The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [312]
“Surely she must have some human feeling?” Jondalar said.
“Do you recall the funeral shortly after you came here?” S’Armuna asked.
“Yes, three young people. Two men and I wasn’t sure about the third, even though they were all dressed the same. I remember wondering what had caused their deaths. They were so young.”
“Attaroa caused their deaths,” S’Armuna said. “And the one you weren’t sure of? That was her own child.”
They heard a sound and turned as one toward the entrance of S’Armuna’s earthlodge.
31
A young woman stood in the entrance passage of the earthlodge, looking nervously at the three people within. Jondalar noticed immediately that she was quite young, hardly more than a girl; Ayla noticed that she was quite pregnant.
“What is it, Cavoa?” S’Armuna said.
“Epadoa and her hunters just returned, and Attaroa is yelling at her.”
“Thank you for telling me,” the older woman said, then turned back to her guests. “The walls of this earthlodge are so thick that it is hard to hear anything beyond them. Perhaps we should go out there.”
They hurried out, past the pregnant young woman, who tried to pull back to let them by. Ayla smiled at her. “Not wait much more?” she said in S’Armunai.
Cavoa smiled nervously, then looked down.
Ayla thought she seemed frightened and unhappy, which was unusual for an expectant mother, but then, she reasoned, most women expecting their first were a little nervous. As soon as they stepped outside, they heard Attaroa.
“ … tell me you found where they camped. You missed your chance! You’re not much of a Wolf Woman if you can’t even track,” the head-woman railed in loud derision.
Epadoa stood tight-lipped, anger flaring from her eyes, but made no reply. A crowd had gathered, not too closely, but the young woman dressed in wolf skins noticed that most of them had turned to look in another direction. She glanced to see what had commanded their attention, and she was startled at the sight of the blond woman coming toward them, followed, even more surprisingly, by the tall man. She had never known a man to return once he got away.
“What are you doing here?” Epadoa blurted.
“I told you. You missed your chance,” Attaroa sneered. “They came back on their own.”
“Why shouldn’t we be here?” Ayla said. “Weren’t we invited to a feast?” S’Armuna translated.
“The feast is not ready yet. Tonight,” Attaroa said to the visitors, dismissing them curtly, then addressing her head Wolf Woman, “Come inside, Epadoa. I want to talk to you.” She turned her back on all the watchers and entered her lodge. Epadoa stared at Ayla, a deep frown indenting her forehead; then she followed the headwoman.
After she was gone, Ayla looked out across the field a bit apprehensively. After all, Epadoa and the hunters were known to hunt horses. She felt relieved when she saw Whinney and Racer at the opposite end of the sloping field of dry brittle grass some distance away. She turned and studied the woods and brush on the uphill slope outside of the Camp, wishing she could see Wolf, yet glad that she could not. She wanted him to stay in hiding, but she did make a point of standing in plain sight looking in his direction, hoping that he could see her.
As the visitors walked back with S’Armuna toward her dwelling, Jondalar recalled a comment she had made earlier that had piqued his curiosity. “How did you keep Brugar away from you?” he asked. “You said he tried once to beat you like he did the other women; how did you stop him?”
The older woman halted and looked hard at the young man, then at the woman beside him. Ayla felt the shaman’s indecision and sensed she was evaluating them, trying to decide how much to tell them.
“He tolerated me because I am a healer—he always referred to me as a medicine woman,” S’Armuna said, “but more than anything, he feared the world of the spirits.”
Her comments brought a question to Ayla’s mind. “Medicine women have a unique status in the Clan,” she said, “but they are only healers. Mog-urs