leaf, each curl of bark, as she sorted. Here was strong-scented yarrow that could start a woman's flow of blood or treat a wound, and the long leaves of deer tongue for an emetic. Here was the curling bark from the bear-berry shrub, good for urinary disorders, and the long dandelion root for a tonic or a mild laxative. Some herbs she had known from her lessons when a child, others she had learned from the folk she moved among. Their names might vary from people to people, but not their properties. Tillu chose carefully. Into the first pile went those for cleansing bleeding wounds and ones for easing the pains of cuts and gouges.
Into the second pile went those that eased pain and encouraged sleep.
She turned next to the wooden box Heckram had brought along. Opening it, she began to assemble her tools. Her mortar and pestle were the ball and socket from a reindeer calf's joint. Tillu scooped up the first pile of herbs and began to grind them together. The fine powder was mixed with lukewarm water. She soaked a fresh bandage in it, and wrapped it dripping over the bound fingers. She wiped blood from Elsa's face, noted that her torn cheek no longer bled. She tried to ignore the bulging of her closed eyes.
The second mixture she hesitated over. Elsa's wounds were severe. She knew she must increase the strength of the mixture for it to have any effect. But Elsa was already weakened. Too much would ... perhaps be merciful. Tillu pushed that thought aside.
True healers refused such decisions. Her profession was to repair the body and cure the illness. Let others decide when someone was beyond her help. Her vocation demanded that she always believe her patients would survive. Her hand hovered over the neatly arranged piles of herbs. After a long hesitation, she picked up two night berries and added them to the small pile before her. Death's Seeds, Benu's folk had called these, and another folk had named them Bitter Sleep. She wanted a mixture that would heavily sedate and separate Elsa from her pain, but still allow her to bid her family farewell. If ever she opened those eyes again.
Tillu crushed the berries and herbs together into a coarse mixture, added it to water, and set the vessel to heat by the fire. It might never be needed, but if Elsa awoke to pain, Tillu did not want her to have to wait for relief.
She placed her palms on the earth and pushed herself upright. The walls of the hut swung slowly before her for an instant; she had stood up too rapidly for one so weary.
She rubbed at her gritty eyes as she stumbled over to sit beside Elsa. She tucked covers gently against her. 'Rest now,' she told Elsa. 'Rest.' With a sigh, Tillu leaned back against a cool sod wall.
A sound turned her head. One of the women was coming back into the hut.
Something about her face ... A memory twisted elusively through her mind, and then Tillu realized she was seeing Elsa's features subtly reflected in this older face. A relative.
Behind her came a handful of men that Tillu didn't recognize. Last came the other woman who had been in the hut when Tillu first arrived, followed by Heckram. Tillu sighed to herself. He should be resting. He looked weary and bedraggled, and angered at something. She hadn't noticed before the tracings of gray in his black-bronze hair. It reminded her of a wolf's pelt. There were lines in his face that had deepened this night, and she wondered suddenly how she could have thought he was a young man. He was older than she was.
The people filed in silently, their very silence a continuation of whatever argument had created the tension stretched among them. It was plain the other men had not seen Elsa's injuries before. Their faces reflected various emotions, and cloaked others. One was the headman of the village. Tillu did not need to be told of his importance. His rumpled black hair attested that he had been roused and dressed hurriedly, but he had not neglected to deck himself with a necklace of amber beads. His clothing was richer than that of the others, the furs softer and more lush, the colors of the woven strips brighter and wider. The skinny whelp beside him must be his son. Tillu disliked him instantly. His face mirrored none of his father's concern for Elsa. There was only the avarice of one fascinated by blood and pain. He licked his narrowed lips and peered at the girl. Muscles twitched around his eyes as he stared.
The third was a barrel-chested bear of a man. Had Tillu not seen him, she would have supposed Heckram an anomaly to the herdfolk. But this man, too, showed the marks of mixed blood. He stood half a head taller than Heckram, and his hair was brown bleached by the sun with streaks of gold. He had started life with a good face, Tillu judged, but along the way had spoiled it. There was a heavy cast to his features and his eyes didn't seem to open completely. A waiting, hiding man. His clothing was plain, but well made. Its reserved color and simpler braid suggested wealth more than the gaudy decorations the headman's son wore. Moreover, this man bore himself as the son should have, but did not. As he gazed on Elsa, he expelled a deep sigh like a hiss, and crossed his heavy arms across his thick chest. He was the first one to break the silence.
'If she had accepted my offers,' he said sternly, 'I would not have let her go out to the spring alone at night, to take her chances with beasts. Why is it some men claim what they cannot care for? You've only yourself to blame for this, Heckram. I understand why you did not report it to Capiam until now. No man of any pride would want to admit a thing like -'
'Joboam.' The headman's voice stopped him. The woman seizing Heckram's arm aborted his swing at the man rebuked as Joboam. Tillu made herself smaller, crouching by her patient as she scowled at this drama. This sort of tension never did an injured person any good. If there was any more disturbance ...
Heckram shook the woman off and stepped clear of her. Tillu wondered if he were aware of the way he put his body between Joboam and the woman on the floor, it was no beast,' he growled. 'A man did this. And I went for the healer first, because I knew this is exactly what you would do. Stand over her and make useless remarks, seeking to fix the blame on someone rather than finding out who did it.'
'It could have been a demon,' Capiam's son breathed. His eyes glowed at the prospect. No one paid him the least attention. Tension sang between Joboam and Heckram. They could have been alone in the hut.
The woman who had clutched at Heckram's arm spoke abruptly, changing the direction of everyone's stare. 'Capiam. Are you the herdlord or not? Do you lead this sitor? Then there is someone among us who has done this thing. If you lead us, then it is you, not my son, who must answer for letting one such as that live among us.'
The very softness of her voice made the accusation sharper. The herdlord's son gasped. The jaw of the other woman sagged open an instant. Then she snapped it shut and her gaze hardened.
'She's right,' she said, her voice cracking. 'She's right! Never has there been a time when a woman was afraid to go to the spring alone! Never has a woman been savaged like this, on the very edges of our camp! What are we coming to, when there is among us one who can do this? Where are you leading us, Capiam?'
Her voice went shriller with every word, and suddenly she was gasping. She clutched at herself and sank slowly down on the floor, her face caving in as her tears found her.
'Who are you to speak to the headman like that, old woman!' Joboam demanded in a voice laced with fury.
Heckram spun on him, the cords in his neck leaping out like plucked bowstrings. The headman's son scrambled backward in his hurry to be out of the way, stumbling against Tillu's pot of pain potion and nearly upsetting it. Heckram took a step forward and suddenly found the little healer woman thrusting herself in front of him.
'Quiet! Quiet!' Tillu hissed furiously. In a moment more, they would be fighting, and she would have more heads to bind and hands to set. Not tonight, she promised herself.
'Out! Men out!' she added firmly as they showed no signs of obeying. 'Elsa needs quiet.
Elsa needs rest. Other men, out! Healer say, Heckram stay here, help take care of Elsa,'
she added shrewdly, thinking to occupy one of the combatants. 'You. Headman.'
Capiam might not have recognized her word, but he recognized the finger that jabbed at him. 'Take men away, not let them fight here. Talk in morning, not now. Not now!
Out. Quiet!' she hissed again when the headman's son opened his mouth.
For a long instant they held their positions. Then Capiam clapped his son on the shoulder and propelled him from the hut. 'Joboam?' He made the burly man's name a question and a warning. Joboam clenched a fist and let Heckram see the small movement of it. Then he backed from the hut, his eyes on Heckram as he departed.
Heckram stared after him like a snarling dog.
Tillu gave in to the rubberiness in her knees and knelt beside the keening mother. She put her arms around her and rocked with her, letting her take the comfort of weeping, and feeling a small relief herself in the rhythmic movements. One day she would trust too much to her status as a healer. She had gambled that she could order a headman from a tent and not be beaten for it. She had been right, but now she trembled at what might have been the consequences had she been wrong.
