The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [181]
Whinney snorted and tossed her head, and Racer, who was lying down, lifted his head off the ground and nickered a soft greeting. Jondalar headed toward the animals, spread his furs out on the ground beside Racer, and got in them. It was cold in the annex, but not nearly as cold as outside. There was no wind, some heat filtered through, and the horses generated more. And their breathing covered up the sounds of other heavy breathing. Even so, he lay awake most of the night, his mind recalling sounds, replaying scenes, real and imagined, over and over again.
Ayla woke as the first slivers of daylight stole through cracks around the cover of the smoke hole. She reached across the bed for Jondalar, and was disconcerted to find Ranec. With the memory of the night before came the knowledge that she was going to have a bad headache; the effects of Talut’s bouza. She slipped out of bed, picked up the clothes Ranec had arranged so neatly, and hurried to her own bed. Jondalar was not there, either. She looked around the Mammoth Hearth at the other beds. Deegie and Tornec were sleeping in one, and she wondered if they had shared Pleasures. Then she recalled that Wymez had been invited to the Aurochs Hearth and Tronie wasn’t feeling well. Perhaps Deegie and Tornec had just found it more convenient to sleep there. It didn’t matter, but she wondered where Jondalar was.
She remembered that she hadn’t seen him after it grew late the night before. Someone said he had gone to bed, but where was he now? She noticed Deegie and Tornec again. He must be sleeping at a different hearth, too, she thought. She was tempted to check, but no one else seemed to be up and about, and she didn’t want to wake anyone. Feeling uneasy, she crawled into her empty bed, pulled the furs around her, and after a while, slept again.
When she awoke the next time, the smoke-hole cover had been moved aside and bright daylight beamed in. She started to get up, then, feeling an enormous throbbing pain in her head, dropped back down and closed her eyes. Either I am very sick, or this is from Talut’s bouza, she thought. Why do people like to drink it if it makes them so sick? Then she thought about the celebration. She didn’t have a clear memory of it all, but she did recall playing rhythms, dancing and singing, though she didn’t really know how. She had laughed a lot, even at herself when she found she had little voice for singing, not minding at all that she was the center of attention. That wasn’t like her. Normally she preferred to stay in the background and watch, and do her learning and practicing in private. Was it the bouza that changed her normal inclination and caused her to be less careful? More forward? Is that why people drank it?
She opened her eyes again, and then got up very carefully, holding her head. She relieved herself in the indoor night basket—a tightly woven basket about half full of the dry pulverized dung of grazing animals from the steppes, which absorbed liquid and fecal matter. She washed herself with cold water. Then she stirred up the fire and added hot cooking stones. She dressed in the clothing she had made before she came, thinking of it now as a rather plain everyday outfit, though when she made it, it had seemed very exotic and complex.
Still moving carefully, she took several packets from her medicine bag and mixed up willow bark, yarrow, wood betony, and chamomile in various proportions. She poured cold water into the cooking basket she used for morning tea, added hot rocks until it boiled, then the tea. Then hunkered in front of the fire with her eyes closed while she waited for the tea to steep. Suddenly, she jumped up, feeling her head throb