Mammoth Hunters (48 page)

“Talut was going to adopt her, Mamut,” Tulie said. “Why
should she go to the Mammoth Hearth? She has not dedicated herself to Mut, and is not trained to Serve the Mother.”

“I didn’t say she was trained, or that she ever will be, Tulie, though she is more gifted than you can imagine and I think training would be very wise, for her sake. I did not say she
will
be a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth. I said she is a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth. She was born to it, dedicated by the Mother Herself. Whether or not she decides to be trained is a choice only she can make, but it doesn’t matter in the least. Ayla does not have to dedicate herself, it is out of her hands. Trained or not, her life will Serve the Mother. I speak for her not to accept her into training, unless she wants it. I wish to adopt her as the daughter of my hearth.”

As Ayla listened to the old man, she felt a sudden chill. She didn’t think she liked the idea that her destiny was ordained, out of her hands, chosen for her at birth. What did he mean that she was dedicated by the Mother, that her life would Serve the Mother? Was she chosen by the Mother, too? Creb had told her, when he was explaining about totems, that there was a reason why the Spirit of the Great Cave Lion had chosen her. He said she would have need of powerful protection. What did it mean to be chosen by the Mother? Was that why she needed protection? Or did it mean if she became Mamutoi the Cave Lion would no longer be her totem? No longer protect her? It was a disquieting thought. She didn’t want to lose her totem. She shook herself, trying to dispel her sense of foreboding.

If Jondalar had been feeling uneasy about her adoption, this sudden turn of events made him even more uncomfortable. He heard the whispered comments of the people around him and wondered if it was true that she was meant to become one of them. She might even have been Mamutoi, before she was lost, if Mamut said she was born to the Mammoth Hearth.

Ranec was overjoyed. He had wanted Ayla to become one of them, but if she was adopted to the Lion Hearth, she would be his sister. He had no wish to be her brother. He wanted to join with her, and brother and sister could not join. Since both would be adopted, and obviously did not have the same mother, he was prepared to find another hearth that would adopt him so he could pursue his suit, much as he would hate to give up his ties with Nezzie and
Talut. But if she was adopted into the Mammoth Hearth, he didn’t have to. He was particularly pleased that she would be adopted as the daughter of Mamut, and not as One dedicated to Serve, although even that would not have deterred him.

Nezzie was a little disappointed; she already felt as though Ayla were a daughter. But most important to Nezzie was that Ayla stay with them, and if Mamut wanted her, it would just make her all that more acceptable to the Council at the Summer Meeting. Talut glanced at her, and when she nodded, he conceded to Mamut. Tulie had no objection, either. The four of them quickly conferred, and Ayla agreed. For some reason she couldn’t quite define, it pleased her to be the daughter of Mamut.

As the darkened lodge quieted again, Mamut held his hand up, palm backward, facing him. “Will the woman, Ayla, step forward?”

Ayla’s stomach churned and her knees felt weak as she approached the old man.

“Do you wish to be one with the Mamutoi?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Will you honor Mut, the Great Mother, revere all Her Spirits and, especially, never offend the Spirit of the Mammoth; will you strive to be worthy of the Mamutoi, to bring honor to the Lion Camp, and always respect Mamut and the meaning of the Mammoth Hearth?”

“Yes.” She could hardly say more. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do to accomplish all of it, but she would certainly try.

“Does this Camp accept this woman?” Mamut said to the assembly.

“We accept her,” they replied in unison.

“Are there any here that reject her?”

There was a long pause, and Ayla wasn’t at all sure that Frebec wouldn’t speak out in objection, but none replied.

“Talut, headman of the Lion Camp, will you inscribe the mark?” Mamut intoned.

As Ayla saw Talut withdraw his knife from the sheath, her heart beat fast. This was unexpected. She didn’t know what he was going to do with the knife, but whatever it was, she was sure she wouldn’t like it. The big headman took Ayla’s arm, pushed up her sleeve, and poised the flint knife, then quickly cut a straight mark on her upper arm, drawing blood. Ayla felt the pain, but she didn’t flinch. With the blood still
wet on the knife, Talut incised a straight mark on the piece of ivory hanging as a plaque around his neck, held by Mamut, making a red-stained gouge. Then Mamut said some words Ayla did not understand. She didn’t realize no one else understood them either.

“Ayla is now counted among the people of the Lion Camp, numbered among the Mammoth Hunters,” Talut said. “This woman is and will forever be Ayla of the Mamutoi.”

Mamut picked up a small bowl and poured stinging liquid on the cut on her arm—she realized it was an antiseptic cleansing solution—then he turned her around to face the group. “Welcome Ayla of the Mamutoi, member of the Lion Camp, daughter of the Mammoth Hearth.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Chosen of the Spirit of the Great Cave Lion.”

The group repeated the words, and Ayla realized it was the second time in her life that she had been taken in, accepted, and made a member of a people whose ways she hardly knew. She closed her eyes, hearing the words echo in her mind. Then it struck her. Mamut had included her totem! Even though she was not Ayla of the Clan, she had not lost her totem! She was still under the protection of the Cave Lion. But even more, she was not Ayla of No People; she was Ayla of the Mamutoi!

“You may always claim the sanctuary of the Mammoth Hearth, Ayla, wherever you are. Please accept this token, daughter of my hearth,” Mamut said as he removed a circlet of ivory carved with zigzag lines from his arm and tied the pierced ends together on Ayla’s arm, just below her cut. Then he gave her a warm embrace.

Ayla had tears in her eyes when she went to the bed platform where her gifts were laid out, but she wiped them away before she picked up a wooden bowl. It was round, strong, but of uniformly fine thinness. The bowl boasted neither painted nor carved design, only a subtle pattern of the wood grain, but that was symmetrically balanced.

“Please accept gift of medicine bowl from daughter of hearth, Mamut,” Ayla said. “And if you allow, daughter of hearth will fill bowl every day with medicine for aching joints, of fingers and arms and knees.”

“Ah, I would welcome some relief from my arthritis this winter,” he said with a smile, taking the bowl and passing it to Talut, who looked it over, nodded, and passed it to Tulie.

Tulie examined it critically, at first judging it to be simplistic because it lacked the additional design, either carved or painted, that she was accustomed to. But as she looked more closely, running her fingertips over the remarkably smooth finish, noting the perfect shape and symmetry, she had to concede that it was certainly a finely crafted piece of work, perhaps the finest piece of workmanship of its kind she had ever seen. As the bowl was passed around, it aroused the interest and curiosity about the other gifts Ayla had brought even more as each person wondered if every gift would be as beautifully unusual.

Talut came forward next and gave Ayla a big hug, then presented her with an ivory-handled flint knife in a red-dyed
rawhide sheath which was carved with an intricate design, similar to the knife Deegie wore on her belt. Ayla took the knife out of the sheath, and immediately guessed that the blade had probably been made by Wymez, and suspected that Ranec had carved and shaped the handle.

Ayla brought out a heavy pile of dark fur for Talut. He grinned wide when he shook out the mantle made from an entire bison hide, and flung it over his shoulders. The thick mane and shoulder fur made the big man seem even bigger than he was, and he enjoyed the effect. Then he noticed the way it clung to his shoulders and hung down in pliant folds, and examined the soft and supple inside of the warm cloak more closely.

“Nezzie! Look at this,” he said. “Have you ever seen softer hide on a bison pelt? And this is warm. I don’t think I want this made into anything, not even a parka! I’m going to wear it just as it is.”

Ayla smiled at his delight, pleased that her gift was so well liked. Jondalar was standing back, looking over several heads that were crowding in closer, enjoying Talut’s reaction, too. He’d anticipated it, but was glad to see his expectations borne out.

Nezzie gave Ayla a warm hug, and then a necklace of matched and graduated spiral shells, each one separated by carefully sawed small sections of the hard hollow leg hones of arctic fox and, suspended as a pendant in front, a large canine tooth of a cave lion. Ayla held it on while Tronie tied it in back, then she looked down and admired it, holding up the cave lion tooth, and wondering how they had managed to pierce the hole through the root.

Ayla pushed the drape in front of the platform aside and brought out a very large covered basket, and set it down at Nezzie’s feet. It seemed quite plain. None of the grasses out of which it was made had been dyed, and no colored patterns of geometric designs or stylized figures of birds or animals graced the sides or cover. But on close inspection, the woman noticed the subtle design, and saw how expertly it was made. It was watertight enough to be a cooking basket, she knew.

Nezzie lifted the cover to examine it, and the whole camp voiced its surprise. The basket, divided into sections by flexible birchbark, was full of food. There were small hard apples, sweet and spicy wild carrots, peeled, gnarled roots of starchy groundnuts, pitted dried cherries, dried but still green daylily
buds, round green milk vetch dried in the pod, dried mushrooms, dried stalks of green onions, and some unidentifiable dried leaves and slices. Nezzie smiled warmly at her as she examined the selection. It was a perfect gift.

Tulie approached next. Her embrace of welcome was not lacking in warmth, but more formal, and her presentation of her gift to Ayla, while not exactly done with a flourish, demonstrated a proper sense of ceremony. The gift was a small container, exquisitely decorated. It had been carved out of wood into the shape of a small box with rounded corners. Designs of fish were both carved and painted on it, and pieces of shell glued on it as well. The overall design gave the impression of water alive with fish and underwater plants. When Ayla lifted the lid, she discovered the purpose of so precious a box. It was filled with salt.

She had some idea of the value of salt. When she grew up with the Clan, who lived near Beran Sea, she had taken salt for granted. It was fairly easy to obtain, and some of the fish were even cured with it, but inland, when she lived in her valley, she had had no salt, and it had taken some time to get used to it. The Lion Camp was farther away from the sea than her valley. The salt, as well as the seashells, had to be transported over a long distance, yet Tulie had given her this whole box of it. It was a rare and costly gift.

Ayla felt properly awed as she brought out her gift for the headwoman, and she hoped that Jondalar had been right in his suggestion of what would be appropriate. The fur she had selected was the pelt of a snow leopard, one that had attempted to snatch a kill away from her the winter she and Baby were learning to hunt together. She had just planned to scare it off, but the adolescent cave lion had other ideas. Ayla had stunned the mature, though smaller, cat with a stone from her sling when it looked like a fight would ensue, and then finished it off with another.

The gift was obviously unexpected, and Tulie’s eyes showed her pleasure, but it wasn’t until she succumbed to the temptation to throw the luxurious, thick winter fur around her shoulders that she noticed its unique quality, the same quality Talut had remarked upon. It felt unbelievably soft on the inner side. Furs were usually stiffer than hides. By its nature, fur could only be worked on one side with the scrapers used to stretch and soften. While it made a longer-lasting, sturdier material than Ayla’s, which were only dressed with fat, the
Mamutoi method of preserving skins made the leather less soft and pliable. Tulie was more impressed than she had expected to be, and decided she would find out what Ayla’s method was.

Wymez approached with an object wrapped in a soft skin. She opened it, and caught her breath. It was a magnificent spear point, like the ones she had so admired. It sparkled in the firelight like a faceted gem, and was more valuable. Her gift to him was a sturdy grass floor mat for him to sit on when he worked. Most of Ayla’s basket and mat weaving had no colored designs, but the last winter in her cave she had begun to experiment with different grasses that had natural color variations. The result, in combination with her usual weaving patterns, was a mat with a subtle but distinctive starburst pattern. She had been quite pleased when she made it, and when she was selecting gifts, its pointed rays extending out from the center reminded her of Wymez’s beautiful points, and the woven texture was suggestive of the small ridges of fine slivers he flaked off. She wondered if he would notice.

After he examined it, he gave her one of his rare smiles. “This is beautiful. It reminds me of the work done by Ranec’s mother. She understood weaving with grasses better than anyone I ever knew. I suppose I should save it, hang it on the wall, but I will use it instead. I will sit on this when I work. It will help me keep my purpose in mind.” His welcoming hug had none of the reticence of his verbal manner. She realized that beneath his quiet exterior Wymez was a man of friendly warmth and perceptive feeling.

There was no special sequence or order to the gift giving, and the next person Ayla noticed, standing near the platform waiting to get her attention, was Rydag. She sat down near him, and returned his fierce hug. Then he opened his hand and held out a long round tube, the hollow leg bone of a bird, with holes cut in it. She took it from the boy, and turned it around in her hands, not sure of its purpose. He took it back, held it to his mouth, and blew. The whistle emitted a loud, piercing sound. Ayla tried it and smiled. Then she gave him a warm, waterproof wolverine hood made in the style of the Clan, but she felt a wrenching pain when he put it on. He reminded her too much of Durc.