The Shelters of Stone (24 page)

“Except Marona and her friends,” Ayla said, sitting up and loosening the ties of the soft leather top that was meant to be winter underwear for boys.

He was still disturbed over the way Marona had treated her, and so was she, it seemed. He wished that she hadn’t had to be put through such an ordeal, especially her first day here. He wanted her to be happy with his people. She would soon be one of them. But he was proud of the way she had handled it.

“You were wonderful. The way you put Marona in her place. Everyone thought so,” he said.

“Why did those women want people to laugh at me? They don’t know me, and they didn’t even try to get acquainted.”

“It’s my fault, Ayla,” Jondalar said, stopping in the middle of unlacing the ties around the upper portion of his footwear that was wrapped around the calf of one leg. “Marona had every right to expect me to be there for the Matrimonial that summer. I left without explanations. She must have been terribly hurt. How would you feel if you and everyone you knew expected you to mate someone who didn’t show up?”

“I would be very unhappy, and angry at you, but I hope I wouldn’t try to hurt someone I didn’t know,” Ayla said, loosening the waist ties of her leggings. “When they said they wanted to fix my hair, it made me think of Deegie, but I combed my own hair when I looked in the reflector and saw what they did. I thought you told me the Zelandonii were people who believed in courtesy and hospitality.”

“They do,” he said. “Most of them.”

“But not everyone. Not your former women friends. Maybe you should tell me who else I should watch out for,” Ayla said.

“Ayla, don’t let Marona color your opinion about everyone else. Couldn’t you tell how much most people liked you? Give them a chance.”

“What about the ones who tease orphan boys and turn them into Brouds?”

“Most people are not like that, Ayla,” he said, looking at her with a troubled expression.

She exhaled a long sigh. “No, you’re right. Your mother is not like that, or your sister, or the rest of your kin. Even Brukeval was very nice to me. It’s just that the last time I saw that expression was when Broud told Goov to put a death curse on me. I’m sorry, Jondalar. I’m just tired.” Suddenly she reached for him, buried her face in his neck, and let out a sob. “I wanted to make a good impression on your people, and make new friends, but those women didn’t want to be friends. They just pretended they did.”

“You did make a good impression, Ayla. You couldn’t have made a better one. Marona always did have a temper, but I was sure she would find someone else while I was gone. She is very attractive, everyone always said she was the Beauty of the Bunch, the most desirable woman at every Summer Meeting. I guess that’s why everyone expected us to mate,” he said.

“Because you were the most handsome and she was the most beautiful?” Ayla asked.

“I suppose,” he said, feeling himself flush and glad for the faint light. “I don’t know why she isn’t mated now.”

“She said she was, but it didn’t last.”

“I know. But why didn’t she find someone else? It’s not like she suddenly forgot how to Pleasure a man, or became less attractive and desirable.”

“Maybe she did, Jondalar. If you didn’t want her, maybe other men decided to look again. A woman who is willing to hurt someone she doesn’t even know may be less attractive than you think,” Ayla said as she pulled the leggings off one leg.

Jondalar frowned. “I hope it’s not my fault. It’s bad enough that I left her in such a predicament. I would hate to think I made it impossible for her to find another mate.”

Ayla looked at him quizzically. “Why would you think that?”

“Didn’t you say that maybe if I didn’t want her, other men…”

“Other men might look again. If they didn’t like what they saw, how is that your fault?”

“Well … ah …”

“You can blame yourself for leaving without explaining. I’m sure she was hurt and embarrassed. But she has had five years to find someone else, and you said she is considered very desirable. If she couldn’t find someone else, it’s not your fault, Jondalar,” Ayla said.

Jondalar paused, then nodded. “You’re right,” he said, and continued removing his clothing. “Let’s go to sleep. Things will look better in the morning.”

As she crawled into her warm and comfortable sleeping furs, Ayla had another thought. “If Marona is so good at ‘Pleasuring,’ I wonder why she doesn’t have any children?”

Jondalar chuckled. “I hope you are right about Doni’s Gift making children. It would be like two Gifts …” He stopped as he was lifting his side of the covers. “But you’re right! She doesn’t have any children.”

“Don’t hold the cover up like that! It’s cold!” she said in a loud whisper.

He quickly got into the sleeping roll and snuggled his naked body next to hers. “That could be the reason she never mated,” he continued, “or at least part of it. When a man decides to mate, he usually wants a woman who can bring children to his hearth. A woman can have children, and stay at her mother’s hearth, or even make her own hearth, but the only way a man can have children at his hearth is to mate a woman so she can bring her children to it. If Marona mated and didn’t have any children, it could make her less desirable.”

“That would be a shame,” Ayla said, feeling a sudden stab of empathy. She knew how much she wanted children. She had wanted a baby of her own from the time she watched Iza give birth to Uba, and she was sure that it was Broud’s hatred that had given her one. It was his hatred that had caused
him to force her, and if he hadn’t forced her, no new life would have started growing inside her.

She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but looking closely at her son had made her understand. Brun’s clan had never seen a child like hers, and since her son didn’t look quite like her—like the Others—they thought he was a deformed child of the Clan; but she could see he was a mixture. He had some of her characteristics and some of theirs, and with a sudden insight, she had realized that when a man put his organ in that place where babies came from, somehow it made new life start. It wasn’t what the Clan believed, and it wasn’t what Jondalar’s people or any of the Others believed, but Ayla was convinced it was true.

Lying next to Jondalar, knowing she was carrying his baby inside her, Ayla felt a pang of pity and sorrow for the woman who had lost him and, perhaps, could not have children. Could she really blame Marona for being upset? How would she feel if she lost Jondalar? Tears threatened at the thought, and a flush of warmth at her good fortune washed over her.

It was a nasty trick, though, and it could have turned out far worse than it did. Ayla couldn’t help getting angry, and she hadn’t known what they would do when she decided to face them all down. They all might have turned on her. She might feel sympathy for Marona, but she didn’t have to like her. And then diere was Brukeval. His Clan look had made her feel friendly toward him, but now she was wary.

Jondalar held her until he thought she was asleep, trying to stay awake until he was sure. Then he closed his eyes and slept, too. But Ayla woke up in the middle of the night, feeling a pressure and needing to relieve herself. Wolf silently followed her to the night basket near the entrance. When she got back into bed, he curled up next to her. She felt grateful for the warmth and protection of the wolf on one side and the man on the other, but it was a long time before she fell asleep again.

A
yla slept late. When she sat up and looked around, Jondalar was gone, and Wolf, too. She was alone in the dwelling, but someone had left a full waterbag and a closely woven, watertight basin so she could freshen herself. A carved wooden cup nearby held a liquid. It smelled like mint tea, cold, but she was in no mood to drink anything at the moment.

She got up to use the large basket that was beside the door to relieve herself—she definitely noticed an increased frequency of need. Then she grabbed her amulet and quickly pulled it off to get it out of the way before she used the basin, not to wash herself, but to hold the results of her queasy stomach. Her nausea seemed worse than usual this morning. Laramar’s barma, she thought. Morning-after sickness along with morning sickness. I dunk I’ll forgo the drink from now on. It’s probably not good for me right now anyway, or the baby.

When she had emptied her stomach, she used the mint tea to rinse out her mouth. She noticed that someone had placed the bundle of clean but stained clothes she had originally planned to wear the night before near her sleeping furs. As she put them on, she recalled leaving them just inside the entrance. She did intend to keep the outfit Marona had given her, partly because she was determined to wear the clothing
again on principle, but also because it was comfortable and she really couldn’t see anything wrong with wearing it. Not today, though.

She tied on the sturdy waist thong that she had worn while traveling, adjusted the knife sheath into its comfortably familiar place and arranged the rest of the dangling implements and pouches, and slipped her amulet bag back over her head. She picked up the smelly basin and carried it out with her, but she left it near the entrance, not quite sure where to dispose of its contents, and went to look for someone to ask. A woman with a child, who was approaching the dwelling, greeted her. From somewhere in the depths of her memory, Ayla came up with a name.

“Pleasant day to you … Ramara. Is this your son?”

“Yes. Robenan wants to play with Jaradal, and I was looking for Proleva. She wasn’t at home, and I wondered if they were here.”

“No one is in the dwelling. When I got up, everyone was gone. I don’t know where they are. I’m feeling very lazy this morning. I slept rather late,” Ayla said.

“Most people did,” Ramara said. “Not many people felt like getting up early after the celebration last night. Laramar makes a potent drink. It’s what he’s known for—the only thing he’s known for.”

Ayla detected a tone of disdain in the woman’s comments. It made her feel a little hesitation about asking Ramara where there was an appropriate place to dispose of her morning mess, but there was no one else nearby, and she didn’t want to leave it.

“Ramara … I wonder if I could ask you, where can I … get rid of some … waste?”

The woman looked puzzled for a moment, then glanced in the direction that Ayla had inadvertently looked, and smiled. “You want the toilet trenches, I think. See over there, toward the eastern edge of the terrace, not out front where the signal fires are lit, but toward the back. There’s a path.”

“Yes, I see it,” Ayla said.

“It goes uphill,” Ramara continued. “Follow that a little
way and you will come to a split. The left trail is steeper. It continues up and will take you to the top of this cliff. But take the right path. It curves up around the side until you can see Wood River below. A little beyond is a level open field with several trenches—you’ll smell it before you get there,” Ramara said. “It has been a while since we dusted it, and you can tell.”

Ayla shook her head. “Dusted it?”

“Sprinkled it with cooked cliff dust. We do it all the time, but I don’t suppose all people do,” Ramara said, bending over and picking up Robenan, who was getting restless.

“How do you cook cliff dust? And why?” Ayla asked.

“How you do it is to start with cliff rock, pound it into dust, and heat it in a hot fire—we use the signal fire hearth—then strew it in the trenches. Why is because it takes away a lot of the smell, or covers it up. But when you pass water or add liquid, the dust tends to get hard again, and when the trenches fill up with waste and hardened rock dust, you have to dig new ones, which is a lot of work. So we don’t like to dust them too often. But they need it now. We have a big Cave, and the trenches get used a lot. Just follow the path. You shouldn’t have any trouble locating them.”

“I’m sure I’ll find them. Thank you, Ramara,” Ayla said as the woman left.

She started to pick up the bowl, had another thought, and ducked inside to get the waterbag so she could rinse out the woven basin. Then she picked up the smelly thing and started for the path. Gathering and storing food for such a large Cave of people is a lot of work, she thought as she headed along the trail, but so is taking care of the waste. Brun’s clan just went outside, the women in one place, the men in another, and they changed their places every so often. Ayla thought about the process Ramara had explained and was intrigued.

The heating, or calcining, of limestone to get quicklime and using it to decrease the smell of waste products was not a practice she was familiar with, but for people who lived in limestone cliffs and used fire continuously, quicklime was a
natural by-product. After cleaning a hearth of ashes, which would invariably include the accidentally accumulated lime, and dumping them on a pile of other waste materials, it wouldn’t take long for the deodorizing effect to be noticed.

With so many people living in one place, more or less permanently except during the summer when various groups of them were gone for periods of time, there were many tasks that required the effort and cooperation of the entire community, such as digging toilet trenches or, as she had just learned, roasting the limestone cliff rocks to make quicklime.