The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children 6)

For the Children of Earth the Mother provided,

The Gifts to survive, and then She decided,

To give them the Gift of Pleasure and caring,

That honors the Mother with the joy of their sharing.

The Gifts are well earned, When honor’s returned.

The Mother was pleased with the pair She created,

She taught them to love and to care when they mated.

She made them desire to join with each other,

The Gift of their Pleasures came from the Mother.

Before She was through, Her children loved too.

This was the place where the song usually ended, and Ayla hesitated a moment before she continued. Then taking a breath, she recited the verse that had filled her head with its booming metered resonance deep in the cave.

Her last Gift, the Knowledge that man has his part.

His need must be spent before new life can start.

It honors the Mother when the couple is paired,

Because woman conceives when Pleasures are shared.

Earth’s Children were blessed. The Mother could rest.

There was an uneasy silence when she finished. Not one of the powerful women and men there knew quite what to say. Finally the Zelandoni from the Fourteenth Cave spoke up. “I have never heard that verse or anything like it.”

“Nor have I,” said the First. “The question is, what does it mean?”

“What do you think it means?” said the Fourteenth.

“I think it means that woman alone does not create new life,” the First said.

“No, of course not. It has always been known that the spirit of a man is blended with the spirit of a woman to make a new life,” the Eleventh protested.

Ayla spoke up. “The verse does not speak of ‘spirit.’ It says woman conceives when Pleasures are shared,” she said. “It is not just a man’s spirit; a new life will not start if a man’s need is not spent. A child is as much a man’s as it is a woman’s, a child of his body as well as hers. It is the joining of man and woman that starts life.”

“Are you saying that joining is not for Pleasures?” asked the Third with a tone of incredulous disbelief.

“No one doubts that joining is a Pleasure,” the First said with a sardonic smile. “I think it means that Doni’s Gift is more than the Gift of Pleasure. It is another Gift of Life. I think that is what the verse means. The Great Earth Mother did not create men just to share Pleasures with women, and to provide for her and her children. A woman is the Blessed of Doni because she brings forth new life, but a man is blessed too. Without him, no new life can start. Without men, and without the Pleasures, all life would stop.”

There was an outburst of excited voices. “Surely there are other interpretations,” said the visiting Zelandoni. “This seems too much, too hard to believe.”

“Give me another interpretation,” the First countered. “You heard the words. What is your explanation?”

The Zelandoni hesitated, paused. “I would have to think about it. It needs time for thought, for study.”

“You can think about it for a day, or a year, or as many years as you can number; it will not change the interpretation. Ayla was given a Gift with her calling. She was chosen to bring this new Gift of the Knowledge of Life from the Mother,” the One Who Was First said.

There was another buzz of commotion. “But gifts are always exchanged. No one receives a gift without the obligation of giving one in return, one of equal value,” the Zelandoni of the Second Cave said. “It was the first time he had spoken. What Gift could Ayla give in return to the Mother that would be of equal value?” There was silence as everyone looked at Ayla.

“I gave Her my baby,” she said, knowing in her heart that the child she had lost was one started by Jondalar, that it was her and Jondalar’s child. Will I ever have another baby that will be Jondalar’s, too? she wondered. “The Mother was honored deeply when that baby was started. It was a baby I wanted, wanted more than I can tell you. Even now, my arms ache with the emptiness of that loss. I may have another child someday, but I will never have that child.”