The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [324]
Whinney was still tired from the trip, but responded to the woman’s urging and galloped across the plains. Ayla could not get the picture of Marona and Jondalar out of her mind; she could think of nothing else, and soon forgot about directing the horse, but simply rode her. The mare slowed when she felt the woman cease to actively direct her and turned back toward the Camp at a slow walk, stopping to graze now and then. It was growing dark by the time they reached the Meeting site, and cooling down fast, but Ayla felt nothing except the deep numbing cold inside her. The horse did not feel her passenger take control again until they reached the horse grove and saw several people.
“Ayla, people have been wondering where you’ve been,” Proleva said. “Jonayla was here looking for you, but after she ate, she went to Levela’s to play with Bokovan when you didn’t return.”
“I’ve been riding,” Ayla said.
“Jondalar finally turned up,” Joharran said. “He came stumbling into the camp a while ago. I told him you were looking for him, but he just mumbled something incoherent.”
Her eyes were glazed as she walked into the camp. She passed by Zelandoni without greeting her, without even seeing her.
The woman eyed her sharply. She knew something was wrong. “Ayla, we haven’t seen much of you since you arrived,” the Donier said, surprised that she’d had to speak first.
“I guess not,” Ayla said.
It was plain to Zelandoni that Ayla’s thoughts were somewhere else. Jondalar’s “incoherent mumbling” hadn’t been unclear to her, even if she hadn’t understood the words. His actions were clear enough. She had also seen Marona emerge from the small wooded area looking disheveled, but not on the normal path used by most members of the Ninth Cave. She came to their camp from a different direction, went directly into the tent she had been sharing, and began to pack up her things. She told Proleva some friends from the Fifth Cave wanted her to stay with them.
Zelandoni had been aware of Jondalar’s dalliance with Marona from the beginning. At first she thought there was little harm in it. She knew his true feelings for Ayla, and thought Marona would be just a passing fancy, something to relieve him at a time when Ayla had other demands on her and no choice but to be away at times. But she hadn’t counted on Marona’s obsession to get him back and to get back at Ayla, or her ability to insinuate herself upon him. Their physical attraction had always been strong. Even in the past, it had been the primary focus of their relationship. Sometimes, Zelandoni had suspected, it was the only thing they had had in common.
The Donier guessed that Ayla hadn’t fully recovered from her ordeal in the cave. Her loss of weight and the gaunt hollows in her face would have given her away even if she hadn’t seen it in Ayla’s eyes. Zelandoni had seen too many acolytes return from a calling, emerging from a cave or returning from wandering the steppe, not to know the danger of the ordeal. She, herself, almost didn’t survive. Since Ayla lost a baby at the same time, she would very likely also be suffering the melancholy most women felt after giving birth, which was often worse after miscarrying.
But the One Who Was First had seen more than the suffering Ayla had endured in the cave in her eyes now. She saw pain, the sharp chilling pain of jealousy with all the related feelings of betrayal, anger, doubt, and fear. She loves him too much; it’s not hard to do, the woman once known as Zolena recalled. The First had often wondered during the past few years how a woman who loved a man so much could be Zelandoni, too, but Ayla’s talent was formidable. In spite of her love for the man, it could not be ignored.