gathering to pass judgment for serious crimes.
More people were arriving and the field below the cliff was filling up. But the biggest surprise was late in the afternoon. Ayla and the First were in the zelandonia dwelling when Jonayla came running in interrupting the meeting.
'Mother, mother,' she said. 'Kimeran told me to come and tell you.'
'Tell me what, Jonayla?' Ayla said with a stern tone to her voice.
'Beladora's family is here. And there is a strange person with them.'
'Beladora's family? They aren't even Zelandonii; they're Giornadonii. They live far away, how could they have got here in just a day or so?' Ayla said. She turned to the others. 'I think I have to go.'
'I should go with you,' the First said. 'Please excuse us.'
'They don't live that far,' Zelandoni First said, walking them out, 'and they often come to visit. At least every couple of years. I think they are as much Zelandonii as they are Giornadonii, but I doubt if they came because of the runners that were sent out. They were probably planning to visit anyway. They were likely as surprised to see their relative as she was to see them.'
Kimeran was just outside and had heard Zelandoni First. 'That's not entirely true,' he said. 'They went to the Giornadonii Summer Meeting, then decided to go to your Summer Meeting, and were planning on coming here later. They were at the Meeting Camp when the runner arrived and they found out from him that we were here. Of course, they also found out about Balderan. Did you know that he has caused trouble for some of the Giornadonii Caves? Is there anybody he hasn't harmed and alienated?'
'There will be a meeting about that soon,' Zelandoni First said. 'We have to come to some kind of decision, shortly.' As an afterthought, she said, 'Did you say there was a strange person with them?'
'Yes, but you will see for yourself.'
Ayla and the First were presented to Beladora's relatives with full formal introductions; then the First asked if they had set up their camp yet.
'No, we just arrived,' said the woman they had just learned was Beladora's mother, Ginedora. Even without the introduction, it would have been obvious, she was an older, slightly plumper version of the woman they knew.
'I think there may be room near our camp,' the First said. 'Why don't we go claim it before someone else does.'
When they reached the camp, there were more introductions and some initial hesitation about the animals, but then Ginedora saw a boy who looked as though he could have been born to her. She gave her daughter a questioning look. Beladora took her son's hand, and then her blond, blue-eyed daughter's hand.
'Come and meet your grandma,' she said.
'You had two-born-together? They are both yours? And both healthy?' she said. Beladora nodded. 'That's wonderful!' she said.
'This is Gioneran,' the young mother said, holding up the hand of a five-year boy with the dark brown hair and brownish-green eyes like his mother.
'He is going to be tall, like Kimeran,' Ginedora said.
'And this is Ginedela,' Beladora said, holding up the hand of her fair daughter.
'She has Kimeran's colouring, and she's a beauty,' the woman said. 'Are they shy? Will they come and give me hug?'
'Go and greet your grandma. We've come a long way to meet her,' Beladora said, urging them forward. The woman got down on her knees and opened out her arms. Her eyes were feeling full and looked shiny. Somewhat reluctantly, the children gave her a cursory hug. She took one in each arm as a tear rolled down her cheek.
'I didn't know I had grandchildren. That's the trouble with your living so far away,' Ginedela said. 'How long are you staying here?'
'We don't know yet,' Beladora said.
'Are you coming to our Cave?' Ginedela asked.
'We had planned to,' she said.
'You've got to do more than visit for a few days. You've travelled this far — come back with us and stay for a year,' the woman said.
'That's something we would have to think about,' Beladora said. 'Kimeran is the leader of our Cave. It would be hard for him to stay away for a year.' When she saw tears starting in her mother's eyes, she added, 'But we'll think about it.'
Ayla glanced around at the other people who were beginning to set up camp. She noticed a man who was carrying someone on his shoulders. He bent down and helped the person off. At first she thought it was a child; then she looked again. It was a small person, but oddly shaped, with legs and arms too short. She tapped the First and moved her chin in the direction of the person.
The large woman looked, then looked more closely. She understood why Ayla had called her attention to the individual. She had never seen one, but she had heard about similar little people. 'No wonder Beladora's mother seemed so relieved that her daughter's children, born at the same time, were normal. That person is an accident of birth. Like some dwarf trees whose growth becomes stunted, I think that is a dwarf person,' she said.
'I would like to meet that person to learn more, but I don't want to make an issue of it. It would be like staring, and I think that person gets stared at enough,' Ayla said.
Chapter 26
Ayla had got up very early and gathered her collecting baskets and the panniers for Whinney. She told Jondalar that she was going to look for some greens and roots and whatever else she could find for tonight's feast, but she seemed distracted and uncomfortable.
'Would you like me to come along?' he asked.
'No!' Her answer was sharp and abrupt, and then she tried to soften it. 'I was hoping you would watch Jonayla. Beladora is taking her children to spend some time with her mother this morning. Jondecam and Levela are also going and taking Jonlevan with them, because they are all related. I don't know what Kimeran is doing, but I think he may join them later. Jonayla is like family, but she is really just a friend and may feel left out because she won't have her usual friends to play with. I thought maybe you and Racer could go for a ride with her and Grey this morning.'
'That's a good idea. We haven't been riding for a while. The exercise would do the horses good,' Jondalar said. Ayla smiled at him and rubbed cheeks, but a frown still creased her forehead. She looked unhappy.
It was barely daylight when Ayla left, riding Whinney and whistling for Wolf. She rode along the riverbank looking over the vegetation. She knew the plants she was looking for grew near the place where they had camped, but she hoped she wouldn't have to ride that far. She rode past the Third Cave's location; it was deserted. Everyone was at the meeting that had spontaneously come about at the First Cave. She wondered how Amelana was doing, and if she would have her baby before they left. It could be any time now, she thought, and fervently hoped it would be a normal, healthy, happy baby.
She didn't find what she was looking for until she was close to their former campsite. It was the backwater of the river that had almost formed an oxbow lake that created the right kind of habitat for both water parsnip and water hemlock. She halted the horse and quickly slid off. Wolf seemed happy to have her to himself for a change and was a little frisky, but Ayla was in no mood for playfulness, so he began exploring the interesting smells coming from the small holes and hummocks.
She had her good sharp knife and a digging stick with her and first collected heaps of water parsnips. Then in another basket and a new tool she had fashioned explicitly for the purpose, she dug up several roots and plants of the water hemlock. She wrapped them with long stems of grass and put them in a separate basket, again made expressly for the plants. She left it on the ground while she packed the parsnips in the panniers fastened to Whinney, then attached the separate basket on top. Then whistling for Wolf, she started back upstream; she was in a hurry to return. When she came to a place where the river flowed fresh and clean, she stopped to fill her waterbag. Then she saw the dry bed of a seasonal tributary stream that would be full of rushing water when rains
