The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [280]
After putting the sweet-smelling, lather-producing, dried coelanthus flowers into the hot water, she added fronds of wood fern and a few columbine flowers she had picked on her way, and then budding birch twigs for the smell of wintergreen, and put the container aside. It had taken long and hard thought to decide what to use to replace the flea-and lice-killing insecticide made from the equisetic acid she would have extracted with an infusion from the fern. As it turned out, Nezzie inadvertently told her.
She undressed quickly, then picked up two tightly woven containers of liquid and headed for the river. One contained the pleasantly aromatic mixture she had just made, the other held stale urine.
Jondalar had asked her to show him Clan techniques for knapping flint once before, and he had been impressed, but he was fascinated to watch her working, in her imagined privacy, with such calm assurance and skill. She worked without bone hammers or punches, but she manufactured the tools she wanted quickly, making it seem effortless, but he wondered if he could do as well using only a hammerstone. He knew it took tremendous control, yet she had told him the Clan toolmaker she had learned from was far better than she. His estimation of flathead toolmaking skills suddenly increased.
She made the leather pouch quickly, too. The simple pouch was little more than serviceable, but the construction was ingenious, in its way. It wasn’t until he watched her handle the objects in her pouch, and noticed the way she held them, that he became aware of a melancholy air about her, an aura of sadness and grief. She should be full of joy, yet she seemed unhappy. He must be imagining it.
His breath caught in his throat when she began to undress, and the sight of her full, ripe beauty made him want her with a need that almost overpowered him. But the thought of his unspeakable actions the last time he wanted her, kept him away. She had taken to wearing braids again, during the winter, in a style similar to Deegie’s, and as she unloosened her long hair, he remembered the first time he had seen her unclothed, in the heat of the summer in her valley, golden and beautiful and wet after a swim. He told himself not to look, and he had an opportunity to slip away when she entered the river, but if his life had depended upon it, he could not have moved.
Ayla started her cleansing process with stale urine. The ammoniacal fluid was harsh, and smelled strong, but it dissolved oils and grease on her skin and in her hair, and it killed any lice or fleas she might have picked up. It even tended to lighten the hair. The waters of the river, still full of glacial melt, were icy cold, but the shock was invigorating, and the churning of the silty, gritty river, even at the calmer edge, scoured away dirt and oils along with the sharp smell of ammonia.
Her body was pink from the cleansing and the cold water and she shivered when she got out, but the sweet-scented mixture was still warm and lathered into saponin-rich, slippery suds when she rubbed it all over her body and into her hair. This time, she headed for a pool near the mouth of the creek that held water less muddy than the river to rinse. When she emerged, she wrapped the soft buckskin around her to dry off, while she worked out the tangles in her hair with her stiff brush and an ivory hairpin. It felt good to be fresh and clean.
* * *
Though he ached to join her, and hungered to Pleasure her, Jondalar felt a certain satisfaction just filling his sight with her. It was more than seeing her lush body, rich with womanly curves, yet firm and shapely, with the flat, hard muscles that implied strength. He enjoyed watching her, seeing her naturally graceful movements, seeing her work with the ease of experience and practiced skill. When making fire, or the tool she wanted, she knew exactly how to proceed and wasted no motions. Jondalar had always admired her ability and expertise, her intelligence. It was part of her appeal