“And there is a mark I want you to make on each of my breasts. We will have to cut it deep enough to scar. Look Here it is. Can you tell what I meant it to be?”
From within her fluttering garments, the girl produced a small scrap of bleached hide. She unrolled it carefully, glanced warily about, and then thrust it into Tillu’s face. She was breathing quickly, panting in her excitement.
Tillu looked at the scrap of hide, making no movement to take it. A black mark had been made with soot in the center of the hide. Four lines meeting at a junction. “It looks like the tracks shore birds leave in the mud,” Tillu observed carefully.
“Yes!” Kari’s voice hissed with satisfaction. “Almost. Only it’s the mark of an Owl. A great white owl with golden eyes. I want you to put one on each of my breasts, above the nipples. Mark me as the Owl’s. Then Pirtsi will know I am not for him. My ears will show me as mine, my breasts will show me as Owl’s. Must it hurt very much?”
The pang of fear in the last question wrung Tillu’s heart. It was a child’s voice, not questioning that it must be done, but only how much it would hurt.
“Yes.” Tillu spoke simply and truthfully. “Such a thing would hurt a great deal. Your ears, not so much after it was done. But your nose would hurt a great deal, every time you moved your face to speak or smile or frown. The nose is very sensitive. As would your breasts be. There would be a great deal of blood and pain.”
She peered deeply into the girl’s eyes as she spoke, hoping to see some wavering in her determination. There was none. Tillu felt a tightening within her belly. This girl would do this maiming, with her help or without it. She must find a way to deter her. Slowly she gestured toward her tent. “Would you care to come inside? I made a tea this morning, of sorrel and raspberry roots, with a little alder bark. As a tonic for the spring, but also because it tastes good. Will you try some?”
Kari opened and closed her arms several times rapidly, making her white garments flap around her. Tillu thought she had lost her, that the girl would flee back into the woods. But suddenly she swooped into the tent. She fluttered about, looking at everything, and then alighted on a roll of hides near the hearth. She cocked her head to peer into the earthenware pot of tea steeping on the coals. “I’d like some,” she said decisively.
Tillu moved slowly past her, to reach for carved wooden cups. “What made you decide to mark your body?” she asked casually.
Kari didn’t speak. Tillu sat on the other side of the hearth, facing her. She dipped up two cups of the tea, and offered one dripping mug to Kari. She took it, looked into it, sniffed it, sipped it, and then looked up at Tillu and spoke. “The night the najd came to my father’s tent and spoke, I felt the truth of his words. And more. He spoke of how many of us had no spirit guardian to protect us. I had heard my grandmother speak of such guardians, a long time ago, before she died. Her spirit beast was Hare. He does not seem like much of a guardian, does he? But he was good to my grandmother.
“So that night, I stared into the fire as the najd had and opened myself and went looking for a spirit beast. But I saw nothing in the flames, though I watched until long after all the others slept. So, I gave up and went to my skins and slept. And in the night I felt cold, heavy claws sink into my beast.”
She lifted her thin hands, her narrow fingers curved like talons, and pressed them against her breasts. Then she looked up at Tillu. The girl’s eyes were a wide blackness. She smiled at Tillu, a strange and wondering smile. Tillu held her breath. “The weight of his claws pressed me down, crushing my chest until I could not breathe. The sharp cold claws sank into me. I struggled but could not escape. It grew dark. But when I was too tired to fight anymore, the darkness gave way to a soft gray light. I felt moss beneath my back, and the night wind of the forest blew across my naked body. And atop my chest, near tall as a man, was Owl, perched with his claws sunk into my breasts!”
Her nostrils flared as she breathed, and Tillu could see the whites all around her eyes. The hands that held the wooden mug trembled as she raised it to her lips. Tillu was silent, waiting. Kari drank. When she took the mug from her mouth, her eyes were calm. She smiled at Tillu, a tight-lipped smile without the showing of teeth. “Then I knew,” she said softly.
Tillu leaned forward. “Knew what?”
“That I belonged to Owl. That I didn’t have to let Pirtsi join with me by the Cataclysm this summer. I am Owl’s. When I awoke, I told my dream to my mother, and asked her to explain to my father why I cannot be joined to Pirtsi. It was always his idea, never mine. I never wanted to be joined to any man at all, let alone a man with dog’s eyes. But my mother grew angry, and said that a man was what I needed to be settled, for nothing else had worked. So I have come to you. Mark my face and body, so all will know to whom I belong. Pirtsi will not take me if I am scarred. He would not take me at all, except that he thinks Capiam’s daughter is a way to Capiam’s favor.”
Tillu sipped at her tea, watching Kari over her mug. The girl was determined. In her mind, it was already done. She spoke carefully. “Kari, I am a healer, not one who damages bodies.”
“Damage? No, this would not be damage. Only a marking, like a notch in a calf’s ear, or a woman’s mark carved into her pulkor. Not damage.”
Tillu chewed at her lower lip. “I do not think we should do this thing,” she said softly, and as anger flared on Kari’s face she added, “If Owl had wanted you so marked on your flesh, he would have marked you himself. Is this not so?”
For an instant, Kari looked uncertain. Tillu pressed on, glad for once that Kerlew had nattered on so much about Carp’s teaching. She wanted her words to sound convincing.
“Owl has marked your spirit as his. That is all he requires. You need not mark your face to deny Pirtsi. Or so I understood during the time I spent with the herdfolk, when Elsa…”
“Elsa died.” Kari finished in an awed whisper.
“I understood then that the women of your folk can choose their mates. You have a reindeer of your own, do you not? Are not the things you make yours to keep or trade as you wish?” At each of the girl’s nods, Tillu’s spirits lifted. “Then say that Pirtsi isn’t what you want. Cannot you do that?”
Kari had begun to writhe. Her fingers clawed at her arms as she hugged herself. “I should be able to do that. But no one listens. I say I won’t have him. They pay no attention. Everyone is so certain that we will be joined at the Cataclysm. It is as if I cried out that the sun would shine at night. They would think it some childish game. They cannot understand that I do not want him; that I cannot let him touch me.”
“Why?” Tillu spoke very, very softly.
Kari’s eyes grew larger and larger in her face. She touched the tip of her tongue to the center of her upper lip. She trembled on the edge of speaking. Then, the tension left her abruptly, her shoulders slumped, and she said, “Because I belong to Owl now, and he tells me not to. Why won’t you mark me?”
“Because I do not believe Owl wants me to,” Tillu excused herself smoothly. “Who am I to make Owl’s mark for him? If he wishes you marked, he will do it himself.”
Kari once more lifted her hands, sank taloned fingers against her breasts. “And if I do it myself?” she asked.
“Then I would try to see that you did not become infected. A healer is what I am, Kari. I cannot change that. Let me offer you another idea. Wait. There is much time between spring and high summer. Tell everyone that you will not have Pirtsi. Say it again and again. They will come to believe you. Tell Pirtsi himself. Tell him you will not be a good wife to him.”
“And if they do not believe me, when the day comes, I will show them that I am Owl’s. By the Cataclysm.”
Tillu sighed. “If you must.”
The girl sipped at her tea, suddenly calmed. “I will wait.” Her eyes roved about the tent interior. “You should be spreading your hides and bedding in the sun to air, before you pack it for the trip.