The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [262]
They both realized they had touched each other and neither had been offended, but they carefully avoided looking too directly at each other or brushing too close, fearful that it might disturb their unplanned moment of tenderness.
Ayla picked up her bundles, then turned to the man. “How many years are you, Jondalar?”
“I was eighteen years when I started my Journey. Thonolan was fifteen … and eighteen when he died. So young.” His face showed his pain; then he continued: “I am twenty and one years now … and I’ve yet to mate. I’m old for an unmated man. Most men have found a woman and made a hearth at a much younger age. Even Thonolan. He was sixteen at his Matrimonial.”
“I found only two men, where is his mate?”
“She died. While giving birth. Her son died, too.” Compassion filled Ayla’s eyes. “That’s why we were traveling again. He couldn’t stay there. This was his Journey more than mine from the beginning. He was always the one after adventure, always reckless. He’d dare anything, but everyone was his friend. I just traveled with him. Thonolan was my brother, and the best friend I had. After Jetamio died, I tried to convince him to go back home with me, but he wouldn’t. He was so full of grief that he wanted to follow her to the next world.”
Ayla recalled the depth of Jondalar’s desolation when he had first comprehended that his brother was dead, and she saw the ache that still lingered. “Perhaps he’s happier, if it’s what he wanted. It’s difficult to go on living when you lose someone you love so much,” she said gently.
Jondalar thought of his brother’s inconsolable sorrow and understood it more now. Maybe Ayla was right. She ought to know; she had suffered enough grief and hardship. But she chose to live. Thonolan had courage, rash and impetuous; Ayla’s is the courage to endure.
Ayla didn’t sleep well, and the turnings and shufflings she heard from the other side of the fireplace made her wonder if Jondalar was lying awake, too. She wanted to get up and go to him, but the mood of caring tenderness that had grown out of shared griefs seemed so fragile that she was afraid to spoil it by wanting more than he was willing to give.
In the dim red light of the banked fire, she could see the shape of his body wrapped in sleeping furs with a tanned arm flung out and a muscular calf with a heel in the dirt. She saw him more distinctly when she closed her eyes than when she opened them to the breathing mound across the hearth. His straight yellow hair tied back with a piece of thong, his beard, darker and curly; his startling eyes that said more than his words, and his large, sensitive, long-fingered hands went deeper than vision. They filled her with inner sight. He always knew what to do with his hands, whether holding a piece of flint, or finding just the right place to scratch the colt. Racer. It was a good name. The man had named him.
How could a man so tall, so strong, be so gentle? She had felt his hard muscles, felt them move when he comforted her. He was … unashamed to show care, to show sorrow. Men of the Clan were more distant, more reserved. Even Creb, as much as she knew he loved her, had not shown his feelings so openly, not even within the boundary stones of his hearth.
What would she do when he was gone? She didn’t want to think about it. But she had to face it—he was going to leave. He said he wanted to give her something before he left—he said he was leaving.
Ayla tossed and turned through the night, catching glimpses of his bare torso, deeply tanned; the back of his head and broad shoulders; and once, his right thigh with a jagged scar but nothing worse. Why had he been sent? She was learning the new words—was it to teach her to talk? He was going to show her a new way to hunt, a better way. Who would imagine that a man would be willing to teach her a new hunting skill? Jondalar was different from men of the Clan in that way, too. Maybe I can do something special for him, to remember me.
Ayla dozed off thinking how much she wanted him to