“I can manage them,” Tillu said, surprised at how calm her voice sounded.
“Can you?” He glared at her. “And that boy? Can you make him obey you, keep him from being a burden to all of us?” She could hear the checked fury in his voice. He’d been saving his anger for days. At the least excuse, he’d show it. She looked at his big hands, the thick muscles in his neck, and felt cold fear. But only the chill was in her voice when she spoke.
“Kerlew is my responsibility. I am sure that if Capiam thought he would be a problem, he would have spoken of it to me.”
“And you are my responsibility! I have told Capiam that I will see to it that you…”
“I am no one’s responsibility!” Tillu’s voice flared out of control. Passing herdfolk were staring at them curiously.
“That is not how the herdlord has ordered it,” he reminded her, an odd note of triumph in his voice. “I am to see that you lack for nothing, that you travel easily with us.” He finished tugging at a final strap. Rising, he pulled the harke forward, to put its rein back into Tillu’s hand and take his own animals. He looked down at her. “I am in charge of you and your boy. To be sure that no one harms the najd’s little apprentice. Now you will follow me. And if…”
“Heckram! And Carp!” Kerlew’s voice split Joboam’s words. The boy dashed past her, running headlong toward the line of folk and beasts. Tillu’s breath caught as she watched, expecting the animals to startle and run. But the harkar only looked up curiously at the boy pelting toward them. A few perked their ears foolishly, but there was no stampede. Heckram saw the boy coming, and pulled his animals from the cavalcade and waited. The folk behind him moved past.
Morning surrounded the man and framed him. He wore summer clothes, a tunic of thin leather stretched over his chest and shoulders, rough trousers of leather and leather boots that tied at the knee. A hat of knotted blue wool could not confine his hair; the breeze lifted bronze glints from it. She dared not believe in the wide smile that welcomed her son. The lead harke nudged Heckram for assurance, and he rested a hand on its shaggy neck, waiting. Kerlew halted inches from Heckram, to tilt back his head and grin up at him. It squeezed her heart to see her strange son so confident of a welcome. Heckram reached out a hand. She saw him tousle the boy’s wild hair, then clasp his thin shoulder in a man’s welcome. Carp’s sharp voice parted them, imperiously summoning the boy to his side.
Heckram led a string of four harkar, with Carp perched atop the first one. Up until now, Tillu had seen only the very young and the very old riding the pack animals. Carp’s legs were sound under him. She wondered why he chose to ride. He leaned down to speak to Kerlew, gesturing to the boy to walk beside the animal, and then to Heckram to move on. Heckram looked a question at her. She lifted a hand in a greeting that was an acknowledgment but not an answer to anything. Behind her Joboam made a sound without syllables, a rasping like a beast’s growl. She was shaken by the black fury in his eyes. His hatred was bottomless; she wondered which of the three was its target.
“Follow!” he snapped and jerked his string of harkar to an ungainly trot. She pulled her unwilling animals to match his pace and ran to keep up. He threaded a trail through the widely spaced trees, paralleling the path of the herdfolk. She had no breath for questions, but could only follow in grudging obedience.
She took deep breaths of the scents of early spring. The aroma rose from the humus and early tufts of sprouting grasses and moss in an almost visible mist. Small yellow leaves and shriveled berries still clung to some of the brambly wild roses, beside the swelling leaf nodes that would soon unfurl into foliage. She saw a circle of new mushrooms but could not stop to investigate them. Joboam swung his animals back toward the cavalcade, motioning to Pirtsi to make a space. She followed him, glad to slow to a walk again.
“Keep up,” was the only thing he said. She fell in behind him. His animals separated them, making talk thankfully impossible. She glanced back at Pirtsi but he seemed immersed in simply walking. She set her eyes forward and followed his example, letting the day fall into easy monotony.
Before her the haunches of Joboam’s last harke swayed, its ridiculous white tail flicking. She glanced at the animal she led, surprised at how easy it was. She held the rein, but her beast simply followed the one in front of them. The strap between them was slack. The reindeer’s head bobbed, its moist breath warming the air by Tillu’s shoulder. Its eyes were huge, dark and liquid beneath the brow ridges. They reminded Tillu of a small child’s frank stare. Boldly she put her free hand out to touch the animal’s shaggy neck. She was pleased with the contented rumble the animal made at her touch. She scratched it gently as she had seen Heckram do, and it leaned into her touch.
There was a strange giddiness to striding along on a spring day, unencumbered by any burden. She remembered her staggering flight from Benu’s folk, the weight of everything she owned heavy on her shoulders as she fled from Carp and his influence over her son. This was better. The animals carried their packs easily, and Tillu matched their pace with a swinging stride. Stranger still was that Kerlew was not at her heels. She was not calling him back from investigating things far off the trail, wasn’t scolding him for dawdling, nor answering his pestering questions. Her life had been so intertwined with her son’s since his birth that she could not become accustomed to surrendering him to Carp. At the thought of the old man, her stomach knotted and she glanced back. But Kerlew and the shaman were far down the line. And Heckram was with them. She thought of the smile he had given her boy today. As if he didn’t resent his presence. His tolerance couldn’t last forever, might well be gone by the end of this day. But let Kerlew enjoy what acceptance he could. Soon enough he would know rejection again; soon he would walk at Tillu’s heels again, asking her the same question ten times and never remembering her answer. She forced herself to believe it would be so.
She gave herself up to the forest around her. Once she heard squirrels chattering overhead, and then the hoarse cries of a raven. The forest of the morning was pine and spruce, with a scattering of birch. By midday they were crossing rivulets, swift and noisy with the melt of winter snow. The first few were narrow streams, easily jumped by the humans as the reindeer stoically waded through the icy waters. Then came a wider one, and Tillu found herself stepping from rock to slippery rock. By now it seemed natural to put a hand on the reindeer’s shoulder to steady herself, and the animal evinced no surprise at her touch. On the far bank she paused to stroke its neck once, pleased with the feel of its living warmth seeping up through the stiff hair of its coat. Behind her, Bror was swinging his young grandson up to a temporary perch on a pack animal for the crossing.
Then they were walking on again. Tillu began to feel the complaints of muscles unused to long walking at such a steady pace. The day had warmed, and her heavy tunic was a burden. She halted to drag it off and sling it across the harke’s other burdens. The cool breeze touched her bare arms. Her sleeveless tunic of thin rabbit leather felt so light she had a sensation of nakedness. She stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders in the pleasant sun. Then Joboam angrily called to her to keep up. She pulled her harke back into motion.
Gradually the forest changed. The cavalcade of reindeer and folk wound through valleys and across streams, leaving the steep hillsides behind and emerging onto soft slopes of Lapp heather, with twisting willow ossier now covered with fuzzy catkins and alders with cracked gray bark. The plant life was lusher here, the hillsides open to the blue sky and the softly pushing wind. She thought that the reindeer would lag and graze, but they moved on with a single-mindedness that made her legs ache.
Great gray rocks pushed up randomly on the hillsides through the yellowed grasses of last summer. The earliest of spring’s flowers opened blooms in their shelter and stored warmth. She saw plants she could not name, and familiar plants shorter