The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [379]
“But a woman doesn’t have to mate with anyone she doesn’t want, isn’t that right?” the young woman said.
The First noticed that the Zelandoni of the Fifth Cave was climbing the hill toward the area where his Cave was gathered. “Yes, that has always been true and it hasn’t changed.” She saw that the Donier was sitting beside the young man who had so many questions, and turned to take a question from an entirely different segment of the audience.
“What is my father’s father called?” asked a man from the Eleventh Cave.
Zelandoni breathed a quiet sigh of relief. An easy question. “A mother’s mother is a grandmother, and is usually called grandma. A mother’s father is a grandfather, or grandfa. A father’s mother is a grandmother, too, but to distinguish between them, she will still be called grandam. A father’s father is a grandfather, or grandaf. When you name your ties, your mother’s mother is your close grandmother, or your grandma, and your mother’s father is your close grandfather, or your grandfa, because you are always certain who your mother is.”
“What if you don’t know whose essence started your mother?” the leader of the Fifth Cave asked. “Or if they are walking in the next world, how can you name the tie?”
“If you know the man who was mated to your mother’s mother, he would be your grandfather. The same is true for your father. Even if he is in the next world, your father was started by a man who coupled with his mother, just as your mother was started by a man who put the essence of his organ inside her mother,” Zelandoni carefully explained.
“NO! Noooo!” came a cry from the audience. “It’s not true! She has done it again. She has betrayed me, just when I was starting to trust her.”
Everyone turned to look. On the far outside edge of the large group of people from the Ninth Cave, a man was standing. “It’s a lie! It’s all a lie! That woman is trying to trick you. The Mother would never have told her that,” he screamed, pointing at Ayla. “She’s a lying evil woman.”
Shading her eyes, Ayla looked up and saw Brukeval. Brukeval? Why is he screaming at me like that? I don’t understand, she thought. What did I do to him?
“I come from the spirit of a man who was chosen by the Great Mother to join with the spirit of my mother,” Brukeval shrieked. “My mother came from the spirit of a man who was chosen by Doni to join with the spirit of her mother. She did not come from the organ of an animal! Not from the essence of any organ. I am a man! I am not a Flathead! I am not a Flathead!” His voice couldn’t sustain the anguished scream; it cracked on the last words and ended on a sobbing wail.
38
Brukeval suddenly started running down the hill, then across the small field and kept on going, leaving the campsite behind without looking back. Several men, mostly from the Ninth Cave, started after him, Joharran and Jondalar among them, hoping that once he ran out of breath, they could talk to him, calm him down, bring him back. But Brukeval ran as though the spirit of the dead were chasing him. For all his resistance to it, he had inherited the strength and the stamina of the man of the Clan who was his grandfather. Though they ran faster in the beginning, and started to catch up, the men who were chasing after Brukeval did not have his endurance, and could not keep up the pace he set.
They finally stopped, gasping, bent over, some rolling on the ground, trying to catch their breaths in a collective agony of aching sides and raw throats. “I should have gotten Racer,” Jondalar rasped, barely able to speak. “He couldn’t have outrun a horse.”
When they finally trudged back, the meeting was in disarray. People were standing up, walking around, talking. Zelandoni didn’t want it to end like that, and had called for a pause until the men returned, hopefully with Brukeval. When they returned without him, she decided to finish up quickly.
“It is unfortunate that Brukeval of the