The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [388]
“It’s only because I love you. I have to cry. It’s been so long, and I love you so much,” she said.
He kissed her eyes, her tears, her mouth, and felt it open to him, gently, firmly.
“Ayla, are you really here?” he said. “I thought I’d lost you, and I knew it was my own fault. I love you, Ayla, I never stopped loving you. You must believe that. I never stopped loving you, even though I know why you thought so.”
“But you didn’t want to love me, did you?”
He closed his eyes and his forehead knotted with the pain of the truth. He nodded. “I was ashamed that I loved someone who came from the Clan, and I hated myself for feeling ashamed of the woman I loved. I’ve never been so happy with anyone as I have with you. I love you, and when it was just the two of us, everything was perfect. But when we were with other people … every time you did something that you learned from the Clan, I was embarrassed. And I was always afraid you’d say something, and then everyone would know that I loved a woman who was … abomination.” He could hardly say the word.
“Everyone used to tell me I could have any woman I wanted. No woman could refuse me, they said, not even the Mother Herself. It seemed to be true. What they didn’t know was that I never knew a woman I really wanted, until I met you. But what would they say if I brought you home? If Jondalar could have anyone, why would he bring home … the mother of a flathead … an abomination? I was afraid they wouldn’t accept you, and turn me away, too, unless … I turned against you. I was afraid I might, if I had to choose between my people and you.”
Ayla was frowning. She looked down. “I didn’t understand. That would be a hard decision for you to make.”
“Ayla,” Jondalar said, turning her face up to look at him. “I love you. Maybe only now do I realize how important that is to me. Not just that you love me, but that I love you. Now I know, for me there is only one choice. You are more important to me than my people, or anyone. I want to be wherever you are.” Her eyes overflowed again, try as she might to stop them. “If you want to stay here and live with the Mamutoi, I will stay and become Mamutoi. If you want me to share you with Ranec … I will do that, too.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“If it’s what you want …” Jondalar started to say, then remembered Mamuts words. Maybe he ought to give her a choice, tell her his preference. “I want to be with you, that’s most important, believe me. I would be willing to stay here, if that’s what you want, but if you ask me what I want, I want to go home, and take you with me.”
“Take me with you? You aren’t ashamed of me any more? You’re not ashamed of the Clan, and Durc?”
“No. I’m not ashamed of you. I’m proud of you. And I’m not ashamed of the Clan either. You, and Rydag, have taught me something very important, and maybe it’s time to try and teach some others. I’ve learned so many things that I want to take back to my people. I want to show them the spear-thrower, and Wymez’s methods of working (lint, and your firestones, and the thread-puller, and the horses and Wolf With all that, they may even be willing to listen to someone trying to tell them that the people of the Clan are children of the Earth Mother, too.”
“The Cave Lion is your totem, Jondalar,” Ayla said with the finality of absolute knowledge.
“You’ve said that before. What makes you so sure?”
“Remember when I told you powerful totems are hard to live with? Their tests are very hard, but their gifts, what you learn from them, make it all worth it. You have been through a hard test, but are you sorry now? This year has been hard for both of us, but I have learned so much, about myself, and about the Others. I am not afraid of them any more. You have learned very much, too, about yourself and about the Clan. I think you feared them, in a different way. Now you have overcome it. The Cave Lion is a Clan totem, and you don’t hate them any more.”
“I think you must be right, and I’m glad a Clan Cave Lion totem has chosen me, if that means I am acceptable to you. I have nothing to offer