"Be careful now," Ayla said, helping Roshario to ease forward toward Jondalar and Markeno, who were stooped down on either side of her beside her bed. "The sling will support your arm and hold it in place, but keep it close to you."
"Are you sure she should get up so soon?" Dolando asked Ayla, frowning with worry.
"I'm sure," Roshario said. "I've been in this bed too long as it is. I don't want to miss Jondalar's welcoming celebration."
"So long as she doesn't tire herself too much, it will probably be good for her to get up and be with everyone for a while," Ayla said. Then she turned to Roshario. "But not too long. Rest is the best healer now."
"I just want to see everyone being happy for a change. Every time someone came in to see me, they looked so sorry for me. I want them to know I'm going to be all right," the woman said, easing off the bed into the waiting arms of the two young men.
"Steady now, watch the sling," Ayla said. Roshario put her good arm around Jondalar's neck. "All right, together, lift her up."
With the woman between them, the two men stood up, moving forward a little so they could straighten up under the sloping roof of the dwelling. They were close to the same height, and they carried her easily. Though Jondalar was more obviously muscular, Markeno was a powerful young man. His strength was disguised by his more slender build, but rowing boats and handling the huge sturgeon the Ramudoi regularly hunted had given his flat, wiry muscles plenty of use.
"How do you feel?" Ayla asked.
"Up in the air," Roshario said, smiling at each man in turn. "It's a different view from up here."
"Are you ready, then?"
"How do I look, Ayla?"
"Tholie did a good job of combing and fixing your hair; I think you look fine," Ayla said.
"The washing you both gave me made me feel better, too. I didn't even feel like combing or washing before. That must mean I'm better," Roshario said.
"Some of it is the pain medicine I gave you. It will wear off. Be sure to tell me as soon as you start to feel very much pain. Don't try to be brave about it. And let me know when you begin to get tired, too," Ayla said.
"I will. I'm ready now."
"Look who's coming!" "It's Roshario!" "She must be better," several voices exclaimed as the woman was carried from the dwelling.
"Put her down over here," Tholie said. "I've made a place for her."
At some time in the past, a large piece of sandstone had broken off the overhang and lodged near the gathering circle. Tholie had placed a bench against it and covered it with furs. The men took Roshario there and lowered her carefully.
"Are you comfortable?" Markeno asked after they had settled her on the padded seat.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Roshario said. She was unaccustomed to so much doting attention.
The wolf had followed them out of the dwelling, and, as soon as she was seated, he found a spot and lay down beside her. Roshario was surprised, but when she saw the way he looked at her, and noticed how he watched everyone who approached, she had the strange but distinct feeling that he thought he was protecting her.
"Ayla, why is that wolf staying around Roshario? I think you should make him go away from her," Dolando said, wondering what the animal could want with a woman who was still so weak and vulnerable. He knew that wolf packs often hunted the old, sick, and weak members of a herd.
"No, don't make him go," Roshario said, reaching over with her good hand and patting his head. "I don't think he means to harm me, Dolando. I think he's watching out for me."
"I think he is, too, Roshario," Ayla said. "There was a boy at the Lion Camp, a weak, sickly child, but Wolf had a special attachment to him and was very protective. I think he senses that you are weak now, and he wants to protect you."
"Wasn't that Rydag?" Tholie said. "The one Nezzie adopted who was…" – she paused, suddenly remembering Dolando's strong and unreasonable feelings – "… an outsider."
Ayla was aware of her hesitation and knew she had not said what she originally intended to say. She wondered why.
"Is he still with them?" Tholie asked, unaccountably flustered.
"No," Ayla said. "He died, early in the season, at the Summer Meeting." Rydag's death still upset and saddened her, and it showed.
Tholie's curiosity vied with her sense of discretion; she wanted to ask more questions, but this was not the time to ask questions about that particular child. "Isn't anyone else hungry? Why don't we eat?" she said.
After everyone had their fill, including Roshario, who didn't eat much, though it was more than she had eaten in one meal in some time, people gathered around the fire with cups of tea or lightly fermented dandelion wine. It was time to tell stories, recount adventures, and, especially, to learn more about the visitors and their unusual traveling companions.
The full complement of Sharamudoi were there, except those few who happened to be away: the Shamudoi, who lived on the land in the high embayment throughout the year, and their river-dwelling kin, the Ramudoi. During the warmer seasons the River People lived on a floating dock moored just below, but in winter they moved up to the high terrace and shared the dwellings of ceremonially joined cross-cousins. The dual couples were considered to be as closely related as mates, and the children of both families were treated as siblings.
It was the most unusual arrangement of closely related groups that Jondalar knew of, but it worked well for them because of their kinship ties and a unique reciprocal relationship that was mutually beneficial. There were many practical and ritual bonds between the two moieties, but primarily the Shamudoi contributed the products of the land and a safe place during rough weather, while the Ramudoi provided the produce of the river and skilled water transportation.
The Sharamudoi thought of Jondalar as kin, but he was kin only through his brother. When Thonolan fell in love with a Shamudoi woman, he had accepted their ways and had chosen to become one of them. Jondalar had lived with them just as long and felt they were family. He had learned and accepted their ways, but he had never gone through any ritual joining in his own right. In his heart he could not give up his identity with his own people, could not make the decision to settle with them permanently. Though his brother had become Sharamudoi, Jondalar was still Zelandonii. The evening conversation began, understandably, with questions about his brother.
"What happened after you left here with Thonolan?" Markeno asked.
As painful as it might be to talk about, Jondalar knew Markeno had a right to know. Markeno and Tholie had become cross-tied with Thonolan and Jetamio; Markeno was as close in kinship as he, and he was a brother born of the same mother. Briefly he told how they had traveled downriver in the boat Carlono had given them, some of their close calls, and their meeting with Brecie, the Mamutoi headwoman of Willow Camp.
"We're related!" Tholie said. "She is a close-cousin."
"I learned that later, when we lived with Lion Camp, but she was very good to us even before she knew we were kin," Jondalar said. "That was what made Thonolan decide to go north and visit other Mamutoi Camps. He talked about hunting mammoth with them. I tried to talk him out of it, tried to convince him to come back with me. We had reached the end of the Great Mother River, and that's as far as he always said he wanted to go." The tall man closed his eyes, shook his head as if trying to deny the fact, then bowed his head in anguish. The people waited, sharing his pain.
"But it wasn't the Mamutoi," he continued after a while. "That was an excuse. He just couldn't get over Jetamio. All he wanted was to follow her to the next world. He told me he was going to travel until the Mother took him. He was ready, he said, but he was more than ready. He wanted to go so much that he took chances. That's why he died. And I wasn't paying attention either. It was stupid of me to follow him when he went after that lioness who stole his kill. If it hadn't been for Ayla, I would have died with him."
Jondalar's last comments piqued everyone's curiosity, but no one wanted to ask questions that would force him to further relive his grief. Finally Tholie broke the silence. "How did you meet Ayla? Were you near Lion Camp?"
Jondalar looked up at Tholie and then at Ayla. He had been speaking in Sharamudoi and he wasn't sure how much she had understood. He wished she knew more of the language so she could tell her own story. It was not going to be easy to explain, or rather to make the explanation believable. The more time that passed, the more unreal it all seemed, even to him, but when Ayla told it, it seemed easier to accept.
"No. We didn't know Lion Camp then. Ayla was living alone, in a valley several days' journey away from Lion Camp," he said.
"Alone?" Roshario asked.
"Well, not entirely alone. She shared her small cave with a couple of animals, for company."
"Do you mean she had another wolf like this one?" the woman asked, reaching over to pat the animal.
"No. She didn't have Wolf then. She got him while we were living at Lion Camp. She had Whinney."
"What is a Whinney?"
"Whinney is a horse."
"A horse? You mean she had a horse, too?"
"Yes. That one, right over there," Jondalar said, pointing to the horses standing in the field, silhouetted against the red-streaked evening sky.
Roshario's eyes opened big with surprise, which made everyone else smile. They had all gone through their initial shock, but she hadn't noticed the horses before. "Ayla lived with those two horses?"
"Not exactly. I was there when the stallion was born. Before that, she lived with just Whinney… and the cave lion," Jondalar finished, almost under his breath.
"And the what?" Roshario changed to her less than perfect Mamutoi. "Ayla, you should tell us. Jondalar's confused, I think. And maybe Tholie will translate for us."
Ayla had caught bits and pieces of the conversation, but she looked to Jondalar for clarification. He looked absolutely relieved.
"I'm afraid I haven't been very clear, Ayla. Roshario wants to hear it from you. Why don't you tell them about living in your valley with Whinney, and Baby, and how you found me," he said.
"And why were you living alone in a valley?" Tholie added.
"It is a long story," Ayla said, taking a deep breath. The people settled back with smiles. That was exactly what they wanted to hear, a long, interesting new story. She took a sip of her tea and thought about how to begin. "I told Tholie, I don't remember who my people were. They were lost in an earthquake when I was a little girl, and I was found and raised by the Clan. Iza, the woman who found me, was a medicine woman, a healer, and she began to teach me healing when I was very young."
Well, that explained how the young woman could have such skill, Dolando thought, while Tholie was translating. Then Ayla picked up her narrative.
"I lived with Iza and her brother, Creb; her mate had died in the same earthquake that took my people. Creb was like the man of the hearth; he helped her raise me. She died a few years ago, but before she did, Iza told me I should leave and look for my own people. I didn't go, I couldn't leave…" Ayla hesitated, trying to decide how much to tell. "… Not then, but after… Creb died… I had to leave."
Ayla paused and took another sip of her tea while Tholie restated her words, having a little trouble with the strange names. The telling had brought back the powerful emotions of that time, and Ayla needed to regain her composure.
"I tried to find my own people, as Iza had told me to do," she continued, "but I didn't know where to look. I searched from early spring until well into summer, without finding anyone. I began to wonder if I ever would, and I was getting tired of traveling. Then I came to a small green valley in the middle of the dry steppes with a stream running through it, even a nice little cave. It had everything I needed… except people. I didn't know if I would find anyone, but I did know winter would be coming and if I wasn't ready for it, I would never live through it. I decided to stay in the valley until the next spring."
The people had become so involved with her story, they were speaking out, nodding in agreement, saying she was right, it was the only thing to do. Ayla explained how she trapped a horse in a pit trap, discovered it was a nursing mare, and later saw a pack of hyenas going after the little filly. "I couldn't help myself," she said. "She was just a baby, and so helpless. I chased the hyenas away and brought her to live in my cave with me. I'm glad I did. She shared my loneliness, and she made it more bearable. She became a friend."
The women, at least, could understand being drawn to a helpless baby, even if it was a baby horse. The way Ayla explained it made it seem perfectly reasonable, even if no one had ever heard of adopting an animal before. But it wasn't only the women who were captivated. Jondalar was watching the people. Women and men were equally enthralled, and he realized that Ayla had become a good storyteller. Even he was caught up, and he knew the story. He watched her closely, trying to see what made her so compelling, and he noticed that she used subtle but evocative gestures as well as words.
It wasn't a conscious effort or done for any particular effect. Ayla grew up communicating in the Clan way, and it was natural for her to describe with motions as well as with words, but when she first used birdcalls and the nickers and neighs of horses, it surprised her listeners. Living alone in her valley, hearing only the animal life in the vicinity, she began to mimic them, and she learned to reproduce their sounds with uncanny fidelity. After the first shock, her amazingly realistic animal sounds added a fascinating dimension.
As her story unfolded, especially when she told how she began riding and training the horse, even Tholie could hardly wait to finish translating Ayla's words so she could hear the rest. The young Mamutoi woman spoke both languages very well, though she could not begin to reproduce the whinny of a horse, or the birdcalls made with unnerving accuracy, but it wasn't necessary. People were getting a sense of what Ayla said, in part because the languages were similar, but also because of her expressive delivery. They understood the sounds when it was appropriate, but they waited for Tholie's translation to catch what they missed.
Ayla anticipated Tholie's words as much as everyone else, but for an entirely different reason. Jondalar had observed with awe her ability to learn new languages quickly when he first started teaching her to speak his, and he wondered how she did it. He didn't know her skill with language was derived from a unique set of circumstances. In order to exist among people who learned from the memories of their ancestors, that were stored from birth in their huge brains as a kind of evolved and conscious form of instinct, the girl of the Others had been forced to develop her own memorizing abilities. She had trained herself to remember quickly so she would not be considered so stupid by the rest of her clan.
She had been a normal, talkative little girl before she was adopted, and though she had lost most of her vocal language when she began to speak as the Clan did, the patterns were set. Her driving need to relearn verbal speech so she could communicate with Jondalar had added impetus to a natural ability. Once begun, the process she had unconsciously used was further developed when she went to live with the Lion Camp and had to learn yet another language. She could memorize vocabulary after one hearing, though syntax and structure took a little longer. But the language of the Sharamudoi was close to Mamutoi in structure, and many words were similar. Ayla listened carefully to Tholie's translation of her words, because as she was relating her story, she was learning their language.
As fascinating as her story of adopting a baby horse was, even Tholie had to stop and ask her to repeat herself when Ayla talked about finding the injured cave lion cub. Perhaps loneliness might drive someone to live with a grass-eating horse, but a gigantic carnivore? A full-grown male cave lion, walking on all fours, could nearly reach the height of the smallish steppe horses, and was more massive. Tholie wanted to know how she could even consider taking in a lion cub.
"He wasn't so big then, not even the size of a small wolf, and he was a baby… and he was hurt."
Though Ayla had meant to describe a smaller animal, people glanced toward the canine beside Roshario. Wolf was of northern stock, and big even for that large breed. He was the biggest wolf any of them had ever seen. The idea of taking in a lion that size did not appeal to many.
"The word she named him meant 'baby,' and she called him that even after he was full grown. He was the biggest Baby I ever saw," Jondalar added, which brought chuckles.
Jondalar smiled, too, but then told a more sobering fact. "I thought that was humorous, too, later, but there was nothing funny about the first time I saw him. Baby was the lion that killed Thonolan, and almost killed me." Dolando looked apprehensively at the wolf beside his woman again. "But what else can you expect when you walk into a lion's den? Though we had watched his mate leave and didn't know Baby was in there, it was a stupid thing to do. As it turned out, I was lucky that it happened to be that particular lion."
"What do you mean, 'lucky'?" Markeno asked.
"I was badly mauled and unconscious, but Ayla was able to stop him before he killed me," Jondalar said.
Everyone turned back to the woman. "How could she stop a cave lion?" Tholie asked.
"The same way she controls Wolf and Whinney," Jondalar said. "She told him to stop, and he did."
Heads were shaking in disbelief. "How do you know that's what she did? You said you were unconscious," someone called out.
Jondalar looked to see who the speaker was. It was a young River man he had known, though not well. "Because I saw her do the same thing later, Rondo. Baby came to visit her once when I was still recovering. He knew I was a stranger, and perhaps he remembered when Thonolan and I went into his den. Whatever the reason, he did not want me near Ayla's cave, and he immediately sprang to attack. But she stepped in front of him and told him to stop. And he did it. It was almost funny the way he pulled himself short in the middle of a leap, but at the time I was too scared to notice."
"Where's the cave lion now?" Dolando asked, looking at the wolf and wondering if the lion followed her, too. He was not particularly interested in being visited by a lion, no matter how well she might control him.
"He has made his own life," Ayla said. "He stayed with me until he was grown. Then, like some children, he left to find a mate, and he probably has several by now. Whinney left me for a while, too, but she came back. She was pregnant when she returned."
"What about the wolf?" Do you think he will leave someday?" Tholie asked.
Ayla caught her breath. It was a question that she had refused to consider. It had come to her mind more than once, but she always pushed it aside, not even wanting to acknowledge it. Now it was said, out in the open, and waiting for an answer.
"Wolf was so young when I found him, I think he grew up believing that the people of Lion Camp were his pack," she said. "Many wolves stay with their pack, but some wolves leave and become loners until they find another loner for a mate. Then a new pack starts. Wolf is still young, hardly more than a cub. He looks older because he's so big. I don't know what he will do, Tholie, but I worry about it sometimes. I don't want him to leave."
Tholie nodded. "Leaving is difficult, both for the one who leaves, and the ones that are left behind," she said, thinking about her own difficult decision to leave her people to live with Markeno. "I know how I felt. Didn't you say you left those people who raised you? What did you call them? Clan? I never heard of those people. Where do they live?"
Ayla glanced at Jondalar. He was sitting perfectly still, full of tension, with a strange expression on his face. He was very nervous about something, and suddenly she wondered if he was still ashamed of her background and the people who had raised her. She thought he was over those feelings now. She was not ashamed of the Clan. In spite of Broud and the anguish he had caused her, she had been cared for and loved even though she had been different, and she had loved in return. With a little feeling of anger, and a prickly touch of pride, she decided that she was not going to deny those people she had loved.
"They live on the peninsula in Beran Sea," Ayla replied.
"The peninsula? I didn't know there were people living on the peninsula. That's flathead territory…" Tholie stopped. It couldn't be, could it?
Tholie wasn't the only one who had seen the implications. Roshario had gasped and was furtively watching Dolando, trying to see if he had made any connections, but not wanting it to seem that she had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The strange names she mentioned, the ones that were so hard to pronounce, could they be names she had given some other kind of animals? But she said the woman who raised her had taught her healing medicine. Could there have been some woman living with them? What woman would choose to live with them, especially if she knew healing? Would a shamud live with flatheads?
Ayla was noticing the strange reactions of some of the people, but when she glanced at Dolando and saw him staring at her, she felt a shiver of dread. He did not seem to be the same man, the controlled leader who had cared for his woman with such tenderness. He was not looking at her with the grateful relief her healing skill had invoked, or even with the wary acceptance of their first meeting. Instead, she detected a deeply buried pain and saw a distancing; a menacing hard anger filled his eyes as though he could not see clearly, but only through the red haze of rage.
"Flatheads!" he exploded. "You lived with those filthy, murderous animals! I'd like to kill every one of them. And you lived with them. How could any decent woman live with them?"
His fists were clenched as he started to come for her. Both Jondalar and Markeno jumped up to hold him back. Wolf was standing in front of Roshario, teeth bared, a deep low growl in his throat. Shamio started to cry, and Tholie picked her up and held her protectively close. Under most circumstances, she would never fear for her daughter around Dolando, but he was not rational about flatheads, and at the moment he seemed to be in the grip of an uncontrollable madness.
"Jondalar! How dare you bring a woman like that here!" Dolando said, trying to shake off the restraining hold of the tall blond man.
"Dolando! What are you saying?" Roshario said, trying to get up. "She helped me! What difference does it make where she grew up? She helped me!"
The people who had gathered for Jondalar's welcoming were stunned, gaping with shock, and had no idea what to do. Carlono got up to help Markeno and Jondalar and to try to calm his coleader.
Ayla was stunned, too. Dolando's virulent reaction was so completely unexpected that she was at a loss. She saw Roshario attempting to get up, trying to push aside the wolf, who was standing defensively in front of her, as confused as everyone else by the commotion, but determined to protect the woman he saw as his charge. She should not get up, Ayla thought, hurrying toward the woman.
"Get away from my woman. I don't want her tainted with your filth," Dolando shouted, struggling to free himself from the men trying to hold him back.
Ayla stopped. Though she wanted to help Roshario, she didn't want to cause more trouble with Dolando. What is wrong with him? she wondered. Then she noticed that Wolf looked ready to attack, and she signaled him to come to her. That was the last thing she needed, for the wolf to cause anyone harm. Wolf was obviously struggling with himself. He wanted either to stand his ground or jump into the fray, but he did not want to back away from it; yet everything was confusing. Ayla's second signal was accompanied by her whistle, and that decided him. He ran to her, then stood defensively in front of her.
Though he spoke Sharamudoi, Ayla was aware that Dolando had been shouting about flatheads and directing angry words at her, but the meaning had not been entirely clear. While she was waiting there with the wolf, suddenly she got a clear sense of his ravings and began to feel angry herself. The people of the Clan were not filthy murderers. Why was he so enraged by the thought of them?
Roshario had gotten up and was trying to approach the struggling men. Tholie gave Shamio to someone nearby and ran to help her.
"Dolando! Dolando, stop it!" Roshario said. Her voice seemed to reach him; his struggles eased, though the three men still held him.
Dolando looked angrily at Jondalar. "Why did you bring her here?"
"Dolando, what's wrong with you? Look at me!" Roshario said. "What would have happened if he hadn't? Ayla was not the one who killed Doraldo."
He looked at Roshario and for the first time seemed to see the weak, drawn woman with her arm in a sling. A quick spasm shook him, and, like shedding water, the irrational fury left him. "Roshario, you shouldn't be up," he said, reaching for her, but he found himself restrained. "You can let me go," he said to Jondalar with a voice of cold anger.
The Zelandonii man dropped his hold. Markeno and Carlono waited until they were sure he was not struggling before they released him, but they stayed nearby, just in case.
"Dolando, you have no call to be angry with Jondalar," Roshario said. "He brought Ayla because I needed her. Everyone is upset, Dolando. Come and sit down and show them you are all right."
She saw a stubborn look in Dolando's eye, but he went with her back to the bench and sat beside her. A woman brought them both some tea, then walked over to the place where Ayla, Jondalar, Carlono, and Markeno were standing, along with Wolf.
"Would you like tea or a little wine?" she asked.
"You wouldn't happen to have some of that wonderful bilberry wine, Carolio?" he said. Ayla noticed her resemblance to both Carlono and Markeno.
"The new wine isn't ready, but there might be some left from last year. For you, too?" she said to Ayla.
"Yes, if Jondalar wants, I will try it. I don't think we meet," she added.
"No," the woman said, as Jondalar was getting ready to jump in and make the introductions. "We don't need to be formal. We all know who you are, Ayla. I am Carolio, that one's sister." She indicated Carlono.
"I see the… likeness," Ayla said, searching for the word, and Jondalar suddenly realized she was speaking Sharamudoi. He looked at her in wonder. How did she learn it so fast?
"I hope you can overlook Dolando's outburst," Carolio said. "The son of his hearth, Roshario's son, was killed by flatheads, and he hates all of them. Doraldo was a young man, a few years older than Darvo, and full of high spirits, just beginning his life. It was very hard on Dolando. He has never quite gotten over it."
Ayla nodded, but frowned. It was not usual for the Clan to kill the Others. What had the young man done? she wondered. She saw Roshario motioning to her. Though Dolando's glare was not welcoming, she hurried toward the woman.
"You are tired?" she asked. "Is time you go to bed? Are you feeling pain?"
"A little. Not much. I'll go to bed soon, but not yet. I want to tell you how sorry I am. I had a son…"
"Carolio told me. She said he was killed."
"Flatheads…" Dolando mumbled under his breath.
"We may have all jumped to some conclusions," Roshario said. "You said you lived with… some people on the peninsula?" There was suddenly absolute silence.
"Yes," Ayla said. Then she looked at Dolando and took a deep breath. "The Clan. The ones you call flatheads, that is what they call themselves."
"How? They don't talk," a young woman called out. Jondalar saw it was the woman sitting next to Chalono, another young man he knew. She was familiar, but her name eluded him for the moment.
Ayla anticipated her unspoken comment. "They are not animals. They are people, and they do talk, but not with many words, though they use some. Their language is of signs and gestures."
"Is that what you were doing?" Roshario asked. "Before you put me to sleep? I thought you were dancing with your hands."
Ayla smiled. "I was talking to the spirit world, asking my totem spirit to help you."
"Spirit world? Talking with hands? What nonsense!" Dolando spat.
"Dolando," Roshario said, reaching for his hand.
"It's true, Dolando," Jondalar said. "I even learned some of it. All of Lion Camp did. Ayla taught us so we could communicate with Rydag. Everyone was surprised to find out he could talk that way, even if he couldn't say words right. It made them realize he was not an animal."
"You mean the boy Nezzie took in?" Tholie said.
"Boy? Are you talking about that abomination of mixed spirits that we heard some crazy Mamutoi woman took in?"
Ayla's chin went up. She was getting angry now. "Rydag was a child," she said. "He may have come from mixed spirits, but how can you blame a child for who he is? He didn't choose to be born that way. Don't you say it's the Mother who chooses the spirits? Then he was just as much a child of the Mother as anyone. What right do you have to call him an abomination?"
Ayla was glaring at Dolando, and everyone was staring at both of them, surprised at Ayla's defense, and wondering what Dolando's reaction would be. He looked as surprised as the others.
"And Nezzie is not crazy. She is a warm, kind, loving woman who took in an orphan child, and she didn't care what anyone thought," Ayla continued. "She was like Iza, the woman who took me in when I had no one, even though I was different, one of the Others."
"Flatheads killed the son of my hearth!" Dolando said.
"That may be, but it is not usual. The Clan would rather avoid the Others – that's how they think of people like us." Ayla paused, then she looked at the man who still suffered such anguish. "It is hard to lose a child, Dolando, but let me tell you about someone else who lost a child. She was a woman I met when many of the clans gathered – it was like a Summer Meeting, but they don't meet as often. She and some other women were out collecting food when suddenly several men came upon them, men of the Others. One of them grabbed her, to force her to have what you call Pleasures."
There were gasps among the people. Ayla was talking about a subject that was never discussed openly, though all but the very youngest had heard about it. Some mothers felt they should take their children away, but no one really wanted to leave.
"Women of the Clan do what men wish, they don't have to be forced, but the man who grabbed the woman couldn't wait. He wouldn't even wait for her to put her baby down. He grabbed her so roughly that the baby fell, and he didn't even notice. It wasn't until afterward, when he allowed her to get up, that she found her baby's head had hit a stone when it fell. Her baby was dead."
A few of the listeners had tears in their eyes. Jondalar spoke up. "I know those things can happen. I heard about some young men who live far to the west of here who liked to make sport with flatheads, several of them ganging up to force a clan woman."
"It happens around here, too," Chalono admitted.
The women looked at him with surprise that he said it, and most of the men avoided looking at him altogether, except Rondo, who was looking at him as though he were a worm.
"It's always the big thing boys talk about," Chalono said, trying to defend himself. "Not many of them do it any more, though, especially after what happened to Doral…" He stopped suddenly, glanced around, then looked down, wishing he had never opened his mouth.
The following uneasy silence was broken when Tholie said, "Roshario, you look very tired. Don't you think it's time you went back to bed?"
"Yes, I think I'd like to," she said.
Jondalar and Markeno hurried to help her, and everyone else took it as a signal to get up and leave. No one cared to linger around the last of the fire talking or gaming on this night. The two young men carried the woman into the dwelling while a stricken Dolando shuffled behind.
"Thank you, Tholie, but I think it would be better if I slept near Roshario tonight," Ayla said. "I hope Dolando won't object. She's been through so much, and she is going to have a difficult night. In fact, the next few days will not be easy. The arm is already swelling, and she will be feeling some pain. I'm not sure she should have gotten up this evening, but she was so insistent I don't think I could have stopped her. She kept saying she was feeling good, but that was because the drink that made her sleep also stops deep pain, and it hadn't entirely worn off. I gave her something else besides, but it will all wear off tonight, and I would like to be there."
Ayla had just come into the dwelling after spending a little time currying and combing Whinney in the dying light of the sunset. It always relaxed her and made her feel better to be near and tend to the mare when she was upset. Jondalar had joined her there for a short time but had sensed that she wanted to be alone for a while, so after some pats and scratches and comforting words to the stallion, he had left them.
"Perhaps Darvo could stay with you," Jondalar suggested now. "He would probably sleep better. It bothers him to see her suffer."
"Of course," Markeno said. "I'll go get him. I wish I could convince Dolando to stay with us for a while, too, but I know he won't, especially after tonight. No one ever told him the full story of Doraldo's death."
"Maybe it's best that it all finally came out. Maybe he can finally put it aside now," Tholie said. "Dolando has been nursing a real hatred toward flatheads for a long time. It seemed fairly harmless, no one really cares that much for them anyway – I'm sorry, Ayla, but it is true."
Ayla nodded. "I know," she said.
"And we seldom have much contact. In most ways, he's a good leader," Tholie continued, "except for anything to do with flatheads, and it's easy to work other people up about them. But such a strong hatred can't help but leave its mark. I think it's always worse on the person who does the hating."
"I think it's time to get some rest," Markeno said. "You must be exhausted, Ayla."
Jondalar, Markeno, and Ayla, with Wolf at her heels, walked the few steps to the next dwelling together. Markeno scratched at the entrance flap and waited. Rather than calling out, Dolando came to the entrance and pushed the flap aside, then stood in the shadows of the entrance looking at them.
"Dolando, I think Roshario may have a hard night. I would like to stay near her," Ayla said.
The man looked down, then inside toward the woman on the bed. "Come in," he said.
"I want to stay with Ayla," Jondalar said. He was determined not to leave her alone with the man who had threatened and raged at her, even if he did seem to have calmed down.
Dolando nodded and stepped aside.
"I came to ask Darvo if he'd like to spend the night with us," Markeno said.
"I think he should," Dolando said. "Darvo, take your bedding and go with Markeno tonight."
The boy got up, gathered up his pads and covers in his arms, and walked toward the opening. Ayla thought he looked relieved but not happy.
Wolf settled into his corner as soon as they entered. Ayla walked to the darkened rear to check on Roshario.
"Do you have a lamp or a torch, Dolando? I'd like a little more light," she said.
"And maybe some extra bedding," Jondalar added, "or should I ask Tholie for some?"
Dolando would have preferred to be alone in the dark, but if Roshario woke up in pain, he knew the young woman would be able to help her much better than he could. From a shelf, he took down a shallow sandstone bowl that had been shaped by pecking and hitting it with another stone.
"The bedding is over here," he said to Jondalar. "There is some fat for the lamp in the box by the door, but I'll have to start a fire to light the lamp. It went out."
"I'll start the fire," Ayla said, "if you'll tell me where your kindling and tinder are."
He gave her the fire-starting materials she asked for, along with a round stick, black with charcoal on one end, and a flattish piece of wood with several round holes burned out of it from starting other fires, but she didn't use those. Instead, out of a pouch hanging from her belt, she withdrew two stones. Dolando watched with curiosity as she made a small pile of the dry, light shavings of wood and, hovering closely over it, hit one stone against the other. To his surprise, a large bright spark leaped from the stones and landed on the tinder, sending up a thin column of smoke. She bent close and blew, and the tinder burst into flame.
"How did you do that?" he asked, surprised and a little fearful. Anything so amazing, and unknown, always engendered a little fear. Was there no end to this woman's shamud magic? he wondered.
"It comes from the firestone," Ayla said, as she added a few sticks of kindling to keep the fire going, and then larger pieces of wood.
"Ayla discovered them when she was living in her valley," Jondalar said. "They were all over the rocky shore there, and I collected some extras. I'll show you how they work tomorrow, and give you one, so you will know what they look like. There may be some around here. As you can see, they make starting a fire much faster."
"Where did you say the fat was?" Ayla asked.
"In the box by the entrance. I'll get it. The wicks are there, too," Dolando said. He put a dollop of soft white tallow – fat that had been rendered in boiling water and skimmed after it cooled – into the stone bowl, stuck a twisted strand of dried lichen in it, next to the edge, then picked up a burning stick and lit it. It sputtered a bit; then a pool of oil started to form in the bottom of the bowl and was absorbed by the lichen, causing a steadier flame and more even light within the wooden structure.
Ayla put cooking stones in the fire, then checked the level in the wooden water box. She started outside with it, but Dolando took it and went out to get more water instead. While he was gone, Ayla and Jondalar put the bedding on a sleeping platform. Then Ayla selected some dried herbs from her medicine packets to make a relaxing tea for all of them. She put other ingredients in some of her own bowls to have it ready for Roshario when she woke up. Not long after Dolando brought in the water, she gave cups of tea to each of them.
They sat in silence, sipping the warm liquid, which was a relief to Dolando. He was afraid they would want him to make conversation, and he was in no mood for it. It wasn't a matter of mood to Ayla. She simply didn't know what to say. She had come for Roshario's sake, though she would have preferred not to be there at all. The prospect of spending the night within the dwelling of a man who had raged in anger against her was not pleasant, and she was grateful Jondalar had chosen to stay with her. Jondalar was also at a loss for words and had been waiting for someone else to say something. When no one did, he felt that silence, perhaps, was most appropriate.
With timing that almost seemed planned, just as they were finishing their tea, Roshario began to moan and thrash about. Ayla picked up the lamp and went to her. She put it down on a wooden bench that also served as a bedside table, moving aside a damp woven cup of spicy fragrant gillyflowers. The woman's arm was swollen and warm to the touch, even through the wrappings, which were now tighter. The light and Ayla's touch woke the woman. Her eyes, glazed with pain, focused on the medicine woman, and she tried to smile.
"I'm glad you are awake," Ayla said. "I need to take off the sling and loosen the wrappings and splints, but you were thrashing in your sleep, and you need to keep your arm still. I'll make a fresh poultice that should lessen the swelling, but I want to make you something for the pain, first. Will you be all right for a while?"
"Yes, you go and do what you need to. Dolando can stay and talk to me," Roshario said, looking past Ayla's shoulder to one of the men standing behind her. "Jondalar, don't you think you should help Ayla?"
He nodded. It was obvious that she wanted to talk to Dolando in private, and he was just as happy to leave them alone. He brought in more wood for the fire, and then more water, and a few more river-smoothed, large pebbles to use for heating the liquid. One of the cooking stones had cracked when it was transferred from the hot fire to the fresh, cold water Dolando had brought in for tea. As he watched Ayla preparing her medications, he heard the low murmur of voices from the rear of the dwelling. He was glad he could not hear what they were saying. When Ayla finished treating Roshario and making her more comfortable, they were all tired and ready for sleep.
Ayla was awakened in the morning by the delightful sound of children laughing and playing, and Wolf's wet nose. When she opened her eyes, Wolf looked toward the entrance, where the sounds were coming from. Then he looked back at her and whined.
"You want to go out there and play with those children, don't you?" she said. He whined again.
She lifted off her covers and sat up, noticing that Jondalar was sprawled out in sound sleep beside her. She stretched, rubbed her eyes, and glanced toward Roshario. The woman was still sleeping; she had many wakeful nights to make up for. Dolando, wrapped in a fur cover, was sleeping on the ground beside her bed. He, too, had spent many sleepless nights.
When Ayla got up, Wolf dashed to the entrance and stood there waiting for her, his whole body wriggling with anticipation. She pushed back the flap and quickly stepped outside, but told Wolf to stay. She did not want him scaring anyone by dashing into the middle of something without warning. She looked across and saw several children of various ages in the pool made by the waterfall along with several women, all taking a morning bath. She walked toward them with Wolf close to her side. Shamio squealed when she saw him.
"C'mon, Wuffie. You should take a bath, too," the girl said. Wolf whined, looking up at Ayla.
"Would anyone mind if Wolf got in the pool, Tholie? Shamio seems to want him to come in and play."
"I was just getting out," the young woman said, "but she can stay in and play with him, if the others don't mind."
When no one made an objection, Ayla gave him a signal. "Go ahead, Wolf," she said. The wolf bounded into the water, making a big splash, straight to Shamio.
A woman who was coming out of the water alongside Tholie smiled, then said, "I wish my children would mind as well as that wolf does. How do you make him do what you want?"
"It takes time. You have to go over it a lot, make him repeat what you want many times, and it can be difficult to make him understand at first, but once he learns something, he doesn't forget. He's really very smart," Ayla said. "I've been teaching him every day while we were traveling."
"Sounds like teaching a child," Tholie said, "but why a wolf? I never knew you could teach them to do anything, but why do you do it?"
"I know he can be frightening to people who don't know him, and I didn't want him to scare anyone," Ayla said. Watching Tholie come out of the pool and dry herself, Ayla was suddenly aware she was pregnant. Not too far along yet, and her plumpness concealed it when she was dressed, but she was definitely pregnant. "I think I'd like to wash, too, but first I have to pass water."
"If you follow that path up the back, you'll find a trench. It's quite a ways up, over the far wall so it runs off the other side when it rains, but it's closer than going around," Tholie said.
Ayla started to call Wolf, then hesitated. As usual, he had lifted his leg in the bushes – she had taught him to go outside of dwellings, but not to use special places. She watched the children playing with him and knew he would rather stay, but she wasn't sure if she should leave him. She was sure everything would be fine, but she didn't know how the mothers would feel.
"I think you can leave him for a while, Ayla," Tholie said. "I've seen him around the children, and you were right. They'd all be disappointed if you called him away so soon."
Ayla smiled. "Thank you. I'll be right back."
She started up the path that traversed in a diagonal across the steepest incline to one wall and then switchbacked toward the other. When she reached the far wall she climbed over it on steps made out of short sections of logs. These were held in place with stakes pounded into the ground in front of them, so they would not roll, and filled in behind with stones and dirt.
The trench and a level area in front of it, lined with a low fence of smooth round logs to sit across, had been dug out of the sloping ground on the other side of the wall. The smell and the buzzing flies made its purpose obvious, but the sunlight shining through the trees, and the sound of birds made it a pleasant place to linger when she found herself moving her bowels, as well. She saw a pile of dried moss on the ground nearby and guessed its use. It was not at all scratchy and quite absorbent. When she was through, she noticed that fresh dirt had recently been scattered over the bottom of the trench.
The path continued downhill and Ayla decided to follow it a ways. As she walked along, the region felt so much like the area around the cave where she grew up that she had the haunting feeling she had been there before. She would come upon a rock formation that seemed familiar, or a space opening out at the crest of a ridge, or similar vegetation. She stopped to pick a few hazelnuts off a bush growing against a rock wall, and she could not resist pushing aside the low branches to see if there was a small cave hidden behind it.
She found another large mound of blackberry bushes with long thorny runners reaching out, heavy with clumps of sweet ripe fruit. She stuffed herself with them and wondered what had happened to the berries she had picked the day before. Then she remembered eating some at the welcoming feast. She decided she'd have to come back and get more for Roshario. Suddenly she realized that she had to return. The woman might be waking up and need some attention. The woods had felt so familiar that Ayla had forgotten where she was for a moment. Roaming the hillsides, she had felt like a girl again, using the excuse of looking for Iza's medicinal plants to explore.
Perhaps because it was second nature anyway, or because she had always looked harder for plants on her way back so she'd have something to show for her forays, Ayla paid close attention to the vegetation. She almost shouted with excitement, and relief, when she noticed the small yellow vines with tiny leaves and flowers twined around other plants that were dead and dried, strangled by the golden threadlike vines.
That's it! That's golden thread, Iza's magic plant, she thought. That's what I need for my morning tea, so I won't start a baby growing. And there's a lot of it. I was running so low that I didn't know if I'd have enough to last for the whole Journey. I wonder if there's antelope sage root around here, too? There ought to be. I'll have to come back and look.
She found a plant with large basal leaves and wove them together with twigs for a makeshift gathering container, then picked as many of the small plants as she could, without depleting the area entirely. Iza had taught her long ago always to leave some from which the next year's growth would start.
On the way back, she took a small detour through a thicker, more shaded patch of forest, to look for more of the waxy white plant that would soothe the horses' eyes, though they did seem to be improving. She scanned the ground under the trees carefully. With so much that was familiar, it shouldn't have come as a surprise, but when she saw the green leaves of one particular kind of plant, she gasped and felt a cold chill go through her.