The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [83]
When she finished cleaning the birds, she went inside, and saw Nezzie at the first hearth starting a fire in the large fireplace.
“I would like to cook ptarmigan in hole, like you cook stew in hole. Can I have coals?” Ayla asked.
“Of course. Is there anything else you need?”
“I have dried herbs. I like fresh greens in birds. Wrong season.”
“You could look in the storage room. There are some other vegetables you might think of using, and we do have some salt,” Nezzie volunteered.
Salt, Ayla thought. She hadn’t cooked with salt since she left the Clan. “Yes, would like salt. Maybe vegetable. Will look. Where I find hot coals?”
“I’ll give you some, as soon as I get this going.”
Ayla watched Nezzie make the fire, idly at first, not paying much attention, but then she found herself intrigued. She knew, but had not really thought about it before, that they did not have many trees. They burned bone for fuel, and bone did not burn very easily. Nezzie had produced a small ember from another fireplace, and with it set fire to some fluff from the seedpods of fireweed collected for tinder. She added some dried dung, which made a hotter and stronger flame, and then small shavings and chips of bone. They did not catch hold well.
Nezzie blew at the fire to keep it going while she moved a small handle the young woman had not noticed before. Ayla heard a slight whistling sound of wind, noticed a few ashes blowing around, and saw the flame burn brighter. With the hotter flame, the bone chips began to singe around the edges, then burst into flame. And Ayla suddenly realized the source of something that had been nagging at her, something she had barely noticed but that had bothered her ever since she arrived at the Lion Camp. The smell of smoke was wrong.
She had burned some dried dung occasionally and was familiar with the strong sharp odor of its smoke, but her primary fuel had been of plant origin; she was used to the smell of wood smoke. The fuel used by the Lion Camp was of animal origin. The smell of burning bone had a different character, a quality reminiscent of a roast left too long on the fire. In combination with the dried dung, which they also used in large quantities, a distinctive pungent odor permeated the entire encampment. It wasn’t unpleasant, but unfamiliar, which created in her a slight uneasiness. Now that she had identified the cause, a certain undefined tension was relieved.
Ayla smiled as she watched Nezzie add more bone, and adjust the handle, which made it burn hotter.
“How you do that?” she asked. “Make fire so hot?”
“Fire needs to breathe, too, and wind is the fire’s breath. The Mother taught us that when She made women keepers of the hearth. You can see it when you give your breath to fire; when you blow on it, the fire gets hotter. We dig a trench from underneath the fireplace to the outside to bring the wind in. The trench is lined with the intestines of an animal that are blown full with air before they are dried, then covered over with bone before the dirt is put back. The trench for this hearth goes out that way, under those grass mats. See?”
Ayla looked where Nezzie pointed, and nodded.
“It comes in here,” the woman continued, showing her a hollow bison horn protruding out of an opening in the side of the firepit, which was lower than the level of the floor. “But you don’t always want the same amount of wind. It depends how hard it is blowing outside and how much fire you want. You block the wind, or open it up here,” Nezzie said, showing her the handle that was attached to a damper made of thin scapular bone.
In concept, it seemed simple enough,