The Shelters of Stone (30 page)

Marona came to his mind for a moment. She had liked to play those games, not as much with him, but with others. And suddenly he was grateful that he had gone off with his brother on an unknown adventure instead of staying and mating with Marona. If only Thonolan had lived…

But Ayla was alive, though he had come close to losing her more than once. Jondalar felt her mouth open to his searching tongue, felt the warmth of her breath. He kissed her neck, and nibbled her earlobe, and ran his tongue down to her throat in a warm caress.

She held herself still, resisting the tickling sensation and letting it become internal spasms of expectation. He kissed the hollow of her throat and detoured to one side toward an erect nipple, circling it, nibbling it. Her anticipation was so intense, she almost felt a sense of relief when he finally took it in his mouth and suckled. She felt the jolt of excitement in the depths of her being, and at the place of her Pleasures.

He was ready, he was so ready, but he felt himself fill even more when he heard her soft moan as he suckled and gently bit first one nipple and then the other. The urge suddenly came upon him so strongly, he wanted her that instant, but he wanted her to be as ready as he was. He knew how to bring her there.

She could feel his eager desire, and it fired her own. She would have been happy to open herself to him at that moment, but when he pushed down the top cover of their sleeping roll and moved lower, she held her breath, knowing what was coming and wanting it.

His tongue circled her navel for only a moment; he didn’t want to wait, and neither did she. As she kicked off the top cover, she felt a moment’s hesitation at the thought of the others in their sleeping places nearby. Ayla wasn’t used to being in a dwelling with other people and felt a little constrained. Jondalar seemed to have no such compunctions.

The unease slipped from her mind as she felt him kiss her thigh, press her legs apart and kiss the other, and then kiss the soft folds of her womanhood. He savored her familiar taste, licked slowly, and then found her small, hard nodule.

Her moan was louder. She felt flashes of Pleasure like lightning blaze through her as he sucked and massaged her with his tongue. She didn’t know she was so ready. It came on her quicker than she expected. Almost without warning, she
was there, feeling peaks of Pleasure and a overwhelming desire for him, for his manhood.

She reached for him, pulled him up to her, and helped him to enter. He penetrated deeply. With the first stroke, he struggled to hold back, to wait a little, but she was ready, urging him, and he gave himself up to it. With joyous abandon, he plunged, fully, once more, and then again, and then he was there, as she was, feeling the waves of Pleasure mount up and spill over, again and again and again.

Jondalar rested on top of her, a moment she had always savored, but then he remembered that she was pregnant and he worried that his weight was too much. She felt an instant of disappointment when he moved away so soon.

As he rolled off to the side, he wondered again if she could be right. Was this how that baby had started inside her? Was it his baby, too, as Ayla always insisted? Had the Mother given her children not only this wondrous Gift of Pleasure, but was it Her way of Blessing a woman with new life? Could that be why men were created, to start the new life inside a woman? He wanted Ayla to be right, he wanted it to be true, but how would he ever know?

After a while, Ayla got up. From a travel pack she took a small wooden bowl and poured some water into it from the waterbag. Wolf had retreated to his chosen corner near the entrance and greeted her with his usual tentative approach after their Pleasures. She smiled at him and gave him the signal that he had done well; then, standing over the night basket, she cleaned herself as Iza had taught her when she first became a woman. Iza, I know you doubted that I would have need of the training, she thought, but you were right to teach me the cleansing rituals then.

Jondalar was half-asleep when she went back to bed. He’d been too tired to get up, but she’d air out and brush off their sleeping roll to clean it in the morning. Now that they were going to stay in one place for a while, she would even have time to wash their furs, she thought. Nezzie had shown her how to do it, but it took time and care.

Ayla rolled over on her side and Jondalar cuddled up be
hind her, resting on his side. They were nestled together like two spoons on edge, and he fell asleep holding her, but she was unable to nod off, although she was comfortable and satisfied. She had slept much later than usual that morning, and as she lay awake, she began thinking about the Clan and the Others again. Recollections of her life with them and her stays with various groups of Others kept coming to her mind, and she found herself making comparisons.

The same kinds of materials were at hand for both peoples, but the uses to which they had been put were not quite the same. Both hunted animals, both gathered foods that grew, and both used hides, bones, vegetal materials, and stones for clothing, shelter, implements, and weapons, but there were differences.

Perhaps the most noticeable was that while Jondalar’s people decorated their environment with paintings and carvings of animals and designs, the people of the Clan did not. Though she didn’t quite know how to explain it, even to herself, she did perceive that people of the Clan expressed the beginnings of such decoration. Red ochre in a burial, for example, that imparted color to the body. Their interest in unusual objects that they collected to put in their amulets. Totem scars and color markings made on the body for special purposes. But the primeval people of the Clan created no legacy of art.

Only Ayla’s kind of people did; only people like the Mamutoi and the Zelandonii, and the rest of the Others they had met on their Journey. She wondered if the unknown people to whom she had been born decorated the material objects in their world, and she believed they did. It was the ones who came later, the ones who shared that cold ancient world with the Clan for a time, the ones they called the Others, who were the first to see an animal in a moving, living, breathing form and reproduce it as a drawing or a carving. It was a profound distinction.

The creation of art, the delineation of animals or purposeful markings, was an expression of the ability to make abstractions—the ability to take the essence of a thing and make
of it a symbol that stands for the thing itself. The symbol for a thing has another form as well: a sound, a word. A brain that could think in terms of art was a brain capable of developing to its fullest potential another abstraction of great significance: language. And the same brain that was capable of creating a synthesis of the abstraction of art and the abstraction of language would someday form a synergism of both symbols, in effect, a memory of the words: writing.

Unlike the day before, Ayla opened her eyes very early the next morning. No red coals glowed in the fireplace and all the lamps were out, but she could discern the contours of the limestone shelf high overhead, above the dark wall panels of Marthona’s dwelling, in the faint reflection of first light, the initial lightening of the sky that heralded the coming of the sun. No one else was stirring when she quietly slipped out of the furs and made her way in the not quite pitch-dark to use the night basket. Wolf lifted his head the moment she got up, whined a greeting of happiness, and followed her.

She felt a little nauseated, but not quite enough to vomit, and had an urge for something solid to calm her unsettled stomach. She went to the cooking room and started a small fire, then took a few bites of the bison meat that was left on the pelvic bone serving platter from the night before, and a few soggy vegetables from the bottom of the cooking-storage basket. She wasn’t sure if she felt better or not, but she decided to see if she could make a stomach-settling tea for herself. She didn’t know who had made the tea for her the day before, but wondered if it was Jondalar and thought she’d make one of his favorite morning teas as well.

She got her medicine bag from her traveling pack. Now that we’re finally here, I can replenish my supply of herbs and medicines, she thought as she looked at each package and thought about its uses. Sweet rush can help an upset stomach, but no, Iza told me it could cause a miscarriage, and I don’t want to do that. While she was considering the possible side effects, her mind supplied another bit from her extensive store of medicinal knowledge. Black birch bark can help prevent
a miscarriage, but I don’t have any. Well, I don’t think I’m in danger of losing this one.

I had a much harder time with Dure. Ayla remembered when Iza went out to get fresh snakeroot so she wouldn’t lose him. Iza was already sick by then, and she got cold and wet and it made her worse. Í don’t think she ever recovered completely, Ayla thought. I miss you, Iza. I wish you were nearby so I could tell you that I did find a man to mate. I wish you had lived to meet him. I think you would have approved.

Basil, of course! That can help prevent miscarriage, and it makes a nice drink. She put that package aside. Mint would be good. It settles nausea and helps stomachaches and tastes good. Jondalar likes it, too. She kept that pouch out, too. And hops, that’s good for headaches and cramps, relaxes, she thought as she put it beside the mint. Not too much, though, hops can make you drowsy.

Milk thistle seeds might be good for me right now, but they need to be steeped a long time, Ayla thought as she continued going through the limited supply of medicinal herbs she had with her. Woodruff, yes, it smells so good. And it calms the stomach, but it’s not too strong. And chamomile, I could use that instead of mint, it’s good for upset stomachs, too. It might taste better with the other herbs, but mint for Jondalar. Marjoram could be good, but no, Iza always used the fresh tops for stomach problems, not dried.

What else was it that Iza liked to use fresh? Raspberry leaf. Of course! That’s what I need. It’s especially good for morning sickness. I don’t have any leaves, but there were raspberries at the feast the other night, so they must grow nearby. It’s the right season, too. It’s best to pick the leaf when the berries are ripe. I should make sure I get enough for when I go into labor. Iza always used it when a woman was delivering. She told me it relaxed the mother’s womb and helped the baby come out more easily.

I still have some linden flowers left; that’s especially good for a nervous stomach, and the leaves are sweet and make a nice-tasting tea. The Sharamudoi had a wonderful big old linden tree nearby. I wonder if any linden trees grow around
here? She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and looked up to see Marthona coming out of her sleeping area. Wolf also looked up, then stood up expectantly.

“You’re up early this morning, Ayla,” she said in a soft voice, so as not to disturb those who were still sleeping. She reached down to pat the wolf to acknowledge him.

“I usually am … if I don’t stay up late the night before, feasting and drinking strong beverages,” Ayla replied in an equally quiet tone and with a wry smile.

“Yes, Laramar makes a potent drink, but people seem to like it,” Marthona said. “I see you have a fire going already. I usually try to bank the fire at night so I have coals to start one in the morning, but with those firestones you showed us, I could get lazy. What are you making?”

“A morning tea,” Ayla said. “I like to make a wake-up tea for Jondalar in the morning, too. Can I make some for you?”

“When the water is hot, I have a tea mixture that Zelandoni wants me to take in the morning,” Marthona said, starting to clean up the remains of the late supper from the night before. “Jondalar told me about your habit of making him morning tea. He was determined to make a tea for you to drink when you woke up yesterday. He said you always had a hot cup ready for him, and for once, he wanted you to wake up to tea. I suggested that he make mint, since it tastes good cold, and it seemed you might sleep late.”

“I wondered if it was Jondalar who made that. But were you the one who left the basin and water?” Ayla asked. Marthona smiled and nodded.

Ayla reached for the bentwood tongs used to pick up cooking rocks, took a hot stone from the fire, and dropped it into the tightly woven tea basket full of water. It steamed and hissed and sent up a few preliminary bubbles. She added another, and after a while, she removed the stones and added more. When the water was boiling, both women infused their individual tea mixtures. Though the low table had been moved closer to the entry to make room for the extra sleeping furs, there was ample room for the two women to sit companionably around it on cushions, sipping their hot beverages.

“I’ve been wanting a chance to talk to you, Ayla,” Marthona murmured softly. “I often wondered if Jondalar would ever find a woman he could love.” She almost said “again,” but caught herself. “He always had many friends, was well-liked, but he kept his real feelings to himself and few people knew him well. Thonolan was closer to him than anyone. I always thought he would mate one day, but I didn’t know if he would ever allow himself to fall in love. I believe he has.” She smiled at Ayla.

“It’s true that he often keeps his feelings to himself. I almost mated another man before I realized that. Even though I loved Jondalar, I thought he had stopped loving me,” Ayla said.

“I don’t think there is any doubt. It’s quite obvious that he loves you, and I’m happy he found you.” Marthona took a sip of tea. “I was proud of you the other day, Ayla. It took courage to face people the way you did after Marona’s trick. … You know she and Jondalar had talked of mating, don’t you?”

“Yes, he told me.”

“Though I would not have objected, of course, I will admit that I’m glad he didn’t choose her. She is an attractive woman and everyone always thought she was perfect for him, but I didn’t,” Marthona said.

Ayla rather hoped Marthona would tell her why. The woman stopped and took a drink of her tea.

“I would like to give you something a little more appropriate to wear than the ‘gift’ Marona gave you,” the older woman said when she finished her drink and put the cup down.