I'll tell him, she thought. I'll tell Ranec he can announce our Promise today. But as she got up and walked toward the Hearth of the Fox, her mind was filled with only one thought. Jondalar was leaving without her. She would never see Jondalar again. Even as the realization came to her, she felt the crushing weight, and closed her eyes to fight back her grief.
"Talut! Nezzie!" Ranec ran out of the lodge looking for the headman and his adoptive mother. When he saw them, he was so excited he could hardly speak. "She agreed! Ayla agreed! The Promise, we're going to do it! Ayla and me!"
He didn't even see Jondalar, and if he had, it wouldn't have mattered. Ranec couldn't think of anything except that the woman he loved, the woman he wanted more than anyone in the world, had agreed to be his. But Nezzie saw Jondalar, saw him blanch, saw him grab the curved mammoth tusk of the archway for support, and saw the pain on his face. Finally he let go and walked down toward the river, and a fleeting worry crossed her thoughts. The river was swollen and full. It would be easy to swim out and get swept away.
"Mother, I don't know what to wear today. I can't make up my mind," Latie wailed, nervous about the first ceremony that would acknowledge her elevated status.
"Let's take a look," Nezzie said, casting a last glance toward the river. Jondalar was not in sight.
28
Jondalar spent the entire morning walking along the river, his mind in a turmoil, hearing over and over again Ranec's joyful words. Ayla had agreed. They would announce their Promise at the ceremony that evening. He kept telling himself that he had expected it all along, but faced with it, he realized he hadn't. It had come as a much bigger shock than he ever imagined it would. Like Thonolan after he lost Jetamio, he wanted to die.
Nezzie had had some basis for her fears. Jondalar had not walked down toward the river for any particular purpose. It just happened to be the direction he took, but once he reached the turbulent watercourse, he found it strangely compelling. It seemed to offer peace, relief from pain and sorrow and confusion, but he only stared at it. Something equally compelling held him back. Unlike Jetamio, Ayla was not dead, and as long as she was alive a small fire of hope could burn, but more than that, he feared for her safety.
He found a secluded area screened by brush and small trees overlooking the river, and tried to prepare for the ordeal of the evening's festivities, which would include the Promise Ceremony. He told himself it wasn't as though she was actually joining with Ranec this evening. She was only Promising to establish a hearth with him sometime in the future, and he had made a promise, too. Jondalar had told Mamut he would stay until after the Spring Festival, but it wasn't the promise that held him. Though he had no idea what it could be, or what he might be able to do, he could not leave knowing that Ayla faced some unknown danger even if it meant watching her Promise to Ranec. If Mamut, who knew the ways of the spirits, sensed some danger to her, Jondalar could only expect the worst.
Around noon, Ayla told Mamut that she was going to begin her preparations for the root ceremony. They had gone over the details several times until she felt reasonably sure that she hadn't forgotten anything important. She gathered up clean clothing, a soft, absorbent, buckskin deer hide, and several other things, but instead of leaving through the annex, she headed toward the cooking hearth on her way out. She both wanted to see Jondalar, and hoped she wouldn't, and was disappointed and relieved to find only Wymez at the toolmaking area. He said he hadn't seen Jondalar since early that morning, but was happy to give her the small nodule of flint she wanted.
When she reached the river, she walked upstream along it for a distance, looking for a place that felt right. She stopped where a small creek joined the large river. The little waterway had washed around a rock outcrop which formed a high bank on the opposite, side, blocking the wind. A screen of new-budding brush and trees made it a secluded, protected place, and also provided dry wood from the previous year's deadfall.
Jondalar watched the river from his secluded vantage point, but he was so introspective he didn't really see the wild, muddy, rushing water. He hadn't even been aware of the changing shadows as the sun climbed higher in the sky, and was startled when he heard someone approaching. He was in no mood for conversation, for trying to be pleasant and friendly on this day of celebration for the Mamutoi, and quickly slipped behind some brush to wait, unnoticed, until the person passed by. When he saw Ayla coming, and then obviously deciding to stay, he was at a loss. He thought about slipping away quietly, but Ayla was too good a hunter. She would hear him, he was sure. Then he thought about just coming out of the bushes, making some excuse about relieving himself, and going on his way, but he did neither.
Trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible, he stayed hidden and watched. He couldn't help himself, he couldn't even make himself look away, even though he soon realized she was preparing herself for the coming ritual, thinking she was alone. At first, he was just overwhelmed by her presence, then he became fascinated. It was as though he had to watch.
Ayla quickly started a fire with a firestone and a piece of flint, and put in cooking stones to heat. She wanted to make her purification ritual as close as possible to the way it was done in the Clan, but some changes could not be helped. She had considered making fire in the Clan way, by twirling a dry stick between her palms against a flat piece of wood until it created a hot ember. But in the Clan, women were not supposed to carry fire, or make it for ritual purposes in any case, and she decided if she was going to break with tradition enough to make her own fire, she might as well use her firestone.
Women were, however, allowed to make knives and other stone tools, so long as the tools weren't used for hunting weapons or to make them. She had decided she needed a new amulet pouch. The decorated Mamutoi bag she now used would not be appropriate for a Clan ritual. To make a proper Clan amulet pouch, she felt she needed a Clan knife, which was why she had asked Wymez for an unbroken nodule of flint. She searched near the waters and found a river-rounded, fist-sized pebble to use as a hammerstone. With it, she knocked off the outer chalky-gray cortex of the small nodule of flint, in the process beginning to preshape it. She hadn't made her own tools for some time, but she hadn't forgotten the technique, and soon became involved in her task.
When she finished, the dark gray glossy stone had the shape of a roughly oval cylinder with a flattened top. She examined it, knocked off another sliver, then took careful aim and knocked a chip from the edge of the flat top at the narrow end of the oval to make a striking platform. Turning the stone to position it at just the right angle, she struck at the place she had nicked out. A rather thick flake fell away, having the same shape as the preformed oval top, and an edge that was razor sharp.
Though she used only the hammerstone, and did it with the ease and quickness of experience, she had made a perfectly serviceable, very sharp knife, which had required careful and precise control, but she had no intention of keeping it. It was a knife meant to be held in the hand, not hafted, and with all the fine blade-type tools she now had, most of them with handles, she had no need for a Clan knife, except for this special use. Without pausing to blunt the extremely sharp edge, to make it easier and safer to hold, Ayla cut a long thin strip from the edge of the buckskin she brought with her, and slashed off an end, out of which she cut a small circle. Then she picked up the hammerstone again. After carefully knocking a couple of pieces of the flint away, the knife now was an awl with a sharp point. She used it to poke holes all the way around the circle of leather, and then threaded the leather lace through them.