Plains of Passage (45 page)

“Who picked them?” she said in a weak voice.

Dolando, bent over the bed, put his hand on her forehead. “Roshario, look who’s here! Jondalar has come back,” he said.

“Jondalar?” she said, looking at the man who was kneeling beside her bed next to Darvalo. He almost winced at the pain he saw etched on her face. “Is it really you? Sometimes I dream and think that I see my son, or Jetamio, and then I find out it’s not true. Is it you, Jondalar, or are you a dream?”

“It’s not a dream, Rosh,” Dolando said. Jondalar thought he saw tears in his eyes. “He’s really here. He brought someone with him. A Mamutoi woman. Her name is Ayla.” He beckoned her forward.

Ayla motioned Wolf to stay, and she walked toward the woman. That she was suffering great pain was immediately apparent. Her eyes were glazed and had dark circles around them, making them seem sunken; her face was flushed with fever. Even from a distance and beneath the light covering, Ayla could see that her arm, between the shoulder and elbow, was bent in a grotesque angle.

“Ayla of the Mamutoi, this is Roshario of the Sharamudoi,” Jondalar said. Darvalo moved over and Ayla took his place beside the bed.

“In the name of the Mother, you are welcome, Ayla of the Mamutoi,” Roshario said, trying to rise, then giving up and lying back again. “I am sorry I cannot greet you properly.”

“In the Mother’s name, I thank you,” Ayla said. “There is no need for you to get up.”

Jondalar translated, but Tholie had included everyone to some degree in her language instructions, and she had laid a good groundwork for understanding Mamutoi. Roshario had understood the gist of Ayla’s words, and she nodded.

“Jondalar, she’s in terrible pain. I’m afraid it could be very bad. I want to examine her arm,” Ayla said, shifting to Zelandonii so the woman wouldn’t know how serious she thought the injury was, but it did not disguise the urgency in her voice.

“Roshario, Ayla is a healer, a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth. She
would like to look at your arm,” Jondalar said, then looked up at Dolando to make sure he did not disapprove. The man was willing to try anything that might help, so long as Roshario agreed.

“A healer?” the woman said. “Shamud?”

“Yes, like a shamud. Can she look?”

“I’m afraid it’s too late to help, but she can look.”

Ayla uncovered the arm. Some attempt had obviously been made to straighten it, and the wound had been cleaned and was healing, but it was swollen and bone protruded beneath the skin at an odd angle. Ayla felt the arm, trying to be as gentle as she could. The woman winced only when she lifted the arm to feel underneath but did not complain. She knew her examination was painful, but she needed to feel the bone under the skin. Ayla looked at Roshario’s eyes, smelled her exhalations, felt the pulse in her neck and in her wrist, then sat back on her heels.

“It’s healing, but it’s not properly set. She may eventually recover, but I don’t think she will have the use of that arm, or her hand, the way it is, and it will always cause her some pain,” Ayla said, speaking the language they all understood to some extent. She waited for Jondalar to translate.

“Can you do anything?” Jondalar asked.

“I think so. It may be too late, but I would like to try to rebreak the arm where it is healing wrong, and set it right. The problem is that where a broken bone has mended, it is often stronger than the bone itself. It could break wrong. Then she’d have two breaks, and more pain for nothing.”

There was silence after Jondalar’s translation. Finally Roshario spoke.

“If it breaks wrong, it won’t be any worse than it is now, will it?” It was more a statement than a question. “I mean, I won’t have the use of it the way it is now, so another break won’t make it any worse.” Jondalar translated her words, but Ayla was already picking up the sounds and rhythms of the Sharamudoi language and relating it to Mamutoi. The woman’s tone and expression conveyed even more. Ayla understood the essence of Roshario’s statement.

“But you could go through a lot more pain and get nothing for it,” Ayla said, guessing what Roshario’s decision would be but wanting her to fully understand all the implications.

“I have nothing now,” the woman said, not waiting for a translation. “If you are able to set it right, will I be able to use my arm then?”

Ayla waited for Jondalar to restate her words in the language she knew, to be sure the meaning was clear. “You may not have full use, but I think you will at least have some. No one can be certain, though.”

Roshario did not hesitate. “If there is a chance that I might be able to
use my arm again, I want you to do it. I don’t care about pain. Pain is nothing. A Sharamudoi needs two good arms to climb down the trail to the river. What good is a Shamudoi woman if she can’t even get down to the Ramudoi dock?”

Ayla listened to the translation of her words. Then, looking directly at the woman, she said, “Jondalar, tell her I will try to help her, but tell her also that it is not whether someone has two good arms that is most important. I knew a man with only one arm, and one eye, but he led a useful life, and he was loved and greatly respected by all his people. I don’t think Roshario would do less. This much I know. She is not a woman who gives in easily. Whatever the outcome, this woman will continue to lead a useful life. She will find a way, and she will always be loved and respected.”

Roshario stared back at Ayla as she listened to Jondalar say her words. Then she tightened her lips slightly and nodded. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Ayla stood up, already thinking about what she needed to do. “Jondalar, will you get my pack basket, the right-hand one. And tell Dolando I need some slender pieces of wood for splints. And firewood, and a good-size cooking bowl, but something he won’t mind giving up. It won’t be a good idea to use it for cooking again. It will be used to make a strong pain medicine.”

Her thoughts continued racing ahead. I’ll need something that will make her sleep when the arm is rebroken, she was thinking. Iza would use datura. It’s strong, but it would be best for the pain, and it would make her sleep. I have some dried, but fresh would be best … wait … didn’t I see some recently? She closed her eyes trying to remember. Yes! I did!

“Jondalar, while you get my basket, I’m going to get some of that thorn-apple I saw on the way here,” she said, reaching the entry in a few strides. “Wolf, come with me.” She was halfway across the field before Jondalar caught up with her.

Dolando stood at the entrance to the dwelling watching Jondalar and the woman, and the wolf. Though he hadn’t said anything, he had been very much aware of the animal. He noticed that Wolf stayed right beside the woman, matching her stride when she walked. He had observed the subtle hand signals Ayla made when she approached Roshario’s bed, and he saw the wolf drop to his stomach, though his head was up and his ears alert, watching the woman’s every movement. When she left, he was up at her command, eager to follow her again.

He watched until Ayla, and the wolf that she controlled with such absolute assurance, turned the corner around the end of the wall. Then he looked back at the woman on the bed. For the first time since that
horrible moment when Roshario slipped and fell, Dolando dared to feel a glimmer of hope.

   When Ayla returned, carrying a pack basket and the datura plants she had washed in the pool, she found a square wooden cooking box, which she decided to examine more closely later, another one filled with water, a hot fire burning in the fireplace with several smooth, rounded stones heating in it, and some small sections of plank. She nodded her approval to Dolando. She looked through the contents of the pack basket until she found several bowls and her old otter-skin medicine bag.

Using a small bowl, she measured a quantity of water into the cooking box, added several whole datura plants, including the roots, then splashed a few drops of water on the cooking stones. Leaving them in the fire to heat further, she emptied the contents of her medicine bag and selected a few packets. As she was putting the rest back, Jondalar came in.

“The horses are fine, Ayla, enjoying the grass in the field, but I’ve asked everyone to stay away from them for now.” He turned to Dolando. “They can get skittish around strangers, and I don’t want anyone accidentally harmed. Later we can get them used to everyone.” The leader nodded. He didn’t think there was much he could say, one way or another, right now. “Wolf doesn’t look very happy outside, Ayla, and some people seem a little alarmed by him. I really think you should bring him in here.”

“I would rather have him inside with me, but I thought Dolando and Roshario might want him to wait out there.”

“Let me talk to Roshario first. Then I think she can bring the animal in,” Dolando said, not waiting for a translation and speaking a mixture of Sharamudoi and Mamutoi that Ayla had no trouble grasping. Jondalar gave him a surprised look, but Ayla just continued the conversation.

“I need to measure these on her for splints, too,” she said, holding out the small pieces of plank, “and then I want you to scrape these planks until there are no splinters, Dolando.” She picked up a loose piece of rather crumbly stone that was near the fireplace. “And rub them with this sandstone until they are very smooth. Do you have some soft skins I can cut up?”

Dolando smiled, though it was a bit grim. “That’s what we are known for, Ayla. We use the skin of the chamois, and no one makes softer leather than the Shamudoi.”

Jondalar watched them talking to each other with perfect under
standing, even though the language they used was not exactly perfect and shook his head in wonder. Ayla must have known Dolando could understand Mamutoi, and she was already using some Sharamudoi—when had she learned the words for “plank” and “sandstone”?

“I’ll get some after I talk to Roshario,” Dolando said.

They approached the woman on the bed. Dolando and Jondalar explained that Ayla traveled with a wolf as a companion—they didn’t bother to mention the horses just yet—and that she wanted to bring him inside the dwelling.

“She has complete control over the animal,” Dolando said. “He answers to her commands and will not harm anyone.”

Jondalar shot him another look of surprise. Somehow, more had been communicated between Dolando and Ayla than he could account for.

Roshario quickly agreed. Although she was curious, it didn’t seem at all surprising that this woman should be able to control a wolf. It only relieved her fears more. Jondalar had obviously brought a powerful Shamud who knew she needed help, just as their old Shamud had once known, many years before, that Jondalar’s brother, who had been gored by a rhinoceros, needed help. She didn’t understand how Those Who Served the Mother knew these things; they just did, and that was enough for her.

Ayla went to the entry and called Wolf in, then brought him to meet Roshario. “His name is Wolf,” she said.

In some way, when she looked into the eyes of the handsome wild creature, he seemed to sense her anguish and her vulnerability. He lifted one paw to the edge of her bed. Then, putting his ears down, he maneuvered his head forward, without being threatening in any way, and licked her face, whining almost as though he felt her pain. Ayla was suddenly reminded of Rydag, and the close bond that had developed between the sickly child and the growing wolf cub. Had that experience taught him to comprehend human need and suffering?

They were all surprised at the gentle action of the wolf, but Roshario was overwhelmed. She felt that something miraculous had happened, that could only bode well. She reached over with her good arm to touch him. “Thank you, Wolf,” she said.

Ayla laid the pieces of plank bedside Roshario’s arm, then gave them to Dolando, indicating the size she wanted them to be. When Dolando went out, she led Wolf to a corner of the wooden dwelling, then checked the cooking stones again and decided they were ready. She started to take a stone out of the fire using two pieces of wood, but Jondalar appeared with a bent wood tool especially designed with enough
spring to hold the hot cooking stones securely, and he showed her how to use it. As she put several stones into the cooking box to start the datura boiling, she looked at the unusual container a little more closely.

She had never seen anything like it. The square box had been made from a single plank, bent around kerfed grooves that had been cut not quite all the way through for three of the corners; it was fastened together with pegs at the fourth. As it was bent, the square bottom was eased into a groove cut the length of the plank. Designs had been carved around the outside, and the lid with a handle fit over the top.

These people had so many unusual things made out of wood. Ayla thought it would be interesting to see how they were made. Dolando returned then with some yellow-colored skins and gave them to her. “Will this be enough?” he asked.

“But these are too fine,” she said. “We need soft, absorbent skins, but they don’t have to be your best.”

Jondalar and Dolando both smiled. “These are not our best,” Dolando said. “We would never offer these in trade. There are too many imperfections in them. They are for everyday use.”

Ayla knew something about working skins and making leather, and these were supple and smooth with an exquisitely soft feel and texture. She was very impressed and wanted to know more about them, but now was not the time. Using the knife that Jondalar had made for her, with a thin sharp flint blade mounted in an ivory handle made of mammoth tusk, she cut the chamois skin into wide strips.

Then she opened one of her packets and poured into a small bowl a coarse powder of pounded dried spikenard roots, whose leaves rather resembled foxglove, but with yellow dandelionlike flowers instead. She added a bit of hot water from the cooking box. Since she was making a poultice to help the bone fracture mend, a little addition of datura would not hurt, and its numbing quality might help. But she also added pulverized yarrow, for its external painkilling and quick-healing properties. She fished out the stones and added more hot ones to the cooking box, to keep the decoction simmering, smelling it to check for potency.