The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [311]
S’Armuna paused, shook her head, and then continued. “Brugar was a strong man, very strong, and he liked to hurt people, especially women. I really think he enjoyed causing women pain. You said the flatheads don’t allow men to hit other men, though they can hit women. That might have something to do with it. But Brugar liked Attaroa’s defiance. She was a good deal taller than he was, and she is very strong herself. He liked the challenge of breaking down her resistance, and he was delighted when she fought him. It gave him an excuse to hurt her, which seemed to make him feel powerful.”
Ayla shuddered, recalling a situation not too dissimilar, and she felt a moment of empathy and compassion for the headwoman.
“He bragged about it to the other men, and they encouraged him, or at least they went along with him,” the older woman said. “The more she resisted, the worse he made it for her, until she finally broke. Then he would want her. I used to wonder, if she had been complaisant in the beginning, would he have grown tired of her and stopped beating her?”
Ayla thought about that. Broud had grown tired of her when she stopped resisting.
“But somehow I doubt it,” S’Armuna continued. “Later, when she was blessed and did stop fighting him, he didn’t change. She was his mate, and as far as he was concerned, she belonged to him. He could do whatever he wanted to her.”
I was never Broud’s mate, Ayla thought, and Brun wouldn’t let him beat me, not after the first time. Though it was his right, the rest of Bran’s clan thought his interest in me was strange. They discouraged his behavior.
“Brugar didn’t stop beating her, even when Attaroa became pregnant?” Jondalar asked, appalled.
“No, although he seemed pleased that she was going to have a baby,” the woman said.
I became pregnant, too, Ayla thought. Her life and Attaroa’s had many similarities.
“Attaroa came to me for healing,” S’Armuna was continuing, closing her eyes and shaking her head as if to dispel the memory. “It was horrible, the things he did to her, I cannot tell you. Braises from beatings were the least of it.”
“Why did she put up with it?” Jondalar asked.
“She had no other place to go. She had no kin, no friends. The people of her other Camp had made it clear to her that they didn’t want her, and at first she was too proud to go back and let them know that her mating to the new leader was so bad. In a way, I knew how she felt,” S’Armuna said. “No one beat me, although Brugar did try it once, but I believed there was no other place for me to go, even though I do have relatives. I was the One Who Served the Mother, and I couldn’t admit how bad things had become. It would have seemed that I had failed.”
Jondalar nodded his understanding. He, too, had once felt that he was a failure. He glanced at Ayla, and he felt his love for her warm him.
“Attaroa hated Brugar,” S’Armuna continued, “but, in a strange way, she may have loved him, too. Sometimes she provoked him on purpose, I think. I wondered if it was because when the pain was over, he would take her and, if not love her, or even Pleasure her, at least make her feel wanted. She may have learned to take a perverse kind of Pleasure from his cruelty. Now she wants no one. She Pleasures herself by causing men pain. If you watch her, you can see her excitement.”
“I almost pity her,” Jondalar said.
“Pity her, if you want, but do not trust her,” the shaman said. “She is insane, possessed by some great evil. I wonder if you can understand? Have you ever been filled with such rage that all reason leaves you?”
Jondalar’s eyes were huge as he felt compelled to nod his assent. He had felt such rage. He had beaten a man until he was unconscious, and still he had been unable to stop.
“With Attaroa, it is as though she is constantly filled by such a rage. She doesn’t always show it—in fact, she is very good at hiding it—but her thoughts and feelings are so full of this evil rage that she is no longer able to think