The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [27]
Rydag looked up at Nezzie with his big, glowing brown eyes, then put thin arms around her neck and laid his head on her breast. Nezzie rocked him as she held him.
“Some people say he’s an animal because he can’t talk, but I know he understands. And he’s not an abomination’ either,” she added, with an angry look at Frebec. “Only the Mother knows why the spirits that made him were mixed.”
Ayla was fighting to hold back tears. She didn’t know how these people would react to tears; her watering eyes had always bothered people of the Clan. Watching the woman and the child, she was overwhelmed with memories. She ached to hold her son, and grieved anew for Iza, who had taken her in and mothered her, though she had been as different to the Clan as Rydag was to the Lion Camp. But more than anything, she wished there was some way she could explain to Nezzie how moved she was, how grateful she was for Rydag’s sake … and her own. Inexplicably, Ayla felt it would somehow help repay Iza if she could find a way to do something for Nezzie.
“Nezzie, he knows,” Ayla said softly. “He is not animal, not flathead. He is child of Clan, and child of Others.”
“I know he is not an animal, Ayla,” Nezzie said, “but what is Clan?”
“People, like mother of Rydag. You say flathead, they say Clan,” Ayla explained.
“What do you mean, ‘they say Clan’? They can’t talk,” Tulie interjected.
“Not say many words. But they talk. They talk with hands.”
“How do you know?” Frebec asked. “What makes you so smart?”
Jondalar took a deep breath and held it, waiting for her answer.
“I lived with Clan before. I talked like Clan. Not with words, until Jondalar came,” Ayla said. “The Clan were my people.”
There was a stunned silence as the meaning of her words became clear.
“You mean you lived with flatheads! You lived with those dirty animals!” Frebec exclaimed with disgust, jumping up and backing away. “No wonder she can’t talk right. If she lived with them she’s as bad as they are. Nothing but animals, all of them, including that mixed-up perversion of yours, Nezzie.”
The Camp was in an uproar. Even if some might have agreed with him, Frebec had gone too far. He had overstepped the bounds of courtesy to visitors, and had even insulted the headman’s mate. But it had long been an embarrassment to him that he belonged to the Camp that had taken in the “abomination of mixed spirits,” and he was still chafing under the barbs of Fralie’s mother in the most recent round of their long-standing battle. He wanted to take out his irritation on someone.
Talut roared to the defense of Nezzie, and Ayla. Tulie was quick to defend the honor of the Camp. Crozie, smiling maliciously, was alternately haranguing Frebec and browbeating Fralie, and the others were voicing their opinions loudly. Ayla looked from one to another, wanting to put her hands over her ears to shut out the noise.
Suddenly Talut boomed a shout for silence. It was loud enough to startle everyone into quiet. Then Mamut’s drum was heard. It had a settling, quieting effect.
“I think before anyone else says anything, we ought to hear what Ayla has to say,” Talut said, as the drum stilled.
People leaned forward attentively, more than willing to listen to find out about the mysterious woman. Ayla wasn’t sure she wanted to say any more to these noisy, rude people, but she felt she had no choice. Then, lifting her chin a bit, she thought, if they wanted to hear it, she’d tell them, but she was leaving in the morning.
“I no … I do not remember young life,” Ayla began, “only earthquake, and cave lion who make scars on my leg. Iza tell me she find me by river … what is word, Mamut? Not awake?”
“Unconscious.”
“Iza find me by river, unconscious. I am close to age of Rydag, younger. Maybe five years. I am hurt on leg from cave lion claw. Iza is … medicine woman. She heal