The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [78]
“Yes. They answered your whistle, didn’t they?” Ayla said.
He had brought some dried wild apple slices with him in a fold of his tunic and fed the young stallion and then his dam from his hand; then the young man squatted down and held out a hand with a piece of the fruit to the little filly. She stayed near Whinney’s back legs at first. Though Gray was still nursing, she had started mouthing grass in imitation of her dam, and it was obvious that she was curious. Lanidar was patient, and after a while, the filly started edging toward him.
The mare watched, but neither encouraged nor restricted her foal. Eventually, Gray’s curiosity won out and she nosed Lanidar’s open hand to see what it held. She got a piece of apple in her mouth, then dropped it. Lanidar picked it up and tried again. Though she wasn’t as experienced as her dam, she managed to use her incisors and flexible lips and tongue to get it in her mouth and bite. It was a new experience for her, and a new taste, but she was more interested in Lanidar. When he began to stroke her and scratch her favorite places, she was won over. When he stood up, he had a big smile.
“We were going to leave the horses here in this field for a while, and check on them every so often,” Jondalar said.
“I’d be happy to watch them, like I did last year,” Lanidar said. “If there are any problems, I’ll look for you, or whistle.”
Ayla and Jondalar looked at each other, then smiled. “I would be grateful for that,” Ayla said. “I wanted to leave them here so people would get more used to seeing them, and they’d get more comfortable around people, especially Gray. If you get tired or have to go, whistle loud or come and find one of us and let us know.”
“I will,” he said.
They left the field feeling much more relaxed about the horses. When they returned in the evening to invite Lanidar to share a meal with their Cave, they found that several young men, and a few young women, including Lanoga carrying her youngest sister, Lorala, were visiting with him. When Lanidar had watched the animals the year before, it was at the enclosure and nearby field that was close to the camp of the Ninth Cave, which was some distance from the Main Camp. Not many people went there and he had few friends then, anyway, but since he had developed his skill with the spear-thrower and was hunting regularly, he had gained more status. He had also gained several friends and, it seemed, a few admirers.
The young people were involved with each other and didn’t notice Ayla and Jondalar coming. Jondalar was pleased to see that Lanidar was acting very responsibly, not allowing the group of youngsters to crowd in around the horses, especially Gray. He had obviously allowed the visitors to stroke and scratch them, but only let one or two at a time get close. He seemed to sense when the horses were tired of all the attention and just wanted to graze, and quite firmly told one of the youngsters to leave them alone. The couple didn’t know that he had banished some young men earlier who had become too rambunctious by threatening to tell Ayla, who, he reminded them, was the acolyte of the First Among Those Who Served The Great Earth Mother.
The zelandonia were the ones whom people went to for help and assistance, and though they were respected, often revered, and many of them were loved, the feeling for them was always tempered with a little fear. The zelandonia were intimate with the next world, the world of spirits, the fearsome place where one went when the elan—the life force—left their body. They had other powers that went beyond the ordinary, too. Youngsters often spread rumors, and boys in particular liked to scare each other by telling stories about what a zelandoni might do, especially to their male parts, if one of them made one angry.
They all knew that Ayla seemed to be a normal woman with a mate and a baby, but she was still an acolyte, a member of the zelandonia, and