Mammoth Hunters (56 page)

Crozie brought her hands in front of her again and held them out, each closed into a fist around a bone. Ayla studied the wrinkled face, which had become blank and unexpressive, and the white-knuckled arthritic old hands. Was one hand pulled in just a trifle closer to her chest? Ayla picked the other.

“You lose!” Crozie gloated, as she opened the hand to show the bone marked with red and black. She drew a short line in the drawing pit. “Are you ready to try again?”

“Yes,” Ayla said.

This time Crozie began humming to herself as she rubbed the bones together between her palms. She closed her eyes, then looked up at the ceiling and stared, as though she saw something interesting near the smoke hole. Ayla was tempted to look up to see what was so fascinating, and started to follow Crozie’s gaze. Then remembering the cunning trick that had been used to divert her attention before, she quickly looked back, in time to see the crafty old woman glance between her palms as she snatched her hands behind her back. A knowing smile of grudging respect flitted across the old face. The movement of her shoulders and arm muscles gave the impression of movement between the hidden hands. Did Crozie think Ayla had glimpsed one of the bones, and was she exchanging the pieces? Or did Crozie just want her to think so?

There was more to this game than guessing, Ayla thought, and it was more interesting to play than to watch. Crozie showed her bony-knuckled fists again. Ayla looked at her carefully, not making it obvious. It wasn’t polite to stare, for one thing, and on a more subtle level, she didn’t want Crozie to know what she was looking for. It was hard to tell, the woman was an old hand at the game, but it did seem that the other shoulder was a shade higher, and wasn’t the other hand pulled in slightly this time? Ayla chose the hand she thought Crozie wanted her to pick, the wrong one.

“Ha! You lost again!” Crozie said, elated, then quickly added, “Are you ready?”

Before Ayla could nod in agreement, Crozie had her hands
behind her back, and out for her to guess, but she was leaning forward this time. Ayla resisted, smiling. The old woman was always changing something, trying to keep from giving any consistent signal. Ayla chose the hand she thought was right, and was rewarded with a mark in the drawing pit. The next time, Crozie changed her position again, lowering her hands, and Ayla guessed wrong.

“That’s three! I win. But you can’t really test your luck with only one game. Do you want to play another?” Crozie said.

“Yes. Would like to play again,” Ayla said.

Crozie smiled, but when Ayla guessed correctly the next two times, her expression was much less agreeable. She frowned as she rubbed the musk-ox knucklebones together a third time.

“Look over there! What’s that?” Crozie said, pointing with her chin, in a blatant attempt to distract the young woman.

Ayla looked, and when she looked back, the old woman was smiling again. The young woman took her time selecting the hand which held the winning bone, though she had decided quickly. She didn’t want Crozie to feel too upset, but she had learned to interpret the unconscious body signals the woman made when playing the game, and she knew in which hand the plain bone was as clearly as if Crozie had told her.

It would not have pleased Crozie to know she was giving herself away so easily, but Ayla had an unusual advantage. She was so accustomed to observing and interpreting subtle details of posture and expression, it was almost instinctive. They were an essential part of the language of the Clan that communicated nuances and shades of meaning. She had noticed that body movements and postures also expressed meaning among these people who communicated primarily with verbal sounds, but that it was not purposeful.

Ayla had been so busy trying to learn the spoken language of her new people she hadn’t made any real effort to understand their unconscious unspoken language. Now that she was comfortably, if not precisely, fluent, she could expand her communication to include language skills that were not normally considered a part of speaking. The game she played with Crozie made her realize how much she could learn about her own kind of people by applying the knowledge and insight she had learned from the Clan. And if the Clan could not lie because body language was impossible to hide, the
ones she had known as the Others could keep secrets from her even less. They didn’t even know they were “talking.” She wasn’t fully able to interpret the body signals of the Others, yet … but she was learning.

Ayla chose the hand that held the plain musk-ox knucklebone, and with a jab of irritation, Crozie marked a third line for Ayla. “The luck is yours, now,” she said. “Since I won a game, and you won a game, we might as well call it even and forget the bets.”

“No,” Ayla said. “We bet skill. You win my skill. My skill is medicine. I will give you. I want your skill.”

“What skill?” Crozie said. “My skill at gaming? That’s what I do best these days, and you already beat me. What do you want me for?”

“No, not gaming. I want to make white leather,” Ayla said.

Crozie gaped in surprise. “White leather?”

“White leather, like tunic you wear at adoption.”

“I haven’t made white leather in years,” Crozie said.

“But
you
can make?” Ayla asked.

“Yes.” Crozie’s eyes softened with a distant look. “I learned as a girl, from my mother. At one time it was sacred to the Hearth of the Crane, or so the legends say. No one else could wear it …” The old woman’s eyes hardened. “But that was before the Crane Hearth fell into such low esteem that even Bride Price is a pittance.” She looked hard at the young woman. “What is white leather to you?”

“It is beautiful,” Ayla said, which brought an involuntary softening to Crozie’s eyes again. “And white is sacred to someone,” she finished, looking down at her hands. “I want to make special tunic the way someone likes. Special white tunic.”

Ayla didn’t notice Crozie glance toward Jondalar, who happened at that moment to be staring at them. He looked aside quickly, seemingly embarrassed. The old woman shook her head at the young one, whose head was still bowed.

“And what do I get for it?” Crozie said.

“You will teach me?” Ayla said, looking up and smiling. She noticed a gleam of avarice in the old eyes, but something else, too. Something more distant, and softer. “I will make medicine for arthritis,” she said, “like Mamut.”

“Who says I need it?” Crozie snapped. “I’m not nearly as old as he is.”

“No, you are not so old, Crozie, but you have pain. You do
not say you have pain, you make other complaint, but I know, because I am medicine woman. Medicine cannot cure aching bones and joints, nothing can make it go away, but can make you feel better. Hot poultice will make easier to move and bend, and I will make medicine for pain, some for morning, some for other times,” Ayla said. Then sensing the woman needed some way to save face, she added, “I need to make medicine for you, to pay my bet. It is my skill.”

“Well, I guess I should let you pay your bet,” Crozie said, “but I want one more thing.”

“What? I will do, if I can.”

“I want more of that soft white tallow that makes dry old skin feel smooth … and young,” she said, quietly. Then she straightened up and snapped, “My skin always did get chapped in winter.”

Ayla smiled. “I will do. Now, you tell me what is best hide for white leather, and I will ask Nezzie what is in cold rooms.”

“Deerskin. Reindeer is good, though it is best to use it as a fur, for warmth. Any deer will do, red deer, elk, megaceros. Before you get the hide, though, you will need something else.”

“What is that?”

“You will need to save your water.”

“My water?”

“The water you pass. Not only yours, anyone’s, though your own is best. Start collecting it now, even before you thaw out a deerskin. It must be left out where it’s warm for a while,” Crozie said.

“I usually pass water behind the curtain, in the basket with
mammoth
dung and ashes in it. It is thrown out.”

“Don’t go in the basket. Save it, in a mammoth skull basin, or a tight basket. Something that won’t leak.”

“Why is that water needed?”

Crozie paused and appraised the young woman before she answered. “I’m not getting any younger,” she said, finally, “and I have no one, except Fralie … any more. Usually a woman passes her skills on to her children and grandchildren but Fralie has no time, and not much interest in working leather—she likes stitching and beadwork—and she has no daughters. Her sons … well, they’re young. Who knows? But my mother gave me the knowledge, and I should pass it on … to someone. It’s hard work, treating hides, but I’ve
seen your leatherwork. Even the furs and skins you brought show skill, care, and that is necessary to make white leather. I haven’t even thought of making it for many years, and no one else has shown much interest, but you asked. So I will tell you.”

The woman bent forward and clutched Ayla’s hand. “The secret of white leather is in the water you pass. That may seem strange to you, but it is true. After it is left in a warm place for a while, it changes. Then, if you soak hides in it, all the bits of fat that might be left come out, and any grease stains. The hair will come out more quickly, it won’t rot easily, and it stays soft even without smoking, so it won’t be tan or brown. In fact, it whitens the hide, still not true white, but close. Afterward, when it is washed and wrung out several times, and worked dry, it is ready for the white color.”

If someone had asked her, Crozie could not have explained that urea, which was the major component of urine, would decompose, become ammoniacal, in a warm environment. She only knew that if urine was allowed to go stale, it became something else. Something that would both dissolve grease and act as a bleach, and in the same process, help to preserve the leather from bacterial decay. She didn’t have to know why, or call it ammonia, she only had to know that it worked.

“Chalk … do we have any chalk?” Crozie asked.

“Wymez does. He said the flint he just brought back came from a chalk cliff, and he still has several stones coated with it,” Ayla said.

“Why did you ask Wymez about chalk? How did you know I would agree to show you?” Crozie asked suspiciously.

“I did not. I have been wanting to make a white tunic for a long time. If you did not show me, I would try myself, but I did not know about saving the water, and I would not have thought of it. I am happy you will show me to do it right,” Ayla said.

“Hmmf,” was Crozie’s only comment, convinced, but not wanting to admit it. “Be sure you make that soft white tallow.” Then she added, “And, make some for the leather, too. I think it would be good to mix with the chalk.”

Ayla held the drape aside and looked out. The late afternoon wind moaned and keened a dreary dirge, a fitting accompaniment to the drab, bleak landscape and the gray, overcast sky. She longed for some relief from the confining
bitter cold, but the oppressive season seemed as though it would never come to an end. Whinney snorted and she turned around to see Mamut coming into the horse hearth. She smiled at him.

Ayla had felt a deep respect for the old shaman from the beginning, but since he had begun training her, her respect had grown into love. Partly, she perceived a strong similarity between the tall, thin, incredibly old shaman, and the short, crippled, one-eyed magician of the Clan, not in appearance but in nature. It was almost as though she had found Creb again, or at least his counterpart. Both exhibited a deep reverence and understanding for the world of the spirits, though the spirits they revered had different names; both could command awesome powers, though each was physically frail; and both were wise in the ways of people. But perhaps the strongest reason for her love was that, like Creb, Mamut had welcomed her, helped her to understand, and taken her in as a daughter of his hearth.

“I was looking for you, Ayla. I thought you might be here, with your horses,” Mamut said.

“I was looking outside, wishing it was spring,” Ayla said.

“This is the time most people start wishing for a change, for something new to do or see. They are getting bored, sleeping more. I think that’s why we have more feasts and celebrations in the last part of winter. The Laughing Contest will be coming soon. Most people enjoy that one.”

“What is the Laughing Contest?”

“Just what it sounds like. Everyone tries to make everyone else laugh. Some people wear funny clothes, or wear their clothes backward, make funny faces at each other, act funny, make jokes about each other, play tricks on each other. And if anyone gets angry about it, they get laughed at all the more. Almost everyone looks forward to it, but no celebration is as eagerly anticipated as the Spring Festival. In fact, that’s why I was looking for you,” Mamut said. “There are still many things you should learn before then.”

“Why is the Spring Festival so special?” Ayla wasn’t sure she was anticipating it.

“For many reasons, I suppose. It is both our most solemn and our happiest celebration. It marks the end of the long deep cold, and the beginning of warmth. It is said that if you watch the cycle of seasons one year, you will understand life. Most people count three seasons. Spring is the season of
birth. In the gush of Her birth waters, the spring floods, the Great Earth Mother brings forth new life again. Summer, the warm season, is the time of growth and increase. Winter is the ‘little death.’ In spring, life is renewed again, reborn. Three seasons are enough for most purposes, but the Mammoth Hearth counts five. The Mother’s sacred number is five.”

In spite of her initial reservations, Ayla found herself fascinated by the training Mamut had insisted upon. She was learning so much: new ideas, new thoughts, even new ways of thinking. It was exciting to discover and think about so many new things, to be included instead of excluded. Knowledge of spirits, knowledge of numbers, even knowledge of hunting, had been kept from her when she had lived with the Clan; it was reserved for the men. Only mog-urs and their acolytes studied them in depth, and no woman could become a mog-ur. Women were not even admitted to discussions about such concepts as spirits or numbers. Hunting had been taboo for her, too, but they didn’t bar women from listening; they had just assumed no woman could learn.