The woman gazed at his starlit nakedness, took his hand in her glove, and dared ask, “Why have you stayed at all, then? Eyjan is restless, I know. It’s been you who counseled waiting.”
He stopped; she did; he faced her, reached into the hood to stroke her cheek, and answered, “B~cause of you, Bengta.” He had been living as part of Minik’s household, and Minik was glad to lend her to him. They were only apart when it seemed, mutely, that she should join her husband for a sleep, and Tauno the first wife Kuyapikasit, lest feelings be hurt. (Eyjan bore herself not like a female, but like a hunter who shifted from family to family as the whim took her. She had enjoyed every man in the camp.)
Bengta stood quiescent. He could barely hear her: “Yes, it’s been wonderful. If you must go, will you return afterward?”
He shook his head. “I fear not.”
Hers drooped. “Your merman heart-“ She looked up again.
“But what about me has kept you? That I seem more like a woman
of your race than any Inuk does? Well, Europe is full of white
women.” I
“Few so fair, Bengta.”
“I think I know the reason,” she began, “though maybe you
don’t yourself-“ and broke off.
“What?”
She bit her lip. “Nothing. I misspoke me.” She started down-
hill. “Come, let’s go back, let’s seek the ledge.”
The snow cried out under their scarring feet. “What did you mean?” he said roughly.
“Nothing, nothing!”
He took her elbow. Through fur and leather she felt that grip,
and winced. “Tell me.” She saw his mouth stretched wide, till teeth gleamed under the stars.
“I thought,” she blurted, “I thought I’m the nearest thing you have to Eyjan. . . and it will be a long journey with none save her- Forgive me, Tauno, beloved. Of course I was wrong.”
His countenance grew blank, his tone flat. “Why, there’s naught to forgive. What affront in your fancy, to a being that has no soul?”
Abruptly he halted again, drew her around before him smiled, and kissed her with immense tenderness.
· On the furs of their ledge, in the darkness of the hut, she whispered, “Let the seed in my womb be yours. It could be; I’ve counted. Minik is a dear man and I want his children too, but may his gods give me that much remembrance of my Tauno.”
Day had become a fugitive, scarcely into sight before darkness hounded it away. Night was no blindfold to Faerie eyes, but the siblings departed under the sun because then the Inuit could more easily bid them farewell.
The whole band was there, as far out on the ice as appeared safe. Land was white at their backs, save where a cliff or crag upheaved itself. Ahead reached the sea, grizzly, choppy, and noisy. Clouds blew low on a wind that stung.
Panigpak trod forth from the gathering, to where brother and sister waited. In his hand was a bone disc, slightly inward-curving, hung on a loop of sealskin that went through a hole near the edge. It spanned perhaps an inch-and-a-half.
“Vastly have you aided us,” he told them. “Tauno destroyed the tupilak that this person’s folly brought forth. Thus he won the awe of our enemies, and we have peace. Eyjan,”-he shook his gray head, chuckled, blinked hard-“Eyjan, when I am too old to be of any use, and go forth to sit on the ice alone, your memory is what will warm me.”
“Oh, you’ve returned whatever we did in heaped-up measure,” Tauno said, while his sister brushed lips across the angakok’s brow. She had told her brother that he was not strong to be with, but he was sweet.
“One does not count between friends,” Panigpak reminded. Had he never dealt with the Norse, he would not have know what to say. “Somebody would fain make a parting gift.”
He handed over the disc, which Tauno laid in his palm and
considered. Graven in the hollow and blackened to stand forth against its yellowish white were signs: a bird with dark head and crooked beak winging before a crescent moon. Eeriness thrilled through him as he felt an enchantment cool inside.