Ayla woke with a start, then lay still and listened. She heard a loud wail, again. Someone seemed to be in great pain. Concerned, she pushed the drape aside and looked out. Crozie was standing in the passageway near the sixth hearth with her arms outspread in an attitude of pleading despair calculated to draw sympathy.
“He would stab my breast! He would kill me! He would turn my own daughter against me!” Crozie shrieked as though she were dying, clutching her hands to her breast. Several people stopped to watch. “I give him my own flesh. Out of my own body …”
“Give! You didn’t give me a thing!” Frebec yelled. “I paid your Bride Price for Fralie.”
“It was trivial! I could have gotten much more for her, “Crozie snapped, her lament no more sincere than her scream of pain had been. “She came to you with two children. Proof of the Mother’s favor. You lowered her value with your pittance. And the value of her children. And look at her! Already blessed again. I gave her to you out of kindness, out of the goodness of my heart.…”
“And because no one else would take Crozie, even with her twice-blessed daughter,” a nearby voice added.
Ayla turned to see who had spoken. The young woman who had worn the beautiful red tunic the day before was smiling at her.
“If you had any plans to sleep late, you can forget them,” Deegie said. “They’re at it early today.”
“No. I get up,” Ayla said. She looked around. The bed was empty, and except for the two women, no one was around. “Jondalar up.” She found her clothes and began to dress. “I wake up, think woman hurt.”
“No one is hurt. At least not that anyone can see. But I feel sorry for Fralie,” Deegie said. “It’s hard being caught in the middle like that.”
Ayla shook her head. “Why they shout?”
“I don’t know why they fight all the time. I suppose they both want Fralie’s favor. Crozie is getting old and doesn’t want Frebec to undermine her influence, but Frebec is stubborn. He didn’t have much before and doesn’t want to lose his new position. Fralie did bring him a lot of status, even with her low Bride Price.” The visitor was obviously interested and Deegie sat down on a platform bed while Ayla dressed, warming to her subject.
“I don’t think she’d put him aside, though. I think she cares for him, for all that he can be so nasty sometimes. It wasn’t so easy to find another man—one willing to take her mother. Everyone saw how it was the first time, no one else wanted to put up with Crozie. That old woman can scream all she wants about giving her daughter away. She’s the one who brought down Fralie’s value. I’d hate to be pulled both ways like that. But I’m lucky. Even if I were going to an established Camp instead of starting a new one with my brother, Tulie would be welcome.”
“Your mother go with you?” Ayla said, puzzled. She understood a woman moving to her mate’s clan, but taking her mother along was new to her.
“I wish she would, but I don’t think she will. I think she’d rather stay here. I don’t blame her. It’s better to be headwoman of your own Camp than the mother of one at another. I will miss her, though.”
Ayla listened, fascinated. She didn’t understand half of what Deegie said, and wasn’t sure if she believed she understood the other half.
“It is sad to leave mother, and people,” Ayla said. “But you have mate soon?”
“Oh, yes. Next summer. At the Summer Meeting. Mother finally got everything settled. She set such a high Bride Price I was afraid they’d never meet it, but they agreed. It’s so hard waiting, though. If only Branag didn’t have to leave now. But they’re expecting him. He promised he’d go back right away.…”
The two young women walked toward the entrance of the longhouse together, companionably, Deegie chatting and Ayla avidly listening.
It was cooler in the entrance foyer, but it wasn’t until she felt the blast of cold air when the drape at the front arch was pulled back that Ayla realized how much the temperature had dropped. The frigid wind whipped her hair back and tugged at the heavy mammoth hide entrance cover, billowing it out with a sudden gust. A light dusting of snow had fallen during the night. A sharp crosscurrent picked up the fine flakes, swirled them into pockets and hollows, then scooped out the wind-blasted crystals and flung them across the open space. Ayla’s face stung with a peppering of tiny hard pellets of ice.
Yet it had been warm inside, much warmer than a cave. She had put on her fur parka only to come out; she wouldn’t have needed extra clothing if she had stayed in. She heard Whinney neigh. The horse and the colt, still tied to his lead, were as far back as they could get from the people and their activities. Ayla started toward them, then turned back to smile at Deegie. The young woman smiled back, and went to find Branag.
The mare seemed relieved when Ayla neared, nickering and tossing her head in greeting. The woman removed Racer’s bridle, then walked with them down toward the river and around the bend. Whinney and Racer relaxed once the Camp was out of sight, and after some mutual affection, settled down to graze on the brittle dry grass.
Before starting back up Ayla stopped beside a bush. She untied the waist thong of her legged garment, but still was not sure what to do so the leggings wouldn’t get wet when she passed water. She’d had the same problem ever since she started wearing the clothes. She had made the outfit for herself during the summer, patterning it after the one she had made for Jondalar, which was copied from the clothing the lion had ripped. But she hadn’t worn it until they started on their trip of exploration. Jondalar had been so pleased to see her wearing clothes like his, rather than the comfortable leather wrap usually worn by women of the Clan, she decided to leave it behind. But she hadn’t discovered how to manage this basic necessity easily and she didn’t want to ask him. He was a man. How would he know what a woman needed to do?
She removed the close-fitting trousers, which required that she also remove her footwear—high-topped moccasins that wrapped around the lower pant legs—then spread her legs and bent over in her usual manner. Balancing on one foot to put the lower garment back on, she noticed the smoothly rolling river and changed her mind. Instead, she pulled her parka and tunic up over her head, took off her amulet from around her neck, and walked down the bank toward the water. The cleansing ritual should be completed, and she always did enjoy a morning swim.
She had planned to swish out her mouth, and rinse off her face and hands in the river. She didn’t know what means these people used to clean themselves. When it was necessary, if the woodpile was buried under ice and fuel was scarce, or if the wind was blowing hard through the cave, or if water was frozen so solid it was hard to break off enough even for drinking, she could do without washing, but she preferred to be clean. And in the back of her mind she was still thinking of the ritual, the completion of a purification ceremony after her first night in the cave—or the earthlodge—of the Others.
She looked out at the water. The current moved swiftly along the main channel, but ice in transparent sheets filmed puddles and the quieter backwaters of the river, and crusted white at the edge. A finger of the bank, sparsely covered with bleached and withered grass, stretched into the river forming a still pool between itself and the shore. A single birch tree, dwarfed to a shrub, grew on the spit of dirt.
Ayla walked toward the pool and stepped in, shattering the perfect pane of ice which glazed it. She gasped as the freezing water brought a hard shiver, and grabbed a skeletal limb of the small birch to steady herself, as she moved into the current. A sharp gust of freezing wind buffeted her bare skin, raising gooseflesh, and whipped her hair into her face. She clenched her chattering teeth and waded in deeper. When the water was nearly waist-high, she splashed icy water on her face, then with another quick indrawn breath of shock, stooped down and submerged up to her neck.
For all her gasps and shivers, she was used to cold water and, she thought, soon enough it would be impossible to bathe in the river at all. When she got out, she pushed the water off her body with her hands and dressed quickly. Tingling warmth replaced the numbing cold as she walked back up the slope from the river, making her feel renewed and invigorated, and she smiled as a tired sun momentarily bested the overcast sky.
As she approached the Camp she stopped at the edge of a trampled area near the longhouse and watched the several knots of people engaged in various occupations.
Jondalar was talking with Wymez and Danug, and she had no doubts as to the subject of the conversation of the three flint knappers. Not far from them four people were untying cords that had held a deer hide—now soft, flexible, nearly white leather—to a rectangular frame made of mammoth rib bones lashed together with thongs. Nearby, Deegie was vigorously poking and stretching a second hide, which was strung on a similar frame, with the smoothly blunted end of another rib bone. Ayla knew working the hide as it was drying was done to make the leather supple, but binding it to the mammoth bone frames was a new method of stretching leather. She was interested and noted the details of the process.
A series of small slits had been cut near the outside edge following the contour of the animal skin, then a cord was passed through each one, tied to the frame and pulled tight to stretch the hide taut. The frame was propped against the longhouse and could be turned around and worked from either side. Deegie was leaning with all her weight on the rib-bone staker, pushing the blunt end into the mounted hide until it seemed the long shaft would poke right through, but the strong flexible leather yielded without giving way.
A few others were busy with activities Ayla was not familiar with, but the rest of the people were putting the skeletal remains of mammoths into pits that had been dug in the ground. Bones and ivory were scattered all over. She looked up as someone called out and saw Talut and Tulie coming toward the Camp bearing on their shoulders a large curved ivory tusk still attached to the skull of a mammoth. Most of the bones did not come from animals they had killed. Occasional finds on the steppes provided some, but the majority came from the piles of bones that accumulated at sharp turns in rivers, where raging waters had deposited the remains of animals.
Then Ayla noticed another person watching the Camp not far from her. She smiled as she went to join Rydag, but was startled to see him smile back. People of the Clan did not smile. An expression showing bared teeth usually denoted hostility on a face with Clan features, or extreme nervousness and fear. His grin seemed, for a moment, out of place. But the boy had not grown up with the Clan and had learned a friendlier meaning for the expression.
“Good morning, Rydag,” Ayla said, at the same time making the Clan greeting gesture with the slight variation that indicated a child was being addressed. Ayla noticed again the flicker of understanding at her hand signal. He remembers! she thought. He has the memories, I’m sure of it. He knows the signs, he would only have to be reminded. Not like me. I had to learn them.
She recalled Creb’s and Iza’s consternation when they discovered how difficult it was for her, compared with Clan youngsters, to remember anything. She had had to struggle to learn and memorize, while children of the Clan only had to be shown once. Some people had thought Ayla was rather stupid, but as she grew up she taught herself to memorize quickly so they wouldn’t lose patience with her.
But Jondalar had been astonished at her skill. Compared to others like herself, her trained memory was a wonder, and it enhanced her ability to learn. He was amazed at how easily she learned new languages, for example, almost without effort it seemed. But gaining that skill had not been easy, and though she had learned to memorize quickly, she never did fully comprehend what Clan memories were. None of the Others could; it was a basic difference between them.
With brains even larger than those who came after, the Clan had not so much less intelligence as a different kind of intelligence. They learned from memories that were in some ways similar to instinct but more conscious, and stored in the backs of their large brains at birth was everything their forebears knew. They didn’t need to learn the knowledge and skills necessary to live, they remembered them. As children, they needed only to be reminded of what they already knew to become accustomed to the process. As adults, they knew how to draw upon their stored memories.
They remembered easily, but anything new was grasped only with great effort. Once something new was learned—or a new concept understood, or a new belief accepted—they never forgot it and they passed it on to their progeny, but they learned, and changed, slowly. Iza had come to understand, if not comprehend, their difference when she was teaching Ayla the skills of a medicine woman. The strange girl child could not remember nearly as well as they, but she learned much more quickly.
Rydag said a word. Ayla did not understand him immediately. Then she recognized it. It was her name! Her name spoken in a way that had once been familiar, the way some people of the Clan had said it.
Like them, the child was not capable of a fully articulate speech; he could vocalize, but he could not make some of the important sounds that were necessary to reproduce the language of the people he lived with. They were the same sounds Ayla had difficulty with, from lack of practice. It was that limitation in the vocal apparatus of the Clan, and those that went before, that had led them to develop instead a rich and comprehensive language of hand signs and gestures to express the thoughts of their rich and comprehensive culture. Rydag understood the Others, the people he lived with; he understood the concept of language. He just couldn’t make himself understood to them.
Then the youngster made the gesture he had made to Nezzie the night before; he called Ayla “mother.” Ayla felt her heart beat faster. The last one who had made that sign to her was her son, and Rydag looked so much like Durc that for a moment she saw her son in him. She wanted to believe he was Durc, and she ached to pick him up and hold him in her arms, and say his name. She closed her eyes and repressed the urge to call out to him, shaking with the effort.
When she opened her eyes again, Rydag was watching her with a knowing, ancient, and yearning look, as though he understood her, and knew that she understood him. As much as she wished it, Rydag was not Durc. He was no more Durc than she was Deegie; he was himself. Under control again, she took a deep breath.
“Would you like more words? More hand signs, Rydag?” she asked.
He nodded, emphatically.
“You remember ‘mother’ from last night.…”
He answered by making the sign again that had so moved Nezzie … and her.
“Do you know this?” Ayla asked, making the greeting gesture. She could see him struggling with knowledge he almost knew. “It is greeting. It means ‘good morning,’ or ‘hello.’ This”—she demonstrated the gesture again with the variation she had used—“is when older person is speaking to younger.”
He frowned, then made the gesture, then smiled at her with his startling grin. He made both signs, then thought again and made a third, and looked at her quizzically, not sure if he had really done anything.
“Yes, that is right, Rydag! I am woman, like mother, and that is way to greet mother. You do remember!”
Nezzie noticed Ayla and the boy together. He had caused her great distress a few times when he forgot himself and tried to do too much, so she was always aware of the child’s location and activities. She was drawn toward the younger woman and the child, trying to observe and understand what they were doing. Ayla saw her, noted her expression of curiosity and concern, and called her over.
“I am showing Rydag language of Clan—mother’s people,” Ayla explained, “like word last night.”
Rydag, with a big grin that showed his larger than usual teeth, made a deliberate gesture to Nezzie.
“What does that mean?” she asked, looking at Ayla.
“Rydag say, ‘Good morning, Mother,’ ” the young woman explained.
“Good morning, Mother?” Nezzie made a motion that vaguely resembled the deliberate gesture Rydag had made. “That means ‘Good morning, Mother’?”
“No. Sit here. I will show you. This”—Ayla made the sign—“means ‘Good morning’ and this way”—she made the variation—“means ‘Good morning, Mother.’ He might make same sign to me. That would mean ‘motherly woman.’ You would make this way”—Ayla made another variation of the hand sign—“to say, ‘Good morning, child.’ And this”—Ayla continued with still another variation—“to say ‘Good morning, my son.’ You see?”
Ayla went through all the variations again as Nezzie watched carefully. The woman, feeling a bit self-conscious, tried again. Though the signal lacked finesse, it was clear to both Ayla and Rydag that the gesture she was trying to make meant “Good morning, my son.”
The boy, who was standing at her shoulder, reached thin arms around her neck. Nezzie hugged him, blinking hard to hold back a flood that threatened, and even Rydag’s eyes were wet, which surprised Ayla.
Of all the members of Brun’s clan, only her eyes had teared with emotion, though their feelings were just as strong. Her son could vocalize the same as she could; he was capable of full speech—her heart still ached when she remembered how he had called out after her when she was forced to leave—but Durc could shed no tears to express his sorrow. Like his Clan mother, Rydag could not speak, but when his eyes filled with love, they glistened with tears.
“I have never been able to talk to him before—that I knew for sure he understood,” Nezzie said.
“Would you like more signs?” Ayla asked, gently.
The woman nodded, still holding the boy, not trusting herself to speak at the moment for fear her control would break. Ayla went through another set of signs and variations, with Nezzie and Rydag both concentrating, trying to grasp them. And then another. Nezzie’s daughters, Latie and Rugie, and Tulie’s youngest children, Brinan and his little sister Tusie, who were close to Rugie and Rydag in age, came to find out what was going on, then Fralie’s seven-year-old son, Crisavec, joined them. Soon they were all caught up in what seemed to be a wonderful new game: talking with hands.
But unlike most games played by the children of the Camp, this was one in which Rydag excelled. Ayla couldn’t teach him fast enough. She barely had to show him once, and before long he was adding the variations himself—the nuances and finer shades of meaning. She had a sense that it was all right there inside him, filled up and bursting to come out, needing only the smallest opening, and once released, there was no holding back.
It was all the more exciting because the children who were near his age were learning, too. For the first time in his life, Rydag could express himself fully, and he couldn’t get enough of it. The youngsters he had grown up with easily accepted his ability to “speak” fluently in this new way. They had communicated with him before. They knew he was different, he had trouble talking, but they hadn’t yet acquired the adult bias that assumed he was, therefore, lacking in intelligence. And Latie, as older sisters often do, had been translating his “gibberish” to the adult members of the Camp for years.
By the time they had all had enough of learning and went off to put the new game into serious play, Ayla noticed Rydag was correcting them and they turned to him for confirmation of the meaning of the hand signs and gestures. He had found a new place among his peers.
Still sitting beside Nezzie, Ayla watched them flashing silent signals to each other. She smiled, imagining what Iza would have thought of children of the Others speaking like the Clan, shouting and laughing at the same time. Somehow, Ayla thought, the old medicine woman would have understood.
“You must be right. That is his way to speak,” Nezzie said. “I’ve never seen him so quick to learn anything. I didn’t know flathe—What do you call them?”
“Clan. They say Clan. It means … family … the people … humans. The Clan of the Cave Bear, people who honor Great Cave Bear; you say Mamutoi, Mammoth Hunters who honor Mother,” Ayla replied.
“Clan … I didn’t know they could talk like that, I didn’t know anyone could say so much with hands.… I’ve never seen Rydag so happy.” The woman hesitated, and Ayla sensed she was trying to find a way to say something more. She waited to give her a chance to gather her thoughts. “I’m surprised you took to him so quickly,” Nezzie continued. “Some people object because he’s mixed, and most people are a little uncomfortable around him. But you seem to know him.”
Ayla paused before she spoke, while she studied the older woman, not sure what to say. Then, making a decision, she said, “I knew someone like him once … my son. My son, Durc.”
“Your son!” There was surprise in Nezzie’s voice, but Ayla did not detect any sign of the revulsion that had been so apparent in Frebec’s voice when he spoke of flatheads and Rydag the night before. “You had a mixed son? Where is he? What happened to him?”
Anguish darkened Ayla’s face. She had kept thoughts of her son buried deep while she was alone in her valley, but seeing Rydag had awakened them. Nezzie’s questions jolted painful memories and emotions to the surface, and caught her by surprise. Now she had to confront them.
Nezzie was as open and frank as the rest of her people, and her questions had come spontaneously, but she was not without sensitivity. “I’m sorry, Ayla. I should have thought …”
“Do not have concern, Nezzie,” Ayla said, blinking to hold back tears. “I know questions come when I speak of son. It … pains … to think of Durc.”
“You don’t have to talk about him.”
“Sometime must talk about Durc.” Ayla paused, then plunged in. “Durc is with Clan. When she die, Iza … my mother, like you with Rydag … say I go north, find my people. Not Clan, the Others. Durc is baby then. I do not go. Later, Durc is three years, Broud make me go. I not know where Others live, I not know where I will go, I cannot take Durc. I give to Uba … sister. She love Durc, take care of him. Her son now.”
Ayla stopped, but Nezzie didn’t know what to say. She would have liked to ask more questions, but didn’t want to press when it was obviously such an ordeal for the young woman to speak of a son, whom she loved but had to leave behind. Ayla continued of her own accord.
“Three years since I see Durc. He is … six years now. Like Rydag?”
Nezzie nodded. “It is not yet seven years since Rydag was born.”
Ayla paused, seemed to be deep in thought. Then she continued. “Durc is like Rydag, but not. Durc is like Clan in eyes, like me in mouth.” She smiled wryly. “Should be other way. Durc make words, Durc could speak, but Clan does not. Better if Rydag speak, but he cannot. Durc is strong.” Ayla’s eyes took on a faraway look. “He run fast. He is best runner, some day racer, like Jondalar say.” Her eyes filled with sadness when she looked up at Nezzie. “Rydag weak. From birth. Weak in …?” She put her hand to her chest, she didn’t know the word.
“He has trouble breathing sometimes,” Nezzie said.
“Trouble is not breathing. Trouble is blood … no … not blood … da-dump,” she said, holding a fist to her chest. She was frustrated at not knowing the word.
“The heart. That’s what Mamut says. He has a weak heart. How did you know that?”
“Iza was medicine woman, healer. Best medicine woman of Clan. She teach me like daughter. I am medicine woman.”
Jondalar had said Ayla was a Healer, Nezzie recalled. She was surprised to learn that flatheads even thought about healing, but then she hadn’t known they could talk either. And she had been around Rydag enough to know that even without full speech he was not the stupid animal that so many people believed. Even if she wasn’t a Mamut, there was no reason Ayla couldn’t know something about healing.
The two women looked up as a shadow fell across them. “Mamut wants to know if you would come and talk to him, Ayla,” Danug said. Both of them had been so engrossed in conversation neither one had noticed the tall young man approaching. “Rydag is so excited with the new hand game you showed him,” he continued. “Latie says he wants me to ask if you will teach me some of the signs, too.”
“Yes. Yes. I teach you. I teach anyone.”
“I want to learn more of your hand words, too,” Nezzie said, as they both got up.
“In morning?” Ayla asked.
“Yes, tomorrow morning. But you haven’t had anything to eat yet. Maybe tomorrow it would be better to have something to eat first,” Nezzie said. “Come with me and I’ll get you something, and for Mamut, too.”
“I am hungry,” Ayla said.
“So am I,” Danug added.
“When aren’t you hungry? Between you and Talut, I think you could eat a mammoth,” Nezzie said with pride in her eyes for her great strapping son.
As the two women and Danug headed toward the earthlodge, the others seemed to take it as a cue to stop for a meal and followed them in. Outer clothes were removed in the entrance foyer and hung on pegs. It was a casual, everyday, morning meal with some people cooking at their own hearths and others gathering at the large first hearth that held the primary fireplace and several small ones. Some people ate cold leftover mammoth, others had meat or fish cooked with roots or greens in a soup thickened with roughly ground wild grains plucked from the grasses of the steppes. But whether they cooked at their own place or not, most people eventually wandered to the communal area to visit while they drank a hot tea before going outside again.
Ayla was sitting beside Mamut watching the activities with great interest. The level of noise of so many people talking and laughing together still surprised her, but she was becoming more accustomed to it. She was even more surprised at the ease with which the women moved among the men. There was no strict hierarchy, no order to the cooking or serving of food. They all seemed to serve themselves, except for the women and men who helped the youngest children.
Jondalar came over to them and lowered himself carefully to the grass mat beside Ayla while he balanced with both hands a watertight but handleless and somewhat flexible cup, woven out of bear grass in a chevron design of contrasting colors, filled with hot mint tea.
“You up early in morning,” Ayla said.
“I didn’t want to disturb you. You were sleeping so soundly.”
“I wake when I think someone hurt, but Deegie tell me old woman … Crozie … always talk loud with Frebec.”
“They were arguing so loud, I even heard them outside,” Jondalar said. “Frebec may be a troublemaker, but I’m not so sure I blame him. That old woman squawks worse than a jay. How can anyone live with her?”
“I think someone hurt,” Ayla said, thoughtfully.
Jondalar looked at her, puzzled. He didn’t think she was repeating that she mistakenly thought someone was physically hurt.
“You are right, Ayla,” Mamut said. “Old wounds that still pain.”
“Deegie feels sorrow for Fralie.” Ayla turned to Mamut, feeling comfortable about asking him questions, though she did not want to betray her ignorance generally. “What is Bride Price? Deegie said Tulie asked high Bride Price for her.”
Mamut paused before answering, gathering his thoughts carefully because he wanted her to understand. Ayla watched the white-haired old man expectantly. “I could give you a simple answer, Ayla, but there is more to it than it seems. I have thought about it for many years. It is not easy to understand and explain yourself and your people, even when you are one of those whom others come to for answers.” He closed his eyes in a frown of concentration. “You understand status, don’t you?” he began.
“Yes,” Ayla said. “In the Clan, leader has the most status, then chosen hunter, then other hunters. Mog-ur has high status, too, but is different. He is … man of spirit world.”
“And the women?”
“Women have status of mate, but medicine woman has own status.”
Ayla’s comments surprised Jondalar. With all he had learned from her about flatheads, he still had difficulty believing they could understand a concept as complex as comparative ranking.
“I thought so,” Mamut sard, quietly, then proceeded to explain. “We revere the Mother, the maker and nurturer of all life. People, animals, plants, water, trees, rocks, earth, She gave birth, She created all of it. When we call upon the spirit of the mammoth, or the spirit of the deer, or the bison, to ask permission to hunt them, we know it is the Mother’s Spirit that gave them life; Her Spirit that causes another mammoth, or deer, or bison to be born to replace the ones She gives us for food.”
“We say it is the Mother’s Gift of Life,” Jondalar said, intrigued. He was interested in discovering how the customs of the Mamutoi compared with the customs of the Zelandonii.
“Mut, the Mother, has chosen women to show us how She has taken the spirit of life into Herself to create and bring forth new life to replace those She has called back,” the old holy man continued. “Children learn about this as they grow up, from legends and stories and songs, but you are beyond that now, Ayla. We like to hear the stories even when we grow old, but you need to understand the current that moves them, and what lies beneath, so you can understand the reasons for many of our customs. With us, status depends upon one’s mother, and Bride Price is the way we show value.”
Ayla nodded, fascinated. Jondalar had tried to explain about the Mother, but Mamut made it seem so reasonable, so much easier to understand.
“When women and men decide to form a union, the man, and his Camp, give many gifts to the woman’s mother and her Camp. The mother or the headwoman of the Camp sets the price—says how many gifts are required—for the daughter, or occasionally a woman may set her own price, but it depends on much more than her whim. No woman wants to be undervalued, but the price should not be so much that the man of her choice and his Camp can’t afford or are unwilling to pay.”
“Why payment for a woman?” Jondalar asked. “Doesn’t that make her trade goods, like salt or flint or amber?”
“The value of a woman is much more. Bride Price is what a man pays for the privilege of living with a woman. A good Bride Price benefits everyone. It bestows a high status on the woman; tells everyone how highly she is thought of by the man who wants her, and by her own Camp. It honors his Camp, and lets them show they are successful and can afford to pay the price. It gives honor to the woman’s Camp, shows them esteem and respect, and gives them something to compensate for losing her if she leaves, as some young women do, to join a new Camp or to live at the man’s Camp. But most important, it helps them to pay a good Bride Price when one of their men wants a woman, so they can show their wealth.
“Children are born with their mother’s status, so a high Bride Price benefits them. Though the Bride Price is paid in gifts, and some of the gifts are for the couple to start out their life together with, the real value is the status, the high regard, in which a woman is held by her own Camp and by all the other Camps, and the value she bestows on her mate, and her children.”
Ayla was still puzzled, but Jondalar was nodding, beginning to understand. The specific and complex details were not the same, but the broad outlines of kinship relationships and values were not so different from those of his own people “How is a woman’s value known? To set a good Bride Price?” the Zelandonii man asked.
“Bride Price depends on many things. A man will always try to find a woman with the highest status he can afford because when he leaves his mother, he assumes the status of his mate, who is or will be a mother. A woman who has proven her motherhood has a higher value, so women with children are greatly desired. Men will often try to push the value of their prospective mate up because it is to their benefit; two men who are vying for a high-valued woman might combine their resources—if they can get along and she agrees—and push her Bride Price even higher.
“Sometimes one man will join with two women, especially sisters who don’t want to be separated. Then he gets the status of the higher-ranked woman and is looked upon with favor, which gives a certain additional status. He is showing he is able to provide for two women and their future children. Twin girls are thought of as a special blessing, they are seldom separated.”
“When my brother found a woman among the Sharamudoi, he had kinship ties with a woman named Tholie, who was Mamutoi. She once told me she was ‘stolen,’ though she agreed to it,” Jondalar said.
“We trade with the Sharamudoi, but our customs are not the same. Tholie was a woman of high status. Losing her to others meant giving up someone who was not only valuable herself—and they paid a good Bride Price—but who would have taken the value she received from her, mother and given it to her mate and her children, value that eventually would have been exchanged among all the Mamutoi. There was no way to compensate for that. It was lost to us, as though her value was stolen from us. But Tholie was in love, and determined to join with the young Sharamudoi, so to get around it, we allowed her to be ‘stolen.’ ”
“Deegie say Fralie’s mother made Bride Price low,” Ayla said.
The old man shifted position. He could see where her question was leading, and it was not going to be easy to answer. Most people understood their customs intuitively and could not have explained as clearly as Mamut. Many in his position would have been reluctant to explain beliefs that would normally have been cloaked in ambiguous stories, fearing that such a forthright and detailed exposition of cultural values would strip them of their mystery and power. It even made him uncomfortable, but he had already drawn some conclusions and made some decisions about Ayla. He wanted her to grasp the concepts and understand their customs as quickly as possible.
“A mother can move to the hearth of any one of her children,” he said. “If she does—and usually she won’t until she gets old—most often it will be a daughter who still lives at the same Camp. Her mate usually moves with her, but he can go back to his mother’s Camp, or live with a sister if he wants. A man often feels closer to his mate’s children, the children of his hearth, because he lives with them and trains them, but his sister’s children are his heirs, and when he grows old he is their responsibility. Usually the elders are welcomed, but unfortunately, not always. Fralie is the only child Crozie has left, so where her daughter goes, she goes. Life has not been kind to Crozie, and she has not grown kindly with age. She grasps and clings and few men want to share a hearth with her. She had to keep lowering her daughter’s Bride Price after Fralie’s first man died, which rankles and adds to her bitterness.”
Ayla nodded understanding, then frowned with concern. “Iza told me of old woman, live with Brun’s clan before I am found. She came from other clan. Mate die, no children. She have no value, no status, but always have food, always place by fire. If Crozie not have Fralie, where she go?”
Mamut pondered the question a moment. He wanted to give Ayla a completely truthful answer. “Crozie would have a problem, Ayla. Usually someone who has no kin will be adopted by another hearth, but she is so disagreeable, there are not many who would take her. She could probably find enough to eat and a place to sleep at any Camp, but after a while they would make her leave, just as their Camp made them leave after Fralie’s first man died.”
The old shaman continued with a grimace. “Frebec isn’t so agreeable, himself. His mother’s status was very low, she had few accomplishments and little to offer except a taste for bouza, so he never had much to begin with. His Camp didn’t want Crozie, and didn’t care if he left. They refused to pay anything. That’s why Fralie’s Bride Price was so low. The only reason they are here is because of Nezzie. She convinced Talut to speak for them, so they were taken in. There are some here who are sorry.”
Ayla nodded with understanding. It made the situation a little more clear. “Mamut, what …”
“Nuvie! Nuvie! O Mother! She’s choking!” a woman suddenly screamed.
Several people were standing around while her three-year-old coughed and sputtered, and struggled to draw breath. Someone pounded the child on the back, but it didn’t help. Others were standing around trying to offer advice, but they were at a loss as they watched the girl gasping to breathe, and turning blue.