by Jean M. Auel
“No one is here,” Ayla said, very surprised. “Everyone is gone. Except for the ones who may have gone hunting or visiting, they must all be at the Main Camp.”
“Here’s our dwelling, at least I think it is,” Jondalar said. “Let’s build a fire inside to warm it up, then go check on the horses.”
They brought in some wood and dried aurochs dung patties that had been stacked outside and started a fire in the small fireplace they had created near their sleeping places. Wolf came in with them and parked his bone in a small hole near an area of the wall that was seldom used by anyone but him. Ayla checked the large waterbag near the main hearth.
“We should bring in some water, too,” she said. “There’s not much left in this. Let’s go find the horses. Then I’m going to have to feed Jonayla; she’s starting to fuss around.”
“I’d better get a new torch. This one will go out soon,” Jondalar said. “I should spend some time tomorrow making new ones.”
He lit a new torch off the old one, then put the remains of the first in the fireplace. When they left the shelter, Wolf followed them out. Ayla heard him make a low throaty growl as they approached the fence of the horse surround.
“Something’s wrong,” she said, hurrying.
Jondalar held the torch high to spread the light it gave off. There was a strange lump of something near the center of the enclosed space. As they neared it, Wolf’s growl grew louder. When they got closer they could see pale gray, spotted, rather fluffy fur with a long tail, and a lot of blood.
“It’s a leopard, a young snow leopard, I think. It’s been trampled to death. What’s a snow leopard doing here? They like the highlands,” Ayla said. She ran toward a roofed shelter they had constructed for the horses to get out of the rain, but it was empty.
“Whiiinnney,” she called, “Whiiiinnney!” making it a loud neigh that sounded to Jondalar exactly like a horse.
It was the name she had originally given the mare. The name she was called by most people, Whinney, was an accommodation Ayla had made to the language of people. She whinnied again, then blew her special call whistle very loudly. Finally, from a distance, they heard an answering neigh.
“Wolf, go find Whinney,” she said to the canine. The animal raced off in the direction of the neigh with Ayla and Jondalar following behind. They went through the fence where the horses had stomped it down to break through, and she understood how they got out.
They found all three horses near a creek at the back of the area the Ninth Cave was using for their camp. Wolf was sitting on his haunches guarding them, but, Ayla realized, he wasn’t too close. They had obviously had a bad scare, and somehow the wolf sensed that even the friendly carnivore felt threatening at the moment. Ayla rushed to Whinney, but slowed down when she noticed that Whinney was watching her intently, her mouth tight, her ears, nose, and eyes pointed toward her, focused on her, sometimes swinging her head slightly.
“You’re still afraid, aren’t you?” Ayla began talking to the mare softly in their special language. “I don’t blame you, Whinney.” Again she said her name the way a horse would, but more softly. “I’m sorry I left you alone to fight off that leopard by yourselves, and I’m sorry no one was here to hear you when you were screaming for help.”
She had been slowly walking toward the horse as she spoke until finally she reached her and put her arms around the sturdy neck. The horse relaxed, put her head over the woman’s shoulder and leaned into her as Ayla leaned back in the familiar comforting stance that had been their custom since the early days in the valley.
Jondalar followed her lead, whistling his call to Racer, who was also still feeling frightened. He stuck the torch in the ground, then approached the young stallion, and stroked and scratched him in his favorite places. The handling by their familiar friends comforted the animals, and soon Gray also joined in, nursing from her dam for a while, then going to Ayla for some affectionate touching and scratching. Jondalar also joined in stroking the little filly. But it was only after the five of them were all together—six including Jonayla, who was awake and squirming in her carrying blanket—that Wolf joined them.
Even though Whinney and Racer had known him from the time he was a four-week-old pup and had helped to raise him, his underlying scent was still of a carnivore, a meat-eater whose wild cousins often preyed on horses. Wolf had sensed their discomfort when they saw him, probably from their scent of fear, and knew to wait until they were comfortable again before approaching them. He was welcomed to the pack of people and horses that he had imprinted on, the only pack he had known.
About then Jonayla decided it was her turn. She let out a hungry wail. Ayla took her out of her carrying blanket and held her out in front to pass her water on the ground. When she was through, Ayla propped her up on Gray’s back for a moment, holding her with one hand while she straightened out the carrying blanket and exposed a breast with the other hand. Soon the infant was wrapped up again, held close to her mother, happily nursing.
On the way back, they made a detour around the enclosure, knowing that the horses would never go into it again. Ayla thought that she would get rid of the leopard carcass later and she wasn’t sure about the enclosure. At the moment she never wanted to put the horses in one again and would be happy to give the wooden poles and planks to whoever wanted them, for firewood if nothing else. When they reached their lodge, they led the horses around to an area on the back side of the summer dwelling that was used infrequently, where some grass still grew.
“Should we put a halter on them and tie them to a ground stake?” Jondalar said. “It would keep them close by.”
“I think it would upset Whinney, and Racer, after their scare, if they couldn’t run freely. For now I think they will want to stay close, unless something scares them again, and we’d hear them. I think I’m going to leave Wolf out here to guard them, at least for tonight.” She went to the animal and bent down close. “Stay here, Wolf. Stay here and watch Whinney, and Racer and Gray. Stay and guard the horses.” She wasn’t entirely sure if he understood, but when he lowered his hind quarters and looked toward the horses, she thought he might. She pulled out the bone she had tucked away for him and gave it to him.
The small fire they had started inside the shelter had long since gone out, so they started a new one, bringing in more fuel to keep it going. About then, Ayla noticed that the nursing was encouraging Jonayla to generate more than water. She quickly spread out a small pile of soft absorbent cattail fibers, and laid the child’s bare bottom on it.
“Jondalar, would you get the large waterbag and bring me whatever is left in it, so I can clean her up, then go and fill it with fresh water, and our small one, too,” Ayla said.
“She is a smelly little thing,” he said with an adoring smile at the little girl he thought was utterly beautiful.
He found the bowl made of tightly woven osier willow withes with an ocher-stained red cord worked in near the top, which was often used to clean especially dirty messes of various kinds. It was marked with the color so it wouldn’t inadvertently be used for drinking water or cooking. He brought it and the nearly empty waterbag to their hearth, filled the bowl, then took their waterbag, made of the stomach of an ibex, the same one that provided the hide for Jonayla’s carrying blanket, along with the large general one to the entrance. He picked up one of the unlit torches that was nearby, took it to their fireplace to light it, and picking up the waterbags on the way, went out.
Animal stomachs, when thoroughly cleaned and with extra holes at the bottom sewed or tied off, were nearly waterproof and made excellent waterbags. When Jondalar came back with the water, the soiled water bowl was beside the night basket near the door, and Ayla was nursing Jonayla again in hopes of putting her to sleep.
“I suppose I should empty the bowl and the night basket, while I’m at it,” he said, planting the end of the lighted torch in the ground.
“If you want, but hurry,” Ayla said, looking at him with a languor
ous yet mischievous smile. “I think Jonayla is almost asleep.”
He felt an immediate tightening in his loins and smiled back. He brought the large, heavy waterbag to the main hearth and hung it in its accustomed place, a peg on one of the strong posts that supported the structure, then brought the second one to their sleeping place.
“Are you thirsty?” he asked, as he watched her nurse the baby.
“I wouldn’t mind a little water. I was thinking of making some tea, but I think I’ll wait until later,” she said.
He poured some water in a cup and gave it to her, then went back to the door. He poured the contents of the bowl into the night basket, then picked up the torch and went back outside taking the night basket and soiled bowl with him. Propping the torch in the ground, he dumped the large, malodorous night basket in one of the trenches the people used for passing their wastes. Dumping such wastes was a job no one liked to do. Picking up the torch, he then took them both to the lower end of the stream, far away from the place upstream that they had designated as their source of water. He rinsed them both out, letting the water flow through them; then with a shovel made of the scapula of some animal, with one edge thinned and sharpened, that was left there for the purpose, he filled the night basket something less than half full of dirt. Then, using clean sand from the bank of the waterway, he carefully washed and scoured his hands. Finally, with the torch to guide his way, he picked up the basket and bowl and headed back to the dwelling.
He put the night basket in its usual place, the bowl beside it, and the flaming torch in a holder made for it near the entrance. “That’s done,” he said, smiling at Ayla as he walked toward her. She was still holding the baby. He kicked off his sandals made of woven grass—the usual foot-coverings worn in the summer—and lay down beside her, propping himself up on one elbow.
“It will be someone else’s turn next,” she said.
“That water is cold,” he said.
“And so are your hands,” she said, reaching for them. “I should warm them up,” she added, the hint of suggestion in her voice.
He looked at her with glowing eyes, his pupils enlarged with desire, and the dim light inside the dwelling.
12
Jondalar enjoyed watching Jonayla, whatever she was doing, whether it was nursing or playing with her feet or putting things in her mouth. He even liked to look at her when she was sleeping. Now he gazed at her trying to resist falling to sleep. She would start to let go of her mother’s nipple, then suckle a few more times and hold on for a moment, then begin to let go, and repeat the process. Finally she lay quietly in her mother’s arms. He was fascinated as a drop of milk formed at the end of the nipple and fell.
“I think she’s asleep,” he said, softly.
“Yes, I think so,” Ayla said. She had packed the baby in clean mouflon wool, which she had washed a few days before, and wrapped her up in her usual swaddling night clothes. The woman stood up and gently carried her infant to a nearby small sleeping roll. Ayla didn’t always move Jonayla out of her bed when she went to sleep, but on this night she definitely wanted their sleeping roll for just Jondalar and her.
When she went back, the man who was waiting watched her as she slipped back into her place beside him; she looked directly at him, which still took some conscious thought for her. Jondalar had taught her that among his people, and most of his kind—and hers—it was considered impolite, if not devious, if you didn’t look directly at the person to whom you were speaking.
While Ayla was looking at him, she started thinking about how other people saw this man she loved, how he appeared, his physical look. What was it about him that drew people to him before he even said a word? He was tall, with yellow hair lighter than hers, and he was strong and well made, with good proportions for his height. Though she couldn’t see the color in the dim light of the shelter, she knew that his eyes, which always caught people’s attention, matched the extraordinary blue of glacier water and the ice of its depths. She had seen both. He was intelligent and skilled in making things, like the flint tools he crafted, but more than that, she knew he had a quality, a charm, a charisma that attracted most people, but especially women. Zelandoni had been known to say that not even the Mother could refuse him if he asked.
He didn’t quite know he had it—it was an unconscious appeal—but he did tend to take for granted that he would always be welcomed. Though it wasn’t something he used on purpose, exactly, he knew he had an effect on people and benefited from it. Even his long Journey had not disabused him of the notion, or changed his perception that wherever he went, people would accept him, approve of him, like him. He had never really had to explain himself or find out how to fit in, and he never learned how to ask for pardon for doing something inappropriate or unacceptable.
If he seemed contrite or acted sorry—feelings that were usually genuine—people tended to accept that. Even when he was a young man and had beat Ladroman so badly that he knocked out his permanent front teeth, Jondalar didn’t have to find the words to say he was sorry, then face him, and say them. His mother paid a heavy compensation for him, and he was sent away to live with Dalanar, the man of his hearth, for a few years, but he didn’t have to do anything himself to make amends. He didn’t have to beg forgiveness, or even say he was sorry for doing something wrong and injuring the other boy.
Though to most people he was considered an amazingly handsome, masculine man, Ayla thought of him in a somewhat different way. Men of the people who raised her, men of the Clan, had features that were more rugged, with large round eye sockets, generous noses, and pronounced brow ridges. From the first moment she saw him, unconscious, almost dead, after being attacked by her lion, the man had aroused an unconscious memory of people she hadn’t seen in many years, a memory of people like herself. To Ayla, Jondalar’s features were not as strong as those of the men with whom she had grown up, but they were so perfectly shaped and arranged, she thought that he was incredibly beautiful, like a fine-looking animal, a healthy young horse or lion. Jondalar had explained to her that it was not a word usually used to describe men, but though she didn’t say it often, she did think he was beautiful.
He looked at her as he lay beside her, then bent his head to kiss her. He felt the softness of her lips and slowly moved his tongue between them, which she obligingly opened. He felt a tightening of his loins again.
“Ayla, you are so beautiful, and I am so lucky,” he said.
“I am so lucky,” she said. “And you are beautiful.”
He smiled. She knew it wasn’t quite the word to use, though she used “beautiful” correctly in all other instances. Now, when she said it to him in private, he just smiled. She hadn’t closed the ties at the top of the opening of her tunic, though her breast had slipped back inside. He reached in and pulled it out again, the same one she had just used to nurse, and ran his tongue around the nipple, then suckled on it, tasting her milk.
“It feels different inside me when you do it,” she said softly. “I like it when Jonayla nurses, but it doesn’t feel the same. You make me want you to touch me in other places.”
“You make me want to touch you in those places.”
He undid all the ties and opened her tunic wide, exposing both breasts. When he suckled her again, her other nipple dribbled milk, and he reached over to lick that one.
“I’m coming to like the taste of your milk, but I don’t want to take what belongs to Jonayla.”
“By the time she’s hungry again, more milk will be there.”
He let go of the nipple and ran his tongue up to her neck and then kissed her again, this time more fiercely, and felt a need so strong he wasn’t sure he could control it. He stopped and buried his face in her neck, trying to regain his composure. She began tugging on his tunic to pull it over his head.
“It’s been a while,” he said, sitting up on his knees. “I can’t believe how ready I am.”
“Are you?” she said, with a teasing grin.
&nbs
p; “I’ll show you,” he said.
He stripped off his tunic with a two-handed pull over his head, then, standing, untied the drawstring around his waist and pulled off his short-legged trousers. Under those he wore a protective pouch that covered his man parts, tied on around his hips with thin strips of leather. Usually made of chamois or rabbit or some other soft skin, the thong pouches tended to be worn only in summer. If the weather became very warm or a man was working especially hard, he could strip down to just that and still feel protected. Jondalar’s pouch was bulging with the member it contained. He slipped the thongs down, releasing his straining manhood.
Ayla looked up at him, a slow smile showing her response. There was a time when the size of his member had frightened women, before they knew with what care and gentleness he used it. His first time with Ayla he was afraid she might be nervous, before they both understood how suited they were to each other. Sometimes Jondalar really couldn’t believe how lucky he was. Whenever he wanted her, she was ready for him. She never acted coy or disinterested. It was as if she always wanted him as much as he wanted her. He responded with a grin of such happiness and delight that in response her smile grew into the glorious manifestation that transformed her in his eyes, and those of most men, into a woman of unsurpassed beauty.
The fire in their small hearth was burning down, not yet out, but not giving much light or heat. It didn’t matter. He dropped down beside her and began to remove her clothing, first the long tunic, stopping to suck on her nipples again, before untying the thongs around her waist holding up her half-leggings. He loosened the waist ties, and pulled the leggings down, running his tongue down her stomach, dipping into her navel, then pulling them down more, uncovering her pubic hair. When the top of her slit showed, he dipped his tongue there, savoring her familiar taste and searching for the small knob. She made a small squeal of pleasure when he found it.
He pulled off her leggings, and bent down to kiss her again, then tasted milk and worked his way down and tasted her essence again. He spread her legs, opened her lovely petals, then found her swelling nodule. He knew just how to stimulate her; he suckled it and worked it with his tongue while he put his fingers inside her and found other places that stirred her senses.