The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [150]
In his youth, when Jondalar had become enamored of the First, then an acolyte named Zolena, another young man, called Ladroman, had wanted Zolena for his donii-woman. He was jealous of Jondalar and had spied on them, and heard Jondalar trying to persuade Zolena to become his mate. It was the donii-women who was supposed to keep such entanglements in check. The young men they were instructing were considered too vulnerable to the knowing older women. But Jondalar was tall and mature for his age, incredibly handsome and charismatic with striking blue eyes, and so appealing that she didn’t reject him immediately.
Ladroman told the zelandonia and everyone else that they were breaking taboos. Jondalar got into a fight with him about it, and for spying on them, which became a big scandal, not only because of the liaison but because Jondalar knocked out Ladroman’s two front teeth in the confrontation. They were permanent teeth that could never grow in again. It not only left him talking with a lisp, but made normal biting difficult for him. Jondalar’s mother, who was leader of the Ninth Cave at the time, had had to pay heavy compensation for her son’s behavior.
As a result of the whole affair, she decided to send him to live with Dalanar, the man to whom she was mated when Jondalar was born, the man of his hearth. Although Jondalar was upset at first, eventually he was thankful. The punishment—as he interpreted it, although his mother thought of it more as a cooling-off period until things settled down and people had time to forget about it—gave the young man the chance to get to know Dalanar. Jondalar resembled the older man to a remarkable degree, not only physically, but in certain aptitudes, particularly flint-knapping. Dalanar taught him the craft, along with his close cousin, Joplaya, the beautiful daughter of Dalanar’s new mate, Jerika, who was the most exotic person Jondalar had ever met. Jerika’s mother, Ahnlay, gave birth to her during the long Journey she had made with her mate, and had died before she reached the flint mine Dalanar had discovered. But her mother’s mate, Hochaman, had lived to fulfill his dream.
Hochaman was a Great Traveler who had walked all the way from the Endless Seas of the East to the Great Waters of the West, although Dalanar had walked for him at the end, carrying him on his shoulders. When they returned Jondalar home to the Ninth Cave a few years later, Dalanar’s Cave made a special trip a little farther west just so the diminutive old man, Hochaman, could see the Great Waters once more, again riding on the shoulders of Dalanar. He walked the last few feet himself and at the edge of the ocean dropped to his knees to let the waves wash over him and to taste the salt. Jondalar grew to love all of the Lanzadonii, and became grateful that he’d been sent away from home, because he discovered he had a second home.
Jondalar knew that Zelandoni didn’t care much for Ladroman either after all the trouble he’d caused her, but in a way it made her more serious about the zelandonia and her duties as an acolyte. She developed into a formidable Zelandoni, who had been called on to be the First just before Jondalar left on the Journey with his brother. In truth, that was one of the reasons he went. He still harbored strong feelings for her and he knew that she would never become his mate. He was surprised, when after five years he returned with Ayla and her animals, to learn that Ladroman had changed his name to Madroman—though he never understood why—and had been accepted into the zelandonia. That meant that no matter who had proposed him, the One Who Was First had had to accept him.
“Greetings!” said the Zelandoni of the Fifth Cave, holding out both his hands to the First as she was stepping off the special travois. “I didn’t think I’d have a chance to see you this summer.”
She took both his hands, and then