by Jean M. Auel
It seemed to work.»
«Yes, I think it did.» After Ayla explained her reasoning, it seemed logical, but Iza wondered if she would have considered it. I was right, Iza thought. She is a good medicine woman, and she's going to get better. She deserves the status of my line. I must talk to Creb. It may not be much longer before I leave this world. Ayla is a woman now, she should be medicine woman-if she survives this birth.
After the morning meal, Oga strolled over with Grev, her second son, and sat beside Ayla while she nursed. Ovra joined them soon after. The three young women chatted amiably between Ayla's contractions, though no mention was made of her forthcoming delivery. All through the morning while Ayla was in the first stage of labor, the women of the clan visited Creb's hearth. Some just stopped for a few moments to offer moral support with their presence, some sat with her almost continuously. There were always a few women seated around her bed, but Creb stayed away. He paced nervously in and out of the cave, stopping to exchange a few gestures with the men gathered at Brun's hearth, but not able to stay in one place too long. The hunt planned for that day was postponed. Brun's excuse was that it was still too wet, but everyone knew the real reason.
By late afternoon, Ayla's labor was stronger. Iza gave her a root decoction of a certain yam with special qualities that relieved the pain of childbirth. As the day dragged into evening, her contractions got stronger and closer together. Ayla lay in her bed, drenched with sweat, clutching Iza's hand. She tried to stifle her cries, but as the sun dropped below the horizon, Ayla was writhing in pain, screaming with every convulsion that racked her body. Most of the women couldn't bear to stay near anymore; everyone except Ebra went back to their own hearths. They found some chore to keep busy, glancing up when Ayla started into another agonized scream. Conversation had stopped around Brun's fire, too. The men sat listlessly, staring at the ground. Every attempt at small talk was cut short by Ayla's cries of pain.
«Her hips are too narrow, Ebra,» Iza gestured. «They won't let her birth canal open wide enough.»
«Would breaking the water sac help? It does sometimes,» Ebra suggested.
«I've been thinking of that. I didn't want to do it too soon; she couldn't stand a dry birth. I was hoping it would break itself, but she's getting weaker and not making much progress. Perhaps I'd better do it now. Will you give me that slippery-elm stick? She's starting another contraction, I'll do it when this one is over.» Ayla arched her back and gripped the hands of the two women as a crescendo of convulsing agony was torn from her lips.
«Ayla, I'm going to try to help you,» Iza motioned after the contraction passed.
«Do you understand me?»
Ayla nodded mutely.
«I'm going to break the water, then I want you to get up into a squatting position.
It helps if the baby is pushed downward. Can you do it?»
«I'll try,» Ayla waved weakly.
Iza inserted the slippery-elm stick, and Ayla's birth waters gushed out, bringing on another contraction.
«Get up now, Ayla,» the medicine woman motioned. She and Ebra pulled the weakened young woman up from her bed and supported her while she squatted on the leather hide, like the one placed under all women when they gave birth.
«Push now, Ayla. Push hard.» She strained with the next pain.
«She's too weak,» Ebra signaled. «She can't push hard enough.»
«Ayla, you've got to push harder,» Iza commanded.
«I can't,» Ayla motioned.
«You must, Ayla. You must or your baby will die,» Iza said. She didn't mention that Ayla, too, would die. Iza could see her muscles bunching for another contraction.
«Now, Ayla! Now! Push! Push as hard as you can,» Iza urged.
I can't let my baby die, Ayla thought. I can't. I'll never have another baby if this one dies. From some unknown reserve, Ayla drew a last surge of strength. As the pain mounted, she took a deep breath and grabbed Iza's hand for support. She bore down with an effort that brought beads of sweat to her forehead. Her head swam dizzily. It felt as though her bones were cracking, as though she was trying to force her insides out.
«Good, Ayla, good,» Iza encouraged. «The head is showing, one more like that.» Ayla gulped another breath of air and strained again. She felt skin and muscles tear, and still she pushed. With a gush of thick red blood, the baby's head was forced through the narrow birth canal. Iza took it and pulled, but the worst was over.
«Just a little more, Ayla, just enough for the afterbirth.» Ayla strained once more, felt her head whirl and everything go dark, and collapsed, unconscious.
Iza tied a red-dyed piece of sinew around the newborn's umbilical cord and bit off the rest. She thumped the feet until a mewling cry became a loud squall. The baby's alive, Iza thought with relief as she began to clean the infant. Then her heart sank. After all her suffering, after all she's been through, why this? She wanted the baby so much. Iza wrapped the infant in the soft rabbit skin Ayla had made, then made a poultice of chewed roots for Ayla, held in place with an absorbent leather strap. Ayla groaned and opened her eyes.
«My baby, Iza. Is it a boy or a girl?» she asked.
«It's a boy, Ayla,» the woman said, then quickly continued so her hopes would not be raised, «but he's deformed.»
Ayla's first hint of a smile turned to a look of horror. «No! He can't be! Let me see him!»
Iza brought the infant to her. «I was afraid of this. It often happens when a woman's pregnancy is difficult. I'm sorry, Ayla.»
The young woman opened the cover and looked at her tiny son. His arms and legs were thinner than Uba's when she was born, and longer, but he had the right number of fingers and toes in the right places. His tiny penis and testes gave mute evidence of his sex. But his head was definitely unnatural. It was abnormally large, the cause of Ayla's difficult delivery, and a little misshapen from his harrowing entrance into the world, but that in itself was no cause for alarm. Iza knew it was only the result of the pressures of birth and would quickly straighten out. It was the conformation of the head, the basic shape, that would never change, that was deformed, and the thin, scrawny neck that was unable to support the baby's huge head.
Ayla's baby had heavy brow ridges, like people of the Clan, but his forehead, rather than sloping back, rose high and straight above the brows, bulging, to Iza's eyes, into a high crown before it swept back in a long, full shape. But the back of his head was not quite as long as it should have been. It looked as though the baby's skull was pushed forward into the bulging forehead and crown, shortening and rounding the back. He had only a nominal occipital bun at the rear and his features were oddly altered. He had large round eyes, but his nose was much smaller than normal. His mouth was large, his jaws were not quite as large as Clan jaws; but below his mouth was a boney protrusion disfiguring his face, a well-developed, slightly receding chin, entirely lacking in Clan people. The baby's head flopped back when Iza first picked him up and she automatically put her hand behind it for support, shaking her own head on her short, thick neck. She doubted if the boy would ever be able to hold his head up.
The baby nuzzled toward the warmth of his mother as he lay in Ayla's arms, already looking to suck as though he hadn't had enough before his birth. She helped him to her breast.
«You shouldn't, Ayla,» Iza said gently. «You should not add to his life when it must soon be taken away. It will only make it harder for you to get rid of him.» «Get rid of him?» Ayla looked stricken. «How can I get rid of him? He's my baby, my son.»
«You have no choice, Ayla. It's the way. A mother must always dispose of a deformed child she has brought into the world. It's best to do it as soon as possible, before Brun commands it.»
«But Creb was deformed. He was allowed to live,» Ayla protested.
«His mother's mate was the leader of the clan; he allowed it. You have no mate, Ayla, no man to speak for your son. I told you in the beginning your child could be unlucky if you gave birth before you were ma
ted. Doesn't his deformity prove it, Ayla?
Why let a child live that will have nothing but bad luck all his life? It's better to get it over now,» Iza reasoned.
Reluctantly, Ayla pulled her son away from her breast, tears overflowing her eyes. «Oh, Iza,» she cried, «I wanted a baby so much, a baby of my own like other women. I never thought I'd have one. I was so happy. I didn't care if I was sick, I just wanted my own baby. It was so hard, I didn't think he'd ever come, but when you said he'd die, I had to push. If he has to die anyway, why was it so hard? Mother, I want my baby, don't make me get rid of him.»
«I know it's not easy, Ayla, but it must be done.» Iza's heart ached for her. The baby was searching for the breast so abruptly withheld, for the security and to satisfy his need to suck. She had no milk for him yet, that would take a day or so; there was only the thick, milky fluid that could impart to the infant her own immunity to diseases for the first few months of his life. He started whimpering and soon let go with a lusty howl, flailing his arms and kicking off the cover. His cry filled the cave with the demanding insistence of an angry, red-faced infant. Ayla couldn't stand it. She put him back to her breast.
«I just can't do it,» she gestured. «I won't do it! My son is alive. He's breathing. He might be deformed, but he's strong. Did you hear him cry? Did you ever hear a baby cry like that? Did you see him kick? Look how he sucks! I want him, Iza, I want him and I'm going to keep him. I'll leave before I'll kill him. I can hunt. I can find food. I'll take care of him myself!»
Iza paled. «Ayla, you can't mean that. Where would you go? You're too weak, you've lost a lot of blood.»
«I don't know, mother. Somewhere. Anywhere. But I won't give him up.» Ayla was adamant, determined. Iza had no doubt the young mother meant what she said. But she was too weak to go anyplace; she'd die herself if she tried to save the baby. Iza was appalled to think Ayla would flaunt the customs of the Clan, but Iza was sure she would.
«Ayla, don't talk like that,» Iza pleaded. «Give him to me. If you can't, I'll do it for you. I'll tell Brun you are too weak; that's reason enough.» The woman reached for the infant. «Let me take him. Once he's gone, it will be easier to forget him.» «No! No, Iza,» Ayla shook her head forcefully, clinging tighter to the bundle in her arms. She huddled over him, protecting him with her body, moving only one hand to speak with Creb's abbreviated symbols. «I'm going to keep him. Somehow, some way, even if I have to leave, I am going to keep my baby.»
Uba was watching the two women, ignored by them both. She had seen Ayla's bone-wrenching delivery, as she had seen other women give birth before. No secrets of life or death were withheld from children; they shared the fate of the clan as much as their elders. Uba loved the golden-haired girl who was playmate and friend, mother and sister. The hard, painful birth had frightened the girl, but Ayla's talk of leaving frightened her even more. It reminded her of the time when she had gone before, when everyone said she would never come back. Uba was sure if Ayla left now, she would never see her again.
«Don't go, Ayla,» the girl ran up gesturing frantically. «Mother, you can't let Ayla leave. Don't go away again.»
«I don't want to go, Uba, but I can't let my baby die,» Ayla said.
«Can't you put him high up in a tree like the mother in Aba 's story? If he lives for seven days, Brun will have to let you keep him,» Uba begged.
«Aba 's story is a legend, Uba,» Iza explained. «No baby can live outside in the cold with no food.» Ayla wasn't paying attention to Iza's explanation; Uba's childish suggestion had given her an idea.
«Mother, part of that legend is true.»
«What do you mean?»
«If my baby is still alive after seven days, Brun has to accept him, doesn't he?»
Ayla asked earnestly.
«What are you thinking, Ayla? You can't leave him outside hoping he'll still be alive after seven days. You know it's impossible.»
«Not leave him, take him. I know a place where I can hide, Iza. I can go there and take him with me and then come back on his naming day. Brun will have to let me keep him then. There's a small cave…
«No! Ayla, don't tell me such things. That would be wrong. It would be disobedient. I can't approve; it's not the way of the Clan. Brun would be very angry. He'd search for you, he'd find you and bring you back. It's not right, Ayla,» Iza admonished.
She got up and walked toward the fire but turned back after a few steps. «And if you left, he'd ask me where you were.»
Never in her life had Iza done anything contrary to Clan customs or Brun's wishes. The very idea was appalling. Even the secret contraceptive medicine had the sanction of past generations of medicine women, it was part of her heritage. Keeping the secret was not disobedient-there was no tradition or custom prohibiting its use-she just refrained from mentioning it. Ayla's plan was nothing short of rebellion, a rebellion Iza would never have dreamed of; she couldn't approve.
But she knew how much Ayla wanted the baby; her heart ached thinking how she had suffered through the long, difficult pregnancy and how only the fear of the baby's death had given her the strength that saved her own life. Ayla's right, Iza thought, looking at the newborn. He's deformed, but he's strong and healthy otherwise. Creb was deformed – now he's Mog-ur. This is her firstborn son, too. If she had a mate, he might allow the baby to live. No, he wouldn't, she thought again. She couldn't lie to herself any more than she could lie to anyone else. But she could refrain from speaking.
She thought about telling Creb or Brun, and she knew she should, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Iza could not approve of Ayla's plan, but she could keep it to herself. It was the most willfully wrong thing she had ever done in her life.
She put some hot stones in a bowl of water to make an infusion of ergot for Ayla.
The young woman was sleeping with the baby in her arms when Iza brought her the medicine. She shook her gently.
«Drink this, Ayla,» she said. «I wrapped the afterbirth and put it in that corner.
You can rest tonight, but it should be buried tomorrow. Brun already knows, Ebra told him. He'd rather not have to examine the baby and make it an official order. He will expect you to take care of it when you hide the evidence of birth.» Iza was telling her daughter how long she had to make her plans.
Ayla lay awake after Iza left, thinking about what to take with her. I'll need my sleeping fur, rabbit skins for the baby, and bird down, and a couple of extra blankets for changes, too. Straps for myself, my sling, and knives. Oh, and food, I'd better bring some food, and a waterbag. If I wait until the sun is high before I go, I can get everything ready in the morning.
The next morning, Iza cooked well in excess of the amount of food needed to feed four people for a morning meal. Creb had come back to his hearth late to sleep; he wanted to avoid any communication with Ayla. He didn't know what to say to her. Her totem is just too strong, he thought. It was never completely overcome; that's why she bled so much during her pregnancy. That's what made the baby deformed. It's too bad, she wanted him so much.
«Iza, that's enough food for a whole clan,» Creb remarked. «How can we eat so much?»
«It's for Ayla,» Iza said, and quickly put her head down. Iza should have had many children, the old man thought, she dotes so much on the ones she has. But Ayla does need to regain her strength. It's going to take her a long time to get over this. I wonder if she'll ever have a normal child?
Ayla's head reeled when she got up, and she felt a rush of warm blood. It hurt to walk even a few steps and bending over was an ordeal. She was weaker than she realized, and almost panicked. How am I going to climb up to the cave? But I have to. If I don't, Iza will take my baby and get rid of him. What will I do if I lose my baby?
I won't lose him, she decided with firm determination, forcing the panic from her mind. I'll get up there somehow, if I have to crawl the whole way.
It was drizzling when Ayla left the cave. She packed some things in the bottom of her collect
ing basket and covered them with the smelly package of birth effluvium. The rest she hid under her outer fur wrap. The baby was held securely to her chest with a carrying cloak. The first wave of dizziness passed, as she started to walk into the woods, but it left her nauseous. She turned off the path and worked her way deep into the forest before she stopped. It was difficult to dig a hole with her digging stick, she was so weak.
She buried the package deep, as Iza had told her, and made the proper symbols. Then she looked at her son sleeping soundly, warm and comfortably secure. No one will put you in a hole like that, she said to herself. Then she began to climb the steep foothills, unaware that someone was watching her.
Shortly after Ayla left the cave, Uba slipped out after her. The winter of training after her mother's illness had made the girl much more conscious of the danger Ayla was in. She knew how weak the young woman was, and was afraid she might faint and become easy prey for a roaming carnivore drawn by the smell of blood on her. Uba almost ran back to the cave to tell Iza, but she didn't want Ayla to go alone, so she started to follow her. The girl lost sight of her after she turned off the path, but saw her again climbing up an open stretch of slope.
Ayla leaned heavily on her digging stick as she climbed, using it for a walking staff. She stopped often, swallowing hard to keep down her nausea and fighting not to give in to the dizziness that threatened to become darkness. She felt blood running down her legs but didn't stop to replace her absorbent strap. She remembered a time when she could run up the steep slope without even getting winded. Now, she couldn't believe how far it was to the high meadow. The distance between familiar landmarks was impossibly long. Ayla pushed herself until she was ready to collapse, then struggled to stay conscious until she was rested enough to go on.
