he is a bit different. As I was a bit different, with no father to teach me a man's skills. My mother hunted and herded and fished and wove, and I worked alongside her where I could. But there was always that secret worry for me: What if something happened to her? And always the knowledge that our life was different from those around us, in ways they could never understand.'
Elsa had gradually slowed, as Heckram's words and pace had picked up. She was alongside him now, staring curiously at him. He clenched his jaws tight against any more words, feeling embarrassed that he had said so much. And angry. Angry at the past for the way it had been. He could not go back and change how it had been for himself. The most he could do was change how it was for Kerlew now. He glanced across at Elsa.
'There's no talking to you, is there?' she observed. 'A person can't say a word to you without your taking it personally. Is everyone supposed to tiptoe around your feelings?
I'm the one who should be hurt. That knife you so casually traded for a crooked spoon is the one I made for you. Remember? At the last herd sorting, I borrowed one of yours to mark a calf after mine broke. And then I broke yours, too. So I had to make two new knives, and I gave the best one to you. But look at me. Am I carrying on about it as if I am insulted because you traded it away? No. But I make one little comment, and you are mortally offended. Over such a silly thing. And Heckram, you were nothing like that boy, and you know it. As well as I know it. I was around when you were a boy, remember? And you were never as strange as that Kerlew. But if you want to carry on about someone else's child, it's your business. I won't stop you. All I was trying to say is that he's not normal. But you'll find that out for yourself soon enough. I don't know how Lasse can bear to hunt with you. Everything has to be so grim with you!'
He let her talk on, hunching his shoulders to her words. He felt shamed that he had traded away her gift knife without even remembering it. She did have a right to feel insulted. But he would rather that she be insulted than that she scold him like a thoughtless child. He should never have told her he was going to see the healer. But, as the old tale went, in trying to please everyone he had pleased no one. He was sure his mother would soon hear about how unsociable he had been.
He glanced across at the girl. Her cheeks and nose were flushed with more than cold.
He supposed he had offended her, and she was only saying he hadn't to save his feelings. But that was even worse. With an effort, he changed the subject and asked,
'How is that calf doing? The orphaned one you were hand-feeding?'
'It died,' she said coldly. 'Nearly a month ago. As I'm sure I mentioned to you at the time.'
'That's right,' he hastily amended. 'So you did. Well. That shows you how well my mind is working lately. I've had so much to think on, I can't seem to keep my thoughts together. Even Lasse scolds me about it. I just -'
Elsa abruptly jammed her poles into the snow, halting herself. With an effort, Heckram checked his own skis and looked back at her. He was astonished. She was crying.
'I'm sorry I forgot about the calf,' he said, feeling ashamed of his thoughtlessness and baffled by her response to it. Had one calf become so important in her life?
'You are an idiot. You and that boy make a fine pair. I really do believe you don't know anything of what goes on with the people of the herd. All you think of is the reindeer and hunting, and dragging animals back to cut your mark in their ears. Did you know Joboam has said that he will marry me?'
After a moment, Heckram shut his jaw with a snap. His head reeled with contradictory thoughts. 'He's a very wealthy man,' he observed, addressing his remarks to a nearby pine tree.
'Yes. And he smells like an ungutted carcass and has the manners of a wolverine, and I wouldn't have him near me if he were the son of the herdlord. Which he seems to think he is, even if Capiam has a son of his own who will inherit that position. But he comes around, and comes around, and comes around, following me about like a dog follows a bitch in heat. And he gives my mother and father gifts they cannot refuse for fear of offending him, gifts of things I know they need, but I cannot supply for them.
Things I cannot hope to pay back for. He sits by our arran late into the evening, and if I go outside into the night to be alone, he follows me. If I say I am going to visit, he says he will go with me. He will not let me avoid him. Even when I say I will not hunt with him because I prefer to hunt alone, he follows me at a distance. I know he does, even if my father thinks I am silly. He has already told Capiam that I am going to marry him in the spring by the Cataclysm. I heard from Marta that Capiam was pleased and said that there would be a fine celebration, with many gifts for us. I feel like I am being swept down a river current, with nothing to grasp at.'
'Tell him no,' Heckram suggested harshly. He felt he was suffocating, as if he were a salmon with the mesh of the net lifting him from the rushing water. The urgency of his mother's matchmaking was no longer remotely humorous. Why hadn't she spoken honestly to him of Elsa's dilemma? Anger seethed through him. Who was Joboam, that all should fear to offend him?
'I did tell him no. He told me to think again. He laughed and told my father that young girls didn't know what was in their own best interest, but that if I thought on it, I would change my heart. I don't want to offend him, but -'
'Why not offend him?' Heckram demanded. 'Surely he is just a herdman, like any one of us? He has no right to force his attentions on you. Is he of the herdfolk, or is he some forest savage who must steal a wife to find one?'
'But what reason can I give him? What can I say to him?'
'Say 'I don't like you. Go away and stop bothering me.'' He tried to make the words sound like a jest, but the eyes she turned on him were swimming with tears.
'Heckram ... times have changed. Don't you see that? Joboam has many reindeer, and his rack is always heavy with furs and meat and hides. My parents bore me late. They are getting old. My mother seems always sick, and my father's eyes ... I cannot hunt and herd for three. And' - she paused. 'Joboam frightens me. When he says that girls do not know what is in their own best interest, his eyes are ... dangerous. He does not look at me like a man looks at a woman. He looks at me as I look at a harke who must be broken to packing. I do not ask the harke
