The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [13]
They both spoke at once. “Can I get you …” Jondalar started.
“You’ve changed…”
“I’m sorry…” he apologized for what seemed like an interruption, feeling oddly constrained. Then he noticed just the slightest hint of a smile, and a familiar look in her eye, and he felt himself relax.
“I am glad to see you … Zolena,” he said. His brow smoothed out and his smile returned as he focused his compelling eyes full of warmth and love on her.
“You haven’t changed that much,” she said, feeling herself respond to his charisma and the memories it evoked. “No one has called me Zolena for a long time.” She appraised him again carefully, “You have changed, though. Grown up some. You’re more handsome than ever.…”
He started to protest, but she shook her head at him. “Don’t make objections, Jondalar. You know it’s true. But there’s a difference. You look … how can I say it … you don’t have that hungry look, that need that every woman wanted to satisfy. I think you have found what you’ve been searching for. You are happy in a way that you have never been.”
“I never could keep anything from you,” he said, smiling with an excited, almost childlike delight. “It’s Ayla. We plan to mate at this summer’s Matrimonial. I suppose we could have had a mating ceremony before we left, or along the way, but I wanted to wait until we got home so you could slip that thong over our wrists and tie the knot for us.”
Just talking about her had changed his expression, and Zelandoni had a momentary sense of the almost obsessive love he felt for this woman called Ayla. It concerned her, raised all the protective instincts she felt for her people—particularly this person—as the voice, surrogate, and instrument of the Great Earth Mother. She knew the powerful emotions he had struggled with growing up, and finally learned to keep under control. But a woman he loved that much could hurt him terribly, perhaps even destroy him. Her eyes narrowed. She wanted to know more about this young woman who had captivated him so completely. Just what kind of hold did she have on him?
“How can you be so sure she’s right for you? Where did you meet her? How much do you really know about her?”
Jondalar sensed her concern, but something else, too, something that worried him. Zelandoni was the highest ranked spiritual leader of all the zelandonia, and she was not First for nothing. She was a powerful woman and he didn’t want her turning against Ayla. The greatest concern he—and, he knew, Ayla, too—had had during their long and difficult Journey to his home was whether or not she would be accepted by his people. For all her exceptional qualities, there were some things about her that he wished she would keep secret, though he doubted that she would. She could have enough difficulties—and probably would have from some people—without incurring the enmity of this particular woman. Quite the opposite, more than anyone Ayla needed the support of Zelandoni.
He reached out and held the shoulders of the woman, needing to persuade her, somehow, not only to accept Ayla but to help her, but he wasn’t sure how. Looking into her eyes, he couldn’t help remembering the love they once had shared, and suddenly he knew that, as difficult as it might be for him, only complete honesty would work … if anything would.
Jondalar was a private man about his personal feelings; it was the way he’d learned to control his powerful emotions, to keep them to himself. It was not easy for him to talk about them to anyone, not even someone who knew him as well as she did.
“Zelandoni…” His voice softened. “Zolena … you know it was you that spoiled me for other women. I was hardly more than a boy, and you were the most exciting woman any man could hope for. I wasn’t alone in wetting my dreams with thoughts of you, but you made mine come true. I burned for you, and when you came to me, became my donii-woman, I couldn’t get enough of you. My first manhood was filled with you, but you know it didn’t end there. I wanted more and as much as you fought it, you did, too. Even