The Storyteller Trilogy (34 page)

As Tut spoke, Sok saw surprise in Aqamdax’s face. She opened her mouth, then hesitated.

“Is there something you or your husband would like, something you see here?” He extended one arm out over his trade goods.

“My husband?” she asked. “Ah,” she said, “he has always wanted a good fishskin basket.” She laughed and several women beside her also laughed.

As Tut translated, a wedge of anger forced its way into Sok’s chest, but he said, “I will save him one,” and took the largest basket, crouched on his heels and filled it with skins, furs and necklaces. Then standing, he said, “I will bring it to him tonight. You live in the storyteller’s ulax?”

“Yes,” Aqamdax answered, looking first at Tut, then at Sok. She said something else, and Tut translated, explaining that Aqamdax had no husband, but Sok looked out over her head at the hunters who waited. Cormorant had told him they would not come until the women left, that then Sok should bring out his weapons and chert. He pretended not to hear what Tut was saying, and instead rearranged the chert and the seal skin floats he had brought from the Walrus Hunter Village.

Aqamdax hugged the beads to her chest and backed out through the women, allowing others to take her place. She got more than she had hoped for, beautiful beads from the River trader, necklaces and birchbark containers from the Walrus men, and the River trader was going to bring a gift, though part of that gift was a fishskin basket—something she deserved, she told herself, for making a joke at the man’s expense. Most men would have lashed out with angry words or retreated into a seething silence.

She was already walking back to the village when she remembered that Qung was still trading. Aqamdax should have waited for her, should be there to carry whatever the old woman got. The traders had been generous with the old ones since Aqamdax had stood up to the one they called Cormorant. She pursed her lips to hide her smile. It was good to do something that helped someone.

She quickened her steps toward the ulax. She would carry her own trade goods home, then return to help Qung. She cut up over the small sand hill that separated the village from the beach. Four women walked ahead of her—Basket Keeper and her older sister, an aunt and the woman called Mouth. Mouth was not a good one to have as enemy. Her words were as sharp as winter-dried beach grass.

Aqamdax slowed her pace so she would not have to walk with them. The wind had grown since early morning, pushing a line of thick gray clouds in from the horizon. It molded her birdskin sax around her legs, and, as she walked down the back of the sand hill, it also brought the women’s words to her ears.

Basket Keeper was whining, as she usually did, about too much to do. Aqamdax shook her head. Compared to most wives, she did little. She had given her husband only one child, and all the women in the village knew that her sister-wife did most of the sewing and cooking.

Basket Keeper’s sister laughed. “You are lazy,” she said. “You should live with my husband, then you would know what work is.”

“Or live through a year when the salmon are plentiful,” her aunt added. “There are so few this year, I have filled only two drying racks.”

Mouth snorted. “What do you expect? We have a curse. We are lucky to have any salmon at all.”

“There are good years and years not so good,” the aunt said.

“I do not argue with that,” said Mouth, “but no one, not even the oldest among us, remembers a year with so few fish. There is always a reason for such things.”

Basket Keeper hummed an agreement. “The Two-beach People have a strong shaman….” She waved a hand west toward their village. “Perhaps he can tell us why this has happened.”

“Hii! I do not need a shaman for something as simple as that,” Mouth said. “Only one thing has changed in this village since last summer. One woman who is honored and should not be. One woman …”

“I have been a good wife,” Basket Keeper said. “Ask my husband. All things I do to honor—”

Mouth’s snort cut off her words. “Little fool,” she said, bending to look into Basket Keeper’s face, “do you always think everything is about you? Who lives now with Qung? Who has been honored with knowledge not even our elders know?”

Mouth’s words cut like knives into the happiness of Aqamdax’s trading. The carved beads were suddenly sharp in her hands, the new necklaces rough against her skin.

“Ah,” Basket Keeper said.

“Ah,” said her sister.

Angry words pushed into Aqamdax’s mouth, slid over her tongue as thick as oil. Almost, she shouted out to the women; almost, she told them what she thought. But what good would anger do? Perhaps only prove Mouth’s accusation. What was more rude than to listen to others’ conversations? What was more rude than interrupting?

Instead, she quickened her steps, strode up to them and passed, calling out a greeting. She turned, walking backward, her arms full of trade goods, a smile on her face. “It is a beautiful day, is it not?” she said.

They blinked at her cheerfulness, and finally Basket Keeper stammered out, “The sun, the sun is good.”

“The wind carries rain,” said Mouth.

Aqamdax shrugged. “We have had rain before,” she answered. “Truly we are a village blessed by good fortune.” Then she turned toward Qung’s ulax and walked on, closing her ears to whatever they said as they walked behind her.

“I told you he is coming,” Aqamdax said, and set out more fish, another pile of sea urchins. “He is coming to see my husband. He would not listen to me when I told him I was not married.”

Qung watched, wondered at Aqamdax’s nervousness. Many men had come to this ulax. Aqamdax had never set out food before, or worried because she had no husband. Why worry now? He would eat, he would go to her bed, he would leave, and in the morning Qung would see what Aqamdax had earned by opening her legs to another man.

“Aunt,” Aqamdax said, “I … it … now I am storyteller …” She tipped her head back on her shoulders and let out a long sigh. Her hair hung in a glossy flow to her hips, and, for a moment, Qung envied the girl’s beauty. “I do not want him in my bed,” she finally said. “The stories are enough. I do not need the men now. The stories changed things for me. I cannot explain it, but …”

“What makes you think he wants to come into your bed?”

“Every man wants to come into my bed. You know that.”

“There are men who do not come to you. You said he is bringing a gift to your husband. He will not expect anything from you if he plans to see your husband.”

“You think none of the men have told him about me?”

“You think men talk about women? There are too many other things to fill their mouths. Fishing and hunting and weapons. I was married for many years. I never heard my husband speak about me or our children. Men are not like women. They do not have much interest in people.”

“Bedding a woman is different,” Aqamdax told her. “For a man, it is not about people.”

Qung lifted her hands. “Who can say? I have never understood men, and I do not think they understand women.” She pointed up at the roof hole with her chin. “He is here,” she said.

Aqamdax straightened her sax, arranged the necklaces she wore, and held her breath as the man climbed down into the ulax. She recognized the feet on the climbing log and exhaled with sudden impatience.

“So now your wife is pregnant, you come to me again?” she asked.

Day Breaker set his feet on the ulax floor and turned slowly to face her. “I have no interest in your sleeping place,” he said to her. As though realizing for the first time that Qung stood watching him, he nodded at the old woman, muttered a greeting, called her grandmother in honor of her age. “My wife heard one of the traders say he was coming to visit you.”

“Your wife hears many things,” Aqamdax answered.

Day Breaker’s face darkened, and Aqamdax enjoyed his anger. He had told her she would be his wife. She had believed him, though the chief’s wives laughed when she told them. Now she understood their laughter. How could Day Breaker marry a woman without a father, a woman without uncles or brothers or a grandfather?

“Is it the trader called Sok?”

“Yes,” Aqamdax told him. “The tall one.”

“I saw him try to cheat an old woman.”

“That was one of the Walrus traders,” Aqamdax said. “Sok did not cheat anyone.”

“He gave me a whole caribou skin and dried fish for a small seal skin and a coil of twisted sinew,” Qung said. “He did not cheat me.”

“I have come to tell you to be careful,” said Day Breaker. “My uncle told me no one should ever trust a trader.”

“Your uncle does not trust anyone because he is dishonest himself,” Qung said. “Aqamdax has learned many things in her life. She has had men make promises to her before this.” She stepped close to Day Breaker. “She knows how to be careful,” she said, and stared at him until he turned and started up the climbing log.

“Do not think you are the only one with wisdom,” Qung called after him, then she looked at Aqamdax and giggled like a girl.

They met on old Qung’s ulax roof, so it was difficult to pretend they did not see each other, but neither man spoke. A sudden thrust of anger burned in Sok’s chest—was this one of the men who visited Aqamdax’s bed? But then he chided himself. Why should he care? The woman did not belong to him.

The Sea Hunter man jumped from the ulax roof, and Sok watched as he walked to another, larger ulax. Sok tightened his grip on the salmonskin basket he carried, then paused at the roof hole. He did not know the First Men’s customs about visiting. Did a man call out? Did he use a stick to rap the wood that framed the square roof hole? Tut had said she would meet him here. Should he wait for her?

Finally he called down from the roof hole, then climbed into the ulax. It was a small ulax, less than half the size of many in the village. Of course, most ulas housed several families. This one, as far as he had been able to learn, belonged to the old woman Qung, and only she and Aqamdax lived here. Tut had told him that it was unusual among the First Men for a woman to own a ulax. Most belonged to men.

It seemed the most difficult thing about being a trader, besides the traveling, was learning the customs of each village. It was easy to offend without realizing. Cormorant had told him to speak softly and seldom, especially when he was invited to some villager’s lodge.

The two women stood at the bottom of the climbing log, and Qung made some nonsense of words that Sok guessed was a greeting. He reached into the basket, pulled out two birdbone necklaces and handed one to each women, then turned and looked around as though he were searching for Aqamdax’s husband.

“I have brought these things to honor your husband,” he said in the River language. “He is not here?” When they did not answer, he spoke in Walrus, one word, “Husband?”

“No husband,” Qung said, also speaking in Walrus.

Someone called from the roof hole, and in relief Sok recognized Tut’s voice.

She came down the climbing log, spoke for a moment to Qung, then said to Sok, “They understand that I am here to translate. What do you want to tell them?”

“Tell them I now know Aqamdax has no husband. Tell them I want them to have these things themselves.”

Tut explained in long words, then Qung smiled and took the basket from Sok and set it on the floor. She squatted beside it and pulled out his gifts, exclaiming over each thing as though she were a child.

Sok watched her, then felt a hand on his parka sleeve. “Would you like something to eat?” Aqamdax asked, pantomiming a bowl cupped in one hand, her other hand scooping toward her mouth with two fingers.

“Yes. I am hungry.” He pointed with his lips at Qung and the basket. “You do not want to see what I brought?”

Tut repeated the question, and with laughter lifting the corners of her mouth, translated Aqamdax’s reply. “She says that Qung is not greedy. She will give Aqamdax a fair share.”

Aqamdax filled a bowl from a boiling bag that hung over an oil lamp and handed it to Sok. He squatted on his haunches and ate. Most women would have found something to do—sewing, or weaving grass—but Aqamdax squatted beside him and watched him. It made him uncomfortable. He kept his eyes straight ahead, and when he finished the bowl, he handed it to her.

There was no politeness in the woman. She did not offer him more to eat or wait for him to speak first, but turned and said something to Tut.

Again Tut laughed. “She says that she is not a fool. She sees by your gifts that you knew she did not have a husband. So she asks, since you did not come to see her husband, why are you here?”

He matched her rudeness with his own and answered, “I am still hungry.”

Tut told Aqamdax, and Sok waited for a scowl or angry words, but she did not seem insulted. She simply stood and filled his bowl, then handed it back to him. Again she watched him eat; again he ignored her.

Finally, as he finished the food, she spoke. Tut left Qung’s side, not bothering to stand, waddling like a puffin, her legs bent beneath her.

“Aqamdax says her mother lives with the River People,” Tut told Sok.

Before Sok could say anything, the old woman Qung called out in a strong voice.

“Qung says that you did not answer Aqamdax’s question,” Tut said. “She wants to know why are you here. Why do you bring these gifts?”

“I enjoyed your stories,” Sok answered.

“So that is worth a belly of oil, perhaps a seal skin,” Qung continued, pausing now and again so Tut could translate. “You give too much. It is not expected in this village. We will take one thing, and you can have the rest to trade.”

A rude people, these First Men, Sok thought, then wondered if it was more rude to say what you thought or to hide true intent under a cloak of words or a basket of gifts.

“I have come to ask Aqamdax to return with me to the Walrus Village and become a wife,” he said.

Tut translated, and both Qung and Aqamdax stood with mouths open. Sok waited for one of them to speak, but they said nothing.

Finally he said, “I know it is not an easy decision. I will leave you now and come back tomorrow.”

Without waiting for Tut to translate, Sok stood, thanked them for the food and left the ulax.