Mammoth Hunters (46 page)

Fralie looked down at her feet, seeming to examine her swollen ankles, considering. Then she looked up. “Yes. They’ve been swollen lately,” she said.

Nezzie breathed an audible sigh of relief, which everyone else felt.

“Still sick in morning?” Ayla asked, leaning forward.

“I wasn’t sick this long with the first two.”

“Fralie, will let me … look at you?”

Fralie looked around at the women. No one said a word. Nezzie smiled, and nodded at her, silently urging her to agree.

“All right,” Fralie said.

Ayla quickly got up, looked at her eyes, smelled her breath, felt her forehead. It was too dark to see much, and it was too
hot in the sweatbath to judge fever. “Will lie down?” Ayla asked.

Everyone moved out of the way to make a place for Fralie to stretch out. Ayla felt, and listened, and examined with thoroughness and obvious knowledge, while everyone else watched with curiosity.

“Sick more than morning, I think,” Ayla said, when she was through. “I fix something, help make food not come up. Help feel better. Help swelling. Will take?”

“I don’t know,” Fralie said. “Frebec watches everything I eat. I think he’s worried about me, but he won’t admit to it. He’ll ask where it came from.”

Crozie was sitting, tight-lipped, obviously biting back words she wanted to say, fearing if she said them, Fralie might take Frebec’s side and refuse Ayla’s help. Nezzie and Tulie exchanged glances. It wasn’t like Crozie to exercise so much self-restraint.

Ayla nodded. “I think I know way,” she said.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to clean up and go out,” Deegie said. “How would a quick plunge in the snow feel right now, Ayla?”

“I think good. I am hot.”

Jondalar opened the drape that hung closed in front of the bed platform he shared with Ayla, and smiled. She was sitting crosslegged in the middle, naked, her skin pink and glowing, brushing her wet hair.

“I feel so good,” she said, smiling back. “Deegie said I would love it. Did you like the sweatbath?”

He climbed in beside her, letting the drape fall. His skin was pink and glowing, too, but he had finished dressing and had just combed his hair and tied it in a club at the back of his neck. The sweatbath had felt so refreshing he had even considered shaving, but just trimmed his beard instead.

“I always enjoy them,” he said. Then he couldn’t resist. He took her in his arms, kissed her, and began caressing her warm body. She responded willingly, giving herself up to his embrace, and he heard a soft moan when he bent to take a nipple in his mouth.

“Great Mother, woman, you are tempting,” he said as he pulled back. “But what will people say when they start arriving at the Mammoth Hearth for your adoption, and find us sharing Pleasures instead of being dressed and ready?”

“We could tell them to come back later,” she answered with a smile.

Jondalar laughed out loud. “I believe you would, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, you gave me your signal, didn’t you?” she said with a mischievous grin.

“My signal?”

“You remember. The signal a man gives a woman when he wants her? You said I’d always know, then you kissed me and touched me like that. Well, you just gave me your signal, and when a man gives her the signal, a woman of the Clan never refuses.”

“Is it really true she never refuses?” he asked, still not quite able to believe it.

“That’s what she is taught, Jondalar. That’s how a proper woman of the Clan behaves,” she answered, with a perfectly matter-of-fact seriousness.

“Hmmm, you mean the choice is mine? If I said let’s stay here and share Pleasures, you’d make everyone wait?” He was trying to be serious, but his eyes twinkled with delight at what he considered their private joke.

“Only if you give me the signal,” she replied, in the same vein.

He took her in his arms and kissed her again, and feeling her warm skin and warmer response, he was almost tempted to find out if she was joking or if she really meant it but, reluctantly, he let her go.

“It’s not what I’d rather do, but I think I’d better let you get dressed. People will be here before long. What are you going to wear?”

“I don’t really have anything, except some Clan wraps, and the outfit I’ve been wearing, and an extra pair of leggings. I wish I did. Deegie showed me what she’s going to wear. It’s so beautiful—I’ve never seen anything like it. She gave me one of her brushes, after I started to brush my hair with teasel,” Ayla said, showing Jondalar the stiff mammoth-hair brush, tightly wrapped around one end with rawhide to form the handle, giving it the shape of a wide, tapering paint brush. “She gave me some strings of beads and shells, too. I think I’ll wear them in my hair, like she does.”

“I’d better let you finish getting ready,” Jondalar said, opening the drape to leave. He leaned over to kiss her again, then got up. After the leather drape closed, he stood looking at it for a moment, and a frown creased his brow. He wished he could have stayed with her and not had to worry about other people. When they were in her valley they could do what they wanted whenever they wanted to. And she wouldn’t be getting ready to be adopted by people who lived so far from his home. What if she wanted to stay here? He had a sinking feeling that after this night, nothing would ever be the same.

As he turned to go, Mamut caught his eye, and beckoned him. The tall young man walked toward the tall old shaman.

“If you are not busy, I could use your help,” Mamut said.

“I’d be glad to help. What can I do?” Jondalar asked.

From the back of a storage platform, Mamut showed him four long poles. On close inspection, Jondalar realized they were not wood, but solid ivory; curved mammoth tusks that had been shaped and straightened. Then the old man gave him a large, hafted, stone maul. Jondalar stopped to examine the heavy hammerlike tool since he had not seen one quite like it before. It was completely covered with hide. He could feel that a circular groove had been nicked around the large stone, and a flexible willow withe wrapped around the groove, then bound to a bone handle. The entire maul had then been wrapped with wet, unprocessed hide, which had only been scraped clean. The rawhide shrunk tight as it dried, encasing both stone maul and handle in hard, tough leather, thus holding them firmly together.

The shaman led him toward the firepit, and lifting up a grass mat, Mamut showed him a hole, about six inches across, that was filled with small stones and pieces of bone. They removed them, then Jondalar brought one of the ivory poles and dropped the end in the hole. While Mamut held it straight, Jondalar wedged the stones and bones around the pole, tamping them down firmly with a stone maul. When the post was firmly embedded, they put another post in, and then another, in an arc around, but somewhat away from, the fireplace.

Then the old man brought out a package and carefully, with reverence, unwrapped it and withdrew a neatly rolled sheet of thin membranous material of a parchmentlike quality. When it was opened, Jondalar saw that several animal figures—a mammoth, birds, and a cave lion among them—and strange geometric designs had been painted on it. They fastened it around the upright ivory poles creating a translucent painted screen set back from the hearth. Jondalar retreated a few steps to absorb the overall effect, then he looked closer, curious. Intestines, after they were cut open, cleaned, and dried, were usually translucent, but this screen was made of something else. He thought he knew what the material was, but he wasn’t sure.

“That isn’t made of intestines, is it? They would have had to be sewn together, and that is all one piece.” The Mamut nodded agreement. “Then it has to be the membrane layer from the inner side of the hide of a very big animal, somehow removed in one piece.”

The old man smiled. “A mammoth,” he said. “A white female mammoth.”

Jondalar’s eyes opened wide, and he looked again at the screen with awe.

“Each Camp received a part of the white mammoth, since she gave up her spirit during the first hunt of a Summer Meeting. Most Camps wanted something white. I asked for this; we call it the shadow skin. It has less substance than any of the white pieces, and it cannot be displayed for all to see its obvious power, but I believe that which is subtle can be more powerful. This is more than a small piece; this encircled the inner spirit of the whole.”

Brinan and Crisavec suddenly burst into the space in the middle of the Mammoth Hearth, running down the passageway from the Aurochs and Crane hearths, chasing each other. They tumbled together in a heap, wrestling, and almost ran into the delicate screen, but stopped when Brinan noticed the thin shank of a long leg barring their way. They looked up, directly at the drawing of the mammoth, and both gasped. Then they looked at Mamut. To Jondalar, the shaman’s face showed no expression, but when the seven-and eight-year-old boys turned their gaze on the old shaman, they quickly got up, and carefully sidestepping the screen, walked toward the first hearth as though they had been severely scolded.

“They looked contrite, almost scared, but you didn’t say a word and they’ve never been frightened of you before,” Jondalar said.

“They saw the screen. Sometimes, when you look upon the essence of a powerful spirit, you see your own heart.”

Jondalar smiled and nodded, but he wasn’t sure he understood what the old shaman meant. He’s talking like a zelandoni, the young man thought, talking with a shadow on his tongue, like those of his calling so often did. Still, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to see his own heart.

As the boys walked through the Hearth of the Fox, they nodded at the carver, who smiled back. Ranec’s smile grew bigger when he turned his attention back to the Mammoth Hearth, which he had been observing for some time. Ayla had just appeared, and was standing in front of the drape tugging on her tunic to straighten it. Though it didn’t show under his dark skin, his face flushed at the sight of her. He felt his heart pound and a tension in his loins.

The more he saw her, the more exquisite she was. The
long rays of the sun, streaming in through the smoke hole, directed its shimmering light on her on purpose, or so it seemed to him. He wanted to remember that moment, to fill his eyes with the sight of her. He thought of her in ardent hyperbole. Her rich, luxuriant hair falling in soft waves around her face, was like a golden cloud playing with sunbeams; her unself-conscious movements embodied ultimate grace. No one knew the anxiety he had suffered while she was gone, or the happiness he felt that she was becoming one of them. He frowned when Jondalar saw her, walked toward her and put an arm around her possessively, then stood between them, blocking his view.

They walked together toward him on their way to the first hearth. She stopped to look at the screen, with obvious awe and admiration. Jondalar fell in behind her as they came to the passageway through the Fox Hearth. Ranec saw Ayla flush with warm feeling when she saw him, before she looked down. The tall man’s face flushed red when he saw Ranec, too, but the look in his eye made it clear that there was no pleasure in his emotion. Each man tried to stare the other down as they passed by—Jondalar’s hard anger and jealousy apparent, Ranec trying very hard to seem self-confident and cynical. Ranec’s eyes automatically went next to the steady stare of the man behind Jondalar, the man who was the essence of spirituality to the Camp, and for some reason he felt a little abashed.

They approached the first hearth, and went out through the entrance foyer. Ayla began to understand why she had not noticed hectic preparations for a feast. Nezzie was supervising the removal of wilted leaves and steaming grass from a roasting hole in the ground, and the smells that arose from the cooking pit made everyone’s mouth water. Preparations had begun before they went to get clay from the river, and the food had been cooking all the while they worked. Now, it only needed to be served to the Camp of hungry people.

A certain variety of round, hard starchy roots that took well to long cooking came out first, followed by baskets of a mixture of bone marrow, blue bearberries, and a variety of cracked and ground seeds—pigweed, a mixture of grains, and oily pignon seeds. The result, after hours of steaming, had a heavy, puddinglike consistency that retained the shape of the basket after it was removed, and while not sweet, though the berries gave it a light fruit flavor, was deliciously rich. A full
haunch of mammoth meat was brought out next, self-basted by the steam and the thick edge of fat, and falling apart with tenderness.

The sun was setting and a sharp wind hurried everyone back inside the lodge, carrying the food with them. This time, when Ayla was asked to select first, she wasn’t as shy. This feast was in her honor, and though being the center of attention was still not easy for her, she was happy for the reason.

Deegie came to sit with her, and Ayla caught herself staring. Deegie’s thick reddish-brown hair was pulled back from her face and wrapped into a coil that was piled high on her head. A string of round ivory beads, each one carved and pierced by hand, had been coiled in with her hair and stood out as contrasting highlights. She wore a long, loose dress of pliable leather—Ayla thought of it as a long tunic—that draped in soft folds from the belted waist, dyed deep brown with a rather shiny, burnished finish. It was sleeveless, but wide at the shoulders, giving the appearance of short sleeves. A fringe of long, reddish-brown mammoth hair fell from her shoulders in back and from a V-shaped yoke in front, and hung to just below her waist.

The neckline was outlined by a triple row of ivory beads, and around her neck she wore a necklace of conical seashells, spaced by cylindrical lime tubes and pieces of amber. Around her right upper arm was an ivory armband incised with an alternating chevron pattern. The pattern was repeated in colors of ochre reds, yellows, and browns in the belt, which was woven of animal hair, some of it dyed. Attached to the belt by a loop was an ivory-handled flint knife in a rawhide sheath, and suspended from another loop, the lower section of a hollow black aurochs horn, a drinking cup that was a talisman of the Aurochs Hearth.