The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [318]
He watched her carefully, trying to make sure that she wasn’t saying those things just so she could twist them around in her next breath into a condescending sarcasm the way Marona used to do. But Ayla seemed sincere and her feelings genuine.
“Well, you’re not looking, I’m sorry to say,” Brukeval said, “but if you ever decide to start, let me know.” Then he smiled, trying to make it seem like a joke.
From the first moment he saw her, Brukeval knew she was the woman he had always dreamed of. The trouble was, she was going to mate Jondalar. What a lucky man, he thought, but then, he always was lucky. I hope he appreciates what he has, but if he doesn’t, I would. I’d take her in a heartbeat, if she would have me.
They looked up when they heard the sound of voices and saw several people coming from the direction of the camp of the Ninth Cave. The two tall men who looked so much alike were immediately identifiable. Ayla waved and smiled at Jondalar and Dalanar. They all recognized her and waved back. The two tall young women with them couldn’t have looked more different, and though they were considered cousins, it was far cousins, but they both had a close connection to Jondalar. The complex family ties of the Zelandonii had been explained to Ayla, and she thought about their relationships as she watched them approach.
Among the Zelandonii, only children of the same woman were called brothers and sisters; children of the same man’s hearth were considered cousins, not siblings. Folara and Jondalar were sister and brother because they shared the same mother, though the men of their hearths were different; Joplaya was his close cousin because although Dalanar was the man of the hearth to both of them, they had different mothers. But while a sibling relationship wasn’t acknowledged, it was understood. Close cousins, especially the ones also called hearth cousins, were too close to mate with each other.
The last person who was with them was Echozar, Joplaya’s Promised. He was as distinctive in his general shape and size as the tall men were, especially to Ayla. Joplaya and Echozar would be mated during the same Matrimonial as she and Jondalar, and couples who shared the same ceremony often developed strong friendships. She wished that could be true, but they lived far apart and it was not likely. As they got closer, Ayla noticed that Joplaya glanced at Jondalar now and then, and surprisingly, she didn’t mind. She felt an empathetic sorrow for her. She understood Joplaya’s melancholy. She, too, had once been Promised to the wrong man, but for Joplaya there would be no last-moment reprieve.
Close cousins were often raised together, or lived nearby and knew they were close kin and not available to be considered for mating. But when Jondalar went to live with the man of his hearth, after the fight in which he knocked out the two front teeth of the man now known as Madroman, he was already a teenager. The daughter of Dalanar’s hearth, Joplaya, was a little younger, but neither had known each other while they were growing up.
Dalanar was delighted to have both his hearth children together and wanted them to get to know each other. He decided that one way was to train them both in the art of flint-knapping, which would give them something in common to talk about. It was, in fact, a very good idea, but he didn’t know what effect the youngster who was so much like himself would have on Joplaya. She had always adored the man of her hearth, and when Jondalar came, it was all too easy to transfer that overpowering love to her close cousin. Jerika saw it, but both Dalanar and Jondalar were unaware of it. Joplaya always couched her feelings about him in terms of jokes, and they, knowing that close cousins couldn’t mate, took it at face value and assumed that she was only teasing.
There were relatively few people in Dalanar’s Cave of Lanzadonii, and none that offered