all her professed hatred of the intruders, she did not despise the technology and conveniences they had brought. I smiled cynically but Soldier’s Boy’s lips did not move. He seemed to be thinking something else, wondering how many other Specks now carried steel so casually, even knowing the iron in it was dangerous to magic. He ignored my thoughts. Was I a small voice in the back of his mind, a vague sensation of unease, or nothing at all to him? All I could do was wonder.
Olikea built the fire efficiently. I considered her as she moved about the area, gathering twigs to feed the tiny flame, stooping down to blow on the fire and then as she began to cut up the roots and clean the fish from Likari’s basket. I could not compare her to Gernian women at all, I realized. She moved with ease and confidence, as completely unaware of her nudity as Soldier’s Boy was. That was odd to consider. He felt no surge of lust for her. Perhaps it was that I’d spent so much of his magic he felt as if he could barely stand, let alone mate with a woman. I stood at the edge of his flowing thoughts; he was not thinking of sex, but of the food she was preparing. He was gauging how much he could rebuild his strength by nightfall and how much of his magic he would have to burn to quick-walk all three of them back to the People.
Quick-walk. One could travel that way, seeming to stride along at an ordinary pace, but covering the ground much more swiftly. A mage could carry others along with him, one or two or even three if he was powerfully fat with magic. But it took an effort to get the magic started, and stamina to sustain it. It would not be easy for him, and he was reluctant to burn what little reserves he had restored. Nevertheless, he would have to do it. He had said that he would, in front of Jodoli. A Great Man never backed away from a feat of magic he claimed he would do. He would lose all status with the People if he did.
Likari came back with an armful of firewood. Olikea thanked him brusquely and sent him for more water. I suspected she was trying to keep him at a distance from Soldier’s Boy while she carried out the more obvious tasks of a feeder. She seemed to feel my gaze on her and turned to look at me. As our eyes met, I felt as if she could still see me, the Gernian, buried inside Soldier’s Boy. Did she notice that he had changed in his demeanour towards her? She dropped her eyes and appraised me as if she were looking at a horse she might buy. Then she shook her head.
‘Fish and roots will help but what you need is grease if we are to rebuild you quickly. Likari will not find that in this part of the forest at this time of year. Even if he could, he is too small to kill anything. Once we have rejoined the People, you will have to do the hunter’s dance for us, and summon a bear before it goes to its winter rest. Slabs of bear meat thick with fat will build you quickly. I will cook it with mushrooms and leeks and red salt. It will take time, Nevare, but I will restore you to your power.’
Her mere description of the food made my mouth run with saliva. She was right. The body craved fat. The fish and roots suddenly seemed meagre and unsatisfying. Soldier’s Boy sat up and rubbed the loose folds of his belly. Moving slowly and cautiously, he got to his feet. The whole body felt peculiar. It was strange to be so light. I had built muscle to carry the fat that was now gone. My skin sagged all around me, wrinkling in unexpected places. He held my arms out from my body, looked down on my wasted form and shook my head in disgust. He’d have to begin all over again.
‘I can restore you,’ Olikea promised me as if she’d heard his thoughts. ‘I can be a very good feeder to you.’
‘If I allow it,’ he reminded her.
‘What choice do you have?’ she asked me reasonably. ‘Likari cannot even cook for you. He certainly cannot give you children to help care for you when you are old. You are angry with me now. I was angry with you before. Perhaps I am still angry with you, but I am smart enough to know this: Anger will not get me what I want, so I will set it aside. Anger will not get you what you want and need. You should be wise enough to set it aside and let things go back to the way they were. The People will have enough reasons to mock you and doubt you. Do not give them any more by having a mere boy tending you. Let me be by your side when we return. I can explain that you spent all your magic in making a great tangle of forest that will protect our ancestor trees through the winter. I can make them see you as a hero who spent all he had in an effort to protect that which is most important to all of us, rather than as a fool who depleted himself yet found no glory or power in doing it.’
I was beginning to perceive the Specks in an entirely different way. I’d always been told they were child-like and naïve, a primitive folk with simple ways, and so I had treated Olikea. I’d imagined she was passionately in love with me, and actually flogged myself with guilt over taking advantage of the infatuated young maiden. Plying me with food and sex had been her tactic to win me, and to enjoy the effects of bringing a man of power and girth into her kin-clan. She competed with her sister far more savagely than I’d ever striven to outdo either of my brothers. But, far from being enthralled by me, she had seen me as a tool for her ambition and used me accordingly. She spoke now, not out of love or affection, but only that anger was keeping both of us from what we wanted. Even our potential children were not the fruit of our affections for one another, but my insurance against feeble old age. She was hard, hard as whipcord, hard as tempered steel and Soldier’s Boy had known that about her all the time. He finally smiled at her.
‘I can set my anger aside, Olikea. But it does not mean that I set aside my memory of what caused my anger. It is very clear to both of us how my power may benefit you. Less clear to me is why I need you, or indeed why your kin-clan is the only one I should consider for my own. While you cook for me, perhaps you could explain to me why you are the best choice to be my feeder, and why your kin-clan, folk who already have a Great One in their midst, would be my best home among the People. There are kin-clans that have no Great Ones, where a feeder would have all the gathering skills of a kin-clan to aid her in caring for me. Why should I choose you?’
She narrowed her eyes and folded her lips. She had wrapped the fish and roots in well-moistened leaves and put them to steam in her fire. She poked vindictively at them with her cooking stick; I was sure she would rather have jabbed me with it. Soldier’s Boy watched her coolly, and I could feel him speculating on which would win out, her anger or her ambition. She kept her gaze on her cooking and spoke to the fire.
‘You know that I can prepare food well, and that I gather food efficiently. You know that my son Likari is an energetic gatherer. Name me as your feeder, and I will put him in your service as well. You will have the benefits of two of us bringing you food and seeing to your needs. And I will continue to give you pleasure and seek to become pregnant with your child. That is not an easy task, you know. It is hard to catch the seed of a Great Man and harder still to carry his child to term. Few of the Great have children of their own. But I already have a son that I can put in service to you.
‘If you wish to have two of us serving you, before you have become fat and worthy again, then this is the only way it can be so. If you choose Likari over me, then I will have nothing more to do with either of you. And if you choose to leave my kin-clan when we reach the Wintering Place to find a feeder among some other clan, well, I will see to it that all hear of how faithless you are, how clumsy with your magic and how you wasted a wealth of it to very little success. Do you think that every woman wants to be a feeder? You will find, perhaps, that there are not that many of us willing to give up our lives to serve one such as you.’
Soldier’s Boy had let her have her say without interruption. When he held his silence after she had finished, she glanced up at him once, her annoyance plain. He made her wait, but I noticed she did not prod him. Finally he said, ‘I do not like your threats, Olikea. And I believe that yes, actually there will be many women at the Wintering Place who would want to become my feeder and share in my glory and power, without making threats or sour faces at me. You still have not given me a powerful reason to choose your kin-clan. Do Jodoli and Firada support the notion of another Great Man sustained by your kin-clan?’
She didn’t answer directly, but the way she lowered her
