The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children 5)

“Yes, I can. I took a trip north once or twice. Not far from the source of The River, there are pools of hot water in the ground,” Marthona said.

“I think I know the place, or one like it. We stopped there on our way here,” Ayla said. “There is one thing I wanted to ask. I meant to ask earlier, and I don’t know if it’s too late, but I was hoping to get my ears pierced. I have those two matched ambers that were given to me by Tulie, the head-woman of the Lion Camp, and I wanted to wear them, if I can find some way to hang them from my ears. That’s how she said I should wear them.”

?

?I think that can be arranged,” the woman said. “I’m sure one of the zelandonia will be happy to do it for you.”

“What do you think, Folara, this way? Or this way?” Mejera said as she held a section of Ayla’s hair in her hand and showed the young woman two alternatives. Folara had joined them when they returned to the zelandonia lodge, after their cleansing rituals. Though many lamps had been lit, it was still much darker inside than out in the bright sun, and Ayla wished she were out rather than sitting there while someone did things with her hair.

“I like the first way better,” Folara said.

“Mejera, why don’t you finish telling us where you finally found them,” Marthona said. It was obvious that Ayla was uncomfortable. She was not used to having someone fixing her hair, and the young acolyte seemed quite adept at talking while she was working. Marthona thought it might distract her.

“Well, as I was saying, I asked everyone. No one seemed to know where either one of them was. Finally someone at your camp, I think it was the mate of one of Joharran’s close friends, Solaban or Rushemar, the one who has a baby. She was making a basket…”

“That’s Rushemar’s mate, Salova,” Marthona said.

“She said that one or the other might be with the horses, so I followed the creek upstream and that’s where I found both of them. Lanidar said his mother told him that you would be with the women all day, Ayla, so he decided he should check on the horses, like you asked. And Jondalar said the same thing, more or less. He knew you’d be with the women in seclusion all day and decided to see how the horses were doing. He found Lanidar there and was showing him how to use that spear-thrower thing,” Mejera explained.

“It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who was looking for Jondalar. Joharran came a little later. He looked a little angry, or maybe just irritated. He’d been looking all over for Jondalar, to tell him that he was supposed to go to The River for his ritual purification with the rest of the men. Jondalar told me to tell you that the horses are fine, and that you were right, Wolf may have found a mate or a friend. He saw them together.”

“Thank you, Mejera, it relieves my mind to know that Whinney and Racer are all right. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all your time and effort to find Lanidar and Jondalar,” Ayla said.

She was glad to know that the horses were fine, and pleased that Lanidar had seen to them on his own. She normally would have expected it of Jondalar, but he was going to be mated, too, after all, and she had just wanted to make sure that he hadn’t been distracted, or prevented, from checking on them. But she was a little worried about Wolf. Part of her wanted him to find a mate and be happy, but another part dreaded the thought of losing him, and she was concerned for him.

Wolf never lived with other wolves, she had probably spent more time around them when she was teaching herself to hunt than he ever did. She knew that while wolves were extremely loyal to their own pack, they defended their territory against other wolves fiercely. If Wolf had found a female lone wolf, or a low-ranked female from a nearby pack, and decided to live like a wolf, he would have to fight to make a territory of his own. While Wolf was a strong, healthy animal, bigger than most wolves, he hadn’t been raised in a pack where he play-fought with siblings from the time he was a puppy. He wasn’t used to fighting wolves.

“Thank you, Mejera. Ayla looks very nice. I didn’t know you were so skilled at arranging hair,” Marthona said.

Ayla reached up with both hands and gingerly felt her hair, gently touching the rolls and other shapes into which it had been coaxed and pinned. She had seen some of the other young women with what she was sure were similar arrangements, so she had some idea of how it looked.

“Let me get a reflector, so you can see it,” Mejera said.

The dim image in the reflector showed a young woman with her hair fixed in a way that was similar to that of most of the other young women in the lodge. It just wasn’t anyone she recognized as herself. She wasn’t even sure Jondalar would.

“Let’s put the matched ambers in your ears,” Folara said. “You should start getting dressed.”

The acolyte who had pierced Ayla’s ears had left a sliver of bone through each of the holes. She had also wrapped some sinew around the front and back and both sides of the ambers and left loops that attached to the bones that pierced the lower fleshy part of her ears. Mejera helped Folara to attach the ambers to Ayla’s ears.

Then Ayla put on her special mating outfit. Mejera was dazzled. “I have never seen anything like that,” she breathed.

And Folara was delighted. “Ayla, that is so beautiful, and so unusual. Everyone is going to want one like it. Where did you get it?”

“I brought it with me. Nezzie made it for me. She’s the mate of the headman of the Lion Camp. This is how it should be worn for the ceremony,” Ayla explained as she opened the front to expose her breasts, even fuller now with her advancing pregnancy, then retied the sash. “Nezzie said a Mamutoi woman should proudly display her breasts when she is mated. Now I want to put on the necklace you gave me, Marthona.”

“There is a problem with that, Ayla,” Marthona said. “The necklace would look beautiful with the big piece of amber nestled between your breasts, but not with that leather pouch that you wear around your neck. The necklace won’t show. I know it means something to you, but I think you should remove it.”

“She’s right, Ayla,” Folara said.

“Let me show you in the reflector,” Mejera said. She held up the piece of sanded, blackened, and oiled wood so Ayla could see.

It was the same strange woman that she had seen before, but this time Ayla saw the ambers dangling from her ears, and her worn amulet bag, lumpy with the objects it contained, hanging from a frayed cord.

“What is that pouch?” Mejera asked. “It looks full of things.”

“It’s my amulet, and the objects inside are all gifts from my totem, the Spirit of the Cave Lion. Most of them confirmed important decisions in my life. It holds my life spirit, too, in a sense.”

“It’s something like an elandon, then,” Marthona said.