He found he was speaking to Tillu's back. Kerlew had already retrieved his meat from the snow and was brushing the icy particles from it, sobbing as he did so. She stepped to his side and bent to speak to him. She would not humiliate him further by hugging him in front of this stranger, though she longed to. She knew from past experience that Kerlew would only pull quickly away. She was the one who wanted comfort. He only wanted his meat back, as it had been, hot and dripping. 'Take it inside,' she told him softly. 'And put it over the fire again. In a minute or two, if will be just as hot as it was. Do it!' she warned him, stepping in front of the glare he was giving Rolke, 'I will see to him.'
As Kerlew vanished into the tent, she turned to Rolke. She drew herself up to her full height. It was not enough to allow her to look down on him. She doubted that he would have been impressed anyway. There was very little respect for anything in this young man. But she would teach him some.
'Do you want the message from the herdlord, or don't you?' Rolke demanded.
'I want nothing from you.' Tillu set her jaw, hoping she wasn't turning aside a plea for healing. But surely one sending such a message wouldn't choose so rude a messenger.
Rolke was speechless. Tillu turned and lifted her tent flap. He hiccuped as he caught his breath, and then seemed even angrier because of it. 'Then I shall not give it. I shall tell my father that you and your brat turned me away! You are not fit to join our people anyway. But my father will be angry that you have not heard my words. Very angry.
You will be sorry if he sends Joboam to deal with you.'
'Will he send someone who is already here?' Tillu asked in an innocently curious voice. She turned away from the youth's reddening face. Over her shoulder, she observed, 'If the herdlord wishes to send me a message, it must come by a courteous messenger.' She entered her tent. She stood just inside, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness after the brightness of the snow. In a moment she heard Rolke berating his poor animal. She pitied any beast that belonged to such a master. Somehow she did not think the boy would improve with age.
Kerlew crouched by the fire like a small beaten animal. His hands were curled at the ends of his wrists as he held them before his chest. He stared at his meat as the higher flames licked against it, blackening the bottom of it.
Tillu sighed lightly, but said nothing. Any other boy his age would have known better. She stepped forward, to take the rewarmed meat from the fire and hand it back to him. He took it, gripping it like a squirrel, and looked up at her with pleading eyes.
'All right,' she said softly. 'You can eat it here. But be silent, and don't get in my way.
Don't come asking me questions in the middle of this healing. Do you understand?'
He nodded silently, already trying to nibble at the meat. Another question occurred to her. 'Why didn't you come and tell me there was someone to see me, when Rolke first got here?'
Kerlew's forehead wrinkled with concentration, 'I did. But you gave me the meat and told me to go outside, so I did.'
'Must one thing chase another out of your head? Next time, give the message first.
Anytime you have a message for me, give the message first. From now on.'
'I didn't know,' he complained as he went back to his meat. 'You never told me that before. It wasn't my fault.'
She gave him a warning look and went back to Joboam. As she knelt beside him and put his wrist back in position, his lashes fluttered. He rolled his head toward her, to ask in a thick voice, it's done?'
'Nearly,' she lied. The interruption had occurred at the worst possible time. He was already rousing from the medicine and she dared not give him any more. She moved the oil lamp into position, poking at the wick for a taller flame. She placed one of her knees on his wrist and the other on the inside of his elbow. She let most of her weight rest on her buttocks atop her heels, but was ready to rock forward and pin the arm still if he struggled. She took up his knife and set the blade tip into the wound at the deepest point. Something had dug in there and stayed. She probed with the tip, lightly at first, but when she encountered nothing, she pressed it gently down. Joboam groaned, but did not twitch. Deeper. The blade touched something hard that moved. As it did so, Joboam gave a deep grunt and lifted his head. Tillu rocked her weight forward to pin his arm down. 'Steady,' she told him. 'Lie still.' Again she put the tip of the knife against the object. Joboam's fist clenched suddenly and he took a shuddering breath. She slid her thumb down the knife blade. Bright blood was welling up in the wound; she could not see what she reached for, but went after it by touch. Her thumbnail found it and she clenched it down, pinning it against the blade. She pulled at it. It was stubborn, half grown into the flesh. Joboam was panting now and she smelled pain in his sweat.
Quickly. She gripped hard and tugged.
Joboam gave a wordless cry as it came free. Blood gushed up to fill the wound. Tillu dropped the knife and object onto the skins and pinched the wound closed with a blood-slippery hand, it's out now. It's out!' she assured him. She rocked her full weight onto his arm as he writhed. 'The worst is done.' In a reflex action, Joboam had gripped his injured arm, clutching it above the elbow as if to pull it out from under her. 'That's it, now, hold it tight. Grip as tight as you can,' she encouraged him.
She freed his arm, to grab the herb poultice she had laid out. Joboam lay half on his side now, gripping his arm and staring at the welling blood. She arranged the poultice on his arm, pressed it gently against his flesh. His breath hissed out, but he held steady.
The flow of blood was slowing. He was strong and in good health. He would heal well, she thought. 'Keep it tight,' she encouraged him as she wrapped the arm. Her fingers were slick with his blood and the bandages were stained before she had them in place.
But she wrapped it firmly, the wound held closed. 'This time it will heal and stay healed,' she reassured him. She rose to rinse her hands off. She glanced at the salt in the trough, glad she had not needed to soak the arm a second time. She knelt beside him again.
'Better now?'
'I don't know.' His eyes were shiny, his breathing shallow and fast, 'I feel dizzy.
Weak.' His voice trailed off. Tillu eased him back flat on her pallet. She set the injured arm on top of his chest and covered him warmly.
'Rest, then,' she told him needlessly. His eyes were already closing. She pulled another skin over him and snugged it down around him. There had been more pain for him than she had planned. Sometimes pain could disable a man more than the injury itself. Only rest healed that.
She rubbed her face, feeling suddenly tired. And hungry. But the habits of tidiness were strong. She wiped the knife and set it aside. Herbs and salt were stowed away neatly, the dish lamp extinguished and set away. It was when she was taking up the piece of skin that his arm had rested on that the small object fell to the dirt floor.
Stooping, she took it up and turned it curiously in her hand. This was what she had taken from his arm. She wiped it on the piece of skin and stared at it curiously, 'I know that I know what this is,' she murmured to herself, 'I just can't remember what it is.' It was shaped bone. A line had been etched into it and stained black, perhaps as a decoration. Something Joboam had been working on that had shattered?
She set it down by the knife and with a sigh rose to her feet. Now she could eat.
KERLEW: THE NIGHT
He awoke. As he often did, after a period of not sleeping. He did not need to open his eyes. They were already open, had been open since he lay down on his skins. He had been staring at the peak of the tent, at the smoke hole and the few stars beyond it.
Now he had come back to awareness of himself and his surroundings. A shiver ran over him, and he wondered what had drawn him back. He flared his nostrils, taking in the smells of the tent. There. Joboam. He bared his teeth in the dark.
He turned softly on his skins, but the birch twigs still cracked beneath his bedding. It did not matter. The big man slept deeply. Kerlew smiled thinly, remembering the man's pain when Tillu had healed his arm. He had been tight and silent, even when the blood flowed red. It was only later, when he had become feverish, that he had
