‘Then why did he say he was coming?’
Tillu tried to keep her patience before the slow words of the dogged questions. ‘Because you only dreamed it. He didn’t really say it.’
He stood nodding by the fire, his mouth slightly agape, his tongue wetting his lower lip. Then his lips moved as he carefully repeated her words to himself. ‘Ah,’ he said, nodding at the flames. ‘A dream.’
Tillu sighed in relief and began to settle back into her nest of hides.
‘Do you think Carp will come tomorrow, then?’ Kerlew’s hopeful question jerked her back.
Tillu sighed. ‘No. Carp won’t come tomorrow, either. You never hear a word I say, do you? Bring in some wood for the fire.’
He stooped to obey her, dragging in sticks of wood frosted with last night’s snowfall. They sizzled as he dumped them clumsily onto the red coals.
‘Not too many at once,’ Tilly cautioned him. ‘You’ll put it out.’
‘Then I’d have to start it again,’ Kerlew observed, an edge of resentment showing in his slow-spaced words.
‘That’s right,’ she agreed firmly.
They both fell silent, feeling the silent tension hanging between them. Part of her said it had been necessary, that the boy had to learn, however he could be taught. Part of her felt only sickened and sad. How well he remembered anger and hurt. He might forget what she had said to him moments ago, but his memory of last month’s confrontation was still fresh. It was how his mind worked. As if he could sense the things that pained her and chose to keep those things for himself.
She looked at him now, saw his eyes steal up to the tent support where the meat hung. She smiled at him slowly, remembering his face shining with the triumph of fire. That she would keep for herself. He stared back at her, then smiled uncertainly.
‘It’s nearly time to get up, I think. Shall I bring snow?’ he offered hopefully. Then Tillu knew what had really awakened him. He was hungry.
She pushed wearily at her blankets. She knew she should make him go back to sleep and wait to eat until the true morning. But she felt guilty and, she realized, hungry herself. She was not providing well for them. She knew the forest offered ample food, even in the hardest winter, for the skilled hunter. But she was not skilled.
In the time since they had left Benu’s folk, she had been feeding them on rabbits and ptarmigan and the like. At first, there had been the dried meat and oil to supplement what she caught, and the late vegetation of autumn. But snow had locked the plants away now, save for bark teas and the like, and they were reduced to whatever meat she could bring home. Yesterday it had been two hares, neither of them large. She had stewed them up, reserving the hindquarters of one for breakfast. The little creatures had already lost their autumn fat. The lean, stringy meat had been more tantalizing than satisfying. She craved fat, and no amount of stringy hare could satisfy that craving.
She gave in to Kerlew with a curt nod. He snatched up the pot and ran to pack it with snow, not even bothering with his boots. Tillu pushed her sleeping fur back and dressed hastily in the chill of the tent. She added more fuel to the fire and set the pot of snow close by it to melt. The semifrozen hindquarters of the rabbit were hanging from one of the tent supports. She took them down, shaking her head at how small they were, and cut the meat into tiny bits that would cook quickly. Bones and all went into the pot. She poked at the fire to bare the coals and set the pot among them, screwing it into place to brace it. Kerlew had dressed quickly. Now he picked up the bone knife she had used to cut up the meat and licked the traces of blood from it. Tillu chided him: ‘Don’t cut your tongue.’
‘I’m careful,’ he told her and ran his fingers over the piece of wood she had cut the meat on, licking them eagerly. His hunger and the crudeness of their surroundings struck her suddenly. Shame vied with anger, but weariness won over both of them. If she didn’t start doing better, they weren’t going to last out the winter. She stirred the pot of stew thoughtfully. Everything they had was on the verge of wearing out. The bone knife needed to be replaced, mittens needed sewing, the small scraped hides of her kills needed to be worked into useful leather. But there was only one of her and most of her time was taken up with hunting. The solution would have been simple with any other child: Put the boy to work. But experience had taught her that teaching Kerlew a new skill took more time than doing it herself.
Still. He had relit the fire. And he had been responsible for gathering the wood since then, without being reminded. Maybe the harshness of the fire lesson was what he had needed. Maybe it was time to expect – no, demand more of him.
He had come to hunker beside her, watching like a camp-robber bird as she stirred the stew. The water was beginning to warm, and she could smell the meat cooking. She added a handful of dried ground lichen to thicken it. Kerlew’s nose twitched and he sighed in anticipation as he crouched beside her. Sitting down flat on the cold earth floor of the tent, he leaned against her, taking comfort in her closeness and warmth as if he were a much younger child. Tillu reached to rumple his hair. He flinched, then looked up at her questioningly.
‘Kerlew. We can do better than this, but only if we both try harder. I need you to learn to do more things, make more things for us.’
His wide eyes looked up at her in alarm. ‘I brought the firewood yesterday.’
‘I know. I know. You’ve been very good about remembering to do the things I asked you to do. But you’re big now, and it’s time you started to do even more things. I could show you how to stretch the rabbit hides, and you could learn how to fix your own mittens, and –’
His lip jutted out rebelliously. ‘No. That’s women’s work. Carp said so. I’m not supposed to do those things.’
Tillu clenched her teeth, biting back her anger. Carp. Always Carp. How far would she have to travel to escape that man? She began again carefully. ‘Different groups of people have different ways. We are on our own now, so we can make up our own ways. We can do any kind of work we want. And there are many kinds of work we are going to have to do if we are going to survive on our own. We can’t trade healing for meat and garments anymore. So I am going to have to sew our clothing for us, and hunt our food. Even though I never used to do those things. And you will have to do things you didn’t do before, either.’
Tillu paused to look at him. His brow was wrinkled, but his look of stubbornness had diminished slightly. He had pushed his lips out as he thought. It was a lesson that her years with Kerlew had taught her. Other children might be told firmly, or be persuaded with the threat of punishment. Kerlew would go unmoved by such tactics. As slow-witted as he seemed, he would not do a thing until he had firmly in mind the reasons why he must do it. Once persuaded, however, he would not be swayed from what he perceived as necessary. Such as the need to flee from bears, and to keep the fire burning.
‘So why can’t I hunt, then?’ he asked suddenly.
‘You don’t know how. I thought you would want to learn simple things first, like carving and making tools for us, while I hunted.’
‘Other boys my age hunt. Graado was always off hunting, before he died.’
‘I know. Graado was a very good hunter. But it had taken him a long time to learn. Now isn’t a good time for you to be learning to hunt, because if you accidentally miss, we won’t have anything to eat that night. But it is a good time for you to learn to make bowls and knives and other useful things. Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Yes.’ Grudgingly. ‘I’d rather learn to hunt.’
‘You’ll learn to do both this winter,’ Tillu promised, surprised to find she meant it. Now, living alone with the boy, she could teach him some skills, both useful and social. Perhaps the next time they