Earth's Children [02] The Valley of Horses

by Jean M. Auel

  “Thonolan … Thonolan … why did you have to keep on going? O Doni, why? Why did you take my brother,” he called out, his voice tight and strained. He tried to resist the crush of desolation, giving in to his pain, but he had never known such profound despair. “Why did you have to take him and leave me with no one? You knew he was the only person I ever … loved. Great Mother … He was my brother … Thonolan … Thonolan…”

  Ayla understood grief. She had not been spared its ravages, and she ached for him with empathy, wanting to comfort him. Without knowing how it happened, she found herself holding the man, rocking with him as he cried out the name in anguish. He didn’t know this woman, but she was human, and compassionate. She saw his need and responded to it.

  As he clung to her, he felt an overpowering force well up inside him, and, like the forces contained within a volcano, once released, there was no holding back. He heaved a powerful sob and his body shook with convulsive spasms. Great deep cries were torn from his throat, and each ragged breath cost him an agony of effort.

  Not since he was a child had he let go so completely. It was not his nature to reveal his innermost feelings. They were too overpowering, and he had learned early to keep them in check—but the outflowing brought on by Thonolan’s death exposed the raw edges of memories buried deep.

  Serenio had been right, his love was too much for most people to bear. His anger, let loose, could not be contained until it had run its course either. Growing up, he had once wreaked such havoc with righteous anger that he had caused someone serious injury. All his emotions were too powerful. Even his mother had felt forced to put a distance between them, and she had watched with silent sympathy when friends backed off because he clung too fiercely, loved too hard, demanded too much of them. She had seen similar traits in the man to whom she had once been mated, and to whose hearth Jondalar was born. Only his younger brother seemed able to handle his love, to accept with ease and deflect with laughter the tensions it caused.

  When he became too much for her to handle, and the whole Cave was in an uproar, his mother had sent him to live with Dalanar. It had been a wise move. By the time Jondalar returned, he had not only learned his craft, he had learned to keep his emotions under control, and he had grown into a tall, muscular, remarkably handsome man, with extraordinary eyes and an unconscious charisma that was a reflection of his depth. Women, in particular, sensed there was more to him than he was willing to show. He became an irresistible challenge, but no one could win him. As deep as they could go, they could not touch his deepest feelings; as much as they could take, he had more to give. He learned quickly how far to go with each, but to him the relationships were superficial and unsatisfactory. The one woman in his life able to meet him on his terms had made her commitment to another calling. They would have been a mismatch in any case.

  His grief was as intense as the rest of his nature, but the young woman who held him had known grief as great. She had lost everything—more than once; she had felt the cold breath of the spirit world—more than once; yet she persevered. She sensed that his passionate outpouring was more than the keening of ordinary sorrow, and, from her own loss, gave him surcease.

  When his racking sobs slackened, she discovered she was crooning under her breath as she held him. She had soothed Uba, Iza’s daughter, to sleep with her crooning; she had watched her son close his eyes to the sound; and she had nursed her own grief and loneliness with the same tuneless lulling tone. It was appropriate. Finally, drained and exhausted, he released his hold. He lay back with his head to the side, staring at the stone walls of the cave. When she turned his face to wipe away the tears with cool water, he closed his eyes. He would not—or could not—look at her. Soon, his body relaxed and she knew he slept.

  She went to see how Whinney was doing with her new foal, then walked outside. She felt drained as well, yet relieved. At the far end of the ledge, she looked down the valley and remembered her anxious ride with the man on the travois, her fervent hope that he would not die. The thought made her nervous; more than ever she felt the man must live. She hurried back into the cave and reassured herself that he still breathed. She brought the cold soup back to the fire—he had needed other sustenance more—made sure the medicinal preparations were ready for him when he woke, and then sat quietly beside him on the fur.

  She could not get enough of looking at him, and she studied his face as though she were trying to satisfy all at one time her years of yearning for the sight of another human. Now that some of the strangeness was wearing off, she saw his face as more of a whole, not just as the individual features. She wanted to touch it, to run her finger along his jaw and chin, to feel his light smooth eyebrows. Then it struck her.

  His eyes had watered! She had wiped wetness from his face; her shoulder was still damp from it. It’s not just me, she thought. Creb could never understand why my eyes watered when I was sad—no one else’s did. He thought my eyes were weak. But the man’s eyes watered when he grieved. The eyes of all the Others must water.

  Ayla’s all-night vigil and intense emotional reactions finally caught up with her. She fell asleep on the fur beside him though it was still afternoon. Jondalar woke up toward dusk. He was thirsty and looked for something to drink, unwilling to wake the woman. He heard the sounds of the horse and her newborn, but could only make out the yellow coat of the mare, who was lying down near the wall on the other side of the cave entrance.

  He looked at the woman then. She was on her back, facing the other way. He could see only the line of her neck and jaw, and the shape of her nose. He remembered his emotional outbreak and felt a little embarrassed, then remembered the reason for it. His pain drove out all other feelings. He could feel his eyes filling and closed them tightly. He tried not to think about Thonolan; he tried not to think about anything. Soon, he succeeded, and didn’t wake again until the middle of the night, and then his moans woke Ayla as well.

  It was dark; the fire was out. Ayla felt her way to the fireplace, got tinder and kindling from the place she kept her supply, then the firestone and flint.

  Jondalar’s fever was up again, but he was awake. He thought he must have dozed off, though. He couldn’t believe the woman had made a fire so fast. He hadn’t even seen the glow of coals when he awakened.

  She brought the man cold willowbark tea she had made earlier. He raised himself on one elbow to reach for the cup, and, though it was bitter, he drank for his thirst. He recognized the taste—everyone seemed to know the use of willowbark—but he wished for a drink of plain water. He was feeling an urge to urinate as well, but he didn’t know how to communicate either need. He picked up the cup which had held the willowbark tea, turned it over to show it was empty, then brought it to his lips.

  She understood immediately, brought a waterbag, filled his cup, and then left it beside him. The water assuaged his thirst, but it added to his other problem, and he began to squirm uncomfortably. His actions made the young woman aware of his need. She picked a stick of wood out of the fire for a torch and went to the storage section of the cave. She wanted a container of some sort, but once there found some other useful items.

  She had made stone lamps, nicking a shallow well into a stone that would hold melted fat and a moss wick, though she hadn’t used them much. Her fire usually provided sufficient light. She picked up a lamp, found the moss wicks, then looked for the bladders of congealed fat. When she saw the empty bladder beside them, she took that, too.

  She put the full one near the fire to soften and took the empty one to Jondalar—but she could not explain what it was for. She unfolded the pouring end, showed him the opening. He looked puzzled. There was no other way. She pulled back the cover, but when she reached between his legs with the open waterbag, he quickly got the idea and took it from her.

  He felt ridiculous lying flat on his back rather than standing up to let his stream flow. Ayla could see his discomfort and went to the fire to fill the lamp, smiling to herself. He’s not been hurt b
efore, she thought, at least not so badly that he couldn’t walk. He smiled a little sheepishly when she took the waterbag and went out to empty it. She returned it to him, to use when he needed, then finished putting oil in the lamp and lit the moss wick. She carried it to the bed and pulled the cover back from his leg.

  He tried to sit up to see, though it hurt. She propped him up. When he saw the lacerations on his chest and arms, he understood why it hurt more to use his right side, but it was the deep pain in his leg that concerned him more. He wondered how skilled the woman was. Willowbark tea did not make a healer.

  When she removed the bloody root-poultice, he worried even more. The lamp did not illuminate the way sunlight did, but it left no doubt as to the seriousness of his injury. His leg was swollen, bruised, and raw. He looked closer and thought he saw knots holding his flesh together. He wasn’t versed in the healing arts. Until recently, he hadn’t been any more interested than most healthy young men, but had any zelandoni ever tied and knotted someone together?

  He watched carefully while she prepared a new poultice, this time of leaves. He wanted to ask her what the leaves were, talk to her, try to get a measure of her skill. But she didn’t know any of the languages he knew. In fact, now that he thought of it, he hadn’t heard her talk at all. How could she be a healer if she didn’t talk? But she did seem to know what she was doing, and whatever it was she put on his leg, it did ease the pain.

  He let himself relax—what else could he do?—and watched her sponge a soothing wash onto his chest and arms. It wasn’t until she untied the strip of soft leather holding the compress that he knew his head had been injured. He reached up and felt a swelling and a sore spot before she bound on a fresh compress.

  She returned to the fireplace to heat the soup. He watched her, still trying to fathom who she was. “That smells good,” he said, when the meaty aroma wafted toward him.

  The sound of his voice seemed out of place. He wasn’t sure why, but it was something more than knowing he would not be understood. When he had first met the Sharamudoi, neither he nor they understood a word of each other’s language, yet there had been speech—immediate and voluble speech—as each strove to exchange words that would begin the process of communication. This woman made no attempt to begin a mutual exchange of words, and she responded to his efforts with only puzzled looks. She seemed not only to lack an understanding of the languages he knew, but to have no desire to communicate.

  No, he thought. That wasn’t quite true. They had communicated. She had given him water when he wanted it, and she had given him a container to make his stream, though he wasn’t sure how she knew he needed one. He didn’t form a specific thought for the communication they had shared when he gave vent to his grief—the pain was still too fresh—but he had felt it and included it in his wonderings about her.

  “I know you can’t understand me,” he said, rather tentatively. He didn’t know quite what to say to her, but he felt a need to say something. Once he started, words came easier. “Who are you? Where are the rest of your people?” He could not see much beyond the circle of light shed by the fire and the lamp, but he had not seen any other people, nor any evidence of them. “Why don’t you want to talk?” She looked at him but said nothing.

  A strange thought then began to insinuate itself into his mind. He recalled sitting near a fire in the dark before with a healer, and he remembered the Shamud talking about certain tests Those Who Served the Mother had to put themselves through. Wasn’t there something about spending periods of time alone? Periods of silence when they could not speak to anyone? Periods of abstinence and fasting?

  “You live here alone, don’t you?”

  Ayla glanced at him again, surprised to see a look of wonder on his face—as though he were seeing her for the first time. For some reason, it made her conscious of her discourtesy again, and she quickly looked down at the broth. Yet he had seemed unaware of her indiscretion. He was looking around at her cave and making his mouth sounds. She filiad a bowl, then sat down in front of him with it and bowed her head, trying to give him the opportunity to tap her shoulder and acknowledge her presence. She felt no tap, and when she looked up, he was gazing at her questioningly and speaking his words.

  He doesn’t know! He doesn’t see what I’m asking. I don’t think he knows any signals at all. With sudden insight, a thought occurred to her. How are we going to communicate if he doesn’t see my signals, and I don’t know his words?

  She was jarred by a memory of when Creb had been trying to teach her to talk, but she didn’t know he was talking with his hands. She didn’t know people could talk with their hands; she had only spoken with sounds! She had spoken the language of the Clan for so long that she could not remember the meaning of words.

  But I am not a woman of the Clan anymore. I am dead. I was cursed. I can never go back. I must live with the Others now, and I must speak the way they speak. I must learn to understand words again, and I must learn to speak them, or I will never be understood. Even if I had found a clan of Others, I would not have been able to talk to them, and they would not have known what I was saying. Is that why my totem made me stay? Until this man could be brought? So he could teach me to speak again? She shuddered, feeling a sudden cold, but there had been no draft.

  Jondalar had been rambling on, asking questions for which he didn’t expect answers, just to hear himself talk. There had been no response from the woman, and he thought he knew the reason. He felt sure she was either training to be, or in the Service of the Mother. It answered so many questions: her healing skills, her power over the horse, why she was living alone and would not speak to him, perhaps even how she had found him and brought him to this cave. He wondered where he was, but for the moment it didn’t matter. He was lucky to be alive. He was troubled, though, by something else the Shamud had said.

  He realized now, that if he had paid attention to the old white-haired healer, he would have known Thonolan was going to die—but hadn’t he also been told that he followed his brother because Thonolan would lead him where he would not otherwise go? Why had he been led here?

  Ayla had been trying to think of some way to begin to learn his words, and then she remembered how Creb had begun, with the name sounds. Steeling herself, she looked directly in his eyes, tapped her chest, and said, “Ayla.”

  Jondalar’s eyes opened wide. “So you have decided to talk after all! Was that your name?” He pointed to her. “Say it again.”

  “Ayla.”

  She had a strange accent. The two parts of the word were clipped, the insides pronounced back in her throat as though she were swallowing them. He had heard many languages, but none had the quality of the sounds she made. He couldn’t quite say them, but tried for the closest approximation: “Aaay-lah.”

  She almost couldn’t recognize the sounds he made as her name. Some people in the Clan had had great difficulty, but none said it the way he did. He strung the sounds together, altered the pitch so that the first syllable rose and the second dropped. She couldn’t ever remember hearing her name said that way, yet it seemed so right. She pointed at him and leaned forward expectantly.

  “Jondalar,” he said. “My name is Jondalar of the Zelandonii.”

  It was too much; she couldn’t get it all. She shook her head and pointed again. He could see she was confused.

  “Jondalar,” he said, then slower, “Jondalar.”

  Ayla strained to make her mouth work the same way. “Duh-da,” was as close as she could come.

  He could tell she was having trouble making the right sounds, but she was trying so hard. He wondered if she had some deformity in her mouth that kept her from speaking. Is that why she hadn’t been talking? Because she couldn’t? He said his name again, slowly, making each sound as clear as he could, as though he were speaking to a child, or someone lacking adequate intelligence, “Jon-da-lar … Jonnn-dah-larrr.”

  “Don-da-lah,” she tried again.

  “Much better!” he said, n
odding approvingly and smiling. She had really made an effort that time. He wasn’t so sure if his analysis of her as someone who was studying to Serve the Mother was correct. She didn’t seem bright enough. He kept smiling and nodding.

  He was making the happy face! No one else in the Clan ever smiled like that, except Durc Yet it had come so naturally to her, and now he was doing it.

  Her look of surprise was so funny that Jondalar had to suppress a chuckle, but his smile deepened and his eyes sparkled with amusement. The feeling was contagious. Ayla’s mouth turned up at the corners, and when his answering grin encouraged her, she responded with a full, wide, delighted smile.

  “Oh, woman,” Jondalar said. “You may not talk much, but you are lovely when you smile!” The maleness in him began to see her as a woman, as a very attractive woman, and he looked at her that way.

  Something was different. The smile was still there, but his eyes … Ayla noticed that his eyes in the firelight were deep violet, and they held more than amusement. She didn’t know what it was about his look, but her body did. It recognized the invitation and responded with the same drawing, tingling sensations deep inside that she had felt when she was watching Whinney and the bay stallion. His eyes were so compelling that she had to force herself to look away with a jerk of her head. She fumbled around straightening his bed coverings, then picked up the bowl and stood up, avoiding his eyes.

  “I believe you’re shy,” Jondalar said, softening the intensity of his gaze. She reminded him of a young woman before her First Rites. He felt the gentle but urgent desire he always had for a young woman during that ceremony, and the eager pull in his loins. And then the pain in his right thigh. “It’s just as well,” he said with a wry grin. “I’m in no shape for it anyway.”

  He eased himself back down on the bed, pushing aside and smoothing out the furs she had used to prop him up, feeling drained. His body hurt, and when he remembered why, he hurt deeper. He didn’t want to remember or think. He wanted to close his eyes and forget, sink into the oblivion that would end all his pain. He felt a touch on his arm and opened his eyes to see Ayla holding a cup of liquid. He swallowed it, and before long he felt the pain ease and a drowsiness overcome him. She had given him something that had caused it, he knew, and was grateful, but he wondered how she had known what he needed without his saying a word.