The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [245]
He told her and started to object again, but she kept on, one word after another in the order in which she had learned them in the Zelandonii language. After she had run through a long list, he stopped her again. “Ayla, what good does it do to say a lot of words. You can’t remember them all just like that.”
“I know my memory could be better. Tell me which words are wrong.”
She went back to the word fire and repeated all the words back to him in both languages. By the time she was through, he was staring at her in awe. He recalled that it had not been the words she had trouble with when she was learning Zelandonii, but the structure and concept of the language.
“How did you do that?”
“Did I miss any?”
“No, none at all!”
She smiled with relief. “When I was young, I was much worse. I had to go over everything so many times. I don’t know how Iza and Creb were so patient with me. I know some people thought I was not very intelligent. I am better now, but it has taken practice, and still everyone in the Clan remembers better than I do.”
“Everyone in your Clan can remember better than the demonstration you just gave me?”
“They don’t forget anything, but they are born knowing almost everything they need to know, so they don’t have much to learn. They only have to remember. They have … memories—I don’t know what else you would call them. When a child is growing up, he only has to be reminded—told once. Adults don’t have to be reminded anymore, they know how to remember. I didn’t have the Clan memories. That’s why Iza had to repeat everything until I could remember without mistake.”
Jondalar was stunned by her mnemonic skill, and he was finding it difficult to grasp the concept of Clan memories.
“Some people thought I could not be a medicine woman without Iza’s memories, but Iza said I would be good even though I couldn’t remember as well. She said I had other gifts that she didn’t quite understand, a way of knowing what was wrong, and of finding the best way to treat it. She taught me how to test new medicines, so I could find ways to use them without a memory of the plants.
“They have an ancient language, too. It has no sounds in it, only gestures. Everyone knows the Old Language, they use it for ceremonies and for addressing spirits, and also if they don’t understand another person’s ordinary language. I learned it, too.
“Because I had to learn everything, I made myself pay attention and concentrate so I would remember after only one ‘reminding,’ so people wouldn’t get so impatient with me.”
“Do I understand you right? These … Clan people all know their own language, and some kind of ancient language that is commonly understood. Everyone can talk … communicate with everyone else?”
“Everyone at the Clan Gathering could.”
“Are we talking about the same people? Flatheads?”
“If that is what you call the Clan. I told you how they look,” Ayla said, then looked down. “That’s when you said I was abomination.”
She remembered the icy stare that had drained the warmth from his eyes before, the shudder when he pulled away—the contempt. It had happened just when she was telling him about the Clan, when she thought they were understanding each other. He seemed to be having trouble accepting what she said. Suddenly she felt uneasy; she had been talking too comfortably. She walked quickly toward the fire, saw the ptarmigan where Jondalar had put them beside the eggs, and started plucking feathers, to be doing something.
Jondalar had watched her suspicion grow. He had hurt her too much and he’d never regain her trust, though for a while he had hoped. The contempt he felt now was for himself. He picked up her furs and carried them back to her bed, then took the ones he had been using and moved them to a place on the other side of the fire.
Ayla put the birds down—she didn’t feel like plucking feathers—and hurried to her bed. She didn’t want him to see the water that filled her eyes.
Jondalar tried to arrange the furs around him in a comfortable way. Memories, she had said. Flatheads have some