The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  Jondalar’s first thought was to get his horse as far away from the herd as possible, as fast as he could, but it was all he could do to turn the stallion around and head back toward the Campsite. When Racer settled down and they were finally heading steadily back, Jondalar began to wonder if it was fair to keep the virile stallion away from other horses, and for the first time, he seriously contemplated the idea of letting him go. He wasn’t ready to give him up yet, but he began to rethink taking long rides alone on the brown stallion.

  On the way back, he found himself moodily introspective again. He remembered the day of the big meeting, and watching Ayla sitting stiffly while Brukeval reviled her. He had ached to comfort her, to force Brukeval to stop, to tell him he was wrong. He had completely understood everything Zelandoni said; he’d heard most of it over the years from Ayla and he was more ready than most to accept it. The thing that was new to him was the name given to the relationship—“far mother,” shortened to “fa’ther”—and he thought about Zelandoni’s final words, that the men would name the boys; fathers would name their sons. He said the word over to himself. Father. He was a father. He was Jonayla’s father.

  He wasn’t fit to be Jonayla’s father! It would shame her to name him her father. He had nearly killed a man, with his fists. If it hadn’t been for Danug, he would have. Ayla had lost a baby when she was alone, in the deep passages of Fountain Rocks Cave, and he wasn’t there to help her. What if the child she had lost was a boy? If she hadn’t lost it and it was a boy, would he have been the one to name him? What would it be like to decide on a name for a child?

  What did it matter? He would never be able to name a child. He would never have any more children. He had lost his mate; he would have to leave his hearth. After Zelandoni had closed the meeting, he had avoided the conversations that everyone was having and had hurried back to the fa’lodge so he wouldn’t have to see Ayla, or Jonayla.

  He was still feeling the same when the rest of the fa’lodge started walking toward the Lanzadonii camp for the big feast the next day, but after everyone had been gone for some time, Jondalar couldn’t seem to stop himself from dwelling on all his wrongs. Finally, he couldn’t stand it inside the lodge, with his mind going over and over the same things, blaming himself, berating himself, scourging himself. He went out and headed for The River to take another long walk. Since his near encounter with the stallion when they ran into a herd of mares, Racer seemed more excitable and Jondalar decided not to ride him. As he started walking upstream, he was surprised to see that Wolf had caught up with him. Jondalar was glad to see the carnivore and stopped to greet him, catching the great head by his ruff, which was growing thicker now and more luxurious.

  “Wolf! What brings you here? Are you tired of all the noise and commotion, too? Well, you’re welcome to join me,” he said with enthusiasm. The animal responded with a low growl of pleasure.

  Wolf had been so involved with Jonayla, after being away from her for so long, and with Ayla, who had been his primary focus since the day she pulled the frightened four-week pup from his cold and lonely den, that he hadn’t spent much time with the third human he considered to be an essential member of his pack. On the way back to the camp of the Ninth Cave after the meal he’d been given, he saw Jondalar heading toward The River and ran after the man, ahead of Jonayla. He turned back to look at her, and whined.

  “Go ahead, Wolf,” the child said, signaling him on. “Go with Jondalar.”

  She had seen the man’s great unhappiness, and she was more than aware that her mother was just as sad, for all that she tried not to show it. She didn’t know exactly what, but the child knew something was terribly wrong and it gave her a fearful knot in the pit of her stomach. More than anything she wanted her family back together, and that included her ’Thona and Weemar, and Wolf and the horses, too. Maybe Jondy needs to see you, Wolf, and be with you, like I did, Jonayla thought.

  Ayla had been thinking about Jondalar, or more precisely, about using the pool in the small river for her ceremonial bath, and that made her think of Jondalar. She wanted the quiet and privacy of the secluded place for the purification cleansing, but she hadn’t been able to go back since she found Jondalar there with Marona. She knew there was flint in that area; Jondalar had found some, but she didn’t see any, and didn’t think she would have time to look farther afield. She knew Jondalar always had a few good hunks of flint around, but she didn’t even consider asking him. He wasn’t talking to her these days. She would just have to make do with a Zelandonii knife and awl to cut the hide and to pierce holes around the edge for the drawstring, even if it was another deviation from Clan custom.

  She found a flattish rock, carried it closer to the pool in the small river and then with another rounder stone, she pounded the foamy saponifying ingredients from the soaproots on it, mixed with a little water. Then she stepped into the quiet backwater inside a curve at the edge of the pool and began to smooth the slippery foam on her body. The bottom dropped off quickly as she moved out from the bank to rinse. She ducked her head under, swam a few strokes, then returned to wash her hair. As Ayla bathed in the pool, she thought about the Clan.

  She remembered her childhood with Brun’s clan as peaceful and safe, with Iza and Creb there to love her and take care of her. Everyone knew from the time they were born what was expected of them, and there was no allowance for deviation. Roles were clearly defined. Everyone knew where they fit, knew their rank, knew their jobs, knew their place. Life was stable and secure. They didn’t have to worry about new ideas changing things.

  Why was she the one who had to bring changes that affected everyone? That some would hate her for? Looking back, her life with the Clan seemed so reassuring, she wondered why she had struggled so hard against the restrictions. The ordered life of the Clan appealed to her now. There was a comforting security to a strictly regulated life.

  Yet, she was glad she had taught herself to hunt, though it was against Clan traditions. She was a woman and women of the Clan did not hunt, but if she hadn’t known how, she wouldn’t be alive now, even if she almost died for it after they found out. The first time she was cursed, when Brun expelled her from the clan, he limited the time to only one moon. It was the beginning of winter and they all expected her to die, but the hunting she was cursed for had saved her life from the curse. Maybe I should have died then, she thought.

  She had defied the way of the Clan again when she ran away with Durc, but she couldn’t let them expose her newborn son to the mercy of the elements and carnivores just because they thought he was deformed. Brun had spared them, though Broud objected. He had never made her life easy. When he became leader and cursed her, it was forever and for no good reason, and that time she was finally forced to leave the clan. Hunting saved her then, too. She would never have survived in the valley, if she wasn’t a hunter, and if she hadn’t known that she could live alone if she had to.

  Ayla was still thinking about the Clan, and how to handle the rituals associated with the roots properly when she returned to the camp. She saw Jonayla sitting with Proleva and Marthona. They waved and beckoned to her.

  “Come, have something to eat,” Proleva said. Wolf had grown tired of walking with the melancholy man, who did nothing but shuffle along, and had come back to find Jonayla. He was on the other side of the fire gnawing a bone, and looked up. Ayla walked in their direction. She gave her daughter a hug, then held her off and looked at her with a strange sadness and hugged her again, almost too hard.

  “Your hair is wet, mother,” Jonayla said, squirming out of the way.

  “I just washed it,” Ayla said, petting the large wolf, who had come to greet her. She took the handsome head between her hands, looked deeply into his eyes, then hugged him with fervor. When she stood up, the wolf looked up at her with anticipation. She patted the front of her shoulders. He jumped up, steadied himself with his paws on her shoulders, licked her neck and face, then took her jaw gently in his teeth and held it. When he
let go, she returned the wolf signal of pack membership, taking his muzzle in her teeth for a moment. She hadn’t done that for a while and Ayla thought he seemed pleased.

  Proleva let out the breath she’d been holding when Wolf dropped down. That particular bit of wolfish behavior from Ayla was disturbing no matter how many times she saw it. Watching the woman exposing her neck to the teeth of the huge wolf always unnerved her, and made her realize that the friendly, well-behaved animal was a powerful wolf who could easily kill any one of the humans he mingled with so freely.

  After she caught her breath and settled her apprehensions, Proleva commented, “Help yourself, Ayla. There’s plenty. This morning’s meal was easy to make. There was a lot left over from yesterday’s feast. I’m glad we decided to make a meal together with the Lanzadonii. I liked working with Jerika and Joplaya, and several of the other women. I feel as though I know them better now.”

  Ayla felt a pang of regret. She wished she hadn’t been so busy with the zelandonia; she would have liked to help with the feast. Working together was a good way to get to know people better. Being wrapped up in her own problems didn’t help either; she could have gotten there earlier, she thought, as she picked up one of the extra cups that were set out for those who forgot their own, and dipped a cup of chamomile tea from the large, kerfed wooden cooking box. Tea was always the first thing made in the morning.

  “The aurochs is particularly good and juicy, Ayla. They’ve started to put on their winter fat, and Proleva just reheated it. You should try some,” Marthona urged, noticing that she wasn’t taking any food. “Food holders are over there.” She indicated a stack of odd-size but generally flat pieces of wood, bone, and ivory that were used as plates.

  Trees that had been felled and broken for firewood often produced large splinters that could be quickly trimmed and smoothed into plates and dishes; shoulder and pelvic bones from various deer, bison, and aurochs were roughly shaped to a reasonable size for the same purpose. The tusks of mammoths could be chipped off, much like flint, but making much larger flakes that were used for plates as well.

  Mammoth ivory could even be preshaped by cutting a circular groove first with a burin chisel. Then, using a solid end-piece of antler or horn with the pointed tip held at just the right angle in the groove of the circle, and with practice and a bit of luck, a blow from a hammerstone on the back of it would detach an ivory flake with the precut shape. But that much work was usually done only for objects meant to be given as gifts or for other special purposes. Such preshaped flakes of ivory with smooth, slightly rounded outside surfaces could be used for more than dishes. Decorative images could be etched on them.

  “Thank you, Marthona, but I have to get some things and go to see Zelandoni,” Ayla said. Suddenly she stopped and hunkered down in front of the older woman, who was sitting on a small stool woven together out of reeds, cattail leaves, and flexible branches. “I really do want to thank you, for being so kind to me since the first day I arrived. I don’t remember my own mother, only Iza, the Clan woman who raised me, but I like to think that my real mother would have been like you.”

  “I think of you as a daughter, Ayla,” Marthona said, more moved than she would have expected. “My son was lucky to find you”; then she shook her head slightly. “Sometimes I wish he were more like you.”

  Ayla hugged her, then turned to Proleva. “Thank you, too, Proleva. You’ve been such a good friend to me, and I appreciate, more than I can say, the way you’ve taken care of Jonayla when I had to stay back at the Ninth Cave, and when I’ve been busy here.” She hugged Proleva too. “I wish Folara were here, but I know she’s busy with the preparations for her Matrimonial. I think Aldanor is a good man. I’m so happy for her. I have to go now,” she said suddenly, hugged her daughter again, then hurried to the dwelling, misty-eyed with the tears she was holding back.

  “I wonder what that was all about,” Proleva said.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think she almost sounded like she was saying good-bye,” Marthona said.

  “Is mother going someplace, ’Thona?” Jonayla asked.

  “I don’t think so. At least no one has said anything to me.”

  Ayla stayed in the summer dwelling for a while making preparations. First she cut out a roughly circular shape from the belly of the skin of the red deer she had brought with her to the Summer Meeting. She had found the soft buckskin hide the day before folded up on her sleeping roll. When she asked Jonayla who had cured the deer skin, she was told, “Everybody did.”

  Cordage, fibrous rope, twine, thread, tough sinew, and strips of leather thong, in various sizes, were always useful and easy to make without having to think about it, once the techniques were learned. Most people busied themselves making things when they were sitting around talking or listening to stories, out of materials that were collected whenever they were found. So there was always some cordage around for anyone to use. Ayla got some strips of leather thong and a long piece of thin, flexible rope that were hanging on pegs pounded into posts near the entrance. After she had cut off the belly part into a circular shape, she folded the rest of the hide, then coiled up the rope and put it on top. She measured out a length of the leather thong around her neck, added additional length, then threaded it through the holes she cut around the edge of the leather circle.

  She seldom wore her amulet anymore, not even her more modern one. Most Zelandonii wore necklaces, and it was hard to wear a lumpy leather pouch and a necklace at the same time. Instead, she usually kept her amulet in her medicine bag, which she customarily wore attached to a belt or waist thong. It wasn’t a Clan medicine bag. She had thought about making another one several times, but never seemed to find the time. Releasing the drawstring that held her medicine bag closed, she searched inside and pulled out the small decorated pouch, her amulet, that was full of odd-shaped objects. She undid the knots and poured the strange collection of objects into her hand. They were the signs from her totem that signified important moments in her life. Most of them were given to her by the Spirit of the Great Cave Lion after she had made a critical decision as a sign that she had made the right choice, but not all.

  The piece of red ocher that was the first object to go into the bag was worn smooth. It was given to her by Iza when she was accepted into the Clan. Ayla put it into the new amulet. The piece of black manganese dioxide that was given to her when she became a medicine woman was also worn down just from being inside the small pouch with the other objects for so long. The red and black material that was often used for coloration had left its residue on the other objects in the pouch. The mineral objects could be brushed off, such as the fossil cast of a seashell, the sign from her totem that her decision to hunt was proper for her, even though she was female.

  He must have known even then that I would need to hunt if I was going to survive, she thought. My Cave Lion even told Brun to let me hunt, although then, only with the sling. The disk of mammoth ivory, her hunting talisman that had been given to her when she was declared the Woman Who Hunts, had absorbed color that couldn’t be brushed off, mostly red from the ocher.

  She picked up the piece of iron pyrite and rubbed it against her tunic. It was her favorite sign; it was the one that told her she had been right to run away with Durc. If she hadn’t, he would have been exposed without anyone thinking any more about it, since he had been judged deformed. When she took him and hid, knowing she could die as well, it made Brun and Creb stop and think.

  The colored dust clung to the clear quartz crystal but didn’t discolor it; that was the sign she found that told her she had made the right decision to stop looking for her people and stay in the valley of horses for a while. It always bothered her when she saw the black manganese stone. She picked it up again and held it in her closed fist. It held the spirits of all the people of the Clan. She had exchanged a piece of her spirit for it so that when she saved someone’s life they incurred no obligation to her, since she already had a piece of everyone
’s spirit.

  When Iza died, Creb, the Mog-ur, had taken her medicine woman stone from her before she was buried so she would not take the entire Clan to the spirit world with her, but no one took her stone when Broud cursed her with death. Goov had not been Mog-ur for very long, and it came as such a shock to everyone when Broud did it; no one remembered to get the stone from her, and she forgot to return it. What would happen to the Clan if she still had the stone when she passed to the next world?

  She put all of her totem’s signs into the new pouch, and knew she would keep them there from then on. It felt right for her Clan totem signs to be in a Clan amulet pouch. As she pulled the drawstring tight, she wondered, as she often had, why she had never been given a sign from her totem when she decided to leave the Mamutoi and go with Jondalar. Had she already become a child of the Mother? Had the Mother told her totem she didn’t need a sign? Had she been given a more subtle sign that she didn’t recognize? Or—a new and more frightening thought came to her—had she made the wrong decision? She felt a cold chill. For the first time in a long time, Ayla clutched her amulet and sent a silent thought asking for his protection to the spirit of the Great Cave Lion.

  When she left the temporary dwelling, Ayla was carrying a folded-up buckskin hide, a leather rucksack lumpy with the objects it held, and her Clan medicine bag. There were several more people around the campfire, and she waved to them as she left, but it wasn’t the usual beckoning, “come-back” motion with her palm facing inward, toward herself, which commonly signified a temporary separation, acknowledging that she would see them soon. She had raised her hand, palm facing out, and moved it slightly from side to side. Marthona frowned at the signal.

  As she started walking upstream along the small river, a quicker way toward the cave she had found a few years before, Ayla was beginning to wonder whether she should go through with this ceremony. Yes, Zelandoni would be disappointed, and so would the rest of the zelandonia who were preparing to assist, but it was more dangerous than they realized. When she agreed to the ceremony the day before, she had been so depressed, she didn’t care if she got lost in the black void, but she was feeling better this morning, especially after her bath in The River, and seeing Jonayla, and Wolf, not to mention Marthona and Proleva. She wasn’t as ready to face that terrifying black void now. Maybe she should tell Zelandoni that she had changed her mind.