by Jean M. Auel
“Did you take it lightly?”
“No. Of course not!”
“Then what did you do wrong?”
“I profaned a sacred rite. I fell in love …”
“You fell in love. And Zolena fell in love. Why should that be wrong? Don’t those feelings make you feel warm and good? You didn’t plan to do it. It just happened. Isn’t it natural to fall in love with a woman?”
“But not that woman,” Jondalar protested. “You don’t understand.”
“You are right. I don’t understand. Broud forced me. He was cruel and hateful, and that’s what gave him pleasure. Then you taught me what Pleasures should be, not painful, but warm and good. Loving you makes me feel warm and good, too. I thought love always made you feel that way, but now you tell me it can be wrong to love someone, and it can cause great pain.”
Jondalar picked up another piece of wood and put it on the fire. How could he make her understand? You could love your mother, too, but you don’t want to mate her, and you don’t want your donii-woman to have the children of your hearth. He didn’t know what to say, but the silence was strained.
“Why did you leave Dalanar and go back?” Ayla asked, after a while.
“My mother sent for me … no, it was more than that. I wanted to return. As good as Dalanar was to me, as much as I liked Jerika, and my cousin, Joplaya, it was never quite home. I didn’t know if I could ever return. I was very worried about going back, but I wanted to go. I vowed never to lose my temper, never to lose control again.”
“Were you glad you went home?”
“It wasn’t the same, but after the first few days, it was better than I thought it would be. Ladroman’s family had left the Ninth Cave, and without him there to remind everyone, people forgot about it. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d still been there. It was bad enough at Summer Meetings. Every time I saw him I’d remember the disgrace. There was a lot of talk when Zolena first returned, a little later. I was afraid to see her again, but I wanted to. I couldn’t help it, Ayla, even after all that, I think I still loved her.” His look pleaded for understanding.
He stood again and started pacing. “But she had changed a lot. She’d already moved up in the ranks of the zelandonia. She was very much One Who Serves the Mother. I didn’t want to believe it at first. I wanted to see how much she had changed, to see if she had any feeling left for me. I wanted to be alone with her, and planned how to do it. I waited until the next festival to Honor the Mother. She must have guessed. She tried to avoid me, but then changed her mind. Some people were scandalized the next day, even though it was entirely proper to share Pleasures with her at a festival.” He snorted with derision. “They needn’t have bothered. She said she still cared about me, wanted the best for me, but it wasn’t the same. She really didn’t want me any more.
“The truth of it is,” he said, with bitter irony, “I think she does care about me. We’re good friends now, but Zolena knew what she wanted … and she got it. She is not Zolena now. Before I started my Journey, she became Zelandoni, First among Those Who Serve the Mother. I left with Thonolan soon afterward. I think that’s why I went.”
He walked to the entrance again, and stood there looking out over the top of the repaired windbreak. Ayla got up and joined him. She closed her eyes, feeling the wind on her face, and listened to Whinney’s even breathing, and Racers more nervous huffing. Jondalar took a deep breath, then went back and sat down on a mat by the fire, but he made no move to go to sleep. Ayla followed him, took down the large waterbag and poured some water into a cooking basket, then put stones in the fire to heat. He didn’t seem ready for bed yet. He wasn’t through.
“The best part of going back home was Thonolan,” he said, picking up the thread again. “He’d grown up while I was gone, and after I got back, we became good friends and started doing all kinds of things together.…”
Jondalar stopped, and his face filled with grief. Ayla remembered how hard his brother’s death had been on him. He slumped down beside her, his shoulders sagging, drained and exhausted, and she realized what an ordeal it had been for him to talk about his past. She wasn’t sure what had brought it on, but she knew something had been building up in him.
“Ayla, on our way back, do you think we can find … the place where Thonolan was … killed?” he said, turning to her, his eyes brimming, and his voice breaking.
“I’m not sure, but we can try.” She added more stones to the water and picked out soothing herbs.
Suddenly she remembered, with all the worry and fear she’d felt then, his first night in her cave, when she wasn’t sure he would live. He’d called for his brother then, and though she hadn’t understood his words, she understood he was asking for the man who was dead. When she finally made him understand, he spent his great racking grief in her arms.
“That first night, do you know how long it had been since I cried?” he asked, startling her, almost as though he knew what she had been thinking, but then he’d been talking about Thonolan. “Not since then, not since my mother told me I would have to leave. Ayla, why did he have to die?” he said, with a pleading, strained voice. “Thonolan was younger than I was! He shouldn’t have died so young. I couldn’t bear knowing he was gone. Once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there, Ayla. I never told you that before. I think I was ashamed because … because I lost control again.”
“There is no shame in grieving, Jondalar … or in loving.
He looked away from her. “You think not?” His voice held an edge of self-contempt. “Even when you use it for yourself, and hurt someone else?”
Ayla frowned in puzzlement.
He turned and faced the fire again. “The summer after I was back, I was selected at the Summer Meeting for First Rites. I was worried; most men are. You worry about hurting a woman, and I’m not a small man. There are always witnesses, to verify that a girl has been opened, but also to make sure that she’s not really hurt. You worry that maybe you won’t be able to prove your manhood and they’ll have to get another man at the last moment, and you’ll be shamed. Many things can happen. I have to thank Zelandoni.” His laugh was caustic. “She did exactly what a donii-woman is supposed to. She counseled me … and it helped.
“But, I thought of Zolena that night, not the aspiring Zelandoni. Then I saw this scared girl and I realized she was a lot more worried than I was. She really got frightened when she saw me full; many women do, the first time. But I remembered what Zolena had taught me, how to make her ready, how to limit and control myself, how to please her. It turned out to be wonderful, to see her go from a nervous, scared girl to an open, willing woman. She was so grateful, and so loving … I felt that I loved her, that night.”
He closed his eyes in that frown of pain Ayla had seen so much recently. Then he jumped up again and paced. “I never learn! I knew the next day I didn’t really love her, but she loved me! She was not supposed to fall in love with me any more than I was supposed to fall in love with my donii-woman. I was supposed to make her a woman, teach her about Pleasures, not make her love me. I tried not to hurt her feelings, but I could see her disappointment when I finally made her understand.”
He was striding back from the cave opening, and stopped in front of her and almost shouted at her. “Ayla, it is a sacred act, to make a girl a woman, a duty, a responsibility, and I had profaned it again!” He started walking. “That wasn’t the last time. I told myself I would never do that again, but it happened the same way the next time. I told myself I would not accept the role again, I didn’t deserve it. But the next time they selected me, I couldn’t say no. I wanted it. They chose me often, and I began to look forward to it, to the feelings of love and warmth on that night, even though I hated myself the next day for using those young women and the Mother’s sacred rite for myself.”
He stopped, and clung to one of the posts of her herb drying rack, and looked down at her. “But after a
couple of years, I realized something was wrong, and I knew the Mother was punishing me. The men my age were finding women, settling down, showing off the children of their hearths. But I couldn’t find a woman to love that way. I knew many women, I enjoyed them for their company and their Pleasures, but I only felt love when I wasn’t supposed to, at First Rites … and only on that night.” He hung his head.
He looked up, startled, when he heard a gentle laugh. “Oh, Jondalar. But you fell in love. You love me, don’t you? Don’t you understand? You weren’t being punished. You were waiting for me. I told you my totem led you to me, maybe the Mother did, too, but you had to come a long way. You had to wait. If you had fallen in love before, you would never have come. You would never have found me.”
Could that be true? he wondered. He wanted to believe it. For the first time in years he felt the load that had weighed down his spirit lighten, and a look of hope crossed his face. “What about Zolena, my donii-woman?”
“I don’t think it was wrong to love her, but even if it went against your customs, you were punished, Jondalar. You were sent away. That’s over now. You don’t have to keep reminding yourself, punishing yourself.”
“But the young women, at First Rites, who …”
Ayla’s expression turned hard. “Jondalar, do you know how terrible it is to be forced the first time? Do you know what it is to hate and have to endure what is not a Pleasure, but painful and ugly? Maybe you weren’t supposed to fall in love with those women, but it must have been a wonderful feeling for them to be treated gently, to feel the Pleasures that you know so well how to give, and to feel loved that first time. If you gave them even a little of what you give me, then you gave them a beautiful memory to carry with them all their lives. Oh, Jondalar, you didn’t hurt them. You did exactly the right thing. Why do you think you were chosen so often?”
The burden of shame and self-contempt he had carried, buried deep inside for so long, began to slip. He began to think that maybe there was a reason for his life, that the painful experiences of his childhood had some purpose. In the catharsis of confession, he saw that perhaps his actions had not been as contemptible as he thought, that perhaps he was worthwhile—and he wanted to feel worthwhile.
But the emotional baggage he had dragged around with him for so long was hard to unload. Yes, he’d finally found a woman to love, and it was true that she was everything he’d ever wanted, but what if he brought her home and she told someone that she was raised by flatheads? Or worse, that she had a mixed son? An abomination? Would he be reviled, again, along with her, for bringing such a woman? He flushed at the thought.
Was it fair to her? What if they turned her away, heaped insults on her? And what if he didn’t stand by her? What if he let them do it? He shuddered. No, he thought. He wouldn’t let them do such a thing to her. He loved her. But what if he did?
Why was Ayla the one he had found to love? Her explanation seemed too simple. His belief that the Great Mother was punishing him for his sacrilege could not be laid to rest so easily. Perhaps Ayla was right, maybe Doni had led him to her, but wasn’t it a punishment that this beautiful woman he loved would be no more acceptable to his people than the first woman he had loved? Wasn’t it ironic that this woman he had finally found was a pariah who had given birth to an abomination?
But the Mamutoi held similar beliefs and they weren’t turning her away. The Lion Camp was adopting her, even knowing she had been raised by flatheads. They had even welcomed a mixed child. Maybe he shouldn’t try to take her home with him. She might be happier staying. Maybe he should stay, too, let Tulie adopt him and become Mamutoi. His forehead furrowed. But he wasn’t Mamutoi. He was Zelandonii. The Mamutoi were good people, and their ways were similar, but they weren’t his people. What could he offer Ayla here? He had no affiliations, no family, no kin among these people. But what could he offer her if he took her home?
He was torn in so many directions, he suddenly felt exhausted. Ayla saw his face go slack, his shoulders slump.
“It’s late, Jondalar. Drink a little of this, and let’s go to bed,” she said, handing him a cup.
He nodded, drank the warm beverage, slipped out of his clothes, and crawled into the furs. Ayla lay beside him, watching him until the furrows on his forehead eased and smoothed out, and his breath was deep and regular, but sleep for her was slower in coming. Jondalar’s distress troubled her. She was glad he had told her more about himself, and his younger life. She had long believed something deep within himself caused him great anguish, and perhaps talking about it had relieved some of his discomfort, but something still bothered him. He had not told her everything, and she felt a deep uneasiness about it.
She lay awake, trying not to disturb him, wishing she could sleep. How many nights had she spent alone in this cave, unable to sleep? Then she remembered the cloak. Slipping quietly out of bed, she rummaged through her pack and pulled out a soft, old piece of leather, and held it to her cheek. It was one of the few things she had taken with her from the rubble of the clan’s cave before she left. She had used it to help carry Durc when he was an infant, and to support him on her hip when he was a toddler. She didn’t know why she had taken it. It had not been a necessity, yet more than once, when she was alone, she had rocked herself to sleep with it. But not since Jondalar came.
She crumpled the soft old hide into a ball, stuffed it to her stomach, and wrapped herself around it. Then, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
“It’s too much, even with the travois and carrying baskets on Whinney. I need two horses to carry all this!” Ayla said, looking over the pile of bundles and neatly tied objects she wanted to take with her. I’ll have to leave more behind, but I’ve been through everything so many times, I don’t know what else to leave.” She glanced around trying to find something that would give her an idea for a solution to her dilemma.
The cave seemed deserted. Everything useful that they weren’t taking with them had been put back in the storage holes and cairns, just in case they might want to come back for it someday, though neither one believed they ever would. All that was left in view was a pile of discards. Even Ayla’s herb drying rack was bare.
“You’ve got two horses. Too bad you can’t use both of them,” Jondalar said, seeing the two horses in their place near the entrance, munching on hay.
Ayla studied the horses, speculatively. Jondalar’s comment had started her thinking. “I still think of him as Whinney’s colt, but Racer is almost as big as she is. Maybe he could carry a small load.”
Jondalar was immediately interested. “I’ve been wondering when he would be big enough to do some of the things Whinney does, and how you would teach him to do them. When did you first ride Whinney? And what made you think about it in the first place?”
Ayla smiled. “I was just running with her one day, wishing I could run as fast, and suddenly the idea came to me. She was a little frightened at first and started running, but she knew me. When she got tired, she stopped, and didn’t seem to mind. It was wonderful! It was running like the wind!”
Jondalar watched her as she recalled her first ride, her eyes glistening and breathing hard with remembered excitement. He had felt the same way the first time Ayla had let him ride on Whinney, and he shared her excitement. He was moved by a sudden desire for her. It never ceased to amaze him how he could be so easily and unexpectedly provoked to want her. But her mind was on Racer.
“I wonder how long it would take to get him used to carrying something? I was riding Whinney before I started having her carry a load, so it didn’t take her long. But if he started first with a small load, it might make it easier to get him to carry a rider later. Let’s see if I can find something to practice with.”
She rummaged through the discard pile pulling out skins, some baskets, extra rocks she had used to sand bowls and knap flint tools with, and the sticks she had marked to keep track of the days she had lived in the valley.
She paused for a moment, holding
one stick, and put each finger of one hand over the first marks, the way Creb had shown her so long ago. She swallowed hard, thinking about Creb. Jondalar had used the marks on the sticks to confirm how long she had been there, and to help her put into his counting words the number of years of her life. She was seventeen years, then, in the beginning of summer; in late winter or spring she would add another year. He had said he was twenty years and one, and laughingly called himself an old man. He had begun his Journey three years before, the same time she had left the Clan.
She gathered everything up and headed outside, whistling for Whinney and Racer to follow. In the field, they both spent some time stroking and scratching the young stallion. Then Ayla picked up a leather hide. She let him smell it and chew on it, and rubbed him down with it. Then she draped it across his back, and let it hang. He grabbed an end with his teeth and pulled it off, then brought it to her to play some more. She put it across his back again. The next time, Jondalar put it on his back while Ayla set out a coiled long thong and busied herself with making something. They draped the hide on Racer and let him pull it off a few more times. Whinney nickered, watching with interest, and got some attention, too.
The next time Ayla put the hide across Racer’s back, she dropped a long strip of leather with it, reached under him to grab the loose end, and tied the hide on with it. This time when Racer went to pull it off with his teeth, it didn’t come immediately. At first, he didn’t like it, and tried to buck it off, but then he found a flapping end and started tugging with his teeth until he pulled it out from under the thong. He began working the loose thong around until he found the knot, and worked at it with his teeth until he untied it. He picked the hide up with his teeth and dropped it at Ayla’s feet, then went back for the thong. Both Ayla and Jondalar laughed, as Racer pranced away with his head held high, looking proud of himself.