If he could offer her no more than that, what would they do if his people wouldn't accept them? We could go someplace else. We could even come back here. He frowned. That's a lot of traveling. Maybe he should just offer to stay, establish himself here. Tarneg said he wanted a flint knapper for his new Camp. What about Ranec? More important, what about Ayla? What if she didn't want him at all?
Jondalar was so engrossed in his thoughts, he didn't hear the dull thud of hoofbeats until Wolf suddenly jumped up on him.
"Wolf? What are you doing…" He looked up and stared in disbelief as Ayla slid off Whinney's back.
She walked toward him, shy now, so afraid he would turn his back on her again. How could she tell him? How could she make him listen? What could she do if he wouldn't listen to her? Then she recalled those first wordless days, and the way she had learned to ask someone to listen a lifetime ago. She dropped to the ground, gracefully, from long practice, and bowed her head, and waited.
Jondalar gaped at her, didn't understand for a moment, then remembered. It was her signal. When she wanted to tell him something important, but didn't have the words, she used that Clan signal. But why was she speaking to him in the language of the Clan now? What did she want to tell him that was so important?
"Get up," he said. "You don't have to do that." Then he remembered the proper response. He tapped her shoulder. When Ayla looked up, she had tears in her eyes. He hunkered down on one knee to wipe them away. "Ayla, why are you doing this? Why are you here?"
"Jondalar, yesterday you tried to tell me something, and I wouldn't listen to you. Now I want to tell you something. It is difficult to say, but I want you to listen. That's why I'm asking you this way. Will you listen, and not turn away?"
Hope blazed so hot Jondalar couldn't speak. He only nodded, and held her hands.
"Once you wanted me to go away with you," she began, "and I didn't want to leave the valley." She stopped to take a deep breath. "Now, I want to go with you, anywhere with you. Once you told me that you loved me, that you wanted me. Now, I think you don't want to love me, but I still want to go with you."
"Get up, Ayla, please," he said, helping her up. "What about Ranec? I thought you wanted him." His arms were still around her.
"I don't love Ranec. I love you, Jondalar. I never stopped loving you. I don't know what I did to make you stop loving me."
"You love me? You still love, me? Oh, Ayla, my Ayla," Jondalar said, crushing her to him. Then he looked at her as though he was seeing her for the first time, and his eyes filled with his love. She reached up and his mouth found hers. They came together, holding each other, with a hard and tender passion, full of love, full of longing.
Ayla couldn't believe she was in his arms, that he was holding her, wanting her, loving her, after all this time. Tears filled her eyes, then she tried to stop them, afraid he would misunderstand them again, then she didn't care and let the tears fall.
He looked down at her beautiful face. "You're crying, Ayla."
"It's only because I love you. I have to cry. It's been so long, and I love you so much," she said.
He kissed her eyes, her tears, her mouth, and felt it open to him, gently, firmly.
"Ayla, are you really here?" he said. "I thought I'd lost you, and I knew it was my own fault. I love you, Ayla, I never stopped loving you. You must believe that. I never stopped loving you, even though I know why you thought so."
"But you didn't want to love me, did you?"
He closed his eyes and his forehead knotted with the pain of the truth. He nodded. "I was ashamed that I loved someone who came from the Clan, and I hated myself for feeling ashamed of the woman I loved. I've never been so happy with anyone as I have with you. I love you, and when it was just the two of us, everything was perfect. But when we were with other people… every time you did something that you learned from the Clan, I was embarrassed. And I was always afraid you'd say something, and then everyone would know that I loved a woman who was… abomination." He could hardly say the word.
"Everyone used to tell me I could have any woman I wanted. No woman could refuse me, they said, not even the Mother Herself. It seemed to be true. What they didn't know was that I never knew a woman I really wanted, until I met you. But what would they say if I brought you home? If Jondalar could have anyone, why would he bring home… the mother of a flathead… an abomination? I was afraid they wouldn't accept you, and turn me away, too, unless… I turned against you. I was afraid I might, if I had to choose between my people and you."
Ayla was frowning. She looked down. "I didn't understand. That would be a hard decision for you to make."
"Ayla," Jondalar said, turning her face up to look at him. "I love you. Maybe only now do I realize how important that is to me. Not just that you love me, but that I love you. Now I know, for me there is only one choice. You are more important to me than my people, or anyone. I want to be wherever you are." Her eyes overflowed again, try as she might to stop them. "If you want to stay here and live with the Mamutoi, I will stay and become Mamutoi. If you want me to share you with Ranec… I will do that, too."
"Is that what you want to do?"
"If it's what you want… Jondalar started to say, then remembered Mamut's words. Maybe he ought to give her a choice, tell her his preference. "I want to be with you, that's most important, believe me. I would be willing to stay here, if that's what you want, but if you ask me what I want, I want to go home, and take you with me.
"Take me with you? You aren't ashamed of me any more? You're not ashamed of the Clan, and Durc?"
"No. I'm not ashamed of you. I'm proud of you. And I'm not ashamed of the Clan either. You, and Rydag, have taught me something very important, and maybe it's time to try and teach some others. I've learned so many things that I want to take back to my people. I want to show them the spearthrower, and Wymez's methods of working flint, and your firestones, and the thread-puller, and the horses and Wolf. With all that, they may even be willing to listen to someone trying to tell them that the people of the Clan are children of the Earth Mother, too."
"The Cave Lion is your totem, Jondalar," Ayla said with the finality of absolute knowledge.
"You've said that before. What makes you so sure?"
"Remember when I told you powerful totems are hard to live with? Their tests are very hard, but their gifts, what you learn from them, make it all worth it. You have been through a hard test, but are you sorry now? This year has been hard for both of us, but I have learned so much, about myself, and about the Others. I am not afraid of them any more. You have learned very much, too, about yourself and about the Clan. I think you feared them, in a different way. Now you have overcome it. The Cave Lion is a Clan totem, and you don't hate them any more."
"I think you must be right, and I'm glad a Clan Cave Lion totem has chosen me, if that means I am acceptable to you. I have nothing to offer you, Ayla, except myself. I can't promise any affiliations, not even my people. I cannot make promises, because I don't know if the Zelandonii will accept you. If they don't, we'll have to find some other place to go. I will become a Mamutoi if you want, but I would rather take you home and have Zelandoni tie the knot for us."
"Is that like joining?" Ayla asked. "You never asked me to join with you before. You asked me to come with you, but you never asked me to make a hearth with you."
"Ayla, Ayla, what's wrong with me? Why do I take it for granted that you know everything already? Maybe it's because you know so much that I don't know, and you've learned so much, so fast, that I forget you've just learned it. Maybe I ought to learn a sign for saying things that I don't have words for."