The Storyteller Trilogy (48 page)

It was a parka that pulled the eyes, so when Sok entered the lodge everyone looked at him, watched him. He took the honored place at the back of the lodge, his words loud and joking. Aqamdax stood near the entrance, two bladders of water hanging from each of her wrists. She had decided to dress as she did when telling stories among her own people, her woven aprons tied at her waist, and, because the lodge was not warm—at least not as warm as Aqamdax was used to—she also wore her black cormorant feather sax. She had worn it with the feathers turned in toward her body during the long journey over the North Sea, so some of the feathers were broken, and she had had to resew several seams, but it still looked beautiful, as fine as anything she had seen a River woman wear. Sok lifted his chin toward her, then gestured that she should take her place as storyteller. She had arranged a pad of sea otter skins at one side of the fire, so now she sat there, hardly aware that Red Leaf came to her, took the water bladders and hung them from her own wrists.

Suddenly Aqamdax could not remember any River words, could only recall the language of her own people. Her eyes widened in fear, and she glanced at Chakliux, who smiled at her. Yes, she should be his wife, Aqamdax thought. Then she would not be trying to tell stories before she was ready, trying to earn her way into the lodge of a man she did not want.

They were waiting, the men and women and children who had crowded into her small lodge; others peered in from the entrance tunnel. Perhaps if she began in the First Men tongue, she could more easily change to River words, but who could say? The River People might be insulted.

Finally Chakliux stood, his eyes firmly on Sok, as though telling him to be still, to wait. “I begin the stories in the tradition I learned as a child,” he said, and with his words, spoken so clearly in the River tongue, the language again came into Aqamdax’s mind. “First a riddle.”

There was a murmur from the people, of anticipation or of discontent, Aqamdax was not quite sure, but she could only feel gratitude.

“Look, I see something,” Chakliux said.

“What?” asked one of the children, a small boy of about three summers.

His question brought a rill of laughter from the people, and Chakliux laughed, too.

“They grow together in sacredness to help the people,” he said.

There were many guesses: trees and animals, fish and birds, until finally the old woman, the aunt, lifted her head and said, “What is more sacred to our people among growing things than the plants that give us berries? They live close to the earth, pull strength from the soil and give it to us through their fruit.”

“Ligige’, you are wise,” Wolf-and-Raven said, then asked, “Who can tell Chakliux the answer to his riddle?”

Ligige’, Aqamdax thought. She had to remember the woman’s name. Aqamdax could go to her with questions, and perhaps someday … but no. She could not let herself wish to become Chakliux’s wife. Not when she was promised to Wolf-and-Raven. Not when she still belonged to Sok.

“Crowberries and cloudberries grow together,” said Carries Much, one of Sok’s sons.

Aqamdax saw Sok lift his eyebrows and glance at Chakliux. Chakliux nodded his head at his nephew, and Sok crowed out his pleasure at his son’s answer.

“You are wise,” Chakliux said.

The people murmured their agreement, and Aqamdax realized her fear was gone. The storytelling would still be difficult, and she would make no claim to the place of storyteller. In this village, that place belonged to Chakliux. She was content to tell stories to the children, but tonight she would help Sok catch the wife he wanted. Perhaps in return, someday, he would help her find a way to become Chakliux’s wife.

Aqamdax settled herself on the otter fur pads, crouching on her haunches as her people did. “Among my people, I am a storyteller, trained by a storyteller,” she began, and she did not stumble over her words.

“Each of you knows the River stories better than I do, so I will not try to tell them to you. It is better that you tell them to me.” They nodded their heads, eyebrows raised. A good beginning. “So tonight my husband offers his hospitality in hopes that you might like to hear new stories from the people you call Sea Hunters. They have long been your trading partners, and sometimes we trade wives as well.”

She smiled and there was a wave of laughter.

“So first I tell you of the sea otters, our brothers, and how they came to be.” She spoke of that brother and sister, found to be lovers, and so dishonored among their people; how, still needing to belong to one another, they had jumped into the sea and were made the first otters. When she finished that story, she told another, of the great carver Shuganan, then she began the story of Chagak. Although the River words did not flow as easily from her mouth as her own language, she knew the people had begun to live her stories, to become the ones she spoke about. Sometimes she had to pause and search for a word, but if she could not remember what she needed to know, she would look at Chakliux. Each time, he formed his lips so she could see the word before he spoke, and it seemed as though she used her breath to give life to what he said.

When she came to the otter part of the story, she changed her voice as she had done among her own people, so that it seemed as though the otter rather than Aqamdax spoke.

She tightened her throat, brought the voice from the darkness that was now closing around the smoke hole. The first sound after the otter voice was the delighted crowing of the children. She had used her voices with them before, and they had learned to expect them. But with a rumbling like the grinding of the earth when it moves beneath a village, the hunters began to murmur, and she heard the women’s higher voices, calling out in small whimpers as if they, themselves, were suddenly children.

Then Wolf-and-Raven was on his feet, screaming at her, pointing with his walking stick, singing out words that seemed to be curses. She looked at Chakliux, but he had his back to her, his hands already clamped on Wolf-and-Raven’s arms. Then Sok was beside her, shouting to the people as they shoved their way from the lodge.

“There is nothing to fear here. She does not call spirits. It is her own voice. She makes these voices herself. She is a storyteller, that is all. Why are you afraid?”

But they did not stop, and finally only Sok and Chakliux, Ligige’ and Wolf-and-Raven were left with Aqamdax in the lodge.

“You expect to trade someone who has no respect for a shaman’s powers? You think I will take her in exchange for my daughter?” Wolf-and-Raven shouted at Sok. “The spirit voices are something only a shaman has the right to use.”

Sok stood with his mouth open. Aqamdax waited for him to speak, to explain to Wolf-and-Raven, and when he did not Aqamdax said, “I hold no disrespect. I am a storyteller. I made the voices myself. I can do it now if you want. Many voices. That is how the First Men tell stories.”

“I will hear no more of your stories,” he said, and left the lodge. Sok followed him.

“B
LUE NECKLACE THINKS SHE
is a witch,” Yaa said, “but I don’t. She doesn’t call spirits. She just tells stories.”

Yaa brushed her hair from her eyes. She had snagged it in a root at the top of the den and pulled a hank loose from her braids. In the dim light, she could not see Ghaden’s face clearly, but she could hear him as he ate.

“She’s my sister,” he said, his words slurring over the fish in his mouth.

“Yes, and she’s a storyteller.”

“You’re my sister.”

“We’re both your sisters,” Yaa told him patiently. It was a litany they seemed to have to go through each day, the assurance that Aqamdax was his sister.

“You’re her sister, too?” he asked.

Yaa frowned. He’d never asked that question before. “No, well, maybe, since her mother and my mother were sister-wives.” Relationships between people were complicated. Sometimes cousins were also husband and wife. Then were their children sisters and brothers to each other or were they cousins? Best Fist said both, but sometimes Best Fist had strange ideas. There were many rules about the ones you could marry and those you were related to. Yaa was just learning them herself. They were too complicated for Ghaden to understand.

Since Yaa had been bringing Ghaden to the den, she had swept the floor and removed all the debris. She had even thought about leaving a blanket, but knew some animal would smell it and either take it or rip it up, maybe even decide to move in, although she had been urinating in the far corner to leave her scent, marking the place as her own.

“Wolf-and-Raven was mad at her, right, Yaa?”

“He was just cross. You know sometimes he gets cross. Like Brown Water.”

“Umph,” Ghaden said, and Yaa was not sure if it was a sound of agreement or disagreement.

She took a bite of her fish and chewed it slowly, trying to make it last a long time. It was a trick she had learned one spring when she was Ghaden’s age. If she ate slowly, her mouth remembered the taste, then when food was scarce, she could close her eyes and pretend she was eating.

Now even Brown Water’s caches were full, packed with dried fish and fish roe, with small birds left whole and dried berries stored in oil. They had layered fish heads in pits and left them to ferment, and soon, if the hunters had good fortune, there would be caribou meat, smoked and dried.

“He’s mad at big man,” Ghaden said, interrupting Yaa’s thoughts.

“Who’s mad?”

“Wolf-and-Raven.”

“Oh.” She wished she had had the sense to take Ghaden home after the first few stories. Before Aqamdax had done the voices. It seemed as if he could not think about anything but what had happened. “I told you he was just cross,” she said.

“At big man, too?”

“Who’s big … oh, Sok.”

“Umph,” Ghaden said again. “Wolf-and-Raven was cross with Sok.”

“Sometimes that happens, but usually they’re friends.”

“Will my sister have to go back to her other village?”

Yaa tipped her head and looked up toward the darkest part of the den. She hadn’t thought of that before, that perhaps someone would make Aqamdax return to the Sea Hunters. She hoped not. It was good to have a grown-up person who was like a sister, not a mother. It was good to have another lodge to go to when Brown Water was angry.

“She has a husband, so she can stay here,” Yaa told Ghaden, but she wondered what Aqamdax would do if Sok threw her away. She hoped when she was old enough to be a wife that she found a husband from her own village. It was easier that way. One thing was sure. She would never agree to go as far away as the Sea Hunter Village.

“What about the girl?” Tikaani asked.

“Leave her.”

“She’ll go back and tell her mother, then they’ll have hunters follow us.”

Cen snorted, but he knew Tikaani was right. They needed to get the boy alone, but his sister seldom left him.

“We could kill her,” Tikaani suggested.

It was not a wise thing to kill a child. What parent would not want revenge?

“We’ll take her, too,” Cen finally said. “Someone will buy her, if not in your village then in another. She is not old enough to be a wife, but she looks strong. Someone will want her for a slave, a girl they will be able to trade for a bride price in a few summers.”

“Do you think the boy will remember you?”

“I think so, but not like this.” He gestured toward his face, lined and dirty, the tufts of white caribou hair in his braids. “But I have things a boy would like. A small spear, fishhooks and a handline.”

“If we do not take him soon, we must leave. I thought we would have him three, four days ago.”

“Sometimes he is alone when the girl is at the hearths.”

“The dog.”

Cen pulled a haunch of a fresh-killed hare from a pouch he wore slung at his waist.

“So then, we wait,” Tikaani said. “K’os can wait as well. We will have a good report for her when we return.”

Cen thought about K’os. She was not one who appreciated waiting, but he didn’t care what she thought. He wanted Ghaden.

Chakliux sat on a rock at the edge of the forest. He had found this place when he first came to the Near River Village, when Sok had been more like enemy than brother and Red Leaf had complained loudly of the extra work he caused her. It had been a long time since he had come to the rock. He was welcome now with Sok and Red Leaf, true uncle to Carries Much and Cries-loud. Red Leaf had no brothers to help her sons with weapons and hunting, to teach them the ways a man must know, so he tried to teach them, both the ways of the Near River and the Cousin River hunters.

When Sok gave Aqamdax her own lodge, she began to sew for Chakliux, all her clothing sewn with fine stitches in double seams according to the tradition of the First Men. She had already made him a new chigdax and was working on a birdskin parka, not as warm as parkas made of caribou or wolf, but good in summer, and good to shed the rain.

Sometimes, it almost seemed that they were married, and once when Sok suggested that he share Aqamdax’s bed—something allowed a brother who had no wife—Chakliux almost agreed. But he was not sure what Aqamdax might want, so he did not go to her.

Now he still did not know what was best. Perhaps before asking her to be his wife, he should offer to take her back to her own village. A journey to the First Men Village would be dangerous at this time of year, but he could tell her that he would take her back next summer. Perhaps she would be willing to be wife for the winter—but then how could he bear to let her go?

He was working on soapstone bola weights, carving each one into the beaked head of a raven. The bola would be a gift to place with his father’s bones, a sign of the mourning Chakliux made for him in his heart. Chakliux was not a good carver, but the work relaxed him, the soapstone soft under the chert blade of his sleeve knife. In spite of the frost that hardened the ground each night, the morning sun was warm, and the trees that circled three sides of the rock shielded him from the wind.

Chakliux heard a noise and looked up, saw Sleeps Long, hunting partner to his mother’s husband, Fox Barking. The man had wrinkled his face with a frown, though usually his lips were slack, as though it was too much effort to close his mouth.