that followed the blade. Then, mindful of the time he had already wasted, he finished his shaving hastily.
He mixed steaming and cool water in the basin to a comfortable temperature, and then stripped hastily. Under his fur garments was his long shirt of woven wool. He could not remember when last he had removed it. Before the chill of fall set in? He dragged it off over his head and stood shivering and naked. He hesitated a moment, then stepped to the chest and opened it. On top of the other contents, as if anticipating him, was a leather poke of aromatic herbs and a square of coarsely woven fiber fabric.
He took them.
Placing a handful of the herbs in the center of the fabric square, he folded the fabric into a packet. This he dipped into the steaming water. As the herbs took in the moisture, their fragrance filled the sod hut. He scrubbed his face and neck with the rough packet, feeling his skin open to the warmth of the water. Dampening the packet repeatedly, he worked his way down his body. The water turned dingy, and he emptied it and refilled the basin again. He shivered as the water evaporated from his skin, chilling him further, but doggedly finished his bath. Then another basin of warm water, and this time a handful of the herbs floating loose in it. He knelt to pour more water over his thick mane of dark hair and then plunged his head into the basin of scented water. He scrubbed at his scalp, feeling his hair go to silkiness under his hands. At least he had no nits to worry about, as Bror did. Ristin would not have tolerated vermin in her tent. He suspected Elsa would feel the same way.
His fine hair tangled about his fingers, snagging on the work-roughened surfaces. He pulled his hands free, mumbling a curse, and plunged his head into the water again. He came up for air, and his hair swung forward past his face, streaming water into the basin. His scalp felt clean. He wrung his mat of hair over the basin. Elsa liked his hair.
Every time he had spoken to her since their agreement became public, she had taken the opportunity to touch it, to stand twining strands of it around her fingers as she talked to him. His hair was finer than that of the other men of the herd, and when the sun struck it, it shone not blue, but bronze. Heckram found its fineness annoying, for it blew into his eyes and clung to his fingers when he tried to smooth it. He shook it back from his face.
Shivering, he picked up his woolen long-shirt from where he had let it fall. But as he bunched it to pull it on over his head, the full impact of its aroma hit him. He dropped it, snorting. He had been wearing that? No wonder Kari had told him he smelt of butchering. He tossed it into the scented water still in the basin and looked for something else to put on.
In his clothing bundle he found two thin shirts of rabbit leather, fine for the mellow weather of summer, but not winter. But when he found nothing else, he regretfully took one and a clean pair of leggings from his bundle. They would have to serve. He tossed them across the hearth so they landed on his bedskins. Picking up his boots, he followed them, then stood staring down.
The shirt stirred dim memories. Images of his father, always a vague, tall man in his memories, suddenly snapped into focus. Heckram suddenly remembered a tall man, impossibly tall, laughing down at him as loudly as a wind roaring. The man had hazel eyes, and his nose was long and thin compared to the noses of the herdfolk. His big hands spanned Heckram's childish chest as the man lifted him up, touching his head to the rafters of the hut. A man wearing this brown wool shirt. Slowly he picked the shirt up and sniffed it, smelling the herbs his mother packed into the chest to keep the mice out. He wondered when she had placed it on his bed for him. Cautiously, as if afraid of shattering the memories he associated with it, he pulled it on over his head. He dragged on a pair of leather leggings and tied them and then stood, rolling his shoulders and trying to get used to the feel of it.
'It's tight on you. You're bigger than he was, I suppose, though I never realized it until now. Your southern blood must run strong, from both my father and yours. Still, the wool will stretch out to fit you.'
He turned slowly to find Ristin in the door, looking at him. Her smile was bittersweet. 'You've a lot of his looks. And his temperament, too. I suppose Elsa will learn to live with your moods as I learned to live with his.'
Heckram found himself nodding slowly. 'You saved this for me?' he asked.
She nodded in return. 'For this day. As he wore it on the day he claimed me.' She turned aside from him abruptly, no longer able to look at him. 'Comb your hair out, and be on your way. I'll clean this mess up for you, this last time, and wash out your shirt as well. Quickly now. Lasse and the others have been waiting for you long enough.'
She moved purposefully as she spoke, returning the bag of herbs to her trunk and pushing his shirt under the water in the basin to soak. He knew she didn't want to talk to him just now, so he ran a bone comb through his hair, slicking its dampness back from his face, jammed his hat over it, and left her tent quietly.
'A fine time of year to be building a sod hut,' Lasse growled mockingly to the other men as Heckram approached. Heckram greeted the men solemnly, touching hands with some, embracing others, and carefully ignoring the cluster of girls and women who had gathered behind Stina's hut to watch them. He thought he caught a glimpse of Elsa's bright blue cap among them, but refused to turn his head and see.
'So, Heckram, you've decided to build a sod hut today?' Bror asked him loudly.
'I might. I thought it might be a useful place to keep my things.' The men were elaborately casual as they followed him across the clearing and up the hillside. They watched in silence as Heckram brushed the snow away from a patch of ground, then forced a bone turf knife deep into the sod. Carefully he outlined a square in the surface of the revealed turf. Working with tools of wood and bone, he severed the thick mat of roots that held the block of sod in place and lifted it from its cradle. Dirt and bits of humus sifted from it as he lifted it. This first block of sod he carried down the hill in his arms, as if it were a fragile child. Carefully he lowered it to the earth, packing it firmly down where he wanted it. 'And here's the start of the wall,' he said loudly.
It was all they had been waiting to hear. Tools and sledges suddenly appeared. Some, more impatient than others, had already cut their blocks of sod while waiting for Heckram to finish bathing. These were off-loaded from sledges and set end to end with his starting block. A circle of sod blocks began to rise as the men moved and added more blocks of sod. In size and shape, the sod house would resemble a skin tent, but its thick walls offered more resistance to the wind and weather. Stout poles appeared, to frame in a doorway, and then more poles for the roof struts.
The roof itself was of birch branches and bark, set over pine poles and chinked with moss. The men returned from gathering the materials to find that someone had hung a hide on the doorframe. They made no comment on this, or on the thick layer of birch twigs that appeared on the floor while they were gone for their second load of roofing supplies. Lasse waved Heckram back from the roof when he would have climbed up to set the final barks in place around the smoke hole. 'You're too big. You'll cave the whole thing in.' Agile as a squirrel, the boy scrambled up and put the finishing touches on the roof.
Heckram walked carefully around the outside of the hut, looking for cracks to stuff with moss, or places where the turves might be set unevenly. But it was a good, tightly built hut, made to stand many a year of snow and rain. By the time he returned to it next fall, the walls would have taken on a life of their own. Small plants would cling to them, and the moss that chinked them would be green and growing. He nodded in satisfaction, then pushed the doorhide aside and entered. The bare birch twigs crackled under his feet. The other men clustered in the door, peering into the new hut.
'No hearth stones!' Bror observed with loud cheerfulness.
'It will be a cold hut with no arran to heat it and cook upon!' Lasse added, his shout ringing in the cold air.
'That it will,' Heckram agreed. The other men nodded commiseratingly as Heckram came back to stand in the door of the hut, crouching but still filling it. 'But what does a man know of building a hearth?'
'Nothing at all!' Stina cackled. She loved the ceremonies of a joining and was always the first woman to speak aloud. 'But here comes a woman to show you how! I bring you a stone for your hearth!' She hobbled forward as fast as her stiffened legs would allow her, to mockingly present him with a crumbling piece of shale no bigger than her fist.
But Heckram accepted it gravely and made a great show of inspecting it.
'It looks like a fine hearth stone to me,' he declared, inviting a chorus of hoots from the women. 'Yet it is not like the stones my mother used. I will not take your arran stone or you into my hut, woman!'
