failures. His memory was like a torn fishing net, now holding the catch, now letting it slip away. He could fetch the water, bring the wood, build up the fire. But if she told him to fetch wood to build up the fire, and bring water to heat for stew, he would lose track of his tasks. Later she would find the water bucket by the firewood stack. At her angry shout, Kerlew would rise from watching a swirl of leaves in the stream, to innocently ask her when food would be ready. Yet he could recite Carp's tales word for word, or casually ask her what she had meant by something she had said months ago.
Beating him did no good. When they were both much younger, she would strike him for such failures, believing him lazy or simply disobedient. She was girlishly envious of other women's handsome, bright-eyed children. She had wanted desperately for Kerlew to be quick-witted, or agile, or sweetly obedient. She had longed to feel proud of him.
Instead she heard the mockery of other children when the little boy spoke his halting words, and the commiserating words of other women for her misfortune that her only child was a half-wit. She would angrily deny it and set him to some task. He would fail.
Shamed and angered, she would strike him. Then he would weep helplessly, baffled by the punishment, for he could not remember having done wrong.
The sight of his small frightened face, running tears, would shame her. And her own soul would rise to smite her when she reached to comfort him and he cringed from the hands that had so recently brought him pain, or else stiffened and struggled against her repentant embrace. Eventually she had stopped slapping him or pushing him down to sprawl in the dirt; it did neither of them any good. Folk only laughed at both of them, or turned aside with embarrassed faces. She had grown out of being a child with a damaged doll. Instead she had begun to accept that he did not learn as other children did. But learn he must, and so a new way must be found.
So now she crouched by the dead calf, her chilled feet going numb in the snow, and watched patiently as he mangled the hide away from the body. The luck that had brought them this calf, alone and bawling for its mother, would not be likely to bring them another. It had been exhausted, staggering through the snow. Tillu surmised that its mother had been killed by a glutton. The clever wolverine would wait until the reindeer had its head deep in the hole it had pawed in the snow, nipping up the buried reindeer moss. The deeper the snow, the easier it was for the glutton to rush in and sink its teeth into the tender throat of the grazing animal. Tillu had come across the traces of several such kills in recent days. She had brought home a trove of red-rimed bones from such scenes, to stew into broth and crack for the marrow within. This calf, smaller than most she had seen, had probably fled from such a slaughter. Only to stumble into Tillu as she hunted, to be stunned with a broken branch and have its throat cut. She didn't regret it. Whatever gods or spirits reigned over these forested hills, they made no distinction between Kerlew and the orphaned calf. So Tillu had chosen for them which creature would survive the winter. And fetched the boy to help with the skinning and packing.
Kerlew paused in his skinning, to scratch busily at his cheek. His fingers left red streaks on his face. He had bloodied the knees of his trousers and the cuffs of his coat.
'I'll take a turn now,' Tillu offered. After a moment's frowning pause, the boy nodded. He stood up, his face set seriously. It was so conscious an expression of maturity that she had to smile at him. He was a good boy, and she did love him so.
There were moments, times when he tried and things were well between them, when her heart swelled with love for him. At those moments the future seemed bright and their troubles behind them. She nodded at him now and said, 'You did very good work, for your first time at skinning.'
'I know,' he replied. He touched the hilt of his knife proudly, 'I can do many things. I can carve spoons and make a fire. I can kill rabbits and skin animals. I am more of a man than you know.'
'Men don't boast,' Tillu observed shortly.
Kerlew merely stroked the hilt of his knife, unabashed by her rebuke. She sighed.
'While I skin,' she suggested, 'you carry home the basket. Be careful with it.' She nodded to a dripping basket that had melted deep in the snow beside them. It was heavy with the liver, tongue, heart, and kidneys of the small calf. 'When you get to the tent,' she went on, 'add wood to the fire, so it won't go out before we get back. Then be sure to come right back here, to help me carry the meat home. Can you remember all that?'
The boy nodded vigorously. 'What do you think, that I'm a baby still?' He frowned suddenly, his close-set eyes worried beneath his knit brows. But he slowly repeated, 'I'll take the meat home, build up the fire again, and come right back.'
'Go, then.' Tillu smiled. 'Hurry, but do not spill the meat.'
She watched him trudge away, the pack basket leaving a dripping red trail behind him. The boy was growing fast and well now. Perhaps this was what he had always needed; a chance to be alone with her, for her to concentrate on teaching him. And a chance to learn a man's skills from a man like Heckram. She shook her head. Kerlew could learn from anyone who took time with him. That was all that proved. Now that Heckram was taking a woman, they would see less of the man. But she didn't care. She could take care of herself and her son, teach him all he needed to know. Kerlew was going to be fine, just fine. She smiled to herself. Her son. Soon he would be the man he claimed to be. He would make his own decisions, take his own actions, live his own life.
And then? And then could she live her own life as well? She snorted with derision at the thought. She did well enough on her own. She bent back over the animal, pulling firmly on the hide as she carefully sliced it free.
When the hide was clear, she rolled it up, skin side out, and set it aside. She set about dividing the calf up into manageable parts. It would have been more difficult with a larger animal. But even her poor knife could work through the calf's flesh and muscles.
She dislocated the legs at the major joints and cut between the ball and socket to break the animal down into four quarters, along with torso and head.
By the time she was finished with the heaviest work, the sun was skimming the horizon. She was sweating inside her tunic, but knew the foolishness of setting it aside.
The sweat would chill on her body, and she would start shivering her way into a deadly chill. Better to sweat and keep moving than risk that. She stared a long moment down the trail, expecting Kerlew. But there was no sign of him yet. Perhaps it hadn't really been as long as it seemed. Perhaps he had stopped to eat something at the tent before coming back. The basket was heavy. He would stop to rest, so it would take him a long time to lug it home. She stooped to cut a fine slice of red meat from the calf. She bit off a piece of it, feeling the fresh blood tingle deliciously on her tongue. She finished it quickly, and another slice more slowly. Where was the boy? Well, she wouldn't waste time waiting for him.
With a sigh she turned to the gut sac. She separated the intestines and stripped the dung from them with her fingers. Cleaned, they had a hundred uses. She sorted out gobs of suet and set them in a pile. A slash of her knife separated the stomach, and she emptied its contents into the snow. It became a container for the tallow bits. She would leave little for the ravens to clean up. She straightened a moment, rubbing at her aching back, and then returned to her task. By the time Kerlew got back, she would be finished.
Later, when the shadows of evening had changed from blue to black on the snow, and she could no longer see the colors of the forest, she wedged most of the meat into the crotch of a nearby tree. She hoped no scavengers would find it before she could return. She rolled one hindquarter into the hide that was now stiff with frost and hefted it slowly to her shoulders. Her back ached from bending over her work, her feet ached with the cold, and the skin of her face stung with night's rising wind. She ignored the ache in her heart and the sting of tears that threatened her eyes. Once more she buried her knowledge that Kerlew would never be all right, would never be a fine and laughing young man proudly bringing home a kill. The snow dragged at her feet as she trudged home under her burden.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The questing tongues of fire popped the sap pocket under the hark of the pine log and crackled suddenly into reaching flames. Heckram opened his eyes to the new light.
