These last few days of gathering had been mostly for Kari's education, and to provide fresh greens for their meals. Today they both moved slowly, pausing often to stoop and dig for roots. Rajd after rajd moved past the grubbing women. Both took exaggerated care in cleaning the roots and cutting them in manageable pieces. Old Natta finally passed them, limping and huffing, but too proud to let her grandson lead her rajd while she rode. Tillu had met her once before, when she had come to her for a liniment for sore joints. She slowed and then halted her two moth- eaten animals.
'Healer?' she called in her cracked old voice.
Tillu looked up from the roots in her lap. The old woman's eyes were set deep in her wrinkled face, and one had begun to film with age. She spoke slowly, pausing often.
'I'm sorry about your boy. I lost a little daughter that way, years ago. Just a wee one, just old enough to run and play with the other children. But when they came back to the fires at night, she wasn't with them. They tell you not to grieve, there will be other children for you. And there will. But I know that none will be like the boy you lost, and you will never cease missing him. So grieve away, and know I grieve with you. But don't do what you're thinking of doing. Don't go back down the trail, looking and calling. You'll only be lost as well, and if you do find him, you'll wish you hadn't.' She paused a long time, taking quick, shallow breaths, and Tillu thought she was finished.
But then Natta flashed a look to her from old eyes that suddenly brimmed with tears. 'I know. Don't go back to look.' Her old mouth folded in on itself and said no more as she turned her face away from them, looking to the far horizon.
Then she was stumping on her way. She did not lead her head harke, but leaned one hand on its shoulder. Its muzzle was rimmed with white, and the pace they set suited them both. Silence flowed in slowly after they passed. Tillu squatted on her heels, staring after them. She started at Kari's touch on her shoulder.
'She's right, you know.' Kari spoke simply. 'If he can be found alive, Heckram will find him and bring him to you. You have to trust that task to him. And if he finds him otherwise ... he will do all that can be done for him; you could do no more by being there.'
Tillu tucked the roots into her shoulder bag, and rose. She looked back the way they had come. The passage of the people and hooved beasts had leveled a swath through the tundra's face. Her eyes followed it back to the horizon. Within her sight, nothing moved. No one followed. She trudged after Kari, and for the first time in days her legs ached with the long walk. The mosses and grasses of the tundra grabbed at her feet and slowed her.
They were last into camp that night, arriving even after old Natta. Great worn gray boulders and outcroppings of stone characterized their stopping place. In the long gray twilight, the camp was visible as small red fires and children outlined against the sunset as they clambered and leaped from the stones. Tillu felt exhausted. Her head throbbed and her entire body ached with unrelieved tension. She knew she should be hungry, but the thought of food choked her. As they trudged into the camp Lasse slid down from a large boulder. They knew he had been keeping watch for them.
Without preamble he told them, 'Ristin has cooked more than enough for all, and bids you join her. And if you say you would rather be alone now, I'm supposed to tell you that she would, too. But being alone right now is not good for you, and besides, if she has to share her fire with Carp, she'd like some other company as well.'
Kari looked uncertain of the invitation, but Tillu was too tired to resist. She followed Lasse and Kari came behind her.
Ristin had set her tent between two great boulders, and it gave an air of privacy to this home in the middle of the tundra. Her fire burned cleanly, reindeer dung and twigs turning to glowing coals. A pot of bubbling stew was wedged into the glowing embers, and flat cakes baked from reindeer moss were heaped on a flat stone where the fire could warm them. Skins were spread on the soft grasses between the boulders, and roofed with a slanting of hides. Ristin sat by her fire, her eyes narrowed as she stitched away at some project. Of Carp there was no sign.
'Wash your face and hands,' she told them as they began to settle near her fire. 'You'll feel better.' And though Lasse was the first to obey her, it was clear she addressed them all. It was the first time Tillu had really looked at her since Elsa's death. Strange, how long ago that seemed now. This woman looked older than Tillu remembered. Older and stronger. There was sorrow and serenity in her features, and they somehow combined to suggest wisdom. Tillu wondered if her own mother would have looked like this, and behaved this way, calmly assuming dominion over anyone the same age as her son.
Kari came to sit beside Tillu and as Lasse moved to sit beside her, Ristin calmly observed, 'I fetched a bucket of water for your grandmother, Lasse. She said that one would be plenty, as she eats alone now. I tried to get her to join us this evening, but she wouldn't. I think she thought we would be bored with her.'
The stricken look on Lasse's face was not something he could control or hide.
Without a word he rose and hurried away.
'He's a good boy,' Ristin observed to no one in particular. 'But sometimes he needs to be reminded that there are responsibilities to being loved.'
Beside her, Kari stiffened. Tillu did not know if the words had been aimed at her, but they had certainly struck. 'But sometimes one does not choose to be loved. Then does that one have a responsibility?'
Ristin stared at the girl across the fire. Tillu could almost see the thoughts in her head being reorganized. She thought she looked surprised. 'Then one can always choose to be kind,' she suggested softly. 'It costs little enough. Come. Let's eat, and let words wait for later. I was waiting for Carp, but if he chooses to stay away, he chooses to eat after we have.'
'Where did he go?' Tillu asked as she accepted the bowl of soup and the warm cake of bread.
'I don't really know. He saw Joboam pass. Or rather, Joboam made sure we saw him, for he stood and stared at the fire and shelter quite rudely. Then, as he started to walk away Carp rose and followed him. But maybe it only seemed that way. He could have gone for a walk, or to see the herdlord, or just to relieve himself. He'll be back when it suits him.'
'You seem to know him well already,' Tillu agreed with a mirthless laugh.
'Better than I care to,' Ristin admitted, and a tension that had hung in the air melted.
Kari smiled uncertainly and accepted another round of bread from Ristin.
'Do you think he'll find him?' Tillu found herself asking the older woman, and then could scarcely believe she had spoken the words. But Ristin accepted them calmly.
'If anyone can, Heckram will. He's a good hunter and tracker. I have always believed he was better than most, because he hunted so often alone. The lone hunter cannot afford to make a mistake, or to rely on others to see what he has missed. If anyone can find the boy, he will.' Ristin leaned forward to poke at her small fire. The yellow light played over her features, and Tillu saw Heckram's cheekbones, Heckram's brows on her face. Then she leaned back and turned to face Tillu squarely. 'Don't hide what you know from yourself, Tillu. With each hour that passes, it is more likely that Heckram will find only the boy's body. I know how my son works. He will go back to where he last saw the boy, and track him from there. But this time of year, tracks do not long remain on the ground. Moss springs up in the morning dew, and one bare footprint looks much like another. He will be thorough, and I do not think that he will return until he has found something. But what he finds may not be what we hope for.' Ristin took a breath, and suddenly looked away into the darkness. 'Do you blame him?'
'I ... no. No. I can imagine how it would have been. Perhaps I would not have let the boy go, but men always are eager to help a boy prove himself. Any man would have let him go.'
'Good. I mean, I am glad that you do not blame him. He blames himself for it. And for Elsa. And I had thought, perhaps, that you blamed him for Elsa's death in some way.'
The air in Tillu's lungs turned to stone and sank down to press on her belly. She kept her voice steady as she asked, 'Why would you think that?'
Ristin looked over at her, holding her eyes but not speaking.
'Everyone knows who killed Elsa.'
Tillu and Ristin turned incredulous eyes to Kari. Her feet were flat on the ground, her knees gathered to her chest. Her shoulders were hunched against the night, and in the wide black eyes that stared into the fire, she could almost see Owl.
'What are you saying?' Ristin asked in a horrified whisper.
