interest afterward, though he was not allowed to have any further relations with her for a year. He had learned how to discourage such interest.
The two rode off on their horses, with Wolf following along. Jondalar led them west until he came to an area that looked familiar to him. He pulled up and showed her where he had found the flint, then looked around and started in a different direction. They came to an area of moorland, a tract of land covered with bracken, heather — the preferred food plant of red grouse — and coarse grasses with a few clumps of brush and brambles, not far from the western edge of the oxbow lake. Ayla smiled. It was similar to the tundra of ptarmigan habitat, and she could easily imagine that a southern variety of the birds could live in this region. They left the horses near a stand of hazelnut brush spreading out from a large centre tree.
She could see that Wolf had taken notice of something ahead. He was alert, focused, and whining softly. 'Go ahead, Wolf. Find them,' Ayla said.
As he dashed off, Ayla slipped her sling off her head, reached in her pouch for two stones, set one in the soft cup of her sling, and gathered up both ends. She didn't have to wait long. With a sudden flurry of wings Wolf flushed out five red grouse. The birds lived close to the ground but could fly up in a burst of speed and then glide long. They resembled plump chickens with camouflage, brown and black flecked with white. Ayla hurled a stone the moment she saw the first bird, and delivered the second stone before the first one hit the ground. She heard a
If it had been just the two of them travelling together, the way it was on their Journey, that would have been enough, but the travellers numbered sixteen in all, and included four children. Because of the way Ayla cooked the birds, everyone always wanted a taste, and though they were of a decent size — a live weight of twelve or thirteen pounds full grown — three birds would hardly feed sixteen people. She wished it were the right season for eggs; she liked to stuff the birds with eggs and roast them together. The nests usually consisted of a depression on the ground lined with grass or leaves, but there were no eggs to find at this time of year.
Ayla whistled again for Wolf. He came bounding back. It seemed obvious that he was having fun chasing birds. 'Maybe he can find some more,' Ayla said, then looked at the four-legged hunter. 'Wolf, find them. Find the birds.'
The wolf dashed into the grassy field again and Ayla followed after him. Jondalar followed her. Before long another grouse flew up and although it was some distance away, Jondalar launched a spear with his thrower and managed to bring it down. Then, while Jondalar was looking for the one he killed, a lek of four males took to the sky, identified by black and brown with white markings on tail and wing plumage and the yellows and reds of the beaks and combs. Ayla got two more with stones from her sling; she seldom missed. Jondalar had not seen the fly-up, though he heard it, and was late getting his spear-thrower armed. He wounded one, and heard it squawk.
'That should be enough,' Ayla said, 'even if we let Wolf have that last one.'
With Wolf's help, they found and gathered up seven birds. The last had a broken wing but was still alive. Ayla wrung the bird's neck and extracted the small spear, then signalled the wolf that he could have it. Wolf picked it up in his mouth and carried it out of sight into the field. Using tough grass as cordage, they tied the rest of the grouse together by their feet in pairs and strolled back to where the horses were grazing. She wrapped her sling around her head again as they walked toward the horses.
When they returned to camp, the hunters were talking about finding the bison while they were shaving the spear staffs smooth. Jondalar joined them to finish making the many spears they needed. After he knapped flint into points, they would attach them to the shafts and fletch them with the red grouse feathers she would provide. In the meantime, Ayla got the antler shovel that was used by everyone to clear the hearth of ashes and various other tasks. But the broad, flat shovel was not a spade for digging holes. For that she used a kind of awl, a sturdy flint pointed blade attached to the end of a wooden handle that could be used to break up the ground. The shovel was then used to remove the broken earth. She found a place off to the side near the sandy beach and dug a fairly deep hole in the sandy soil, built a fire nearby and placed several good-sized stones in it to heat them up, then started pulling the feathers out of her grouse.
Most of the others came to help. The large, strong feathers were given to the spear-makers, but Ayla wanted to keep the rest of them, too. Beladora had a pouch that she emptied of some implements and offered it to her for the feathers. They all helped to eviscerate and clean the six grouse, saving the edible innards like the hearts, gizzards, and livers. Ayla wrapped them in fresh hay from the field and put them back inside each bird and then wrapped the birds in more hay.
By then the stones were hot and using bentwood tongs, Ayla placed the stones in the bottom and along the sides of the pit. She then covered them with dirt from the hole, and added green grass and leaves, which the children had helped to gather. The birds were placed on top of the greenery. Next Ayla added vegetables — the lower stems of reeds and some ground nuts, good starchy roots that the other women had found — wrapped in edible green leaves, and put on top of the birds. These were covered by more green grass and leaves, another layer of dirt, then more hot stones. A last layer of dirt went on top to seal it off. It would all be left to cook undisturbed until time for the evening meal.
Ayla went to see how the spear-making was coming along. When she got there, some people were carving indentations in the butt ends of the shafts that would be placed against the hook at the back of the spear-thrower; others were gluing on the feathers with heated pitch from pine trees. The feathers were held in place with thin strings of sinew, which they had brought with them. Jonokol was grinding up charcoal that was added along with hot water to a chunk of warm pitch and stirred together. Then he dipped a stick in the thick black liquid and with it painted designs, abelans, on several spear shafts. An abelan signified both a person and his or her name, it meant the name of a life spirit, It was a personal symbol mark that was given to an infant shortly after birth by a Zelandoni. It wasn't writing, but it was a symbolic use of marks.
Jondalar had made spears for Ayla as well as himself, and gave them to her to mark with her own abelan. She counted them; there were twice ten, twenty. She made four lines close together on each of the shafts. That was her personal symbol mark. Since she wasn't born to the Zelandonii, she had chosen her own abelan and picked marks that matched the scars on her leg given to her by a cave lion when she was a little girl. It was how Creb had decided that the Cave Lion was her totem.
The marks would be used later to identify which hunter had slain a particular animal so the attribution of the kill could be made and the distribution of the meat would be equitable. It wasn't that the person who killed the animal got all the meat, but he or she would have first choice of the select parts and was credited with providing meat to the ones who were given a share, which could be even more important. It meant praise, recognition, and an obligation owed. The best hunters often gave most of their meat away just to acquire the credit, sometimes to the dismay of their mates, but it was expected of them.
Levela considered going on the hunt, and Beladora and Amelana said they would be happy to watch Jonlevan along with Jonayla, but in the end Levela decided not to go. She had only recently started weaning Jonlevan, and was still nursing him occasionally. She hadn't hunted since her son was born, and felt out of practice. She thought she might be more hindrance than help.
By the time the spears were completed, Jondalar had used up nearly all the flint he had found for the points, the best of the feathers were gone, applied to the spear shafts to help the weapons fly true, and it was nearly time to have the meal that Ayla had started. Several people had picked many more bilberries, most of which were drying on woven mats. The balance were being cooked into a sauce in a sturdy new bowl woven out of cattail leaves mixed with stems of rush plants that grew in a marsh near the lake, using stones heated in the fire. The only sweetening for the sauce came from the fruit itself, but flavourings from the flowers, leaves, and barks of various plants were often added. In this case Ayla had found meadowsweet, whose tiny flowers made a creamy, foaming display with a honey-sweet fragrance; the intensely aromatic blue flowers of hyssop, which was also a good cough remedy; and the leaves and scarlet flowers of bergamot. Rendered fat was added for a touch of richness.
The meal was pronounced a delicious success, almost a feast. The grouse provided a different meat, a new flavour, a change from the dried meat they so often had, and cooking in the ground oven had tenderised the birds, even the tough old males. The grass they were wrapped in had contributed its own flavour, and the fruit sauce added an agreeable piquant taste. There wasn't as much left over as usual for the morning meal, but enough, especially with the addition of the tender lower stems and rootstalks of cattails.
People were also excited about the hunt planned for the next day. Jondalar and Willamar started talking about it with the others, but until they saw exactly where the bison were, they couldn't decide what specific
