The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [205]
“Before you commit yourself, Mog-ur would speak.”
Brun stared at the magician. His expression was enigmatic, as usual. Brun had never been able to read Mog-ur’s face. What can he say that I have not considered? I’ve made up my mind to curse her and he knows it.
“Mog-ur may speak,” he motioned.
“Ayla has no mate, but I have always provided for her, I am responsible for her. If you will allow it, I would speak as her mate.”
“Speak if you will, Mog-ur, but what can you add? I have already considered her strong love for the child and the pain and suffering she went through to have him. I understand how difficult it may be for Iza; I know it may weaken her too much. I’ve thought of every possible reason for excusing her actions, but the facts remain. She defied Clan customs. Her baby is not acceptable to the men. Broud made it clear neither one deserves to live.”
Mog-ur pulled himself up to his feet, then threw his staff aside. Wrapped in his heavy bearskin cloak, the magician was an imposing figure. Only the older men, and Brun, ever knew him as anything but Mog-ur. The Mog-ur, the holiest of all the men who interceded with the world of the spirits, the most powerful magician of the Clan. When moved to eloquence during a ceremony, he was a charismatic, awe-inspiring protector. It was he who braved the invisible forces far more fearsome than any charging animal, forces that could turn the bravest hunter into a quaking coward. There was not a man present who did not feel more secure knowing it was he who was the magician of their clan, not a man who hadn’t stood in fear of his power and magic at some time in his life, and only one, Goov, who dared to think of trading places with him.
Mog-ur, alone, stood between the men of the clan and the terrible unknown, and he became part of it by association. It imbued him with a subtle aura that carried over into his secular life. Even when he sat within the boundaries of his hearthstones, surrounded by his women, he was not really thought of as a man. He was more than, other than; he was Mog-ur.
As the dread holy man fixed a baleful eye on each man in turn, there wasn’t one, including Broud, who didn’t squirm in the depths of his soul with the sudden realization that the woman they had condemned to die lived at his hearth. Mog-ur seldom brought the force of his presence to bear outside his function, but he did then. He turned last to Brun.
“A woman’s mate has the right to speak for the life of a deformed child. I am asking you to spare the life of Ayla’s son, and for his sake, I am asking that her life be spared, too.”
All the reasons Brun had so recently considered as rationale for sparing her life seemed to have far more weight now, and the arguments for her death, insignificant. He almost agreed on the force of Mog-ur’s request alone, and it attested to the strength of his own character that he did not. But he was leader. He could not capitulate so easily in front of all his men, and despite a strong desire to give in to the force of the powerful man of magic, he held firm.
When Mog-ur saw the look of firm resolution replace the moment of indecision, the magician seemed to change before Brun’s eyes. The otherworldly character left him. He became a crippled old man in a bearskin cloak, standing as straight as his one good leg would hold him without his staff for support. When he spoke, it was with the common gestures punctuated with the gruff words of everyday speech. His face held a determined, yet strangely vulnerable look.
“Brun, ever since Ayla was found, she has lived at my hearth. I think everyone will agree that women and children look to the man of their hearth to set the standard for men of the clan. He is their model, their example of what a man should be. I have been Ayla’s example, I have set the standard in her eyes.
“I am deformed, Brun. Is it so strange