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Brun leaned back and studied the girl—tall, flat-faced, blue-eyed. The last thing he expected was her gratitude. He had cursed her. But she didn’t say she was grateful for the death curse, he thought, she said she was grateful for her life. Did she understand he had no choice? Did she understand he had given her the only chance he could? Did this strange girl understand that more than his hunters, more even than Mog-ur? Yes, he decided, she does understand. For an instant, Brun had a feeling toward Ayla he’d never before had toward a woman. At that moment, he wished she were a man. He didn’t have to think any more about what he wanted to ask Mog-ur. He knew.
“I don’t know what they’re planning, I don’t think the rest of the hunters even know,” Ebra was saying. “All I know is I’ve never seen Brun so nervous.”
The women were sitting together preparing food for a feast. They didn’t know the reason for the feast—Brun just told them to prepare a feast that night—and they plied Iza and Ebra with questions trying to get some hint.
“Mog-ur has been spending all day and half the night in the place of the spirits. It must be a ceremony. While Ayla was gone, he wouldn’t go near it; now he hardly ever comes out,” Iza commented. “When he does, he’s so absentminded he forgets to eat. Sometimes he forgets to eat while he’s eating.”
“But if they’re having a ceremony, why did Brun work half a day clearing out a space in back of the cave?” Ebra motioned. “When I offered to do it, he chased me away. They have their place for ceremonies; why would he work like a woman clearing out the back?”
“What else could it be?” Iza asked. “Seems like every time I look, Brun and Mog-ur have their heads together. And if they notice me, they stop talking and have guilty looks on their faces. What else could those two be planning? And why are we having a feast tonight? Mog-ur’s been back in that space Brun cleared out all day. Sometimes he goes into the place of the spirits, but he comes right back out again. It looks like he’s carrying something, but it’s so dark back there I can’t tell.”
Ayla was just enjoying the companionship. After five days, it was still hard for her to believe she was back in the cave of the clan sitting with the women preparing food just as though she had never been away. It wasn’t exactly the same. The women were not entirely comfortable around her. They thought she had been dead; her return to life was nothing less than miraculous. They didn’t know what to say to someone who had gone to the world of the spirits and returned. Ayla didn’t mind, she was just glad to be back. She watched Brac toddling up to his mother to nurse.
“How’s Brac’s arm, Oga?” she asked the young mother sitting beside her.
“See for yourself, Ayla.” She opened his wrap and showed Ayla his arm and shoulder. “Iza took the cast off the day before you came back. His arm is just fine, except a little thinner than the other one. Iza says once he starts using it again, it will get stronger.”
Ayla looked at the healed wounds and felt the bone gently while the sober, big-eyed boy stared at her. The women had been careful to steer away from subjects that were remotely connected with Ayla’s curse. Often someone would begin a conversation, then drop her hands in mid-sentence seeing where it was leading. It tended to stifle the warm communication that was usual when the women gathered together to work.
“The scars are still red, but they should fade in time,” Ayla said, then looked at the child. “Are you strong, Brac?” He nodded. “Show me how strong. Can you pull my arm down?” She held out her forearm. “No, not with that hand, the other one,” she corrected when he reached up with the uninjured arm. Brac changed hands and pulled against her arm. Ayla resisted just enough to feel the strength of his pull, then let her arm be lowered. “You are a strong boy, Brac. Someday you will be a brave hunter, just like Broud.”
She held out her arms to see if he would come to her. At first he turned away, then changed his mind and allowed Ayla to pick him up. She held him up in the air, then cuddled him in her lap. “Brac is a big boy. So heavy, so sturdy.” He stayed there comfortably for a few moments, but when he discovered she had nothing to feed him with, he squirmed to get back to his mother, reached for her breast, and began to nurse, staring at Ayla with big, round eyes.
“You’re so lucky, Oga. He’s a wonderful baby.”
“I wouldn’t be so lucky if it wasn’t for you, Ayla.” Oga had finally broached the subject they had painstakingly avoided. “I never told you how grateful I am. First I was too worried about him, and I didn’t know what to say. You didn’t seem to want to talk much, either, and then you were gone. I still don’t know what to say. I never expected to see you again; it’s hard to believe you’re back. It was wrong for you to touch a weapon, and I can’t understand why you wanted to hunt, but I’m glad you did. I can’t tell you how much. I felt so awful when you were … when you had to go, but I’m happy you’re back.”
“I am too,” Ebra added. The other women nodded in agreement.
Ayla was overwhelmed by their unconditional acceptance of her and struggled to control tears that wanted to flow much too easily. She was afraid the women would be uncomfortable if her eyes watered.
“I’m glad to be back,” she motioned, and the tears escaped her control. Iza now knew her eyes watered when she felt strongly about something, not because she was sick. The women, too, had grown accustomed to that peculiarity of hers and had come to know the meaning of her tears. They only nodded with understanding.
“How was it, Ayla?” Oga asked, her eyes full of troubled compassion. Ayla thought for a moment.
“Lonely,” she answered. “Very lonely. I missed everyone so much.” The women’s eyes held such pity, Ayla had to say something to change the mood. “I even missed Broud,” she added.
“Hhmmf,” Aga said. “That was pretty lonely.” Then she glanced at Oga, a little embarrassed.
“I know he can be difficult,” Oga admitted. “But Broud is my mate, and he’s not so bad to me.”
“No, don’t apologize for him, Oga,” Ayla said gently. “Everyone knows Broud cares for you. You should be proud to be his mate. He’s going to be leader, and he’s a brave hunter, he was even the first to wound the mammoth. You can’t help it if he doesn’t like me. Some of it is my fault; I haven’t always behaved as I should to him. I don’t know how it started and I don’t know how to end it; I would if I could, but that’s not anything you should worry about.”
“He always did have a temper,” Ebra commented. “He’s not like Brun. I knew Mog-ur was right when he said Broud’s totem was the Woolly Rhinoceros. I think in some ways you helped him to control his temper, Ayla. It will make him a better leader.”
“I don’t know,” Ayla shook her head. “If I wasn’t around, I don’t think he’d lose it so much. I think I bring out the worst in him.”
A strained silence followed. Women did not ordinarily discuss the real failings of their men so openly, but the discussion had cleared the air of tension around the girl. Iza wisely decided it was time to drop the subject.
“Does anyone know where the yams are?” she motioned.
“I think they were in the place Brun cleared out,” Ebra answered. “We may not find them until next summer.”
Broud noticed Ayla sitting with the women and frowned when he saw her examine Brac and hold him in her lap. It made him remember it was she who had saved the boy’s life, and that reminded him that she had been witness to his humiliation. Broud had been as overwhelmed by her return as the rest of them. The first day he viewed her with awe, and some apprehension. But the change that Creb had interpreted as growing maturity, and Brun had seen as her sense of her own luck, Broud took as flagrant insolence. During her trial by snow, Ayla had gained not only the confidence that she could survive, but a serene acceptance of life’s noisome trivialities. After her ordeal, with its life-and-death struggles, nothing as insignificant as a reprimand, whose effectiveness had long since worn thin from overuse, could ruffle her placid composure.
Ayla had missed B
roud. In her utter isolation, even his harassment would have been preferable to the stark emptiness of total invisibility to people who loved her. The first few days, she positively relished his close, if abusive, attention. He not only saw her, he saw every move she made.
By the third day of her return, old patterns reestablished themselves but with a difference. Ayla didn’t have to fight herself to bend to his will, her response didn’t even have the undercurrent of subtle condescension. She was genuinely unmoved. He could do nothing to disturb her. He could cuff and curse and work himself up to the edge of explosive violence. It had absolutely no effect. She patiently acquiesced to his most unreasonable demands. Though it was unintentional, Ayla was giving Broud a small measure of the ostracism she had been dealt in such abundance. She excluded him from her responses. His most towering rage, controlled only by supreme expenditures of effort, was met with no more reaction than the bite of a flea; less, for a fleabite is at least scratched. It was the worst thing she could do, she infuriated him.
Broud craved attention, he thrived on it. For him, it was a necessity. Nothing drove him to greater heights of frustration than someone who failed to react to him. It mattered little, in the depths of his being, whether the reaction was positive or negative, but there had to be one. He was sure her indifference was because she had seen him belittled, witnessed his disgrace, had no respect for his authority. He was partly right. She knew the outer limits of his control over her, had tested the mettle of his inner strength, and found them both insufficient to gain her respect. But it wasn’t only that she didn’t respect him and didn’t respond to him, she usurped the attention he wanted.
By her very appearance she drew attention to herself, and everything about her drew attention: her powerful totem; sharing the hearth, and the love, of the formidable magician; training to become a medicine woman; saving Ona’s life; her skill with the sling; killing the hyena that saved Brac’s life; and now, returning from the world of the spirits. Every time Broud had exhibited great courage and rightfully deserved the admiration, respect, and attention of the clan, she upstaged him.
Broud glowered at the girl from a distance. Why did she have to come back? Everybody is talking about her; they’re always talking about her. When I killed the bison and became a man, everybody talked about her stupid totem. Did she stand up to a charging mammoth? Did she almost get trampled to cut the tendons? No. All she did was throw a couple of stones with a sling, and all they could think about was her. Brun and his meetings, all about her. And then he couldn’t do it right, and now she’s back again and they’re all talking about her. Why does she always have to spoil everything?
“Creb, why are you so fidgety? I can’t ever remember seeing you so nervous. You act like a young man about to take his first mate. Do you want me to make a cup of tea to settle your nerves?” Iza asked, after the magician jumped up for the third time, started to leave the hearth, changed his mind, and went back and sat down again.
