The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [62]
The little girl, worn out by her emotions, had fallen asleep. She felt secure with the fearsome magician. He had replaced in her heart a man she no longer remembered except in some unconscious corner. As Creb looked at the peaceful, trusting face of the strange girl in his lap, he felt a deep love flowering in his soul for her. He couldn’t have loved her more if she were his own.
“Iza,” the man called out softly. The woman took the sleeping child from Creb, but not before he hugged her to him for a moment.
“Her illness has made her tired,” he said after the woman laid her down. “Make sure she rests tomorrow and you’d better examine her eyes again in the morning.”
“Yes, Creb,” she nodded. Iza loved her crippled sibling; she knew more than anyone the gentle soul that lived beneath the grim exterior. It made her happy that he had found someone to love, someone who loved him, too, and it made her feelings for the girl stronger.
Not since she was a little girl herself could Iza remember being so happy. Only her nagging fear that the child she was carrying would be male marred her joy. A son born to her would have to be raised by a hunter. She was Brun’s sibling; their mother had been the mate of the leader before him. If something happened to Broud, or if the woman he mated produced no male offspring, the leadership of the clan would fall to her son, if she had one. Brun would be forced to give her and the baby to one of the hunters, or take her in himself. Every day she asked her totem to make her unborn baby a girl, but she couldn’t rid herself of her worry.
As the summer progressed, with Creb’s gentle patience and Ayla’s eager willingness, the girl began to understand not only the language but the customs of her adopted people. Learning to avert her eyes to allow the people of the Clan the only privacy possible to them was only the first of many hard lessons. Much more difficult was learning to curb her natural curiosity and impetuous enthusiasm to conform to the customary docility of females.
Creb and Iza were learning, too. They discovered that when Ayla made a certain grimace, pulling back her lips and showing her teeth, often accompanied by peculiar aspirating sounds, it meant she was happy, not hostile. They never completely overcame their anxiety at the strange weakness of her eyes that made them water when she was sad. Iza decided the weakness was peculiar to light-colored eyes and wondered if the trait was normal for the Others or if only Ayla’s eyes watered. To be safe, Iza flushed her eyes with the clear fluid from the bluish white plant that grew deep in shaded woods. The corpselike plant derived nourishment from decaying wood and vegetable matter since it lacked chlorophyll, and its waxy-looking surface turned black when touched. But Iza knew of no better remedy for sore or inflamed eyes than the cool liquid that oozed from its broken stem and applied the treatment whenever the child cried.
She didn’t cry often. Though tears quickly brought her attention, Ayla tried hard to control them. Not only were they disturbing to the two people she loved, but to the rest of the clan it was a sign of her differentness, and she wanted to fit in and be accepted. The clan was learning to accept her, but they were still wary and suspicious of her peculiarities.
Ayla was getting to know the clan and accept them, too. Though the men were curious about her, it was beneath their dignity to show too much interest in a female child no matter how unusual, and she ignored them as much as they ignored her. Brun showed more interest than the rest, but he frightened her. He was stern and not open to advances the way Creb was. She couldn’t know that to the rest of the clan, Mog-ur appeared far more aloof and forbidding than Brun, and they were amazed at the closeness that developed