He did want to help them, but he feared that if they stayed, Attaroa might harm Ayla. He thought he had lost her, and now that they were back together he was afraid that if they stayed, he might really lose her. He was trying to find a strong reason to convince her to leave.
“We are not alone. There are more than the two of us who want to change things. We have to find a way to help them,” Ayla said, then paused, thinking. “I think S’Armuna wants us to come back—that’s why she offered her hospitality. We must go to that feast tomorrow.”
“Attaroa has used poison before. If we go back there, we may never leave,” Jondalar cautioned her. “She hates you, you know.”
“I know, but we have to go back anyway. For the sake of the children. We won’t eat, except what I bring, and only if it doesn’t leave our sight. Do you think we should change our camp or stay here?” Ayla said. “I have a lot to do before tomorrow.”
“I don’t think moving will help. They will just trail us. That’s why we should leave now,” Jondalar said, clasping both her arms. He looked into her eyes, concentrating as if trying to will her to change her mind. Finally he let her go, knowing she wouldn’t leave and that he would stay to help her. In his heart it was what he wanted to do, but he had to be convinced that he couldn’t persuade her to go. He vowed to himself that he would let nothing harm her.
“All right,” he said. “I told the men you would never stand for anyone being treated like that. I don’t think they believed me, but we will need help to get them out. I admit I was surprised to hear S’Armuna suggest that we stay with her,” Jondalar said. “I don’t think she does
that very often. Her lodge is small and out of the way. She is not set up to accommodate visitors, but why do you think she wants us to go back?”
“Because she interrupted Attaroa to ask. I don’t think that head-woman was happy about it. Do you trust S’Armuna, Jondalar?”
The man stopped to think. “I don’t know. I trust her more than I trust Attaroa, but I guess that’s not saying much. Did you know S’Armuna knew my mother? She lived with the Ninth Cave when she was young, and they were friends.”
“So that’s why she speaks your language so well. But if she knows your mother, why didn’t she help you?”
“I wondered that myself. Maybe she didn’t want to. I think something must have happened between her and Marthona. I don’t remember that my mother ever talked about knowing someone who came to live with them when she was young, either. But I have a feeling about S’Armuna. She did treat my injury, and though that’s more than she’s done for most of the men, I think she wants to do more. I don’t think Attaroa will allow it.”
They unpacked Racer and set up their camp, although both of them felt uneasy. Jondalar started the fire while Ayla began to prepare a meal for them. She started with the portions she usually estimated for both of them, but then she remembered how little the men in the Holding had been given to eat and decided to increase the quantity. Once he started eating again, he was going to be very hungry.
Jondalar hunkered near the heat for a while after he had the fire blazing, watching the woman he loved. Then he walked over to her. “Before you get too busy, woman,” he said, taking her into his arms, “I’ve greeted a horse and a wolf, but I haven’t yet greeted the one who’s most important to me.”
She smiled in the way that always evoked a warm feeling of love and tenderness. “I’m never too busy for you,” she said.
He bent down to kiss her mouth, slowly at first, but then all his fear and anguish at the thought of losing her suddenly overcame him. “I was so afraid I would never see you again. I thought you were dead.” His voice cracked with a sob of strain and relief as he held her close. “Nothing Attaroa could have done to me would be worse than losing you.”
He held her so tight she could hardly breathe, but she didn’t want him to let her go. He kissed her mouth, then her neck, and he began to explore her familiar body with his knowing hands.
“Jondalar, I’m sure Epadoa is following us…”
The man pulled back and caught his breath. “You’re right, this is not the right time. We’d be too vulnerable if they came upon us.” He should have known better. He felt a need to explain. “It’s just that … I
thought I’d never see you again. It’s like a Gift from the Mother to be here with you, and … well … the urge came over me to honor Her.”
Ayla held him, wanting to let him know that she felt the same. The thought occurred to her that she had never heard him try to explain why he wanted her before. She didn’t need an explanation. It was all she could do to keep herself from forgetting the danger they were in and giving in to her own desire for him. Then, as she felt her warmth for the man growing, she reconsidered their situation.
“Jondalar…” The tone of her voice caught his attention. “If you really think about it, we are probably so far ahead of Epadoa, it will take a while for her to track us here … and Wolf would warn us…”
As Jondalar looked at her and began to perceive her meaning, his frown of concern slowly eased into a smile, and his compelling blue eyes filled with his wanting and his love. “Ayla, my woman, my beautiful loving woman,” he said, his voice husky with need.
It had been a long time, and Jondalar was ready, but he took the time to kiss her slowly and fully. The feel of her lips parting to give access to her warm mouth encouraged thoughts of other parting lips and warm moist openings, and he felt the strivings of his manhood in anticipation. It was going to be difficult to hold back enough to Pleasure her.
Ayla held him close, closing her eyes to think only of his mouth on hers, and his gently exploring tongue. She felt his turgid heat pressing against her, and her response was as immediate as his; an urge so strong that she didn’t want to wait. She wanted to be closer to him, to be as close as only the feel of him within her could be. Keeping her lips on his, she slipped her arms down from around his neck to untie the waist closure of her fur leggings. She dropped them down, then reached for his ties.
Jondalar felt her fumbling with the knots he had had to tie in the leather thongs that had been cut. He straightened up, breaking their contact, smiled into eyes that were the blue-gray color of a certain fine-quality flint, unsheathed his knife, and cut through his lacings again. They needed to be replaced anyway. She grinned, then held up her lower garment long enough to take a few steps to the sleeping rolls, then dropped down on top of them. He followed her while she unlaced her boots, then untied his own.
Lying on their sides, they kissed again, as Jondalar reached beneath her fur parka and tunic for a firm breast. He felt her nipple harden in the middle of his palm, then pushed up her heavy garments to expose the tantalizing tip. It contracted with the cold, until he took it in his mouth. Then it warmed but did not relax. Not wanting to wait, she rolled to her back, pulling him with her, and opened to receive him.
With a feeling of joy that she was as ready as he was, he knelt
between her warm thighs and guided his eager member into her deep well. Her moist warmth enveloped him, caressing his fullness as he entered her depths with a moaning sigh of pleasure.
Ayla felt him inside her, penetrating deeply, bringing him closer to the core of her being. She let herself forget everything except the warmth of him filling her as she arched to reach him. She felt him pulling back, caressing her from within, and then he filled her again. She cried out her welcome and delight as his long shaft withdrew and penetrated again, in just the right position so that each time he entered, his manhood rubbed against her small center of pleasure, sending shocks of excitement through her.
Jondalar was building quickly; for a moment he feared it was too quickly—but he could not have held back if he’d tried, and this time he didn’t try. He let himself advance and retreat as his need directed, sensing her willingness in the rhythm of her motion matching his as he moved steadily faster. Suddenly, overpoweringly, he was there.
With an intensity that met his, she was ready for him. She whispered, “Now, on now,” as she strained to meet him. Her encouragement was a surprise. She had not done it before, but it had an immediate effect. With the next stroke, his building force reached an explosive rush and burst through in an eruption of release and pleasure. She was only a step behind, and, with a cry of exquisite delight, she reached her peak a moment later. A few more strokes and they both lay still.
Though it was over quickly, the moment had been so intense that it took the woman a while to come down from the culminating summit. When Jondalar, feeling his weight on her was becoming too much, rolled over and disengaged, she felt an inexplicable sense of loss and wished they could stay linked together longer. Somehow he completed her, and the full realization of how much she had feared for him, and missed his presence struck her with such poignancy that she felt tears sting her eyes.
Jondalar saw a transparent bead of water fall from the outside corner of her eye and run down the side of her face to her ear. He raised himself up and looked at her. “What’s wrong, Ayla?”
“I’m just so happy to be with you,” she said, as another tear welled up and quivered at the edge of her eye before it spilled over.
Jondalar reached for it with a finger and brought the salty drop to his mouth. “If you are happy, why are you crying?” he said, though he knew.
She shook her head, unable to speak at that moment. He smiled with the knowledge that she shared his powerful feelings of relief and gratitude that they were together again. He bent down to kiss her eyes, and
her cheek, and finally her beautiful smiling mouth. “I love you, too,” he whispered in her ear.
He felt a faint stirring in his manhood, and he wished they could start all over again, but this was not the time. Epadoa was certain to be trailing them, and sooner or later she would find them.
“There is a stream nearby,” Ayla said. “I need to wash, and I might as well fill the waterbags.”
“I’ll go with you,” the man said, partly because he still wanted to be close to her, and partly because he felt protective.
They picked up their lower garments and boots, then the waterbags, and walked to a fairly wide stream, nearly closed over with ice, leaving only a small section in the middle still flowing. He shivered with the shock of freezing water and knew he washed himself only because she did. He would have been content to let himself dry off in the warmth of his clothes, but if she had any opportunity at all, even in the coldest water, she always cleaned herself. He knew it was a ritual her Clan stepmother had taught her, although now she invoked the Mother with mumbled words spoken in Mamutoi.
They filled up the waterbags, and, as they walked back to their campsite, Ayla recalled the scene she had witnessed just before his lacings had been cut the first time.
“Why didn’t you couple with Attaroa?” she asked. “You damaged her pride in front of her people.”
“I have pride, too. No one is going to force me to share the Mother’s Gift. And it wouldn’t have made any difference. I’m sure it was her intention all along to make a target out of me. But now, I think you are the one who has to be careful. ‘Discourteous and inhospitable’…” He chuckled; then he became more serious. “She hates you, you know. She’ll kill us both, if she gets the chance.”
A
yla and Jondalar settled down for the night, both were wary of every sound they heard. The horses were staked nearby, and Ayla kept Wolf beside her bedroll, knowing he would warn her of anything unusual that he sensed, but she still slept poorly. Her dreams felt threatening, but amorphous and disorganized, with no messages or warnings that she could define, except that Wolf kept appearing in them.
She awoke as the first glimmerings of day broke through the bare branches of willow and birch to the east, near the stream. It was still dark in the rest of their secluded glen, but as she watched, she began to see thick-needled spruce and the longer needle-shafts of stone pine defined in the growing light. A fine powdering of dry snow had sprinkled down during the night, dusting evergreens, tangled brush, dry grass, and bedrolls with white, but Ayla was cozily warm.
She had almost forgotten how good it felt to have Jondalar sleeping beside her, and she stayed still for a while, just enjoying his nearness. But her mind would not stay still. She kept worrying about the day ahead and thinking over what she was going to make for the feast. She finally decided to get up, but when she tried to slip out of the furs, she felt Jondalar’s arm tightening around her, holding her back.
“Do you have to get up? It’s been so long since I’ve felt you beside me, I hate to let you go,” Jondalar said, nuzzling her neck.
She settled back into his warmth. “I don’t want to get up either. It’s cold, and I’d like to stay here in the furs with you, but I need to start cooking something for Attaroa’s ‘feast,’ and make your morning meal. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Now that you mention it, I think I could eat a horse!” Jondalar said, eying the two nearby exaggeratedly.
“Jondalar!” Ayla said, looking shocked.
He grinned at her. “Not one of ours, but that is what I’ve been eating lately—when I’ve had anything at all. If I hadn’t been so hungry, I don’t think I would have eaten horsemeat, but when there is nothing else, you eat what you can get. And there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“I know, but you don’t have to eat it any more. We have other food,”
she said. They snuggled together for a moment longer, then Ayla pulled back the fur. “The fire has gone out. If you start a new one, I’ll make our morning tea. We’ll need a hot fire today, and a lot of wood.”
For their meal the evening before, Ayla had prepared a larger than usual amount of a hearty soup from dried bison meat and dried roots, adding a few pine nuts from the cones of the stone pines, but Jondalar had not been able to eat as much as he thought. After she put the rest aside, she had taken out a basket of small whole apples, hardly bigger than cherries, which she had found while trailing Jondalar. They had frozen but were still clinging to a dwarfed clump of leafless trees on the south face of a hillside. She had cut the hard little apples in half, seeded them, then boiled them for a while with dried rose hips. She left the result overnight near the fire. By morning it had cooled and thickened from the natural pectin to a sauce of a jellylike consistency with bits of chewy apple skin.