reindeer's neck. Yes, it was a boat, made of planks of wood bent and pegged together. 'Get in!'
Heckram roared again, and she clambered in.
She was scarcely settled before he seized the reindeer's harness and they started off at a run up the trail. Tillu's head was snapped back by the suddenness and she gripped the sides of the sliding boat. Pulkor, Heckram had called it. Trees, snow, and darkness slid past her at a frightening speed, all the more unnerving for the smoothness of the movement. The hind legs of the reindeer flashed very close before her, flinging up bits of snow that stung when they struck her. There was the creak and rush of the pulkor, the crunching footsteps of man and reindeer on the trail, and the black night pressing down. Tillu shivered deeper into the nest of furs.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tillu had thought she was immune to screaming. She had heard so many kinds: the screaming of a woman in her first childbirth, cries swiftly forgotten when the babe was put in her arms; the screaming of a child, more frightened than hurt, when Tillu had to pry his grip loose from his mother to treat a badly cut lip; the startled scream of a brave man, the sound bursting from him when the broken ends of a bone grated together. Yet they were nothing compared to the constant mewling that flowed from Elsa's torn mouth with every breath she expelled. Heckram's panted words had not prepared Tillu for this.
She shivered with apprehension and chill as Heckram thrust her before him into the sod hut. His faith in her was pathetically apparent as he pulled her toward the injured woman. His face was red and white from his run, his chest still heaving with exertion.
There was hope in his dark eyes. She dreaded it. 'The healer is here; all will be well now,' it seemed to say. She hoped he was right.
The two older women in the room parted and moved aside, surrendering Elsa to her.
Their faces were expectant and waiting. Tillu tried to appear calm as she knelt down by Elsa. Her medicine bag slipped from her grip to the floor beside her. Heckram stepped forward to set the chest of extra supplies beside her. He staggered as he stood upright again. Tillu felt the eyes of the women drilling into her like the spiral seeds of summer.
With an effort she forced her attention to Elsa.
It was difficult to recognize the fit and capable woman who had come to trade with her. Elsa was a huddled wreck. Tillu wondered what merciless instinct kept her conscious. Whatever had savaged her had been thorough. Tillu touched Elsa with her eyes only, cataloging those injuries she could help, and the order in which to work.
There was little she could do for the broken jaw and torn cheek other than to place them into their former positions and hope the body could heal itself. Whether she would ever again speak normally, Tillu could not tell. From the way one arm lay, it was dislocated at the shoulder. The hand on the other arm was a puzzle; it looked both sliced and broken. Later, when the broken pieces of Elsa's knife were found by the spring, Tillu would realize that these injuries had been caused by her desperate struggle to keep her weapon, to no avail.
Her torn clothing might hide other injuries, but these were the wounds that most frightened the others. Spilled blood and broken bones were a fearsome thing to look on.
But healers learned to fear most the secret hurts, the ones that damaged the hidden places of the body and defied healing. Places where the eyes could not see, or the fingers touch. Tillu would wait to be sure before she told them of her own fear. She had not seen it all that often. Once, it had been a child who had tumbled down a hillside and struck his head on a rock. Another time it was a man who had received a glancing blow from a rival's club. Tillu did not like to remember them. They had been long in dying.
First there was the slight bulging of the eyes, such as she thought she detected in Elsa.
Later the pressure within the skull would build, distorting the face with swelling. No healer could cure it, though she had tried, with cold compresses and bleeding and warm poultices on the wound. It was a killing thing, mysteriously caused by a blow to the head. An unseen, unhealable injury.
Heckram sank slowly down beside her, kneeling on the hides right at Tillu's elbow.
His body blocked her light, his quick panting breath distracted and unnerved her. As she reached a hand toward Elsa, he gasped, anticipating his woman's pain.
Tillu turned to him and gripped him by the shoulder. 'Heckram. You're in my way.'
She spoke kindly but firmly. He didn't hear her. She turned to the women, glad to distract them. 'Take him away. Soup. Sleep. Or he'll be sick.' Her eyes caught on an old man in the comer who rocked himself wordlessly, helplessly, his eyes vacant. 'That one, too. Take away from here, out of my way. Big help to me.'
The alacrity with which the men were seized and urged from the tent was an indication of how helpless the two women had felt, and how badly they needed to help.
As soon as the flap fell behind them, Tillu turned back to Elsa. She must work swiftly now, to get the worst of her pain-causing done while they were not here to witness it.
'Elsa? Elsa?' she asked, but there was no sign the woman knew she was there. There was only the sound that welled from her agony. Tillu debated whether to give her a soporific before she began. Reluctantly, she decided against it. The semiconscious woman would have been more likely to choke than to swallow.
Her jaw was broken in more than one place. Tillu's deft fingers manipulated the swelling flesh, trying to align the hidden fragments of bone. She eased the jaw back into an approximation of where it belonged and smoothed the ragged edges of torn flesh together. Someone had had the sense to leave water warming by the fire, and snow water melting by the door. Tillu chose the warm water for this. She wiped the wound carefully, ignoring the sounds of the woman she worked on. A careful binding held flesh and jaw in place. There. She looked better now, but a glance at her eyes told Tillu it would make no difference. Elsa was going to die.
As she worked over her hand, she wondered why she did it. What good to bind the poor crumpled fingers, to spread soothing unguent on the torn flesh, to bandage from sight the bloody and broken places? The new pain of having her broken fingers straightened changed the cadence and pitch of Elsa's moaning. As Tillu carefully drew one finger straight, Elsa gave a sudden gasp. Her heels drummed against the hides she rested on. Then she was still, at last unconscious.
Tillu seized her opportunity. Elsa would not feel the pain now. She would do the rougher healing. She snapped the wrenched shoulder back into its socket. She looked for and found a better knife than her own and used it ruthlessly to cut through the leather and wool and bright woven bindings of Elsa's garments. Tillu laid her tunic open, to reveal the blackening bruises down the left side of her rib cage. Her fingers probed delicately, and she decided no ribs were broken. A small frown creased her brow. She wondered briefly why the woman bad been beaten so, and who had done it.
She did not appear to have been raped; merely mauled and left to die. Perhaps she had broken some tribal rule.
Tillu shook her head at her own curiosity. These were not questions for a healer to ask. She had seen women of other tribes beaten this badly, sometimes by a rapist, sometimes by a lover or father. Kerlew's strange prediction that Elsa would not return with bear grease rose in her mind. Had Heckram done this? It might be so. She had seen men just as repentant and guilty as he seemed to be. It was possible. And none of her worry. Over the years, she had learned to ask no questions. The answers never made the healing any easier. She covered the poor battered body gently. Her lingers touched Elsa's skull, gently probing through the thick, black hair. She found the spot, as she had known she would, and felt her stomach turn over as she touched it. No blood flowed from it. All the damage was within.
Turning her back on Elsa, Tillu drew closer to the fire. She felt chilled and weary, more than the long ride through the cold night and her interrupted sleep could explain.
It was this 'healing.' A healing that was more a preparation for burial. There had not been many of this kind in Tillu's life, but each one dragged at her, making her question her skills. This Elsa would die. Any of her other injuries, she might have survived. But Tillu could no longer ignore the signs. Still she did not call for Heckram and the others yet. Elsa had been strong. Her dying would take days and nights. Their vigil would be long enough. Let them rest now.
She unrolled a piece of scraped, bleached hide. On it she arranged packages and bundles of herbs, tossing spoiled bits into the fire as she selected others and put them in two small piles. Her fingers and nose knew each dry
