The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"Attaroa caused their deaths," S'Armuna said. "And the one you weren't sure of? That was her own child."

They heard a sound and turned as one toward the entrance of S'Armuna's earthlodge.

31

A young woman stood in the entrance passage of the earth-lodge, looking nervously at the three people within. Jondalar noticed immediately that she was quite young, hardly more than a girl; Ayla noticed that she was quite pregnant.

"What is it, Cavoa?" S'Armuna said.

"Epadoa and her hunters just returned, and Attaroa is yelling at her."

"Thank you for telling me," the older woman said, then turned back to her guests. "The walls of this earthlodge are so thick that it is hard to hear anything beyond them. Perhaps we should go out there."

They hurried out, past the pregnant young woman, who tried to pull back to let them by. Ayla smiled at her. "Not wait much more?" she said in S'Armunai.

Cavoa smiled nervously, then looked down.

Ayla thought she seemed frightened and unhappy, which was unusual for an expectant mother, but then, she reasoned, most women expecting their first were a little nervous. As soon as they stepped outside, they heard Attaroa.

"...tell me you found where they camped. You missed your chance! You're not much of a Wolf Woman if you can't even track," the headwoman railed in loud derision.

Epadoa stood tight-lipped, anger flaring from her eyes, but made no reply. A crowd had gathered, not too closely, but the young woman dressed in wolf skins noticed that most of them had turned to look in another direction. She glanced to see what had commanded their attention, and she was startled at the sight of the blond woman coming toward them, followed, even more surprisingly, by the tall man. She had never known a man to return once he got away.

"What are you doing here?" Epadoa blurted.

"I told you. You missed your chance," Attaroa sneered. "They came back on their own."

"Why shouldn't we be here?" Ayla said. "Weren't we invited to a feast?" S'Armuna translated.

"The feast is not ready yet. Tonight," Attaroa said to the visitors, dismissing them curtly, then addressing her head Wolf Woman, "Come inside, Epadoa. I want to talk to you." She turned her back on all the watchers and entered her lodge. Epadoa stared at Ayla, a deep frown indenting her forehead; then she followed the headwoman.

After she was gone, Ayla looked out across the field a bit apprehensively. After all, Epadoa and the hunters were known to hunt horses. She felt relieved when she saw Whinney and Racer at the opposite end of the sloping field of dry brittle grass some distance away. She turned and studied the woods and brush on the uphill slope outside of the Camp, wishing she could see Wolf, yet glad that she could not. She wanted him to stay in hiding, but she did make a point of standing in plain sight looking in his direction, hoping that he could see her.

As the visitors walked back with S'Armuna toward her dwelling, Jondalar recalled a comment she had made earlier that had piqued his curiosity. "How did you keep Brugar away from you?" he asked. "You said he tried once to beat you like he did the other women; how did you stop him?"

The older woman halted and looked hard at the young man, then at the woman beside him. Ayla felt the shaman's indecision and sensed she was evaluating them, trying to decide how much to tell them.

"He tolerated me because I am a healer—he always referred to me as a medicine woman," S'Armuna said, "but more than anything, he feared the world of the spirits."

Her comments brought a question to Ayla's mind. "Medicine women have a unique status in the Clan," she said, "but they are only healers. Mog-urs are the ones who communicate with the spirits."

"The spirits known to the flatheads, perhaps, but Brugar feared the power of the Mother. I think he realized that She knew the harm he did, and the evil that corrupted his spirit. I think he feared Her retribution. When I showed him that I could draw on Her power, he didn't bother me any more," S'Armuna said.

"You can draw on Her power? How?" Jondalar asked.

S'Armuna reached inside her shirt and pulled out a small figure of a woman, perhaps four inches high. Both Ayla and Jondalar had seen many similar objects, usually carved out of ivory, bone, or wood. Jondalar had even seen a few that had been carefully and lovingly sculpted out of stone, using only stone tools. They were Mother figures and, except for the Clan, every group of people either of them had met, from the Mammoth Hunters in the east to Jondalar's people to the west, depicted some version of Her.

Some of the figures were quite rough, some were exquisitely carved; some were highly abstract, some were perfectly proportional images of full-bodied mature women, except for certain abstract aspects. Most of the carvings emphasized the attributes of bountiful motherhood—large breasts, full stomachs,

wide hips—and purposely deemphasized other characteristics. Often the arms were only suggested, or the legs ended in a point, rather than feet, so the figure could be stuck in the ground. And invariably they lacked facial features. The figures were not meant to be a portrait of any particular woman, and certainly no artist could know the face of the Great Earth Mother. Sometimes the face was left blank, or was given enigmatic markings, sometimes the hair was elaborately styled and continued all around the head, covering the face.

The only portrayal of a woman's face that either of them had ever seen was the sweet and tender carving Jondalar had made of Ayla when they were alone in her valley, not long after they had met. But Jondalar sometimes regretted his impulsive indiscretion. He had not meant it to be a Mother figure; he had made it because he had fallen in love with Ayla and wanted to capture her spirit. But he realized, after it was made, that it carried tremendous power. He feared it might bring her harm, particularly if it ever got into the hands of someone who wanted to have control over her. He was even afraid to destroy it, for fear that its destruction might harm her. He had decided to give it to her to keep safely. Ayla loved the small sculpture of a woman, with a carved face that bore a resemblance to her own, because Jondalar had made it. She never considered any power it might have; she just thought it was beautiful.

Although the Mother figures were often considered beautiful, they were not nubile young women made to appeal to some male canon of beauty. They were symbolic representations of Woman, of her ability to create and produce life from within her body, and to nourish it with her own bountiful fullness, and by analogy they symbolized the Great Mother Earth, Who created and produced all life from Her body, and nourished all Her children with Her wondrous bounty. The figures were also receptacles for the spirit of the Great Mother of All, a spirit that could take many forms.

But this particular Mother figure was unique. S'Armuna gave the munai to Jondalar. "Tell me what this is made of," she said.

Jondalar turned the small figure over in his hands, examining it carefully. It was endowed with pendulous breasts and wide hips, the arms were suggested only to the elbow, the legs tapered, and though a hairstyle was indicated, the face bore no markings. It was not much different in size or shape from many he had seen, but the material from which it was made was most unusual. The color was uniformly dark.