The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children 5)

While the wood and leather walls offered protection from wind and rain that might blow in, they were designed more to define an area of personal space and provide some measure of privacy, at least from eyes if not ears. Some of the upper sections of the panels could be opened to admit light and neighborly conversations, if desired, but when the window panels were closed, it was considered courteous for visitors to use the entry and ask for admittance, not just call out from outside or walk in.

Ayla examined the floor more closely when her eye caught sight of stones fitted together. The limestone of the huge cliffs in the region could be broken and often sheared off naturally, along the lines of its crystal structure, into large rather flat fragments. The dirt floor inside the dwelling was paved with irregular sections of the flat stones, then covered with mats woven out of grasses and reeds, and rugs of soft fur.

Ayla turned her attention back to the conversation between Jondalar and his mother. Taking a sip of the wine, she noticed the cup in her hand. It was made of a hollow horn, bison, she thought, probably a section cut off not too far from the tip since it was rather narrow in diameter. She lifted it up to look underneath; the bottom was wood, shaped to fit the smaller, slightly lopsided, circular end, and wedged in tight. She saw scratch marks on the side, but when she looked more closely, she was surprised to find that it was a picture of a horse from side view, perfectly and delicately engraved.

She put the cup down, then inspected the low platform around which they were seated. It was a thin slab of limestone resting on a supporting bentwood frame with legs, all lashed together with thongs. The top was covered with a mat of some land of rather fine fiber, woven with intricate designs that suggested animals and various abstract lines and shapes, in gradations of an earthy reddish color. Several pillows made of various materials were arranged around it. The leather ones were of a similar shade of red.

Two stone lamps rested on the stone table. One was beautifully carved and shaped into a shallow bowl with a decorated handle, the other was a rough equivalent with a depression that had been quickly pecked out of the center of a hunk of limestone. Both held melted tallow—animal fat that had been rendered in boiling water—and burning wicks. The roughly made lamp had two wicks, and the finished one, three. Each wick shed the same amount of light. Ayla had the feeling that the rougher one had been made recently for quick additional lighting in the dimly lit dwelling space at the back of the abri, and would see only temporary use.

The interior space, divided into four areas by movable partitions, was orderly and uncluttered, and lighted by several more stone lamps. The dividing screens, most colored or decorated in some way, also had wood frames, some with opaque panels, usually the stiff rawhide of uncured leather. But a few were translucent, probably made of some large animal’s intestines that had been cut open and dried flat, Ayla thought.

At the left end of the back stone wall, adjacent to an exterior panel, was an especially beautiful screen that appeared to be made of the shadow skin—the parchmentlike material that could be removed in large sections from the inner side of animal hides if it was left to dry without scraping. A horse and some enigmatic designs, which included lines, dots, and squares, had been drawn on it in black and shades of yellow and red. Ayla recalled that the Mamut of the Lion Camp had used a similar screen during ceremonies, although the animals and markings on his were painted only in black. His had come from the shadow skin of a white mammoth, and was his most sacred possession.

On the floor in front of the screen was a grayish fur that Ayla was sure came from the hide of a horse in thick winter coat. The glow of a small fire, which seemed to come from a niche in the wall behind it, lighted the horse screen, emphasizing its decorations.

Shelves, made of thinner segments of limestone than the paving and spaced at various intervals, lined the stone wall to the right of the screen and held an array of objects and implements. Vague shapes could be seen on the floor in a storage area below the lowest shelf, where the slope of the wall was deepest. Ayla recognized the functional use of many of the things, but some had been carved and colored with such skill, they were objects of beauty as well.

To the right of the shelves, a leather-paneled screen jutting out from the stone wall marked the corner of the room and the beginning of another room. The screens only suggested a division between the rooms, and through an opening Ayla could see a raised platform piled high with soft furs. Someone’s sleeping space, she thought. Another sleeping space was loosely denned by screens, dividing it from the room they occupied and from the first sleeping room.

The draped entrance was part of the wall of wood-framed hide panels opposite the stone wall, and on the side across from the sleeping spaces was a fourth room, where Marthona was preparing food. Along the entry wall near the cooking room, freestanding wooden shelves held artfully arranged baskets and bowls, beautifully decorated with carved, woven, or painted geometric designs and realistic depictions of animals. Larger containers were on the floor next to the wall, some with lids while others openly revealed their contents: vegetables, fruits, grains, dried meats.

There were four sides to the roughly rectangular dwelling, though the outside walls were not perfectly straight nor the spaces entirely symmetrical. They curved somewhat unevenly, tending to follow the contours of the space under the overhanging shelf, and made allowances for other dwellings.

“You’ve changed things around, mother,” Jondalar said. “It seems roomier than I remember.”

“It is roomier, Jondalar. There’s only three of us here now. Folara sleeps in there,” Marthona said, indicating the second sleeping space. “Willamar and I sleep in the other room.” She motioned toward the room against the stone wall. “You and Ayla may use the main room. We can move the table closer to the wall to make room for a bed platform, if you like.”

To Ayla, the place seemed quite roomy. The dwelling was much larger than the individual living spaces of each hearth—each family—in the semisubterranean longhouse of the Lion Camp, although not as big as her small cave in the valley, where she had lived alone. But, unlike this living area, the Mamutoi lodge was not a natural formation; the people of the Lion Camp had made it themselves.

Her attention was drawn to the nearby partition that separated the cooking space from the main room. It bent in the middle, and she realized it was two translucent screens connected in an unusual way. The wooden poles that made up the inside of the frame and legs of both panels were inserted in circles of transversely cut hollow bison horn. The rings formed a kind of hinge near the bottom and top that allowed the double screen to fold back. She wondered if other screens were made the same way.

She looked into the cooking space, curious about the facilities. Marthona was kneeling on a mat beside a hearth circled with stones of similar size; the paving stones around it were swept

clean. Behind the woman in a darker corner lit by a single stone lamp were more shelves that held cups, bowls, platters, and implements. She noticed dried herbs and vegetables hanging and then saw the end of a frame with crosspieces to which they were tied. On a work platform beside the hearth were bowls, baskets, and a large bone platter with pieces of fresh red meat cut into chunks.

Ayla wondered if she should offer to help, but she didn’t know where anything was kept, or what Marthona was making. It was less than helpful to get in someone’s way. Betterto wait, she thought.

She watched Marthona skewer the meat on four pointed sticks and place them over hot coals between two upright stones, notched to hold several skewers at once. Then, with a ladle carved out of an ibex horn, the woman scooped liquid out of a tightly woven basket into wooden bowls. With a pair of springy tongs made of wood bent all the way around, she fished a couple of smooth stones out of the cooking basket and added another hot one from the fire, then brought the two bowls to Ayla and Jondalar.

Ayla noticed the round globes of small onions and some other root vegetables in the rich broth, and realized how hungry she was, but she waited and watched to see what Jondalar did. He took out his eating knife, a small, pointed, flint blade inserted into an ander handle, and speared a small root vegetable. He put it in his mouth and chewed a moment, then took a drink of the broth from the bowl. Ayla took out her eating knife and did the same.

The soup had a delicious and flavorful meaty broth, but there was no meat in it, only vegetables, an unusual combination of herbs, to her taste, and something else, but she didn’t know what. It surprised her because she could almost always distinguish the ingredients in food. The meat, browned over the fire on skewers, was soon brought to them. It also had an unusual and delicious flavor. She wanted to ask, but held her tongue.

“Aren’t you eating, mother? This is good,” Jondalar said, spearing another piece of vegetable.

“Folara and I ate earlier. I made a lot because I keep expecting Willamar. Now I’m glad I did,” she smiled. “I only had to heat the soup for you, and cook the aurochs meat. I had it soaking in wine.”

That was the taste, Ayla thought, as she took another sip of the red liquid. It was in the soup, too.

“When is Willamar coming back?” Jondalar asked. “I’m looking forward to seeing him.”

“Soon,” Marthona said. “He went on a trading mission, west, to the Great Waters, to get salt and whatever else he could trade for, but he knows when we plan to leave for the Summer Meeting. He’ll certainly be back before then, unless something delays him, but I expect him any time now.”

“Laduni of the Losadunai told me they trade with a Cave that digs salt from a mountain. They call it Salt Mountain,” Jondalar said.

“A mountain of salt? I never knew there was salt in mountains, Jondalar. I think you are going to have stories to tell for a long time, and no one will know what is Story-Telling and what is true,” Marthona said.

Jondalar grinned, but Ayla had the distinct feeling that his mother doubted what she had been told, without actually saying so.