by Jean M. Auel
“I never did use anything to guide Whinney, except the way I moved, but Racer is used to being guided by the straps. I think I would use them,” she said.
They both put the halter on Racer. Sensing something, he was friskier than usual, and they stroked and patted him to calm him down. They stacked up a couple of mammoth bones to give Jondalar something to stand on to mount the horse, then led the young horse beside them. At Ayla’s suggestion, Jondalar rubbed his neck, and his back, and down his legs, and leaned across him, scratching him and stroking him, and getting him entirely familiar with the feel of the man.
“When you first get on him, hold him around the neck. He may rear to try to shake you off his back,” Ayla said, trying to think of last-minute advice. “But he did get used to carrying the load on the way back from the valley, so he may not have much trouble getting used to you. Hold the lead rope, so it doesn’t fall on the ground and trip him, but I would just let him run, wherever he wants to go, until he gets tired. I’ll follow on Whinney. Are you ready?”
“I think so,” he said, smiling nervously.
Jondalar stood on the big bones, leaned across the shaggy, sturdy animal, talking to him, while Ayla held his head. Then he eased a leg across his back, settled himself down, and clasped his arms around Racer’s neck. When he felt the weight, the dark stallion laid his ears back. Ayla let go. He leaped up on his hind legs once, then he arched his back, trying to dislodge the load, but Jondalar held on. Then true to his name, the young horse broke out in a fast gallop and raced across the steppes.
Jondalar squinted into the cold wind, and felt a tremendous upsurge of sheer exhilaration. He watched the ground blur beneath him, and couldn’t believe it. He was actually riding the young stallion, and it was every bit as exciting as he had imagined it would be. He closed his eyes and felt the tremendous power of the muscles bunching and straining beneath him, and a sense of magical wonder washed over him, as though for the first time in his life, he was sharing in the wonder and creation of the Great Earth Mother Herself.
He felt the young horse tiring, and, hearing other hoofbeats, opened his eyes to see Ayla and Whinney racing beside him. He smiled his wonder and delight at her, and the smile she returned made his heart pound faster. Everything else faded to insignificance for the moment. Jondalar’s entire world was an unforgettable ride on the back of a racing stallion and the achingly beautiful smile on the face of the woman he loved.
Racer finally slowed, then drew to a halt. Jondalar jumped off. The young horse stood with his head hanging down almost to the ground, feet spread apart, sides heaving as he breathed hard. Whinney pulled up and Ayla jumped down. She took some pieces of soft leather out of the haversack, gave one to Jondalar, to rub down the sweaty animal, then she did the same for Whinney. The two exhausted horses crowded close together, leaning on each other for reassurance.
“Ayla, as long as I live, I’ll never forget that ride,” Jondalar said.
He hadn’t been so relaxed for a long time, and she felt his excitement. They looked at each other, smiled, laughed, sharing the wonder of the moment. Without thinking, she reached up to kiss him, he started to respond, then suddenly, he remembered Ranec. He stiffened, withdrew her arms from around his neck.
“Don’t play with me, Ayla,” he said, his voice hoarse with control, as he pushed her away.
“Play with you?” she said, hurt filling her eyes.
Jondalar closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, shook with the strain of trying to maintain control. Then, suddenly, like an ice dam bursting, it was too much. He grabbed her, kissed her; a hard, mouth-bruising, desperate kiss. The next instant she was on the ground, his hands beneath her tunic, tearing at her drawstring.
She tried to help him, to untie it for him, but he couldn’t wait. Impatiently, he grabbed at the waist of her soft leather leggings with both hands, and with the strength of denied passion that could be denied no more, she heard the ripping as he tore out the seams. He fumbled with the opening to his own trousers, then he was on top of her, wild in his frenzy, as his hard, throbbing shaft probed and searched.
She reached down to help guide him, feeling her own excitement mount as she realized what he so desperately wanted. But what was driving him to such ardent fury? What caused this craving need? Couldn’t he see that she was ready for him? She had been ready for him the whole winter. There was never a time that she wasn’t ready for him. As though her body itself had been trained from childhood to respond to his need, his signal, he had only to want her for her to want him. That was all she had been waiting for. Tears of need and love were in her eyes; she had waited so long for him to want her again.
With a passion as much denied as his, she opened to him, welcomed him, gave to him what he thought he was taking. She thrilled to the sensation of his long, hard member seeking her depths, filling her. He pulled back, and she hungered for him to return, to fill her again. She pushed to meet him when he did, pushed herself against his warm shaft, and felt the feeling deep inside tingle and grow. She arched her back to feel his movement, to press her place of Pleasure against him, to meet him again.
He cried out with the unbelievable joy of her. He had felt that way from the first time. They fit together, matched each other, her depth for his size, as though she was made for him, and he for her. O Mother. O Doni, how he had missed her. How he had wanted her. How he loved her. He drove in, felt the warm, wet caress of her enfold him, take him in, reach for more, until his full shaft was buried within her.
Deep surges of Pleasure washed over him, coming in waves that matched his movements. He dove in again, and again, as she reached for him, hungered for him, ached for him. With wild abandon, with no restraint, he came back, and back to her, faster and faster, and she met him every time, felt her tension grow with his, until the peak, the crest, the last wave of Pleasure broke over them both.
He rested on top of her, in the middle of the open steppes just burgeoning with new life. Then suddenly he clutched her, buried his head in her neck, and cried her name. “Ayla, oh, my Ayla, my Ayla.”
He kissed her neck, kissed her throat, kissed her mouth, then kissed a closed eye. Then he stopped, as abruptly as he began. He pulled up and looked down at her.
“You’re crying! I’ve hurt you! O Great Mother, what have I done?” he said. He jumped up and looked down at her, lying on the bare ground, her clothes torn. “Doni. O Doni, what have I done? I forced her. How could I do such a thing? To her, who only knew this pain in the beginning. Now I have done it to her. O Doni! O Mother! How could you let me do it?”
“No, Jondalar!” Ayla said, sitting up. “It’s all right. You didn’t hurt me.”
But he wouldn’t hear her. He turned his back, not able to look at her, and covered himself. He could not turn back. He walked away, angry at himself, filled with shame, and remorse. If he couldn’t trust himself not to hurt her, he would have to stay away from her, and make sure she stayed away from him. She is right to choose Ranec, he thought. I don’t deserve her. He heard her get up and go to the horses. Then he heard her walking toward him, and felt her hand on his arm.
“Jondalar, you didn’t …”
He spun around. “Stay away from me!” he snarled, full of guilty anger at himself.
She backed off. What had she done wrong now? “Jondalar …?” she said again, taking a step toward him.
“Stay away from me! Didn’t you hear me? If you don’t stay away from me, I may lose control and force you again!” It came out sounding like a threat.
“You didn’t force me, Jondalar,” she said as he turned and strode off. “You cannot force me. There is no time I am not ready for you.…”
But his thoughts were so full of remorse and self-loathing he didn’t hear her.
He kept walking, back toward the Lion Camp. She watched him go for some time, trying to sort out her confusion. Then she went back for the horses. She took Racer’s lead rope in her hand, and holding on to Whinney’s stand-up mane, mounted
the mare, and quickly caught up to Jondalar.
“You’re not going to walk all the way back, are you?” she said.
He didn’t answer at first, didn’t even turn around to look at her. If she thought he was going to ride double with her again … he thought, as she pulled up along side. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that she was leading the young stallion behind her, and he finally turned to face her.
He looked at her with tenderness and yearning. She seemed more appealing, more desirable, and he loved her more than ever, now that he was sure he’d spoiled it all. She ached to be near him, to tell him how wonderful it had been, how full and complete she felt, how she loved him. But he had been so angry, and she was so confused, she didn’t know what to say.
They stared at each other, wanting each other, drawn to each other, but their silent shout of love went unheard in the roar of misunderstanding, and the clatter of culturally ingrained beliefs.
27
“I think you should ride back on Racer,” Ayla said. “It’s a long way to walk.”
A long way, he thought. How long had he walked from his home? But he nodded, and followed her to a rock beside a small creek. Racer wasn’t used to having riders. It was still better to ease on him gently. The stallion’s ears went back, and he pranced a few skittish steps, but he settled down quickly and followed behind his dam as he had done many times before.
They didn’t speak on the way back, and when they arrived, they were both glad that people were either inside the lodge, or at some distance from it. Neither of them was in a mood for casual conversation. As soon as they stopped, Jondalar dismounted and headed for the front entrance. He turned back just as Ayla was going into the annex, feeling he should say something.
“Uh … Ayla?”
She stopped and looked up.
“I meant it, you know. I’ll never forget this afternoon. The ride, I mean. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Jondalar. Thank Racer.”
“Yes, well, Racer didn’t do it alone.”
“No, you did it with him.”
He started to say something else, then changed his mind, frowned, looked down, and went in through the front archway.
Ayla stared for a moment at the place he had been, closed her eyes, and struggled to swallow down a sob that threatened to start a flood. When she regained her composure, she went in. Though the horses had drunk from streams along the way, she poured water into their large drinking bowls, then pulled out the soft leather cloths, and started rubbing down Whinney again. Soon she just had her arms around the mare, leaning against her, her forehead pressed on the shaggy neck of her old friend, the only friend she’d had when she lived in the valley. Soon Racer was leaning on her, and she was caught in a vise between the two horses, but the familiar pressure was comforting.
Mamut had seen Jondalar come in the front, and heard Ayla and the horses in the annex. He had the distinct feeling that something was very wrong. When he saw her come into the Mammoth Hearth, her disheveled appearance made him wonder if she had fallen and hurt herself, but it was more than that. Something was troubling her. From the shadows of his platform he watched her. She changed, and he noticed her clothing was torn. Something must have happened. Wolf came racing in, followed by Rydag and Danug, who proudly held up a net bag with several fish in it. Ayla smiled and complimented the fishers, but as soon as they headed for the Lion Hearth to deposit their catch and collect more compliments, she picked up the young wolf and held him in her arms, and rocked back and forth. The old man was worried. He got up and walked over to Ayla’s bed platform.
“I’d like to go over the Clan ritual with the root again,” Mamut said. “Just to make sure we do everything right.”
“What?” she said, her eyes focusing on him. “Oh … if you want, Mamut.” She put Wolf into his basket, but he immediately jumped out and headed for the Lion Hearth and Rydag. He was in no mood to rest.
She had obviously been deep in some thought that was distressing her. She looked as though she had been crying, or was about to. “You said,” he began, trying to get her to talk, and perhaps unburden herself, “Iza told you how to prepare the drink.”
“Yes.”
“And she told you how to prepare yourself. Do you have everything you need?”
“It’s necessary to purify myself. I don’t have exactly the same things, it’s a different season, but I can use other things to cleanse myself.”
“Your Mog-ur, your Creb, he controlled the experience for you?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“He must have been very powerful.”
“The Cave Bear was his totem. It chose him, gave him power.”
“In the ritual with the root, were others involved?”
Ayla hung her head, then nodded.
There was something she hadn’t told him, Mamut thought, wondering if it was important. “Did they assist him in controlling it?”
“No. Creb’s power was greater than all of them. I know, I felt it.”
“How did you feel it, Ayla? You never did tell me. I thought women of the Clan were barred from participating in the deepest rituals.”
She looked down again. “They are,” she mumbled.
He lifted her chin. “Perhaps you should tell me about it, Ayla.”
She nodded. “Iza never did show me how to make it, she said it was too sacred to be wasted for practice, but she tried to tell me exactly how to do it. When we got to the Clan Gathering, the mog-urs didn’t want me to make the drink for them. They said I was not Clan. Maybe they were right,” Ayla added, putting her head down again. “But, there was no one else.”
Was she pleading for understanding? Mamut wondered.
“I think I made it too strong, or too much. They didn’t finish it all. Later, after the datura and the women’s dance, I found it. I was dizzy, all I could think of was that Iza said it was too sacred to be wasted. So I drank it. I don’t remember what happened after that, and yet I’ll never forget it. Somehow, I found Creb and the mog-urs, and he took me all the way back to the beginning of the memories. I remember breathing the warm water of the sea, burrowing in the loam … Clan and the Others, we both come from the same beginnings, did you know that?”
“I’m not surprised,” Mamut said, thinking how much he would have given for that experience.
“But I was frightened, too, especially before Creb found me, and guided me. And … since then, I’m … not the same. Sometimes my dreams frighten me. I think he changed me.”
Mamut was nodding. “That could explain it,” he said. “I wondered how you could do so much without training.”
“Creb changed, too. For a long time, it wasn’t the same between us. With me, he saw something he hadn’t seen before. I hurt him, I don’t know how, but I hurt him,” Ayla said, as tears welled up.
Mamut put his arms around her as she cried softly on his shoulder. Then her tears became the threatened flood, and she sobbed and shook with more recent grief. Her sadness for Creb brought up the tears she had been holding back, the tears of her sorrow, confusion, and thwarted love.
Jondalar had been watching from the cooking hearth. He had wanted to go to her, somehow make amends, and was trying to think of what to say when Mamut went over to talk to her. When he saw Ayla crying, he was sure she had told the old shaman. Jondalar’s face burned with shame. He couldn’t stop thinking about the incident on the steppes, and the more he thought about it, the worse it became.
And afterward, he said to himself, all you did was walk away. You didn’t even try to help her, didn’t even try to tell her you were sorry, or how terrible you felt. Jondalar hated himself and wanted to leave, to pack up everything and leave, and not face Ayla or Mamut, or anyone, again, but he had promised Mamut he would stay until after the Spring Festival. Mamut already must think I am contemptible, he thought. Would breaking a promise be that much worse? But it was more than his promise that held him. Mamut had said Ayla might be in danger, and no ma
tter how much he hated himself, how much he wanted to run away, Jondalar could not leave Ayla to face that danger alone.
“Do you feel better now?” Mamut said, when she sat up and wiped her eyes.
“Yes,” she said.
“And you were not harmed?”
Ayla was surprised by his question. How did he know? “No, not at all, but he thinks so. I wish I could understand him,” she said, as tears threatened again. Then she tried to smile. “I didn’t cry so much when I lived with the Clan. It made them uneasy. Iza thought I had weak eyes, because they watered when I was sad, and she would always treat them with special medicine when I cried. I used to wonder if it was just me, or if all the Others had watery eyes.”
“Now you know.” Mamut smiled. “Tears were given to us to relieve pain. Life is not always easy.”
“Creb used to say a powerful totem is not always easy to live with. He was right. The Cave Lion gives powerful protection, but difficult tests, too. I have always learned from them, and have always been grateful, but it is not easy.”
“But necessary, I believe. You were chosen for a special purpose.”
“Why me, Mamut?” Ayla cried out. “I don’t want to be special. I just want to be a woman, and find a mate, and have children, like every other woman.”
“You must be what you must be, Ayla. It is your fate, your destiny. If you were not able to do it, you would not have been chosen. Perhaps it is something only a woman can do. But don’t be unhappy, child. Your life will not be all trials and tests. There will be much happiness, too. It just may not turn out as you want it to, or as you think it should.”
“Mamut, Jondalar’s totem is the Cave Lion, too, now. He was chosen and marked, too, like I was.” Her hands unconsciously reached for the scars on her leg, but they were covered by her leggings. “I thought he was chosen for me, because a woman with a powerful totem must have a man with a powerful totem. Now, I don’t know. Do you think he will be my mate?”
“It is for the Mother to decide, and no matter what you do, you cannot change that. But if he was chosen, there must be a reason for it.”