It felt earlier than their usual rising time, but Ristin was already up, sitting beside the hearth, a cup of tea in her hands. His eyes met hers, and hers suddenly brightened with moisture before she could turn away from him. He rubbed at his face, self-conscious at having caught her watching him sleep.
'Is something wrong?' he asked, his voice still thick with drowsiness.
'No. No, everything is right. I was just thinking it was the last morning that my son would wake up in my home. Tomorrow I will wake up alone. And every day after that.'
Her voice tightened as she spoke, and she didn't look at him.
Heckram rubbed at his face wearily, feeling the new stubble scratchy against his palms. He didn't release the sigh coiled inside his chest. Mastering his own reluctance had been difficult enough. He didn't think he could contend with Ristin's new doubts as well, isn't that what you wanted? It seems to me that I've been told any number of times that I should be in my own home, fathering grandchildren for your entertainment. So I finally take your advice, and wake up to find you weeping at me.'
Ristin gave a short, high laugh and then sobbed. She turned to him, her smile showing between the tears that damped her cheeks, 'I am glad for you. So glad, and so pleased that it is Elsa with you. I don't weep for your joining. Only for the changes it will bring. We old people always weep for the change times: for births, and deaths, for joinings and sunderings. They are the proper times for these tears.'
'Old people!' Heckram scoffed at her. He threw back the coverings and rose from his pallet. 'Tell that to the foxes you brought down yesterday!'
'It's not the things you can do that mark your age. It's the things you find you can't do any longer.'
Heckram looked at her sharply, weighing the regrets in her voice. He tried to see her as a stranger, but could not. Ristin was Ristin. A little thinner perhaps, the lines around her eyes more numerous, the joints and knuckles of her hands more apparent, but still capable Ristin. He refused to indulge her melancholy.
'Are you saying you're too old to help build a talvsit hut for Elsa and me?' he asked innocently, 'I suppose I could ask Lasse's grandmother to fill in for you ...'
'What do you ... ? You puppy! Don't make mock of your mother's years. I'm not as old as that yet. Get out of bed now. I've cooked for you this morning; maybe the last time I ever shall - not that I regret that! You get up and eat, and pack in water to wash yourself. The least I can do for Elsa is see that she finds you clean, though why she'd want you at all is more than I can understand. Out of there now, you great lout! You've a sod house to build today, and a woman to claim.'
She took down her tunic from its hook as she spoke and dragged it on. She smiled at him as she left the hut, and Heckram found himself grinning in reply. But after she was gone, he found the smile fading from his face. A heaviness weighed on his heart as he clambered to his feet and went over to the cookfire. Today, in the construction of a sod hut, he would be laying a formal claim on Elsa. They would begin their life together today, even if the joining was not formally recognized until they had announced it before the gathering of all the herdfolk at the Cataclysm. He glanced about the smoke-darkened walls of his mother's hut, suddenly sharing her recognition that he would no longer wake up here, no longer share her fire and food. Changes. She would be living alone, and he would live with Elsa.
Resisting the temptation to burrow back into his bedskins, he stretched and then inspected the cooking pots. A porridge of meat and grain was bubbling thickly at the edge of the hearth. Set away from the embers to steep was a pot of herb tea. He dipped a mug carved from knurled birch into the pot and then sipped noisily at the steaming tea. The hot liquid cut the night thickness from his throat and cleared his head of useless regrets.
He ate quickly and as he dressed he tried to recover his acceptance of the situation.
Yesterday he had borrowed his mother's young harke on the excuse it needed further training, and had harnessed it to his pulkor and driven off into the forest. The sledge moved well over the snow, the young animal pulled almost willingly, and his head was free of the chatter of the other herdfolk. He had pondered, his eyes unseeing as he guided the pulkor around and between obstacles. He had thought of Elsa, mostly. His knees did not quake with lust at the thought of her; she did not fill his chest with sighs.
He had always felt a satisfaction in their friendship, a comfort in her steadiness. He wondered if it would be enough for her. Or for him. He could think of no other herdwoman he found more attractive. She lacked no skills that a woman should have.
She was not dull-witted, nor subservient. She had spirit, spirit he admired. And she had courage; not only the courage to resist Joboam's advances, but also to come to him and speak plainly. And she wanted him. Surely that should count for something. He'd heard of women wedded and bedded reluctantly. She would not come to him grudgingly. She could have had a wealthy man, rich in reindeer and bronze tools, a man who would have decked her in amber and bronze and ivory. She had preferred him.
He realized belatedly that three times he had approached and then turned aside from the path that led to the healer's tent. He wanted to go see Kerlew, wanted to see the boy's face light with excitement, wanted to take him driving in a pulkor. He was sure the boy had never seen one. Nor his mother. But Tillu would not light up as the boy did at the sight of him. Tillu would be like the fox watching her cub play. Watchful, ever watchful of harm to her young. So fierce a little woman she was; how she had scolded him for taking Kerlew that day. And when she realized her error, how her face had softened and filled with her love for her son. Ristin was like that over me, he mused to himself. She's a fine mother to the boy. They can take care of themselves; she's right about that. He turned his mind and his harke away from them.
He returned from his long drive as the sun was setting. He was still not in love, but he was not unappreciative of the woman who was giving herself to him. Nor could he deny the stirrings of desire in the base of his belly when he thought of her. He had set his doubts and reluctance aside, resolving to face his obligations. His dreams of the trading villages to the south and the strange lands beyond them were but fancies for a child. Something he had used to soften the harsh realities when he was too young to do anything else about them. Now he was a man, about to take Elsa to wife. He would have other things to think about.
As he dragged on his boots and laced them, he thought again of his decision not to invite the healer and her son. He would have liked them to come. He would have enjoyed watching Tillu watch the people, enjoyed letting Kerlew eat until he was filled.
And perhaps she would have spoken to him of the folk she had traveled among. She looked like no people he had ever met. Her appearance was almost as outlandish as his own. But he did not think Elsa would share his enthusiasm for tales of far places, or enjoy the healer taking the attention of the herdfolk away from her betrothal ceremony.
Another time, he mentally promised Kerlew and himself. Another time.
Taking up the buckets, he left the hut and went to the spring. Early as it was, the herdfolk were up and about, the talvsit humming with suppressed energy. Heckram was greeted with smiles and knowing nods on his way to the spring. The morning was clear and, though cold, there was a softness in the air that was the early breath of spring. He went down on one knee to fill the buckets, then starred back to the hut. He stopped once by Lasse's hut, to get a fresh grip on the wet handles and to incidentally inspect an area beyond the hut that had been swept clear of snow. Yesterday he and Lasse had paced it off. The youth had helped him sweep the snow from the ground with pine boughs and then scrape away a layer of frozen moss and turf. The circle of bare brown earth waited now, looking empty amid the snowy clearing. Stina would be a good neighbor, they were not far from the spring, and there would be good grazing for a pack harke or two behind the hut. It was a good site for a home.
He lifted the buckets again and set out for Ristin's hut. Bror was standing before his own hut, yawning and stretching in the thin daylight. He grinned when he saw Heckram.
'You've a bit of work before you today, young man.'
'A bit,' Heckram conceded with a smile.
'Just remember not to weary yourself too much, if you take my meaning. Stout walls alone won't warm a new hut properly. What's the water for?'
'Bath. And shave my face. I've never minded my grandfather's height, but did he have to pass on his whiskers as well?'
Bror, like most of the herdfolk, was smooth-faced, save for a few fine black hairs on his upper lip. These he stroked as he nodded again at Heckram. if it were me, I wouldn't take a bath this time of year, woman or no. A man can get his death-sickness from wet skin in winter. Wait until spring, when the water runs noisy in the streams.
