by Sue Harrison
Woman of the Sun closed her eyes. “Is your other husband a shaman or a great hunter?”
“No,” Kiin said, lowering her head. “He is only a boy. Just this summer he took his first sea lion.”
“Then you must know you cannot go back to him. He would not be strong enough to stand against the curse of your children. Do as my sister and I say. You will have protection.”
The ulaq door flap opened and Woman of the Sky stepped inside. “They are ready for the trading,” she said. “Both Ice Hunter and Raven will offer a bride price.”
The large ulaq glowed with light. Eight openings in the roof let in outside light, and niches in the side walls were crowded with burning oil lamps.
Woman of the Sun led Kiin into the ulaq, and the people made a way for them, many of the women bowing their heads as Woman of the Sun passed. The old woman squeezed Kiin’s
hand, and a surge of strength coursed up Kiin’s arm. Then instead of looking down, Kiin raised her head, met the eyes of those staring at her.
The children were round-cheeked and fat, many with beautiful eagle skin parkas. One little girl reached out shyly and touched Kiin. Kiin smiled at her. She reminded Kiin of Amgigh’s baby sister, and the pain of the remembering made Kiin’s eyes burn, but she forced back her tears. She could not return to her people. Even Woman of the Sun said so.
Woman of the Sun stopped to talk several times, but they finally broke out into the open space at the center of the ulaq. Four men sat there, each with a pile of trade goods. Kiin recognized the tallest man, though his face was no longer painted. Woman of the Sun leaned close, and whispered, “Ice Hunter.”
Of the other three, one was an old man, bent and white-haired, another was young, perhaps only two or three summers older than Kiin. The third man was neither young nor old. His face was heavily marked with tattoos—straight black lines on his chin like the tattoos of the Whale Hunters, and chevrons, one following another, over both cheeks until the points met and crossed at his nose. His hair, black as a cormorant’s wing, was so long that it touched the floor when he squatted beside his trade goods, and it was greased so that the oil lamps were reflected in its darkness. His eyes were narrow and slanted, but the brown circles of his irises were so large that Kiin could not see the white around them except when he looked to one side or the other.
Woman of the Sun raised her hands. The murmur of voices that had filled the ulaq stopped. The old woman said something, the words in the rhythm of the Walrus tongue.
“I told them you were the one to be given as bride,” she said to Kiin in a low voice. “I told your man to come and claim you.”
“He is not my man,” Kiin said, but the old woman left and Qakan took her place.
He smirked at her and said, “I hope you had a good bed during the night. Look, see her?” He pointed toward a woman
in the crowd. She was young and carried her head high, and she was beautiful, her cheekbones tall in her face, her lips small and pouting. She smiled at Qakan and slowly closed her large eyes, then turned to say something to a woman beside her. When she turned her head, Kiin saw that a wide section of her hair was yellow, lighter than the gold of willow twigs in early spring.
“I shared her bed,” Qakan said.
Kiin’s eyes widened, and for a moment she thought that Qakan was telling another of his lies. But then Qakan smiled at the woman, and the look that passed between them told Kiin that her brother spoke the truth.
“She is wife to the shaman, Raven.”
Kiin said nothing, but a fear began to grow in her. If the Raven gave wives in hospitality, would not all Walrus men do the same? She had spent too many nights with traders, but could a woman defy her husband?
Then Kiin’s spirit said, “Why are you surprised? You have heard your father’s boasts after trading visits to the Walrus People.”
“How many women did you have?” he would ask Big Teeth, and then claim that he had taken a different woman each night.
“Remember, you do this to protect the First Men,” her spirit voice said, the words a comfort to Kiin, something that slowed her heart and pulled her mind from its own thoughts to the realization of what was happening around her.
Qakan sat down, but when Kiin squatted beside him, he hissed, “You must stand.” She stood slowly, moving a short distance from him. She felt awkward, standing in the center of the circle, most of the people watching her, but then an old man stepped from the crowd. With a loud voice, he quieted the people then pointed to the four men offering a bride price and returned to his place.
Each of the four men said a few words. Then they laid out their trade goods.
They offered walrus skins, bundles of lemming hides, pouches of shell beads, grass mats and ulaq curtains. The old man offered a basket filled with crude spearheads, one of shiny black obsidian. But the youngest man had a walrus tusk, its surface completely carved with men hunting. When he held it out, Kiin gasped. The piece was as beautiful as anything she had seen. The young man smiled at her, but Kiin dropped her eyes, suddenly remembering that she must go to Ice Hunter or the Raven, no one else.
Ice Hunter had the largest stack of furs. One of the hides was covered with long yellow-white fur. He unrolled it slowly, and Kiin could see that it was stiff, but the fur was long, and Ice Hunter yanked at it with both hands, showing that the hide was well-tanned, none of the fur pulling out.
The Raven offered fewer furs, but the ones he had were furs that carried some special sign of luck. All the lemming skins were banded with white at the neck, and three pieces of walrus hide carried a strip of black hairs the length of the back. Two fur seal skins were pure black, no marks on them.
Qakan looked up at Kiin, squinted his eyes and licked his lips. He spoke to the Raven and the man pulled something from a pile behind him. It was an amulet. The shaman opened the bag and pulled out its contents: an obsidian spearhead, perfect in shape but as small as the tip of a man’s finger, a thin bracelet of braided sea lion whiskers; a whale shape, cunningly cut from baleen; a tiny ivory box with fitted lid, inside a chunk of red ochre; a bear tooth; and an intricate braid of dark, coarse hair. Kiin knew the pouch was a hunter’s amulet, each object except the spearhead from some animal of great power.
The Raven cocked his head and looked at Kiin through slitted eyes. A chill prickled her skin. She was a woman to be traded. All men looked at her with wanting in their eyes. But the Raven’s look was something more, something that made Kiin’s spirit pull itself tight against her backbone.
Qakan looked at the other men, asked a question. The Raven’s gifts were best. Kiin knew there was no question of their worth. The youngest man turned and spoke to a woman behind him. She dragged out a pile of white furs, long-haired and soft, the bound stack as high as a man’s knees. He cut the babiche that held the pile and pulled out several of the furs, each perfect and perfectly tanned.
“Fox furs,” Qakan whispered to Kiin and chuckled. “Fox?” Kiin said. But then she remembered hearing Big Teeth talking about the small, sharp-toothed animals. Larger than lemmings, smaller than seals.
Then the Raven, too, drew out a bundle of fox furs. Some white, some nearly black.
The furs drew a murmur from the people, but Qakan i shrugged one shoulder and shook his head. He looked at i the old man, but the old man only smiled and held out empty i hands.
Qakan stood and pulled Kiin to him. “Lift your suk,” he i demanded, but Kiin, curling her lips, answered, “They know i I am w-with child. D-do you think you can f-f-force more for I a trade by acting as though they are so s-stupid as to have f forgotten?”
Qakan scowled and raised his hand as though to strike her, but then Woman of the Sun, speaking in the First Men’s tongue, said, “She sings. In my vision, I heard her. She makes I songs of great power. Every hunter needs songs of power.”
Qakan, anger snapping in his eyes, hissed, “Sing.”
Kiin looked at those around her then closed her eyes. Always there was a
song close to her, rising from her heart into her throat, the words dancing as men and women dance to celebrate something with joy; but this day, the sorrow and fear in Kiin’s chest made something not quite a song, more a cry of mourning, lift itself into her mouth, and she began a high chant of sorrow for the old man and for the young man, for Ice Hunter and for this people. The words came, a new song, something Kiin had not sung before:
For your gifts, for your trading
I give you curses.
For the furs you have taken from earth and sea
I give you sorrow.
There is evil here.
Where are your spirits?
Do they not feel what I bring?
Why do you fight to curse yourselves?
Why do you greet me with joy?
There is evil here.
This song she sang, once, twice, until Qakan, smiling at ail those around, turned his back to Kiin but clasped one of her wrists, and, keeping it hidden between them, squeezed until the small bones ached.
“You curse us with your song,” he whispered.
“They d-d-do n-not understand the wor… words,” Kiin replied and jerked her hand away, holding her arm and rubbing her wrist so the men who traded for her could see he had hurt her.
Qakan began to speak again in the Walrus tongue, and then so suddenly that Kiin could not react, he pushed his hands under her suk and brought out the whale tooth shell.
Kiin’s eyes widened. She had been careful to keep the shell under her suk, afraid that if Qakan saw it too closely and realized it was whale tooth not shell, he would demand to add it to his trade goods.
“This, too, she does,” he said, speaking in the First Men tongue, directing his words to the two old women, then speaking again to the Walrus People in their language. “Did she tell you she carved this from a whale’s tooth?”
Kiin noticed the sudden light that came into the Raven’s dark eyes and even Woman of the Sun looked surprised. She whispered for a moment to her sister then walked forward to take the shell from Qakan’s hands.
She turned it carefully then looked at Kiin. “You carved this?” she asked.
“It is n-nothing. It does n-n-not even look like a sh-shell,” Kiin answered, feeling embarrassed that Woman of the Sun should look carefully at her poor work. In her mind she saw the baskets that held her father’s carvings, misshapen seals, puffins, too short or too long, animals that looked as though
some child had formed them, and she remembered that when she was younger, she had dreams in which all animals were as her father carved them, limping and deformed. She looked again at her shell, at the uneven whorls, the long ridge that marred one side. “I carved it,” she said.
“You have a gift,” Woman of the Sun said.
“No,” Kiin answered. She shook her head. “I s-see here what it sh-should be,” she said and pointed to that place in her head, just behind her eyes, where images and dreams seemed to gather. “But-but I cannot make wh-what I see. It d-does not come out right. But my songs … they are … what they should be.”
But Woman of the Sun held Kiin’s shell up for all to see, and for a horrible moment, Kiin thought she would trade the shell, take that small bit of power that Kiin still owned, but then the old woman handed the shell back to Kiin and at the same time, Ice Hunter called to someone in the crowd, and one of his sons, the man with the scar, carried something draped in a caribou hide to the center of the circle. Ice Hunter waited a moment until the people were quiet then slipped off the hide.
Kiin’s eyes widened. Under the skin was a large face. Carved from wood, it was nearly as tall as a man and brightly painted in reds and blues. The eyes were drawn down at the outside corners, blue tears dripping from them to the chin. But the mouth was open in a wide grin that showed sharp white seal teeth embedded in the wood.
Ice Hunter spoke, and Qakan turned to Kiin, saying, “He tells us it was won in a raid from the Dancing Tribes that live over the mountains and many days to the south. It carries their tribe’s power to bring animals before a hunt.”
Then the Raven spoke, and Kiin recognized the challenge in his words even though she did not know what he said. He clapped his hands, and Qakan gasped. The woman with the yellow-streaked hair stepped forward and stood beside the Raven’s pile of trade goods.
At a command from the Raven, she took off her suk and dropped her leggings, standing with only aprons, front and back. From behind, the Raven leaned forward and cut the waist string of her aprons, letting them fall to the floor. The men in the ulaq grew loud, laughing and talking, and Qakan giggled, but the woman held her head high. She looked at Qakan and slowly licked her lips, then she raised her arms above her head and turned, swaying her hips. Her skin was greased and it glowed in the lamp light.
The Raven laughed, but he reached for her suk, tossing it to her. She slipped it on and sat down beside the trade goods barelegged.
“I have chosen your husband,” Qakan suddenly said in a loud voice, but as he spoke, Woman of the Sun came forward. She stood before Qakan, and the people were suddenly silent. Even the golden-haired girl lowered her eyes.
“It is not your choice,” Woman of the Sun said to Qakan in the First Men’s tongue. “Your sister is not a slave, so it is her choice. In our tribe the woman decides. You choose two. Then she takes the one she wants.”
Qakan’s mouth dropped open, and he looked at Kiin. His eyes darkened, and he said, “You told them about the curse.”
Kiin shook her head. “Sh-she knew. I d-did not need to t-tell her. She is a … d-dreamer of visions. I told them only that I was your s-sister.”
“You are an ignorant woman,” he said, his voice rising to a high squeal.
Then Woman of the Sun, her words hard and full of power, said, “Make your choice. Choose two.”
Qakan drew back his lips in a smile that showed gritted teeth and pointed to Ice Hunter and the Raven.
The old man shrugged and smiled, but Kiin felt a hurting at the disappointment in the young man’s eyes.
“Now you must choose,” Woman of the Sun said to Kiin.
Kiin looked at Qakan and he whispered, “If you choose Raven, I will give you one of the fox skins for your baby.”
But Kiin did not look at the trade goods. Instead, she looked into the Raven’s dark face, into Ice Hunter’s clear eyes.
She took a step toward Ice Hunter, but then heard her spirit say, “He is a good man. What if the old women are wrong?
What if he cannot withstand your curse? He has offered the wooden face, perhaps it holds his power.”
Kiin looked at the man and allowed her sorrow to flow out from her eyes, for she wanted him to know he was her true choice. Then she turned to the Raven. “This man,” she said pointing to him, and heard Qakan’s choking gasp, the low laugh of the golden-hair.
The Raven smiled, his lips drawn out in a square that showed all his teeth, then he stood and shoved the golden-haired woman into Qakan’s lap. Qakan laughed out loud, but pushed the woman from his lap and crawled to the pile of trade goods, now his. He pulled out a fox fur and tossed it to Kiin, saying, “You chose well.”
But Woman of the Sky stepped forward and said to him, “Give her two fox furs.”
Qakan looked at her, surprise showing in his face, but he giggled and pulled out another pelt and threw it to Kiin.
Kiin draped the furs over her arm. The Raven was staring at her, his head tilted back, thin lips curled in a smile. Kiin stood straight, eyes unblinking.
No one heard her spirit’s mourning cries.
THIRTY-NINE
KIIN FOLLOWED THE RAVEN FROM THE LONG house at the center of the Walrus People’s village to a ulaq set closer to the hills. She had noticed the ulaq before. It was large and, unlike most of the Walrus People ulas, had a sod roof. The Raven, then, was the one who lived in this place, he and his two wives, though now perhaps the yellow-haired one was no longer his wife. How could she be? She belonged to Qakan.
And so
if the Raven were powerful enough to have such a fine dwelling, was he indeed a shaman? Something inside Kiin began to quiver. There had never been a shaman in their village, but she had heard stories of their power to control spirits. And it seemed, at least in the stories, that most shamans eventually used that power for evil. What had Kayugh said? That a man cannot hold that much power. It creeps into his spirit, steals his soul.
The Raven’ pushed Kiin ahead of him into an entrance at the side of the ulaq. The entrance was a small tunnel woven of willow branches and covered with grass mats. It slanted down into the ulaq and was so low that Kiin had to crawl on hands and knees to get through it. When she and the Raven emerged from the tunnel, a man greeted them.
The Raven said something in the Walrus tongue, and Kiin, unsure how she should greet the man, nodded, and since the man was old, his face lined, his dark hair full of gray, she lowered her eyes in respect.
The ulaq smelled rank, as though it were filled with rotten meat, but all things looked neat; the mats on the floor were new, the storage containers that hung from the walls, dry and strong.
Two women were crouched on the far side of the ulaq, one woman combing the other’s hair. The Raven grunted at the two and rudely pointed. But the women seemed to find no insult in his pointing, and they greeted Kiin. One offered Kiin a length of dried meat, and the other held up a basket of bitterroot bulbs. But the Raven gestured impatiently at them and pushed Kiin through the walrus hide curtains that partitioned the ulaq.
On the Raven’s side of the curtains, a large oil lamp hollowed from the top of a boulder was in the center of the room. The only sleeping place Kiin saw was a raised platform cushioned with skins and furs. The stink was even stronger here; the floor was littered with scraps of rotted meat, bones and molded bits of food.
A women—young, though not as young as Kiin—came forward and offered the Raven food. He slapped her hands away and said something to her in the Walrus tongue.
A sly look of joy came into the woman’s eyes, and she picked up a large basket and began to cram it with pelts from the sleeping platform.