The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [279]
O Great Mother, tell me, would it be such a terrible thing to do? To put her face on a donii?
He stared at the small ivory figure he had carved. Then he took up a burin and began to carve the shape of a face, a familiar face.
When it was done, he held the ivory figurine up and turned it around slowly. A real carver might have done it better, but it wasn’t bad. It resembled Ayla, but more in the feeling than the actual likeness; his feeling of her. He went back inside the cave and tried to think of a place to put it. The donii should be nearby, but he didn’t want her to see it, yet. He saw a bundle of leather wrapped up near the wall by her bed, and he tucked the ivory figure in a flap of it.
He went back out and looked off the far edge. What’s taking her so long? He looked over the two bison that were laid out side by side. They would keep. The spears and spear throwers were leaning against the stone wall near the entrance. He picked them up and carried them into the cave, and then he heard the sound of gravel pattering on stone. He turned around.
Ayla adjusted the tie on her new wrap, put her amulet around her neck, and pushed her hair, just brushed with teasel but not quite dry, back from her face. Picking up her soiled wrap, she started up the path. She was nervous, and excited.
She had an idea of what Jondalar meant by First Rites, but she was touched because of his desire to do it for her and share it with her. She didn’t think the ceremony would be too bad—even Broud hadn’t hurt after the first few times. If men gave the signal to women they liked, did it mean Jondalar had grown to care?
As she neared the top, Ayla was startled out of her thoughts by a tawny blur of swift motion.
“Stay back!” Jondalar shouted. “Stay back, Ayla! It’s a cave lion!”
He was at the mouth of the cave, a spear in his hand poised for throwing at a huge cat, crouched, ready to spring, a deep snarl rumbling in his throat.
“No, Jondalar!” Ayla screamed, rushing between them. “No!”
“Ayla don’t! O Mother, stop her!” the man cried when she jumped in front of him, in the path of the charging lion.
The woman made a sharp, imperative motion, and in the guttural language of the Clan, shouted, “Stop!”
The huge rufous-maned cave lion, with a wrenching twist, pulled his leap short and landed at the woman’s feet. Then he rubbed his massive head against her leg. Jondalar was thunderstruck.
“Baby! Oh, Baby. You came back,” Ayla said in motions, and without hesitation, without the least fear, she wrapped her arms around the huge lion’s neck.
Baby knocked her over, as gently as he could, and Jondalar watched with mouth agape while the biggest cave lion he had ever seen draped forepaws around the woman in the closest equivalent to an embrace he could imagine a lion to be capable of. The feline lapped salty tears from the woman’s face with a tongue that rasped it raw.
“That’s enough, Baby,” she said, sitting up, “or I won’t have a face left.”
She found the places behind his ears and around his mane that he loved to have scratched. Baby rolled over on his back to bare his throat to her ministrations, growling a deep rumble of contentment.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Baby,” she said when she stopped and the cat rolled over. He was bigger than she remembered, and though a bit thin, seemed healthy. He had scars she hadn’t seen before, and she thought he might be fighting for territory, and winning. It filled her with pride. Then Baby noticed Jondalar again, and snarled.
“Don’t snarl at him! That’s the man you brought me. You have a mate … I think you must have many by now.” The lion got up, turned his back to the man, and padded toward the bison.
“Is it all right if we give him one?” she called over to Jondalar. “We really have too much.”
He still held the spear in his hand, standing in the mouth of the cave, stunned. He tried to answer, but only a squeak came out. Then he recovered his voice. “All right? You’re asking me if it’s all right? Give him both