"Well, he never was afraid to step up and say what he thought," Branag said.
"Maybe that's what it was," Crozie said. "I never did understand what Fralie saw in him. I tried my best to talk her out of joining with him. He didn't have a thing to offer. His mother had no status, he had no particular talents, I thought she was throwing herself away. Maybe just having the nerve to ask says something for him, and he really did want her. I suppose I should have trusted her judgment all along, after all, she is my daughter. Just because someone comes from poor beginnings doesn't mean he may not want to better himself."
Branag looked at Deegie, and then Ayla, over Crozie's head. In his opinion, she had changed even more than Frebec.
32
Ayla was alone in the tent. She glanced over the area that would be her place for the duration of their stay, trying to find one more article to fold, one more object to arrange, one more reason to delay leaving the confines of Cattail Camp. As soon as she was ready, Mamut had told her, he wanted to take her to meet the people with whom she was associated with in a unique way, the mamuti, those who belonged to the Mammoth Hearth.
She looked upon the meeting as an ordeal, certain they would want to question her, evaluate her, and judge whether she had a right to be included within their ranks. In her heart, she didn't believe she did. She didn't feel possessed of unique talents and special gifts. She was a Healer because she had learned the skills and knowledge of a medicine woman from Iza. There was no great magic in having the animals, either. The mare answered to her because, when she was alone, and lonely, in her valley, she had taken in a motherless foal for company, and Racer was born there. She saved Wolf because she owed it to his mother, and she knew by then that animals raised around people would be friendly. It wasn't a big mystery.
Rydag had stayed inside the tent with her for a while, after she examined him, asked him some specific questions about how he felt, and made a mental note to adjust his medicine. Then he went out and sat with Wolf to watch the people. Nezzie had agreed with her that he seemed in a much better mood. The woman was full of self-righteous delight, and praise for Frebec, who had heard and overheard so many words of praise he was almost embarrassed. Ayla had never seen him smile so much, and knew that part of his happiness was the sense of acceptance and belonging. She understood the feeling.
Ayla looked around one last time, picked up a rawhide container and attached it to her belt, then sighed and walked outside. Everyone seemed to be gone except Mamut, who was talking to Rydag. Wolf saw her and raised his head as she approached, which caused Rydag and Mamut to look also.
"Is everyone gone? Maybe I should stay here and watch Rydag until someone comes back," she said, quick to volunteer.
"Wolf watch me," Rydag signed, with a grin. "No one stay long when see Wolf. I tell Nezzie go. You go, Ayla."
"He's right. Wolf seems content to stay here with Rydag, and I can't think of a better guardian," Mamut said.
"What if he gets sick?" Ayla said.
"I get sick, I tell Wolf, 'get Ayla.'" Rydag made the signal they had worked out before in practice and play. Wolf jumped up, put his paws on Ayla's chest, and reached up to lick her jaw, eager to get her attention.
She smiled, ruffed up his neck, then signaled him down.
"I want stay here, Ayla. I like watching. River. Horses in meadow. People walk by." Rydag grinned. "Not always see me, stare at tent, stare at horse place. Then see Wolf. Funny people."
Mamut and Ayla both smiled at his simple delight in seeing the surprised reactions of people.
"Well, I suppose it will be all right. Nezzie wouldn't have left him if she didn't think he would be safe," Ayla said, conceding her last internal argument against leaving. "I'm ready to go, Mamut."
As they walked together toward the permanent lodges of Wolf Camp, Ayla noticed a denser concentration of tents and Camps, and many more people milling around between them. She was glad they were on the outside edge, where she could look out and see trees and grass, and the river and meadow. Several people nodded or spoke to them as they passed. Ayla watched Mamut, noting how he acknowledged their greetings, and responded the same way.
One lodge at the end of the somewhat uneven row of six seemed to be the focal point of activities. Ayla noticed a cleared area with no household Camps near the dwelling, and realized it must be the place where people gathered. The Camps that were immediately adjacent to the clearing did not have the look of usual household areas. One of them had a fence made of openly spaced mammoth bones, branches and dried brush marking the territorial boundaries. As they passed it, Ayla heard her name called. She stopped, surprised at who had called her from the other side of the fence.
"Latie!" she said, then recalled what Deegie had told her. As long as Latie was still at the lodge of the Lion Camp, the restriction on her association with males did not limit her movements or activities too much. However, once they reached the Meeting place, it was necessary that she be kept in seclusion. Several other young women were with her, all smiling and giggling. She was introduced to Latie's age mates, who seemed to be somewhat in awe of her.
"Where are you going, Ayla?"
"To the Mammoth Hearth," Mamut answered for her.
Latie nodded as though she should have known. Ayla noticed Tulie in the enclosed yard area around a tent which was decorated with painted designs in red ochre, talking to several other women. She waved and smiled.
"Latie, look! A red-foot!" one of her friends said, in hushed tones of excitement. Everyone stopped to stare, and the young women giggled. Ayla found herself looking with great interest at the woman who sauntered past, noticing as she walked that the bottoms of her bare feet were a rich bright red. She had been told about them, but this was the first one she had seen. She seemed to be a perfectly ordinary woman, Ayla thought. Yet, there was a quality to her that made one look twice.
The woman approached a knot of young men, whom Ayla hadn't seen before, loitering near a stand of small trees across the clearing. Ayla thought her walk became more exaggerated as she neared them, her smile more languorous, and she suddenly noticed her red feet more. The woman stopped to talk to the young men, and her liquid laugh floated across the empty space. As she and the old man walked away, Ayla remembered the conversation the women, and Mamut, had had the evening before the Spring Festival.
All the young females who were in the transitional state of not-yet-women were under constant surveillance – but not only by the chaperons. Ayla noticed, now, several groups of young men standing around the fringes of the prohibited area where Latie and her age mates were staying, hoping to catch a glimpse of the forbidden, and therefore all the more desirable, young women. At no time in her life was a woman the object of greater interest by the male population. The young women enjoyed their unique status and the special attention it brought, and were just as interested in the other gender, though they disdained to show it openly. They spent most of their time peeking out of the tent or around the fence, speculating about the various males, who paraded and lounged around the periphery with exaggerated casualness.
Though the young men who watched, and were watched in return, might eventually form a hearth with those just now becoming women, they were not the ones likely to be chosen for the first, important initiation. The young women and the older female advisers who shared their tent discussed several possibilities from among the older and more experienced men. Those being considered were usually approached privately before the eventual selection was made.
The day before the ceremony, the young women who were staying together in one tent – occasionally there were too many for one tent and two Camps of young women would be established – would go out as a group. When they found a man with whom they wanted to spend the night, they would surround and "capture" him. The men thus captured were required to go along with the initiates – few men objected to the requirement. That night, after some preliminary rituals, they would all go together into the darkened tent, grope to find each other, and spend the night exploring the differences and learning the Pleasures of each other. Neither the young women nor the men were supposed to know with whom they eventually coupled, though in actual practice, they usually did. The watching older women made sure there was no undue roughness, and were available on the rare occasion that advice was necessary. If, for some reason, any of the young women were not opened, it could be accommodated in a quiet second night's ritual without overtly placing blame on anyone in particular.