The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [310]
Nearly all of her statements raised questions in S’Armuna’s mind, but the time was not appropriate to ask them. “It is a good thing that you have no mixture in you,” she said, giving Jondalar a significant look, “especially since you are going to meet the Zelandonii.”
Ayla caught the look, and she had an idea what the woman meant. She recalled the way Jondalar had first reacted when he discovered who had raised her, and it was even worse when he found out about her son of mixed spirits.
“How do you know she hasn’t met them already?” Jondalar asked.
S’Armuna paused to consider the question. How had she known? She smiled at the man. “You said you were going home, and she said, ‘his language’ not hers.” Suddenly a thought came to her, a revelation. “The language! The accent! Now I know where I’ve heard it before. Brugar had an accent like that! Not quite as much as yours, Ayla, though he didn’t speak his own language as well as you speak Jondalar’s. But he must have developed that speech … mannerism—it isn’t quite an accent—when he lived with the flatheads. There is something about the sound of your speech, and now that I hear it, I don’t think I’ll ever forget again.”
Ayla felt embarrassed. She had worked so hard to speak correctly, but she had never been quite able to make some sounds. For the most part, it had ceased to bother her when people mentioned it, but S’Armuna was making such an issue of it.
The shaman noticed her discomfiture. “I’m sorry, Ayla. I don’t mean to embarrass you. You really do speak Zelandonii very well, probably better than I do, since I’ve forgotten so much. And it isn’t really an accent you have. It’s something else. I’m sure most people don’t even notice. It’s just that you have given me such an insight into Brugar, and that helps me to understand Attaroa.”
“Helps you to understand Attaroa?” Jondalar asked. “I wish I could understand how someone could be so cruel.”
“She wasn’t always so bad. I really grew to admire her when I first came back, although I felt very sorry for her, too. But in a way, she was prepared for Brugar as few women could have been.”
“Prepared? That’s a strange thing to say. Prepared for what?”
“Prepared for his cruelty,” S’Armuna explained. “Attaroa was used badly when she was a girl. She never said much about it, but I know she felt her own mother hated her. I learned from someone else that her mother did abandon her, or so it was thought. She left and nothing was heard from her again. Attaroa was finally taken in by a man whose mate had died in childbirth, under very suspicious circumstances, the baby with her. The suspicions were borne out when it was discovered that he beat Attaroa and took her before she was even a woman, but no one else wanted responsibility for her. It was something about her mother, some question about her background, but it left Attaroa to be raised with and warped by his cruelty. Finally the man died, and some people of her Camp arranged for her to be mated to the new leader of this Camp.”
“Arranged without her consent?” Jondalar asked.
“They ‘encouraged’ her to agree, and they brought her to meet Brugar. As I said, he could be very charming, and I’m sure he found her attractive.”
Jondalar nodded agreement. He had noticed that she could have been quite attractive.
“I think she looked forward to the mating,” S’Armuna continued. “She felt it would be a chance for a new beginning. Then she discovered the man with whom she had joined was even worse than the one she had known before. Brugar’s Pleasures were always done with beatings, and humiliation, and worse. In his way, he did … I hesitate to say he loved her, but I think he did have feeling for her. He was