“Yes, that is right, Rydag! I am woman, like mother, and that is way to greet mother. You do remember!”
Nezzie noticed Ayla and the boy together. He had caused her great distress a few times when he forgot himself and tried to do too much, so she was always aware of the child’s location and activities. She was drawn toward the younger woman and the child, trying to observe and understand what they were doing. Ayla saw her, noted her expression of curiosity and concern, and called her over.
“I am showing Rydag language of Clan—mother’s people,” Ayla explained, “like word last night.”
Rydag, with a big grin that showed his larger than usual teeth, made a deliberate gesture to Nezzie.
“What does that mean?” she asked, looking at Ayla.
“Rydag say, ‘Good morning, Mother,’ ” the young woman explained.
“Good morning, Mother?” Nezzie made a motion that vaguely resembled the deliberate gesture Rydag had made. “That means Good morning, Mother?”
“No. Sit here. I will show you. This”—Ayla made the sign—“means Good morning’ and this way”—she made the variation—“means Good morning, Mother. He might make same sign to me. That would mean ‘motherly woman.’ You would make this way”—Ayla made another variation of the hand sign—“to say, Good morning, child.’ And this”—Ayla continued with still another variation—“to say Good morning, my son.’ You see?”
Ayla went through all the variations again as Nezzie watched carefully. The woman, feeling a bit self-conscious, tried again. Though the signal lacked finesse, it was clear to both Ayla and Rydag that the gesture she was trying to make meant “Good morning, my son.”
The boy, who was standing at her shoulder, reached thin arms around her neck. Nezzie hugged him, blinking hard to hold back a flood that threatened, and even Rydag’s eyes were wet, which surprised Ayla.
Of all the members of Brun’s clan, only her eyes had teared with emotion, though their feelings were just as strong. Her son could vocalize the same as she could; he was capable of full speech—her heart still ached when she remembered how he had called out after her when she was forced to leave—but Durc could shed no tears to express his sorrow.
Like his Clan mother, Rydag could not speak, but when his eyes filled with love, they glistened with tears.
“I have never been able to talk to him before—that I knew for sure he understood,” Nezzie said.
“Would you like more signs?” Ayla asked, gently.
The woman nodded, still holding the boy, not trusting herself to speak at the moment for fear her control would break. Ayla went through another set of signs and variations, with Nezzie and Rydag both concentrating, trying to grasp them. And then another. Nezzie’s daughters, Latie and Rugie, and Tulie’s youngest children, Brinan and his little sister Tusie, who were close to Rugie and Rydag in age, came to find out what was going on, then Fralie’s seven-year-old son, Crisavec, joined them. Soon they were all caught up in what seemed to be a wonderful new game: talking with hands.
But unlike most games played by the children of the Camp, this was one in which Rydag excelled. Ayla couldn’t teach him fast enough. She barely had to show him once, and before long he was adding the variations himself—the nuances and finer shades of meaning. She had a sense that it was all right there inside him, filled up and bursting to come out, needing only the smallest opening, and once released, there was no holding back.
It was all the more exciting because the children who were near his age were learning, too. For the first time in his life, Rydag could express himself fully, and he couldn’t get enough of it. The youngsters he had grown up with easily accepted his ability to “speak” fluently in this new way. They had communicated with him before. They knew he was different, he had trouble talking, but they hadn’t yet acquired the adult bias that assumed he was, therefore, lacking in intelligence. And Latie, as older sisters often do, had been translating his “gibberish” to the adult members of the Camp for years.
By the time they had all had enough of learning and went off to put the new game into serious play, Ayla noticed Rydag was correcting them and they turned to him for confirmation of the meaning of the hand signs and gestures. He had found a new place among his peers.
Still sitting beside Nezzie, Ayla watched them flashing silent signals to each other. She smiled, imagining what Iza would have thought of children of the Others speaking like the Clan, shouting and laughing at the same time. Somehow, Ayla thought, the old medicine woman would have understood.
“You must be right. That is his way to speak,” Nezzie said. “I’ve never seen him so quick to learn anything. I didn’t know flathe—What do you call them?”
“Clan. They say Clan. It means … family … the people … humans. The Clan of the Cave Bear, people who honor Great Cave Bear; you say Mamutoi, Mammoth Hunters who honor Mother,” Ayla replied.
“Clan … I didn’t know they could talk like that, I didn’t know anyone could say so much with hands.… I’ve never seen Rydag so happy.” The woman hesitated, and Ayla sensed she was trying to find a way to say something more. She waited to give her a chance to gather her thoughts. “I’m surprised you took to him so quickly,” Nezzie continued. “Some people object because he’s mixed, and most people are a little uncomfortable around him. But you seem to know him.”
Ayla paused before she spoke, while she studied the older woman, not sure what to say. Then, making a decision, she said, “I knew someone like him once … my son. My son, Durc.”
“Your son!” There was surprise in Nezzie’s voice, but Ayla did not detect any sign of the revulsion that had been so apparent in Frebec’s voice when he spoke of flatheads and Rydag the night before. “You had a mixed son? Where is he? What happened to him?”
Anguish darkened Ayla’s face. She had kept thoughts of her son buried deep while she was alone in her valley, but seeing Rydag had awakened them. Nezzie’s questions jolted painful memories and emotions to the surface, and caught her by surprise. Now she had to confront them.
Nezzie was as open and frank as the rest of her people, and her questions had come spontaneously, but she was not without sensitivity. “I’m sorry, Ayla. I should have thought …”
“Do not have concern, Nezzie,” Ayla said, blinking to hold back tears. “I know questions come when I speak of son. It … pains … to think of Durc.”
“You don’t have to talk about him.”
“Sometime must talk about Durc.” Ayla paused, then plunged in. “Durc is with Clan. When she die, Iza … my mother, like you with Rydag … say I go north, find my people. Not Clan, the Others. Durc is baby then. I do not go. Later, Durc is three years, Broud make me go. I not know where Others live, I not know where I will go, I cannot
take Durc. I give to Uba … sister. She love Durc, take care of him. Her son now.”
Ayla stopped, but Nezzie didn’t know what to say. She would have liked to ask more questions, but didn’t want to press when it was obviously such an ordeal for the young woman to speak of a son, whom she loved but had to leave behind. Ayla continued of her own accord.
“Three years since I see Durc. He is … six years now. Like Rydag?”
Nezzie nodded. “It is not yet seven years since Rydag was born.”
Ayla paused, seemed to be deep in thought. Then she continued. “Durc is like Rydag, but not. Durc is like Clan in eyes, like me in mouth.” She smiled wryly. “Should be other way. Durc make words, Durc could speak, but Clan does not. Better if Rydag speak, but he cannot. Durc is strong.” Ayla’s eyes took on a faraway look. “He run fast. He is best runner, some day racer, like Jondalar say.” Her eyes filled with sadness when she looked up at Nezzie. “Rydag weak. From birth. Weak in …?” She put her hand to her chest, she didn’t know the word.
“He has trouble breathing sometimes,” Nezzie said.
“Trouble is not breathing. Trouble is blood … no … not blood … da-dump,” she said, holding a fist to her chest. She was frustrated at not knowing the word.
“The heart. That’s what Mamut says. He has a weak heart. How did you know that?”
“Iza was medicine woman, healer. Best medicine woman of Clan. She teach me like daughter. I am medicine woman.”
Jondalar had said Ayla was a Healer, Nezzie recalled. She was surprised to learn that flatheads even thought about healing, but then she hadn’t known they could talk either. And she had been around Rydag enough to know that even without full speech he was not the stapid animal that so many people believed. Even if she wasn’t a Mamut, there was no reason Ayla couldn’t know something about healing.
The two women looked up as a shadow fell across them. “Mamut wants to know if you would come and talk to him, Ayla,” Danug said. Both of them had been so engrossed in conversation neither one had noticed the tall young man approaching. “Rydag is so excited with the new hand game you showed him,” he continued. “Latie says he wants me to ask if you will teach me some of the signs, too.”
“Yes. Yes. I teach you. I teach anyone.”
“I want to learn more of your hand words, too,” Nezzie said, as they both got up.
“In morning?” Ayla asked.
“Yes, tomorrow morning. But you haven’t had anything to eat yet. Maybe tomorrow it would be better to have something to eat first,” Nezzie said. “Come with me and I’ll get you something, and for Mamut, too.”
“I am hungry,” Ayla said.
“So am I,” Danug added.
“When aren’t you hungry? Between you and Talut, I think you could eat a mammoth,” Nezzie said with pride in her eyes for her great strapping son.
As the two women and Danug headed toward the earthlodge, the others seemed to take it as a cue to stop for a meal and followed them in. Outer clothes were removed in the entrance foyer and hung on pegs. It was a casual, everyday, morning meal with some people cooking at their own hearths and others gathering at the large first hearth that held the primary fireplace and several small ones. Some people ate cold leftover mammoth, others had meat or fish cooked with roots or greens in a soup thickened with roughly ground wild grains plucked from the grasses of the steppes. But whether they cooked at their own place or not, most people eventually wandered to the communal area to visit while they drank a hot tea before going outside again.
Ayla was sitting beside Mamut watching the activities with great interest. The level of noise of so many people talking and laughing together still surprised her, but she was becoming more accustomed to it. She was even more surprised at the ease with which the women moved among the men. There was no strict hierarchy, no order to the cooking or serving of food. They all seemed to serve themselves, except for the women and men who helped the youngest children.
Jondalar came over to them and lowered himself carefully to the grass mat beside Ayla while he balanced with both hands a watertight but handleless and somewhat flexible cup, woven out of bear grass in a chevron design of contrasting colors, filled with hot mint tea.
“You up early in morning,” Ayla said.
“I didn’t want to disturb you. You were sleeping so soundly.”
“I wake when I think someone hurt, but Deegie tell me old woman … Crozie … always talk loud with Frebec.”
“They were arguing so loud, I even heard them outside,” Jondalar said. “Frebec may be a troublemaker, but I’m not so sure I blame him. That old woman squawks worse than a jay. How can anyone live with her?”
“I think someone hurt,” Ayla said, thoughtfully.
Jondalar looked at her, puzzled. He didn’t think she was repeating that she mistakenly thought someone was physically hurt.
“You are right, Ayla,” Mamut said. “Old wounds that still pain.”
“Deegie feels sorrow for Fralie.” Ayla turned to Mamut, feeling comfortable about asking him questions, though she did not want to betray her ignorance generally. “What is Bride Price? Deegie said Tulie asked high Bride Price for her.”
Mamut paused before answering, gathering his thoughts carefully because he wanted her to understand. Ayla watched the white-haired old man expectantly. “I could give you a simple answer, Ayla, but there is more to it than it seems. I have thought about it for many years. It is not easy to understand and explain yourself and your people, even when you are one of those whom others come to for answers.” He closed his eyes in a frown of concentration. “You understand status, don’t you?” he began.
“Yes,” Ayla said. “In the Clan, leader has the most status, then chosen hunter, then other hunters. Mog-ur has high status, too, but is different. He is … man of spirit world.”
“And the women?”
“Women have status of mate, but medicine woman has own status.”
Ayla’s comments surprised Jondalar. With all he had learned from her about flatheads, he still had difficulty believing they could understand a concept as complex as comparative ranking.
“I thought so,” Mamut sard, quietly, then proceeded to explain. “We revere the Mother, the maker and nurturer of all life. People, animals, plants, water, trees, rocks, earth, She gave birth, She created all of it. When we call upon the spirit of the mammoth, or the spirit of the deer, or the bison, to ask permission to hunt them, we know it is the Mother’s Spirit that gave them life; Her Spirit that causes another mammoth, or deer, or bison to be born to replace the ones She gives us for food.”
“We say it is the Mother’s Gift of Life,” Jondalar said,
intrigued. He was interested in discovering how the customs of the Mamutoi compared with the customs of the Zelandonii.
“Mut, the Mother, has chosen women to show us how She has taken the spirit of life into Herself to create and bring forth new life to replace those She has called back,” the old holy man continued. “Children learn about this as they grow up, from legends and stories and songs, but you are beyond that now, Ayla. We like to hear the stories even when we grow old, but you need to understand the current that moves them, and what lies beneath, so you can understand the reasons for many of our customs. With us, status depends upon one’s mother, and Bride Price is the way we show value.”
Ayla nodded, fascinated. Jondalar had tried to explain about the Mother, but Mamut made it seem so reasonable, so much easier to understand.