The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [205]
It was too much; she couldn’t get it all. She shook her head and pointed again. He could see she was confused.
“Jondalar,” he said, then slower, “Jondalar.”
Ayla strained to make her mouth work the same way. “Duh-da,” was as close as she could come.
He could tell she was having trouble making the right sounds, but she was trying so hard. He wondered if she had some deformity in her mouth that kept her from speaking. Is that why she hadn’t been talking? Because she couldn’t? He said his name again, slowly, making each sound as clear as he could, as though he were speaking to a child, or someone lacking adequate intelligence, “Jon-da-lar … Jonnn-dah-larrr.”
“Don-da-lah,” she tried again.
“Much better!” he said, nodding approvingly and smiling. She had really made an effort that time. He wasn’t so sure if his analysis of her as someone who was studying to Serve the Mother was correct. She didn’t seem bright enough. He kept smiling and nodding.
He was making the happy face! No one else in the Clan ever smiled like that, except Durc Yet it had come so naturally to her, and now he was doing it.
Her look of surprise was so funny that Jondalar had to suppress a chuckle, but his smile deepened and his eyes sparkled with amusement. The feeling was contagious. Ayla’s mouth turned up at the corners, and when his answering grin encouraged her, she responded with a full, wide, delighted smile.
“Oh, woman,” Jondalar said. “You may not talk much, but you are lovely when you smile!” The maleness in him began to see her as a woman, as a very attractive woman, and he looked at her that way.
Something was different. The smile was still there, but his eyes … Ayla noticed that his eyes in the firelight were deep violet, and they held more than amusement. She didn’t know what it was about his look, but her body did. It recognized the invitation and responded with the same drawing, tingling sensations deep inside that she had felt when she was watching Whinney and the bay stallion. His eyes were so compelling that she had to force herself to look away with a jerk of her head. She fumbled around straightening his bed coverings, then picked up the bowl and stood up, avoiding his eyes.
“I believe you’re shy,” Jondalar said, softening the intensity of his gaze. She reminded him of a young woman before her First Rites. He felt the gentle but urgent desire he always had for a young woman during that ceremony, and the eager pull in his loins. And then the pain in his right thigh. “It’s just as well,” he said with a wry grin. “I’m in no shape for it anyway.”
He eased himself back down on the bed, pushing aside and smoothing out the furs she had used to prop him up, feeling drained. His body hurt, and when he remembered why, he hurt deeper. He didn’t want to remember or think. He wanted to close his eyes and forget, sink into the oblivion that would end all his pain. He felt a touch on his arm and opened his eyes to see Ayla holding a cup of liquid. He swallowed it, and before long he felt the pain ease and a drowsiness overcome him. She had given him something that had caused it, he knew, and was grateful, but he wondered how she had known what he needed without his saying a word.
Ayla had seen his grimace of pain and knew the extent of his injuries. She was an experienced medicine woman. She had prepared the datura before he even woke up. She watched the wrinkles on his forehead smooth out and his body relax, then put out the lamp and banked the fire. She arranged the fur she was using beside the man, but she was far from sleepy.
By the glow of the banked coals, she made her way toward the mouth of the cave, then, hearing Whinney nicker softly, she crossed over to her. She was pleased to see the mare lying down. The strange scent of the man in the cave had made her nervous after she foaled. She was accepting the man’s presence if she felt relaxed enough to lie down. Ayla sat down below Whinney’s neck and in front of her chest, so she could stroke her face and scratch around her ears. The foal, who had been lying near