The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

Spring was also the time of shortages. The supply of certain foods, particularly favored vegetable products, was exhausted, and other foods were running low. When they took stock, everyone was glad they had decided to go on the last bison hunt. If they hadn’t, they might now be low on meat. But though the meat filled them, it left them unsatisfied. Ayla, recalling Iza’s spring tonics for Brun’s clan, decided to make some for the Camp. Her tisanes of various dried herbs, including iron-rich yellow dock, and scurvy-preventing rose hips, relieved the underlying vitamin lack that caused the craving for fresh food, but it did not eliminate the desire. Everyone hungered for the first fresh greens. The need for her medical knowledge went beyond spring tonics, however.

Well insulated and heated by several fires, lamps, and natural body heat, it was warm in the semisubterranean longhouse. Even when it was bitterly cold out, few clothes were worn inside. During the winter they were careful to dress properly before going outdoors, but when the snow began to melt, such caution was abandoned. Though the temperature hovered barely above freezing, it felt so much warmer people went outdoors wearing little more than their usual indoor clothing. With spring rains and melting snow, they often were wet and chilled before they went back in, which lowered their resistance.

Ayla was busier treating coughs, sniffles, and sore throats in the warming days of spring than she ever was in the coldest depths of winter. The epidemic of spring colds and respiratory infections afflicted everyone. Even Ayla took to her bed for a few days to nurse a slight fever and heavy chest cou

gh. Before they were hardly into the season, she had treated nearly everyone in the Lion Camp. Depending upon the need, she provided medicinal teas, steam treatments, hot plasters for throats and chests, and a sympathetic and convincing bedside manner. Everyone was praising the efficacy of her medicine. If nothing else, she made people feel better.

Nezzie told her they always got spring colds, but when Mamut came down with the illness shortly after she did, Ayla ignored her own residual symptoms to take care of him. He was a very old man, and she worried about him. A severe respiratory infection could be fatal. The shaman, however, for all his great age, still had remarkable stamina and recovered more quickly than some others in the lodge. Though he enjoyed her devoted attention, he urged her to see to others who needed her care more, and to rest herself.

She needed no urging when Fralie developed a fever, and a deep, body-racking cough, but her willingness to help made no difference. Frebec would not allow Ayla into the hearth to treat Fralie. Crozie argued furiously with him, and everyone in the Camp agreed with her, but he was adamant. Crozie even argued with Fralie, trying to convince her to ignore Frebec, to no avail. The sick woman merely shook her head and coughed.

“But why?” Ayla said to Mamut, sipping a hot drink with him and listening to Fralies latest coughing spasm. Tronie had taken Tasher, who was between Nuvie and Hartal in age, to her hearth. Crisavec slept with Brinan at the Aurochs Hearth so the sick and pregnant woman could rest, but Ayla felt it every time Fralie coughed.

“Why won’t he let me help her? He can see that other people feel better, and she needs it more than anyone. Coughing like that is too hard on her, especially now.”

“That’s not a difficult question, Ayla. If one believes the people of the Clan are animals, it’s impossible to believe they understand anything about healing medicine. And if you grew up with them, how could you know anything about it?”

“But they are not animals! A Clan medicine woman is very skilled.”

“I know that, Ayla. I know better than anyone the skill of a Clan medicine woman. I think everyone here knows it now, even Frebec. At least they appreciate your ability, but Frebec doesn’t want to back down after all the arguing. He’s afraid he will lose face.”

“What’s more important? His face or Fralies baby?

“Fralie must think Frebec’s face is more important.”

“It’s not Fralies fault. Frebec and Crozie are trying to force her to choose between them, and she won’t choose.”

“That’s Fralie’s decision.”

“That’s just the trouble. She doesn’t want to make a decision. She refuses to make a choice.”

Mamut shook his head. “No, she is making a choice, whether she means to or not. But the choice is not between Frebec and Crozie. How close is she to giving birth?” he asked. “She looks ready to me.”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think she is ready yet. She looks bigger because she’s so thin, but the baby is not in position yet. That’s what worries me. I think it’s too soon.”

“There is nothing you can do about it, Ayla.”

“But if Frebec and Crozie wouldn’t argue so much about everything …”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it. That’s not Fralie’s problem, that’s between Frebec and Crozie. Fralie doesn’t have to let herself be caught in the middle of their problem. She can make her own decisions, and in fact, she is. She is choosing to do nothing. Or rather, if your fears are founded—and I believe they are—she is choosing whether to give birth now or later. She may be choosing between life for her baby, and death … and may be endangering herself as well. But, it’s her choice, and there may be more to it than any of us know.”

Mamuts comments stayed on Her mind long after the conversation was over, and she went to bed still thinking about them. He was right, of course. In spite of Fralie’s feelings for her mother and Frebec, it wasn’t her fight. Ayla tried to think of some way she could convince Fralie, but she had tried before, and now with Frebec keeping her away from his hearth, she had no opportunity to talk about it. When she went to sleep the worry was heavy on her mind.

She woke up in the middle of the night, and lay still, listening. She wasn’t sure what woke her, but she thought it was the sound of Fralie’s voice moaning in the darkness of the earthlodge. After a long silence, she decided it must have been a dream. Wolf whimpered, and she reached up to comfort him. Perhaps he was having a bad dream, too, and that’s what woke her. Her hand stopped before it reached the pup as she strained to hear what she thought was a muffled moan.

Ayla pulled the covers back and got up. Quietly, she stepped around the drape and felt her way to the basket to relieve herself, then pulled a tunic over her head and went to the fireplace. She heard a muffled cough, then a spasm of coughs, that finally stopped in an equally muffled moan. Ayla stirred the coals, added a bit of kindling and bone shavings until she had a small fire, then dropped in a few cooking stones and reached for the waterbag.

“You can make some tea for me, too,” Mamut said in a quiet voice from the dark of his sleeping platform, then pushed back his covers and sat up. “I think we’ll all be up soon.”

Ayla nodded, and poured extra water in the cooking basket. There was another coughing spell, then stirring around and subdued voices from the Crane Hearth.

“She needs something to quiet the cough, and something to calm the labor … if it’s not too late. I think I’ll check my medicines,” Ayla said, putting her drinking bowl down, then hesitated, “ … just in case someone asks.”

She picked up a firebrand and Mamut watched her moving among the racks of dried plants she had brought back with her from the valley. It’s a wonder to watch her practice her healing arts, Mamut thought. She’s young to have such skill, though. If I were Frebec, I would have been more concerned about her youth, and possible inexperience, than her background. I know she was trained by the best, but how can she know so much already? She must have been born with it, and that medicine woman, Iza, must have seen her gift from the beginning. His musing was interrupted by another coughing spell from the Crane Hearth.

“Here, Fralie, have a drink of water,” Frebec said anxiously.

Fralie shook her head, unable to talk, trying to control the cough. She was on her side, up on one elbow, holding a piece of soft leather to her mouth. Her eyes were glazed with fever, and her face red from the exertion. She glanced at her mother, who was sitting on the bed across the passageway, glaring at her.