Mammoth Hunters (27 page)

In her valley, when she had been hesitant about facing the unknown Others, she had thought Jondalar only wished to leave so he could be with other people. She had never quite understood before just how powerful was his desire to return to his home. It came as a revelation, an insight; she knew that he could never be truly happy any other place.

Though she desperately missed her son and the people she loved, Ayla hadn’t felt homesickness in Jondalar’s sense, as a yearning to go back to a familiar place, where people were known, and customs were comfortable. She had known when she left the Clan she could never return. To them, she was dead. If they saw her, they would think she was a malicious spirit. And now, she knew she would not go back to live with them even if she could. Though she had been with the Lion Camp only a short time, she already felt more comfortable and at home than she had in all the years she lived with the Clan. Iza had been right. She was not Clan. She was born to the Others.

Lost in thought, Ayla had missed some further discussion. Hearing Jondalar mention her name brought her back.

 … I think Ayla’s technique must be close to theirs. That’s where she learned. I have seen some of their tools, but I had never seen them made before she showed me. They are
not without skill, but it’s a long step from preshaping a core to an intermediary punch, and that makes the difference between a heavy flake tool and a fine, light blade tool.”

Wymez smiled and nodded. “Now, if we could only find a way to make a blade straight. No matter how you do it, the edge of a knife is never quite as sharp after it’s been retouched.”

“I’ve thought about that problem,” Danug said, making a contribution to the discussion. “How about cutting a groove in bone or antler, and gluing in bladelets? Small enough to be almost straight?”

Jondalar thought about it for a moment. “How would you make them?”

“Couldn’t you start with a small core?” Danug suggested, a little tentatively.

“That might work, Danug, but a small core could be hard to work with,” Wymez said. “I’ve thought about starting with a bigger blade and breaking it into smaller ones …”

They were still talking about flint, Ayla realized. They never seemed to tire of it. The material and its potential never ceased to fascinate them. The more they learned, the more it stimulated their interest. She could appreciate flint and toolmaking, and she thought the points Wymez had shown them were finer than any she had ever seen, as much for their beauty as for their use. But she had never heard the subject discussed in such exhaustive detail. Then, she remembered her fascination with medical lore and healing magic. The times she had spent with Iza, and Uba, when the medicine woman was teaching them, were among her happiest memories.

Ayla noticed Nezzie coming out of the lodge, and got up to see if she could help. Though the three men smiled and made comments as she left, she didn’t think they would even notice that she had gone.

That wasn’t entirely true. Though none of the men made comments out loud, there was a break in their conversation as they watched her leave.

She’s a beautiful young woman, Wymez thought. Intelligent, and knowledgeable, and interested in many things. She’d bring a high Bride Price, if she were Mamutoi. Think what status she’d bring to a mate, and pass on to her children.

Danug’s thoughts ran along much the same lines, though they were not as clearly formed in his mind. Vague ideas about Bride Price and Matrimonials and even co-mating occurred
to him, but he didn’t think he would stand a chance. Mostly, he just wanted to be around her.

Jondalar wanted her even more. If he could have thought of a reasonable excuse, he would have gotten up and followed her. Yet he feared to clutch too tight. He remembered his feelings when women tried too hard to make him love them. Instead it had made him want to avoid them, and feel pity. He did not want Ayla’s pity. He wanted her love.

A choking gorge of bile rose in his throat when he saw the dark-skinned man come out of the earthlodge, and smile at her. He tried to swallow it down, to control the anger and frustration he felt. He had never known such jealousy, and he hated himself for it. He was sure Ayla would hate him, or worse, pity him, if she knew how he felt. He reached for a large nodule of flint, and with his hammerstone, he smashed it open. The piece was flawed, shot through with the white crumbly chalk of its outer cortex, but Jondalar kept hitting the stone, breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces.

Ranec saw Ayla coming from the direction of the flint-knapping area. The growing excitement and attraction he felt every time he saw her could not be denied. He had been drawn from the beginning to the perfection of form she presented to his aesthetic sense, not just as a beautiful woman to look at, but in the subtle, unstudied grace of her movements. His eye for such detail was sharp, and he could not detect the slightest posturing or affectation. She carried herself with a self-possession, an unafraid confidence, that seemed so completely natural he felt she must have been born with it, and it generated a quality he could only think of as presence.

He flashed a warm smile. It wasn’t a smile that could easily be ignored, and Ayla returned it with matching warmth.

“Have your ears been filled with flint-talk?” Ranec said, making the last two words into one, and thereby giving the phrase a slightly derogatory meaning. Ayla detected the nuance, but wasn’t entirely sure of its meaning, though she thought it was meant to be humorous, a joke.

“Yes. They talk flint. Making blades. Making tools. Points. Wymez make beautiful points.”

“Ah, he brought out his treasures, did he. You are right, they are beautiful. I’m not always sure if he knows it, but Wymez is more than a craftsman. He is an artist.

A frown creased Avla’s forehead. She remembered he had
used that word to describe her when she used her sling, and she wasn’t sure if she understood the word the way he used it.

“Are you artist?” she asked.

He made a wry grimace. Her question had touched at the heart of an issue about which he had strong feelings.

His people believed that the Mother had first created a spirit world, and the spirits of all things in it were perfect. The spirits then produced living copies of themselves, to populate the ordinary world. The spirit was the model, the pattern from which all things were derived, but no copy could be as perfect as the original; not even the spirits themselves could make perfect copies, that was why each was different.

People were unique, they were closer to the Mother than other spirits. The Mother gave birth to a copy of Herself and called her Spirit Woman, then caused a Spirit Man to be born of her womb, just as each man was born of woman. Then the Great Mother caused the spirit of the perfect woman to mingle with the spirit of the perfect man, and so give birth to many different spirit children. But She Herself chose which man’s spirit would mingle with a woman’s before She breathed Her life force into the woman’s mouth to cause pregnancy. And to a few of Her children, women and men, the Mother gave special gifts.

Ranec referred to himself as a carver, a maker of objects carved in the likeness of living or spiritual things. Carvings were useful objects. They personified living spirits, made them visual, realizable, and they were essential tools for certain rites, necessary for the ceremonies conducted by the mamuti. Those who could create such objects were held in great esteem; they were gifted artists, whom the Mother had chosen.

Many people thought that all carvers, indeed, all people who could create or decorate objects to make them something more than simply utilitarian, were artists, but in Ranec’s opinion, not all artists were equally gifted, or perhaps they didn’t give equal care to their work. The animals and figures they made were crude. He felt such representations were an insult to the spirits, and to the Mother who created them.

In Ranec’s eye the finest and most perfect example of anything was beautiful, and anything beautiful was the finest and most perfect example of spirit; it was the essence of it.
That was his religion. Beyond that, at the core of his aesthetic soul, he felt that beauty had an intrinsic value of its own, and he believed there was a potential for beauty in everything. While some activities or objects could be simply functional, he felt that anyone who came close to achieving perfection in any activity was an artist, and the results contained the essence of beauty. But the art was as much in the activity as in the results. Works of art were not just the finished product, but the thought, the action, the process that created them.

Ranec sought out beauty, almost as a holy quest, with his own skilled hands but more with his innately sensitive eye. He felt a need to surround himself with it, and he was beginning to view Ayla, herself, as a work of art, as the finest, most perfect expression of woman he could imagine. It was not just her appearance that made her beautiful. Beauty was not a static picture; it was essence, it was spirit, it was that which animated. It was best expressed in movement, behavior, accomplishment. A beautiful woman was a complete and dynamic woman. Though he did not say it in so many words, Ayla was coming to represent for him a perfect incarnation of the original Spirit Woman. She was the essence of woman, the essence of beauty.

The dark man with the laughing eyes and the ironic wit, which he had learned to use to mask his deep longings, strove to create perfection and beauty in his own work. For his efforts, he was acclaimed by his people as the finest carver, an artist of true distinction, but, as with many perfectionists, he was never quite satisfied with his own creations. He would not refer to himself as an artist.

“I am a carver,” he said to Ayla. Then, because he saw her puzzlement, he added, “Some people will call any carver an artist.” He hesitated a moment, wondering how she would judge his work, then said, “Would you like to see some of my carvings?”

“Yes,” she said.

The simple directness of her reply stopped him for a moment, then he threw his head back and laughed out loud. Of course, what else would she say? His eyes crinkling with delight, he beckoned her into the lodge.

Jondalar watched them go through the arched entrance together and felt a heaviness descend upon him. He closed his eyes and dropped his head to his chest in dejection.

The tall and handsome man had never suffered for lack of female attention, but since he lacked understanding of the quality that made him so attractive, he had no faith in it. He was a maker of tools, more comfortable with the physical than the metaphysical, better at applying his considerable intelligence to understanding the technical aspects of pressure and percussion on homogeneous crystalline silica—flint. He perceived the world in physical terms.

He expressed himself physically as well; he was better with his hands than with words. Not that he was inarticulate, just not especially gifted with words. He had learned to tell a story well enough, but he wasn’t quick with glib answers and humorous retorts. He was a serious and private man, who didn’t like to talk about himself, though he was a sensitive listener, which attracted confessions and confidences from others. At home, he had been renowned as a fine craftsman, but the same hands that could so carefully shape hard stone into fine tools were also skilled in the ways of a woman’s body. It was another expression of his physical nature, and, though not as openly, he had been equally renowned for it. Women pursued him, and jokes were made of his “other” craft.

It was a skill he had learned as he had learned to shape flint. He knew where to touch, was receptive and responsive to subtle signals, and he derived pleasure from giving Pleasure. His hands, his eyes, his entire body, spoke more eloquently than any words he ever uttered. If Ranec had been a woman, he would have called him an artist.

Jondalar had developed genuine affection and warmth for some women, and enjoyed them all physically, but he did not love, until he met Ayla, and he did not feel confident that she truly loved him. How could she? She had no basis for comparison. He was the only man she knew until they came here. He recognized the carver as a man of distinction and considerable charm, and saw the signs of his growing attraction to Ayla. He knew that if any man could, Ranec was capable of winning Ayla’s love. Jondalar had traveled half the world before he found a woman he could love. Now that he had finally found her, would he lose her so soon?

But did he deserve to lose her? Could he bring her back with him knowing how his people felt about women like her? For all his jealousy, he was beginning to wonder if he was the right person for her. He told himself that he wanted to be fair
to her, but in his innermost heart he wondered if he could bear the stigma of loving the wrong woman, again.

Danug saw Jondalar’s anguish and looked at Wymez with troubled eyes. Wymez only nodded knowingly. He, too, had once loved a woman of exotic beauty, but Ranec was the son of his hearth, and overdue in finding a woman to settle down and raise a family with.

Ranec led Ayla to the Hearth of the Fox. Though she had passed through it several times every day, she had studiously avoided curious looks at the private quarters; it was one custom from her life with the Clan that applied to the Lion Camp. In the open house plan of the earthlodge, privacy was not so much a matter of closed doors as of consideration, respect, and tolerance for each other.

“Sit down,” he said, motioning her to a bed platform strewn with soft, luxurious furs. She looked around, now that it was acceptable to satisfy her curiosity. Though they shared a hearth, the two men who lived on opposite sides of the central passageway had living spaces that were uniquely individual.

Across the fireplace, the toolmaker’s area had a look of indifferent simplicity. There was a bed platform with a stuffed pad and furs, and a leather drape haphazardly tied above that looked as though it hadn’t been untied in years. Some clothing hung from pegs, and more was piled on a section of the bed platform extending along the wall beyond the partition at the head of the bed.