by Jean M. Auel
“It’s been done,” Dorv said. “The only woman a man cannot mate is his sibling.”
“It’s not prohibited, but it’s not looked upon with favor, either. And most men don’t want to. Besides, I’ve never had a mate; I’m too old to start now. Iza takes care of me, that’s good enough. I’m comfortable with her. Men are expected to relieve their needs with their mates once in a while. I haven’t had those needs for a long time; I learned to control them long ago. I wouldn’t be much of a mate for a young woman. But it may be she won’t need one. Iza says she may have a difficult pregnancy, she’s already having problems, she may not keep it full term. I know Ayla wants the baby, but it would be better for everyone if she lost it.”
As reported to the men, Ayla’s pregnancy was not going well. The medicine woman feared there was something wrong with the baby. Many miscarriages were of malformed fetuses, and Iza thought it was better to lose them than to give live birth and have to dispose of a deformed baby. Ayla’s morning sickness lasted well beyond the first trimester, and even by late fall when her thickened waist had grown to a bulge, she had trouble keeping food down. When she started spotting and passing clots, Iza asked Brun’s permission for Ayla to be excused from normal activities and she confined the young woman to her bed.
Iza’s fears about Ayla’s baby grew with the difficulties of her pregnancy. She felt strongly that Ayla should let the baby go. She was sure it wouldn’t take much to dislodge it, for all that her stomach attested to the baby’s growth. She feared more for Ayla. The baby was taking too much out of her. Her arms and legs grew thinner in contrast to her expanding middle. She had no appetite and forced herself to eat the special foods Iza prepared for her. Dark circles formed around her eyes and her thick lustrous hair became limp. She was always cold, just didn’t have the physical reserves to keep warm, and spent most of the time huddled close to the fire, bundled in furs. But when Iza suggested that Ayla should take the medicine that would end the pregnancy, the young woman refused.
“Iza, I want my baby. Help me,” Ayla pleaded. “You can help me, I know you can. I’ll do whatever you say, just help me to have my baby.”
Iza could not refuse. For some time she had depended on Ayla to bring her the plants she needed, seldom going out herself. Strenuous exercise brought on coughing spasms. Iza had been keeping herself heavily dosed with medicines to hide the consumptive lung disease that grew worse each winter. But for Ayla she would go out to look for a certain root that helped prevent miscarriage.
The medicine woman left the cave early one morning to search the upland forests and damp barrens for the special root. The sun was shining in a clear sky when she started out. Iza thought it was going to be one of those warm days in late fall and didn’t want to burden herself with extra clothes. Besides, she planned to be back before the sun was high. She followed a path into the forest near the cave, then turned off along a creek and began climbing the steep slopes. She was weaker than she thought, her breath was short, and she had to rest often or wait for a racking spasm of coughing to pass. By midmorning the weather turned. Clouds blew in from the east on a chill wind and when they reached the foothills, dropped their heavy load of moisture in a driving sleet. In the first few moments, Iza was soaked.
The rain had slackened by the time she found the kind of pine forest, and plants, she was looking for. Shivering in the cold drizzle, she dug the roots out of the muddy ground. Her cough was worse on the way back, convulsing her body every few moments and bringing bloody foam to her lips. She wasn’t as familiar with the terrain around this cave as she had been with the environment of the clan’s previous home. She became disoriented, followed the wrong creek down the slope, and had to backtrack before she found the right one. It was nearing dark when the thoroughly wet and chilled medicine woman found her way back to the cave.
“Mother, where have you been?” Ayla gestured. “You’re soaked and shivering. Come to the fire. Let me get you some dry clothes.”
“I found some rattlesnake root for you, Ayla. Wash it and chew …” Iza had to stop as another spasm overwhelmed her. Her eyes were feverish, her face flushed: “ … chew it raw. It will help you keep the baby.”
“You didn’t go out in that rain just to find a root for me, did you? Don’t you know I’d rather lose the baby than lose you? You’re too sick to go out like that, you know you are.”
Ayla knew Iza had not been well for years, but until then she didn’t know just how sick the woman really was. The young woman forgot her pregnancy, ignored it when she bled occasionally, forgot to eat half the time, and refused to leave Iza’s side. When she slept, it was on a fur beside the woman’s bed. Uba, too, kept a constant watch.
It was the young girl’s first experience with grave illness in one she loved, and the effect was traumatic. She watched everything Ayla did, helped her, and it opened up an understanding of her own heritage and destiny. Uba wasn’t the only one who watched Ayla. The whole clan was concerned for the medicine woman and not entirely certain of the young woman’s skill. She was oblivious to their apprehension; her complete attention was focused on the woman she called mother.
Ayla searched her brain for every remedy Iza had ever taught her, she questioned Uba for the information she knew was stored in the child’s memory, and applied a certain logic of her own. The special talent Iza had noticed, an ability to discover and treat the real problem, was Ayla’s forte. She was a diagnostician. From small clues, she could put together a picture like pieces of a puzzle and fill in the blanks with reasoning and intuition. It was an ability for which her brain alone, among all those who shared the cave, was uniquely suited. The crisis of Iza’s illness was the stimulus that sharpened her talent.
Ayla applied the remedies she had learned from the medicine woman, then tried new techniques that suggested themselves from other uses, sometimes far removed. Whatever it was, the medication, or the loving care, or the medicine woman’s own will to live—most likely it was all of them—by the time winter had piled high drifts against the wind barriers at the entrance, Iza was sufficiently recovered to take charge of Ayla’s pregnancy again. It was none too soon.
The strain of nursing Iza back to health had its effect. Ayla spotted blood continuously the rest of the winter and lived with a constant backache. She woke in the middle of the night with cramps in her legs and still vomited frequently. Iza expected her to lose the baby anytime. She didn’t know how Ayla hung on to it, and she didn’t know how the baby could continue to develop with Ayla so weak. But develop it did. The young woman’s stomach swelled to unbelievable proportions, and the baby kicked so vigorously and continuously she could hardly sleep. Iza had never seen a woman suffer through a more difficult pregnancy.
Ayla never complained. She was afraid Iza would think she was ready to give the baby up, though she was much too far along for the medicine woman to consider it. Nor did Ayla consider it. Her suffering only made her more convinced that if she lost this one, she would never have another baby.
From her bed, Ayla watched the spring rains wash away the snow, and the first crocus she saw was one Uba brought her. Iza wouldn’t let her out of the cave. The pussy willows had blown and turned green, and the first buds hinted at verdant foliage on the soggy spring day early in her eleventh year when Ayla’s labor began.
The beginning contractions were easy. Ayla sipped willow-bark tea, talking to Iza and Uba, excitedly pleased that the time had finally come. By the next day, she was sure, she would be holding her own baby in her arms. Iza had reservations but tried not to show them. The conversation turned, as it did so often lately with Iza and her two daughters, to medicine.
“Mother, what was that root you brought me the day you went out and got so sick?” Ayla motioned.
“It’s called rattlesnake root. It’s not commonly used because it should be chewed when it’s fresh, and it must be collected in late fall. It’s very good for preventing miscarriage, but how many women threaten to miscarry only in late
fall? It loses its effectiveness when it’s dried.”
“What does it look like?” Uba asked. Iza’s illness had sharpened Uba’s interest in the healing herbs she would one day dispense, and both Iza and Ayla were training her. But training Uba was different from training Ayla. To gain the full value of her brain, Uba only needed to be reminded of what she knew and see how it was applied.
“It’s really two plants, a male and a female. It has a long stalk growing out of a cluster of leaves near the ground, and small flowers clinging close to the top, partway down the stalk. The male flowers are white. The root is from the female plant; its flowers are smaller and green.”
“Did you say it grows in pine forests?” Ayla motioned.
“Only damp ones. It likes moisture, bogs, wet places in meadows, often in upland woods.”
“You should never have gone out that day, Iza. I was so worried.… Oh, wait, another one is starting!”
The medicine woman studied Ayla. She was trying to judge how long the pains were. It would be a long time yet, she decided.
“It wasn’t raining when I started out,” Iza said. “I thought it was going to be warm that day. I was wrong. Fall weather is always unpredictable. I’ve been wanting to ask you something, Ayla. I was delirious with fever part of the time, but I thought you made a chest plaster out of herbs used to relieve Creb’s rheumatism.”
“I did.”
“I didn’t teach you that.”
“I know. You were coughing so hard, spitting so much blood, I wanted to give you something to calm the spasms, but I thought you should bring up the phlegm without so much effort, too. That medicine for Creb’s rheumatism penetrates deep with warmth and stimulates the blood. I thought it might loosen the phlegm so you wouldn’t have to cough so hard to bring it up, then I could still give you the decoction to calm the spasms. 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 w
as 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.”
