The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [237]
“Yes, I have a son. He is still with the Clan. I gave him to Uba when Broud made me leave.”
“Made you leave?” He sat back down. So she had a son. He had been right in suspecting that she had been pregnant. “Why would someone make a mother leave her child? Who is this … Broud?”
How could she explain? She closed her eyes for a moment. “He’s the leader. Brun was the leader when they found me. He allowed Creb to make me Clan, but he was getting old, so he made Broud leader. Broud always hated me, even when I was a little girl.”
“He’s the one who hurt you, isn’t he?”
“Iza told me about the signal when I became a woman, but she said men relieved their needs with women they liked. Broud did it because it made him feel good to know he could make me do something I hated. But I think my totem led him to do it. The spirit of the Cave Lion knew how much I wanted a baby.”
“What does this Broud have to do with your baby? The Great Earth Mother blesses when She chooses. Was your son of his spirit?”
“Creb said spirits made babies. He said a woman swallowed the spirit of a man’s totem. If it was strong enough, it would overcome the spirit of her totem, take its life force, and start a new life growing in her.”
“That’s an odd way of looking at it. It’s the Mother who chooses the man’s spirit to mix with the woman’s spirit when She blesses a woman.”
“I don’t think spirits make babies. Not spirits of totems, or spirits mixed by your Great Mother. I think life starts when a man’s organ is full and he puts it inside a woman. I think that’s why men have such strong needs, and why women want men so much.”
“That can’t be, Ayla. Do you know how many times a man can put his manhood inside a woman? A woman couldn’t have that many children. A man makes a woman, with the Mother’s Gift of Pleasure; he opens her so the spirits can enter. But the Mother’s most sacred Gift of Life is given only to women. They receive the spirits and create life, and become mothers like Her. If a man honors Her, appreciates Her Gifts, and makes a commitment to take care of a woman and her children, Doni may choose his spirit for the children of his hearth.”
“What is the Gift of Pleasure?”
“That’s right! You’ve never known Pleasures, have you?” he said, amazed when he considered the idea. “No wonder you didn’t know when I … You’re a woman who’s been blessed with a child without ever having First Rites. Your Clan must be very unusual. Everyone I met on my Journey knew about the Mother and Her Gifts. The Gift of Pleasure is when a man and a woman feel they want each other, and give themselves to each other.”
“It is when a man is full and must relieve his needs with a woman, isn’t that right?” Ayla said. “It’s when he puts his organ in the place where babies come out. That is the Gift of Pleasure?”
“It’s that, but it’s much more.”
“Perhaps, but everyone told me I’d never have a baby because my totem was too strong. They were all surprised. He wasn’t deformed, either. He just looked a little like me, and a little like them. But it was only after Broud kept giving me the signal that I became pregnant. No one else wanted me—I’m too big and ugly. Even at the Clan Gathering there wasn’t a man who would take me, though I had Iza’s status when they accepted me as her daughter.”
Something about her story began to bother Jondalar, nagged at him, but floated just out of reach
“You said the medicine woman found you—what was her name? Iza? Where did she find you? Where did you come from?”
“I don’t know. Iza said I was born to the Others, other people like me. Like you, Jondalar. I don’t remember anything before I lived with the Clan—I didn’t even remember my mother’s face. You are the only man I’ve seen who looks like me.”
Jondalar was feeling an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach as he listened.
“I learned about a man of the Others from a woman at the Clan Gathering. It made me afraid of them, until I met you. She had a baby, a girl that resembled Durc so much, she could have been mine. Oda wanted to arrange a mating between