by Jean M. Auel
It was the young girl’s first experience with grave illness in one she loved, and the effect was traumatic. She watched everything Ayla did, helped her, and it opened up an understanding of her own heritage and destiny. Uba wasn’t the only one who watched Ayla. The whole clan was concerned for the medicine woman and not entirely certain of the young woman’s skill. She was oblivious to their apprehension; her complete attention was focused on the woman she called mother.
Ayla searched her brain for every remedy Iza had ever taught her, she questioned Uba for the information she knew was stored in the child’s memory, and applied a certain logic of her own. The special talent Iza had noticed, an ability to discover and treat the real problem, was Ayla’s forte. She was a diagnostician. From small clues, she could put together a picture like pieces of a puzzle and fill in the blanks with reasoning and intuition. It was an ability for which her brain alone, among all those who shared the cave, was uniquely suited. The crisis of Iza’s illness was the stimulus that sharpened her talent.
Ayla applied the remedies she had learned from the medicine woman, then tried new techniques that suggested themselves from other uses, sometimes far removed. Whatever it was, the medication, or the loving care, or the medicine woman’s own will to live—most likely it was all of them—by the time winter had piled high drifts against the wind barriers at the entrance, Iza was sufficiently recovered to take charge of Ayla’s pregnancy again. It was none too soon.
The strain of nursing Iza back to health had its effect. Ayla spotted blood continuously the rest of the winter and lived with a constant backache. She woke in the middle of the night with cramps in her legs and still vomited frequently. Iza expected her to lose the baby anytime. She didn’t know how Ayla hung on to it, and she didn’t know how the baby could continue to develop with Ayla so weak. But develop it did. The young woman’s stomach swelled to unbelievable proportions, and the baby kicked so vigorously and continuously she could hardly sleep. Iza had never seen a woman suffer through a more difficult pregnancy.
Ayla never complained. She was afraid Iza would think she was ready to give the baby up, though she was much too far along for the medicine woman to consider it. Nor did Ayla consider it. Her suffering only made her more convinced that if she lost this one, she would never have another baby.
From her bed, Ayla watched the spring rains wash away the snow, and the first crocus she saw was one Uba brought her. Iza wouldn’t let her out of the cave. The pussy willows had blown and turned green, and the first buds hinted at verdant foliage on the soggy spring day early in her eleventh year when Ayla’s labor began.
The beginning contractions were easy. Ayla sipped willow-bark tea, talking to Iza and Uba, excitedly pleased that the time had finally come. By the next day, she was sure, she would be holding her own baby in her arms. Iza had reservations but tried not to show them. The conversation turned, as it did so often lately with Iza and her two daughters, to medicine.
“Mother, what was that root you brought me the day you went out and got so sick?” Ayla motioned.
“It’s called rattlesnake root. It’s not commonly used because it should be chewed when it’s fresh, and it must be collected in late fall. It’s very good for preventing miscarriage, but how many women threaten to miscarry only in late fall? It loses its effectiveness when it’s dried.”
“What does it look like?” Uba asked. Iza’s illness had sharpened Uba’s interest in the healing herbs she would one day dispense, and both Iza and Ayla were training her. But training Uba was different from training Ayla. To gain the full value of her brain, Uba only needed to be reminded of what she knew and see how it was applied.
“It’s really two plants, a male and a female. It has a long stalk growing out of a cluster of leaves near the ground, and small flowers clinging close to the top, partway down the stalk. The male flowers are white. The root is from the female plant; its flowers are smaller and green.”
“Did you say it grows in pine forests?” Ayla motioned.
“Only damp ones. It likes moisture, bogs, wet places in meadows, often in upland woods.”
“You should never have gone out that day, Iza. I was so worried.… Oh, wait, another one is starting!”
The medicine woman studied Ayla. She was trying to judge how long the pains were. It would be a long time yet, she decided.
“It wasn’t raining when I started out,” Iza said. “I thought it was going to be warm that day. I was wrong. Fall weather is always unpredictable. I’ve been wanting to ask you something, Ayla. I was delirious with fever part of the time, but I thought you made a chest plaster out of herbs used to relieve Creb’s rheumatism.”
“I did.”
“I didn’t teach you that.”
“I know. You were coughing so hard, spitting so much blood, I wanted to give you something to calm the spasms, but I thought you should bring up the phlegm without so much effort, too. That medicine for Creb’s rheumatism penetrates deep with warmth and stimulates the blood. I thought it might loosen the phlegm so you wouldn’t have to cough so hard to bring it up, then I could still give you the decoction to calm the spasms. It seemed to work.”
“Yes, I think it did.” After Ayla explained her reasoning, it seemed logical, but Iza wondered if she would have considered it. I was right, Iza thought. She is a good medicine woman, and she’s going to get better. She deserves the status of my line. I must talk to Creb. It may not be much longer before I leave this world. Ayla is a woman now, she should be medicine woman—if she survives this birth.
After the morning meal, Oga strolled over with Grev, her second son, and sat beside Ayla while she nursed. Ovra joined them soon after. The three young women chatted amiably between Ayla’s contractions, though no mention was made of her forthcoming delivery. All through the morning while Ayla was in the first stage of labor, the women of the clan visited Creb’s hearth. Some just stopped for a few moments to offer moral support with their presence, some sat with her almost continuously. There were always a few women seated around her bed, but Creb stayed away. He paced nervously in and out of the cave, stopping to exchange a few gestures with the men gathered at Brun’s hearth, but not able to stay in one place too long. The hunt planned for that day was postponed. Brun’s excuse was that it was still too wet, but everyone knew the real reason.
By late afternoon, Ayla’s labor was stronger. Iza gave her a root decoction of a certain yam with special qualities that relieved the pain of childbirth. As the day dragged into evening, her contractions got stronger and closer together. Ayla lay in her bed, drenched with sweat, clutching Iza’s hand. She tried to stifle her cries, but as the sun dropped below the horizon, Ayla was writhing in pain, screaming with every convulsion that racked her body. Most of the women couldn’t bear to stay near anymore; everyone except Ebra went back to their own hearths. They found some chore to keep busy, glancing up when Ayla started into another agonized scream. Conversation had stopped around Brun’s fire, too. The men sat listlessly, staring at the ground. Every attempt at small talk was cut short by Ayla’s cries of pain.
“Her hips are too narrow, Ebra,” Iza gestured. “They won’t let her birth canal open wide enough.”
“Would breaking the water sac help? It does sometimes,” Ebra suggested.
“I’ve been thinking of that. I didn’t want to do it too soon; she couldn’t stand a dry birth. I was hoping it would break itself, but she’s getting weaker and not making much progress. Perhaps I’d better do it now. Will you give me that slippery-elm stick? She’s starting another contraction, I’ll do it when this one is over.”
Ayla arched her back and gripped the hands of the two women as a crescendo of convulsing agony was torn from her lips.
“Ayla, I’m going to try to help you,” Iza motioned after the contraction passed. “Do you understand me?”
Ayla nodded mutely.
“I’m going to break the water, then I want you to get up into a squatting position. It helps if the
baby is pushed downward. Can you do it?”
“I’ll try,” Ayla waved weakly.
Iza inserted the slippery-elm stick, and Ayla’s birth waters gushed out, bringing on another contraction.
“Get up now, Ayla,” the medicine woman motioned. She and Ebra pulled the weakened young woman up from her bed and supported her while she squatted on the leather hide, like the one placed under all women when they gave birth.
“Push now, Ayla. Push hard.” She strained with the next pain.
“She’s too weak,” Ebra signaled. “She can’t push hard enough.”
“Ayla, you’ve got to push harder,” Iza commanded.
“I can’t,” Ayla motioned.
“You must, Ayla. You must or your baby will die,” Iza said. She didn’t mention that Ayla, too, would die. Iza could see her muscles bunching for another contraction.
“Now, Ayla! Now! Push! Push as hard as you can,” Iza urged.
I can’t let my baby die, Ayla thought. I can’t. I’ll never have another baby if this one dies. From some unknown reserve, Ayla drew a last surge of strength. As the pain mounted, she took a deep breath and grabbed Iza’s hand for support. She bore down with an effort that brought beads of sweat to her forehead. Her head swam dizzily. It felt as though her bones were cracking, as though she was trying to force her insides out.
“Good, Ayla, good,” Iza encouraged. “The head is showing, one more like that.”
Ayla gulped another breath of air and strained again. She felt skin and muscles tear, and still she pushed. With a gush of thick red blood, the baby’s head was forced through the narrow birth canal. Iza took it and pulled, but the worst was over.
“Just a little more, Ayla, just enough for the afterbirth.” Ayla strained once more, felt her head whirl and everything go dark, and collapsed, unconscious.
Iza tied a red-dyed piece of sinew around the newborn’s umbilical cord and bit off the rest. She thumped the feet until a mewling cry became a loud squall. The baby’s alive, Iza thought with relief as she began to clean the infant. Then her heart sank. After all her suffering, after all she’s been through, why this? She wanted the baby so much. Iza wrapped the infant in the soft rabbit skin Ayla had made, then made a poultice of chewed roots for Ayla, held in place with an absorbent leather strap. Ayla groaned and opened her eyes.
“My baby, Iza. Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked.
“It’s a boy, Ayla,” the woman said, then quickly continued so her hopes would not be raised, “but he’s deformed.”
Ayla’s first hint of a smile turned to a look of horror. “No! He can’t be! Let me see him!”
Iza brought the infant to her. “I was afraid of this. It often happens when a woman’s pregnancy is difficult. I’m sorry, Ayla.”
The young woman opened the cover and looked at her tiny son. His arms and legs were thinner than Uba’s when she was born, and longer, but he had the right number of fingers and toes in the right places. His tiny penis and testes gave mute evidence of his sex. But his head was definitely unnatural. It was abnormally large, the cause of Ayla’s difficult delivery, and a little misshapen from his harrowing entrance into the world, but that in itself was no cause for alarm. Iza knew it was only the result of the pressures of birth and would quickly straighten out. It was the conformation of the head, the basic shape, that would never change, that was deformed, and the thin, scrawny neck that was unable to support the baby’s huge head.
Ayla’s baby had heavy brow ridges, like people of the Clan, but his forehead, rather than sloping back, rose high and straight above the brows, bulging, to Iza’s eyes, into a high crown before it swept back in a long, full shape. But the back of his head was not quite as long as it should have been. It looked as though the baby’s skull was pushed forward into the bulging forehead and crown, shortening and rounding the back. He had only a nominal occipital bun at the rear and his features were oddly altered. He had large round eyes, but his nose was much smaller than normal. His mouth was large, his jaws were not quite as large as Clan jaws; but below his mouth was a boney protrusion disfiguring his face, a well-developed, slightly receding chin, entirely lacking in Clan people. The baby’s head flopped back when Iza first picked him up and she automatically put her hand behind it for support, shaking her own head on her short, thick neck. She doubted if the boy would ever be able to hold his head up.
The baby nuzzled toward the warmth of his mother as he lay in Ayla’s arms, already looking to suck as though he hadn’t had enough before his birth. She helped him to her breast.
“You shouldn’t, Ayla,” Iza said gently. “You should not add to his life when it must soon be taken away. It will only make it harder for you to get rid of him.”
“Get rid of him?” Ayla looked stricken. “How can I get rid of him? He’s my baby, my son.”
“You have no choice, Ayla. It’s the way. A mother must always dispose of a deformed child she has brought into the world. It’s best to do it as soon as possible, before Brun commands it.”
“But Creb was deformed. He was allowed to live,” Ayla protested.
“His mother’s mate was the leader of the clan; he allowed it. You have no mate, Ayla, no man to speak for your son. I told you in the beginning your child could be unlucky if you gave birth before you were mated. Doesn’t his deformity prove it, Ayla? Why let a child live that will have nothing but bad luck all his life? It’s better to get it over now,” Iza reasoned.
Reluctantly, Ayla pulled her son away from her breast, tears overflowing her eyes. “Oh, Iza,” she cried, “I wanted a baby so much, a baby of my own like other women. I never thought I’d have one. I was so happy. I didn’t care if I was sick, I just wanted my own baby. It was so hard, I didn’t think he’d ever come, but when you said he’d die, I had to push. If he has to die anyway, why was it so hard? Mother, I want my baby, don’t make me get rid of him.”
“I know it’s not easy, Ayla, but it must be done.” Iza’s heart ached for her. The baby was searching for the breast so abruptly withheld, for the security and to satisfy his need to suck. She had no milk for him yet, that would take a day or so; there was only the thick, milky fluid that could impart to the infant her own immunity to diseases for the first few months of his life. He started whimpering and soon let go with a lusty howl, flailing his arms and kicking off the cover. His cry filled the cave with the demanding insistence of an angry, red-faced infant. Ayla couldn’t stand it. She put him back to her breast.
“I just can’t do it,” she gestured. “I won’t do it! My son is alive. He’s breathing. He might be deformed, but he’s strong. Did you hear him cry? Did you ever hear a baby cry like that? Did you see him kick? Look how he sucks! I want him, Iza, I want him and I’m going to keep him. I’ll leave before I’ll kill him. I can hunt. I can find food. I’ll take care of him myself!”
Iza paled. “Ayla, you can’t mean that. Where would you go? You’re too weak, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I don’t know, mother. Somewhere. Anywhere. But I won’t give him up.” Ayla was adamant, determined. Iza had no doubt the young mother meant what she said. But she was too weak to go anyplace; she’d die herself if she tried to save the baby. Iza was appalled to think Ayla would flaunt the customs of the Clan, but Iza was sure she would.
“Ayla, don’t talk like that,” Iza pleaded. “Give him to me. If you can’t, I’ll do it for you. I’ll tell Brun you are too weak; that’s reason enough.” The woman reached for the infant. “Let me take him. Once he’s gone, it will be easier to forget him.”
“No! No, Iza,” Ayla shook her head forcefully, clinging tighter to the bundle in her arms. She huddled over him, protecting him with her body, moving only one hand to speak with Creb’s abbreviated symbols. “I’m going to keep him. Somehow, some way, even if I have to leave, I am going to keep my baby.”
Uba was watching the two women, ignored by them both. She had seen Ayla’s bone-wrenching delivery, as she had seen other women give birth befo
re. No secrets of life or death were withheld from children; they shared the fate of the clan as much as their elders. Uba loved the golden-haired girl who was playmate and friend, mother and sister. The hard, painful birth had frightened the girl, but Ayla’s talk of leaving frightened her even more. It reminded her of the time when she had gone before, when everyone said she would never come back. Uba was sure if Ayla left now, she would never see her again.
“Don’t go, Ayla,” the girl ran up gesturing frantically. “Mother, you can’t let Ayla leave. Don’t go away again.”
“I don’t want to go, Uba, but I can’t let my baby die,” Ayla said.
“Can’t you put him high up in a tree like the mother in Aba’s story? If he lives for seven days, Brun will have to let you keep him,” Uba begged.
“Aba’s story is a legend, Uba,” Iza explained. “No baby can live outside in the cold with no food.” Ayla wasn’t paying attention to Iza’s explanation; Uba’s childish suggestion had given her an idea.
“Mother, part of that legend is true.”
“What do you mean?”
“If my baby is still alive after seven days, Brun has to accept him, doesn’t he?” Ayla asked earnestly.
“What are you thinking, Ayla? You can’t leave him outside hoping he’ll still be alive after seven days. You know it’s impossible.”
“Not leave him, take him. I know a place where I can hide, Iza. I can go there and take him with me and then come back on his naming day. Brun will have to let me keep him then. There’s a small cave …”
“No! Ayla, don’t tell me such things. That would be wrong. It would be disobedient. I can’t approve; it’s not the way of the Clan. Brun would be very angry. He’d search for you, he’d find you and bring you back. It’s not right, Ayla,” Iza admonished. She got up and walked toward the fire but turned back after a few steps. “And if you left, he’d ask me where you were.”