The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [35]
The murmur of low voices, a man’s and a woman’s, came from the bed nearby, and a little beyond it, the shallow rasping breath of the sleeping shaman. She could hear a man snoring at the next hearth, and from the first hearth, the unmistakable rhythmic grunts and cries of Talut and Nezzie sharing Pleasures. From the other direction, a baby cried. Someone made comforting sounds until the crying stopped abruptly. Ayla smiled, no doubt a breast had been offered. Farther away voices of restrained anger rose in an outburst, then hushed, and still farther a hacking cough could be heard.
Nights had always been the worst time during her lonely years in the valley. During the day she could find something to do to keep busy, but at night the stark emptiness of her cave had pressed heavily. In the beginning, hearing only the sound of her own breath, she even had trouble sleeping. With the Clan, there was always someone around at night—the worst punishment that could be inflicted was to be set apart, alone; avoidance, ostracism, the death curse.
She knew only too well that it was, indeed, a terrible punishment. She knew it even more at that moment. Lying in the dark, hearing the sounds of life around her, feeling the warmth of Jondalar beside her, for the first time since she met these people, whom she called Others, she felt at home.
“Jondalar?” she said softly.
“Hmmmm.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Not yet,” he mumbled.
“These are nice people. You were right, I did need to come and get to know them.”
His brain cleared quickly. He had hoped, once she met her own kind of people and they were no longer so unknown, they would not seem so fearful to her. He had been gone many years, the Journey back to his home would be long and difficult, she had to want to come with him. But her valley had become home. It offered everything she needed to survive, and she had made a life for herself there, using the animals as a substitute for the people she lacked. Ayla did not want to leave; instead she had wanted Jondalar to stay.
“I knew you would, Ayla,” he said warmly, persuasively, “if you just got to know them.”
“Nezzie reminds me of Iza. How do you suppose Rydag’s mother got pregnant with him?”
“Who knows why the Mother gave her a child of mixed spirits? The ways of the Mother are always mysterious.”
Ayla was silent, for a while. “I don’t think the Mother gave her mixed spirits. I think she knew a man of the Others.”
Jondalar frowned. “I know you think men have something to do with starting life, but how could a flathead female know a man?”
“I don’t know how, but women of the Clan don’t travel alone and they stay away from the Others. The men don’t want Others around the women. They think babies are started by a man’s totem spirit, and they don’t want the spirit of a man of the Others to get too close. And the women are afraid of them. There are always new stories at Clan Gatherings of people being bothered or hurt by the Others, particularly women.
“But Rydag’s mother wasn’t afraid of the Others. Nezzie said she followed them for two days, and she came with Talut when he signaled her. Any other Clan woman would have run away from him. She must have known one before, and one who treated her well, or at least did not hurt her, because she wasn’t afraid of Talut. When she needed help, what gave her reason to think she might find it from the Others?”
“Maybe it was just because she saw Nezzie nursing,” Jondalar suggested.
“Maybe. But that doesn’t answer why she was alone. The only reason I can think of is that she was cursed and driven from her clan. Clan women are not often cursed. It is not their nature to bring it on themselves. Perhaps it had something to do with a man of the Others.…”
Ayla paused for a moment, then added thoughtfully, “Rydag’s mother must have wanted her baby very much. It took a lot of courage for her to approach the Others, even if she did know a man before. It was only when she saw the baby and thought he was deformed that she gave up. The Clan doesn’t like mixed children, either.”
“How can you be so sure she knew