He didn't like to think about it. He knew what he had felt, what she must have seen, the revulsion, the disgust. So, what is different now? She lived with flatheads, remember? For years. She became one of them. One of their males…
He was purposely bringing out everything loathsome, deified, unclean that was part of his way of life. Ayla was all of them! When he was a young boy hiding with the other young boys behind bushes, telling each other the foulest words they knew, "flathead female" was among them. When he was older – not much older, but enough to know what "woman-maker" meant – the same boys gathered in dark corners of the cave to talk in hushed voices about girls, and to plot with sneering laughter to get a flathead female, and to scare each other about the consequences.
Even then the thought of a flathead male and a woman was unthinkable. Only when he was a young man was it mentioned, and then not so any elder might hear. When young men warned to be snickering boys again and told each other the coarsest, filthiest stories they could think of, it was of flathead males and women, and what would happen to a man who shared Pleasures with such a woman afterward, even unknowingly – especially unknowingly. That was the joke.
But they did not joke about abominations – or the women who bore them. They were polluted mixtures of spirits, an evil let loose upon the land that even the Mother, the Creator of all life, abhorred. And the women who bore them, untouchable.
Could Ayla be that? Could she be defiled? Unclean? Filth? Evil? Honest, straightforward Ayla? With her Gift of healing? So wise, and fearless, and gentle, and beautiful. Could anyone that beautiful be unclean?
I don't think she would even understand the meaning! But what would someone think who didn't know her? What if they met her and she just told them who raised her? Told them about the… child? What would Zelandoni think? Or Marthona? And she would tell them, too. She'd tell them about her son and stand up to thiem. I think Ayla could stand up to anyone, even Zelandoni. She could almost be a zelandoni herself, with her skill in healing and her way with animals.
But if Ayla is not evil, then everything about flatheads is not true! No one will believe that.
Jondalar had not been paying attention to where he was going and was startled when he felt a soft muzzle in his hand. He hadn't seen the horses. He stopped to scratch and stroke the young colt. Whinney gradually moved toward the cave, grazing as she went. The colt bounded ahead to her when the man gave him a final pat. Jondalar was not in a hurry to face Ayla again.
But Ayla was not at the cave. She had followed him around the wall and watched him run down the length of the valley. She felt like running sometimes, but she wondered what made him suddenly need to run so hard. Was it she? She put a hand on the warm dirt over the roasting pit, and then she walked to the large rock. Jondalar, distracted again by his thoughts, was surprised when he looked up to see both animals clustered around her.
"I… I'm sorry, Ayla. I shouldn't have run off like that."
"Sometimes I need to run. Yesterday, I let Whinney run for me. She goes farther."
"I'm sorry about that, too."
She nodded. Courtesy again, she thought, custom. What does it really mean? In silence, she leaned against Whinney and the horse dropped her head over the woman's shoulder. Jondalar had seen them in a similar pose before, when Ayla was upset. They seemed to be drawing support from each other. He was finding satisfaction in stroking the colt, himself.
But the young horse was too impatient to put up with such inaction for long, as much as he loved attention. He tossed his head, raised his tail, and bounded off. Then with a bucking jump, he turned around, came back, and bumped the man, as though asking him to come and play. Ayla and Jondalar both laughed, breaking the tension.
"You were going to name him," she said. It was just a statement, carrying no urging tones. If he didn't name the colt, she most probably would.
"I don't know what to name him. I've never had to think of a name before."
"I never did either, until Whinney."
"What about your… son? Didn't you name him?"
"Creb named him. Durc was the name of a young man in a legend. It was my favorite of all the legends and stories, and Creb knew it. I think he chose the name to please me."
"I didn't know your Clan had legends. How do you tell a story without telling?"
"The same way you'd tell one with words, except, in some ways, it's easier to show something than to tell it."
"I suppose that's true," he said, wondering what kind of stories they told, or rather, showed. He wouldn't have thought flatheads were capable of imagining stories.
They were both watching the colt, tail out, head reaching forward, enjoying a good run. What a stallion he's going to be, Jondalar thought. What a racer.
"Racer!" he said. "What do you think of naming him Racer?" He had used the word so often in reference to the colt that it fit him.
"I like it. It's a good name. But if it is to be his, he should be named properly."
"How do you name a horse properly?"
"I'm not sure if it is proper for a horse, but I named Whinney the way children of the Clan are named. I'll show you."
With the horses following them, she led him to a draw on the steppes that had once been a riverbed, but had been dry for so long that it was partially filled in. One side had eroded to show the horizontal layers of strata. To Jondalar's surprise, she loosened a layer of red ochre with a stick and gathered up the deep brownish red earth in both hands. Back at the stream, she mixed the red earth with water to a muddy paste.
"Creb mixed the red color with cave bear grease, but I don't have any, and I think plain mud is better for a horse. It dries and brushes off. It's the naming that counts. You'll have to hold his head."
Jondalar beckoned. The colt was full of lively antics but understood the gesture. He stood still while the man put an arm around his neck and scratched. Ayla made some movements in the Old Language requesting the attention of the spirits. She did not want to make it too serious. She still wasn't sure if spirits were offended by the naming of a horse, though naming Whinney had produced no ill effects. Then she picked up a handful of red mud.
"The name of this male horse is Racer," she said, making the gestures at the same time. Then she smeared the wet red earth down his face, from the tuft of white hair on his forehead to the end of his rather long nose.
It was done quickly, before the colt could wriggle out of Jondalar's grasp. He pranced away, tossing his head, trying to rid himself of the unaccustomed wetness, then butted up against Jondalar, leaving a red streak on his bare chest.
"I think he just named me," the man said, smiling. Then, true to his name, Racer sped down the field. Jondalar brushed at the reddish smear on his chest. "Why did you use this? The red earth?"
"It is special… holy… for spirits," she said.
"Sacred? We call it sacred. The blood of the Mother."
"The blood, yes. Creb… the Mog-ur rubbed a salve of red earth and cave bear grease on Iza's body after her spirit left. He called it the blood of birth, so Iza could be born into the next world." The memory still brought her pain.
Jondalar's eyes widened. "Flatheads… I mean, your Clan uses the sacred earth to send a spirit to the next world? Are you sure?"
"No one is buried properly without it."
"Ayla, we use the red earth. It is the blood of the Mother. It is put on the body and the grave so she will take the spirit back into Her womb to be born again." A look of pain came into his eyes. "Thonolan had no red earth."
"I had none for him, Jondalar, and I couldn't take the time to get it. I had to get you back here, or I would have needed to make a second grave. I did ask my totem, and the spirit of Ursus, the Great Cave Bear, to help him find his way."