The Winter Boy

by Sally Wiener Grotta

  “I think you’re not sure.”

  By the time their blankets were spread and leather flasks filled from the nearby stream, the fire had collapsed into glowing embers, where she buried their potatoes. When he saw that she intended to dress only her two birds, he plucked and prepared his, in angry silence.

  The young Allesha relished the quiet of her beloved wild woods. Every year, usually after the last harvest, she and Jared would take off together like this, leaving the children with family or friends. Making love by night, hunting by day, giving themselves fully to the wilderness surrounding them.

  But in the years before his death, his missions had taken him away from her more and more, and they hadn’t managed to find the time. She wished she had recognized the last hunt with Jared for what it was, something that would never be repeated, an ending too precious to have been treated like any other outing together.

  How different everything was now. She was unable to give herself freely to the forest, because her First Boy needed her to adhere to a role, to be whatever and whomever necessary to help him grow and become an Alleman. When the Mwertik had butchered Jared, they’d killed more than an Alleman. They’d killed the woman she had been with Jared.

  The sounds of late autumn on this mountain were more subtle than those heard in summer. A rustling breeze, a night bird’s wings slipping through the air, small scampering paws. She gazed at the shimmer of red and gold hovering over the burning logs. When she spoke, it was softly, unwilling to disturb the peace. “On a night like this, the world seems to stand still. Nothing exists outside the light of our fire. I wonder if this is what it was like when the earth was born. Did it spread out from a campfire, stirred by some god playing with the embers?”

  The boy seemed just as captivated by the mystery of the night. Staring into the fire, he spoke freely. “Our Storyteller spins a tale of life lost in a great ocean, thrown there in the beginning by Promin, because it wouldn’t be still. But even in the deep of the sea, it bubbled with noise, until the ocean threw it out onto land. There, on the sand, it struggled to breathe the dry air, reviving only when the waves washed over it. But the waves withdrew, taking only the fish and coral back, for the beauty of their colors. All others were left, orphaned, to die or grow.”

  He paused to pull his cooked birds off the spit. Taking the scorching potato that she poked out of the fire with a stick, he gingerly bounced it from hand to hand, until it was cool enough to hold and eat.

  She prodded him to continue. “To die or to grow…”

  It took him a moment and a few bites of food to find the thread again. “Umm… and so life pushed its way up from the beach toward the forest and mountains. The weaker and the more foolish took root in the low lands. Only man made it to the summit of the tallest mountain. When he looked down, he knew that Promin had made him the strongest and most intelligent, to hold his place on high, above the rest of creation.”

  “But do you think it was Promin’s purpose to give man the struggle so that he might prevail? Or was it an accident that sprang from one god’s irritability?” she asked.

  “It’s just a story.” He shrugged. “It’s the fire. It makes men silent or talkative. I don’t usually ramble on with Storytellers’ nonsense.”

  “I enjoy such tales,” she said. “Especially how a story changes with each telling, revealing something of the person who shares the tale. Don’t scowl; it’s nothing to guard against. You’ve given me a lovely gift.”

  “If that’s so, show me something of yourself. Or are you scared to give me some of the advantage you now say you have over me?”

  “I didn’t speak of any advantage.”

  “No, but that’s what you meant. I exposed myself to you, and got nothing out of it in return.”

  “Here, let me give you something of myself. I care nothing for such advantages as you see it. Let’s see…” She paused to think and eat. “Yes, I remember another creation tale you might enjoy.” She tore off the last bit of meat from the bird’s bones, chewed it daintily while she composed herself, wiped her hands on a few leaves and then settled into a comfortable storytelling pose.

  “It is said, in the beginning, everything was One, alone and complete. Nothing existed beyond the One. But even the One must obey Nature. The first law of Nature is that nothing may live that doesn’t grow, and growth comes only from sharing. But the One had no one other, so the One began to shrink and die. That was when the One realized that the only way to survive was to break apart into the Many and the Multitude. And the One became the stars and the sun, the moon and the earth, the trees of the forest and the flowers on the plains, the animals of the land and the birds of the sky, Man and Woman. Ever since then, the One in all of us has been trying to find itself in the Others. That is why we are drawn to one another, to share, to unite, to be the One once again.”

  “Did you make that up?” he asked.

  “No, it was told to me by my mother.”

  “It sounds like a woman’s tale.”

  “Really? She told me her grandfather had given it to her.”

  “I didn’t mean that as an insult. Women’s tales can be good, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why do I feel that you didn’t take that right?” he asked.

  “I suppose because you don’t consider a ‘woman’s tale’ to be the equal of a man’s.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Don’t worry so. We’ve had a pleasant evening; we’ve given something to each other that neither had before. Tomorrow, we’ll find our eladar. Let’s say goodnight and sleep the deep of the forest.” She embraced him, with that now familiar two cheek brush of her lips, then wrapped herself up in her blankets before he could think of a retort.

  Listening to the fire popping and the breeze rustling through the woods, he looked at the back of her long, curved body across the campsite from his own bedroll. Steel would be a good name for her, was his last thought before he gave himself to a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 14

  The boy and his Allesha came across fresh signs of eladar by mid-morning. Following the tracks and droppings, they soon found themselves on the edge of a grassy plateau. A buck with a massive crown of antlers stood apart from his herd, regally poised on a mound of earth where he could keep watch, alert to every sound, any danger. Grazing nearby were his does, surrounded by their playful young. A lone older doe watched the young from the other side of the plateau; her soft gaze seemed almost sad.

  The Allesha used hunting hand signals different from any the boy had ever seen, but it was clear how far off the mark her plan was. So much for women as able hunters.

  Ignoring her gestures that they should separate and circle toward the right, he crouched to take aim at the buck. He pulled two arrows out of his quiver. One he stuck in the ground before him, to have at the ready. The other he nocked into the bowstring, and pulled it to his cheek, where the arrow’s feathers, the string and his right hand pressed under his right eye, lining up to the buck’s beating chest. Steady, feel the wind. Adjust for it. Take a deep breath in rhythm with the stag. Now!

  Just as he released the string, a shove at his shoulder sent his arrow into the ground. “Damn you, woman!” he hissed. But she didn’t really hear him, having broken into a long-legged chase for the eladar that had started at the “twang” of his bow and his whispered curse.

  Running with a springing cat-like gait, she pulled two arrows from her quiver, and shot them, one after the other, into the throat of the older doe, puncturing the arteries for a bleeding kill. Still, she did not stop. Keeping pace with the herd, she called over her shoulder. “Boy! Get that fawn, the one with the limp.”

  A yearling had fallen behind the herd, because something was wrong with its leg. With the power of his arm on his longer, heavier bow, he felled the animal from where he stood. One arrow into the heart made a quick kill. The boy sauntered toward the fallen fawn with exaggerated ease, knowing that the woman was wearing herself ou
t pursuing a running kill. The fawn’s legs continued to jerk, but five quick knife slashes to the neck and legs brought her to her end. So bled and so young, this meat will be tasty, he thought with pride. Not like that old doe, with its years of stringy muscle. When the fawn’s blood had spent itself into the earth, he swung the carcass up onto his shoulders and went in search of the woman, following a clear trail of blood and freshly trampled earth.

  He found her kneeling on the ground beside a small stream, her forehead resting on the warm, lifeless doe. His anger had boiled away into the hunt and the search, and in the wake of his admiration for her prowess. Yet, he struggled to find it again, so he might vent it onto the woman who had dared jostle his nocked arrow and ruin his kill.

  At the sound of his approach, she raised her head, saw him and smiled. And he realized that no anger could survive the onslaught of his Allesha’s dazzling smile. It was in that moment that he knew her name.

  “Tayar,” he said softly.

  “What?” she asked, obviously confused by the unfamiliar greeting.

  “Tayar… your name.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It has no meaning, really. It’s the sound of the eagle calling his mate to the hunt.”

  “Tayar. It’s a good name.” She patted the doe’s body, and then rose to greet the boy. He braced himself to receive her hands on his shoulders and lips on his cheeks. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed the full length of her body against him, and quickly but firmly touched her lips to his. By the time he had raised his arms to encircle her waist, she had already slipped away and was on the move again.

  “Woman, why—?”

  “Call me Tayar, I like the sound of it.” She was testing the strength of several nearby fallen tree branches.

  “Tayar, why—?”

  “But you do know it is your private name for me.” Now she was pulling down some vines. When she discovered how brittle they were, she discarded them and took a length of coiled rope from her pack. “Don’t use it within earshot of others… except our mentor, of course.”

  “Okay, but do you always have to be in such a rush? You’re like a jackrabbit that twitches even in his sleep.”

  “When there’s work to be done, I like to get it done. Right now, we need to gut these eladar, while we still have light. I’d like to sleep in my bed tonight.”

  What the hell, he thought, why not say it? “So would I.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, well, you have your name. It’s time already.”

  “Not quite time. Let’s get to our gutting while we talk.” She sliced through the belly of the doe with several swift strokes of her knife.

  “That’s women’s work,” he said with affected disgust.

  She looked up from her bloody work and wiped her hands on the earth. “This is only our second day together, so I will forgive many things. You’ll learn in time. But don’t ever try to turn me into a servant. It’s insulting — to both of us. Women’s work, indeed! This morning we were hunters together. Now we must be butchers. In everything that we do, today or any day, you will do at least as much as I, giving your all. Otherwise, I’ll never want to give my all to you. We were equals in the hunt. Now—”

  “Equals! You knocked my arrow from its string, when I had that beautiful stag in my eye.”

  “What is a hunt to you?” she asked.

  “Don’t go changing the subject on me.”

  “I’m not. Please, tell me, what is a hunt?”

  “It’s a search for food and skins,” he said. “And a chance to prove yourself against the wild.”

  “What do you have to prove? You already know you’re an able hunter, a skilled tracker. Or, are you so uncertain of your abilities that you need to verify them every time you encounter nature?”

  “Hey, stop turning everything around.”

  “You know what the hunt is to me? It’s my chance to participate with nature, not conquer it,” she explained. “In the forest, we return to our original home.”

  “Well, sure. I know that. Hell…”

  “Then you understand why I couldn’t stand by and let you kill that stag.”

  “No, I don’t. It was a magnificent animal. Those antlers, damn, I’ve not seen too many racks like that.”

  “True, he’s beautiful, but he’s also necessary to the herd’s survival. Kill the lead buck this close to first snow, and the does probably wouldn’t find another until spring. They’d have no stag to protect them from predators or lead them to feeding grounds as the cold destroys the grasses. Winter will be hard enough. I’ll not be party to making it even more difficult for them to survive.”

  “And that neck kill. Damn, that was good shooting, but you can’t say you weren’t just showing off, trying to impress me. A real hunter who wants to be sure of the kill goes for the easy shot, not the tricky one.”

  “But did you see that doe? She deserved an honorable death, not to be struck down with an arrow in her heart, suffocating on her own blood. Pierce the neck and the eladar will run out her life with dignity and less pain. At the same time, she’ll bleed herself, giving us her dying gift of sweeter meat.”

  “I never saw it that way before,” he admitted, having run out of arguments. “But it’s still a tricky shot.”

  “Thank you. Now let’s get to work. If we finish early, maybe we can take down more birds. Those partridges last night were rather tasty. I wouldn’t mind having a small supply for the winter.”

  With no further protest, he took out his knife and expertly split the fawn’s belly in a single cut, slicing through the skin and meat without puncturing the organs.

  The boy felt her eyes on him as a hot buzz that started on his earlobes and ended in an excruciating erection. Great Mother, what a woman his Allesha was! If only he could figure out how to get the upper hand with her, so he could get into that inner room.

  They finished the gutting in silence. When it came to binding two long branches into a travois for carrying the eladar, they worked well together. It seemed easier for both of them when they didn’t talk. Then each took one limb of the travois and began dragging it down the mountain, back to the Allesha’s home. When they sighted a flight of pheasant, she purposely didn’t pick up her bow, leaving the birds to him.

  When she went to retrieve the fallen birds, she called, “Good shooting!” and she saw his shoulders square with pride again. How little it took to prick this boy’s ego — or inflate it. When the inner man is solid, strong unto himself, without having to diminish others, she thought, then I’ll have made an Alleman. She tied the birds to the eladar, picked up her side of the sledge, and fell back into step with the boy.

  Chapter 15

  “Tayar.” Dara let the sound of the name roll around on her tongue. “It suits you.”

  The two Alleshi were in Rishana’s barn the morning after the hunt. Rishana had just finished caring for her two goats, Danide and Draville, and her half-dozen chickens. She sat on a bale of hay, while Dara perched on a nearby stool.

  “I didn’t expect him to find a good name for me so quickly. Do you think it was an accident, or could he be that insightful?”

  “He’s a special boy. The tough ones often are. But this boy… you’re going to find some surprising depths in him.”

  “But, Dara, he’s already pressing for sex.”

  “Of course he is.”

  “I’m not ready.” Before Dara could respond, Rishana quickly added, “I mean, he’s not ready.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t want you to think that I would deny him.”

  “Rishana, don’t you understand how much I trust your instincts? The boy hasn’t yet given anything of himself to you. Until he does, he has no right to your body.”

  Rishana pulled a stalk of hay from the bale under her and proceeded to bend and break it into tiny shards. “He’s learned to desire me. I’m no longer just an old woman to him. I’m Tayar, a huntress deserving of r
espect and the focus of his sexual ardor.” Realizing what she was doing, she brushed the pieces from her lap and focused on Dara. “Haven’t you taught me that we must find the crucial moment, the time of peak energy, when the boy is ready to begin his ascent to manhood? If I miss the signs of that moment, the key to his future may be lost to me.”

  “Rishana, you have as bright and active a mind as I have ever known, but only when you calm your thoughts and refuse to be troubled by them. Listen to the wisdom of your own heart. Trust yourself to recognize the moment when it comes.” Dara slowly rose from her stool.

  “Promise me one thing, Dara. If I fail to recognize the moment, you’ll help me see it before it’s too late.”

  The two of them proceeded outside, walking toward the house.

  “Of course. But it won’t happen.” Dara smiled at Rishana. “Now, let’s take care of more mundane issues. We must set up a schedule for his lessons with me. But he isn’t to see them as anything but spontaneous — at least in the beginning. Otherwise, his need to rebel, to assert his individuality, would get in the way.”

  “How about morning, well after breakfast, so he can do some of his chores? Would that work?”

  “Initially, yes. But we must be flexible and fit our schedule to the rhythm of your Season with him.” As they reached Rishana’s back door, Dara asked, “Shall we start now?”

  Rishana nodded as she opened the door for her mentor. Before she followed Dara into the mudroom, she glanced behind her. Only then did she realize that she hadn’t seen the bright, blue sky or noticed the clear, brisk breeze. Savor the details, Savah had often told her, but don’t lose sight of the wide, far-reaching landscape. Yes, Savah, she responded silently to the part of her husband’s Allesha who would always live in her soul.

  Chapter 16

  Tayar and her Winter Boy spent a busy afternoon in her barn, tanning the eladar skins and dressing the meat and birds from their hunt. They worked well together, but the Allesha knew it couldn’t last; the boy’s nature wouldn’t allow him to calmly go forward. Nor would he learn without conflict. Rather than push him and risk rebellion at this early stage, she organized their chores so that everything would flow smoothly and easily.