The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [318]
“Did you have no sense of the child as it was growing up?” Ayla asked.
The woman is perceptive, S’Armuna thought, then nodded. “In my heart, I always thought of Omel as a girl, but perhaps that is what I wanted. Brugar wanted people to think of the child as male.”
“You are probably right about Brugar,” Ayla said. “In the Clan, every man wants his mate to have sons. He thinks of himself as less than a man if she doesn’t have at least one. It means his totem spirit is weak. If the infant was a girl, Brugar might have been trying to hide the fact that his mate had given birth to a female,” Ayla explained, then paused and considered a different point of view. “But deformed newborns are usually taken away and left exposed. So it could be that if the baby was born deformed, especially if it was a boy and unable to learn the necessary hunting skills required of a man, Brugar might have wanted to hide that.”
“It’s not easy to interpret his motivations, but whatever they were, Attaroa went along with him.”
“But how did Omel die? And the two young men?” Jondalar asked.
“It’s a strange, complicated story,” S’Armuna said, not wanting to be rushed. “In spite of all the problems, and secrecy, the child became Brugar’s favorite. Omel was the only person he never struck or tried to hurt in some way. I was glad, but I often wondered why.”
“Did he suspect that he might have caused the deformity because he beat Attaroa so much before birth?” Jondalar asked. “Was he trying to make up for it?”
“Perhaps, but Brugar laid the blame on Attaroa. He often told her she was an inadequate woman who could not deliver a perfect baby. Then he’d become angry and beat her. But his beatings were no longer a prelude to Pleasures with his mate. Instead he demeaned Attaroa and showered affection on the child. Omel began to treat Attaroa the same way that he did, and as the woman felt more estranged, she became jealous of her own offspring, jealous of the affection Brugar showed the child, and even more of the love Omel felt for Brugar.”
“That would have been very hard to bear,” Ayla said.
“Yes, Brugar had discovered a new way to cause Attaroa pain, but she wasn’t the only one who suffered because of him,” S’Armuna continued. “As time went on, all the women were treated worse and worse, by Brugar and the other men. The men who tried to resist his ways were sometimes beaten, too, or they were forced out. Finally, after a particularly bad occasion that left Attaroa with a broken arm and several broken ribs from being jumped on and kicked, she rebelled. She swore she would kill him, and she begged me to give her something to do it with.”
“Did you?” Jondalar asked, unable to restrain his curiosity.
“One Who Serves the Mother learns many secrets, Jondalar, often dangerous secrets, especially one who has studied with the zelandonia,” S’Armuna explained. “But those who are admitted into the Motherhood must swear by the Sacred Caves and the Elder Legends that the secrets will not be misused. One Who Serves the Mother gives up name and identity, and takes on the name and identity of her people, becomes the link between the Great Earth Mother and Her children, and the means by which Earth’s Children communicate with the world of the spirits. Therefore, to Serve the Mother means to serve Her children as well.”
“I understand that,” Jondalar said.
“But you may not understand that the people become engraved on the spirit of One Who Serves. The need to consider their welfare becomes very strong, second only to the needs of the Mother. It is often a matter of leadership. Not directly, usually, but in the sense of showing the way. One Who Serves the Mother becomes a guide to understanding, and to finding the meaning inherent in the unknown. Part of the training is to learn the lore, the knowledge to enable