As Ayla and Jondalar settled down for the night, both were wary of every sound they heard. The horses were staked nearby, and Ayla kept Wolf beside her bedroll, knowing he would warn her of anything unusual that he sensed, but she still slept poorly. Her dreams felt threatening, but amorphous and disorganized, with no messages or warnings that she could define, except that Wolf kept appearing in them.
She awoke as the first glimmerings of day broke through the bare branches of willow and birch to the east, near the stream. It was still dark in the rest of their secluded glen, but as she watched, she began to see thick-needled spruce and the longer needle-shafts of stone pine defined in the growing light. A fine powdering of dry snow had sprinkled down during the night, dusting evergreens, tangled brush, dry grass, and bedrolls with white, but Ayla was cozily warm.
She had almost forgotten how good it felt to have Jondalar sleeping beside her, and she stayed still for a while, just enjoying his nearness. But her mind would not stay still. She kept worrying about the day ahead and thinking over what she was going to make for the feast. She finally decided to get up, but when she tried to slip out of the furs, she felt Jondalar's arm tightening around her, holding her back.
"Do you have to get up? It's been so long since I've felt you beside me, I hate to let you go," Jondalar said, nuzzling her neck.
She settled back into his warmth. "I don't want to get up either. It's cold, and I'd like to stay here in the furs with you, but I need to start cooking something for Attaroa's 'feast,' and make your morning meal. Aren't you hungry?"
"Now that you mention it, I think I could eat a horse!" Jondalar said, eying the two nearby exaggeratedly.
"Jondalar!" Ayla said, looking shocked.
He grinned at her. "Not one of ours, but that is what I've been eating lately – when I've had anything at all. If I hadn't been so hungry, I don't think I would have eaten horsemeat, but when there is nothing else, you eat what you can get. And there's nothing wrong with it."
"I know, but you don't have to eat it any more. We have other food," she said. They snuggled together for a moment longer, then Ayla pulled back the fur. "The fire has gone out. If you start a new one, I'll make our morning tea. We'll need a hot fire today, and a lot of wood."
For their meal the evening before, Ayla had prepared a larger than usual amount of a hearty soup from dried bison meat and dried roots, adding a few pine nuts from the cones of the stone pines, but Jondalar had not been able to eat as much as he thought. After she put the rest aside, she had taken out a basket of small whole apples, hardly bigger than cherries, which she had found while trailing Jondalar. They had frozen but were still clinging to a dwarfed clump of leafless trees on the south face of a hillside. She had cut the hard little apples in half, seeded them, then boiled them for a while with dried rose hips. She left the result overnight near the fire. By morning it had cooled and thickened from the natural pectin to a sauce of a jellylike consistency with bits of chewy apple skin.
Before she made their morning tea, Ayla added a little water to the soup that was left and put extra cooking stones in the fire to heat it for their breakfast. She also tasted the thickened apple mixture. Freezing had moderated the usual tart sourness of the hard apples and adding rose hips had imparted a reddish tinge and a tangy sweet flavor. She served a bowl to Jondalar along with his soup.
"This is the best food I've ever eaten!" Jondalar said after the first few bites. "What did you put in it to make it taste so good?"
Ayla smiled. "It's flavored with hunger."
Jondalar nodded, and between mouthfuls he said, "I suppose you're right. It makes me feel sorry for the ones still in the Holding."
"No one should have to go hungry when there is food available," Ayla said, her anger flaring for a moment. "It's another thing when everyone is starving."
"Sometimes, near the end of a bad winter, that can happen," Jondalar said. "Have you ever gone hungry?"
"I've missed a few meals, and favorite foods always seem to go first, but if you know where to look, you can usually find something to eat – if you are free to go looking!"
"I've known of people who starved because they ran out of food and didn't know where to find more, but you always seem to find something to eat, Ayla. How do you know so much?"
"Iza taught me. I think I've always been interested in food and things that grow," Ayla said, then paused. "I guess there was a time when I nearly starved, just before Iza found me. I was young, and I don't remember much about it." A fond smile of remembrance flitted across her face. "Iza said that she never knew anyone who learned to find food as fast as I did, especially since I was not born with the memories of where or how to look for it. She told me that hunger taught me."
After he finished devouring a second large serving, Jondalar watched Ayla sort through her carefully hoarded preserved food supplies and begin preparations for the dish she wanted to make for the feast. She had been thinking about what container she could cook in that would be large enough to make the amount she would need for the entire S'Armunai Camp, since they had cached most of their equipment and brought only bare essentials with them.
She took down their largest waterbag and emptied it into smaller bowls and cooking utensils, then separated the lining from the hide covering, which had been sewn together with the fur side out. The lining had been made from the stomach of an aurochs, which was not exactly waterproof, but seeped very slowly. The moisture was absorbed by the soft leather of the covering and wicked away by the hair, which kept the outside essentially dry. She cut open the top of the lining, tied it to a frame of wood with sinew from her sewing kit, then refilled it with water and waited until a thin film of moisture had seeped through.
By then the hot fire they had started earlier had burned down to searing coals, and she placed the mounted waterbag directly over them, making sure she had additional water close at hand to keep the skin pot filled. While she waited for it to boil, she started weaving a tight basket out of willow withes and yellowed grasses made flexible by moisture from the snow.
When bubbles appeared, she broke strips of lean dried meat and some fatty cakes of traveling food into the water to make a rich, meaty broth. Then she added a mixture of various grains. Later she planned to mix in some dry roots – wild carrots and starchy groundnuts – plus other pod and stem vegetables, and dried currants and blueberries. She flavored it all with a choice selection of herbs including coltsfoot, ramsons, sorrel, basil, and meadowsweet, and a bit of salt saved since they left the Mamutoi Summer Meeting, which Jondalar didn't even know she still had.
He had no desire to go very far, and he stayed nearby gathering wood, getting more water, picking grasses, and cutting willow withes for the baskets she was weaving. He was so happy to be with her that he didn't want to let her out of his sight. She was just as happy to be in his company again. But when the man noticed the large quantity of their food supplies she was using, he became concerned. He had just been through a very hungry time and was unusually aware of food.
"Ayla, a lot of our emergency food stores are in that dish. If you use up too much, it could leave us short."
"I want to make enough for all of them, the women and the men of Attaroa's Camp, to show them what they could have in their own storage if they work together," Ayla explained.
"Maybe I should take my spear-thrower and see if I can find fresh meat," he said with a worried frown.
She glanced up at him, surprised at his concern. By far, the majority of the food they had eaten on their Journey had been gleaned from the land they passed through, and most of the time, when they did dip into their stores, it was more for convenience than necessity. Besides, they had more food supplies stashed away with the rest of their things near the river. She looked at him closely. For the first time, she noticed that he was thinner, and she began to understand his uncharacteristic misgivings.
"That might be a good idea," she agreed. "Maybe you should take Wolf with you. He's good at finding and flushing out game, and he could warn you if anyone was near. I'm sure Epadoa and Attaroa's Wolf Women are looking for us."
"But if I take Wolf, who will warn you?" Jondalar said.
"Whinney will. She'll know if strangers are approaching. But I would like to leave here as soon as this is done and head back to the S'Armunai settlement."
"Will you be very long?" he asked, his forehead knotted deeper as he weighed his alternatives.
"Not too long, I hope, but I'm not used to cooking this much at one time, so I'm not sure."
"Maybe I should wait, and go hunting later."
"It's up to you, but if you stay here, I could use more wood," she said.
"I'll get you some wood," he decided. Looking around, he added, "And I'll pack up everything you're not using so we'll be ready to go."
It took Ayla longer than she expected, and around midmorning, Jondalar did take Wolf to survey the area, more to make sure that Epadoa was not nearby than to look for game. He was a little surprised at how eager the wolf was to accompany him… once Ayla told him to go. He had always thought of the animal as hers alone and never considered taking Wolf along with him. The animal turned out to be good company, and he did flush something, but Jondalar decided to let him make a meal of the rabbit by himself.
When they came back, Ayla handed Jondalar a large hot serving of the delicious mixture she had prepared for the Camp. Though they usually ate no more than twice a day, as soon as he saw the bowl piled high with food, he realized that he was very hungry. She took some herself and gave a little to Wolf as well.
It was just after noon before they were ready to leave. While the food was cooking, Ayla had completed two rather steep-sided bowl-shaped baskets, both of good size but one somewhat larger than the other, and both were filled with the thick, rich combination. She had even added some oily pine nuts from the cones of the stone pines. She knew with their diet of mostly lean meat, it was the richness of fats and oils that would be most appealing to the people of the Camp. She also knew, without entirely understanding why, that it was what they needed the most, especially in winter, for warmth and energy, and, along with the grains, to make everyone feel full and satisfied.
Ayla covered the heaping bowls with inverted shallow baskets used as lids, lifted them to Whinney's back, and secured them in a roughly made holder of dry grass and willow withes that she had worked together quickly, since it would be used only once and then disposed of. Then they started back to the S'Armunai settlement, using a different route. On the way they discussed what to do with the animals once they reached Attaroa's Camp.
"We can hide the horses in the woods by the river. Tie them to a tree and walk the rest of the way," Jondalar suggested.
"I don't want to tie them. If Attaroa's hunters happened to find them, they'd be too easy to kill," Ayla said. "If they are free, at least they have a chance to get away, and they'll be able to come when we whistle. I would rather have them close by, where we can see them."
"In that case, the field of dry grass next to the Camp might be a good place for them. I think they would stay there without being tied. They usually stay close by if we put them where they have something to graze," Jondalar said. "And it would make a big impression on Attaroa and the S'Armunai if we both ride horses into the Camp. If they're like everyone else we've met, the S'Armunai are probably a little afraid of people who can control horses. They all think it has to do with spirits or magical powers or something, but as long as they're afraid, it gives us an edge. With only two of us, we need every advantage we can get."
"That's true," Ayla said, frowning, both because of her concerns for them and the animals, and because she hated the thought of taking advantage of the unfounded fears of the S'Armunai. It made her feel as if she were lying, but their lives were at stake, and very likely the lives of the boys and men in the Holding.
It was a difficult moment for Ayla. She was being required to make a choice between two wrongs, but she was the one who had insisted that they return to help, even though it put their own lives in jeopardy. She had to overcome her ingrained compulsion to be absolutely truthful; she had to choose the lesser wrong, to adapt, if they were to have any chance of saving the boys and men of the Camp, and themselves, from the madness of Attaroa.
"Ayla," Jondalar said. "Ayla?" he repeated, when she had not responded to his question.
"Uh… yes?"
"I said, what about Wolf? Are you going to take him into the Camp, too?"
She paused to think about it. "No, I don't think so. They know about the horses, but they don't know about a wolf. Considering what they like to do with wolves, I don't see any reason why we should give them an opportunity to get too close to him. I'll tell him to stay in hiding. I think he will, if he sees me once in a while."
"Where will he hide? It's mostly open country around the settlement."
Ayla thought for a moment. "Wolf can stay where I was hiding when I watched you, Jondalar. We can go around from here to the uphill side. There are some trees and brush along a small stream leading up to the place. You can wait for me there with the horses; then we can go back around and ride into the Camp from another direction."
No one noticed them entering the field from the fringe of woods, and the first ones who saw the woman and man, each on a separate horse, cantering across the open land toward the settlement, had the feeling that they had simply appeared. By the time they reached Attaroa's large earthlodge, everyone who could had gathered to watch them. Even the men in the Holding were crowded behind the fence watching through the cracks.
Attaroa stood with her hands on her hips and her legs apart, assuming her attitude of command. Though she would never admit it, she was shocked and more than a little concerned to see them, and this time both on horses. The few times that anyone had ever gotten away from her, he had run as far and as fast as he could. No one had ever voluntarily come back. What power did these two possess that they felt confident enough to return? With her underlying fear of reprisal from the Great Mother and Her world of spirits, Attaroa wondered what the reappearance of the enigmatic woman and the tall, handsome man might signify, but her words showed none of her worry.
"So you did decide to come back," she said, looking to S'Armuna to translate.
Jondalar thought the shaman seemed surprised, too, but he sensed her relief. Before she translated Attaroa's words into Zelandonii, she spoke to them directly.
"No matter what she says, I would advise you not to stay in her lodge, son of Marthona. My offer is still open to both of you," she said before repeating Attaroa's comment.
The headwoman eyed S'Armuna, sure she had spoken more words than were necessary to translate. But without knowing the language, she couldn't be sure.
"Why shouldn't we come back, Attaroa? Weren't we invited to a feast in our honor?" Ayla said. "We have brought our contribution of food."
As her words were translated, Ayla threw her leg over and slid down from Whinney's back, then lifted the largest bowl and set it on the ground between Attaroa and S'Armuna. She picked up the basket cover, and the delicious aroma from the huge mound of grains cooked with other foods made everyone stare in wonder as their mouths watered. It was a treat they had seldom enjoyed in recent years, especially in winter. Even Attaroa was momentarily overwhelmed.
"There seems to be enough for everyone," she said.
"That is only for the women and children," Ayla said. Then she took the slightly smaller woven bowl that Jondalar had just brought and put it down beside the first. She lifted the lid and announced, "This is for the men."
A murmuring undercurrent arose from behind the fence, and from the women who had come out of their lodges, but Attaroa was furious. "What do you mean, for the men?"
"Certainly when the leader of a Camp announces a feast in honor of a visitor, it includes all the people? I presumed that you were the leader of the entire Camp, and that I was expected to bring enough for all. You are the leader of everyone, aren't you?"
"Of course I am the leader of everyone," Attaroa sputtered, caught at a loss for words.
"If you aren't ready yet, I think I should take these bowls inside, so they don't freeze," Ayla said, picking up the larger bowl again and turning toward S'Armuna. Jondalar took the other.
Attaroa quickly recovered. "I invited you to stay in my lodge," she said.
"But I'm sure you are busy with preparations," Ayla said, "and I would not want to impose on the leader of this Camp. It is more appropriate for us to stay with the One Who Serves the Mother." S'Armuna translated, then added, "It is the way it is always done."
Ayla turned to go, saying to Jondalar under her breath, "Start walking toward S'Armuna's lodge!"
As Attaroa watched them go with the shaman, a smile of pure evil slowly altered her features, turning a face that could have been beautiful into a hideous, subhuman caricature. They were stupid to come back here, she thought, knowing that their return had given her the opportunity she wanted: her chance to destroy them. But she also knew she would have to catch them off guard. When she thought about it, she was glad to let them go with S'Armuna. It would get them out of the way. She wanted time to think and discuss plans with Epadoa, who had not yet returned.
For the time being, however, she would have to go along with this feast. She signaled one of the women, the one who had a baby girl and was a favorite, and told her to tell the other women to prepare some food for a celebration. "Make enough for everyone," the headwoman said, "including the men in the Holding."
The woman looked surprised, but she nodded and hurried away.
"I would guess you are ready for some hot tea," S'Armuna said, after she showed Ayla and Jondalar to their sleeping places, expecting Attaroa to come charging in any moment. But after they had drunk their tea without being disturbed, she relaxed a little. The longer Ayla and Jondalar were there without the headwoman objecting, the more it was likely they would be allowed to stay.
But as the tension of worrying about Attaroa eased, an uncomfortable silence descended on the three people seated around the hearth. Ayla studied the woman Who Served the Mother, trying not to be too obvious. Her face had a peculiar skew, the left side was much more prominent than the right, and she guessed S'Armuna might even have some pain in the underdeveloped right jaw when she chewed. The woman did nothing to hide the abnormality, wearing her graying, light brown hair with straightforward dignity, pulled back and up in a smooth bun near the top of her head. For some inexplicable reason, Ayla felt drawn to the older woman.
Ayla could not help but notice, however, a hesitancy in her manner, and she sensed that S'Armuna was pulled by indecision. She kept glancing toward Jondalar as if she wanted to say something to him but found it hard to begin, as if she were trying to find a delicate way to broach a difficult subject.
Acting on instinct, Ayla spoke up. "Jondalar told me that you knew his mother, S'Armuna," she said. "I wondered where you learned to speak his language so well."
The woman turned to the visitor with a look of surprise. His language, she thought, not hers? Ayla almost felt the shaman's sudden, intense evaluation of her, but her return gaze was just as strong.
"Yes, I knew Marthona, and the man she mated as well."
It seemed as though she wanted to say more, but instead she was silent. Jondalar filled the void, eager to talk about his home and family, especially with someone who once knew them.
"Was Joconan leader of the Ninth Cave when you were there?" Jondalar asked.
"No, but I'm not surprised that he became leader."
"They say Marthona was almost a coleader, like a Mamutoi head-woman, I suppose. That's why, after Joconan died…"
"Joconan is dead?" S'Armuna interrupted. Ayla sensed her shock and noted an expression that showed something akin to grief. Then she seemed to gather her composure. "It must have been a difficult time for your mother."
"I'm sure it was, although I don't think she had much time to think about it, or to grieve too long. Everyone was pressing her to be leader. I don't know when she met Dalanar, but by the time she mated him, she had been leader of the Ninth Cave for several years. Zelandoni told me she was already blessed with me before the mating, so it should have been lucky, but they severed the knot a couple of years after I was born, and he chose to leave. I don't know what happened, but sad stories and songs about their love are still recalled. They embarrass Mother."
It was Ayla who prompted him to continue, for her own interest, although S'Armuna's interest was also obvious. "She mated again, and had more children, didn't she? I know you had another brother."
Jondalar continued, directing his comments at S'Armuna. "My brother Thonolan was born to Willomar's hearth, and my sister Folara, too. I think that was a good mating for her. Marthona is very happy with him, and he was always very good to me. He used to travel a lot, go on trading missions for my mother. He took me with him sometimes. Thonolan, too, when he got old enough. For a long time I thought of Willomar as the man of my hearth, until I went to live with Dalanar and got to know him a little better. I still feel close to him, although Dalanar was also very kind to me, and I grew to love him, too. But everyone likes Dalanar. He found a flint mine, met Jerika, and started his own Cave. They had a daughter, Joplaya, my close-cousin."
It suddenly occurred to Ayla that if a man was as much responsible for starting a new life growing inside a woman as the woman was, then the "cousin" he called Joplaya was actually his sibling; as much a sister as the one named Folara. Close-cousin, he had called her; was that because they recognized it was a closer tie than the relationship to the children of a mother's sisters or the mates of her brothers? The conversation about Jondalar's mother had gone on while she pondered the implications of Jondalar's kin.
"…then my mother turned the leadership over to Joharran, although he insisted that she stay on as adviser to him," Jondalar was saying. "How did you happen to know my mother?"
S'Armuna hesitated for a while, staring into space as though she were seeing an image from the past; then slowly she began to speak. "I was little more than a girl when I was taken there. My mother's brother was leader here, and I was his favorite child, the only girl born to either of his two sisters. He had made a Journey when he was young and had learned of the renowned zelandonia. When it was felt that I had some talent or gift to Serve the Mother, he wanted me to be trained by the best. He took me to the Ninth Cave because your Zelandoni was First among those Who Serve the Mother."
"That seems to be a tradition with the Ninth Cave. When I left, our Zelandoni had just been chosen First," Jondalar commented.
"Do you know the former name of the one who is First now?" S'Armuna asked, interested.
Jondalar made a wry smile, and Ayla thought she understood why. "I knew her as Zolena."
"Zolena? She's young to be First, isn't she? She was just a pretty little girl when I was there."
"Young, perhaps, but dedicated," Jondalar said.
S'Armuna nodded, then picked up the thread of her story. "Marthona and I were close to the same age, and the hearth of her mother was one of high status. My uncle and your grandmother, Jondalar, made an arrangement for me to live with her. He stayed just long enough to make sure I was settled." S'Armuna's eyes held a faraway look; then she smiled. "Marthona and I were like sisters. Even closer than sisters, more like twins. We liked the same things, and shared everything. She even decided to train to be zelandoni along with me."
"I didn't know that," Jondalar said. "Maybe that's where she gained her leadership qualities."
"Perhaps, but neither of us were thinking about leadership then. We were just inseparable, and wanted the same things… until it became a problem." S'Armuna stopped speaking then.
"Problem?" Ayla encouraged. "There was a problem with feeling so close to a friend?" She had been thinking about Deegie, and how wonderful it had been to have a good friend, if only for a little while. She would have loved knowing someone like that when she was growing up. Uba had been like a sister, but as much as she had loved her, Uba was Clan. No matter how close she felt, there were some things they could never understand about each other, such as Ayla's innate curiosity, and Uba's memories.
"Yes," S'Armuna said, looking at the young woman, suddenly aware of her unusual accent again. "The problem was that we fell in love with the same man. I think Joconan may have loved us both. Once he talked of a double mating, and I think Marthona and I would have been willing, but by then the old Zelandoni had died, and when Joconan went to the new one for advice, he told him to choose Marthona. I thought then it was because Marthona was so beautiful and her face wasn't twisted, but now I think it may have been because my uncle had told them he wanted me to come back. I didn't stay for their Matrimonial; I was too bitter and angry. I started back soon after they told me."
"You came back here alone?" Jondalar asked. "Across the glacier by yourself?"
"Yes," the woman said.
"Not many women make such long Journeys, especially by themselves. It was a dangerous and a brave thing to do, alone," Jondalar said.
"Dangerous, yes. I almost fell into a crevasse, but I'm not sure how brave it was. I think my anger sustained me. But when I got back, everything had changed; I had been gone for many years. My mother and aunt had moved north, where many other S'Armunai live, along with my cousins and brothers, and my mother had died there. My uncle was dead, too, and another man was leader, a stranger named Brugar. I'm not sure where he came from. He seemed charming at first, not handsome, but very attractive in a rugged sort of way, but he was cruel and vicious."
"Brugar… Brugar," Jondalar said, closing his eyes and trying to remember where he had heard the name. "Wasn't he Attaroa's mate?"
S'Armuna got up, suddenly very agitated. "Would anyone like more tea?" she asked. Ayla and Jondalar both accepted. She brought them each fresh hot cups of the herbal beverage, then got one for herself, but before she sat down, she addressed the visitors. "I've never told all this to anyone before."
"Why are you telling us now?" Ayla asked.
"So you will understand." She turned to Jondalar. "Yes, Brugar was Attaroa's mate. Apparently he began to make changes shortly after he became leader, and he started by making men more important than women. Small things at first. Women had to sit and wait until they were granted permission to speak. Women were not allowed to touch weapons. It didn't seem so serious at first, and the men were enjoying the power, but after the first woman was beaten to death as punishment for speaking her mind, the rest began to realize things were very serious. By then people didn't know what had happened or how to change things back. Brugar brought out the worst in men. He had a band of followers, and I think the others were scared not to go along."
"I wonder where he ever got such ideas?" Jondalar said.
With a sudden inspiration, Ayla asked, "What did this Brugar look like?"
"He was strong-featured, rugged, as I said, but very charming and appealing when he wanted to be."
"Are there many people of the Clan, many flatheads, in this area?" Ayla asked.
"There used to be, but not too many any more. There are a lot more of them to the west of here. Why?"
"How do the S'Armunai feel toward them? Particularly those of mixed spirits?"
"Well, they are not considered abominations, the way they are among the Zelandonii. Some men have taken flathead women as mates, and the offspring are tolerated, but they are not well accepted by either side, as I understand it."
"Do you think Brugar could have been born of mixed spirits?" Ayla asked.
"Why are you asking all these questions?"
"Because I think he must have lived with, perhaps grown up with, the ones you call flatheads," Ayla replied.
"What makes you think so?" the shaman asked.
"Because the things you describe are Clan ways."
"Clan?"
"That's what 'flatheads' call themselves," Ayla explained, then began to speculate. "But if he could speak so well that he was charming, he could not have lived with them always. He probably was not born to them, but went to live with them later and, as a mixture, he would have been barely tolerated, and perhaps considered deformed. I doubt if he really understood their ways, so he would have been an outsider. His life was probably miserable."
S'Armuna was surprised. She wondered how Ayla, a complete stranger, could know so much. "For someone you never met, you seem to know a great deal about Brugar."
"Then he was born of mixed spirits?" Jondalar said.
"Yes. Attaroa told me about his background, what she knew of it. Apparently his mother was a full mixture, half-human, half-flathead; she had been born to a full flathead mother," S'Armuna began.
Probably a child caused by some man of the Others who forced her, Ayla thought, like the baby girl at the Clan Meeting who was promised to Durc.
"Her childhood must have been unhappy. She left her people when she was barely a woman, with a man from a Cave of the people who live to the west of here."
"The Losadunai?" Jondalar asked.
"Yes, I think that's what they are called. Anyway, not long after she ran away, she had a baby boy. That was Brugar," S'Armuna continued.
"Brugar, but sometimes called Brug?" Ayla interjected.
"How did you know?"
"Brug could have been his Clan name."
"I guess the man his mother ran away with used to beat her. Who knows why? Some men are like that."
"Women of the Clan are raised to accept that," Ayla said. "The men are not allowed to strike each other, but they can hit a woman to reprimand her. They are not supposed to beat them, but some men do."
S'Armuna nodded with understanding. "So perhaps in the beginning Brugar's mother took it for granted when the man she lived with hit her, but it must have gotten worse. Men like that usually do, and he started beating on the boy, too. That may have been what finally prompted her to leave. Anyway, she took him and ran away from her mate, back to her people," S'Armuna said.
"And if it was hard on her to grow up with the Clan, it must have been worse for her son, who was not even a full mixture," Ayla said.
"If the spirits mixed as expected, he would have been three parts human, and only one part flathead," S'Armuna said.
Ayla suddenly thought of her son, Durc. Broud is bound to make his life difficult. What if he turns out like Brugar? But Durc is a full mixture, and he has Uba to love him, and Brun to train him. Brun accepted him into the Clan when he was leader and Durc was a baby. He will make sure Durc knows the ways of the Clan. I know he would be capable of talking, if there was someone to teach him, but he may also have the memories. If he does, he could be full Clan, with Brun's help.
S'Armuna had a sudden inkling about the mysterious young woman. "How do you know so much about flatheads, Ayla?" she asked.
The question caught Ayla by surprise. She wasn't on her guard, as she would have been with Attaroa, and she wasn't prepared to evade it. Instead she blurted out the truth. "I was raised by them," she said. "My people died in an earthquake and they took me in."
"Your childhood must have been even more difficult than Brugar's," S'Armuna said.
"No. I think in a way it was easier. I wasn't considered a deformed child of the Clan; I was just different. One of the Others – which is what they call us. They didn't have expectations of me. Some of the things I did were so strange to them that they didn't know what to think of me. Except I'm sure some of them did think I was rather slow because I had such a hard time remembering things. I'm not saying it was easy growing up with them. I had to learn to speak their way, and I had to learn to live according to their ways, learn their traditions. It was hard to fit in, but I was lucky. Iza and Creb, the people who raised me, loved me, and I know that without them I would not have lived at all."
Nearly all of her statements raised questions in S'Armuna's mind, but the time was not appropriate to ask them. "It is a good thing that you have no mixture in you," she said, giving Jondalar a significant look, "especially since you are going to meet the Zelandonii."
Ayla caught the look, and she had an idea what the woman meant. She recalled the way Jondalar had first reacted when he discovered who had raised her, and it was even worse when he found out about her son of mixed spirits.
"How do you know she hasn't met them already?" Jondalar asked.
S'Armuna paused to consider the question. How had she known? She smiled at the man. "You said you were going home, and she said, 'his language' not hers." Suddenly a thought came to her, a revelation. "The language! The accent! Now I know where I've heard it before. Brugar had an accent like that! Not quite as much as yours, Ayla, though he didn't speak his own language as well as you speak Jondalar's. But he must have developed that speech… mannerism – it isn't quite an accent – when he lived with the flatheads. There is something about the sound of your speech, and now that I hear it, I don't think I'll ever forget again."
Ayla felt embarrassed. She had worked so hard to speak correctly, but she had never been quite able to make some sounds. For the most part, it had ceased to bother her when people mentioned it, but S'Armuna was making such an issue of it.
The shaman noticed her discomfiture. "I'm sorry, Ayla. I don't mean to embarrass you. You really do speak Zelandonii very well, probably better than I do, since I've forgotten so much. And it isn't really an accent you have. It's something else. I'm sure most people don't even notice. It's just that you have given me such an insight into Brugar, and that helps me to understand Attaroa."
"Helps you to understand Attaroa?" Jondalar asked. "I wish I could understand how someone could be so cruel."
"She wasn't always so bad. I really grew to admire her when I first came back, although I felt very sorry for her, too. But in a way, she was prepared for Brugar as few women could have been."
"Prepared? That's a strange thing to say. Prepared for what?"
"Prepared for his cruelty," S'Armuna explained. "Attaroa was used badly when she was a girl. She never said much about it, but I know she felt her own mother hated her. I learned from someone else that her mother did abandon her, or so it was thought. She left and nothing was heard from her again. Attaroa was finally taken in by a man whose mate had died in childbirth, under very suspicious circumstances, the baby with her. The suspicions were borne out when it was discovered that he beat Attaroa and took her before she was even a woman, but no one else wanted responsibility for her. It was something about her mother, some question about her background, but it left Attaroa to be raised with and warped by his cruelty. Finally the man died, and some people of her Camp arranged for her to be mated to the new leader of this Camp."
"Arranged without her consent?" Jondalar asked.
"They 'encouraged' her to agree, and they brought her to meet Brugar. As I said, he could be very charming, and I'm sure he found her attractive."
Jondalar nodded agreement. He had noticed that she could have been quite attractive.
"I think she looked forward to the mating," S'Armuna continued. "She felt it would be a chance for a new beginning. Then she discovered the man with whom she had joined was even worse than the one she had known before. Brugar's Pleasures were always done with beatings, and humiliation, and worse. In his way, he did… I hesitate to say he loved her, but I think he did have feeling for her. He was just so… twisted. Yet she was the only one who dared to defy him, in spite of everything he did to her."
S'Armuna paused, shook her head, and then continued. "Brugar was a strong man, very strong, and he liked to hurt people, especially women. I really think he enjoyed causing women pain. You said the flatheads don't allow men to hit other men, though they can hit women. That might have something to do with it. But Brugar liked Attaroa's defiance. She was a good deal taller than he was, and she is very strong herself. He liked the challenge of breaking down her resistance, and he was delighted when she fought him. It gave him an excuse to hurt her, which seemed to make him feel powerful."
Ayla shuddered, recalling a situation not too dissimilar, and she felt a moment of empathy and compassion for the headwoman.
"He bragged about it to the other men, and they encouraged him, or at least they went along with him," the older woman said. "The more she resisted, the worse he made it for her, until she finally broke. Then he would want her. I used to wonder, if she had been complaisant in the beginning, would he have grown tired of her and stopped beating her?"
Ayla thought about that. Broud had grown tired of her when she stopped resisting.
"But somehow I doubt it," S'Armuna continued. "Later, when she was blessed and did stop fighting him, he didn't change. She was his mate, and as far as he was concerned, she belonged to him. He could do whatever he wanted to her."
I was never Broud's mate, Ayla thought, and Brun wouldn't let him beat me, not after the first time. Though it was his right, the rest of Bran's clan thought his interest in me was strange. They discouraged his behavior.
"Brugar didn't stop beating her, even when Attaroa became pregnant?" Jondalar asked, appalled.
"No, although he seemed pleased that she was going to have a baby," the woman said.
I became pregnant, too, Ayla thought. Her life and Attaroa's had many similarities.
"Attaroa came to me for healing," S'Armuna was continuing, closing her eyes and shaking her head as if to dispel the memory. "It was horrible, the things he did to her, I cannot tell you. Bruises from beatings were the least of it."
"Why did she put up with it?" Jondalar asked.
"She had no other place to go. She had no kin, no friends. The people of her other Camp had made it clear to her that they didn't want her, and at first she was too proud to go back and let them know that her mating to the new leader was so bad. In a way, I knew how she felt," S'Armuna said. "No one beat me, although Brugar did try it once, but I believed there was no other place for me to go, even though I do have relatives. I was the One Who Served the Mother, and I couldn't admit how bad things had become. It would have seemed that I had failed."
Jondalar nodded his understanding. He, too, had once felt that he was a failure. He glanced at Ayla, and he felt his love for her warm him.
"Attaroa hated Brugar," S'Armuna continued, "but, in a strange way, she may have loved him, too. Sometimes she provoked him on purpose, I think. I wondered if it was because when the pain was over, he would take her and, if not love her, or even Pleasure her, at least make her feel wanted. She may have learned to take a perverse kind of Pleasure from his cruelty. Now she wants no one. She Pleasures herself by causing men pain. If you watch her, you can see her excitement."
"I almost pity her," Jondalar said.
"Pity her, if you want, but do not trust her," the shaman said. "She is insane, possessed by some great evil. I wonder if you can understand? Have you ever been filled with such rage that all reason leaves you?"
Jondalar's eyes were huge as he felt compelled to nod his assent. He had felt such rage. He had beaten a man until he was unconscious, and still he had been unable to stop.
"With Attaroa, it is as though she is constantly filled by such a rage. She doesn't always show it – in fact, she is very good at hiding it – but her thoughts and feelings are so full of this evil rage that she is no longer able to think or to feel the way ordinary people do. She is not human any more," the shaman explained.
"Surely she must have some human feeling?" Jondalar said.
"Do you recall the funeral shortly after you came here?" S'Armuna asked.
"Yes, three young people. Two men and I wasn't sure about the third, even though they were all dressed the same. I remember wondering what had caused their deaths. They were so young."
"Attaroa caused their deaths," S'Armuna said. "And the one you weren't sure of? That was her own child."
They heard a sound and turned as one toward the entrance of S'Armuna's earthlodge.