The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [286]
Attaroa had been thinking about Jondalar, too. She was looking forward to the diversion he would give her through the long winter, gaining control over him, and seeing him do her bidding, showing everyone that she was more powerful than the tall, handsome man. Then, when she was through with him, she had other plans for him. She had been wondering if he was ready to be let out and set to work. Epadoa had told her that she thought something was going on inside the Holding, and that the stranger was involved, but she hadn’t yet discovered what it was. Perhaps it was time to separate him from the other men for a while, Attaroa thought, maybe put him back in the cage. It was a good way to keep them all unsettled.
In the morning she told her women that she wanted a work crew, and to include the Zelandonii man. Jondalar was glad just to be getting out where he could see something besides bare earth and desperate men. It was the first time he had been allowed outside the Holding to work, and he had no idea what she planned to have him do, but he hoped he would have an opportunity to look for young, straight trees. Finding a way to get them into the Holding would be another problem.
Later in the day, Attaroa strode out of her earthlodge, accompanied by two of her women and S’Armuna, and wearing—flaunting—Jondalar’s fur parka. The men had been carrying mammoth bones that had been brought earlier from some other place, and they were piling them up where Attaroa wanted. They had worked all morning and into the afternoon with nothing to eat and little to drink. Even though he was out of the Holding, he had not been able to look for potential spear shafts, much less think of a way of cutting them down and bringing them back. He was watched too closely and given no time to rest. He was not only frustrated, he was tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and angry.
Jondalar put down one end of the legbone that he and Olamun were carrying, then stood up and faced the approaching women. As Attaroa neared, he noticed how tall she was, taller than many men. She could have been very attractive. What had happened to make her hate men so much? he wondered. When she spoke to him, her sarcasm was clear, though he didn’t understand her words.
“Well, Zelandonii, are you ready to tell us another story like your last? I’m ready to be entertained,” S’Armuna translated, complete with sarcastic intonation.
“I did not tell you a story. I told you the truth,” Jondalar said.
“That you were traveling with a woman who rides on the backs of horses? Where is this woman, then? If she has the power you say, why hasn’t she come to claim you?” Attaroa said, standing with her hands on her hips, as though to face him down.
“I don’t know where she is. I wish I did. I’m afraid she went over the cliff with the horses you were hunting,” Jondalar said.
“You lie, Zelandonii! My hunters saw no woman on the back of a horse, and no body of a woman was found with the horses. I think you have heard that the penalty for stealing from the S’Armunai is death, and you are trying to lie your way out of it,” Attaroa said.
No body was found? Jondalar was elated in spite of himself when S’Armuna translated, feeling a surge of hope that Ayla might still be alive.
“Why do you smile when I have just told you that the penalty for stealing is death? Do you doubt that I will do it?” Attaroa said, pointing to him, and then to herself for emphasis.
“Death?” he said, then paled. Could someone be put to death for hunting food? He had been so happy to think that Ayla might still be alive that he hadn’t really comprehended what she had said. When he did, his anger returned. “Horses were not given to the S’Armunai alone. They are here for all