Every word — even the simple nouns — seemed to have a score of variants, and the subtleties of the syntax were far beyond a middle-aged man who’d gone to sea as a boy and never learned even his Latin. Thank God he would never have to speak this language aloud. Straining to understand the click-clack flow of it gave him the kind of headaches he used to have when Silna first shared her dreams with him.
The Great Bear, for instance. The simple white bear. The God-Walking People and the other Real People he’d encountered in the past two years called it nanuq, which was simple enough, but he also heard variants that might be written down — in English, since the Real People had no written language — as nanoq, nänuvak, nannuraluk, takoaq, pisugtooq, and ayualunaq. And now, from Inupijuk, this hunter from the south (who, he now knew, was not as stupid as Asiajuk insisted), he had learned that the Great Bear was also called Tôrnârssuk by many of the southern bands of the Real People.
For a period of a few painful months — he was still healing then and learning how to eat and swallow all over again — he had been perfectly satisfied to have no name at all. When Asiajuk’s band began calling him Taliriktug — “Strong Arm” — after an incident during a white-bear hunt that first summer when he had single-handedly hauled the carcass of the dead bear out of the water when a team of dogs and three hunters had failed (it had not been his superhuman strength, he knew, just that he’d been the only one to see where they’d snarled their harpoon line on a projection of ice), he hadn’t minded the new name even though he had been happier without one. Asiajuk told him that he now carried the soulmemory of an earlier “Strong Arm” who had died by the hand of the kabloona.
Months earlier, when he and Silence had come to the iglu village so that she could have the help of the women during the birth of Raven, he had not been surprised to learn that the Real People Inuktitut name of his wife was Silna. He could see how she embodied the spirit of both Sila, the goddess of the air, and Sedna, the goddess of the sea. Of her secret sixam ieua spirit-governor name, she would not or could not share it with him through her string-signing or dreams.
He knew his own secret name. On that first night of great misery after the Tuunbaq had taken his tongue and older life away, he had dreamt his secret name. But he would never tell anyone, even Silna, whom he still called Silence in his sent-thoughts during their love-making and in their dreams.
The village was named Taloyoak and consisted of about sixty people and a scattering of more tents than snow-houses. There were even some snow-covered sod homes projecting out from the cliffs that would have grassy roofs come summer.
The people here were called Oleekataliks, which he thought meant “Men with Capes,” although the outer skins they wore on their shoulders looked more to him like Englishmen’s woolen comforters than real capes. The head man was about Taliriktug’s age and was handsome enough, although he had no teeth left, which made him look older than his years. The man was named Ikpakhuak, which Asiajuk told him meant “the Dirty One,” although as far as Taliriktug could see and smell, Ikpakhuak was no dirtier than the rest of them and cleaner than some.
Ikpakhuak’s much-younger wife was named Higilak, which Asiajuk smirkingly explained meant “the Ice House.” But Higilak’s manner was not in any way cold toward the strangers; she helped her husband welcome Taliriktug’s band with warmth and an outpouring of hot food and gifts.
He realized that he would never understand these people.
Ikpakhuak and Higilak and their family served them umingmak, musk ox steak, as their feast meal, which Taliriktug enjoyed well enough but which Silna, Asiajuk, Nauja, and the rest of his band had to choke down, since they were Netsilik, “People of the Seal.” After all the meeting ceremonies and meals were over, he managed through his interpreted signs to move the conversation to the kabloona gifts.
Ikpakhuak acknowledged that the People of the Cape had such treasures, but before showing his guests, he asked that Silna and Taliriktug show everyone in the village their magic. The Oleekataliks had not met any sixam ieua in the lifetimes of most of the villagers — although Ikpakhuak had known Silna’s father, Aja, decades ago — and Ikpakhuak politely asked if Silna and Taliriktug would fly around the village a little bit and perhaps turn themselves into seals, not bears, please.
Silna explained — through her string-signs interpreted by Asiajuk — that the two spirit-governors-of-the-sky chose not to do that, but that they would both show the hospitable Oleekataliks where the Tuunbaqs had taken their tongues, and that her kabloona sixam ieua husband would give them the rare treat of seeing his scars… scars inflicted in a terrible battle with evil spirits years ago.
This completely satisfied Ikpakhuak and his people.
After this dog-and-pony cum scar show was over, Taliriktug managed to get Asiajuk to bring the subject back to the kabloona gifts.
Ikpakhuak instantly nodded, clapped his hands, and sent boys to gather the treasures. They were handed around the circle.
There were various pieces of wood, one of them split from a well-handled marlin’s spike.
There were gold buttons bearing the Naval anchor motif of the Discovery Service.
There was a fragment of a lovingly embroidered man’s undervest.
There was a gold watch, the chain it may have hung from, and a handful of coins. The initials on the back of the watch, CFDV — Charles Des Voeux.
There was a silver pencil case with the initials EC on the inside.
There was a gold-medal citation once presented to Sir John Franklin from the Admiralty.
There were silver forks and spoons bearing the crests of Franklin’s various officers.
There was a small china plate with the name SIR JOHN FRANKLIN written out on it in colored enamel.
There was a surgeon’s knife.
There was a mahogany portable lap writing desk that the man now holding it recognized because it had been his own.
Did we really haul all this shit hundreds of miles in our boats? thought Crozier. And before that, thousands of miles from England? What were we thinking? He felt that he might throw up and had to close his eyes until the nausea passed.
Silence touched his wrist. She had sensed the tilt and shift in him. He looked into her eyes to assure her that he was still there, although he wasn’t. Not really. Not completely.
They paddled along the coast to the west, toward the mouth of Back’s River.
Ikpakhuak’s Oleekataliks had been vague, even evasive, about where they had found their kabloona treasures — some said they were from a place called Keenuna, which sounded like one of a series of islets in the strait just south of King William Island — but the majority of hunters said they had come across the riches west of Taloyoak at a place called Kugluktuk, which Asiajuk translated as “Place of Falling Waters.”
To Crozier, it sounded like the first small waterfall he’d read about that Back had said was just upriver from the mouth of Back’s Great Fish River.