The Riddle - Alison Croggon [137]
“We do not want a dogfight,” muttered Dharin as they walked toward the nearest of the round houses. “And these dogs will fight to the death if they get in a scrap.”
Then he bent to enter the low doorway of the house. Even Maerad had to stoop: the doors were made as small as possible to conserve heat, and the interiors of the houses were windowless, lit by smoky lamps burning some kind of fish oil. The smell was at first overpowering: a mixture of human fug and sour fat and fish and smoke. Maerad’s eyes smarted, and it took a little while before her sight adjusted to the dim light. It was very hot: she started sweating instantly. Both she and Dharin took off their overcoats of fur for the first time in days.
She had entered a room that was much bigger than she had expected. She realized that the houses continued back into the cliff itself; there was another entrance at the far end covered with a hanging woven of some kind of rough wool. Inside were about a dozen people: an old man was working on an ivory carving, and several children, the smallest of whom was completely naked, were playing a game with some large knuckle bones. Two women and a man were working a skin, kneading it with their fingers from different ends to make it pliable and soft, and another woman was feeding an infant. They all looked up and nodded when the strangers entered, and then went back to whatever they had been doing.
In the center of the room was a round white rug, made of many furs stitched together, and Dharin and Maerad were invited to sit down. They were given a clear spirit to drink in small round cups. The elders nodded solemnly, and Dharin nodded back (Maerad, closely following Dharin’s lead, did the same) and then they downed the spirit in one big gulp. Maerad did her best, but the drink was so harsh that she nearly choked; it was as strong as voka, a spirit distilled from turnips and other root vegetables that the men brewed in Gilman’s Cot, and had as little subtlety of flavor. She recovered herself as quickly as possible, shut her eyes, and finished the cup. It burned all the way down to her stomach, leaving a numb feeling behind it. She hoped fervently that custom did not dictate a second cup, and to her relief no one refilled it. Now she was so hot she desperately wanted to take off more of her many layers of clothes, but she didn’t know if it would be considered rude.
Dharin was unwrapping the package he had taken from the sled. To Maerad’s surprise, inside were two beautiful examples of Pilanel wood carving, delicately fashioned and enameled in a shiny black. One was of a wolf and the other was of a ptarmigan. He gave them to the elders, bowing his head as he did so. They took them solemnly, admired them both from every angle, and then bowed their heads in thanks.
It then seemed the formalities were over, and Dharin and the elders, whose many-syllabled names Maerad could not, for the life of her, remember, plunged into a lively conversation. Maerad wiped the sweat off her forehead and tried to concentrate. Dharin told her afterward that they were simply swapping news: news of the weather, of hunting grounds, speculations on the early winter, and general conditions in the north and in the southern plains.
It seemed that the Wise Kindred were themselves suffering a thin year after several poor summers, and although they were not yet facing famine, they feared another year would bring them to hunger. Maerad caught the word “Jussacks” once or twice; Dharin had asked if there was news of Jussack raids in the far north and told of what he had heard in Tlon. The elders told him that there had been rumors from other peoples farther down the coast, but no Jussacks had ever been seen this far north.