The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [162]
A certain variety of round, hard starchy roots that took well to long cooking came out first, followed by baskets of a mixture of bone marrow, blue bearberries, and a variety of cracked and ground seeds—pigweed, a mixture of grains, and oily pignon seeds. The result, after hours of steaming, had a heavy, puddinglike consistency that retained the shape of the basket after it was removed, and while not sweet, though the berries gave it a light fruit flavor, was deliciously rich. A full haunch of mammoth meat was brought out next, self-basted by the steam and the thick edge of fat, and falling apart with tenderness.
The sun was setting and a sharp wind hurried everyone back inside the lodge, carrying the food with them. This time, when Ayla was asked to select first, she wasn’t as shy. This feast was in her honor, and though being the center of attention was still not easy for her, she was happy for the reason.
Deegie came to sit with her, and Ayla caught herself staring. Deegie’s thick reddish-brown hair was pulled back from her face and wrapped into a coil that was piled high on her head. A string of round ivory beads, each one carved and pierced by hand, had been coiled in with her hair and stood out as contrasting highlights. She wore a long, loose dress of pliable leather—Ayla thought of it as a long tunic—that draped in soft folds from the belted waist, dyed deep brown with a rather shiny, burnished finish. It was sleeveless, but wide at the shoulders, giving the appearance of short sleeves. A fringe of long, reddish-brown mammoth hair fell from her shoulders in back and from a V-shaped yoke in front, and hung to just below her waist.
The neckline was outlined by a triple row of ivory beads, and around her neck she wore a necklace of conical seashells, spaced by cylindrical lime tubes and pieces of amber. Around her right upper arm was an ivory armband incised with an alternating chevron pattern. The pattern was repeated in colors of ochre reds, yellows, and browns in the belt, which was woven of animal hair, some of it dyed. Attached to the belt by a loop was an ivory-handled flint knife in a rawhide sheath, and suspended from another loop, the lower section of a hollow black aurochs horn, a drinking cup that was a talisman of the Aurochs Hearth.
The skirt had been cut on the diagonal, starting at the sides above the knee, to a point both in front and back. Three rows of ivory beads, a strip of rabbit fur, and a second strip of fur that had been pieced together from the striped backs of several ground squirrels accented the diagonal hemline, and hanging from it was another fringe of the long outer guard hairs of the woolly mammoth, reaching to her lower calf. She was not wearing leggings, and her legs showed through the fringe, as well as dark brown high boots, moccasinlike at the feet, burnished to a waterproof shine.
Ayla found herself wondering how they made leather shine. All of her hides and pelts had the soft natural texture of buckskin. But mostly she just stared at Deegie in awe, and thought she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.
“Deegie, that is beautiful … tunic?”
“You could call it a long tunic. It’s really a summer dress. I made it for the Meeting last year, when Branag first declared for me. I changed my mind about the outfit I was going to wear. I knew we’d be inside, and with all the celebrating, it will get warm.”
Jondalar came to join them, and it was obvious that he thought Deegie was quite attractive, too. When he smiled at her, the charisma that made him irresistibly appealing not only communicated his feeling but somehow intensified it, and provoked the invariable response. Deegie smiled warmly and