The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [187]
“I may have something better. Shamud used to dry plants for his uses, and I think I know where his racks are. Would you like to use one?”
“I think that would be perfect, Dolando,” she said. He nodded and strode away as she went inside. She smiled when she saw Roshario sitting up on her bed. Putting the plants down, she went to see her.
“I didn’t know Wolf had come back in here,” Ayla said. “I hope he didn’t bother you.”
“No. He was watching out for me, I’m sure. When he first came in—he knows how to get around the flap—he came straight back here. After I patted him, he went and settled down in that corner and just looked this way. That’s his place now, you know,” Roshario said.
“Did you sleep well?” Ayla asked the woman, straightening her bed and propping her up with pads and furs to make her more comfortable.
“Better than I have since I fell. Especially after Dolando and I had a long talk,” she said. She looked at the tall blond woman, the stranger that Jondalar had brought with him, who had stirred up their life and precipitated so much change in such a short time. “He really didn’t mean what he said about you, Ayla, but he is upset. He has lived with Doraldo’s death for years, never able to really put it away. He didn’t know the full circumstances until last night. Now he’s trying to reconcile years of hatred, and violence, toward what he was convinced were vicious animals, with all that came out about them, including you.”
“How about you, Roshario? He was your son,” Ayla said.
“I hated them, too, but then Jetamio’s mother died, and we took her in. She didn’t take his place, exactly, but she was so sick and needed so much care that I didn’t have time to dwell on his death. As I came to feel as though she was my own daughter, I was able to let the memory of my son rest. Dolando grew to love Jetamio, too, but boys are special to men, especially boys born to their hearth. He couldn’t get over the loss of Doraldo, just as he had reached manhood and had his life in front of him.” Tears were glistening in Roshario’s eyes. “Now Jetamio’s gone, too. I was almost afraid to take Darvo in, for fear he would die young.”
“It’s never easy to lose a son,” Ayla said, “or a daughter.”
Roshario thought she saw a look of pain flash across the young woman’s face as she got up and went to the fire to start preparations. When she came back, she brought her medicines in her interesting wooden bowls. The woman had never seen any quite like them. Most of their tools, utensils, and containers were decorated with carvings or paintings, or both, particularly Shamud’s. Ayla’s bowls were finely made, smooth and well-shaped, but starkly plain. There were no decorations of any kind, except for the grain of the wood itself.
“Are you feeling much pain now?” Ayla asked as she helped Roshario lie down.
“Some, but not nearly as much as before,” the woman said, as the young healer started to remove the wrappings.
“I think the swelling is down,” Ayla said, studying the arm. “That’s a good sign. I’ll put the splints and a sling back on it for now, in case you want to get up for a while. I’ll put another poultice on tonight. When there is no more swelling, I’ll wrap it in birchbark, which you should keep on until the bone is healed; at least a moon and halfway into another,” Ayla explained, as she deftly took away the damp chamois skin and looked at a spreading bruise caused by her manipulations the day before.
“Birchbark?” Roshario said.
“When it is soaked in hot water, it softens and is easy to shape and fit. It gets hard and stiff as it dries, and will hold your arm rigid so the bone will heal straight, even when you are up and moving around.”
“You mean I’ll be able to get up and do something, instead of just lying around?” Roshario said with a delighted grin.
“You will only have the use of one arm, but there’s no reason you can’t stand on both legs. It was the pain that kept you here.”
Roshario nodded. “That’s true.”
“There is one thing I want you to try before I put the wrappings back on. If you can, I want you to move your fingers; it