The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [255]
Even then the thought of a flathead male and a woman was unthinkable. Only when he was a young man was it mentioned, and then not so any elder might hear. When young men wanted to be snickering boys again and told each other the coarsest, filthiest stories they could think of, it was of flathead males and women, and what would happen to a man who shared Pleasures with such a woman afterward, even unknowingly—especially unknowingly. That was the joke.
But they did not joke about abominations—or the women who bore them. They were polluted mixtures of spirits, an evil let loose upon the land that even the Mother, the creator of all life, abhorred. And the women who bore them, untouchable.
Could Ayla be that? Could she be defiled? Unclean? Filth? Evil? Honest, straightforward Ayla? With her Gift of healing? So wise, and fearless, and gentle, and beautiful. Could anyone that beautiful be unclean?
I don’t think she would even understand the meaning! But what would someone think who didn’t know her? What if they met her and she just told them who raised her? Told them about the … child? What would Zelandoni think? Or Marthona? And she would tell them, too. She’d tell them about her son and stand up to them. I think Ayla could stand up to anyone, even Zelandoni. She could almost be a zelandoni herself, with her skill in healing and her way with animals.
But if Ayla is not evil, then everything about flatheads is not true! No one will believe that.
Jondalar had not been paying attention to where he was going and was startled when he felt a soft muzzle in his hand. He hadn’t seen the horses. He stopped to scratch and stroke the young colt. Whinney gradually moved toward the cave, grazing as she went. The colt bounded ahead to her when the man gave him a final pat. Jondalar was not in a hurry to face Ayla again.
But Ayla was not at the cave. She had followed him around the wall and watched him run down the length of the valley. She felt like running sometimes, but she wondered what made him suddenly need to run so hard. Was it she? She put a hand on the warm dirt over the roasting pit, and then she walked to the large rock. Jondalar, distracted again by his thoughts, was surprised when he looked up to see both animals clustered around her.
“I … I’m sorry, Ayla. I shouldn’t have run off like that.”
“Sometimes I need to run. Yesterday, I let Whinney run for me. She goes farther.”
“I’m sorry about that, too.”
She nodded. Courtesy again, she thought, custom. What does it really mean? In silence, she leaned against Whinney and the horse dropped her head over the woman’s shoulder. Jondalar had seen them in a similar pose before, when Ayla was upset. They seemed to be drawing support from each other. He was finding satisfaction in stroking the colt, himself.
But the young horse was too impatient to put up with such inaction for long, as much as he loved attention. He tossed his head, raised his tail, and bounded off. Then with a bucking jump, he turned around, came back, and bumped the man, as though asking him to come and play. Ayla and Jondalar both laughed, breaking the tension.
“You were going to name him,” she said. It was just a statement, carrying no urging tones. If he didn’t name the colt, she most probably would.
“I don’t know what to name him. I’ve never had to think of a name before.”
“I never did either, until Whinney.”
“What about your … son? Didn’t you name him?”
“Creb named him. Durc was the name of a young man in a legend. It was my favorite of all the legends and stories, and Creb knew it. I think he chose the name to please me.”
“I didn’t know your Clan had legends. How do you tell a story without talking?”
“The same way you’d tell one with words, except, in some ways, it’s easier to show something than to tell it.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, wondering what kind of stories they told, or rather, showed. He wouldn’t have thought flatheads were capable of imagining stories.
They were both watching the colt, tail out, head reaching