by Jean M. Auel
Creb and Iza were learning, too. They discovered that when Ayla made a certain grimace, pulling back her lips and showing her teeth, often accompanied by peculiar aspirating sounds, it meant she was happy, not hostile. They never completely overcame their anxiety at the strange weakness of her eyes that made them water when she was sad. Iza decided the weakness was peculiar to light-colored eyes and wondered if the trait was normal for the Others or if only Ayla’s eyes watered. To be safe, Iza flushed her eyes with the clear fluid from the bluish white plant that grew deep in shaded woods. The corpselike plant derived nourishment from decaying wood and vegetable matter since it lacked chlorophyll, and its waxy-looking surface turned black when touched. But Iza knew of no better remedy for sore or inflamed eyes than the cool liquid that oozed from its broken stem and applied the treatment whenever the child cried.
She didn’t cry often. Though tears quickly brought her attention, Ayla tried hard to control them. Not only were they disturbing to the two people she loved, but to the rest of the clan it was a sign of her differentness, and she wanted to fit in and be accepted. The clan was learning to accept her, but they were still wary and suspicious of her peculiarities.
Ayla was getting to know the clan and accept them, too. Though the men were curious about her, it was beneath their dignity to show too much interest in a female child no matter how unusual, and she ignored them as much as they ignored her. Brun showed more interest than the rest, but he frightened her. He was stern and not open to advances the way Creb was. She couldn’t know that to the rest of the clan, Mog-ur appeared far more aloof and forbidding than Brun, and they were amazed at the closeness that developed between the awesome magician and the strange little girl. The one she especially disliked was the young man who shared Brun’s fire. Broud always looked mean when he looked at her.
It was the women she became familiar with first. She spent more time with them. Except when she was within the boundaries of Creb’s hearthstones, or when the medicine woman took her along when she went to gather the plants unique to her own uses, she and Iza were usually with the female members of the clan. In the beginning, Ayla just followed Iza around and watched while they skinned animals, cured hides, stretched thongs cut in one spiral piece from a single hide, wove baskets, mats, or nets, gouged bowls out of logs, gathered wild foods, prepared meals, preserved meat and plant food for winter, and responded to the wishes of any man who called upon them to perform a service. But as they saw the girl’s willingness to learn, they not only helped her with the language, they began to teach her those useful skills.
She was not as strong as Clan women or children-her thinner frame couldn’t support the powerful musculature of the heavy-boned clan-but she was surprisingly dexterous and limber. The heavy tasks were difficult for her, but for a child, she did well weaving baskets or cutting out thongs of uniform widths. She quickly developed a warm relationship with Ika, whose friendly nature made her easy to like. The woman let Ayla carry Borg around when she saw the girl’s interest in the baby. Ovra was reserved, but she and Uka were especially kind to her. Their own grief at the loss of the young man in the cave-in made both sibling and mother sensitive to the child’s loss of her family. But Ayla had no playmates.
Her first flush of friendship with Oga cooled after the ceremony. Oga was torn between Ayla and Broud. The newcomer, although younger, was someone with whom she could have shared her girlish thoughts, and she felt empathetic toward the young orphan since she shared the same fate, but Broud’s feelings about her were obvious. Oga reluctantly chose to avoid Ayla in deference to the man she hoped to mate. Except when they worked together, they seldom associated, and after Ayla’s attempts at friendship were rebuffed several times, the girl withdrew and made no further efforts to socialize.
Ayla didn’t like playing with Vorn. Though a year her junior, his idea of playing usually involved ordering her around in conscious imitation of adult male behavior toward adult females, which Ayla still found hard to accept. When she rebelled, it brought down the wrath of both men and women upon her, especially from Aga, Vorn’s mother. She was proud that her son was learning to behave “just like a man,” and she was no less aware of Broud’s resentment of Ayla than the rest. Someday Broud would be leader, and if her son remained in his favor, he might be selected as second-in-command. Aga used every opportunity to increase her son’s stature, to the point of picking on the girl when Broud was near. If she noticed Ayla and Vorn together when Broud was around, she quickly called her son away.
Ayla’s ability to communicate improved rapidly, especially with the help of the women. But it was by her own observation that she learned one particular symbol. She still watched people-she hadn’t learned to close her mind to those around her-though she was less obvious about it.
One afternoon she watched Ika playing with Borg. Ika made a gesture to her son and repeated it several times. When the baby’s random hand movements seemed to imitate the gesture, she called the other women’s attention to it and praised her son. Later, Ayla saw Vorn run up to Aga and greet her with the same gesture. Even Ovra made the motion when beginning a conversation with Uka.
That evening she shyly approached Iza, and when the woman looked up, Ayla made the hand signal. Iza’s eyes flew open.
“Creb,” she said. “When did you teach her to call me mother?”
“I didn’t teach her that, Iza,” Creb responded. “She must have learned it herself.”
Iza turned back to the girl. “Did you learn that yourself?” she asked.
“Yes, mother,” Ayla gestured, making the symbol again. She wasn’t exactly sure what the hand signal meant, but she had an idea. She knew it was used by children to the women who cared for them. Though her mind had blocked out memories of her own mother, her heart had not forgotten. Iza had replaced that woman whom Ayla had loved and lost.
The woman who had been childless for so long felt a surge of emotion. “My daughter,” Iza said with a rare spontaneous hug. “My child. I knew she was my daughter from the first, Creb. Didn’t I tell you? She was given to me; the spirits meant for her to be mine, I’m sure of it.”
Creb didn’t argue with her. Perhaps she was right.
After that evening, the child’s nightmares decreased, though she still had them occasionally. Two dreams recurred most frequently. One was of hiding in a small cramped cave trying to get out of the way of a huge, sharp claw. The other was more vague and more disturbing. There was a sensation of the earth moving, a deep rolling rumble, and an infinitely painful sense of loss. She cried out in her strange language, used less and less, when she awoke and clung to Iza. When she first came to them, she lapsed into her own tongue sometimes without realizing it, but as she learned to communicate more in the way of the Clan, it only came out in her dreams. After a time, it even left her dreams, but she never woke from the haunting nightmare of crumbling earth without a feeling of desolation.
The short hot summer passed and the light morning frosts of autumn brought a nip to the air and a brilliant splash of scarlet and amber to the verdant forest. A few early snows, sluiced away by heavy seasonal rains that stripped branches of their colorful cloaks, hinted at the coming cold. Later, when only a few tenacious leaves still clung to the bare branches of trees and shrubs, a brief interlude of bright sunshine brought a last reminder of summer heat before the harsh winds and bitter cold closed down most outside activities.
The clan was out, savoring the sun. On the broad front exposure of the cave the women were winnowing grain harvested from the grassy steppes below. A brisk wind kicked up an extravagance of dry leaves, lending a semblance of life to the whirling vestiges of summer’s fullness. Taking advantage of the gusty air, the women tossed up the grain from wide shallow baskets, letting the wind carry away the chaff before they caught the heavier seeds.
Iza was leaning over behind Ayla, her hands over the girl’s as she held the basket, showing her how to fling the grain high in the air without throwing it out with
the husks and bits of straw.
Ayla was conscious of Iza’s hard, protruding stomach against her back and felt the strong contraction that made the woman stop suddenly. Shortly afterward, Iza left the group and went into the cave, followed by Ebra and Uka. The girl shot an apprehensive glance at the knot of men who had stopped their conversation and followed the women with their eyes, expecting them to reprimand the three women for leaving while there was still work to be done. But the men were inexplicably permissive. Ayla decided to chance their displeasure and followed after the women.
In the cave, Iza was resting on her sleeping fur with Ebra and Uka on either side of her. Why is Iza lying down in the middle of the day? Ayla thought. Is she sick? Iza saw the girl’s worried look and made a gesture of reassurance, but it didn’t ease Ayla’s concern. It grew when she saw her adopted mother’s strained expression at the next contraction.
Ebra and Uka talked with Iza about ordinary things, all the food that was stored, the change in the weather. But Ayla had learned enough to pick up their concern from the expressions and posture of the women. Something was wrong, she was sure. Ayla decided nothing would make her leave Iza until she found out what it was, and she sat down near her feet to wait.
Toward evening, Ika walked over with Borg on her hip, then Aga brought her daughter, Ona, and both women sat and visited while they nursed, adding their moral support. Ovra and Oga were full of concern, and curiosity, when they crowded around Iza’s bed. Though Uka’s daughter was not mated yet, she was a woman, and Ovra knew she could bring forth life now. Oga would soon become a woman, and they were both intensely interested in the process Iza was going through.
When Vorn saw Aba go over and sit beside her daughter, he wanted to know why all the women were at Mog-ur’s fire. He wandered over and crawled on Aga’s lap beside his sibling to see what was going on, but Ona was still nursing, so the old woman picked up the boy and held him on her lap. He couldn’t see anything of great interest, just the medicine woman resting, so he wandered off again.
The women started leaving not long afterward, to begin preparing evening meals. Uka stayed with Iza, though Ebra and Oga kept glancing over inconspicuously while they cooked. Ebra served Creb as well as Brun, then brought food for Uka, Iza, and Ayla. Ovra cooked for her mother’s mate, but she and Oga returned quickly when Grod went over to Brun’s hearth to join the leader and Creb. They didn’t want to miss anything and sat down beside Ayla who hadn’t stirred from her place.
Iza only sipped a little tea and Ayla wasn’t very hungry either. She picked at her food, unable to eat with the tight knot constricting her stomach. What’s wrong with Iza? Why isn’t she getting up to make Creb’s evening meal? Why isn’t Creb here asking the spirits to make her well? Why is he staying with all the rest of the men at Brun’s hearth?
Iza was straining harder. Every few moments she took several quick breaths, then pushed hard holding the hands of the two women. Every member of the clan kept vigil as the night wore on. The men were clustered around the leader’s fire, apparently involved in some deep discussion. But the occasional surreptitious glances betrayed their real interest. The women visited periodically, checking on Iza’s progress, sometimes staying for a while. They all waited, united in their encouragement and anticipation while their medicine woman labored to give birth.
It was well after dark. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. Ebra spread out a hide while Uka helped Iza up into a squatting position. She was breathing hard, straining hard, crying out in pain. Ayla was trembling, sitting between Ovra and Oga who groaned and strained in sympathy with Iza. The woman took a deep breath, and with a long, teethgritting, muscle-straining push, the round crown of the baby’s head appeared in a gush of water. Another tremendous effort eased out the baby’s head. The rest was easier as Iza delivered the wet, squirming body of a tiny infant.
A final push brought forth a mass of bloody tissue. Iza lay down again, exhausted from her labor, while Ebra picked up the baby, extracted a gob of mucus from its mouth with her finger, and laid the newborn on Iza’s stomach. As she thumped the baby’s feet, the infant’s mouth opened and a loud squall announced the first breath of life of Iza’s first child. Ebra tied a piece of red-dyed sinew around the umbilical cord and bit off the part still attached to the placental mass, then lifted the baby for Iza to see. She got up and went back to her own hearth to report the medicine woman’s successful delivery and the gender of the child to her mate. She sat in front of Brun, bowed her head, and looked up at a tap on her shoulder.
8
“I am grieved to report,” Ebra said, making the customary gesture of sorrow, “Iza’s baby is a girl.”
But the news was not received with sorrow. Brun was relieved, though he would never admit it. The arrangement of the magician providing for his sibling, especially with the addition of Ayla to the clan, was working out well and the leader was reluctant to change it. Mog-ur was doing a creditable job of training the newcomer, much better than he expected. Ayla was learning to communicate and to behave within Clan customs. Creb was not only relieved, he was overjoyed. In his old age, for the first time in his life, he had come to know the pleasures of a warm and loving family, and the birth of a girl to Iza assured it would remain together.
And for the first time since they moved into the new cave, Iza could draw a breath free of anxiety. She was glad the birth had gone so well, as old as she was. She had attended many women who had far more difficulty than she. Several came close to dying, a few did, and more than a few babies as well. It seemed to her that babies’ heads were just too large for the women’s birth passages. Her worry over the actual delivery had not been nearly as great as her concern over the sex of the child. Such insecurity about the future was almost unbearable for Clan people.
Iza lay back on her fur, relaxing. Uka wrapped the infant in a swaddling of soft rabbit fur and laid the babe in her mother’s arms. Ayla hadn’t moved. She was looking with longing curiosity at Iza; the woman saw her and beckoned.
“Come here, Ayla. Would you like to see the baby?”
Ayla approached shyly. “Yes,” she nodded. Iza pulled back the covering so the girl could see the infant.
The tiny replica of Iza had a light down of brown fuzz on her head, and the boney occipital knob at the back was more noticeable without the thick head of hair she would soon have. The baby’s head was somewhat rounder than in adults, but still long, and her forehead sloped back sharply from her not quite fully developed brow ridges. Ayla reached out to touch the newborn’s soft cheek and the baby instinctively turned toward the touch, making small sucking noises.
“She’s beautiful,” Ayla motioned, her eyes full of soft wonder at the miracle she had seen. “Is she trying to talk, Iza?” the girl asked as the infant waved small clenched fists in the air.
“Not yet, but she will soon and you will have to help teach her,” Iza replied.
“Oh, I will. I’ll teach her to talk. Just like you and Creb taught me.”
“I know you will, Ayla,” the new mother said, covering her baby again.
The girl stayed protectively close by while Iza rested. Ebra had wrapped the afterbirth tissue in the hide that had been put down just before the delivery and hid it in an inconspicuous corner until Iza could take it outside to bury it in a place only she would know. If the baby had been stillborn, it would have been buried at the same time, and no one would ever mention the birth; nor would the mother show her grief openly, but a subtle gentleness and sympathy would be extended.
If the baby had been born alive but deformed, or if the leader of the clan decided the newborn was unacceptable for some other reason, the mother’s task would have been more onerous. Then she would be required to take the baby away and bury it or leave it exposed to the elements and carnivores. Rarely was a deformed child allowed to live; if it was female, almost never. If a baby was male, especially first-born, and if the woman’s mate wanted the child, he could at the discretion of the leader
be allowed to remain with his mother for the first seven days of his life as a test of his ability to survive. Any child still alive after seven days, by Clan tradition which had the force of law, had to be named and accepted into the clan.
The first days of Creb’s life had hung in just such a balance. His mother had barely survived his birth. Her mate was also the leader and the decision of whether the newborn male would be allowed to live rested solely with him. But his decision was made more for the woman’s sake than for the baby’s, whose malformed head and unmoving limbs gave early indication of the damage the difficult birth had inflicted. She was too weak, she had lost too much blood, she hovered on the edge of death herself. Her mate could not require that she dispose of the child; she was too weak to do it. If the mother couldn’t do it, or if she died, the task fell to the medicine woman, but Creb’s mother was the medicine woman of the clan. So he was left with his mother, though no one expected him to survive.
His mother’s milk was slow to start. When he clung to life against all odds, another nursing woman took pity on the poor infant and fed Creb his first life-sustaining nourishment. In such tenuous circumstances, life began for Mog-ur, the holiest of holy men, the most skilled and powerful magician of the entire Clan.
Now the crippled man and his brother approached Iza and the baby. At a peremptory signal from Brun, Ayla quickly got up and moved away but watched from a distance out of the corner of her eye. Iza sat up, unwrapped her baby, and held her up to Brun, careful not to look at either man. Both men examined the infant, wailing loudly at being taken from her mother’s warm side and exposed to the cold air of the cave. They were just as careful not to look at Iza.
“The child is normal,” Brun’s gesture announced gravely. “She may stay with her mother. If she lives until the naming day, she will be accepted.”