Plains of Passage (87 page)

For the time being, however, she would have to go along with this feast. She signaled one of the women, the one who had a baby girl and was a favorite, and told her to tell the other women to prepare some food for a celebration. “Make enough for everyone,” the headwoman said, “including the men in the Holding.”

The woman looked surprised, but she nodded and hurried away.

   “I would guess you are ready for some hot tea,” S’Armuna said, after she showed Ayla and Jondalar to their sleeping places, expecting Attaroa to come charging in any moment. But after they had drunk their tea without being disturbed, she relaxed a little. The longer Ayla and Jondalar were there without the headwoman objecting, the more it was likely they would be allowed to stay.

But as the tension of worrying about Attaroa eased, an uncomfortable silence descended on the three people seated around the hearth. Ayla studied the woman Who Served the Mother, trying not to be too obvious. Her face had a peculiar skew, the left side was much more prominent than the right, and she guessed S’Armuna might even have some pain in the underdeveloped right jaw when she chewed. The woman did nothing to hide the abnormality, wearing her graying, light brown hair with straightforward dignity, pulled back and up in a smooth bun near the top of her head. For some inexplicable reason, Ayla felt drawn to the older woman.

Ayla could not help but notice, however, a hesitancy in her manner, and she sensed that S’Armuna was pulled by indecision. She kept glancing toward Jondalar as if she wanted to say something to him but found it hard to begin, as if she were trying to find a delicate way to broach a difficult subject.

Acting on instinct, Ayla spoke up. “Jondalar told me that you knew his mother, S’Armuna,” she said. “I wondered where you learned to speak his language so well.”

The woman turned to the visitor with a look of surprise.
His
language, she thought, not hers? Ayla almost felt the shaman’s sudden, intense evaluation of her, but her return gaze was just as strong.

“Yes, I knew Marthona, and the man she mated as well.”

It seemed as though she wanted to say more, but instead she was silent. Jondalar filled the void, eager to talk about his home and family, especially with someone who once knew them.

“Was Joconan leader of the Ninth Cave when you were there?” Jondalar asked.

“No, but I’m not surprised that he became leader.”

“They say Marthona was almost a coleader, like a Mamutoi head-woman, I suppose. That’s why, after Joconan died…”

“Joconan is dead?” S’Armuna interrupted. Ayla sensed her shock and noted an expression that showed something akin to grief. Then she seemed to gather her composure. “It must have been a difficult time for your mother.”

“I’m sure it was, although I don’t think she had much time to think about it, or to grieve too long. Everyone was pressing her to be leader. I don’t know when she met Dalanar, but by the time she mated him, she had been leader of the Ninth Cave for several years. Zelandoni told me she was already blessed with me before the mating, so it should have been lucky, but they severed the knot a couple of years after I was born, and he chose to leave. I don’t know what happened, but sad stories and songs about their love are still recalled. They embarrass Mother.”

It was Ayla who prompted him to continue, for her own interest, although S’Armuna’s interest was also obvious. “She mated again, and had more children, didn’t she? I know you had another brother.”

Jondalar continued, directing his comments at S’Armuna. “My brother Thonolan was born to Willomar’s hearth, and my sister Folara, too. I think that was a good mating for her. Marthona is very happy with him, and he was always very good to me. He used to travel a lot, go on trading missions for my mother. He took me with him sometimes. Thonolan, too, when he got old enough. For a long time I thought of Willomar as the man of my hearth, until I went to live with Dalanar and got to know him a little better. I still feel close to him, although Dalanar was also very kind to me, and I grew to love him, too. But everyone likes Dalanar. He found a flint mine, met Jerika, and started his own Cave. They had a daughter, Joplaya, my close-cousin.”

It suddenly occurred to Ayla that if a man was as much responsible for starting a new life growing inside a woman as the woman was, then the “cousin” he called Joplaya was actually his sibling; as much a sister as the one named Folara. Close-cousin, he had called her; was that because they recognized it was a closer tie than the relationship to the children of a mother’s sisters or the mates of her brothers? The conversation about Jondalar’s mother had gone on while she pondered the implications of Jondalar’s kin.

“…then my mother turned the leadership over to Joharran, although he insisted that she stay on as adviser to him,” Jondalar was saying. “How did you happen to know my mother?”

S’Armuna hesitated for a while, staring into space as though she were seeing an image from the past; then slowly she began to speak. “I was little more than a girl when I was taken there. My mother’s brother was leader here, and I was his favorite child, the only girl born to either of his two sisters. He had made a Journey when he was young and had learned of the renowned zelandonia. When it was felt that I had some talent or gift to Serve the Mother, he wanted me to be trained by the best. He took me to the Ninth Cave because your Zelandoni was First among those Who Serve the Mother.”

“That seems to be a tradition with the Ninth Cave. When I left, our Zelandoni had just been chosen First,” Jondalar commented.

“Do you know the former name of the one who is First now?” S’Armuna asked, interested.

Jondalar made a wry smile, and Ayla thought she understood why. “I knew her as Zolena.”

“Zolena? She’s young to be First, isn’t she? She was just a pretty little girl when I was there.”

“Young, perhaps, but dedicated,” Jondalar said.

S’Armuna nodded, then picked up the thread of her story. “Marthona and I were close to the same age, and the hearth of her mother was one of high status. My uncle and your grandmother, Jondalar, made an arrangement for me to live with her. He stayed just long enough to make sure I was settled.” S’Armuna’s eyes held a faraway look; then she smiled. “Marthona and I were like sisters. Even closer than sisters, more like twins. We liked the same things, and shared everything. She even decided to train to be zelandoni along with me.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jondalar said. “Maybe that’s where she gained her leadership qualities.”

“Perhaps, but neither of us were thinking about leadership then. We were just inseparable, and wanted the same things … until it became a problem.” S’Armuna stopped speaking then.

“Problem?” Ayla encouraged. “There was a problem with feeling so close to a friend?” She had been thinking about Deegie, and how wonderful it had been to have a good friend, if only for a little while. She would have loved knowing someone like that when she was growing up. Uba had been like a sister, but as much as she had loved her, Uba was Clan. No matter how close she felt, there were some things they could never understand about each other, such as Ayla’s innate curiosity, and Uba’s memories.

“Yes,” S’Armuna said, looking at the young woman, suddenly aware of her unusual accent again. “The problem was that we fell in love with the same man. I think Joconan may have loved us both. Once he talked of a double mating, and I think Marthona and I would have
been willing, but by then the old Zelandoni had died, and when Joconan went to the new one for advice, he told him to choose Marthona. I thought then it was because Marthona was so beautiful and her face wasn’t twisted, but now I think it may have been because my uncle had told them he wanted me to come back. I didn’t stay for their Matrimonial; I was too bitter and angry. I started back soon after they told me.”

“You came back here alone?” Jondalar asked. “Across the glacier by yourself?”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“Not many women make such long Journeys, especially by themselves. It was a dangerous and a brave thing to do, alone,” Jondalar said.

“Dangerous, yes. I almost fell into a crevasse, but I’m not sure how brave it was. I think my anger sustained me. But when I got back, everything had changed; I had been gone for many years. My mother and aunt had moved north, where many other S’Armunai live, along with my cousins and brothers, and my mother had died there. My uncle was dead, too, and another man was leader, a stranger named Brugar. I’m not sure where he came from. He seemed charming at first, not handsome, but very attractive in a rugged sort of way, but he was cruel and vicious.”

“Brugar … Brugar,” Jondalar said, closing his eyes and trying to remember where he had heard the name. “Wasn’t he Attaroa’s mate?”

S’Armuna got up, suddenly very agitated. “Would anyone like more tea?” she asked. Ayla and Jondalar both accepted. She brought them each fresh hot cups of the herbal beverage, then got one for herself, but before she sat down, she addressed the visitors. “I’ve never told all this to anyone before.”

“Why are you telling us now?” Ayla asked.

“So you will understand.” She turned to Jondalar. “Yes, Brugar was Attaroa’s mate. Apparently he began to make changes shortly after he became leader, and he started by making men more important than women. Small things at first. Women had to sit and wait until they were granted permission to speak. Women were not allowed to touch weapons. It didn’t seem so serious at first, and the men were enjoying the power, but after the first woman was beaten to death as punishment for speaking her mind, the rest began to realize things were very serious. By then people didn’t know what had happened or how to change things back. Brugar brought out the worst in men. He had a band of followers, and I think the others were scared not to go along.”

“I wonder where he ever got such ideas?” Jondalar said.

With a sudden inspiration, Ayla asked, “What did this Brugar look like?”

“He was strong-featured, rugged, as I said, but very charming and appealing when he wanted to be.”

“Are there many people of the Clan, many flatheads, in this area?” Ayla asked.

“There used to be, but not too many any more. There are a lot more of them to the west of here. Why?”

“How do the S’Armunai feel toward them? Particularly those of mixed spirits?”

“Well, they are not considered abominations, the way they are among the Zelandonii. Some men have taken flathead women as mates, and the offspring are tolerated, but they are not well accepted by either side, as I understand it.”

“Do you think Brugar could have been born of mixed spirits?” Ayla asked.

“Why are you asking all these questions?”

“Because I think he must have lived with, perhaps grown up with, the ones you call flatheads,” Ayla replied.

“What makes you think so?” the shaman asked.

“Because the things you describe are Clan ways.”

“Clan?”

“That’s what ‘flatheads’ call themselves,” Ayla explained, then began to speculate. “But if he could speak so well that he was charming, he could not have lived with them always. He probably was not born to them, but went to live with them later and, as a mixture, he would have been barely tolerated, and perhaps considered deformed. I doubt if he really understood their ways, so he would have been an outsider. His life was probably miserable.”

S’Armuna was surprised. She wondered how Ayla, a complete stranger, could know so much. “For someone you never met, you seem to know a great deal about Brugar.”

“Then he was born of mixed spirits?” Jondalar said.

“Yes. Attaroa told me about his background, what she knew of it. Apparently his mother was a full mixture, half-human, half-flathead; she had been born to a full flathead mother,” S’Armuna began.

Probably a child caused by some man of the Others who forced her, Ayla thought, like the baby girl at the Clan Meeting who was promised to Durc.

“Her childhood must have been unhappy. She left her people when she was barely a woman, with a man from a Cave of the people who live to the west of here.”

“The Losadunai?” Jondalar asked.

“Yes, I think that’s what they are called. Anyway, not long after she ran away, she had a baby boy. That was Brugar,” S’Armuna continued.

“Brugar, but sometimes called Brug?” Ayla interjected.

“How did you know?”

“Brug could have been his Clan name.”

“I guess the man his mother ran away with used to beat her. Who knows why? Some men are like that.”

“Women of the Clan are raised to accept that,” Ayla said. “The men are not allowed to strike each other, but they can hit a woman to reprimand her. They are not supposed to beat them, but some men do.”

S’Armuna nodded with understanding. “So perhaps in the beginning Brugar’s mother took it for granted when the man she lived with hit her, but it must have gotten worse. Men like that usually do, and he started beating on the boy, too. That may have been what finally prompted her to leave. Anyway, she took him and ran away from her mate, back to her people,” S’Armuna said.

“And if it was hard on her to grow up with the Clan, it must have been worse for her son, who was not even a full mixture,” Ayla said.

“If the spirits mixed as expected, he would have been three parts human, and only one part flathead,” S’Armuna said.

Ayla suddenly thought of her son, Durc. Broud is bound to make his life difficult. What if he turns out like Brugar? But Durc is a full mixture, and he has Uba to love him, and Brun to train him. Brun accepted him into the Clan when he was leader and Durc was a baby. He will make sure Durc knows the ways of the Clan. I know he would be capable of talking, if there was someone to teach him, but he may also have the memories. If he does, he could be full Clan, with Brun’s help.

S’Armuna had a sudden inkling about the mysterious young woman. “How do you know so much about flatheads, Ayla?” she asked.

The question caught Ayla by surprise. She wasn’t on her guard, as she would have been with Attaroa, and she wasn’t prepared to evade it. Instead she blurted out the truth. “I was raised by them,” she said. “My people died in an earthquake and they took me in.”