by Sue Harrison
“Your father wants you to have this,” she said.
Daughter thanked K’os, but the necklace seemed dark and old against the white of the parka, as if her father’s hands once again lingered too close.
Qung’s teeth were so worn with age that when she smiled, her mouth seemed like a wide, empty cave. Her laughter came from deep in her throat, and her happiness drew wrinkles in her cheeks.
“A wife!” she said to Ghaden. “Will you know what to do with her?” She made a series of coarse jokes, and it seemed so strange to hear them come from an old woman that Ghaden could not help but laugh.
“I have food enough for everyone,” Qung said. “Or will you spend the night in the chief hunter’s ulax? You and your bride are welcome here, you know.”
Ghaden could see the hope in her eyes, and he made a joke of his own, saying, “There are more people than sleeping places in that ulax. Do you think my new wife would like to share our first bed with the chief hunter?”
Qung laughed. She crawled over to the floor cache that held her storage bags of dried meat and fish. She began pulling them out one by one, pawing through them and piling fish and caribou meat on the mats beside her oil lamp.
“You might go and see if anyone has sea urchins to trade,” she told him as she arranged peeled stalks of fresh iitikaalux beside the meat.
He would rather have waited in the ulax for Seal to bring Uutuk, but Ghaden did as she asked. Thoughts of bedding Uutuk drove away his need for food, but he was sure that Seal would want to eat.
At least they were not in a River village. There the marriage would be celebrated with a feast and a long night of dances and songs and riddles. The First Men were more wise about taking wives and did little to celebrate other than the exchange of a brideprice.
It did not take him long to find someone with sea urchins, a girl willing to take a necklace in exchange for her morning of gathering. When Ghaden returned to the ulax, Seal and Uutuk were there.
Uutuk was wearing the caribou parka and leggings, her hair a dark and shining river over the white of the parka.
Praise for her beauty filled Ghaden’s mouth, but a husband did not say such things to his wife, lest it seem he were praising himself, so he only lifted the bag of sea urchins and said, “Sea eggs for our celebration.”
Seal squatted beside the food mats and accepted the fish and meat Qung offered him. She gave him a bowl of seal oil for dipping, and Uutuk ladled out soup from the caribou hide bag that hung over the oil lamp. She gave the first bowl to Seal. He lifted it to his mouth and slurped loudly in appreciation.
She filled another and gave it to Ghaden. He tried to catch her eyes, but she kept her face lowered. It was the custom to do so among First Men brides, but he was disappointed. He had hoped that she would show some joy in being his wife, or at least gratitude for the parka.
Seal leaned toward his daughter and ran a hand over the flicker beaks, lingering for a moment on the mounds of her breasts. Anger filled Ghaden’s mouth, but he shut his lips tightly over it, swallowed it down, and accepted Seal’s actions as compliment.
They ate, mostly in silence, and Uutuk continued to serve them as though she had long been his wife. When Seal and Ghaden had finished, Qung boldly helped herself to the remaining food.
“Where is your father?” she asked Ghaden, her mouth crammed with dried fish.
“I did not tell you?” Ghaden asked. “He and two other traders decided to travel to villages west of the Traders’ Beach.”
Qung raised a bowl of broth to her mouth and looked at him over the rim. “He should be here,” she said.
“They plan to be away five or six days. I decided not to wait for him.”
“A good decision,” said Seal, his voice nearly too loud for politeness.
“He should be here,” Qung said again.
“But he is not,” Ghaden said firmly. Should a hunter let an old woman make his decisions?
Then Uutuk knelt beside Seal to ask, “Would you go get my mother now? She should not be left out of the feast.”
“She is happy at the chief hunter’s ulax,” Seal said. “She does not need to be here.”
“I want her here,” Uutuk said.
“I will get her,” Ghaden told them, grateful for something to take him out of the ulax, away from Qung’s questions and demands.
Daughter let her eyes shine at him, and he felt his cheeks burn, as though he were a young boy having his first thoughts about bedding women.
When Ghaden left, Daughter busied herself rearranging the food on the mats while Qung continued to eat, and when Daughter heard voices from outside, saw bits of dirt sift down from the ulax rafters, she got to her feet and straightened her parka. For her mother, she told herself, but Ghaden was the first down the climbing log, and she had to lower her head when she saw the desire on his face.
She turned away, stood on her toes to reach a water bladder. Then Ghaden’s hands were on hers, his body pressed close against her back, and he pulled down the bladder, held it until she looked up at him. His smile made Daughter’s belly tighten, and her breath caught high in her throat.
K’os broke the silence with compliments about the food and praise for Daughter’s parka. She asked Ghaden about his hunting, and Ghaden squatted on his haunches beside her, answered her respectfully, as though she were his own mother.
But Daughter, watching them as she ate, saw the caution in Ghaden’s eyes, heard the care in his answers, and saw that K’os, too, was careful, stiff and proper as she seldom was to a man.
When the women had eaten their fill, and Qung and Daughter were putting away the food, the truth came into Daughter’s mind, prickled there like a stone inside a seal flipper boot.
Ghaden and her mother did not like each other. Then why had K’os been so eager for Daughter to become Ghaden’s wife?
K’os turned away from Ghaden, spoke a blessing that Daughter had never heard before, something in the River language about wives and husbands and children.
“A marriage blessing,” K’os said, and translated it for Seal.
He nodded his approval, and added a First Men blessing, then made a joke about sleeping places and the secrets women hold between their legs.
Ghaden laughed, as did Qung, but K’os did not join in. She held a smile on her face, and Daughter recognized it as a trader’s smile, a guarded joy, held without words so the trading would continue to be good.
As Qung raised her old woman’s voice into a song about getting children, K’os and Seal stood up, took Daughter’s arms, and pushed her toward a sleeping place. Then the woven grass curtain closed behind her, and for a few moments Daughter was alone.
In the darkness she could still see her mother’s smile, and she wondered what great treasure K’os planned to own in exchange for a daughter’s life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE SUMMER BEFORE, DAUGHTER had given herself to White Salmon. So many of the young women in her village, a year past their first moon blood time, had already been chosen as wives that Daughter had begun to worry she would be the only woman, save a few elderly widows, without a husband.
When White Salmon had shown some interest in her, she had welcomed him into her bed. After all, K’os had been diligent in teaching her how to please a man.
Now that she waited for Ghaden, she wished she had saved herself for her husband. He had been raised River. How often had K’os told her that River men did not like to share their wives, except with their hunting partners? When he found she had known another man, would he throw her away? Even in the warmth of the fur-lined sleeping place, she was suddenly cold.
A roar of laughter pushed at her from the ulax, and the dividing curtain was thrust aside. Ghaden was shoved in with her. Seal called out a coarse joke, but in the light that filtered through the woven grass of the curtain, Daughter saw that Ghaden was not laughing. His eyes were soft. He raised his hands, placed them on either side of her neck, then lifted her hair and ran gentle
fingers up the back of her head.
“I have wanted to touch your hair for a long time,” he said. “It is as soft as eiderdown.” He spoke in the First Men language, and she felt even more honored by that than by his compliment.
He had taken off his parka, most likely the reason for the laughter, and she noticed that he had oiled his skin. She laid her hands on his chest. The warmth of him lifted the cold from her fingers and some of the fear from her heart. He looked into her face as though he were seeing her for the first time. She raised her fingers to his nose, and he began to laugh.
“First Men do not have much by way of noses,” he said, and pressed his cheek to hers. She shivered, wrapped her arms around his shoulders. They were wide, his muscles tight and hard under his skin.
Then memories of White Salmon came to her, as if he had thrust his way between them. Daughter did not want to think about him, his fingers stroking her skin, his body within hers. Ghaden cupped her breasts in his hands, and Daughter’s breath came hard into her throat. But in the close heat of the sleeping place, White Salmon again pushed his way between them, a ghost haunting.
“My husband,” Daughter whispered, “there is something you must know.”
Ghaden pressed his fingers to her lips, turned her so she was leaning against his chest, then lifted her into his lap as if she were child. His mouth was so close that his words were a soft wind against her ear.
“My little wife,” he said, “I am sure Qung told you that my mother was First Men. Though I was raised by the River People, I understand First Men ways. You have had other men in your sleeping place.”
It was not a question, and so Daughter knew she did not have to answer him, but she said, “Only one, and I thought he would be my husband, but Seal would not accept his brideprice.”
Ghaden lifted his head from hers, and she raised her hand to her eyes, pressed her fingers against the lids to hold in her tears. What would K’os say, what would Seal do, if Ghaden threw her away even before the night was over?
“Do you wish you were with him?” Ghaden asked.
“No!”
He made a sound in his throat, and Daughter was surprised to realize that he was laughing. “Speak quietly, wife. They will think you have refused me.”
She turned herself to face him, straddling his lap, her legs wrapped around his waist. “I will miss my island.” They were words that she had never thought to say to him, but as little as she knew him, she had already begun to understand that Ghaden was a man to whom you could tell secrets. “I will not miss him.”
“You are sure?” he asked.
She raised her hands to stroke his face. “Forever I will be a good wife to you,” she told him.
He leaned forward and laid her down against the sleeping furs, lowered himself over her. Then she could no longer see White Salmon’s face or even remember what he looked like. There was only Ghaden.
When their lovemaking had ended, Ghaden fell asleep, a leg wrapped over her, a hand resting on her breast. For a time she lay awake, feeling her husband’s seed leak from her body.
During all the advice K’os had given Daughter about bedding a man, she had never mentioned that a woman could also find pleasure. Perhaps it was a thing so rare that K’os herself had never experienced it.
In her joy, Daughter found herself thinking about the grandfather. He would be happy for her. She had no doubt of that, and somehow she knew what he would say.
“Do not question your joy, but be careful about telling K’os. She is not a woman who delights in the happiness of others.”
Ever wise, Daughter thought as sleep claimed her. The grandfather had always been gifted with more wisdom than other men. How good that death had not taken his wisdom from her.
Daughter’s sleep was deep and hard, a sleep without dreams, and she did not wake until she felt Ghaden’s arms tighten around her. She smiled, thinking that he wanted her again, but when she moved a hand toward his groin, he trapped her fingers in his own and said, “Listen.”
Even through the thick ulax walls, Daughter could hear the moaning of the wind as it ripped at the sod.
“A storm,” she said, and tucked herself close to Ghaden.
He pulled away from her and sat up. Her disappointment was a weight in her chest, and she could not help but remember White Salmon, how he always lost interest in her once their lovemaking was finished. Ghaden’s gentleness had allowed her to hope that he would be different.
“My father,” he said.
Then Daughter was ashamed of her selfishness. A wife should always consider her husband first.
“When did he leave?”
“Yesterday morning, early.”
“They went to trade at another First Men village?” Daughter asked, and without giving him a chance to answer, said, “How many days travel to that village?”
“Two.”
“They would have spent the night on a beach?”
“No,” Ghaden said softly. “I have heard other traders talk of the journey. Unless you stop after a half-day’s travel, there are no good beaches between this village and that. During the night they tie their iqyan together with their paddles so each man can have a little sleep while the others watch.”
Daughter heard the fear in Ghaden’s voice, and she clasped her amulet, cupped it in her hands, and pressed it close to her husband’s chest.
In spite of the sand it held from the Boat People’s beach, it was still just a woman’s charm, at best only strong enough to help her find a few sea urchins, to keep tussocks of basket grass alive through the winter, so new grass would grow up from the old. Nothing powerful enough to save a man’s life.
But Ghaden curled his hands over hers and held the amulet with her, so Daughter began to hope that their prayers, rising together, would be stronger than either one could offer alone.
Herendeen Bay, Alaska Peninsula
602 B.C.
As soon as the last words were out of her mouth, Qumalix stood and stepped away from Sky Catcher. Before he could give voice to much complaint, Qumalix raised one hand and said, “You see those clouds? They are full of rain. You do not even have a wife here to take care of your sax if you get it wet.”
“I am not helpless,” he said, curling his lips into a pout. “I know how to take care of a wet sax.” But he got to his feet, and when Qumalix started walking toward the village, he followed.
“I want to know what happened to Cen,” he called to her. “Did he die in the storm?”
“That is something you will have to find out the next time it is my turn in the storytellers’ ulax.”
He caught up to her, nudged her aside into the longer grass so he was walking in the center of the path.
“You could always tell me the story. We can find a place to be alone. I have a trader’s boat we can sit under and stay dry.”
She cupped a hand over her mouth and coughed, cleared her throat, and spat into the grass. “I have done enough telling for one day,” she said. “My voice needs a rest.” She dropped back behind him on the path, felt a splatter of rain hit her face. “Hurry,” she told him, though she was not much concerned about getting wet. The puffin skins of her sax shed water well.
Sky Catcher broke into a slow lope, and she did the same. The rain split the clouds, poured down heavy and cold. Sky Catcher began to run, but Qumalix kept her pace slow and thanked the skies.
Yikaas crawled out of the sleeping place, shook his head against the giggling foolishness of the two sisters. He had found release in their bodies, but he felt uneasy, an ache in his gut as if he had gorged himself beyond his needs, and shamed himself by his greed. How could he think he was wise enough to be a storyteller if he took more than his share, even of women?
Worse, how would he get rid of these two? Every night he spent during his visit here, every time he came to their village, they would have a claim on him. What if Qumalix found out?
He pulled on his parka and adjusted his caribou hide leggings. Yo
u worry about Qumalix? he asked himself. Why? She’s a storyteller, nothing more. Besides, she had chosen to spend the day with Sky Catcher. Perhaps even as he himself was pushing his way into the fat sister’s chisum naga, Sky Catcher was doing the same to Qumalix.
The thought thrust a spearpoint of anger into Yikaas’s chest.
“You have no claim on her,” he said, and did not realize that he had spoken aloud until the thin sister placed a hand on his back and leaned forward to look into his face. She asked some question in the First Men language. Yikaas shrugged and shook his head to show he did not understand. He was usually more polite to women who had allowed him in their beds, but what could he say to a girl who did not understand the River language?
He pulled two necklaces out of a packet at his waist. They were nothing special, birdbone beads cut long, and he could see a quick shadow of disappointment in her eyes, but he gave her the necklaces, and raised his hand toward the climbing log. He tried to smile, but his face felt stiff. He clambered up the log quickly, moaned when he saw that it was raining.
The grass growing on the ulax roof was slick, and when he walked to the edge, his feet went out from under him and he slid to the ground, landing hard on his buttocks. He heard laughter, turned his head, and saw Qumalix. Water dripped from the feathers of her sax.
“You’re wet,” he said to her, and she arched an eyebrow at him.
“I’ve been outside telling stories.”
She looked up as the sisters peered over the edge of the ulax. They wore only their grass aprons. The thin one said something, thrusting out her narrow chest as though she were proud of herself.
Qumalix translated for Yikaas. “She says, it is too bad you are not as good on your feet as you are in a bed.”
Yikaas stood, wiped a hand down the front of his parka. “You were with Sky Catcher,” he said, but as soon as the words had come from his mouth, he wished he could take them back.