The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  “Which one of you is Dalen?” Tarneg said. The boy with the broken tooth and bleeding mouth stepped forward. “Who are you?” he said to the other one, whose eye was already turning black and blue. He refused to answer.

  “They call him Cluve. He’s Chaleg’s nephew,” Druwez volunteered.

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” Cluve said sullenly. “You’re going to put all the blame on me just because Druwez is your brother.”

  “No, I wasn’t going to put blame on anyone. I’m going to let the Council of Brothers decide. You can all expect to get a summons from them, including my brother. Now, I think you’d better clean yourselves up. If you go back to the Meeting looking like that, everyone will know you were fighting, and no one would be able to keep it from the Sisters. I don’t have to tell you what will happen to you if they find out you were fighting about a raid.”

  The young men hurried to leave before Tarneg changed his mind, but they left in two groups, one with Cluve, the other with Dalen. Tarneg made a point of noticing who went with whom. Then the three of them continued back to the Meeting.

  “There’s something I’d be interested in knowing, if you don’t mind,” Jondalar said. “Why would you let the Council of Brothers decide what to do with these young men? Would they really keep it from the Council of Sisters?”

  “The Sisters have no tolerance for fighting, and won’t listen to any excuses, but many of the Brothers went on raids when they were young men, or were in a fight or two, just to make a little excitement. Didn’t you ever fight someone when you weren’t supposed to, Jondalar?”

  “Well, yes, I guess I did. And got caught, too.”

  “The Brothers are more lenient, especially toward the one who was fighting in a good cause, even though Dalen should have told someone about the raid rather than fighting to show them he wasn’t afraid. It seems easier for a man to condone that sort of thing. The Sisters say fighting always leads to more fighting, and that may be true, but Cluve was right about one thing,” Tarneg said. “Druwez is my brother. He wasn’t really encouraging the fight, he was trying to help out his friend. I hate to see him get into trouble for that.”

  “Did you ever fight anyone, Tarneg?” Danug asked.

  The future headman looked at his younger cousin for a moment, then nodded. “Once or twice, but not too many men want to challenge me. Like you, I’m bigger than most. Sometimes those competitions are more fight than anyone admits to, though.”

  “I know,” Danug said, with a thoughtful expression.

  “But at least they are under watchful eyes that won’t let anyone get badly hurt, and they don’t get carried any further and start a revenge fight.” Tarneg glanced at the sky. “It’s close to noon, later than I thought. We’d better hurry if we want to hear about the mammoth hunt.”

  When Ayla and Talut reached the clearing, he led her toward a slight rise off to one side that lent itself naturally as a gathering place for smaller groups and was used for both casual and special meetings. One was in progress and Ayla scanned the crowd of people looking for a glimpse of Jondalar. That was all she ever saw of him lately. From the moment they arrived, he seemed to lose himself in the throng, leaving Cattail Camp early in the morning, and coming back late, if at all.

  When she did see him, he was often with some woman, usually a different one each time. She found herself making disparaging remarks to Deegie and some others about his many partners. She was not the only one. She’d heard Talut remark that he wondered if Jondalar was trying to make up for the whole winter in one short season. His exploits were talked about by many around the Camps, often with humor and a backhanded sort of admiration, both for his apparent stamina, and his obvious appeal. It wasn’t the first time that his attractiveness to women was the subject of talk, but it was the first time he didn’t really care.

  Ayla laughed at the comments, too, but in the darkness of night, she held back tears and wondered what was wrong with her. Why didn’t he ever choose her? Yet there was a strange comfort in seeing him with many different women. At least she knew he hadn’t found any particular one to replace her.

  She didn’t know that Jondalar was trying to stay away from Cattail Camp as much as possible. In the closer quarters of the tent, he was much more conscious of her and Ranec sleeping together—not in the same bed every night, since she felt she needed the privacy of her own bed sometimes—but next to each other. It was easy enough to stay around the flint-working area during the day, and that led to invitations to meet people and share meals. For the first time since he was a young man, he was making friends on his own, not with the help of his brother, and he discovered it wasn’t so difficult.

  The women gave him an excuse to stay away at night, too, if not all night, at least until late. He had little real feeling for any of them, but he felt guilty about using them for a place to stay, and made up for it in the way he knew best, which made him all the more irresistible. It had been the experience of many women that a man as handsome as Jondalar was more concerned with satisfying himself than her, but he was skilled enough to make any woman feel well cared for. It was a release for him, he wasn’t having to fight his own powerful urges as well as trying to cope with his confused feelings, and he enjoyed the women, but in the same way he had always enjoyed women, on a superficial level. He hungered for the deeper feelings he’d always searched for and that no woman aroused in him, except Ayla.

  Ayla saw him coming back from the Wolf Camp’s flint mine, along with Tarneg and Danug, and as she often did when she saw him, she felt her heart pound and her throat ache. She noticed Tulie approach the three men, and then saw her walking away with Jondalar while Tarneg and Danug continued toward them. Talut waved the two over.

  “I want to ask you about the customs of your people, Jondalar,” Tulie said when they had found a private place to talk. “I know you honor the Mother, and that speaks well for you and your Zela … Zelandonii, but do you also have a ceremonial initiation into womanhood with understanding and gentleness?”

  “First Rites? Yes, of course. How could anyone not care about how a young woman is opened the first time? Our rituals are not quite the same as yours, but I think the purpose is the same,” Jondalar said.

  “Good. I have been talking with some women. They speak highly of you, you’ve been recommended several times, and that’s important, but more important is that Latie has asked for you. Would you be willing to be a part of her initiation?”

  Jondalar realized he should have known what was coming. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been asked before, but for some reason he thought she just wanted to know about the customs of his people. In the past, he had always been more than willing to participate and he was tempted, but this time he hesitated. He had also felt a terrible guilt afterward, for using the deeply sacred ceremony to satisfy his own needs for the deeper feelings it evoked. He wasn’t sure he could handle those mixed feelings right now, particularly with someone he liked as much as Latie.

  “Tulie, I have participated in similar rituals, and I understand the honor you and Latie have offered me, but I think I must refuse. I realize we have no real relationship, but I have lived with Lion Camp all winter, and in that time I have come to regard Latie as a sister,” Jondalar said, “a special younger sister.”

  Tulie nodded. “That’s too bad, Jondalar. In many ways, you would be the perfect one. You come from so far away, there is no possible relationship between you. But I can understand how she could come to feel like a sister. You haven’t exactly shared the same hearth, but Nezzie has treated you with the affection of a son, and Latie is a person with much promise. There is no worse abomination in the eyes of the Mother than for a man to initiate a woman born of his own mother. If you feel like a brother, I’m afraid it would taint the ceremony. I’m glad you told me this.”

  They walked back together toward the people sitting and standing on the slope and where it leveled out into the clearing. Jondalar noticed that Talut was talking,
and even more interesting, Ayla was standing beside him with her spear-thrower.

  “You’ve seen how far Ayla can throw a spear with this spear-throwing weapon,” Talut was saying, “but I’d like to have them both show it to you under better circumstances, where you can really see what it can do. I know most of us like to use a larger spear with the shaped points Wymez developed for hunting mammoths, but this throwing weapon has some real advantages. Some of us at Lion Camp have experimented with it. This will throw a good-sized spear, but it takes practice, just like throwing a spear by hand does. Most grow up throwing spears, in games and hunting. They are used to throwing, but if they could see how well it works, I’m sure many people would give it a try. Ayla says she plans to use it on the mammoth hunt, and I’m sure Jondalar will, too, so some people will see what it can do. We’ve talked about a contest, but it hasn’t quite worked out yet. When we return from the hunt, I think we should plan to have a big contest, with all kinds of competitions.”

  There were general expressions of agreement to his suggestion, then Brecie said, “I think a big contest is a good idea, Talut. I wouldn’t mind seeing two or three days of it. We’ve been working on a throwing stick. Some of us have gotten several birds from a flock with one throw. In the meantime, I think we should let the mamuti work out the best day to leave, and do some Calling for mammoths. And if we have nothing more to talk about, I have to get back to my Camp.”

  The meeting started to break up, then there was a sudden flurry of interest as Vincavec strode into the clearing, followed by his Camp, the delegation that had been talking about adopting Ayla, and the last of Lion Camp, Nezzie and Rydag. The people from the delegation began to spread the news that the Mamut-headman of the Mammoth Camp was willing to pay any Bride Price Tulie wanted for Ayla, in spite of the fact that she was already Promised.

  “You know he claims the right to name his Camp after the Mammoth Hearth, just because he’s Mamut,” Jondalar heard a woman saying to another woman nearby, “but he can’t claim any hearth until he’s joined. The woman brings the hearth. He just wants her because she’s a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth, to make his so-called Mammoth Camp acceptable.”

  Jondalar happened to be standing near Ranec when he overheard someone tell him. He was surprised to feel a sense of compassion when he saw the dark man’s expression. It occurred to him that if anyone knew how Ranec was feeling at that moment, he did. But at least he knew that the man who had convinced Ayla to live with him loved her. It seemed obvious that Vincavec wanted Ayla just to serve his own purposes, not because he cared about her.

  Ayla, too, was overhearing pieces of conversation in which her name was mentioned. She didn’t like overhearing. In the Clan, she could have averted her eyes so as not to eavesdrop, but when communication was entirely verbal, she could not close her ears.

  And then, suddenly, she wasn’t hearing anyone, except the tone of taunting voices from several older children, and the word “flathead.”

  “Look at that animal, all dressed up like people,” an older boy said, pointing his finger at Rydag, and laughing.

  “They dress the horses, why not the flathead?” someone else added, with more laughter.

  “She claims he’s a person, you know. They say he understands everything you say, and can even talk,” another of the youngsters said.

  “Sure, and if she could get the wolf to walk on his hind legs, she’d probably call him a person, too.”

  “Maybe you’d better be careful what you say. Chaleg says the flathead can make the wolf go after you. He says the flathead made the wolf attack him, and he’s taking it to the Council of Brothers.”

  “Well, doesn’t that prove he’s an animal? If he can make another animal attack?”

  “My mother says she doesn’t think it’s right for them to bring animals to a Summer Meeting.”

  “My uncle said he doesn’t mind the horses, so much, or even the wolf, so long as they keep them away, but he thinks they ought to be banned from bringing that flathead to meetings and ceremonies that are meant for people.”

  “Hey, flathead! Go on, get out of here. Go back to your pack, with the other animals, where you belong.”

  At first Ayla was too stunned to react to the openly derogatory comments. Then she saw Rydag close his eyes and look down, and start to head back toward Cattail Camp. With blazing anger, she stormed up to the youngsters.

  “What is wrong with you? How can you call Rydag an animal? Are you blind?” Ayla said with barely restrained fury. Several people stopped to see what was going on. “Can’t you see he understands every word you say? How can you be so cruel? Do you feel no shame?”

  “Why should my son feel shame?” a woman said, coming to her youngster’s defense. “That flathead is an animal, and shouldn’t be allowed at ceremonies that are sacred to the Mother.”

  Several more people were crowding around now, including most of the Lion Camp. “Ayla, don’t pay attention to them,” Nezzie said, trying to cool her rage.

  “Animal! How dare you say he’s an animal! Rydag is just as much a person as you are,” Ayla cried, turning on the woman.

  “I don’t have to be insulted like that,” the woman said. “I’m no flathead woman.”

  “No, you aren’t! She would be more human than you are. She would have more compassion, more understanding.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “No one knows better than I. They took me in, raised me when I lost my people and had no one else. I would have died if it hadn’t been for the compassion of a woman of the Clan,” Ayla said. “I was proud to be a woman of the Clan, and a mother.”

  “No! Ayla don’t!” she heard Jondalar saying, but she was past all caring.

  “They are human, and so is Rydag. I know, because I have a son like him.”

  “Oh, no.” Jondalar cringed, as he pushed his way forward to stand beside her.

  “Did she say she had a son like him?” a man said. “A son of mixed spirits?”

  “I’m afraid you’ve done it now, Ayla,” Jondalar said quietly.

  “She mothered an abomination? You better get away from her.” A man came forward to the woman who had been arguing with Ayla. “If she draws that kind of spirit to her, it might get inside some other women, too.”

  “That’s right! You better get away from her, too,” another man said to the obviously pregnant woman standing beside him, as he led her away. Other people were drawing back, their expressions full of repugnance and fear.

  “Clan?” one of the musicians said. “Those rhythms she played, didn’t she say they were Clan rhythms? Is that who she meant? Flatheads?”

  As Ayla looked around, she felt a moment of panic, and an urge to run from all these people who were looking at her with such disgust. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, lifted her chin and stood her ground defiantly. What right did they have to say her son was less than human? From the corner of her eye she saw Jondalar standing beside, and just behind her, and was more grateful than she could say.

  Then, on her other side, another man stepped forward. She turned and smiled at Mamut, and Ranec as well. Then Nezzie was standing with her, and Talut, and then, of all people, Frebec. Almost as one, the rest of the Lion Camp stood beside her.

  “You are wrong,” Mamut said to the throng, in the voice that seemed too powerful to come from one so old. “Flatheads are not animals. They are people, and children of the Mother as much as you are. I, too, lived with them for a time, and hunted with them. Their medicine woman healed my arm, and I learned my way to the Mother through them. The Mother does not mix spirits, there are no horse-wolves, or lion-deer. The people of the Clan are different, but the difference is insignificant. No children like Rydag, or Ayla’s son, could be born if they were not human, too. They are not abominations. They are simply children.”

  “I don’t care what you say, old Mamut,” the pregnant woman said. “I don’t want a flathead child or a mixed one. If she already had one
, that spirit may linger around her.”

  “Woman, Ayla is no threat to you,” the old shaman replied. “The spirit that was chosen for your child is already there. It cannot be changed now. It was not Ayla’s doing that gave her baby the spirit of a flathead man, she did not draw that spirit to her. It was the Mother’s choice. You must remember, a man’s spirit never lingers far from the man himself. Ayla grew up with the Clan. She became a woman while she lived with them. When Mut decided to give her a child, She could only choose from the men who were nearby, and they were all men of the Clan. Of course the spirit of one of them was chosen to enter her, but you don’t see any men of the Clan around here now, do you?”

  “Old Mamut, what if there were some flathead men nearby?” a woman shouted out from the crowd.

  “I believe they would have to be very close, even share the same hearth, before that spirit would be chosen. The people of the Clan are human, but there are some differences. While life is better than no life to the Mother, which is why Ayla was given a child when she wanted one, it is not easy to blend the two. With so many Mamutoi men around, one of them would be chosen first.”

  “That’s what you say, old man,” another voice called out. “I’m not so sure it’s true. I’m keeping my woman away from her.”

  “No wonder she’s so good with animals, she grew up with them.” Ayla turned and saw that it was Chaleg who was talking.

  “Does that mean their magic is stronger than ours?” Frebec replied. There was some uneasy shuffling in the crowd.

  “I’ve heard her say it’s not magic. She says anyone can do it.” Frebec recognized the voice of the Mamut of Chaleg’s Camp.

  “Then why hasn’t anyone done it before?” Frebec said. “You are Mamut. If anyone can do it, let me see you go out and ride back on a horse. Why don’t you bring a wolf under your control? I’ve seen Ayla whistle birds down out of the sky.”