by Jean M. Auel
Startled, the horses jumped back, neighing and snorting, and raced off. The last, a hay-colored stallion, charged toward the man, then reared as if in warning, before galloping after the rest.
Jondalar turned and walked back to Whinney and Racer. Both were nervous. They, too, had been startled, and they had sensed the herd’s panic. He patted Whinney and put his arm around Racer’s neck.
“It’s all right, boy,” he said to the young horse, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just didn’t want them enticing you away before we had a chance to become good friends.” He scratched and stroked the animal with affection. “Imagine what it would be like to ride a stallion like that yellow one,” he mused aloud. “He would be difficult to ride, but then he wouldn’t let me scratch him like this, either, would he? What would I have to do for you to let me ride your back and go where I want you to go? When should I begin? Should I try to ride you now, or should I wait? You’re not full grown yet, but you will be soon. I’d better ask Ayla. She must know. Whinney always seems to understand her. I wonder, do you understand me at all, Racer?”
When Jondalar finally started back to the cave, Racer followed him, bumping him playfully and nuzzling his hand, which greatly pleased the man. The young horse did seem to want to be friends. Racer trailed him all the way back, and up the path into the cave.
“Ayla, do you have anything I can give Racer? Like some grain or something?” he asked as soon as he went in.
Ayla was sitting near the bed with an assortment of piles and mounds of objects arrayed around her. “Why don’t you give him some of those little apples in that bowl over there? I looked over some, and those have bruises,” she said.
Jondalar scooped out a handful of the small, round tart fruits, and fed them to Racer one at a time. After a few more pats, the man walked over to Ayla. He was followed by the friendly horse.
“Jondalar, push Racer out of there! He might step on something!”
He turned around and bumped into the young animal. “That’s enough, now, Racer,” the man said, walking back with him to the other side of the cave opening, where the young stallion and his dam customarily stayed. But when Jondalar went to leave, he was followed again. He took Racer back to his place again, but had no more luck getting him to stay. “Now that he’s so friendly, how do I get him to stop?”
Ayla had been watching the antics, smiling. “You might try pouring a little water in his bowl, or putting some grain in his feeding tray.”
Jondalar did both, and when the horse was finally distracted enough, walked back to Ayla, carefully watching behind him to make sure the young horse was no longer there. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m trying to decide what to take with me and what to leave behind,” she explained. “What do you think I should give Tulie at the adoption ceremony? It has to be something especially nice.”
Jondalar looked over the piles and stacks of things Ayla had made to occupy herself during the empty nights and long cold winters she had spent alone in the cave. Even when she lived with the Clan, she had become recognized for her skill and the quality of her work, and during her years in the valley, she’d had little else to do. She gave extra time and careful attention to each project, to make it last. The results showed.
He picked up a bowl from a stack of them. It was deceptively simple. It was almost perfectly circular and had been made from a single piece of wood. The quality of the finish was so smooth it almost felt alive. She had told him how she made them. The process was essentially the same as any he knew of; the difference was the care and attention to detail. First, she gouged out the rough shape with a stone adze, then carved it closer with a hand-held flint knife. With a rounded stone and sand, she smoothed both inside and out until hardly a ripple could be felt, and gave it a final finish with scouring horsetail fern.
Her baskets, whether open weave or watertight, had the same quality of simplicity and expert craftsmanship. There was no use of dyes or colors, but textural interest had been created by changing the style of weave, and by using natural color variations of the fibers. Mats for the ground had the same characteristic. Coils of ropes and twines of sinew and bark, no matter what size, were even and uniform, as were the long thongs, cut in a spiral from a single hide.
The hides she made into leather were soft and supple, but more than anything, he was impressed with her furs. It was one thing to make buckskin pliable by scraping off the grain with the fur on the outside, as well as scraping the inside, but with the fur left on, hides were usually stiffer. Ayla’s were not only luxurious on the fur side but velvety soft and yielding on the inside.
“What are you giving Nezzie?” he asked.
“Food, like those apples, and containers to hold it.”
“That’s a good idea. What were you thinking of giving Tulie?”
“She is very proud of Deegie’s leather, so I don’t think I should give her that, and I don’t want to give her food like Nezzie. Nothing too practical. She’s headwoman. It should be something special to wear, like amber or seashells, but I don’t have anything special like that,” Ayla said.
“Yes, you do.”
“I thought about giving her the amber I found, but that’s a sign from my totem. I can’t give that away.”
“I don’t mean the amber. She probably has plenty of amber. Give her fur. It was the first thing she mentioned.”
“But she must have many furs, too.”
“No furs are as beautiful and special as yours, Ayla. Only once in my life before have I ever seen anything like them. I’m sure she never has. The one I saw was made by a flathe—by a Clan woman.”
By evening, Ayla had made some hard decisions, and the accumulation of years of work was settling into two piles. The larger one was to be left behind, along with the cave and the valley. The smaller one was all she would take with her … and her memories. It was a wrenching, sometimes agonizing process that left her feeling drained. Her mood was communicated to Jondalar, who found himself thinking more of his home and his past and his life than he had for many years. His mind kept straying to painful memories he thought he’d forgotten, and wished he could. He wondered why he kept remembering now.
The evening meal was quiet. They made sporadic comments, and often lapsed into silence, each occupied with private thoughts.
“The birds are delicious, as usual,” Jondalar remarked.
“Creb liked them that way.”
She had mentioned that before. It was still hard to believe, sometimes, that she had learned so much from the flatheads she lived with. When he thought of it, though, why wouldn’t they know how to cook as well as anyone?
“My mother is a good cook. She would probably like them, too.”
Jondalar has been thinking a lot about his mother lately, Ayla thought. He said he woke up this morning dreaming about her.
“When I was growing up, she had special foods she liked to make … when she wasn’t busy with the matters of the Cave.”
“Matters of the Cave?”
“She was the leader of the Ninth Cave.”
“You told me that, but I didn’t understand. You mean she was like Tulie? A headwoman?”
“Yes, something like that. But there was no Talut, and the Ninth Cave is much bigger than the Lion Camp. Many more people.” He stopped and closed his eyes in concentration. “Maybe as many as four people for every one.
Ayla tried to think about how many that would be, then decided she would work it out later with marks on the ground, but she wondered how so many people could live together all the time. It seemed to be almost enough for a Clan Gathering.
“In the Clan, no women were leaders,” she said.
“Marthona became leader after Joconnan. Zelandoni told me she was so much a part of his leadership that after he died, everyone just turned to her. My brother, Joharran, was born to his hearth. He’s leader now, but Marthona is still an adviser … or she was when I left.”
Ayla frowned. He had sp
oken of them before, but she hadn’t quite understood all his relationships. “Your mother was the mate of … how did you say it? Joconnan?”
“Yes.”
“But you always talk of Dalanar.”
“I was born to his hearth.”
“So your mother was the mate of Dalanar, too.”
“Yes. She was already a leader when they mated. They were very close, people still tell stories about Marthona and Dalanar, and sing sad songs about their love. Zelandoni told me they cared too much. Dalanar didn’t want to share her with the Cave. He grew to hate the time she spent on leadership duties, but she felt a responsibility. Finally they severed the knot and he left. Later, Marthona made a new hearth with Willomar, and then gave birth to Thonolan and Folara. Dalanar traveled to the northeast, discovered a flint mine and met Jerika, and founded the First Cave of the Lanzadonii there.”
He was silent for a while. Jondalar seemed to feel a need to talk about his family, so Ayla listened even though he was repeating some things he’d said before. She got up, poured the last of the tea into their cups, added wood to the fire, then sat on the furs on the end of the bed and watched its flickering light move shadows across Jondalar’s pensive face. “What does it mean, Lanzadonii?” she asked.
Jondalar smiled. “It just means … people … children of Doni … children of the Great Earth Mother who live in the northeast, to be exact.”
“You lived there, didn’t you? With Dalanar?”
He closed his eyes. His jaw worked as he ground his teeth and his forehead knotted with pain. Ayla had seen that expression before, and wondered. He had spoken about that period in his life during the summer, but it upset him and she knew he held back. She felt a tension in the air, a great pressure building up centered on Jondalar, like a swelling of the earth getting ready to burst forth from great depths.
“Yes, I lived there,” he said, “for three years.” He jumped up suddenly, knocking over his tea, and strode to the back wall of the cave. “O Mother! It was terrible!” He put his arm up to the wall and leaned his head against it, in the dark, trying to keep himself under control. Finally, he walked back, looked down at the wet spot where the liquid had seeped into the hard-packed dirt floor, and hunkered down on one knee to right the cup. He turned it over in his hands and stared at the fire.
“Was it so bad living with Dalanar?” Ayla finally asked.
“Living with Dalanar? No.” He looked surprised at what she had said. “That isn’t what was so bad. He was glad to see me. He welcomed me to his hearth, taught me my craft right along with Joplaya, treated me like an adult … and he never said a word about it.”
“A word about what?”
Jondalar took a deep breath. “The reason I was sent there,” he said, and looked down at the cup in his hand.
As the silence deepened, the breathing of the horses filled the cave, and the loud reports of the fire burning and crackling rebounded off the stone walls. Jondalar put the cup down and stood up.
“I always was big for my age, and older than my years,” he began, striding the length of the cleared space around the fire, and then back again. “I matured young. I was no more than eleven years when the donii first came to me in a dream … and she had the face of Zolena.”
There was her name again. The woman who had meant so much to him. He’d talked about her, but only briefly and with obvious distress. Ayla hadn’t understood what caused him such anguish.
“All the young men wanted her for their donii-woman, they all wanted her to teach them. They were supposed to want her, or someone like her”—he whirled and faced Ayla—“but they weren’t supposed to love her! Do you know what it means to fall in love with your donii-woman?”
Ayla shook her head.
“She is supposed to show you, teach you, help you understand the Mother’s great Gift, to make you ready when it is your turn to bring a girl to womanhood. All women are supposed to be donii-women at least once, when they are older, just as all men are supposed to share a young woman’s First Rites, at least once. It is a sacred duty in honor of Doni.” He looked down. “But a donii-woman represents the Great Mother; you don’t fall in love and want her for your mate.” He looked up at her again. “Can you understand that? It’s forbidden. It’s like falling in love with your mother, like wanting to mate your own sister. Forgive me, Ayla. It’s almost like wanting to mate a flathead woman!”
He turned and in a few long paces was at the entrance. He pushed the windbreak aside, then his shoulders slumped and he changed his mind and walked back. He sat down beside her, and looked off into the distance.
“I was twelve, and Zolena was my donii-woman, and I loved her. And she loved me. At first it was just that she seemed to know exactly how to please me, but then it was more. I could talk to her, about anything; we liked to be with each other. She taught me about women, what pleased them, and I learned well because I loved her and wanted to please her. I loved pleasing her. We didn’t mean to fall in love, we didn’t even tell each other, at first. Then we tried to keep it a secret. But I wanted her for my mate. I wanted to live with her. I wanted her children to be the children of my hearth.”
He blinked and Ayla saw a glistening wetness at the corners of his eyes as he stared at the fire.
“Zolena kept saying I was too young, I’d get over it. Most men are at least fifteen before they seriously start looking for a woman to be a mate. I didn’t feel too young. But it didn’t matter what I wanted. I couldn’t have her. She was my donii-woman, my counselor and teacher, and she wasn’t supposed to let me fall in love with her. They blamed her more than me, but that made it worse. She wouldn’t have been blamed at all if I hadn’t been so stupid!” Jondalar said, spitting it out.
“Other men wanted her, too. Always. Whether she wanted them or not. One was always bothering her—Ladroman. She had been his donii-woman a few years before. I suppose I can’t blame him for wanting her, but she wasn’t interested in him any more. He started following us, watching us. Then one time he found us together. He threatened her, said if she didn’t go with him, he’d tell everyone about us.
“She tried to laugh him off, told him to go ahead; there was nothing to tell, she was just my donii-woman. I should have done the same, but when he mocked us with words we had said in private, I got angry. No … I did not just get angry. I lost my temper and went out of control. I hit him.”
Jondalar pounded his fist on the ground beside him, then again, and again. “I couldn’t stop hitting him. Zolena tried to make me stop. Finally, she had to get someone else to pull me away. It’s good that she did. I think I would have killed him.”
Jondalar got up and began striding back and forth again. “Then it all came out. Every sordid detail. Ladroman told everything, in public … in front of everyone. I was embarrassed to find out how long he’d been watching us, and how much he had heard. Zolena and I were both questioned”—he blushed just remembering—“and both denounced, but I hated it when she was held responsible. What made it worse was that I am my mother’s son. She was the leader of the Ninth Cave, and I disgraced her. The whole Cave was in an uproar.”
“What did she do?” Ayla asked.
“She did what she had to do. Ladroman was badly hurt. He lost several teeth. That makes it hard to chew, and women don’t like a man without teeth. Mother had to pay a large penalty for me as restitution, and when Ladroman’s mother insisted, she agreed to send me away.”
He stopped and closed his eyes, his forehead knotting with the pain of remembering. “I cried that night.” The admission was obviously difficult for him to make. “I didn’t know where I would go. I didn’t know mother had sent a runner to Dalanar to ask him to take me.”
He took a breath and continued. “Zolena left before I did. She had always been drawn to the zelandonia, and she went to join Those Who Serve the Mother. I thought about Serving, too, maybe as a carver—I thought I had a little talent for carving then. But word came from Dalanar, and the next th
ing I knew, Willomar was taking me to the Lanzadonii. I didn’t really know Dalanar. He left when I was young, and I only saw him at Summer Meetings. I didn’t know what to expect, but Marthona did the right thing.”
Jondalar stopped talking, and hunkered down near the fire again. Then he picked up a broken branch, dry and brittle, and added it to the flames. “Before I left, people avoided me, reviled me,” he continued. “Some people took their children away when I was around so they wouldn’t be exposed to my foul influence, as though looking at me might corrupt them. I know I deserved it, what we did was terrible, but I wanted to die.”
Ayla waited, silently watching him. She didn’t understand entirely the customs he spoke of, but she hurt for him with an empathy born of her own pain. She, too, had broken taboos and paid the harsh consequences, but she had learned from them. Perhaps because she was so different to begin with, she had learned to question whether what she had done was really so bad. She had come to understand that it wasn’t wrong for her to hunt, with sling or spear or anything she wanted, just because the Clan believed it was wrong for women to hunt, and she didn’t hate herself because she had stood up to Broud against all tradition.
“Jondalar,” she said, aching for him as he hung his head in defeat and recrimination, “you did a terrible thing”—he nodded agreement—“when you beat that man so hard. But what did you and Zolena do that was so wrong?” Ayla asked.
He looked at her, surprised at her question. He had expected scorn, derision, the kind of contempt he felt for himself. “You don’t understand. Zolena was my donii-woman. We dishonored the Mother. Offended Her. It was shameful.”
“What was shameful? I still don’t know what you did that was so wrong.”
“Ayla, when a woman assumes that aspect of the Mother, to teach a young man, she takes on an important responsibility. She is preparing him for manhood, to be the woman-maker. Doni has made it a man’s responsibility to open a woman, to make her ready to accept the mingled spirits from the Great Earth Mother so the woman can become a mother. It is a sacred duty. It is not a common, everyday relationship that anyone can have at any time, not something to be taken lightly,” Jondalar explained.