The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children 2)

“Sisters and brothers come from the same woman. Cousins are not as close. I was born to Dalanar’s hearth—I am probably of his spirit. People say we look alike. I think Joplaya is of his spirit, too. Her mother is short, but she is tall, like Dalanar. Not quite as tall, but a little taller than you, I think.

“No one knows for sure whose spirit the Great Mother will choose to mix with a woman’s, so Joplaya and I may be of Dalanar’s spirit, but who knows? That’s why we are cousins.”

Ayla nodded. “Perhaps Uba would be a cousin, but to me she was a sister.”

“Sister?”

“We were not true siblings. Uba was Iza’s daughter, born after I was found. Iza said we were both her daughters.” Ayla’s thoughts turned inward. “Uba was mated, but not to the man she would have chosen. But the other man would have only his sibling to mate, and in the Clan, siblings may not mate.”

“We don’t mate our brothers or sisters,” Jondalar said. “We don’t usually mate our cousins, either, though it is not absolutely forbidden. It is frowned on. Some kinds of cousins are more acceptable than others.”

“What kind of cousins are there?”

“Many kinds, some closer than others. The children of your mother’s sisters are your cousins; the children of the mate of your mother’s brother; the children of …”

Ayla was shaking her head. “It’s too confusing! How do you know who is a cousin and who isn’t? Almost everyone could be a cousin.… Who is left in your Cave to mate with?”

“Most people don’t mate with people from their own Cave. Usually it’s someone met at a Summer Meeting. I think mating with cousins is allowed sometimes because you may not know the person you want to mate is a cousin until you name your ties … your relationships. People usually know their closest cousins, though, even if they live at another Cave.”

“Like Joplaya?”

Jondalar nodded assent, his month full of raspberries.

“Jondalar, what if it isn’t spirits that make children? What if it’s a man? Wouldn’t that mean children are just as much from the man as from the woman?”

“The baby grows inside a woman, Ayla. It comes from her.”

“Then why do men and women like to couple?”

“Why did the Mother give us the Gift of Pleasure? You’d have to ask Zelandoni that.”

“Why do you always say ‘Gift of Pleasure’? Many things make people happy and give them pleasure. Does it give a man such pleasure to put his organ in a woman?”

“Not only a man, a woman … but you don’t know, do you? You didn’t have First Rites. A man opened you, made you a woman, but it’s not the same. It was shameful! How could those people let it happen?”

“They didn’t understand, they only saw what he did. What he did was not shameful, only the way he did it. It was not done for Pleasures—Broud did it with hatred. I felt pain and anger, but not shame. And no pleasure, either. I don’t know if Broud started my baby, Jondalar, or made me a woman so I could have one, but my son made me happy. Durc was my pleasure.”

“The Mother’s Gift of Life is a joy, but there is more to the joining of man and woman. That, too, is a Gift, and should be done with joy for Her honor.”

There may be more than you know, too, she thought. Yet he seemed so certain. Could he be right? Ayla didn’t quite believe him, but she was wondering.

After the meal, Jondalar moved over to the broad flat part of the ledge where his implements were laid out. Ayla followed and settled herself nearby. He spread out the blades he had made so he could compare them. Minor differences made some more appropriate for certain tools than others. He picked out one blade, held it up to the sun, then showed it to the woman.

The blade was more than four inches long and less than an inch wide. The ridge down the middle of its outer face was straight, and tapered evenly from the ridge to edges so thin that light shone through. It curved upward, toward its smooth inner bulbar face. Only when held up to the sun could the lines of fracture raying out from a very flat bulb of percussion be seen. The two long cutting edges were straight and sharp. Jondalar pulled a hair of his beard straight and tested an edge. It cut with no resistance. It was as close to a perfect blade as it was possible to get.

“I’m going to keep this one for shaving,” he said.

Ayla didn’t know what he meant, but she had learned from watching Droog to accept whatever comments and explanations were given without asking questions that might interrupt concentration. He put the blade off to one side and picked up another. The two cutting edges on this one tapered together, making it narrower at one end. He reached for a smooth beach rock, about twice the size of his fist, and laid the narrow end against it. Then, with the blunted tip of an antler, he tapped the end into a triangular shape. Pressing the triangle’s edges against the stone anvil, he detached small chips which gave the blade a sharp, narrow point.

He pulled an end of his leather breechclout taut and poked a small hole in it. “This is an awl,” he said, showing it to Ayla. “It makes a little hole for sinew to be drawn through to sew clothes.”

Had he seen her examining his clothes, Ayla suddenly wondered. He seemed to know what she had been planning.

“I’m going to make a borer, too. It’s like this, but bigger and sturdier, to make holes in wood, or bone, or antler.”

She was relieved; he was just talking about tools.

“I’ve used an … awl, to make holes for pouches, but none so fine as that.”

“Would you like it?” He grinned. “I can make another for myself.”

She took it, then bowed her head, trying to express gratitude the Clan way. Then she remembered. “Thank you,” she said.

He flashed a big pleased smile. Then he picked up another blade and held it against the stone. With the blunted antler hammer, he squared off the end of the blade, giving it a slight angle. Then, holding the squared-off end so that it would be perpendicular to the blow, he struck one edge sharply. A long piece fell away—the burin spall—leaving the blade with a strong, sharp, chisel tip.

“Are you familiar with this tool?” he asked. She inspected it, then shook her head and gave it back.

“It’s a burin,” he said. “Carvers use them, and sculptors—theirs are a little different. I’m going to use this for the weapon I was telling you about.”

“Burin, burin,” she said, getting used to the word.

After making a few more tools similar to ones he had made, he shook the lap cover over the edge and pulled the trough-shaped bowl closer. He took a long bone out and wiped it off, then turned the foreleg over in his hands, deciding where to start. Sitting down, he braced the bone against his foot, and, using the burin, he scratched a long line down the length of it. Then he etched a second line which joined the first at a point. A third short scratch connected the base of an elongated triangle.

He retraced the first line and brushed away a long curl of bone shavings, then continued tracing over the lines with the chisel point, each time cutting deeper into the bone. He retraced until he had cut through to the hollow center, and, going around one last time to make sure no small section was not free, he pressed down on the base. The long tip of the triangle flipped up and he lifted the piece out. He put it aside, then returned to the bone and etched another long line that made a point with one of the recently cut sides.

Ayla watched closely, not wanting to miss anything. But after the first times, it was repetition, and her thoughts wandered back to their breakfast conversation. Jondalar’s attitude had changed, she realized. It wasn’t any specific comment he had made, rather a shift in the tenor of his comments.

She remembered his saying, “Marthona would have liked your Iza,” and something about mothers being alike. His mother would have liked a flathead? They were alike? And later, even though he had been angry, he had referred to Broud as a man—a man who had opened the way for her to have a child. And he said he didn’t understand how those “people” could let it happen.

He hadn’t noticed, and that pleased her more. He was thinking of the Clan as people. Not animals, not flatheads, not abominations—people!

Her attention was drawn back to the man when he changed his activities. He had picked up one of the bone triangles and a sharp-edged, strong flint scraper and begun smoothing the sharp edges of the bone, scraping off long curls. Before long he held up a round section of bone that tapered to a sharp point.

“Jondalar, are you making a … spear?”

He grinned. “Bone can be shaped to a sharp point like wood, but it’s stronger and doesn’t splinter, and bone is lightweight.”