The Storyteller Trilogy
Page 133
But by the time he had pulled the skin of dried fish from the bow of his iqyax, the light had drilled through his eye and into his brain, making his head ache so badly that he could do nothing but sit still and allow the iqyax to again choose its own path through the sea.
He slept, and when he woke, it was night. The pain in his head had subsided into a throb that beat at the base of his skull and just above his ears, but it was a pain a man could ignore. Again he pried open his eye and looked out at the night. Fog lay wet and thick, even masking the sea. He lifted his head to the skies and saw a rift in the clouds, the clearing full of stars. Then he knew with great despair that he was far from land, that somehow he had been drifting north and west rather than south and east.
“Well, then,” he finally said, speaking aloud so the sea would know he had not given up, “I will finish my paddle tomorrow and will start toward land. It will not be forever before it rains, then I will stop and fill my drinking cup, and I have enough fish to live for a long time.”
He let himself fall again into sleep, hid his fear so deeply that it did not color his dreams.
GHADEN’S STORY
It was more than a moon before Ghaden, Seal, K’os, and Daughter arrived at Chakliux’s village. They had stopped to trade with the Walrus Hunters, though K’os had been concerned that she might again be claimed as slave. They had not recognized her, and Ghaden had seen the relief and anger that had warred within her when she realized that. Still, she had been careful, collected no plants for medicines if any Walrus women were nearby, and kept her misshapen hands carefully hidden, for they had changed little since those years she had been a slave.
During their trading, she did not speak in the Walrus language, nor in River, only in the First Men tongue, and though she had kept her hair in braids once they left the Traders’ Beach, she had reverted again to the bun worn by First Men wives.
It would not be so at Chakliux’s village. Ghaden had no doubt that they would recognize her. After all, they had known her always, and she had been wife as well as slave. Besides, he had to tell Chakliux that Uutuk was daughter to K’os, and thus sister to Chakliux. Except for the relationship of mother to child, what was more important than uncle to a sister’s son? If he and Uutuk had children, Chakliux would want to help Ghaden train the boys to hunt and fish.
Ghaden’s memories of K’os from his childhood, when she owned his sister Aqamdax as slave, were memories of an evil woman who would betray anyone for her own gain. But how could he reconcile those memories with what he now knew of her? She was a very good mother to Uutuk, caring and concerned. Sometimes he saw a selfishness in her that most mothers did not possess, but she often gave Uutuk the best portions of food, and she treated her husband Seal with respect, though Seal was a weak man and did not always deserve K’os’s deference. Were his early memories twisted by anger and fear during that time of war? Perhaps. What child ever understands all that is happening around him?
At least he owed K’os respect. She was Uutuk’s mother and had taught her well. Though Uutuk was a new wife, her skill with needle and awl, in storytelling, and in preparing food rivaled that of old women. She gave herself eagerly when they were in bed, and she was careful to follow the taboos she had been taught as a First Men woman. Though she still had much to learn about River ways, Ghaden had no doubt that she would make him a fine wife, even if they chose to live among the River People.
But he also had no doubt that by claiming Uutuk, he would no longer find himself truly welcome in Chakliux’s village.
He sighed, for a moment lifting the weight of sorrow that had invaded his chest since his father’s death. He wished he could ask Cen for advice. He wanted to live in his own village with Aqamdax and Yaa and their families, but he had made his choice, and he would not give up Uutuk even for his sisters. Perhaps once K’os and Seal returned to the First Men, Chakliux would allow Ghaden and Uutuk to stay in his village, but if not, there were other villages. Perhaps Cen’s wife, Gheli, would appreciate having Ghaden provide meat for her and her daughters now that she was a widow.
Ghaden looked up. Uutuk was watching him. She would not worry so much if she knew how much comfort she gave him. Ghaden smiled at her, and she returned his smile.
They would be happy no matter where they lived, but surely Chakliux would see that K’os was now no more than a harmless old woman, concerned only that her daughter have a good life.
Chapter Thirty-three
THEY TOOK THEIR IQYAN upriver toward Chakliux’s village and stopped for the night less than a half-day’s walk away. Ghaden wanted to go on, but he knew K’os was right when she cautioned that they should stop. It was a good place to camp, a clearing that both K’os and Ghaden knew, though K’os exclaimed at how much smaller it had become. In the years she had been gone, spruce and birch had crowded in on all sides.
They put up a spruce bough shelter and removed the iqyan covers, then raised the wood frames high in the trees in hopes of keeping them away from bears and wolverine that might chew at the sinew that bound the joints or the blood paste that held the ivory wear plates in place where wood met wood.
There would be damage, Ghaden had explained to Seal. Unlike the First Men’s islands, there were many animals in River country, and the small hungry ones could easily climb trees. Seal grumbled about that, but Ghaden ignored him. The man had traded with River People before. Perhaps he had not come this far inland, but he knew about the trees and the animals.
“They give as much as they take, if not more,” Ghaden had said, then found Uutuk and went into the forest, where they sat watching, so Ghaden could point out the various birds and animals and explain their spirit powers.
After a time, K’os came looking for them and took Uutuk to find medicine plants. For a little while Ghaden walked with them, but K’os picked so many different plants, told so much about each, that soon everything was jumbled in his mind. He wondered if Uutuk was remembering what K’os told her or if her attention was only a politeness. But later in the evening as they sat roasting two hares that Ghaden had taken with a throwing stick, he heard his wife ask questions and repeat information so that K’os could correct her. He was glad, proud of her. A woman with a quick mind usually made a good mother, and if Uutuk could learn to be a healer perhaps that alone would be enough to merit them a place in Chakliux’s village.
As the sun was setting, K’os sent Uutuk out to collect more wood to get them through the night.
“It is warm,” Ghaden told her. “Why worry about a fire?”
“To keep away bears,” she said.
He shrugged. There was always some worry about bears, but most of those that lived this near to Chakliux’s village were black bears and not likely to come too close once they smelled the smoke of a fire, even one that burned out sometime in the night. He supposed that K’os was more nervous about such animals now that she had lived so many years on a First Men’s island.
“Besides,” she said to him, “I need to talk to you without Uutuk listening.”
“What I know, my wife will know,” he said.
K’os raised her eyebrows at him and smiled as if she were a fond mother considering a foolish child. “As you choose.”
Ghaden wanted to walk away from her, but he told himself that he was stronger than her insults. So, as if she had been respectful, as a wife’s mother should be, he squatted on his haunches, crossed his arms over the tops of his knees, and nodded so she would know that he was listening.
“I will not be welcome in my son’s village,” she said. “I think that I should wait for you and Seal here at this camp. When you are ready to go to the Four Rivers village, come back for Uutuk and me.”
“Uutuk?” Ghaden said. “I will take her with me to my village. Chakliux may have told you to leave, but he has nothing against my wife.”
“She’s my daughter. That will be enough. They’ll accept Seal as a trader, and he is a man able to take care of himself. Besides, what First Men
trader is not welcome in Chakliux’s village, married as Chakliux is to a First Men woman? But Uutuk is young, and I am afraid for her. Leave her here with me.”
“You think I cannot take care of my own wife?”
“I think it would be wise to go first by yourself.”
Ghaden considered K’os’s words for a long time, and before he gave his answer, K’os added, “When I was young, I was a fool. I had good husbands, but I didn’t appreciate them. I owned a slave, and I did not treat her well. I had a son who saw things differently than I did. Sometimes he was right, sometimes I was, but just because we did not see life in the same way was no reason for me to carry the anger I had against him.
“One good thing about growing old is that it gives you time to get wisdom. When I found Uutuk and her grandfather on the beach of my husband’s island, I thought only of myself, that they might help me gain more respect from the people of that village. But Uutuk’s grandfather was a very wise man. He taught me much, and for the first time I saw how selfish I was and how little I did for others. I’ve changed since my son last saw me. I don’t expect him to believe that, but I hope you will.”
In the falling darkness, the fire seemed to take on strength, and Ghaden saw it now, yellow and red, in K’os’s eyes.
“I know that you’ve been a good mother to my wife,” he said. “I see that you treat your husband with respect. If you think that it is best that Uutuk stays with you here, then I will leave her, but I would feel better if Seal also stayed to protect you.”
“We’ll be safe,” K’os said. “But be wise in speaking to Chakliux. If you tell him that you’ve taken a wife, I think it best that you do not mention I am her mother. There are people I would like to see who live in that village—your sister Yaa, the boy Cries-loud.” She let out a soft laugh and shook her head as though she were reliving old memories. “He must be a man by now. If you think you can trust him, you might bring him to see me. If Chakliux is pleased that you took a First Men wife, and you decide that you want to take Uutuk back to the village to meet your sisters, then you might bring Cries-loud with you when you come to get her. He had much sorrow in his life, losing his mother as he did, and I’ve always admired his strength in that loss.”
“He’s a strong hunter and provides well for my sister Yaa,” Ghaden said.
K’os released another riff of laughter. “Yaa is his wife?” she asked.
“For many years now.”
“I’m sure he has filled her with sons and daughters,” said K’os, and narrowed her eyes at Ghaden when he did not reply.
Ghaden turned his head and saw Uutuk carrying a bundle of wood, a good excuse for him to end the conversation with K’os. She did not need to know that Yaa and Cries-loud had no children, that each baby Yaa carried came too early and died soon after birth. If he trusted K’os more he might ask if she had any medicine that would help, but if her claims in having changed were not true, she did not need to know more than necessary about Yaa or Cries-loud. After all, Cries-loud had been one of the young men who had taken her to the Walrus Hunters to be sold as slave. Perhaps K’os still resented him for that. Chakliux had always claimed that she was a woman who lived for revenge. What if he was right? What if she knew curses that would spoil any chance Yaa still might have to bear a healthy child?
Ghaden strode to his wife and took her armload of wood. Uutuk murmured a politeness and winked her eyes at him. He felt a warmth grow in his groin, thought of his wife’s fingers, her soft and cunning touch.
“Daughter, you have worked hard,” K’os said. She got up from the log where she was sitting and offered Uutuk her place. Then she stood behind the girl and began to comb out her braids.
Ghaden watched K’os in the firelight, untangling the strands, saw his wife close her eyes and relax, heard Seal’s muffled snore coming from the spruce bough lean-to.
There were better men than Seal, and women who could be trusted more than K’os, but nothing Chakliux could say would convince him that he had not chosen wisely in taking Uutuk as wife.
The first to see Ghaden when he and Seal entered the village the next day was Yaa. Two long funneled gathering baskets full of fall cranberries, ripe and overflowing, were slung from her shoulders by wide bands of caribou hide, but she squealed and dropped the baskets, did not even turn her head to see whether or not the berries scattered when the baskets hit the ground.
She flung herself into his arms, and to Ghaden’s amusement Seal asked, “You have another wife here in this village?”
He spoke in the First Men language, so as Ghaden laughed out his denial and introduced his sister, he began to translate the words for Yaa, but she had heard enough of the First Men language in her life to have an idea of what he said, and the three of them stood laughing together as the villagers gathered around.
When Chakliux pushed his way through the people, he grabbed Ghaden in a rough hug, then turned to look at Seal. He took in his sax, labrets, and nose pin, then smiled and spoke a welcome in the First Men language, but Ghaden could see the questions in Chakliux’s eyes, the beginning of worry there.
Chakliux stepped back and slapped a hand on Ghaden’s shoulder. “Where’s Cen?” he asked.
To his embarrassment, Ghaden felt his eyes fill with tears.
Chakliux sighed out several hard breaths, then began to shake his head and finally said in denial, “No, tell me Cen is well.”
The words were like a blessing, and for the first time since Ghaden had found his father’s paddles floating in the North Sea, a small shaft of hope lightened his sorrow, but then the reality of his own knowledge came to him, and he told Chakliux, “My father’s iqyax was caught in a storm. He and the two traders he traveled with all drowned.”
The words made the truth of his father’s death hit him again, and his throat closed on his sorrow. Then, though Ghaden had not seen her approach, Aqamdax was with them, her youngest, a daughter born just before Ghaden had left in the spring, slung on her back. She pulled him into an embrace, laughing, joyous, until she leaned back and looked into his face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her words a demand as though she were a mother asking a child the cause of his tears.
“Cen,” Chakliux said softly, and Ghaden was grateful, because his sorrow over Cen’s death and his joy at seeing his sister again had stolen his words.
Yaa pressed close, clasped Aqamdax’s hand, and pulled her older sister away, repeating Ghaden’s explanation as she did so. As though he were seeing the people of his village for the first time, Ghaden noticed that each man, each woman looked a little older, Chakliux with a few gray strands of hair over his ears, Aqamdax with worry lines etched a little more deeply between her eyes.
Sok came up behind him, planted a large hand on his shoulder, yet even Sok seemed smaller—still huge, but not quite as large as he once had been.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Dii and I will mourn him, even if you have already made a mourning.”
“We honored all three men the four days it takes for a spirit to leave the earth,” Ghaden said, “but a remembering here in this village would be a good thing. After that, I will go and tell his wife and my sisters in the Four Rivers village.”
He had mumbled the last words, speaking more to himself and Chakliux than to anyone else, so he was surprised to hear a voice raised, a man volunteering to go with him. He turned and saw Cries-loud.
Yaa pushed between them. “Perhaps you would take me as well,” she said.
“I think there are things here a wife should do while her husband is away,” Cries-loud said to her.
Yaa’s face pinched tight in hurt, and Ghaden knew that though they had lived together as husband and wife for a long time, the years had not bound them closer. They had taught one another well how to quarrel, how to wound.
“I will take my wife,” Ghaden said, speaking before he thought, thinking only of how to ease the tension between the two. He had never liked to see his sister unhappy.
He had meant to speak first to Aqamdax, then to Chakliux, to tell them about Uutuk, rather than spill out what he had done before the entire village. There were mothers here hoping he would choose one of their daughters as his wife.
For some strange reason since the fighting so many years ago, more boy babies had been born than girl, but still, among people his age, there were too many women for the number of men. So Ghaden had many young women to choose from.
“Now that I mourn my father,” Ghaden said, “I will not take another wife at least for this year. Though if there is some woman who needs food, I will provide it.”
He saw the understanding come into Chakliux’s eyes.
“Where is she? Who is she?” he asked.
Ghaden stood on his toes to see over the crowd, and finally found Seal standing at the edge of the group. He had turned away to study the village. Several younger boys had ventured close to him and were eyeing his sax, discussing the harpoon slung over his shoulder. The weapon did not have much purpose in the woodlands of the River People, and Ghaden wondered why Seal had brought it. Perhaps to tempt some hunter into a trade.
“A First Men woman,” Ghaden said, and heard the murmuring begin, saw angry looks cast at Seal.
“His daughter?” Sok asked and jerked his head toward Uutuk’s father.
“Yes,” Ghaden said quietly. “She is a wise woman, a healer who knows many plants …”
“What good will a First Men healer do in this village?” Sok asked, then before Ghaden could answer, he added, “I hope you’ve told her that you plan to choose a wife from your own village as well.”
One of the women said, “What man would do that to a new wife?”
Ghaden turned his head at the voice and saw that it was Dii. In disgust, she gave her husband a shove, and several hunters in the group raised hands over mouths to hide their smiles. Dii was only half the size of Sok, and though no man in the village, save Chakliux himself, would dare voice disagreement with him, Dii was afraid of no one.