“Well, then,” I said, “keep it.”

Two days later, the winds came flashing along the mountains, but no rain. Gusts blew the ice and heaped it against everything that stood. Presently, great avalanches began over on the huge slopes to the north; you heard their thunder day and night.

One morning the blizzard eased, and I shot a couple of scrawny hares foraging among the trees. Their ribs showed as men’s ribs were showing, but I was glad enough for what I could get.

I meant to leave a hare at Tathra’s tent. Ettook’s gifts of food to her were leaner than they had been since he had his two whores to keep plump now as well. But when I came there, she was absent. As usual, there was some woman skulking about nearby, tending a fire pit.

“Where is my mother?”

“She has gone to Kotta,” said the woman.

I was uneasy at this, for though Kotta and my mother were often together, the women only went to Kotta’s tent when they were in need of help, or ill.

I gave the woman the hares to skin and clean, and told her what she might expect if she stole any part of them, then made my way through the tunnels to Kotta’s place.

I did not walk straight in, you never knew what women’s business might be afoot in there, but stood outside and called her name.

“A moment, warrior,” Kotta said.

I heard the muffled sounds of a woman vomiting, and my belly wrenched into a knot of snakes.

Shortly, the figure of the blind healer went out of the back of the tent, dark against the white light of the snow. She saw to something there, then came around the tent to me.

“Is it Tathra you have with you?” I asked her.

Her blue, blind, seeing eyes looked into mine like two flints.

“It is Tathra.”

“Is she sick?”

“No. Not sick. She is carrying another son for Ettook.”

The shock of her words hit me like a fist. I knew all the stories—how Kotta kept Tathra free of pregnancy with certain skills, how it would kill Tathra if she bore again, as it had nearly killed her before. I said, “Your magic potions failed her then? Are you trying different sorcery to be rid of it?”

“What?” she said, harder than I. “Do you suppose Kotta fool enough to tamper with the chief’s seed?”

“Don’t anger me, woman. I know what you’ve been at. Do you think I want her to bear this child? It will kill her, will it not? She’s no girl, and almost died of me. So abort her. The red pig has sons enough.”

“I hear you watch your tongue with the braves,” she said. “You should watch it now. Maybe I will tell Ettook how his heir speaks of him.”

“Tell him. But first, lose her that burden, or we shall have further words.”

She laughed, just one syllable of it and, lifting her veil a little, spit. She stood, big and rough, with her head back.