Megan Lindholm - The Reindeer People

The transformation was remarkable. The years dropped from her face, her cheeks dimpled in, and her eyes shone. Kerlew's resemblance to her became obvious when her white, even teeth flashed in her smile. Without her habitual small frown, she seemed young, almost girlish. Her laughter was good, low pitched and earthy. Their eyes met, and he found himself grinning in response as the poultice slid down the side of his face.

'It's too runny,' she apologized. Still smiling, she shook the poultice from her fingers back into the pot. Her hand had not left his face. 'Here,' she said and took the gloppy poultice from his hand and flicked it into the fire. She reached over him toward a worn square of hide on the other side of the pallet, could not quite reach it, leaned further, slipped, and was suddenly sprawled across him. Under her, his chest shook with laughter. Her cheeks burned. She snatched up the square of hide, wiped her fingers and handed it to him as she rocked hack onto her heels. He took it from her, still grinning, and wiped his fingers clean. He could feel the poultice dripping down the side of his face and neck.

His eyes sought hers, but suddenly she was not smiling. Her lips were pursed, her face grim as she took the patch of old leather from him and wiped the side of his face.

'We'll have to start all over,' she said gruffly. The smile faded from his face as he looked up at her. There was such constraint on her face, such control. Over what? The failure of the poultice?

'Anyone can make a mistake.' He hesitated. She paused, the square of leather wet with poultice hovering over his face, but didn't meet his eyes. He didn't pause to think.

Reaching up, he took the leather from her, wiped his own face clean. She didn't move.

He dropped the scrap to the floor, touched her hand. 'What's wrong?' he asked.

The gentleness in his voice broke her. Her eyes met his, frank with hunger. She saw his eyes widen as his own warmth kindled. His hand moved very slowly to cup the back of her neck and pull her face down to his. He moved his face against hers, taking in first the smell of her skin, then the taste. His mouth was warm and tentative. She was transfixed by the sensation. There was no resistance in her body as he reached out a strong arm to pull her closer. She stopped thinking and moved her mouth against his.

Time stopped. Warnings and cautions hammered frantically in her mind. She blocked them. This, now, this man, this touching, she took for herself, she stole from the world as a gift to herself. Atop him, she could forget the differences in their size. His strength was no threat to her.

She lost herself in him. The skin of his chest was warm under her fingers, stretched firm over muscle. She lifted her mouth from his, brushed her lips over his flat male nipples, watched the black hair spring back from her touch. She let her fingers trail down the center line of his chest, over his belly to his navel, then heard Heckram's sudden gasp as she set her hand flat below his navel. It broke her trance and she lifted her eyes to the face of this stranger in her bed.

She could not name what was in his eyes - a stillness, a wonder almost. He was breathing rapidly, shallowly. But he did not move. There had been other men for her since those raiders had first carried her away. She had taught herself that not every mating was pain. But always, with every man, there came a time when he asserted mastery, a time when he gripped and took her, a time when his own needs were all he responded to. It was a time she always steeled herself against, that moment when gentleness was routed by force. She pulled back slightly, testing him. But he did not drag her back. He only touched her face with tantalizing fingers that trailed down her cheek and throat.

Voices. A murmur she could not decipher, and then Kerlew's voice lifted high in question. She stiffened against Heckram and then pushed firmly away from him. For an instant the circle of his embrace resisted her. Then as he became aware of the voices, he made a sound between a sigh and a groan and released her. She lifted herself clear of his body, feeling the cool air blow in between them. 'Tillu?' he questioned softly, but she did not look at him. She tugged her tunic down straight, righted the pot of poultice that had tipped and nearly spilled. She pushed her hair back, felt the stickiness of the poultice that had smeared from Heckram's face to hers. She rubbed her sleeve cuff down her face, felt unreasonable tears sting her eyes. A sudden shakiness beset her knees and the pit of her stomach. Taking a long deep breath, she forced steadiness onto herself. She glanced at him, to find him leaning up on one elbow, looking at her anxiously. She turned away.

'Tillu?' he repeated, but the crunch and squeak of boots over damp snow was right outside the tent now. She shook her head wordlessly without looking at him. Heckram fell back onto the pallet with a sigh. She knew how he felt.

'Heckram?' The old man's querying voice cracked as he called, is the face better?' He ducked into the tent, squinting his eyes as he came from the brightness to the dimness.

Heckram was silent, looking to Tillu for an answer. Kerlew bustled into the tent and up to Heckram. it doesn't look so bad to me!' he exclaimed.

'It wasn't as bad as it looked at first. It was mostly swelling,' Tillu filled in.

Heckram was staring at Kerlew. Even with sharp anticipation fading into aching disappointment, he was not blind to the change in the boy. The difference was like that between fall and spring. Kerlew's narrow shoulders were no longer bowed in on his chest. There was confidence and self-importance in his face as he met Heckram's gaze squarely. But there was also an unworldly translucence to his gaze. As if Heckram were not as substantial as whatever it was that Kerlew saw behind him. His face was evasive, dreaming. A chill rose in Heckram, as if he had seen the boy sucked down and swept away by a river. The contacts he had made with the boy were gone, the ties unbound.

The certainty that he would never reach Kerlew again rose in him. The boy he had begun to know was gone. Gone, in one afternoon. Carp was smiling also, a smile with cutting edges for Tillu. A smile of triumph and vengeance. Tillu withered in that gaze, shrinking in on herself. Heckram sat up slowly.

'Get your shirt on,' Carp directed him calmly. 'Time for us to go.'

'Go?' Kerlew asked in sudden bewilderment, and in that instant Heckram glimpsed the vulnerable boy he had known. 'Go away, Carp? Why? Where?'

Carp laughed his cracked old man's laugh. 'Not far, Kerlew, don't worry. I am staying with Heckram. He has a fine warm hut, with much food and many soft skins. I am very comfortable there. And I must see the Herdlord Capiam, to tell him I will be shaman of the herdfolk now. But I will be back tomorrow, to teach you. And soon we will all be traveling together.'

'No.' The firmness of the word was spoiled by the sharp note that broke Tillu's voice.

'No,' she repeated, gaining control. 'You may go with the herd, perhaps. But not Kerlew, and nor I.'

'Oh?' the najd asked coldly. 'And is that so, Kerlew?'

The boy turned his face to Tillu, and in that moment all in the tent knew she had lost.

His small jaw was set. His eyes were distant as he spoke, 'I go, Tillu. I am a man now, and the decision is mine. For a few days more, I stay here with you. But when the herdfolk follow the herd, I will follow Carp.' The words were Carp's, spoken carefully.

But the decision in his voice was all Kerlew's. Tillu stared at him.

Here, before her, was what she had dreamed about. Her boy, standing as a man, making his own decision. Speaking with confidence, standing straight before her. And here, beside her, watching her face with sympathetic eyes, was a man such as she had imagined. A man to make part of her life, part of her own life, separate from Kerlew's.