The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [198]
“Broud, we’ve all heard that before,” Brun motioned wearily. “Her disobedience will not go unpunished, I promise you.”
Broud’s constant harping on the same theme was not only wearing on Brun’s nerves, it was making an impression. The leader was beginning to question his own judgment, judgment that had to be based on adherence to long-standing traditions and customs that allowed little room for deviation. Yet, as Broud kept reminding him, Ayla had gotten away with a gradually worsening list of transgressions that did seem to lead to this unforgivable, deliberate act of defiance. He had been too generous with the outsider not born with an inherent sense of Clan rightness, too lenient with her. She took advantage of him. Broud was right, he should have been more strict, he should have made her conform, perhaps he never should have allowed the medicine woman to pick her up, but did the son of his mate have to keep on about it?
Broud’s constant nagging made an impression on the rest of the hunters, too. Most were all but convinced Ayla had somehow blinded them with a smokescreen of deception and only Broud had seen her with clear eyes. When Brun was not around, the young man cast aspersions on the leader, hinting that he was too old to lead them effectively any longer. Brun’s loss of face was a devastating blow to his confidence; he could sense the men’s respect slipping away, and he could not bear to face a Gathering of the clans under such circumstances.
Ayla stayed in the cave, leaving only for water. Bundled in furs, she was warm enough even without a fire. The food Uba brought and the forgotten store of deer meat, dry as leather and tough to chew but highly concentrated nourishment, seasoned by hunger, made gathering or hunting unnecessary. It gave her time for the rest she needed. No longer drained by the demands of nurturing a not-quite-right fetus, her healthy young body, toughened by the years of strenuous physical exercise, was recuperating. She didn’t need to sleep as much, but in some ways that was worse. Her troubled thoughts weighed on her constantly. At least when she was sleeping, she was free of anxiety.
Ayla was sitting near the mouth of the cave holding her sleeping son in her arms. White, watery fluid dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, and dripping from the other breast stimulated by his nursing, gave evidence that her milk had started to flow. The afternoon sun, hidden occasionally by fast-moving clouds, warmed the spot near the entrance with its dappled light. She was looking at her son, watching his regular breathing interrupted by twitching eye movements and little jerky spasms that started him making sucking motions with his mouth before relaxing again. She looked at him more closely, turning his head to see his profile.
Uba said you don’t look so bad, Ayla thought; I don’t think you do either. Just a little different. That’s what Uba said, too. You just look different, but not as different as me. Ayla suddenly remembered the reflection of herself she had seen in the still pool. Not as different as me!
Ayla examined her son again, trying to remember the reflection of herself. My forehead bulges out like that, she thought, reaching up to touch her face. And that bone under his mouth, I’ve got one, too. But he’s got brow ridges, and I haven’t. Clan people have brow ridges. If I’m different, why shouldn’t my baby be different? He should look like me, shouldn’t he? He does, a little, but he looks a little like Clan babies, too. He looks like both. I wasn’t born to the Clan, but my baby was, only he looks like me and them, like both mixed together.
I don’t think you’re deformed at all, my son. If you were born to me and born to the Clan, you should look like both. If the spirits were