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Uba stayed far behind her, not wanting to let Ayla see her. She didn’t know Ayla could hardly see beyond her next step. The young mother’s head was swimming in a red haze when she finally reached the mountain pasture. A little more, she told herself, just a little more. She plodded across the field and hardly had the strength to push the branches aside as she stumbled into the small cave that had been her sanctuary so many times before. She collapsed on the deerskin fur, uncaring that her fur wrap was wet, and didn’t remember putting her crying son to her breast before she finally allowed herself to succumb to her exhaustion.
It was fortunate that Uba reached the meadow just as Ayla disappeared into the cave, or she would have thought the woman had vanished into thin air. The thick, old hazelnut bushes with their confusion of branches completely camouflaged the hole in the mountain wall even without summer foliage. Uba ran back to the cave. She had been gone longer than she expected; it had taken Ayla much longer than the girl thought to reach the small cave. She was afraid Iza would be worried and scold her. But Iza ignored Uba’s late return. She had seen her daughter slip out after Ayla and guessed her intention, but she didn’t want to know for sure.
20
“Shouldn’t she be back, Iza?” Creb asked. He had been anxiously pacing in and out of the cave all afternoon. Iza nodded nervously, not looking up from the cold, cooked venison haunch she was cutting into chunks.
“Ouch!” she cried suddenly as the sharp blade she was using opened a gash in her finger. Creb looked up, surprised as much by the fact that she cut herself as by her spontaneous outburst. Iza was so skilled with the stone knife, he couldn’t remember the last time she did it. Poor Iza, Creb thought. I’ve been so worried myself, I forgot how she must feel, he berated himself. No wonder she’s nervous, she’s worried, too.
“I talked to Brun a while ago, Iza,” Creb motioned. “He’s reluctant to look for her yet. No one should know where a woman disposes … where she is at a time like this. You know how unlucky it would be for a man to see her. But she’s so weak, she could be out there lying in the rain someplace. You could go look for her, Iza, you’re a medicine woman. She can’t have gone too far. Don’t worry about cooking, I can wait. Why don’t you go ahead, it’ll be dark soon.”
“I can’t,” Iza gestured and put her cut finger back in her mouth.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Creb was puzzled.
“I can’t find her.”
“How do you know you can’t find her if you don’t look?” The old magician was thoroughly confused. Why doesn’t Iza want to look for her? Come to think of it, why hasn’t she been out looking long before this? I would have thought she’d be scouring the woods, turning over stones to find Ayla by now. She’s so nervous, something is wrong.
“Iza, why don’t you want to look for Ayla?” he asked.
“It wouldn’t help, I couldn’t find her.”
“Why?” he pressed.
The woman’s eyes were filled with fearful anxiety. “She’s hiding,” Iza confessed.
“Hiding! What is she hiding from?”
“Everyone. Brun, you, me, the whole clan,” she replied.
Creb was completely at a loss, and Iza’s enigmatic answers only made it worse. “Iza, you’d better explain. Why is Ayla hiding from the clan, or me, or you? Especially you. She needs you now.”
“She wants to keep the baby, Creb,” Iza gestured, then rushed on, begging him with her eyes to understand. “I told her it was the mother’s duty to dispose of a deformed baby, but she refused. You know how much she wanted it. She said she was going to take him and hide him until his naming day so Brun would have to accept him.” Creb stared hard at the woman, quickly grasping the full implications of Ayla’s willfulness.
“Yes, Brun will be forced to accept her son, Iza, and then he’ll curse her for deliberate disobedience, this time forever. Don’t you know if a woman forces a man against his will, he loses face? Brun can’t afford that, the men wouldn’t respect him anymore. Even if he curses her he’ll lose face, and the Clan Gathering is this summer. Do you think he can face the other clans now? The whole clan will lose face because of Ayla,” the magician gestured angrily. “What ever made her think of such a thing?”
“It was one of Aba’s stories, about the mother who put her deformed baby up in a tree,” Iza answered. The distraught woman was beside herself. Why hadn’t she thought about it more?
“Old women’s tales!” Creb motioned with disgust. “Aba should know better than to fill a young woman’s head with such nonsense.”
“It wasn’t only Aba, Creb. It was you, too.”
“Me! When did I ever tell her such stories?”
“You didn’t have to tell her any stories. You were born deformed, but you were allowed to live. Now you’re Mog-ur.”
Iza’s statement jolted the lopsided, one-armed magician. He knew the series of fortuitous events that led to his acceptance. Only luck had preserved the highest holy man of the Clan. His mother’s mother once told him it was nothing short of a miracle. Was Ayla trying to make a miracle happen for her son because of him? It would never work. She’d never force Brun into accepting her son and live. It had to be his wish, his decision, entirely his.
“And you, Iza. Didn’t you tell her it was wrong?”
“I begged her not to go. I told her I’d get rid of the baby if she couldn’t. But she wouldn’t let me near him after that. Oh, Creb, she suffered so much to have him.”
“So you let her go, hoping her plan would w
ork. Why didn’t you tell me, or Brun?”
Iza just shook her head. Creb is right, I should have told him. Now Ayla will die, too, not just her baby, she thought.
“Where did she go, Iza?” Creb’s eye had turned to stone.
“I don’t know. She said something about a small cave,” the woman replied with sinking heart. The magician turned abruptly and limped to the hearth of the leader.
The baby’s cries finally woke Ayla from her exhausted sleep. It was dark and the little cave was damp and chilly without a fire. She went to the back to relieve herself and winced as the warm, ammoniacal fluid stung her raw, torn flesh. She fumbled in the dark through her collecting basket for a clean strap and a fresh wrap for the wet and soiled infant, drank some water; then wrapping her fur around them, she lay back down to nurse her son. The next time she woke up, the wall of the cave was dappled with sunlight streaming through the tangled hazelnut branches that hid the entrance. She ate her food cold while the baby suckled.
The food and rest revived her, and she sat up holding her baby, musing dreamily. I’ll need to get some wood, she thought, and my food won’t last too long, I should get some more. Alfalfa should be sprouting; it’ll strengthen my blood, too. New clover and vetch shoots must be ready, and bulbs. The sap is up, the inner bark will be sweet now, especially maple. No, maple doesn’t grow this high, but there’s birch, and fir. Let’s see, new burdock and coltsfoot and young dandelion leaves, and fern, most of it will still be curled. I remembered my sling—there’s lots of ground squirrels around here, and beaver, and rabbits.
Ayla daydreamed about the pleasures of the warming season, but when she stood up she felt a gush of blood and a wave of dizziness. Her legs were caked with dried blood that stained her foot coverings and her wraps, jolting her into a more realistic awareness of her desperate situation.
