The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [267]
Was she pleading for understanding? Mamut wondered.
“I think I made it too strong, or too much. They didn’t finish it all. Later, after the datura and the women’s dance, I found it. I was dizzy, all I could think of was that Iza said it was too sacred to be wasted. So I drank it. I don’t remember what happened after that, and yet I’ll never forget it. Somehow, I found Creb and the mog-urs, and he took me all the way back to the beginning of the memories. I remember breathing the warm water of the sea, burrowing in the loam … Clan and the Others, we both come from the same beginnings, did you know that?”
“I’m not surprised,” Mamut said, thinking how much he would have given for that experience.
“But I was frightened, too, especially before Creb found me, and guided me. And … since then, I’m … not the same. Sometimes my dreams frighten me. I think he changed me.”
Mamut was nodding. “That could explain it,” he said. “I wondered how you could do so much without training.”
“Creb changed, too. For a long time, it wasn’t the same between us. With me, he saw something he hadn’t seen before. I hurt him, I don’t know how, but I hurt him,” Ayla said, as tears welled up.
Mamut put his arms around her as she cried softly on his shoulder. Then her tears became the threatened flood, and she sobbed and shook with more recent grief. Her sadness for Creb brought up the tears she had been holding back, the tears of her sorrow, confusion, and thwarted love.
Jondalar had been watching from the cooking hearth. He had wanted to go to her, somehow make amends, and was trying to think of what to say when Mamut went over to talk to her. When he saw Ayla crying, he was sure she had told the old shaman. Jondalar’s face burned with shame. He couldn’t stop thinking about the incident on the steppes, and the more he thought about it, the worse it became.
And afterward, he said to himself, all you did was walk away. You didn’t even try to help her, didn’t even try to tell her you were sorry, or how terrible you felt. Jondalar hated himself and wanted to leave, to pack up everything and leave, and not face Ayla or Mamut, or anyone, again, but he had promised Mamut he would stay until after the Spring Festival. Mamut already must think I am contemptible, he thought. Would breaking a promise be that much worse? But it was more than his promise that held him. Mamut had said Ayla might be in danger, and no matter how much he hated himself, how much he wanted to run away, Jondalar could not leave Ayla to face that danger alone.
“Do you feel better now?” Mamut said, when she sat up and wiped her eyes.
“Yes,” she said.
“And you were not harmed?”
Ayla was surprised by his question. How did he know? “No, not at all, but he thinks so. I wish I could understand him,” she said, as tears threatened again. Then she tried to smile. “I didn’t cry so much when I lived with the Clan. It made them uneasy. Iza thought I had weak eyes, because they watered when I was sad, and she would always treat them with special medicine when I cried. I used to wonder if it was just me, or if all the Others had watery eyes.”
“Now you know.” Mamut smiled. “Tears were given to us to relieve pain. Life is not always easy.”
“Creb used to say a powerful totem is not always easy to live with. He was right. The Cave Lion gives powerful protection, but difficult tests, too. I have always learned from them, and have always been grateful, but it is not easy.”
“But necessary, I believe. You were chosen for a special purpose.”
“Why me, Mamut?” Ayla cried out. “I don’t want to be special. I just want to be a woman, and find a mate, and have children, like every other woman.”
“You must be what you must be, Ayla. It is your fate, your destiny. If you were not able to do it, you would not have been chosen. Perhaps it is something only a woman can do. But don’t be unhappy, child. Your life will not be all trials and tests. There will be much happiness, too. It just may not turn out as you want it to, or as you think it should.”
“Mamut, Jondalar’s totem is the Cave Lion, too, now.