Mammoth Hunters (69 page)

The ice-bound river groaned and creaked in its struggle to loosen winter’s hold as the melt poured into its hidden current. Then, with no warning, a sharp report, heard even in the lodge, followed by a second crack and then a booming rumble, announced that the ice no longer held back the flooding tide. The chunks and floes, bobbing, dipping, turning on end, caught up and swept along by the swift powerful stream, marked a turning point of the season.

As though the cold was washed out with the tide, the people of the Camp, as confined as the river by the frigid cold, spilled out of the earthlodge. Though it was warmer only by comparison, the restrained indoor life shifted to energetic activity outside. Any excuse to go outdoors was greeted with enthusiasm, even spring cleaning.

The people of the Lion Camp were clean, by their own standards. Though moisture in the form of ice and snow was plentiful, it took fire, and large supplies of fuel, to make water. Even so, some of the ice and snow they melted for cooking and drinking was used to wash, and they took sweatbaths periodically. Personal areas were generally well organized, tools and implements were cared for, the few clothes that were worn indoors were brushed, occasionally washed and well maintained. But by the end of winter, the stench inside the earthlodge was incredible.

Contributing to the stink was food in various stages of preservation or decay, cooked, uncooked, and rotten; burning oils, often rancid since fresh congealed lumps of fat were usually added to old oil in the lamps; baskets used for defecation, not always dumped immediately; containers of urine saved and left standing to become ammoniacal by the decomposition of urea through bacteria; and people. Though sweatbaths were healthful and cleansed the skin, they did little to eliminate normal body odors, but that was not their purpose. Personal odor was part of a person’s identity.

The Mamutoi were accustomed to the rich and pungent natural odors of everyday living. Their sense of smell was well developed and used, like sight or hearing, to maintain awareness of their environment. Not even the smells of the animals were thought to be unpleasant; they were natural, too. But as the season warmed, even noses accustomed to the ordinary odors of life began to notice the consequences of twenty-seven people living together in close quarters for an extended period. Spring was the time when the drapes were pulled back to air the lodge, and the accumulated debris of the entire winter was cleaned up and thrown out.

In Ayla’s case, that included shoveling out the horse dung from the annex. The horses had weathered the winter well, which pleased Ayla, but it was not surprising. Steppe horses were hardy animals, adapted to the rigors of harsh winters. Though they had to forage for themselves, Whinney and Racer were free to come and go at will to a place of protection well beyond that usually available to their wild cousins. In addition, water, and even some food, was provided for them. Horses matured quickly in the wild, necessary, under normal circumstances, for survival, and Racer, like other colts who had been born the same time, had reached his full growth.
Though he would fill out a bit more in the next few years, he was a sturdy young stallion, slightly bigger than his dam.

Spring was also the time of shortages. The supply of certain foods, particularly favored vegetable products, was exhausted, and other foods were running low. When they took stock, everyone was glad they had decided to go on the last bison hunt. If they hadn’t, they might now be low on meat. But though the meat filled them, it left them unsatisfied. Ayla, recalling Iza’s spring tonics for Brun’s clan, decided to make some for the Camp. Her tisanes of various dried herbs, including iron-rich yellow dock, and scurvy-preventing rose hips, relieved the underlying vitamin lack that caused the craving for fresh food, but it did not eliminate the desire. Everyone hungered for the first fresh greens. The need for her medical knowledge went beyond spring tonics, however.

Well insulated and heated by several fires, lamps, and natural body heat, it was warm in the semisubterranean longhouse. Even when it was bitterly cold out, few clothes were worn inside. During the winter they were careful to dress properly before going outdoors, but when the snow began to melt, such caution was abandoned. Though the temperature hovered barely above freezing, it felt so much warmer people went outdoors wearing little more than their usual indoor clothing. With spring rains and melting snow, they often were wet and chilled before they went back in, which lowered their resistance.

Ayla was busier treating coughs, sniffles, and sore throats in the warming days of spring than she ever was in the coldest depths of winter. The epidemic of spring colds and respiratory infections afflicted everyone. Even Ayla took to her bed for a few days to nurse a slight fever and heavy chest cough. Before they were hardly into the season, she had treated nearly everyone in the Lion Camp. Depending upon the need, she provided medicinal teas, steam treatments, hot plasters for throats and chests, and a sympathetic and convincing bedside manner. Everyone was praising the efficacy of her medicine. If nothing else, she made people feel better.

Nezzie told her they always got spring colds, but when Mamut came down with the illness shortly after she did, Ayla ignored her own residual symptoms to take care of him. He was a very old man, and she worried about him. A severe respiratory infection could be fatal. The shaman, however, for all his great age, still had remarkable stamina and recovered
more quickly than some others in the lodge. Though he enjoyed her devoted attention, he urged her to see to others who needed her care more, and to rest herself.

She needed no urging when Fralie developed a fever, and a deep, body-racking cough, but her willingness to help made no difference. Frebec would not allow Ayla into the hearth to treat Fralie. Crozie argued furiously with him, and everyone in the Camp agreed with her, but he was adamant. Crozie even argued with Fralie, trying to convince her to ignore Frebec, to no avail. The sick woman merely shook her head and coughed.

“But why?” Ayla said to Mamut, sipping a hot drink with him and listening to Fralies latest coughing spasm. Tronie had taken Tasher, who was between Nuvie and Hartal in age, to her hearth. Crisavec slept with Brinan at the Aurochs Hearth so the sick and pregnant woman could rest, but Ayla felt it every time Fralie coughed.

“Why won’t he let me help her? He can see that other people feel better, and she needs it more than anyone. Coughing like that is too hard on her, especially now.”

“That’s not a difficult question, Ayla. If one believes the people of the Clan are animals, it’s impossible to believe they understand anything about healing medicine. And if you grew up with them, how could you know anything about it?”

“But they are not animals! A Clan medicine woman is very skilled.”

“I know that, Ayla. I know better than anyone the skill of a Clan medicine woman. I think everyone here knows it now, even Frebec. At least they appreciate your ability, but Frebec doesn’t want to back down after all the arguing. He’s afraid he will lose face.”

“What’s more important? His face or Fralies baby?

“Fralie must think Frebec’s face is more important.”

“It’s not Fralies fault. Frebec and Crozie are trying to force her to choose between them, and she won’t choose.”

“That’s Fralie’s decision.”

“That’s just the trouble. She doesn’t want to make a decision. She refuses to make a choice.”

Mamut shook his head. “No, she is making a choice, whether she means to or not. But the choice is not between Frebec and Crozie. How close is she to giving birth?” he asked. “She looks ready to me.”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think she is ready yet. She looks
bigger because she’s so thin, but the baby is not in position yet. That’s what worries me. I think it’s too soon.”

“There is nothing you can do about it, Ayla.”

“But if Frebec and Crozie wouldn’t argue so much about everything …”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it. That’s not Fralie’s problem, that’s between Frebec and Crozie. Fralie doesn’t have to let herself be caught in the middle of their problem. She can make her own decisions, and in fact, she is. She is choosing to do nothing. Or rather, if your fears are founded—and I believe they are—she is choosing whether to give birth now or later. She may be choosing between life for her baby, and death … and may be endangering herself as well. But, it’s her choice, and there may be more to it than any of us know.”

Mamuts comments stayed on Her mind long after the conversation was over, and she went to bed still thinking about them. He was right, of course. In spite of Fralie’s feelings for her mother and Frebec, it wasn’t her fight. Ayla tried to think of some way she could convince Fralie, but she had tried before, and now with Frebec keeping her away from his hearth, she had no opportunity to talk about it. When she went to sleep the worry was heavy on her mind.

She woke up in the middle of the night, and lay still, listening. She wasn’t sure what woke her, but she thought it was the sound of Fralie’s voice moaning in the darkness of the earthlodge. After a long silence, she decided it must have been a dream. Wolf whimpered, and she reached up to comfort him. Perhaps he was having a bad dream, too, and that’s what woke her. Her hand stopped before it reached the pup as she strained to hear what she thought was a muffled moan.

Ayla pulled the covers back and got up. Quietly, she stepped around the drape and felt her way to the basket to relieve herself, then pulled a tunic over her head and went to the fireplace. She heard a muffled cough, then a spasm of coughs, that finally stopped in an equally muffled moan. Ayla stirred the coals, added a bit of kindling and bone shavings until she had a small fire, then dropped in a few cooking stones and reached for the waterbag.

“You can make some tea for me, too,” Mamut said in a quiet voice from the dark of his sleeping platform, then
pushed back his covers and sat up. “I think we’ll all be up soon.”

Ayla nodded, and poured extra water in the cooking basket. There was another coughing spell, then stirring around and subdued voices from the Crane Hearth.

“She needs something to quiet the cough, and something to calm the labor … if it’s not too late. I think I’ll check my medicines,” Ayla said, putting her drinking bowl down, then hesitated, “ … just in case someone asks.”

She picked up a firebrand and Mamut watched her moving among the racks of dried plants she had brought back with her from the valley. It’s a wonder to watch her practice her healing arts, Mamut thought. She’s young to have such skill, though. If I were Frebec, I would have been more concerned about her youth, and possible inexperience, than her background. I know she was trained by the best, but how can she know so much already? She must have been born with it, and that medicine woman, Iza, must have seen her gift from the beginning. His musing was interrupted by another coughing spell from the Crane Hearth.

“Here, Fralie, have a drink of water,” Frebec said anxiously.

Fralie shook her head, unable to talk, trying to control the cough. She was on her side, up on one elbow, holding a piece of soft leather to her mouth. Her eyes were glazed with fever, and her face red from the exertion. She glanced at her mother, who was sitting on the bed across the passageway, glaring at her.

Crozie’s anger, and her distress, were both apparent. She had tried everything to convince her daughter to ask for help: persuasion, argument, diatribe; nothing worked. Even she had gotten some medicine from Ayla for her cold, and it was stupid of Fralie not to use the help that was available. It was all the fault of that stupid man, that stupid Frebec, but it did no good to talk about it. Crozie had decided she would not say another word.

Fralie’s cough subsided, and she dropped back down on the bed, exhausted. Maybe the other pain, the one she didn’t want to admit to, would not come this time. Fralie waited, holding her breath so as not to disturb anything, fearfully anticipating. An ache started in her lower back. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and tried to will it away. She put a hand on the side of her distended stomach and felt
the muscles contract as the pain, and her anxiety, increased. It’s too soon, she thought. The baby shouldn’t be coming for at least another moon cycle.

“Fralie? Are you all right?” Frebec said, still standing there with the water.

She tried to smile at him, seeing his distress, his feeling of helplessness. “It’s this cough,” she said. “Everyone gets sick in spring.”

No one understood him, she thought, least of all her mother. He was trying so hard to show everyone that he was worth something. That’s why he wouldn’t give in, that’s why he argued so much, and was so quick to take offense. He embarrassed Crozie. He didn’t understand that you showed your worth—the number and quality of your affiliations, and the strength of your influence—by how much you could claim from kin and kind to give away, so everyone could see it. Her mother had tried to show him by giving him the right to the Crane, not just the hearth Fralie brought to him when they joined, but the right to claim the Crane as his own birthright.

Crozie had expected gracious acquiescence to her wishes and requests, to show that he appreciated and understood that the Crane Hearth, which was still hers in name, though she had little else, was his to claim. But her demands could be excessive. She had lost so much it was hard for her to give away any of her remaining claim to status, particularly to one who had so little. Crozie feared he would diminish it, and she needed constant reassurance that it was appreciated. Fralie wouldn’t shame him by trying to explain. It was a subtle thing, something you grew up knowing … if you always had it. But Frebec never had anything.

Fralie began to feel an ache in her back again. If she lay there quietly, maybe it would go away … if she could keep from coughing. She was beginning to wish she could talk to Ayla, at least to get something for the cough, but she didn’t want Frebec to think she was siding with her mother. And long explanations would just irritate her throat, and make Frebec defensive. She began coughing again, just as the contraction was reaching a peak. She muffled a cry of pain.