She let Jondalar do most of the talking at first - he was good at that, after all. Ayla only had to explain about the animals. Yummie's eyes widened when she told of Baby. But finally the question Jondalar dreaded most came up. "What did you do before you lived alone in that cave? What were your people, if you were not originally Mamutoi?" Freluv asked.

Ayla glanced surreptitiously at Jondalar. Yep, he was rigid, and probably holding his breath. She sighed and began her story. "I was very little when I lost my family in an earthquake. I don't remember anything before that." She told of her vague memories of cave lion claws and other nightmarish things. "Then Iza found me. She was a medicine woman, and she wanted to heal me, even though Brun did'nt like it too much." Jondalar was looking a little purplish around the edges. He'll breathe when he really needs to, she thought to herself. Tonka was smiling encouragingly. Ayla continued, "Iza took care of me, and when they found a cave, I was adopted into the Clan. Iza trained me to be a medicine woman, though I didn't have her memories."

"How interesting," Tonka observed. "You have had a rare experience, my dear. My great-grandmother was a medicine woman of the Clan, and -"

At this moment, Jondalar deflated like a spent woman-maker. In fact, he fainted.

There was a flurry of uncoordinated activity around the unconscious Zelandonii, who was a rather disquieting shade of blue. Ayla pushed her way in to him, slapped his face a few times, tweaked his nose hard, and assured herself that he was breathing again. "He'll be all right," she pronounced. "He just stops breathing sometimes when I talk about my people."

"Ah," Tonka said, nodding wisely. "A phobia."

"That's Greek to me," Ayla quipped.

Jondalar awoke to a round of laughter. He faded back into the shadows for a while as Ayla and Tonka compared notes on Clan ways. He found himself in a corner with Wormie's younger sister, Skinnie, who was also avoiding attention. She had a sour look on her face, and it didn't sweeten when she glared at Jondalar. He shuffled away from her as far as he could, since she did not seem to appreciate his presence. It wasn't easy in the crowded space, but then, she didn't take up much room. Since agriculture had not yet been developed at this stage of human prehistory, the phrase "two peas on a beanpole" did not come to Jondalar's mind when he looked at her. What he actually thought was more along the line of "unfinished spear-shaft", or "two flies on a shinbone". He couldn't imagine anything more unlike her sister and their mother. She wore very dark clothing, and had touched up her lips and eyelids with soot instead of the red ocher and berry juices most women used.

His ears perked up as he heard Ayla and Tonka discussing the strange herb that allowed them to understand and speak with the Tonkatoi. "Oh, yes indeed,"Tonka said. "It was Great-granny Giva that brought the knowledge of the Dictionary Root to the Tonkatoi. She was the last of her line, they say, and so the Root is no longer used by the Clan. Wasn't awfully useful to them anyway, I suppose, since they can all understand one another, and it can't give them the ability to speak our lingo."

"Then it wouldn't work for animals either, would it?" Ayla mused. "I wonder sometimes what Whinney is thinking, and how much she understands when I talk to her."

"No, it probably wouldn't be much use," Tonka said. Unless both took it, he thought. But then both parties would be looking around going duh, duh after a day or so... Sometimes that second property of the Root was a bit of a drawback, although it kept all the silly tourists from coming back. Except for tall blonds who happened to be traveling with highly unusual medicine women the second time.

A skreeky old woman's voice was heard over the general mumur - "Why don't you crawl back under your rock, you scavenger of afterbirth!"

"Oh-oh," Tonka said to Ayla - "here go Crazie and Freluv again!"

"Go eat some more weasel dung, you old empty booza-skin -- it might sweeten your breath!" Freluv retorted.

"Ooooh, see what respect I get from this walking dung-maggot!"

"Respect what, you --"

"AHEM!" Mactruc cleared his throat.

Freluv subsided, muttering "I wish I had mated a Clan woman, she'd have a mother that couldn't screech."

Crazie stuck her tongue out at him. Ayla used her Clan-trained ability to quickly scan Crazie's tongue without being seen to do so. It looked healthy enough. Perhaps it was a sickness of the spirit... oh well, she was a medicine woman, not a mog-ur.

Jondalar had sidled away from the black-clad teenager with the vicious eyes. Now he found himself nearer to Ayla again, with several children of assorted sizes on either side. One of the smallest, the little girl with the very blue eyes, was reaching for the cat as it passed by. She caught it by the tail, and, laughing triumphantly, yanked hard and repeatedly at the furry appendage. Mouser complained loudly. Jondalar put his hand on her arm. "Don't hurt the nice kitty," he gently admonished.

Dollie looked up at him with a snake-like stare, her eyes like two ice-caves. Like a snake striking, she bit him. Mouser disappeared into the shadows between legs.

Jondalar froze. Don't move, he thought to himself. They only bite harder if you struggle. He clenched his teeth against the pain. One did not pound the crud out of children. It just wasn't done. No. Uh-uh.

Ayla noticed his anguish. "She bit me too," she said to him. "Let me put some healing salve on that when she's done." Jondalar did his best to make his grimace look like a smile.

---------------------------------

At last the roasting meats were dug out of the pit and brought in on large platters of wood and mammoth bone. Everyone lined up with plates and knives, ready to dig in. Ayla was nudged forward by Tonka and Mactruc to take the first portion. It was hard to decide - the venison looked and smelled perfect, but she had never had opossum before. She took some of each. The stuffing certainly smelled good.

She sat down to eat. Crazie sat next to her with her plateful of 'possum, and proceeded to give an impressive bone-spitting demonstration. Everyone was spitting the many small 'possum bones into the fire, and Ayla followed suit. "Ptuh, sizzle, ptuh, sizzle" went the little bones. Crazie smiled slyly at Ayla, and said "I'll bet you can't hit the same ember twice in a row like this - ptuh! ptuh!"

"Mmmm," Ayla said, her mouth being just then rather full of megaceros meat. She thought for a moment. "What will you wager?" she asked, after she swallowed.

"I'll bet a nice string of amber against that lion's-tooth necklace you're wearing," Crazie cackled.

Ayla nodded, then took a mouthful of 'possum from the short-rib area of her piece. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and then "PPPPPtuh!" she spat six bones so rapidly and with such force that her target ember split in two with a sixfold puff of ash and fizzled out.

Crazie's near-toothless jaw dropped, and she came close to needing Ayla's services as a medicine woman. She finished eating in silence, except for a few very subdued "Ptuh"s. Freluv stared at them in awe.

The meal was excellent, Ayla thought. Fuzzie's 'possum stuffing was delicious, better than the container. The compote of dried fruits topped with roasted nuts made a delicious dessert. When the dishes were cleared away, Mactruc produced a couple of waterskins which he said contained his new, improved booza. "Try this," he boomed pleasantly, as he splashed some in a cup for Ayla.

She blinked at the fumes, but took a sip -- and her eyes bugged out. "Hooooooo" was all she could say. Jondalar took a hearty gulp of his, and suddenly he knew exactly how grain felt when it was parched, and it sort of went "pop". He gasped openmouthed for a while like the expiring prey of the Ramudoi.

Ayla recovered enough to inquire of Mactruc how he had so "improved" his booza. "I freeze it," he replied. "The Spirit of Booza is not trapped in the ice, and I can pour it out into another skin. I freeze a lot of skinsful to make just one of these," he said, proudly holding up one of his sacks of precious liquid.

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