The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [292]
She opened her traveling pack, took out her distinctive medicine box and removed a small pouch from it. She held it out. “I think you will find this quite interesting and perhaps useful.” The First indicated that she should give it to Ayla. “It’s very powerful. Be careful when you experiment with it,” she said as she handed it to the younger woman.
“Do you prepare it as a decoction or infusion?” Ayla asked.
“It depends what you want,” the woman said. “Each preparation gives it different properties. Later I’ll show you what’s in it, though I suspect you may have worked it out yourself by then.”
Ayla couldn’t wait to find out what was in it. She examined the pouch. It was made of soft leather and tied with a cord that she thought was made from the long hairs of the tail of a horse. She undid some interesting knots in the cord, which had been threaded through holes cut around the top of the soft leather pouch, and opened it. “One ingredient is certain,” she said as she sniffed the contents. “Mint!” The scent also reminded her of the strong tea they had tried when they were visiting another one of the Southern Zelandonii. Ayla retied it with her own knots.
The woman smiled. Mint was the scent she used to distinguish this particular mixture, but it was far more powerful than that innocuous herb. She hoped she would still be here when someone began to experiment with it. That would be a test of the skill and knowledge of the northern zelandonia, she thought.
Ayla smiled at Zelandoni. “I may have another one on the way.” They had been talking about children, though it was the First who had brought it up, she realized.
“I wondered about that. You didn’t look like you were getting fat, like me—I doubt that you ever will—but you seem to be filling out in places. How many moontimes have you missed?”
“Just one. My moontime was due a few days ago. And though I’m not really getting sick, I feel a little nauseous in the morning sometimes,” Ayla said.
“If I were to make a guess, I’d say you are going to have another baby. Are you happy about it?” Zelandoni asked.
“Oh, yes. I want another, although I hardly have time to take care of the one I have. I’m just glad Jondalar is so good with Jonayla.”
“Have you told him yet?”
“No. It’s too soon, I think. You never know—things can happen. I know he would like another child at his hearth. I wouldn’t want him to get excited only to be disappointed. And it’s a long enough wait even after you start showing—no reason to make him wait so long.” Ayla thought about the night she came down from the cliff early, and how good it had been for both of them. Then she recalled the first time she had shared Pleasures with Jondalar. She laughed quietly, to herself.
“What’s funny?” Zelandoni asked.
“I was just thinking about the first time Jondalar showed me the Gift of Pleasure, back in my valley. Until then, I didn’t know it was supposed to be a Pleasure, or even that it could be. I could hardly communicate with him then. He had been teaching me to speak Zelandonii, but so much of his language, and most of his ways, were completely strange to me. As a mother was supposed to, Iza had explained how a woman of the Clan uses a certain signal to encourage a man, though I don’t think she thought I’d ever really need it.
“I’d been making the signal to Jondalar, but it didn’t mean anything to him. Later he showed me Pleasures again, because he wanted to, not because I did, and I kept thinking he would never understand my signals, when I wanted him again. I finally asked to speak to him the way the women of the Clan do. He didn’t understand what I wanted when I sat down in front of him and bowed my head, waiting for him to tell me I could speak. Finally I just tried to tell him. When he understood the gist of it, he thought I wanted him to do it right away, and we had just finished. He said something like he didn’t know if he could, but he would try. As it turned out, he didn’t have any problem,” Ayla said, smiling at her own innocence.
Zelandoni smiled, too. “He always was an obliging fellow,