Read Online Brother Wind by Sue Harrison - Free Book Online Page B

had softened, he used his sleeve knife to cut off a chunk. He put the meat in his mouth and watched Blue Shell as he chewed. Who would believe she had once been beautiful? If he had known what she would become, as thin and dried-up as the skin of a smoked fish, he would have chosen a different wife.
    Ah, well, he thought, at least she understands the power of my walking stick. Waxtal chuckled. Wisdom never comes without pain.

CHAPTER 12
    “T HESE THREE CARVINGS and a sea lion stomach of oil,” Waxtal said.
    The older trader, the one with black tattoo lines across his cheeks, picked up one of Waxtal’s carvings and turned it in his hands. “You made this?” he asked.
    Waxtal nodded.
    “Someone told us that your daughter carves.”
    Waxtal snorted. Who else but Samiq would tell them that? he thought. Samiq was a fool. He should forget about Kiin. Better for Kiin to be Raven’s wife than to belong to Samiq, especially now that Samiq’s hand was crippled. But perhaps the traders had visited Raven’s village sometime in the past and seen her there.
    “She is wife to a shaman—Raven of the Walrus People,” Waxtal said. “You have visited his village?”
    “Perhaps,” said the trader.
    Waxtal cleared his throat and tried to remember the traders’ names. Every man liked to hear his name spoken. The older was Owl, yes, and the younger was also named for something about birds.
    “These are not her carvings but your own?” the younger trader asked.
    Heat spread up from Waxtal’s throat and burned across his cheeks. “They are my carvings,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.
    Owl walked over to his ik and, sorting through several packs, finally pulled out a driftwood carving. It was a seal. The carving flowed with the wood’s grain, and Waxtal could see no knife marks on it—as though the sea itself had formed it.
    “Your daughter is Kiin?”
    Waxtal nodded.
    The trader extended his hand, the carving on his palm. “This is one of hers,” he said.
    Waxtal reached for it, but when his fingers touched the carving, the wood seemed hot. He drew back his hand.
    The trader raised his eyebrows. “Here,” he said. “You can hold it if you want.”
    The pulse of Waxtal’s heart suddenly beat hard at one side of his head, at the insides of his wrists and knees. There was some spirit here that he did not understand. Something in the wood of that carving. He turned his head to spit, but his mouth was dry, so instead he coughed. He turned back to Owl and said, “I have seen my daughter’s work before! Who do you think taught her?”
    The trader shrugged and placed the carving back in his pack. “We are going to the Whale Hunters.”
    “So you have said,” Waxtal replied.
    “Then you know we do not need seal oil except for our own use. Whatever seal oil the Whale Hunters need for food, they take from seals they kill themselves, and who burns seal oil when they have whale oil?”
    “Whale Hunters like carvings.”
    “Why trade for your carvings,” the trader asked, picking up one of Waxtal’s wooden animals, “when they can have your daughter’s?”
    Waxtal laughed. “You think they would take something made by a woman above something a hunter carved, Owl?”
    “Who will tell them a woman made it?” the younger trader asked and smiled.
    “Three carvings and two stomachs of oil,” Waxtal said, his voice a growl.
    “Someone might think that is not enough,” Owl said, and before Waxtal could make another offer, both men walked away.

CHAPTER 13
    W HO COULD TRUST THE MAN? Kayugh thought. But what harm was there in doing what he asked? Now that Amgigh was dead, they needed someone to make their spearheads and knives. Better to have Waxtal making weapons than carving. What harm to lend him the basket that held Amgigh’s andesite points?
    “I will give them back,” Waxtal said. “But I will learn more quickly if I have these to study.” He paused, then raised his eyes to look into Kayugh’s face.