by Jean M. Auel
“I will have to think about it, Iza,” Creb said.
The child was rocking and crooning to the rabbit. She saw Iza and Creb talking and remembered that she had often seen Creb make gestures calling on the spirits to help Iza’s healing magic work. She brought the small furry animal to the magician.
“Creb, will you ask the spirits to make the rabbit well?” she motioned after putting it down at his feet.
Mog-ur looked into her earnest face. He had never asked for help from spirits to heal an animal, and he felt a little foolish about it, but he didn’t have the heart to refuse her. He glanced around, then made a few quick gestures.
“Now it’s sure to get well,” Ayla gestured decisively, then seeing that Iza was through nursing, she asked, “Can I hold the baby, mother?” The rabbit was a warm and cuddly substitute, but not when she could hold the real thing.
“All right,” Iza said. “Be careful with her, the way I showed you.”
Ayla rocked and crooned to the tiny girl as she had done with the rabbit. “What will you name her, Creb?” she asked.
Iza was curious, too, but she would never have asked him. They lived at Creb’s fire, were supported by him, and it was his right to name the children born to his hearth.
“I haven’t decided, yet. And you must learn not to ask so many questions, Ayla,” Creb chided, but he was pleased at her trust in his magical skill, even with a rabbit. He turned to Iza and added, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if the animal stayed here until its leg is mended, it’s a harmless creature.”
Iza made a gesture of acquiescence and felt a warm flush of pleasure. She was sure Creb wouldn’t object if she began training Ayla, even if he never gave his explicit consent. All Iza really needed to know was that he wouldn’t stop her.
“How does she make that sound in her throat, I wonder?” Iza asked, to change the subject, listening to Ayla’s humming. “It’s not unpleasant, but it is unusual.”
“It’s another difference between Clan and Others,” Creb motioned with an air of imparting a fact of great wisdom to an admiring student, “like not having the memories, or the strange sounds she used to make. She doesn’t make them much anymore since she has learned to talk properly.”
Ovra arrived at Creb’s hearth with their evening meal. Her amazement was no less than Creb’s at seeing the rabbit. It increased when Iza let the young woman hold her baby and she saw Ayla pick up the rabbit and rock it as if it were a baby, too. Ovra gave Creb a sidewise glance to check his reaction, but he seemed not to have noticed it. She could hardly wait to tell her mother. Imagine, mothering an animal. Maybe the girl wasn’t right in the head. Did she think the animal was human?
Not long afterward, Brun strolled over and signaled Creb that he wanted to talk to him. Creb was expecting it. They walked together toward the entrance fire, away from both hearths.
“Mog-ur,” the leader started hesitantly.
“Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking, Mog-ur. It’s time to have a mating ceremony. I’ve decided to give Ovra to Goov, and Droog has agreed to take Aga and her children and will allow Aba to live with him, too,” Brun said, not quite knowing how to bring up the subject of the rabbit at Creb’s fire.
“I was wondering when you were going to decide to mate them,” Creb answered, not offering any comment on the subject he knew Brun wanted to discuss.
“I wanted to wait. I couldn’t afford to have two hunters restricted while hunting was good. When do you think will be the best time?” Brun was having difficulty trying not to stare into Creb’s rock-outlined territory, and Creb was rather enjoying the leader’s discomfiture.
“I will be naming Iza’s child soon; we could have the matings then,” Creb offered.
“I’ll tell them,” Brun said. He stood on one foot, then the other, looking up at the high-vaulted ceiling and down at the ground, toward the rear of the cave, and then outside, anyplace except directly at Ayla holding the rabbit. Courtesy demanded that he refrain from looking into another man’s hearth, yet for him to know about the rabbit, he obviously had to see it. He was trying to think of an acceptable way to broach the subject. Creb waited.
“Why is there a rabbit at your fire?” Brun motioned quickly. He was at a disadvantage and he knew it. Creb deliberately turned and looked at the people within the limits of his domain. Iza knew full well what was going on. She busied herself with the baby, hoping not to be drawn in. Ayla, the cause of the problem, was oblivious to the whole situation.
“It’s a harmless animal, Brun,” Creb evaded.
“But why is there an animal in the cave?” the leader retorted.
“Ayla brought it in. Its leg is broken and she wanted Iza to fix it,” Creb said as though there was nothing unusual about it.
“No one has ever brought an animal into the cave before,” Brun said, frustrated that he couldn’t find a stronger objection.
“But what’s the harm? It won’t be around for long, just until its leg is healed,” Creb returned, calmly reasonable.
Brun couldn’t think of a good reason to insist that Creb get rid of the animal as long as he was willing to keep it. It was within his hearth. There were no customs forbidding animals in caves; it just hadn’t been done before. But that wasn’t the real source of his distress. He realized the real problem was Ayla. Ever since Iza had picked up the girl, there had been too many unusual incidents associated with her. Everything about her was unprecedented, and she was still a child. What would he have to face when she got older? Brun had no experience, no set of rules to deal with her. But he didn’t know how to tell Creb about his doubts either. Creb sensed his brother’s uneasiness and tried to give him another reason to let the rabbit stay at his hearth.
“Brun, the clan that hosts the Gathering keeps a cave bear cub in their cave,” the magician reminded him.
“But that’s different, that’s Ursus. That’s for the Bear Festival. Cave bears lived in caves even before people, but rabbits don’t live in caves.”
“The cub is an animal that is brought into a cave, though.”
Brun didn’t have an answer, and Creb’s rationale seemed to offer some guidelines, but why did the girl have to bring the rabbit into the cave in the first place? If it wasn’t for her, the problem would never have come up. Brun felt the firm basis of his objections sinking under him like quicksand and he let the matter rest.
The day before the naming ceremony was cold but sunny. There had been a few flurries and Creb’s bones had been aching of late. He was sure a storm was on the way. He wanted to enjoy the last few days of clear weather before the snows began in earnest and was walking along the path beside the stream. Ayla was with him, trying out her new footwear. Iza had made them by cutting out roughly circular pieces of aurochs hide, cured with the soft underlayer of hair left on and rubbed with extra fat for waterproofing. She pierced holes around the edge in the manner of a pouch and drew them up around the girl’s ankles with the fur side in for warmth.
Ayla was pleased with them and lifted her feet high as she strutted beside the man. Her snow leopard fur covered her inner wrap, and a soft furry rabbit skin was draped over her head, fur side in, covering her ears and tied under her chin with the parts that had once served to cover the animal’s legs. She scampered ahead, then ran back and walked beside the old man, slowing her exuberant pace to match his shuffle. They were comfortably silent for a while, each involved with their own thoughts.
I wonder what I should name Iza’s baby, Creb was thinking. He loved his sibling and wanted to pick a name she would like. Not one from her mate’s side, he thought. Thinking about the man who had been Iza’s mate left a bad taste in his mouth. The cruel punishment her mate had inflicted on her made Creb angry, but his feelings went much further back. He remembered how the man had taunted him when he was a boy, calling him woman because he could never hunt. Creb guessed it was only his fear of Mog-ur’s power that stopped the ridicule. I’m glad Iza had a girl, he thought. A boy would
have given him too much honor.
With the man no longer a thorn in his side, Creb enjoyed the pleasures of his hearth more than he ever thought possible. Being the patriarch of his own little family, being responsible for them, providing for them, gave him a sense of manhood he had never experienced. He detected a different kind of respect from the other men and found he had a greater interest in their hunting now that a portion of each fell to him. Before, he was more concerned about the hunt ceremonies; now he had other mouths to feed.
I’m sure Iza’s happier, too, he said to himself, thinking about the attention and affection she lavished on him, cooking for him, caring for him, anticipating his needs. In all ways but one, she was his mate, the closest he had ever come to having one. Ayla was a constant joy. The inherent differences he discovered kept him interested; training her was a challenge like that which any natural teacher felt with a bright and willing but unusual pupil. The new baby intrigued him too. After the first few times, he got over his nervousness when Iza laid the infant in his lap, and watched her random hand movements and unfocused eyes in rapt attention, contemplating in wonder how something so tiny and undeveloped could grow into an adult woman.
She assures the continuation of Iza’s line, he thought, and it is a line worthy of its rank. Their mother had been one of the most renowned medicine women of the Clan. People from other clans had sometimes come to her, bringing their sick if possible or taking back medicine. Iza, herself, was of equal stature, and her daughter had every possibility of attaining the same eminence. She deserved a name in keeping with her ancient and distinguished heritage.
Creb thought about Iza’s line and remembered the woman who had been their mother’s mother. She had always been kind and gentle with him, took care of him more than his mother after Brun was born. She, too, was famous for her healing skill, she had even healed that man born to the Others, just as Iza healed Ayla. It’s a shame Iza never knew her, Creb mused. Then he stopped.
That’s it! I’ll give the baby her name, he thought, pleased with his inspiration.
With a name for the infant decided, he turned his attention to the mating ceremonies. He thought about the young man who was his devoted acolyte. Goov was quiet, serious, and Creb liked him. His Aurochs totem should be strong enough for Ovra’s Beaver totem. Ovra worked hard and seldom needed to be reprimanded. She would make him a good mate. There’s no reason that she shouldn’t produce children for him; and Goov is a good hunter, he will provide for her well. When he becomes Mog-ur, his share will compensate when his duties don’t allow him to hunt.
Will he ever be a powerful mog-ur? Creb wondered. He shook his head. Much as he liked his acolyte, he realized Goov would never have the skill Creb knew he himself possessed. The crippled body that prevented normal activities like hunting and mating had allowed him time to concentrate all his awesome mental endowment into developing his renowned power. That was why he was The Mog-ur. He was the one that directed the minds of all the other mog-urs at the Clan Gathering in the ceremony that was the holiest of the holy. Although he achieved a symbiosis of minds with the men of his clan, it did not compare with the blending of souls that happened with the trained minds of the other magicians. He thought about the next Clan Gathering, even though it was many years away. Clan Gatherings were held once every seven years, and the last one was the summer before the cave-in. If I live to the next, it will be my last, he suddenly realized.
Creb brought his attention back to the mating ceremony, which would mate Droog and Aga, too. Droog was an experienced hunter who had long since proven his skill. His skill at toolmaking was even greater. He was as quiet and serious as his dead mate’s son, and he and Goov shared the same totem. They were much alike in other ways, and Creb was sure it was the spirit of Droog’s totem that created Goov. It’s a pity Droog’s mate was called to the next world, he thought. There had been a fondness between the couple that would probably never develop with Aga. But both needed new mates, and Aga had already proven more prolific than Droog’s first mate. It was a logical match.
Creb and Ayla were startled out of their thoughts by a rabbit that dashed across their path. It made the girl think about the rabbit in the cave and turned her mind back to what she had been thinking about all along, Iza’s baby.
“Creb, how did the baby get inside Iza?” the girl asked.
“A woman swallows the spirit of a man’s totem,” Creb motioned casually, still lost in his own thoughts. “It fights with the spirit of her totem. If the man’s overcomes the woman’s, it leaves a part of itself to start a new life.”
Ayla looked around her, wondering at the omnipresence of spirits. She could not see any, but if Creb said they were there, she believed it.
“Can any man’s spirit get inside the woman?” she asked next.
“Yes, but only a stronger spirit can defeat hers. Often the totem of a woman’s mate asks another spirit to help. Then the other spirit may be allowed to leave its essence. It’s usually the spirit of a woman’s mate that tries most; it’s the closest one, but it often needs help. If a boy has the same totem as his mother’s mate, it means he will be lucky,” Creb explained carefully.
“Can only women have babies?” she asked, warming to her subject.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Does a woman have to be mated to have a baby?”
“No, sometimes she swallows a spirit before she is mated. But if she doesn’t have a mate by the time the baby is born, the baby may be unlucky.”
“Could I have a baby?” was her next hopeful query.
Creb thought about her powerful totem. Its vital principle was too strong. Even with the help of another spirit, it was not likely it would ever be defeated. But she will find that out soon enough, he thought.
“You’re not old enough, yet,” he evaded.
“When will I be old enough?”
“When you are a woman.”
“When will I be a woman?”
Creb was beginning to think she would never run out of questions. “The first time your totem’s spirit battles with another spirit, you will bleed. That is the sign that it was wounded. Some of the essence of the spirit that fought with it is left behind to make your body ready. Your breasts will grow, and there will be some other changes. After that, your totem’s spirit will fight with other spirits regularly. When the time for blood to flow comes and there is none, it means the spirit you swallowed has defeated yours and a new life has started.”
“But when will I be a woman?”
“Perhaps when you have lived through the cycle of all the seasons eight or nine times. That’s when most girls become women, some as early as seven years,” he replied.
“But how long will that be?” she insisted.
The patient old magician heaved a sigh. “Come here, I’ll see if I can explain,” he said, picking up a stick and taking a flint knife from his pouch. He doubted that she would understand, but it might still her questions.
Numbers were a difficult abstraction for people of the Clan to comprehend. Most could not think beyond three: you, me, and another. It was not a matter of intelligence; for example, Brun knew immediately when one of the twenty-two members of his clan was missing. He had only to think of each individual, and he could do it quickly without being conscious of it. But to transfer that individual into a concept called “one” took effort few could master. “How can this person be one and another time that person also be one—they are different people?” was the first question usually asked.
The Clan’s inability to synthesize and abstract extended into other areas of their lives. They had a name for everything. They knew oak, willow, pine, but they had no generic concept for all of them; they had no word for tree. Every kind of soil, each kind of rock, even the different kinds of snow had a name. The Clan depended on their rich memory and their ability to add to that memory—they forgot almost nothing. Their language was replete with color and description but almost totally devoid of abstractions. T
he idea was foreign to their nature, their customs, the way they had developed. They depended on Mog-ur to keep track of those few things that needed to be counted: the time between Clan Gatherings, the ages of the members of the clan, the length of isolation after a mating ceremony, and the first seven days of a child’s life. That he could do so was one of his most magical of powers.
Sitting down, Creb held the stick firmly wedged between his foot and a rock. “Iza says she thinks you are a little older than Vorn,” Creb began. “Vorn has lived through his birth year, his walking year, his nursing year, and his weaning year,” he explained, cutting a slash in the stick for each year as he said it. “I will make one more mark for you. This is how old you are now. If I take my hand and fit it in each mark, I will cover all of them with one hand, see?”
Ayla looked with concentration at the slash marks, holding out the fingers of her hand. Then she brightened. “I am as many years as this!” she said, showing him her hand with all the fingers extended. “But, how long before I can have a baby?” she asked, far more interested in reproduction than reckoning.
Creb was thunderstruck. How had the girl been able to grasp the idea so quickly? She hadn’t even asked what slash marks had to do with fingers or what either had to do with years. It had taken many repetitions before Goov had understood. Creb made three more slash marks and put three fingers over them. With only one hand, it had been especially difficult for him when he was learning. Ayla looked at her other hand and immediately held up three fingers, folding down her thumb and forefinger.
“When I am this many?” she asked, holding out her eight fingers again. Creb nodded affirmatively. Her next action caught him completely by surprise; it was a concept he had spent years mastering himself. She put down the first hand and held up only the three fingers.