The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [235]
One clan’s specialty was a combination of onions, mushrooms, and the round green legumes of milk vetch, seasoned with a secret combination of herbs and thickened with dried reindeer moss. Another brought a special variety of pinecones, from a tree that was unique to the area of their cave, that yielded large tasty nuts released by the heat of a fire.
Norg’s clan toasted chestnuts gathered from the lower slopes and made a nut-flavored porridge sauce from cracked beechnuts, parched grains, and slices of small, hard, tart-sweet apples, cooked long and slowly. The area for some distance in the vicinity of the cave was stripped of blueberries, high-bush cranberries, and from the lower elevations, raspberries and wild mountain blackberries.
The women of Brun’s clan had spent days cracking and grinding the dried acorns they brought. The pulverized nuts were put in shallow holes in the sand near the river and quantities of water poured over the pulpy mixture to leach out the bitterness. The resultant dough was baked into flat cakes, soaked in maple syrup until they were thoroughly saturated, then dried in the sun. The host clan, who also tapped their maple trees in early spring and boiled the watery sap for long days, were interested as soon as they saw the familiar birchbark containers that were used to store maple sugars and syrup. The sticky, maple-sweet acorn cakes were an unusual treat that the women of Norg’s clan decided to try later themselves.
Uba, keeping an eye on Durc while helping the women, looked at the seemingly endless quantity and variety of food and wondered how they would ever be able to eat it all.
Smoke drifting upward disappeared into the still dark night filled with stars so thick a gossamer haze veiled the vault of the heavens. The moon was new and gave no hint of its presence, turning its back to the planet it circled and reflecting its light into the cold depths of space. The glow of cooking fires lighted the area near the cave in contrast to the darkness of the surrounding woods. Food had been moved away from the full force of the heat, but left near enough to keep it hot, and most of the women had retired to the cave. They were changing into new wraps and relaxing for a few moments before the festivities.
But even the tired women were too excited to stay inside the cave for long. The space in front began to fill with a milling crowd eagerly waiting for the feast and the beginning of the ceremony. A still hush descended as the ten magicians and their ten acolytes filed out of the opening, followed by a scramble to find places. It appeared to be a random assemblage that faced the holy men. Positions of the audience were not defined by location so much as relationship to other people. Orderly ranks were not important, only that each individual was ahead or behind, or on the correct side of certain other individuals. There were always last-minute shufflings as people tried to find the best vantage point within their sphere of relationships.
With dignified ceremony, a large fire was lit in front of the dark hole in the mountain. Then the stones were removed from the tops of the cooking pits. The mates of the leaders of the first-ranked and host clans had the signal honor of lifting out the huge haunches of tender meat, and Brun’s chest swelled with satisfaction when he saw Ebra step forward.
The mog-urs’ acceptance of Ayla had finally decided the issue. Brun and his clan were a stronger first than they had ever been. Unlikely as it had appeared at