the hot stones.
She stared at the couple a moment longer, opened her lips to speak, and then gave her head a short, hard nod instead. After the doorhide fell behind her, there was silence but for the crackling of the flames on the new hearth.
Elsa, suddenly shy in the stillness, exclaimed, 'I should put more wood on the hearth,' and made as if to rise. Heckram felt the blood thundering suddenly in his veins.
The fringe of Elsa's skirt dangled at the tops of her knees like an invitation. He stood, pulling her up with him, and became suddenly aware of her smallness. When she buried her face against his chest, he felt the warmth of her breath through his shirt. He looked down on the clean skin in the part of her shining black hair. She looked up at him for a moment, her eyes clear and liquid as the dark eyes of a little vaja. His heart leaped like a wild sarva in rutting time. He knelt suddenly, pushing his face against her shirt, nuzzling her breasts through the woven fabric as his fingers snagged and fumbled at the lacings. Her hands caught in his fine hair and pulled his mouth against the firmness of her breasts. Her nipples reminded him of raspberries still warm from the noon sun, her thighs sleek and strong as polished ivory to his touch. The warmth from the new hearth flushed their bared skin, and the gift hides were silky beneath them.
It was late that night when she rose to put more fuel on the fire. He watched her from the warmth of the bedskins as she moved, gold against the dying gold of the flames, her hair a black wave down her shoulders, and was almost content. Then she gave a sudden cry of dismay and sprang back from the hearth.
'Did you burn yourself?' he asked quickly.
'No.' She turned worried eyes to him. 'One of our arran stones has cracked.'
Between an older couple, it might have been no more than an omen of a quarrel to come, or a day's bad hunting. But this was a new hearth and their joining was new.
There could be no worse portent for a betrothal night than a cracked stone in the newly set arran, and Elsa's eyes reflected her knowledge of that. He knew she was waiting for him to scold her, to say she had chosen the stones poorly or made the first fire too hot.
Instead he only lifted the bedskins and beckoned her back to his side.
She came in, uncertain at first, but soon was cuddling against him, stroking the hair on his chest. Later they slept. But when he awoke, he could only recall that he had dreamed of watching laden pulkors leaving for the southern trade villages. The morning was cold, and the fire had died on the cracked hearth.
CHAPTER TWELVE
'But I thought we were going to the herd, to check our animals.'
'It's on the way. And it won't take much time.'
'It's not on the way,' Elsa said, a bit petulantly. 'And I don't see why it should take any time at all. Why do you want to go visiting today?'
Heckram slid his skis forward through the crisp snow for another three strides before replying. 'Just to visit.' His big shoulders moved in a shrug. He was glad he was in the lead and she could not see his face. She would have known he was holding something back. As it was, she suspected.
It was one of those rare days that came sometimes in the midst of winter, a day that reminded one that spring must come sometime, that the life of the forest was sleeping in the dark rich soil under the blanket of cold white snow. The sky was a bottomless blue, the dark green of the pines a stabbing contrast. The white snow held a light of its own, glinting so brightly that Heckram squinted and felt the water rise in his eyes.
There was a perfection to the scene that nothing man-made could even imitate. Each dark-needled branch balanced its precise limit of snow. They crossed an open meadow where the tall heads of grasses poked up through the snow, each tassled stalk frosted with white crystals that emphasized the asymmetrical beauty of each individual. The coldness of the day burned against his cheeks, but the warmth of its beauty numbed him to the pain.
'But why? There's nothing we need from the healer. And it isn't really on the way; the herd is more west of here, in those hills.'
He didn't look back to see her pointing pole. He knew. A month with her, and already he knew her too well. He wanted her to be quiet, to look at the day as he was looking at it, to share the seeing of the frost on the tassled grasses, to feel the sunlight and the wind touch her cheeks with warmth and cold.
'I want to visit the boy,' Heckram said, surprising himself with the sudden honesty of his words. 'He's too much alone.'
'He's with his mother,' Elsa pointed out bluntly, 'If she thought he was too much alone, she'd move her tent closer to the talvsit. But I think she keeps him alone on purpose.'
'Perhaps.' Heckram's voice was grim; his shoulders worked more than they needed to as he pushed himself along.
'Well, you know how he is. I don't think he'd get along with the other children.
They'd have nothing in common. So, even if they moved right into the talvsit, he'd still be alone. Heckram, I've an idea. Let's go to the herd first, spend the day checking the reindeer. And then, on the way back, if we have time, we'll stop and see them.'
'Their tent is just over this hill and down,' he replied and pushed on, driving himself up the hill with a fury that left Elsa panting in her efforts to keep up.
The snow around the tent was trampled, and there were other ski trails now, evidence that several of the herdfolk had had reason to seek out the healer's skills. Tillu was out before her tent, lacing a calf hide onto a stretching frame. She looked very small as she crouched in the snow. Very alone, as if her tent were the only one in the world.
Kerlew was to one side of the tent. He gripped a stave and made an elaborate show of stalking a stump. His movements were stylized, more dance than play. His body swayed lithely as he moved, in a manner far different from his usual awkwardness.
Now he crouched and plodded toward the stump as if he fought a great wind, now his body lifted on tiptoe, and he menaced the stump with short jabbing thrusts of the stave.
A gust of wind carried some words of his chant to Heckram's ears. It was in no language Heckram had ever heard. He stood still on the crest of the hill, watching.
'See what I mean,' Elsa said suddenly beside him. 'What kind of play is that for a boy of his age? Why isn't he doing something useful to help his mother?' Her small face was set in a look of disgust, and the condemnation in her features made them hard and old.
Heckram pulled his eyes away from her.
'He's only a boy,' he observed gently, and he pushed off down the hill. An instant later he heard the sound of her skis cutting the snow as she followed him.
Kerlew saw them first and with a glad cry raced up the hill to meet them, coming straight at Heckram so that he had to turn his skis in an awkward stop that all but spilled him into the snow. Behind him Elsa exclaimed in annoyance and swerved gracefully around them. Her action carried her past him and into the clearing before the tent. Tillu rose awkwardly, greeting her with obvious surprise. And Heckram was left alone with Kerlew.
They grinned at one another, in an understanding that was complete without words.
Kerlew gripped the man's wrist with both hands. 'You have come to see the calf skin. I skinned it from the deer myself, taking it carefully, carefully, with the reindeer knife you gave me. Tillu has no knife so fine.'
'Um.' Heckram stored the bit of information. 'Then you hunt well, small man?'
Kerlew shrugged, a man's deprecating gesture to cover swelling pride. 'The calf was small,' he said casually. 'But it will feed my mother until I can kill another. Today I do the hunt dance, to bring me luck in hunting.' The boy paused, then said with elaborate casualness, 'Perhaps tomorrow you would care to hunt with me?'
The hidden plea in his words was a thing Heckram could not deny. 'Perhaps,'
Heckram replied, already planning the day. He glanced down at the tent, where Elsa stood, the set of her
