The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [389]
There was another commotion, but the First heard no actual denials and decided to move on. “The other reason for having this gather is that Joharran wants to talk about the ones we calfflatheads, but first I think you should learn more about them from someone who can speak from experience. Ayla was raised by the ones we know as flatheads, but that she knows as people of the Clan. Ayla, will you come here and tell us about them.”
Ayla got up and walked toward the First. Her stomach was queasy and her mouth felt dry. She wasn’t used to speaking formally to a group of people and she didn’t know where to start, so she just began where her memories began.
“I was a five-year, I think, as close as I can guess, when I lost the family I was born to. I don’t remember most of this very well, but I think it was an earthquake that took them. I dream about it sometimes. I guess I wandered alone for a while, I’m sure I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I don’t know how long I had been alone when I was chased by a cave lion. I think I hid in a small cave, very small, because a cave lion reached in to try to get me and scratched my leg. I still have the scars, four lines from his claws on my leg. My earliest real memory is opening my eyes and seeing Iza, a woman of those you would call flatheads. I remember screaming at the sight of her. Her response was to hold me in her arms until I quieted.”
People were immediately caught up in the story of an orphaned girl who could count only five years. She explained that the home of the clan that found her had been destroyed by the same earthquake, and they were looking for a new one when they came across her. She told them that they knew that she was not Clan, but one of the Others, the word they used for people like her, and she talked about being adopted by the medicine woman of Brun’s clan, and her brother, Creb, who was a great mog-ur, which was like a Zelandoni. As she continued, she forgot her nervousness and just spoke naturally, with all of the emotion and genuine feelings about her life with the people who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear.
She didn’t hold back anything, not the difficulties she had with Broud, who was the son of the mate of the leader, Brun, or her joy in learning medicine from Iza. She talked about her love for Creb and Iza, and her Clan sister, Uba, and about her curiosity when she picked up the sling for the first time. She told how she taught herself to use it, and several years later, the consequences for doing so. She hesitated only when it came to talking about her son. For all the First’s logical and high-minded argument about the Clan being children of the Mother, too, she could tell from the expressions and body language of several people, especially those who had made objections to Echozar mating Joplaya, that their feelings had not changed. They had just decided that it might be best to keep them to themselves for the time being. Ayla thought it might be best to refrain from mentioning, too.
She told them about being forced to leave the Clan when Broud became leader, and though she tried to explain what a death curse was, she didn’t think they fully understood the real power of its coercive force. It did literally cause the death of individual members of the Clan if they had no place to go and no one, not even their dearest loved ones, would acknowledge that they even existed. She spoke only briefly about her time in the valley, but talked in more detail about Rydag, the mixed child that was adopted by Nezzie, the mate of