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By Root 2483 0

It was generally pleasant, except for an occasional rainstorm or muggy heat spell. When they were traveling or working in warm weather, men often wore a breechclout and perhaps a vest, plus their decorative and identifying beads. Women usually wore a loose, comfortable sleeveless dress with slits up the sides for ease of walking, made of soft buckskin or woven fibers that went on over their head and tied at the waist. But as the weather warmed, even light clothing could be too much and they stripped down more. Both men and women sometimes wore only a thong or short fringed skirt and some beads, the children not even that, and their skins turned nut brown. A natural tan, slowly acquired, was the best protective sunscreen, and though they didn’t know it, a healthy way to absorb certain essential vitamins.

Zelandoni was becoming more accustomed to walking and Ayla thought she was getting slimmer. She had little trouble keeping up, but she always insisted upon riding on her pole-drag when they arrived at a new location. People made a commotion when they saw her being pulled by a horse, which she felt added to the mystique of the zelandonia and to the position of the First Among Those Who Served The Great Earth Mother.

Their route, which was worked out by Zelandoni and Willamar, took them south through open woods and grasslands, along the west side of a massif, a highland that was the leftover stump of ancient mountains, ground down by the passage of time, with volcanoes forming new mountains on top of the old. Eventually they turned east, swinging around the bottom of the central highland, and then continued traveling east between the southern end of the highland and the north shore of the Southern Sea. As they traveled they often saw game, birds and animals of many kinds, but except when they stopped to visit settlements, no people crossed their path.

Ayla found herself truly enjoying the company of Levela, Beladora, and Amelana when they weren’t visiting another Cave or Summer Meeting. They did things together with their children. Amelana’s pregnancy was beginning to show, but she was no longer troubled by morning sickness and the walking was beneficial for her. She felt well and her vibrant good health along with her obvious show of maternity made her even more attractive to Tivonan and Palidar, Willamar’s assistants. But as they continued the Donier Tour, stopping to visit various Caves, Summer Meetings, and Sacred Sites, there were many young men who found her equally attractive. And she enjoyed the attention.

Since Ayla was often with Zelandoni, the young women were learning some of the knowledge that Zelandoni was teaching her acolyte. They listened and sometimes joined in on their discussions about various things—medicinal practices, identifying plants, ways of counting, meanings of colors and numbers, stories and songs of the Histories and Elder Legends—and the Donier seemed to have no objection to passing her wisdom on to them. She knew that in times of emergency it wouldn’t hurt to have some additional people around who knew something about what to do if they needed to act as assistants.

Traveling east, they found their way often blocked by rivers that came down from the massif and into the Southern Sea. Since none of the rivers were huge, they became adept at crossing them until they came to one that carved a large valley running from north to south. They turned and followed it north until they came to a tributary that joined it from the northeast and followed it.

A little beyond that, the traveling group came to a pleasant area of open woodland on the edge of an oxbow lake. Though it was early afternoon, they stopped and set up camp amid some brush and grass near a copse of trees. The children discovered a large patch of bilberries before the evening meal, and picked some to share with their elders, but they ate more as they picked. The women saw huge stands of cattails and phragmite reeds at the edge of the water, and the hunters found fresh signs of cloven hooves.

“We’re getting close to the home of those