The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [183]
While they were waiting, a woman came down from the rock shelter that was higher up and back from the water’s edge and went to talk with the First. She wanted the healer to look at her daughter, who was in great pain from her teeth. Ayla asked Jondalar to look after Jonayla; then she and the First followed the woman back up to the living shelter. It was smaller than the Ninth Cave’s shelter, but then most were. The people who lived there had made it comfortable. The woman took them to a small dwelling under the overhanging shelf. Inside, a young woman who could count perhaps sixteen years was tossing and turning on a sleeping roll, sweating profusely. One cheek was red and severely swollen. She was obviously suffering from a terrible toothache.
“I’ve had some experience with toothaches,” Ayla said to the young woman, recalling the time she helped Iza pull one of Creb’s teeth. “Would you let me look at it?”
The young woman sat up and shook her head, “No,” she said in a muffled voice. She stood up and went to the First, and touched the side of her face. “Just stop the pain.”
“Our Zelandoni gave us something for her pain before he left, but it seems so much worse now; the medicine doesn’t do much good,” the mother said.
Ayla watched Zelandoni. The big woman scowled and shook her head.
“I’ll give her some strong medicine that will put her to sleep,” the First said to the young woman’s mother. “And leave some with you to give her later.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” the mother said.
As Ayla and Zelandoni walked back down to the water’s edge, Ayla turned to her mentor with a questioning look. “Do you know what’s wrong with her tooth?”
“She’s had a problem since her teeth first started to grow in. She has too many, a double row,” the First said. Then seeing Ayla’s quizzical look, she explained. “She has two sets of teeth trying to grow into the same spaces at the same time, and they have grown in wrong, all crowded together. She had terrible teething pains when she was a baby, and again when her second teeth came in. After that she was fine for a while; the teeth didn’t hurt her for several years, but then the very back teeth started growing in and she started getting painful toothaches again.”
“Can’t some of the teeth be taken out?” Ayla said.
“Zelandoni of the Eleventh has tried, but they are packed so tightly together, he couldn’t get any out. The young woman tried herself a few moons ago, and ended up breaking some. Her toothaches have been worse since then. I think there may be suppuration and inflammation now, but she won’t let anyone look. I’m not sure her mouth will ever heal. She will probably die from those teeth. It might be kinder to give her too much of the pain medicine and let her go to the next world quietly,” the First said. “But that will be for her and her mother to decide.”
“But she’s so young, and she looks like a strong, healthy woman,” Ayla said.
“Yes, and it’s a shame she has to suffer so, but I’m afraid it won’t stop now until the Mother takes her,” the Donier said, “especially if she won’t let anyone help her.”
By the time they got back down to The River, the rafts were almost loaded. Two rafts were being used to hold the six travelers who would be floating downriver and some of the gear from the pole-drags. Ayla and Jondalar on horseback would wear their backframes and carry their own personal things. Of course, Wolf would manage quite well on his own. Kareja told them that they considered taking three rafts, but there were only enough people to handle two at the moment. They would have had to send for more people and wait until they arrived, so they decided two would be enough. They never