The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [260]
The tall blond man spied the pile of round cooking stones and scooped them up in both hands. “Let me show you,” he said. He lined them up in a row, and, pointing to each in turn, began to count, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …”
Ayla watched with rising excitement.
When he finished, he looked around for something else to count, and he picked up a few of Ayla’s marked sticks. “One,” he said, putting down the first, “two,” laying the next down beside it, “three, four, five …”
Ayla had a vivid recollection of Creb telling her, “Birth year, walking year, weaning year …” as he pointed to her outstretched fingers. She held up her hand, and, looking at Jondalar, she pointed to each finger. “One, two, three, four, five,” she said.
“That’s it! I knew you were close when I saw your sticks.”
Her smile was gloriously triumphant. She picked up one of the sticks and began counting the marks. Jondalar continued with the counting words beyond the ones she knew, but even he had to stop a few marks beyond the second extra mark. His brow knotted in concentration. “Is this how long you’ve been here?” he asked, indicating the few sticks she had brought out.
“No,” she said, and got the rest. Untying the bundles, she spread out all the sticks.
Jondalar looked closer, and paled. His stomach turned. Years! The marks represented years! He lined them up so he could see all the marks, then studied them for a while. Though Zelandoni had explained some ways to tally larger numbers, he had to think.
Then he smiled. Rather than try to count the days, he would count the extra marks, the ones that represented a complete cycle of the moon’s phases as well as the beginning of her moon times. Pointing to each mark, he made a mark in the dirt floor as he said the counting word aloud. After thirteen marks, he started another row, but skipped the first, as Zelandoni had explained, and made only twelve marks. Moon cycles did not match the seasons or the years exactly. He came to the end of her marks at the end of the third row, then looked at her with awe.
“Three years! You’ve been here three years! That’s how long I’ve been on my Journey. Have you been alone all that time?”
“I’ve had Whinney, and up until …”
“But you haven’t seen any people?”
“No, not since I left the Clan.”
She thought of the years the way she had tallied them. The beginning, when she left the Clan, found the valley, and adopted the little filly, she called Whinney’s year. The next spring—the beginning of the cycle of regrowth—she found the lion cub, and thought of that as Baby’s year. From Whinney’s year to Baby’s year was Jondalar’s one. Next was the stallion’s year, two. And three was the year of Jondalar and the colt. She remembered the years better her way, but she liked the counting words. The man had made her marks tell him how long she had been in the valley, and she wanted to learn to do it.
“Do you know how old you are, Ayla? How many years you have lived?” Jondalar suddenly asked.
“Let me think about it,” she said. She held up one hand with her fingers outstretched. “Creb said Iza thought I was about this many … five years … when they found me.” Jondalar made five marks on the ground. “Durc was born the spring of the year we went to the Clan Gathering. I took him with me. Creb said there are this many years between Clan Gatherings.” She held up two fingers in addition to the full hand.
“That’s seven,” Jondalar said.
“There was a Clan Gathering the summer before they found me.”
“That’s one less—let me think,” he said, making more marks in the dirt. Then he shook his head. “Are you sure? That means your son was born when you were eleven!”
“I’m sure, Jondalar.”
“I’ve heard of a few women giving birth that young, but not many. Thirteen or fourteen is more usual, and some think that’s too young. You were hardly more than a child yourself.”
“No, I was not a child. I had not been a child for several years by then. I was too big to be a child, taller than everyone, including the men. And I was