The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [141]
“She tried to laugh him off, told him to go ahead; there was nothing to tell, she was just my donii-woman. I should have done the same, but when he mocked us with words we had said in private, I got angry. No … I did not just get angry. I lost my temper and went out of control. I hit him.”
Jondalar pounded his fist on the ground beside him, then again, and again. “I couldn’t stop hitting him. Zolena tried to make me stop. Finally, she had to get someone else to pull me away. It’s good that she did. I think I would have killed him.”
Jondalar got up and began striding back and forth again. “Then it all came out. Every sordid detail. Ladroman told everything, in public … in front of everyone. I was embarrassed to find out how long he’d been watching us, and how much he had heard. Zolena and I were both questioned”—he blushed just remembering—‘and both denounced, but I hated it when she was held responsible. What made it worse was that I am my mother’s son. She was the leader of the Ninth Cave, and I disgraced her. The whole Cave was in an uproar.”
“What did she do?” Ayla asked.
“She did what she had to do. Ladroman was badly hurt. He lost several teeth. That makes it hard to chew, and women don’t like a man without teeth. Mother had to pay a large penalty for me as restitution, and when Ladroman’s mother insisted, she agreed to send me away.”
He stopped and closed his eyes, his forehead knotting with the pain of remembering. “I cried that night.” The admission was obviously difficult for him to make. “I didn’t know where I would go. I didn’t know mother had sent a runner to Dalanar to ask him to take me.”
He took a breath and continued. “Zolena left before I did. She had always been drawn to the zelandonia, and she went to join Those Who Serve the Mother. I thought about Serving, too, maybe as a carver—I thought I had a little talent for carving then. But word came from Dalanar, and the next thing I knew, Willomar was taking me to the Lanzadonii. I didn’t really know Dalanar. He left when I was young, and I only saw him at Summer Meetings. I didn’t know what to expect, but Marthona did the right thing.”
Jondalar stopped talking, and hunkered down near the fire again. Then he picked up a broken branch, dry and brittle, and added it to the flames. “Before I left, people avoided me, reviled me,” he continued. “Some people took their children away when I was around so they wouldn’t be exposed to my foul influence, as though looking at me might corrupt them. I know I deserved it, what we did was terrible, but I wanted to die.”
Ayla waited, silently watching him. She didn’t understand entirely the customs he spoke of, but she hurt for him with an empathy born of her own pain. She, too, had broken taboos and paid the harsh consequences, but she had learned from them. Perhaps because she was so different to begin with, she had learned to question whether what she had done was really so bad. She had come to understand that it wasn’t wrong for her to hunt, with sling or spear or anything she wanted, just because the Clan believed it was wrong for women to hunt, and she didn’t hate herself because she had stood up to Broud against all tradition.
“Jondalar,” she said, aching for him as he hung his head in defeat and recrimination, “you did a terrible thing”—he nodded agreement—“when you beat that man so hard. But what did you and Zolena do that was so wrong?” Ayla asked.
He looked at her, surprised at her question. He had expected scorn, derision, the kind of contempt he felt for himself. “You don’t understand. Zolena was my donii-woman. We dishonored the Mother. Offended Her. It was shameful.”
“What was shameful? I still don’t know what you did that was so wrong.”
“Ayla, when a woman assumes that aspect of the Mother, to teach a young man, she takes on an important responsibility. She is preparing