Kerlew she watched from afar. He was changing in ways she could not understand or control. He was learning and growing, and, she grudgingly admitted, discovering himself as a person apart from her. She watched his relationship with Heckram, and finally accepted that Heckram's affection for Kerlew was not feigned. He always had time for the boy. Tillu watched from Kari's fire as Kerlew shifted between Carp and Heckram, testing the reality of one man against that of the other. He shadowed Heckram at the evening chores, eventually carrying one of the water scoops, and even helping prepare the meals, despite Carp's scornful derision of men doing 'women's work.' He ate at Carp's side, receiving whispered instruction about the spirit world. An hour later he would be at Heckram's elbow, watching him mend worn harness or holding the ends as Heckram braided a new leadrope from long, thin slices of leather.
She sensed the struggle in him. She longed to help him but during those rare moments when he sought her out, she refrained from advice. Pushed, Kerlew would resist. She hoped he would eventually find Heckram's attraction the more powerful one.
Yesterday Kerlew had come to her, bringing his shirt to be mended. He had torn out both shoulder seams. She had measured the worn garment against him, and found that the fault was not in her sewing, but in the boy's sudden growth. She had given it back to him, minus the sleeves, to wear while she pieced out a new shirt for him. For a quiet time he had crouched beside her, watching her select leather for the shirt. She decided to make it from the calf-hide, now scraped and supple ivory-colored leather. Drawing her knife, she cut out the needed pieces quickly. She styled it after the herdfolk's way, a collarless, loose-fitting garment that could be belted at the waist and worn alone, or over leggings. She had held the leather against him, swiftly marking the length of tunic and sleeves he would need. He moved docilely to her commands, holding out his arms obediently as she checked the cut pieces against him. Then Kerlew had crouched beside her, watching intently as his new shirt took form. With a sigh he leaned against her, and the heavy warmth of his small body was so poignantly familiar that Tillu's throat closed. She turned her eyes away from her stitching, to watch the light of the fire make hollows and curves of his face. He was losing the rounded chin of a little boy, his cheeks narrowing and flattening as he grew. The firelight gave his skin a sallow cast, and suddenly she saw the faces of the race that had fathered him, the black-haired, hard-eyed men that had killed her mother and carried her away from her home. Fierceness washed through her, and she cried out aloud as her bone needle plowed a long gash in one of her fingers. She jerked the needle free of her flesh, and the blood followed it, rushing from the gouge and staining her work.
Dropping the needle, she thrust her injured finger into her mouth. This was what came of not keeping her mind on her work. Kerlew never flinched at her cry; his dark eyes fixed on her face. She looked at him questioningly. He put a fingertip to the wet blood on his new shirt, and then casually raised it to his mouth to lick it away. 'Spilled blood,' he said softly. The shadows of ghosts danced over his features. 'The stain never comes out entirely. Somewhere it shows.' Then he had risen, without another word, to seek Heckram's fire and Carp's company. The words had chilled her.
The next night she sat again by Kari's fire, scraping at the stain with a scrubbing stone. Bits of leather rolled away before her efforts, but the blood had soaked through.
It would not be taken out by anything Tillu might do. With a sigh she gave it up, and set to work on the final seam. From time to time, she glanced up from her sewing, wondering where Kerlew was. This was the first time Heckram's shelter was not near Kari's, and she wondered at that as well.
Kari crouched on the other side of the fire. Her eyes were half-lidded, and Tillu could not tell if she drowsed or stared. The day had been a long one and the whole camp was unusually quiet. When Lasse stepped into the circle of their firelight, Tillu started, but Kari only raised her eyes slowly. 'What do you want?' Kari asked with heartless disdain. But Lasse had not come courting her and he did not flinch. His eyes jumped from Kari to Tillu and back again.
'Heckram just came into camp,' he said slowly.
Tillu glanced up, and anxiety ran cold through her belly. 'What kept him?' she demanded. She wadded up the shirt and set it aside as she reached for her healer's supplies. Her mind leapt to her own conclusion. 'Who's hurt?'
Lasse looked straight at her, and then past her, to peer into the darkened shelter. He cleared his throat. 'Not Heckram. Only a harke. It started to stagger earlier today, and Heckram had to put its load on the other harkar, so Carp had to walk. It slowed Heckram's whole rajd and angered the najd. Carp sent Kerlew forward to find you, to ask you to come and purge the sick reindeer. He thought that would cure the beast.' The youth raised his eyes to meet Tillu's and asked, 'Is Kerlew here?'
Tillu couldn't answer. Her hand gripped her herb pouch too tightly, bending her nails against its leather. The night grew darker and closer, pressing against the small fire. She realized how little she could see beyond the fire's circle. The moon was a sliver of light in the far sky. The warmth of the day was already fleeing the earth, seeping away into the empty sky. The night would be cold, and black. Alone, in the darkness, in this wide flat place, this tundra, where every stretch of land looked like every other piece, where the horizon didn't change and every pool they passed looked just like the last one. Kerlew.
Emotions raged through her: Anger with Carp for sending the boy to find her, and with Heckram for letting him go. Fury with herself, for trusting the boy to strangers.
Kerlew was her son, she should have kept him by her, she should have killed the old shaman before letting her son become so attached to him. How had she let herself forget that she was a mother before all other things, before healer or friend or woman?
Where was her son now? Walking blindly in the dark, stumbling on, calling for her? Or was he crouched somewhere, huddled against the night's chill, stubbornly waiting to be found? Had he been distracted from his errand by a shining flow of water, by a leaf spinning in a spider's web as the wind blew past? Did he even know he was lost or was he wondering why Carp had sent him on such a long walk?
Kari broke into her thoughts. 'He's probably somewhere in the camp, playing with the other children. No doubt he forgot his errand entirely, and won't remember it until he get hungry. Lasse, go and ask until you find him.'
But this time her imperious command didn't move him. Lasse met her eyes steadily as he slowly said, 'I already have. I knew Kerlew wasn't with you when I brought your harkar to you earlier this evening. So, before I came, I went to every family that has children his age. Some saw him pass, on his way to find Tillu, but no one spoke to him, or saw him leave the caravan. I was hoping that somehow he had reached the camp and found you since last 1 was here.' Lasse's voice was husky. He folded his arms against his chest and hugged himself against the night's chill.
Tillu was empty. 'He's gone,' sang a small mocking voice in her mind. 'You'll never see him again. He'll never lean against you, never need your protection, never annoy you again. You're free. No one will call you Mother, no one will shame you with this strangeness, no one, no one, nothing. He's gone, you'll never even find his body. The wolves that follow the reindeer will have him, or the cold will take him, or both. And haven't you always wondered what it was like to be alone this way, haven't you always secretly wished he'd die and leave you to live your own life? Didn't you wish him dead, isn't this all your fault, didn't you kill him when you entrusted him to strangers, didn't you always know this would happen if Carp had his way? Haven't you killed him just as surely as Heckram killed Elsa?