The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [383]
He called them animals, she thought, but they aren’t! Why do some people always say that? She wondered if Brukeval would still feel that way if he knew them better. It probably wouldn’t make any difference. A lot of the Zelandonii feel that way.
The First reminded everyone that Brukeval’s grandmother had not been in her right mind when she found her way home again, and that she was pregnant. Everyone says she was with the Clan, Ayla thought, and they’re right. It’s obvious that Brukeval has some Clan mixture in him, so she must have become pregnant while she was with them. That means some Clan man had to put his essence inside her.
A thought Ayla hadn’t considered suddenly came to her. Did some man of the Clan force her over and over again, the way I was forced by Broud? I wasn’t in my right mind when Broud was doing that to me and I didn’t think they were animals. I was raised by them, I loved them. Not Broud. I hated him, even before he forced me, but I loved most of them.
Ayla hadn’t thought of it quite that way when she first heard the story, but it was a possibility. The man might have forced her out of meanness, like Broud, or he might have thought he was doing her a favor, taking her as a second woman, perhaps, accepting her into the Clan, but it wouldn’t have made any difference to her. That’s not how she would have seen it, Ayla thought. She couldn’t talk to them, or understand them. They were animals to her. Brukeval’s grandmother must have hated it worse than I hated Broud doing it.
And as much as I wanted to have the baby when Iza told me I was pregnant, it was hard on me. I was sick all the time when I was expecting Durc, and I almost died delivering him. Clan women didn’t have that much trouble, but Durc’s head was so much bigger and harder than Jonayla’s. Ayla had seen enough women into motherhood in the past few years to realize that her pregnancy and delivery of Jonayla was far more normal for women of the Others than her birthing of Durc had been. I don’t know how I ever pushed him out, she thought, shaking her head. The heads of the Others are smaller, and the bone is thinner and more flexible. Our legs and arms are longer but those bones are thinner, too, Ayla said to herself, looking at her own limbs. All the bones of the Others are thinner.
Was Brukeval’s grandmother sick during her pregnancy? Did she have a hard time delivering, like I did? Is that what happened to her? Is that why she died? Because it was so hard on her? Even Joplaya nearly died giving birth to Bokovan, and Echozar is only half Clan. Is a baby of “mixed spirits,” a baby who’s a mixture of the Clan and the Others, always hard on women of the Others? Ayla was brought up short with a new thought. Could that be why those babies were originally called abominations? Because they sometimes made their mothers die?
There are differences between the Clan and the Others. Maybe not enough to stop a baby from getting started, but enough to make it hard on the mother if she’s one of the Others and used to birthing babies with smaller heads. It might not be so hard on Clan women. They’re used to babies with big, long, hard heads and heavy brow ridges. It was probably easier for them to give birth to a mixed baby.
I don’t think it’s always good for the babies, though, whether the mother is Clan or Others. Durc was strong and healthy, even though I had a hard time, and so is Echozar, and his mother was Clan. Bokovan is healthy, but he’s not quite the same. Echozar, his father, was the first mixture, so he’s like Brukeval, but still Joplaya almost died. She realized she was using the word “father” with ease. It was so logical, and she had understood the relationship for a long time.
But Rydag was weak, and his mother was Clan. She died after