The men looked to Capiam in confusion. 'We do not go that soon,' Capiam corrected him gently. 'In four or five days, perhaps, when ...'
'No? Well, no doubt you know more of such things than I. I had thought that a wise man would leave by the day after tomorrow. But I suppose I am wrong again. What an old man sees in his dreams has little to do with day-to-day life. I must be going, now.'
Carp set off at a shambling walk, leaving Capiam and his men muttering in a knot.
Heckram called after him, 'Be sure to tell Tillu that I will come to see her soon.' The old man gave no sign of hearing. With deep annoyance, Heckram knew that his message would not be delivered.
'Here he comes! I told you he would come as soon as the storm died!' Without waiting for an answer, Kerlew raced out to meet Carp.
' I told you that he would come as soon as the storm was over.' Tillu offered the truth to the empty air. Kerlew had been frantic when Carp had not returned. He had spent a miserable two days. Kerlew had paced and worried, nagged her for her opinion as to why Carp hadn't returned, and ignored it when she told him. So now the old shaman was here, and her son would stop pestering her. Instead of relief, her tension tightened.
She stood in the door, watched her son run away from her.
She watched the old man greet the boy, their affection obvious. In an instant, they were in deep conversation, the boy's long hands fluttered wildly in description. They turned and walked into the woods. Tillu sighed.
Then she glimpsed another figure moving down the path through the trees. Despite her resolve, her belly tightened in anticipation. The long chill days of the storm had given her time to cool her ardor and reflect upon what had nearly happened the last time she had seen Heckram. It would have been a grave mistake. She was glad it had not happened, glad she had not made herself so vulnerable to Heckram. The trees alternately hid and revealed the figure coming down the path. He was wearing a new coat. She dreaded his coming, she told herself. That was what sent her heart hammering into her throat. She would not become involved with a man whose woman had been beaten, and then slipped into death by too large a dosage of pain tea. She would not become close to a man that large, so large he made her feel like a helpless child. She would be calm when he arrived. She would treat his face, if that was what he came for.
And if it was not, she would ... do something. Something to make it clear she would not have him.
He paused at the edge of the clearing, shifting nervously from foot to foot. It wasn't him. Recognition of the fact sank her stomach and left her trembling. He hadn't come.
Why hadn't he come? Had he had second thoughts about a woman who had birthed a strange child like Kerlew? Kerlew, with his deep-set pale eyes and prognathous jaw, Kerlew, who dreamed with his eyes wide open. But Heckram had seemed to like her son, had responded to him as no other adult male ever had. So if it was not Kerlew that had kept Heckram from coming to see her, it was something else. Something that was wrong with her.
Whoever it was who had come hesitated at the edge of the clearing. Tillu watched as her visitor rocked back and forth in an agony of indecision. Then suddenly the figure lifted its arms wide, and rushed toward her hut in a swooping run. The girl's black hair lifted as she ran, catching blue glints of light like a raven's spread wings. The wind of her passage pressed her garments against her thin body.
A few feet from the hut, she skittered to a halt. She dropped her arms abruptly and folded her thin hands in front of her high breasts. Her fluttering garments of loose white furs settled around her. She stood perfectly still and silent, regarding Tillu with brightly curious eyes. She did not make any greeting sign, not even a nod. She waited.
'Hello there,' Tillu said at last. She found herself speaking as to a very shy child. The same calm voice and lack of aggressive movements. It seemed to Tillu that if she put out a hand, the girl would take flight. 'Have you come to see me? Tillu the Healer?''
The girl bobbed a quick agreement and came two short steps closer. She looked at Tillu as if she had never seen a human before, with a flat, wide curiosity, taking in not the details of Tillu's face and garments, but the general shape of the woman. It was the way Kerlew looked at strangers, and Tillu felt a sudden uneasiness. 'What's your name?' she asked carefully. 'What do you need from me?'
The girl froze. Tillu expected her next motion to carry her away. But instead she said in a whisper-light voice, 'Kari. My name is Kari.' She bobbed a step closer and craned her neck to peer into the tent. 'You're alone.' She swiveled her head about quickly to see if there were anyone about. Tillu didn't move. The girl leaned closer, reached out a thin hand but didn't quite touch her. '1 want you to mark me.'
'What?'
'Listen!' The girl seemed impatient. 'I want you to mark me. My face and breasts, I think that should be enough. Maybe my hands. If it isn't, I'll come back and have you take out an eye. But this first time, I think if you cut off part of one nostril, and perhaps notched my ears. Yes. Notch my ears, with my own reindeer mark. To show that I belong to myself.''
Tillu felt strangely calm. She was talking to a mad woman. The last snow was melting, leaf buds were swelling on twigs, and the trunks of birches and willows were flushed pink with sap. And this girl wanted Tillu to cut off pieces of her face.
'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.