The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [179]
“Yes, if Jondalar wants, I will try it. I don’t think we met,” she added.
“No,” the woman said, as Jondalar was getting ready to jump in and make the introductions. “We don’t need to be formal. We all know who you are, Ayla. I am Carolio, that one’s sister.” She indicated Carlono.
“I see the … likeness,” Ayla said, searching for the word, and Jondalar suddenly realized she was speaking Sharamudoi. He looked at her in wonder. How did she learn it so fast?
“I hope you can overlook Dolando’s outburst,” Carolio said. “The son of his hearth, Roshario’s son, was killed by flatheads, and he hates all of them. Doraldo was a young man, a few years older than Darvo, and full of high spirits, just beginning his life. It was very hard on Dolando. He has never quite gotten over it.”
Ayla nodded, but frowned. It was not usual for the Clan to kill the Others. What had the young man done? she wondered. She saw Roshario motioning to her. Though Dolando’s glare was not welcoming, she hurried toward the woman.
“You are tired?” she asked. “Is time you go to bed? Are you feeling pain?”
“A little. Not much. I’ll go to bed soon, but not yet. I want to tell you how sorry I am. I had a son…”
“Carolio told me. She said he was killed.”
“Flatheads…” Dolando mumbled under his breath.
“We may have all jumped to some conclusions,” Roshario said. “You said you lived with … some people on the peninsula?” There was suddenly absolute silence.
“Yes,” Ayla said. Then she looked at Dolando and took a deep breath. “The Clan. The ones you call flatheads, that is what they call themselves.”
“How? They don’t talk,” a young woman called out. Jondalar saw it was the woman sitting next to Chalono, another young man he knew. She was familiar, but her name eluded him for the moment.
Ayla anticipated her unspoken comment. “They are not animals. They are people, and they do talk, but not with many words, though they use some. Their language is of signs and gestures.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Roshario asked. “Before you put me to sleep? I thought you were dancing with your hands.”
Ayla smiled. “I was talking to the spirit world, asking my totem spirit to help you.”
“Spirit world? Talking with hands? What nonsense!” Dolando spat.
“Dolando,” Roshario said, reaching for his hand.
“It’s true, Dolando,” Jondalar said. “I even learned some of it. All of Lion Camp did. Ayla taught us so we could communicate with Rydag. Everyone was surprised to find out he could talk that way, even if he couldn’t say words right. It made them realize he was not an animal.”
“You mean the boy Nezzie took in?” Tholie said.
“Boy? Are you talking about that abomination of mixed spirits that we heard some crazy Mamutoi woman took in?”
Ayla’s chin went up. She was getting angry now. “Rydag was a child,” she said. “He may have come from mixed spirits, but how can you blame a child for who he is? He didn’t choose to be born that way. Don’t you say it’s the Mother who chooses the spirits? Then he was just as much a child of the Mother as anyone. What right do you have to call him an abomination?”
Ayla was glaring at Dolando, and everyone was staring at both of them, surprised at Ayla’s defense, and wondering what Dolando’s reaction would be. He looked as surprised as the others.
“And Nezzie is not crazy. She is a warm, kind, loving woman who took in an orphan child, and she didn’t care what anyone thought,” Ayla continued. “She was like Iza, the woman who took me in when I had no one, even though I was different, one of the Others.”
“Flatheads killed the son of my hearth!” Dolando said.
“That may be, but it is not usual. The Clan would rather avoid the Others—that’s how they think of people like us.” Ayla paused, then she looked at the man who still suffered such anguish. “It is hard to lose a child, Dolando, but let me tell you about someone else who lost a child. She was a woman I met when many of the clans gathered—it was like a Summer Meeting, but they don’t meet as often. She and some other