The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children 2)

“Don-da-lah,” Ayla said when the moment passed. “What is word … ha-ha-ha-ha?”

“Laugh? Laughter?”

“What is … right word?”

“They’re both right. When we do it, you say, ‘We laugh.’ When you talk about it, you say ‘the laughter,’ ” he explained.

Ayla thought for a while. There was more in what he said than the way to use that word; there was more to speaking than words. She already knew many words, but she was frustrated over and over again when she tried to express her thoughts. There was a way they were put together, and a meaning she couldn’t quite grasp. Though she understood Jondalar for the most part, the words were only giving her a hint. She was understanding as much from her perceptive ability to read his unintentional body language. But she felt the lack of precision and depth in their conversation. Worse, though, was the sense that she knew, if she could just remember, and the unbearable tension, like a hard painful knot trying to burst apart, that she felt whenever she came close to recalling.

“Don-da-lah laugh?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Ayla laugh. Ayla like laugh.”

“Right now, Jondalar ‘like go out,’ ” he replied. “Where are my clothes?”

Ayla got the pile of clothing she had cut off him. They were in shreds from the lion’s claws and discolored with brown stains. Beads and other elements of the design were coming off the decorated shirt.

The sight of them was sobering to Jondalar. “I must have been hurt bad,” he said, holding up the trousers stiff with his own dried blood. “These are not fit to wear.”

Ayla was thinking the same thing. She went to the storage area and brought back an unused skin and long strips of thong, and started to wrap it around his waist, in the manner of men of the Clan.

“I’ll do it, Ayla,” he said, putting the soft leather between his legs and pulling it up front and back for a breechclout. “But I could use a little help,” he added, struggling to tie a thong around his waist to hold it on.

She helped him tie it, and then, lending her shoulder for support, she indicated that he should put pressure on the leg. He put his foot down firmly and leaned forward gingerly. It was more painful than he expected, and he began to doubt that he could make it. But, strengthening his resolve, he leaned heavily on Ayla and took a small hopping step, then another. When they reached the mouth of the small cave, he beamed at her and looked out at the stone ledge and the tall pine trees growing near the opposite wall.

She left him there, holding on to the firm rock of the cave while she went for a woven grass mat and a fur and put them near the far edge where he could get the best view of the valley. Then she went back to help him again. He was tired, in pain, and altogether pleased with himself when he finally settled down on the fur and had his first look around.

Whinney and her colt were in the field; they had left shortly after Ayla had brought them to meet Jondalar. The valley itself was a green and lush paradise tucked into the arid steppes. He would not have guessed such a place existed. He turned toward the narrow gorge upstream and the portion of the rock-strewn beach not hidden from view. But his attention was drawn back to the green valley that extended downstream all the way to the far turn.

The first conclusion he reached was that Ayla lived here alone. There was no indication of any other human habitation. She sat with him a while, then went into the cave and returned with a handful of grain. She pursed her lips, made a warbling, melodic trill, and broadcast the seed around the ledge nearby. Jondalar was puzzled until a bird landed and began pecking at the seeds. Soon a host of birds of various sizes and colors whirred down around her with fluttering wings, and with quick jerky motions they pecked at the grains.

Their songs—warbles, trills, and squawks—filled the air as they squabbled for position with a display of puffed-up feathers. Jondalar had to look twice when he discovered that many of the bird songs he was hearing were made by the woman! She could make the whole range of sounds, and, when she settled on one particular voice, a certain bird would climb on her finger and stay there when she lifted it and warbled a duet. A few times, she brought one close enough for Jondalar to touch before it fluttered away.

When the seeds were gone, most of the birds left, but one blackbird stayed to exchange a song with Ayla. She mimicked the thrush’s rich musical medley perfectly.

Jondalar took a deep breath when it flew away. He’d been holding it in, trying not to disturb the avian show Ayla was putting on. “Where did you learn that? It was exciting, Ayla. I’ve never been so close to living birds before.”

She smiled at him, not sure exactly what he said, but aware that he was impressed. She trilled another bird song, hoping he would tell her the name of the bird, but he only smiled in appreciation of her expertise. She tried another and still another before she gave up. He didn’t understand what she wanted, but another thought caused a frown to crease his forehead. She could make bird sounds better than the Shamud could with a flute! Was she perhaps communing with Mother spirits in the form of birds? A bird swooped down and landed at her feet. He eyed it warily.

The fleeting apprehension passed quickly in the joy of being outside to soak up sunshine, feel the breeze, and look at the valley. Ayla was full of joy, too, because of his company. It was so hard to believe he was sitting on her ledge that she did not want to blink; if she shut her eyes, he might be gone when she opened them. When she finally convinced herself of his substantiality, she closed her eyes to see how long she could deny herself—just for the pleasure of seeing him still there when she opened them. The deep rumbling sound of his voice, if he happened to speak while her eyes were closed, was a windfall of delight.

As the sun rose and made its warm presence felt, the glinting stream below drew Ayla’s attention. She had forgone her usual morning swim, unable to leave Jondalar alone for fear some unexpected need might arise. But he was much better now, and he could call out if he needed her.

“Ayla go water,” she said, making swimming motions.

“Swim,” he said, making similar motions. “The word is ‘swim,’ and I wish I could go with you.”

“Sssvim,” she said slowly.

“Swim,” he corrected.

“Su-im,” she tried again, and, when he nodded, she started down. It will be some time before he can walk this path—I’ll bring some water up for him. But the leg is healing well. I think he’ll be able to use it. Maybe a small limp, but not enough to slow him down, I hope.

When she reached the beach and untied the thong of her wrap, she decided to wash her hair as well. She went downstream for soaproot. She looked up, saw Jondalar, and waved at him, then walked back to the beach, out of his sight. She sat on the edge of a huge chunk of rock that until the spring before had been part of the wall, and began to uncoil her hair. A new pool that had not been there before the rearrangement of rocks had become her favorite bathing place. It was deeper, and in the rock nearby was a basinlike depression which she used to pound the saponin out of the soaproots.

Jondalar saw her again after she rinsed and swam upstream, and he admired her clean strong strokes. She lazily paddled back down to the rock and, sitting on it, let the sun dry her while she used a twig to pull tangles out of her hair, then brushed it with a teasel. By the time her thick hair dried, she was feeling warm, and though Jondalar hadn’t called to her, she began to worry about him. He must be getting tired, she thought. One look at her wrap made her decide she wanted a clean one. She picked it up and carried it up the path.

Jondalar was feeling the sun, much more than Ayla. It had been spring when he and Thonolan had set out, and the small amount of protective tan he had acquired after they left the Mamutoi Camp had been lost during the time inside Ayla’s cave. He still had a winter pallor, or he did until he came out to sit in the sun. Ayla was gone when he first became uncomfortably aware of his sunburn. He tried to ignore it, not wanting to disturb the woman enjoying a few moments for herself a

fter her attentive care. He began wondering what was taking her so long, wishing she would hurry, glancing toward the top of the path, then up and down the stream, thinking she might have decided to take another swim.

He was looking the other way when Ayla arrived at the top of the wall, and one look at his angry red back was enough to fill her with shame. Look at that sunburn! What kind of medicine woman am I, leaving him out here so long? She hurried toward him.

He heard her and turned around, grateful that she had finally come, and a bit annoyed that she hadn’t returned sooner. But when he saw her, he didn’t feel his sunburn anymore. He gasped in open-mouthed wonder at the naked woman walking toward him in the bright sunlight.

Her skin was golden tawny, and flowed as she moved with flat sinewy muscles of hard use. Her legs were perfectly molded, marred only by four parallel scars on her left thigh. From his angle he could see rounded firm buttocks, and above the dark blond fuzz of pubic hair, the curve of a stomach traced with the slight puckers of stretch marks from pregnancy. Pregnancy? Her breasts were ample, but well shaped and as high as a girl’s, with dark pink areolas and jutting nipples. Her arms were long and graceful and declared her strength unselfconsciously.

Ayla had grown up among people—men and women—who were inherently strong. To fulfill the tasks required of women of the Clan—lifting, carrying, working hides, chopping wood—her body had to develop the necessary muscular strength. Hunting had given her wiry resiliency, and living alone had demanded efforts of strength to survive.

She was probably, Jondalar thought, the strongest woman he had ever seen; no wonder she was able to pull him up and support his weight. He knew, without doubt, that he had never seen a woman with a more beautifully sculptured body, but there was more than her body. From the beginning he had thought she was rather pretty, but he’d never seen her in the full light of day.

She had a long neck, with a small scar at the throat, a graceful jawline, full mouth, straight narrow nose, high cheekbones, and wide-set blue-gray eyes. Her finely chiseled features were combined in elegant harmony, and her long lashes and arching eyebrows were light brown, a shade darker than her loosely falling waves of golden hair gleaming in the sun.

“Great Bountiful Mother!” he breathed.

He strove to think of words to describe her; the total effect was dazzling. She was lovely, stunning, magnificent. He had never seen a more breathtakingly beautiful woman. Why did she hide that spectacular body under a shapeless wrap? Keep such glorious hair tied up in braids? And he had thought she was merely pretty. Why hadn’t he seen her?

It wasn’t until she crossed the distance of the stone ledge and drew near that he felt himself becoming aroused, but then it came upon him with insistent, throbbing demand. He wanted her with an urgency he’d never known before. His hands itched to caress that perfect body, to discover her secret places; he longed to explore, to taste, to give her Pleasures. When she leaned closer and he smelled her warm skin, he was ready to take her, without even asking, if he had been able. But he sensed that she wasn’t someone who could be taken easily.

“Don-da-lah! Back is … fire …” Ayla said, searching for the right words for his glowing sunburn. Then she hesitated—stopped by the animal magnetism of his gaze. She looked into his intense blue eyes and felt drawn in deeper. Her heart pounded, her knees were weak, her face grew warm. Her body quivered, bringing a sudden dampness between her legs.

She didn’t know what was wrong with her, and, wrenching her head aside, she tore her eyes away from his. They dropped to his rearing manhood outlined by his breechclout, and she felt an overpowering urge to touch, to reach for it. She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and tried to still her quaking. When she opened them, she avoided his look.

“Ayla help Don-da-lah go cave,” she said.

The sunburn was painful, and the time outside had left him tired, but, as he leaned on her during the short difficult walk, her naked body was so close that it kept his fierce desire inflamed. She settled him down on the bed, hurriedly looked over her store of medicine, then suddenly ran out.

He wondered where she had gone and understood when she returned with hands full of large gray-green downy burdock leaves. She stripped the leaves from the heavy middle vein, tore them in shreds into a bowl, added cool water, and pounded them to a mash with a rock.

He had been feeling the discomfort and heat of the sunburn more, and when he felt the soothing cool mash on his back, he was again grateful she was a woman of healing.

“Ahhh, that’s much better,” he said.

Then, with her hands gently smoothing on the cool leaves, he became conscious that she had not stopped to put on a wrap. As she kneeled beside him, he felt her nearness like some palpable emanation. The smell of warm skin and other mysterious female odors encouraged him to reach for her. He ran his hand along her thigh from her knee to her buttocks.

Ayla froze at his touch and stopped the motion of her hand, acutely aware of his hand caressing her. She held herself rigid, unsure of what he was doing, or what she was supposed to do. Only sure that she did not want him to stop. But when he reached up to touch a nipple, she gasped at the unexpected jolt that coursed through her.

Jondalar was surprised at her shocked look. Wasn’t it perfectly natural for a man to want to touch a beautiful woman? Especially when she was so near they almost touched anyway? He pulled his hand away, not knowing what to think. She acts like she’s never been touched before, he thought. But she was a woman, not a young girl. And from the stretch marks, she had given birth, though he saw no evidence of children. Well, she wouldn’t be the first woman to lose a child, but she must have had First Rites to make her ready to receive the Mother’s blessing.

Ayla could still feel the tingling aftermath of his touch. She didn’t know why he had stopped, and, confused, she got up and walked away.

Maybe she doesn’t like me, Jondalar thought. But then why had she come so close, especially when his desire was so obvious? She couldn’t help his desire, she had been treating his sunburn. And there had been nothing suggestive in her manner. In fact, she seemed oblivious to her effect on him. Was she so accustomed to that response to her beauty? She didn’t behave with the callous disregard of an experienced woman, yet how could any woman who looked like that not know her effect on men?

Jondalar picked up a mashed piece of wet leaf that had fallen off his back. The Sharamudoi healer had used burdock for burns, too. She is skilled. Of course! Jondalar, you can be so stupid, he said to himself. The Shamud told you about the tests of Those Who Serve the Mother. She must be forgoing Pleasures, too. No wonder she wears that shapeless wrap to hide her beauty. She would not have come close to you if you hadn’t been sunburned, and then you grab like some adolescent boy.

His leg was throbbing, and although the medication had helped, the sunburn was still uncomfortable. He eased down, tried lying on his side, and shut his eyes. He was thirsty, but he didn’t want to roll over to get the waterbag just when he had found an almost bearable position. He was feeling miserable, not only because of his aches and pains, but because he thought he had committed some gross indiscretion, and he was embarrassed.

He hadn’t felt the humiliation of social blunders for a long time, not since he was a boy. He had practiced smooth self-control until it was an art. He had gone too far again and been rejected. This beautiful woman, this woman he had wanted more than any, had rejected him. He knew how it would go. She would act as though nothing had happened, but she would avoid him whenever she could. When she couldn’t stay away, she would still put a distance between them. She would be cool, aloof. Her mouth might smile but her eyes would tell the truth. There would be no warmth in them, or worse, there would be pity.

Ayla had put on a clean wrap and was twining her hair, feeling ashamed that she had allowed Jondalar to get sunburned. It was her fault; he couldn’t get in out of the sun himself. She had been enjoying herself, swimming and washing her hair, when she should h

ave paid closer attention. And I’m supposed to be a medicine woman, a medicine woman of Iza’s line. Hers is the most honored line of the Clan—what would Iza think of such carelessness, such lack of feeling for her patient? Ayla was mortified. He had been so badly wounded, was still in great pain, and she had added more pain.

But there was more to her discomfiture. He had touched her. She could still feel his warm hand on her thigh. She knew exactly where it had reached and where it had missed, as though he had burned her with his gentle caress. Why had he touched her nipple? It tingled still. He had been full in his manhood, and she knew what that meant. How many times had she seen men give the signal to a woman when they wanted to relieve their needs. Broud had done it to her—she shuddered—she had hated seeing him hard in his manhood then.

She didn’t feel that way now. She’d even like it if Jondalar would give her the signal …

Don’t be ridiculous. He couldn’t, not with his leg. It was barely healed enough to put weight on.

But he had been hard in his manhood when she got back from swimming, and his eyes … She shivered thinking about his eyes. They are so blue, and so full of his need, and so …

She couldn’t express it to herself, but she stopped twining her hair, closed her eyes, and let herself feel his pull. He had touched her.

But then he stopped. She sat up straight. Had he given her a signal? Had he stopped because she had not acquiesced? A woman was always supposed to be available to a man in his need. Every woman of the Clan was taught that, from the first time her spirit battled and she bled. Just as she was taught the subtle gestures and postures that might encourage a man to want to satisfy his need with her. She had never understood why a woman would want to use them before. Now, she suddenly realized, she did.

She wanted this man to relieve his needs with her, but she didn’t know his signal! If I don’t know his signal, he won’t know my ways either. And if I refused him without knowing, he might never try again. But did he really want me? I’m so big and ugly.