be our healer. Better life for you. You have food and hides and help to move your tent, even if no one needs healing. Maybe even give you some reindeer. Maybe. What do you think of that?'
It was too many new ideas, too fast. She was trying to juggle the idea of so many settled people suddenly rising up and going somewhere else with the idea of giving reindeer. Since the night she had ridden in Heckram's pulkor, she had accepted that these people used reindeer as domestic animals. But to be, possibly, the owner of one herself was too strange. Like owning a tree or a spring. And she was not happy to give up her image of planted fields and a settled life again.
'Herdfolk go soon?'
'Yes. Not very long from now. We'll go to the tundra. We'll leave the talvsit behind. If you don't go with us, you'd be alone all summer. Completely alone.'
There was a subtle taunt to his words. A veiled threat of some kind? Why? For what?
'Not alone,' she corrected him calmly. 'Kerlew with me.'
Joboam gave a snort of deprecation. Tillu almost regretted the sense-dulling mixture that was now simmering on her fire. She should have dug it out of his arm as he sat. She quelled her temper and turned back to stir the mixture. She could not say exactly why she found this man so irritating. The sooner he was healed and bandaged, the sooner he would leave.
She poked at the sodden mass in the bottom of the small pot. It would do. Carefully she added warm water, stirred, and ladled off a scoop of the dark liquid that formed.
She advanced on Joboam. His nose wrinkled at the odor.
'Bitter,' she told him, trying not to sound satisfied. 'Drink all. Make you sleepy, not hurt so much.'
Joboam took the ladle carefully and stared down at the dark brew. 'Maybe I don't need it,' he suggested.
Tillu shrugged, 'I cut, you hurt. You decide. But must not jerk arm while I cut. Maybe Kerlew hold arm down for me.'
Glaring at her over the rim of the ladle, he drank. A shudder ran through him and he swallowed with an effort.
'Water?' he asked.
'No. Make you sick, vomit. No water. Lie down. Wait.'
He didn't like it. She didn't care. But she still helped him lie hack on her pallet. He swallowed noisily and looked up at her with wary eyes. She stood over him, waiting for the medicine to take effect. She watched the steady rise and fall of his wide chest. She had been surprised when he took his tunic off. He was more hairy than the men of Benu's tribe had been. Dark hair formed a triangle on his chest and tapered down the line of his belly. The ridged belly muscles showed clearly, tight with worry. He was cleaner, too. She wondered if all the men of the herdfolk were so. Heckram's stubble-cheeked face came into her mind. What did his chest look like?
With a snort of contempt for herself, she turned aside. If Joboam was going to sweat and worry and fight the medicine, it was going to take longer to work. In the meantime, she would cook something for Kerlew and take it to him. She was no eager girl to spend her time staring at a man's chest and smirking. She was a woman with a son to tend and a healing to do. As Joboam's breathing became more steady, she cut a generous slab of meat from the chunk suspended from the tent support. It was not that she had so much to spare; it was the recent warm temperatures. The meat was dripping and would soon spoil unless it was eaten or turned into jerky. That was one thing she regretted about the coming spring. Meat would not stay nicely frozen as it did all winter. There was more work to preserving a kill, and more pests that tried to ruin it.
Skewering the chunk, she put it across the spit supports to roast over the low flames.
Drops of blood fell from it to sizzle on the fire below. The rich smell made her remember that she had not eaten yet, either. But she could wait. She had mastered the control of her appetites. She turned the meat, searing it on all sides, and then left it to cook through while she made a quick check of Joboam.
He lay on his back, his injured forearm cradled on his chest. His eyes were only half open. He was not asleep; he was in that dreaming state before sleep, where wakefulness has lost its importance. Taking his arm at the wrist and elbow, she eased it off his chest and out from his body. She arranged it, palm down, atop a clean piece of scraped hide.
Joboam dreamed on, staring at the peak of the tent poles. Tillu laid out clean moss, a damp pack of the herbs that would control bleeding, and finally her knife. She wished it was sharper. She should have told Joboam that she would heal him for a sharp knife.
Maybe when he awoke, he would agree to such a trade. Kerlew always carried the knife that Heckram had given him. And he was still adamant that she must not touch nor use it. But the hilt of Joboam's own knife showed above his belt. Why not? He didn't move as she eased it free and examined it.
She had not expected the bone haft to clasp a bronze blade. She stared at it, entranced. The metal was cold and sharper than any blade of bone. Decision tightened her grip on it. She would use it. She set it down beside her own and leaned once more over Joboam. She touched his cheek. He didn't stir. She pinched it, lightly, and then harder. He grumbled, his eyes still not turning to her. After a few moments, he turned his head aside, pulling his face from her hand. He was ready.
'Mother?'
Tillu turned. 'There's meat on the spit on the fire. Don't burn yourself. Take it outside and eat it.'
'Good!' Kerlew bounced in. His nose and cheeks were red from being outside, but his hood had been pushed back, so he was not all that cold. He knelt by the fire, took one end of the spit in each hand, and bore his prize away. He was already trying his mouth against it before he even reached the door, exclaiming as it burnt his lips, but not ceasing in his efforts to eat. Tillu said nothing. He'd learn. She added a few dry sticks of wood to the fire for better light, then took out a stone lamp. She had little fat for it, but it would not have to burn long. She knelt carefully by Joboam. She was just lifting one knee to set it firmly on the back of his wrist when she heard the voices outside.
'Give it back!' Kerlew, outraged, angry, already close to tears.
'In a moment. Did you tell her I was here?' A superior, taunting tone.
'Tell her yourself. I'm hungry. Give it back or I'll kill you!' Kerlew, already pushed to making wild threats. Tillu sighed.
'And you such a mighty warrior. I tremble. I think I shall eat it while you go inside and tell her I am here. Stop that!'
She had risen at the first sound, but the struggle had already begun before she was out of the tent. An older boy held the skewered meat out of Kerlew's reach. His other hand gripped Kerlew by the hair on top of his head and held him at arm's length as he struggled and swung and yelped. At the edge of the clearing, a reindeer still harnessed to a pulkor stared at the struggle with round, brown eyes.
'Let him go!'
Neither heard her. Tillu stepped resolutely in, to grip the older boy's wrist. Her competent fingers squeezed down on the tender spot between hand and wrist bone.
'Let him go!' she repeated, and the stranger quickly did. She found herself eye to eye with a youth she suddenly recognized as Capiam's son. She still remembered that look, both sullen and avid. His tunic and hat were gaudy with bright braid and beads. The amount of it went beyond decoration to braggery. He met her stare boldly.
'So here you are, healer. I asked the boy to tell you I was waiting.'
She wasn't going to be sidetracked. 'Give him the meat back. Now.'
He refused to be cowed, 'I didn't want it. I was just keeping it from him until he did as I told him. Here, boy, take it and stop your sniveling.' He flipped the skewer at Kerlew as he spoke. He did not intend that the boy should catch it, and Kerlew didn't.
The meat sizzled as it hit the snow and sank from sight. Kerlew howled as if he had been kicked and ran to dig after it like a little dog.
The older youth smiled snidely at the sight. He twitched his wrist free of Tillu's grip and straightened his tunic, 'I am Rolke,' he announced grandly. 'And I bring you a message from my father, Capiam, herdlord of the herdfolk.'
