'I Fluuni,' she said. 'Middle sister iss Jiini; little sister iss Lyssa. Daughter iss Haani.'
Tiaan repeated the names, sounding them in the Tiksi way with extended vowels. From the hysterical laughter, she had got them completely wrong. 'I am Tiaan,' she repeated.
They repeated her name, mispronouncing it as badly. Lyssa dipped a wooden ladle in the cauldron, spilled the contents onto a square wood platter and handed Tiaan an implement like a spoon with teeth on the end, also made of wood.
She took it, not knowing what to say. What payment would they require? The plate contained a thick, bright-yellow mess. She could smell fish, though it had long since fallen to pieces. There were long fibrous sections of vegetables that might have been parsnip, dark unidentifiable grains, a hint of onion.
'Eat,' Fluuni said.
Tiaan took a mouthful. It was a peculiar combination of flavours, but delicious. She heaped up her implement. The women and the child were staring at her expectantly. 'Good!' she said. They did not understand. 'Very good!' She smacked her lips, patted her stomach. Still the stares. Had she committed some terrible blunder?
She shovelled in some more, swallowed, and to her embarrassment her stomach gave a great rollicking gurgle. Beaming smiles appeared. Haani clapped her hands.
Tiaan finished the stew. Immediately another ladle was emptied onto her platter. Her stomach was groaning from the first but they were looking at her so expectantly that it seemed ill-mannered to refuse. By the time the second was gone she was bursting, heavy-bellied and drowsy. Fluuni immediately dipped the ladle again. Tiaan leapt up, cried her thanks and bowed from the waist. They did not know what to make of this either.
They offered her tea made from mustard seeds. Its pungency went up her nose. Tiaan sneezed and tears ran from her eyes.
Afterwards she felt really sleepy. It was ages since she'd had a decent night's rest. Leaning against the wall she closed her eyes, snatched them open again and fell fast asleep. When she woke it was just as smoky and gloomy and Tiaan thought she'd slept only for a few minutes, though she felt unusually refreshed. The room was empty. She crawled through the door and to her horror discovered that it was near dusk. She'd slept the day away.
Her eye wandered along the river bank. The boat was not there! She hurtled down to the water. No sign of it anywhere, nor of her pack and its infinitely precious contents. Tiaan sprinted back to the hut, crashing into Lyssa, who was carrying a load of wood from the forest. Sticks went everywhere.
Tiaan helped her pick them up. 'Where is my boat?'
'Bote?' Lyssa replied.
Tiaan made paddling motions with her hands. 'Trall!' said Lyssa, going around the back of the hut. The boat was leaning against the wall, upside down. Water draining from it had frozen on the ground.
'What did you do with my pack?' She tried to say it in sign language. Lyssa led her inside and Tiaan saw the pack not far from where she'd gone to sleep. She went though it while Lyssa looked on with a faint smile. Everything was as it had been before.
Tiaan felt embarrassed at her suspicions. Getting up, she cried 'Thank you; thank you!' and threw out her arms.
Lyssa beamed, folded Tiaan in her own arms and gave her a long warm hug. Her doughy flesh reminded Tiaan of her mother, back when Tiaan had been a little girl and Marnie had time for her. Before she'd been rejected for the next child, and the one after.
By this time it was dark. Shortly the two sisters appeared with Haani. They began preparing vegetables, peeling onions and garlic from bunches hung at the ceiling, and a variety of roots which they brought from a cellar whose trapdoor was in one corner.
Tiaan offered to help but they sat her by the fire, the place of honour. Dinner was a slab of husky black bread placed in the bottom of a platter and the liquid from the fish stew poured over it. She ate every scrap and mopped her plate with the crusts.
Following that, Lyssa sang to Haani. It seemed to be a long tale, perhaps part of the Histories, or the Histories of the family. Tiaan did not know the language. It went on for at least an hour, a story full of drama and tragedy, fire and passion, and tender lovemaking too, judging by the wistful look that crept across Lyssa's face. The older women sat mending their clothing as they listened.
Finally the Histories had been sung. The child sat droopy-eyed while they undressed her, gave her a perfunctory clean with a wet rag and put her to bed in the middle of the furs. Then they laid down their work and looked expectantly at Tiaan. Evidently she had to sing for her supper.
Had she been asked to sing at the manufactory, Tiaan would have been so mortified that she could not have made a single note. But these people did not know her, they would never see her again, and besides, she owed them for the food, shelter and kindness.
She had not sung since she was a child in the breeding factory. A nursery rhyme popped into her head, a cautionary tale about a frog and a butterfly. She sang it in a hoarse, scratchy voice, not well at all, though Haani seemed to like it.
When she finished, Lyssa put her finger across Tiaan's lips, went to the fire and began stirring some kind of aromatic balm into a mug. It had a lemony, minty aroma. She squeezed in honey from a red-black comb and passed it to Tiaan with a smile.
Tiaan sipped from the mug, which eased her dry throat, and began to hum another tune. She made up the words as she sang. It was to the father she had never known and could not know. He must have died in the war, else he would have come back for her.
The sad song ended. Her eyes were moist. Again they clapped, and the child settled in bed. Only then did Tiaan raise the topic that was preoccupying her.
'The river is frozen. How can I get to the sea?'
'Fro-sshen?' said Jiini, the quietest of the three.
It took a lot of sign language to convey Tiaan's meaning, and then not very well. She had to take them outside, point to the river and try to sign that it was blocked by the ice. 'Sea' she could not convey at all.
The great southern inland sea was nearly three hundred leagues long. The smaller, western end was called Milmillamel. What was the larger? It took ages to call a map of Lauralin, like a blueprint seen long ago, into her mind.
'Tallallamel,' she said. 'I go to Tallallamel.'
'Ah!' said Lyssa. 'Tiaan go Tallallamel Myr.'
They grinned and chattered among themselves, then Fluuni said, speaking slowly and distinctly, 'Tiaan must leave boat. Tiaan shee.' She corrected herself, 'Tiaan skee river, ya?'
'Ski down the river to Tallallamel?'
'Ya, ya!' said the three women, nodding vigorously. 'Skee to Ghysmel, ya.'
Tiaan presumed Ghysmel was a city on the coast. 'How far is that?' Blank looks. 'How many sleeps to Ghysmel?'
Jiini held up six fingers. 'Nya!' said Lyssa, pushing her sister's hand down and holding up eight fingers. Fluuni nodded vigorously.
Eight days of skiing. That wasn't so bad; Tiaan was an accomplished skier. That was how they got around in winter, at the manufactory. Skiing all day might test her out though.
Having established that money was foreign to them, Tiaan was at a loss how to proceed. However, after some hard work she bartered her leather boat for a pair of skis and food. No doubt they already had a boat, though Fluuni's eyes lit up as soon as Tiaan made the offer. The leather was soft but strong, much more valuable than a pair of skis, which were easily carved in a few evenings.
They insisted on filling her pack with food – bundles of stiff dried fish, dried meat, a comb of honey, a round of cheese probably made from deer milk, a string of onions and much more. She had to stop them – there was more than she could carry.
It was late. The women crawled into the nest of furs, with the child in the middle. Fluuni indicated the space nearest the fire. Tiaan was soon asleep. Her dreams were pleasant ones, for once. These strangers, whom Tiaan had known for only a day, felt closer and more caring than anyone she knew. It was like lying in her mother's bed as a child.