Megan Lindholm - The Reindeer People

'What did you see?' she demanded.

'I ... yellow eyes. Staring at me.' His breathing was coming in ragged gasps. Tillu set down the spear and stepped to the firewood stacked neatly by the door. She tossed a few sticks onto the dying coals of the fire and then crossed the tent to kneel by Joboam.

She touched the side of his neck and then his bandaged arm with quick, cool fingers.

His face was still heavy with sleep and the pain of her healing.

'Your fever's broken. That's all. Sometimes when one goes from fever sleep to dreaming, the dreams are bright and hard. There's nothing here. Go back to sleep.'

'I ...' Joboam seemed both dazed and exhausted. He looked about her tent in bewilderment. 'What am I doing here?'

Tillu hunkered down on her heels beside him. The earth was cold under her bare feet. 'You came to have me heal your arm, remember? I gave you a tea to relax you, and dug a bone splinter out of your arm, and bandaged it. Your arm bled again, you were sleepy from the tea, and draining the swelling of your arm gave you a fever. That sometimes happens. We healers say the body burns itself clean. So I let the fever burn, but not too high. And now you are better. Remember? You woke twice and I gave you water. Remember?' She spoke soothingly, as if to a frightened child. After a moment Joboam relaxed.

'Yes. Yes, I remember now. Drink and rest, you told me. But the wolf ... I felt his hot breath in my face. His eyes were yellow and he laughed at me ...'

'A dream. Only a dream.' Tillu pushed the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, checked once more for fever. The man smelled sour with fear. 'You've sweated out the poisons. That's good. Sleep now, and by morning you'll be ready to go home.'

'Yes. I'll sleep.' His words started to drag, and then suddenly he was up on one elbow again, deep creases furrowed between his brows. 'A bone fragment? From my arm?'

'Not your own bone. A piece of worked bone or horn.'

'Where is it? Let me see it. I want it.'

'It's here, it's right here, just a moment,' Tillu soothed him. Shadows in the tent were deep. She was tired and sleepy and growing impatient with his dream fears and compulsions. Her fingers trailed along the earth floor, finding first his knife, then a piece of bark, then some bits of the moss she had used to clean his wound. She groped some more, her toes going numb against the cold earth. 'I'll find it in the morning,' she promised, wondering why he was so anxious. She offered him the knife, hilt first, 'I borrowed your knife to open your arm. My own is old and dull, and a sharp blade is best for such work.'

He took it from her wordlessly, stared at it in puzzlement, and then let it fall from his fingers back onto the dirt floor. He rolled onto his back and stared into the shadowed point of the ceiling. 'Wolf. It was Wolf, and he showed me two knives. One was whole, and one was ... broken. He showed them to me, and then he laughed. He said ... he laughed. That was all.'

'A dream. Just a fever dream.' She wished he would go back to sleep. She was getting cold, crouched here in just her long shirt. She was taken by surprise when his good arm shot out suddenly and his hand gripped her upper arm hard.

'Tell no one,' he ordered her fiercely, if you tell anyone you healed me, I'll kill you.'

'Easy.' She pulled at his digging fingers, wincing as his grip only tightened. 'You're dreaming still. Let go, you're hurting me. Let go!'

'Tell no one!' he repeated insistently. His eyes blazed.

'I won't tell anyone. Why would anyone be interested? Let go.'

'Good. Don't tell.' He stared at her. His grip loosened but he did not free her. Instead he pulled her close, until she was leaning over the pallet. His eyes darted to the shadows behind her, then came back and moved slowly down her body, 'I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry.'

'Let go of me.'

'Don't be angry. I was ... it was just the dream. I didn't mean to hurt you.' His voice was low, soft.

'I know that and I'm not angry. Just let me go.'

'Why?' His eyes still burned, but with a different fire. He winced slightly as he moved his other hand up to touch her face, 'I saw you looking at me. Before you healed my arm.' She pulled back from the caress, baring her teeth.

'Let go of me, or I'll hurt you.' She spoke quietly.

'You? You're no bigger than a child!' He smiled indulgently. His free hand touched her breast through the thin leather of her shirt, pinching her nipple. Then he gasped as her hand fell on his injured arm and tightened on the bandage.

'I'm not pretending. Let go of me, or I'll give you pain.'

His grip dropped from her arm and she sprang back instantly. 'You leave my tent tomorrow morning.' She bit the words off. She could feel Kerlew watching, listening.

'As soon as it's light. Do not come back.'

Joboam eased himself back onto the pallet. He stared at her with round eyes. 'Like a little wolverine. I didn't mean to hurt you, Tillu. And you shouldn't try to hurt me.

Come here.' He smiled crookedly, only encouraged by her rebuff.

She stared at him. He had actually believed she wanted him. Still believed it, still believed her reluctance was a game. Had she wanted him? She turned her back on him and went silently back to her pallet. She could not hide from his eyes; they followed her as she lay down and covered herself again. Her heart beat a little faster and she felt more vulnerable lying down. He was a big man, and strong. She let her arm slip down beside her pallet, to find the short spear. She closed her eyes, but listened for movement. She would not sleep again this night. She opened her eyes slightly, peered through her lashes at the fire as it devoured the sticks and fell into coals again. Beneath her lashes she glanced at Joboam. His face was turned toward her, watching her.

Smiling.

She pulled her eyes away. Had she wanted him? No. A man, yes, her body hungered for a man. She was a woman, she had her needs. Desire swelled and ebbed inside her with the cycle of the moon. Some nights her thoughts were filled with images of men, and her thighs tingled and her nipples grew hard with longing. But not this man. It had been a long time for her, but it would never be so long as to make her want a man like him. Even if he had not been so arrogant and rude, she would have turned him away.

He was too large, too daunting. He would make her feel helpless and childish. Again she felt the suffocating weight of a man's body atop her, pinning her to the earth, smelled the smoke of a burning village.

Her desires vanished. She shook her head, banishing the old memories. Never again.

She wanted nothing of men larger than herself, nothing of dominant, crushing men.

There had been Raduni, of Benu's folk. He had been a small, quick man, his smile almost bigger than his face. When she had first joined Benu's folk, he had smiled at her often. She had admired his litheness. She had marveled at his quickness as he lay on his belly and scooped shining trout from the stream. And offered a share to her, unasked.

She had hoped he would approach her. But too soon he had become aware of Kerlew.

Strange Kerlew. His strangeness had been enough to make Raduni hesitate and then turn aside from her. Her son tainted her. She wondered what made men behave so.

Raduni was not the first. Did men believe all her children must turn out as Kerlew had?

Did she believe so herself? She wasn't sure. She only knew the outcome. She had been left with the attentions of Carp, another man she did not want.

She shifted in her bedding, sighing. Rolke's offer came to her mind. She wondered if the offer would be extended again. And if it was? Did she want to travel with these herdfolk? She did not think so. Kerlew was not ready for such a life. Nor was she. Why would she wish to give up her independent life for a place within the herdfolk? With men such as Joboam, so ready to assume control of her household? With men like Heckram, so quick to assume the decision of life and death?