Song of the River (35 page)

When she came out into the ulax, Qung looked at her, squinted her eyes and said, “They named you well. Aqamdax—cloudberry. The cloudberry holds its single berry on a stem high above the plant. That way, it sees all things, but it is also the first to die in the frosts of winter. Just like the cloudberry, you lift your head too high, always trying to see too much of the world around you. You should be more cautious like the crowberry, nestled safe in its heather branches.”

Aqamdax had hoped for Qung’s compliments, or even some suggestion about dealing with the River trader. After hearing Qung’s words, she nearly fell back into the practiced retorts she had used with He Sings’s wives, but she closed her lips tightly over the harsh words and instead replied, “But, Aunt, what tastes sweeter than the cloudberry after the first frost?”

Qung did not answer.

He came with the old woman Tut, not a woman Qung was anxious to have in her ulax. After all, she had chosen to leave the First Men for a Walrus Hunter, not even a good hunter, Qung had heard, but who can be sure that whispers tucked behind hands are ever true? She looked good. Old, but who did not grow old? Only those who died young.

She was a woman of voices, that Tutaqagiisix, with some magic in her tongue that allowed her to speak the languages of traders after only a few days of listening to them. Qung had always envied the trick. Once, as a young girl, she had even tried to trade some treasured bauble for the knowledge of how Tut did it. But Tut claimed not to know—as if such a claim could be true—and so in that way Qung also learned of the woman’s greed.

It was good that she had gone to the Walrus. When a person allows greed in one part of life, it soon spreads. No one needs a woman who takes more than her share in oil or food, in good luck or in bad.

Besides, if Tut had stayed, Qung might not have been chosen as storyteller. Then how would she have lived after her husband died? She owed much to Tut’s decision to leave this village, Qung reminded herself, and for that reason, she gave the woman a seat of honor near the oil lamp, beside the River trader who had come to take Aqamdax away from her.

Sok had asked Tut the ways of politeness followed by the First Men. Silence, Tut had told him. Quietness. At first Sok had smiled, sure she was making a joke. What man goes to a lodge and keeps his words in his mouth? Why else did people come together but to eat and talk? But Tut had repeated her claim, then said, “How better to show your respect for another person’s thoughts than by silence? Is it polite to cover those thoughts with your own ideas? What is polite about that?”

It was a strange way of thinking, but Sok could understand how a people might come to believe such a thing. There were times when he needed to leave his own lodge, if only to get away from Red Leaf’s many words, her need to fill all the space around him with her songs and chatter and constant touching.

So now as he took the place indicated by Qung, he followed Tut’s lead, waiting for her eyes to tell him when he should speak. At first the silence made him uncomfortable. It was louder in his ears than if someone had been screaming. Then he began to look around the ulax, at the stone lamps that burned oil, sending up a nearly smokeless flame so the air of the ulax was much clearer than that of River lodges. He studied the woven grass mats that hung from wooden frames around the large central room. Behind those mats Tut had told him, were separate places for sleeping. The ceiling was thatched with grass and grass mats held in place by strips of driftwood and willow branches. The floor was padded with grass. Where sleeping curtains did not block his view, Sok could see that a trench, a handlength in depth, had been dug into the floor near the earthen walls, and he wondered if there were times during the year, perhaps in spring, when snow melted, that the walls seeped water.

Now, in summer, the ulax seemed dry and warm, sturdy enough to stand against the high winds that often swept the beach.

Finally Qung spoke, uttering a few words. Tut replied but did not bother to translate. Tut had told him they would speak of the weather, of small happenings in the village, much as the River People did when anyone came to visit. Then they would eat, and when that was finished, Tut would broach the subject of a bride price.

Aqamdax sat quietly in a place that seemed filled with piles of dried grasses. Whatever her hands were making was so small, Sok could not really see it. Perhaps she was beginning one of the grass baskets the women of the village worked on, but this one seemed very small. Of course, he supposed that all baskets began small, not that he ever paid much attention to women and their basket making.

Aqamdax was a tall woman, taller than Red Leaf, but smaller boned, narrower, though most of the First Men seemed to be of stocky build. She wore her hair long and loose, tucked back over her ears. Her face was round, her eyes long.

Qung and Tut talked together for a long time. Finally Qung said something to Aqamdax. She raised her head, and Sok felt the heat of her eyes on his face. His body tightened with desire, but he reminded himself she was to be Yehl’s wife.

Aqamdax got up, filled a bowl with dark, sweet sea lion meat. She offered him the bowl, then also a seal bladder of water. Qung gave Tut food, then both First Men women filled bowls for themselves, sat and ate. In some villages, Tut had told him, the men ate first, the women later, but here the women often ate with their men and it was not taken as something impolite. Such a thing would not be done among the River People, especially during the starving moons of late winter when people’s lives depended on the strength of their hunters.

When they had all finished eating, Tut spoke to Qung, then said to Sok, “Now you must ask.”

For an instant he did not see the women sitting beside him, but instead the small face, the large eyes of Snow-in-her-hair. The words he had rehearsed came to him and he spoke of Yehl, the Walrus shaman, the strength of the man, the wisdom. He talked about the gifts that Aqamdax and Qung would receive, the honored place Aqamdax would have in the Walrus Hunter Village as storyteller, and as he spoke, Tut translated his words for Qung and Aqamdax.

Chakliux walked the edge of the beach. This night Sok would know whether or not the storyteller would come with them. Chakliux shook his head. Why should she? She had every reason to stay here, with her people, her family. Sok was foolish to think he could get her, but why complain about Sok’s foolishness? It had given Chakliux an opportunity to come to this First Men village, to study their iqyan, to watch their paddling and to think of ways he could make his own iqyax stronger and improve his skills. Two men had even taken him with them to hunt sea otters. They had lent him otter darts to use in his spearthrower, had let him make the first throw when they found a group of otters. They had come back with two, and generously given Chakliux the otter teeth.

They were a good people, these First Men, full of jokes and laughter, with rich, strong voices they lifted in song when they were in their iqyan. Chakliux had been told they were not quite human, but now that he had come to know them better, he thought those who said so were wrong. Perhaps other First Men, far to the west in the islands at the edge of the world, were not quite human, but these First Men were as human as he was. He looked down at his otter foot, then laughed at himself. How many thought he was not quite human? Even Blueberry. Even the children in the village where he grew up.

The sky was darkening for the short summer night. Chakliux turned and walked back toward the tent shelter he and Sok shared with the Walrus traders. He could see the light of their fire near the entrance. He wondered if Sok had come back from the storytellers’ ulax. Whatever had happened, they would soon leave this village and return to the Walrus Hunters.

He sighed. How strange. Though he did not know their language, had no wife or family here, he wanted to stay.

Aqamdax drew her brows together and frowned. She said something to Qung, and Qung spoke to Tut.

Sok leaned toward Tut. “Is she angry?” he asked.

Tut held one hand up toward him. Sok clenched his fists. For all that Tut was telling him, he might as well not even be here. Again he gestured toward the pile of trade goods he had brought as bride price. He had things he could yet offer, gifts he had held back in case Qung and Aqamdax needed more persuasion.

He started to stand. “I have more. In my tent,” he said.

Tut, still speaking to Qung, glanced at him. “Sit down and be still,” she said, as though he were a child.

He had to bite his cheeks to keep his mouth closed over his anger. There was a problem, but how could he help if Tut did not tell him what it was? Did she think she knew more than he did? He was a man, used to dealing in trades, used to fighting with words. What did she know? She was only an old woman.

He wished he had brought Chakliux with him. His brother had been quick in learning Walrus, and though he could not carry on a long conversation, he knew enough to make his needs known. Perhaps in the few days they had been here, he had also picked up a few First Men words, at least enough to guess at what was happening. But Sok had been afraid that if Chakliux came he would expect some portion of the Walrus shaman’s payment, then perhaps there would not be enough for Sok to give Wolf-and-Raven for Snow-in-her-hair.

“Aqamdax’s mother left this village with a River People trader. Aqamdax asks if you could help find the woman. Her name is Daes.”

“I could try.”

Tut spoke to Qung for a long time, but Qung said little, holding her lips tight as though to keep in her words.

Finally Tut sighed and said to Sok, “I can do no better.”

“I told you I have more goods.”

Tut shook her head. “Qung says that what you have offered is enough. She tells you to keep the rest so you can take good care of your wife.”

“You told her about Red Leaf?” Sok asked.

Tut’s slow smile moved only one side of her mouth. “Aqamdax will come with you,” she told Sok, “but not as Yehl’s wife. She will come only as
your
wife.”

Sok could not keep the surprise from showing in his face. He looked at Aqamdax, and she stood. The lamplight shone from her oiled skin, casting a red glow against the dark tips of her breasts, the smooth fall of her hair. Her eyes were shadowed, dark hollows in the smooth circle of her face.

She reached out to him. Slowly he lifted his hand, felt her long thin fingers against his palm.

“There is no ceremony?” Sok asked Tut.

She shook her head. “Only to go with her,” she said. She stared into his eyes, and he saw the questions there, but Sok looked at Aqamdax and pushed those questions from his mind. There would be other days to think about Yehl, other days to decide what to do.

He followed Aqamdax into her sleeping place.

Chapter Twenty-five

A
QAMDAX COULD NOT LOOK
at Qung as she led the River trader into her sleeping place. Qung would probably think that she agreed to be wife only to get this man into her blankets. What else could she think, considering the way Aqamdax had lived her life before she was storyteller?

But this was not the same. Now she could be a wife in an honorable way. It was also her chance to find her mother, and because her intent was honest perhaps she would someday bear children.

Qung would have to choose another to be the next storyteller. Surely that one would be more respectable than Aqamdax, and if the salmon had been offended by her, now they would see that the First Men were again doing things in honored ways.

The River trader was named Sok. Tut told her that the name meant “raven’s call.” It was a good name for him, a powerful name. He was a strong man, the muscles of his arms and chest thick and heavy. He had the large beaked nose she had seen before on other traders, full lips and deep-set eyes, thick dark hair that he bound into two short, stiff braids. He sometimes put bone ornaments in his earlobes, but unlike the First Men he did not wear a nose pin.

“Sok,” she said softly, and reached to touch his face. Her eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness of the sleeping place, but she felt him smile.

“I am called Aqamdax,” she said. She laid a hand on her chest and again said, “Aqamdax.”

She waited for him to repeat it, but he did not, and for some reason she was disappointed. You are foolish, she told herself. You are wife now, act like one. The thought sent a shiver of joy through her, and she leaned forward, slipped her hands under his parka. It was a well-sewn parka, as fine as any she had seen, and she wondered if he had another wife. Second wife would be better than none, she told herself. Of course, since he was a trader, perhaps he had bought it from some village where the women prided themselves on their sewing skills.

She ran her hands up his sides and then around his chest. His skin was hot. Suddenly he crossed his arms, gripped the bottom of his parka and pulled it off over his head. He sat for a moment without moving, then he lay back on the fox fur blankets and pulled Aqamdax with him, pressed his face into her neck and flicked his tongue to her skin. Aqamdax closed her eyes, lost herself in the pleasure of his touch. She moved her hands to his thighs, heard the soft intake of his breath, and then his hands were on her, moving too quickly, with too much urgency.

Again Aqamdax did not allow herself to feel disappointment. Most men had little patience for the gentle, slow touching she enjoyed. He wanted her now, and he was her husband. She lifted herself up, straddled him. His hands clamped over her hips, pushed her down. She began to move, hoping to please him, hoping to bring him joy.

Qung tried to listen to Tut rather than the noise Aqamdax and the trader were making behind the sleeping curtains. What was more honorable than the union of husband and wife? she asked herself as Tut’s chatter clouded the ulax. What was better for Aqamdax than to have a husband of her own? He might even help her find her mother. Not, of course, that Daes deserved to have such a daughter, no, but every child needs a mother, and though Aqamdax was grown, what woman was not at times a child?