The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [186]
Ayla searched her brain for every remedy Iza had ever taught her, she questioned Uba for the information she knew was stored in the child’s memory, and applied a certain logic of her own. The special talent Iza had noticed, an ability to discover and treat the real problem, was Ayla’s forte. She was a diagnostician. From small clues, she could put together a picture like pieces of a puzzle and fill in the blanks with reasoning and intuition. It was an ability for which her brain alone, among all those who shared the cave, was uniquely suited. The crisis of Iza’s illness was the stimulus that sharpened her talent.
Ayla applied the remedies she had learned from the medicine woman, then tried new techniques that suggested themselves from other uses, sometimes far removed. Whatever it was, the medication, or the loving care, or the medicine woman’s own will to live—most likely it was all of them—by the time winter had piled high drifts against the wind barriers at the entrance, Iza was sufficiently recovered to take charge of Ayla’s pregnancy again. It was none too soon.
The strain of nursing Iza back to health had its effect. Ayla spotted blood continuously the rest of the winter and lived with a constant backache. She woke in the middle of the night with cramps in her legs and still vomited frequently. Iza expected her to lose the baby anytime. She didn’t know how Ayla hung on to it, and she didn’t know how the baby could continue to develop with Ayla so weak. But develop it did. The young woman’s stomach swelled to unbelievable proportions, and the baby kicked so vigorously and continuously she could hardly sleep. Iza had never seen a woman suffer through a more difficult pregnancy.
Ayla never complained. She was afraid Iza would think she was ready to give the baby up, though she was much too far along for the medicine woman to consider it. Nor did Ayla consider it. Her suffering only made her more convinced that if she lost this one, she would never have another baby.
From her bed, Ayla watched the spring rains wash away the snow, and the first crocus she saw was one Uba brought her. Iza wouldn’t let her out of the cave. The pussy willows had blown and turned green, and the first buds hinted at verdant foliage on the soggy spring day early in her eleventh year when Ayla’s labor began.
The beginning contractions were easy. Ayla sipped willow-bark tea, talking to Iza and Uba, excitedly pleased that the time had finally come. By the next day, she was sure, she would be holding her own baby in her arms. Iza had reservations but tried not to show them. The conversation turned, as it did so often lately with Iza and her two daughters, to medicine.
“Mother, what was that root you brought me the day you went out and got so sick?” Ayla motioned.
“It’s called rattlesnake root. It’s not commonly used because it should be chewed when it’s fresh, and it must be collected in late fall. It’s very good for preventing miscarriage, but how many women threaten to miscarry only in late fall? It loses its effectiveness when it’s dried.”
“What does it look like?” Uba asked. Iza’s illness had sharpened Uba’s interest in the healing herbs she would one day dispense, and both Iza and Ayla were training her. But training Uba was different from training Ayla. To gain the full value of her brain, Uba only needed to be reminded of what she knew and see how it was applied.
“It’s really two plants, a male and a female. It has a long stalk growing out of a cluster of leaves near the ground, and small flowers clinging close to the top, partway down the stalk. The male flowers are white. The root is from the female plant; its flowers are smaller and green.”
“Did you say it grows in pine forests?” Ayla motioned.
“Only damp ones. It likes moisture,