Why did she come here? She said she wanted to start another baby. Was she looking for me? We always came to this swimming hole the last time the Meeting was here. I should have thought about that. I shouldn't have brought Marona here. Especially Marona. I knew how Ayla would feel if she found out about her, that's why I made Marona promise never to tell.
'Why did she have to see us?' he beseeched the vacant woods. 'Have I become so used to her never choosing anyone else that I've forgotten what it was like for me?' He recalled the bitter pain and desolation he had felt the time she chose Ranec. I know how she must have felt when she saw me with Marona, he thought. Just the way I did when Ranec told her to come to his bed and she went, but she didn't know then. She thought she was supposed to go with him. How would I feel if she chose someone else now?
I tried to drive her away then because I was so hurt, but she still loved me. She made a Matrimonial tunic for me even when she was promised to Ranec. Jondalar felt the same wretched torment at the thought of losing her now as he had when he thought he was going to lose her to Ranec. Only this time it was worse. This time he was the one who had hurt her.
Ayla ran blindly ahead, tears clouding her vision, but they could not wash away her misery. She had thought about Jondalar at the Ninth Cave, dreamed about him at night, hungered for him on her way, and pushed herself to get here so she could be with him. She couldn't return to the camp and face all the people. She needed to be alone. She stopped at the horse enclosure and led Whinney out, put the horse blanket on her back, and climbed on, then raced her toward the open grassland.
Whinney was still tired from the trip, but responded to the woman's urging and galloped across the plains. Ayla could not get the picture of Marona and Jondalar out of her mind; she could think of nothing else, and soon forgot about directing the horse, but simply rode her. The mare slowed when she felt the woman cease to actively direct her and turned back toward the camp at a slow walk, stopping to graze now and then. It was growing dark by the time they reached the Meeting site, and cooling down fast, but Ayla felt nothing except the deep numbing cold inside her. The horse did not feel her passenger take control again until they reached the horse grove and saw several people.
'Ayla, people have been wondering where you've been,' Proleva said. 'Jonayla was here looking for you, but after she ate, she went to Levela's to play with Bokovan when you didn't return.'
'I've been riding,' Ayla said.
'Jondalar finally turned up,' Joharran said. 'He came stumbling into the camp a while ago. I told him you were looking for him, but he just mumbled something incoherent.'
Her eyes were glazed as she walked into the camp. She passed by Zelandoni without greeting her, without even seeing her.
The woman eyed her sharply. She knew something was wrong. 'Ayla, we haven't seen much of you since you arrived,' the Donier said, surprised that she'd had to speak first.
'I guess not,' Ayla said.
It was plain to Zelandoni that Ayla's thoughts were somewhere else. Jondalar's 'incoherent mumbling' hadn't been unclear to her, even if she hadn't understood the words. His actions were clear enough. She had also seen Marona emerge from the small wooded area looking dishevelled, but not on the normal path used by most members of the Ninth Cave. She came to their camp from a different direction, went directly into the tent she had been sharing, and began to pack up her things. She told Proleva some friends from the Fifth Cave wanted her to stay with them.
Zelandoni had been aware of Jondalar's dalliance with Marona from the beginning. At first she thought there was little harm in it. She knew his true feelings for Ayla, and thought Marona would be just a passing fancy, something to relieve him at a time when Ayla had other demands on her and no choice but to be away at times. But she hadn't counted on Marona's obsession to get him back and to get back at Ayla, or her ability to insinuate herself upon him. Their physical attraction had always been strong. Even in the past, it had been the primary focus of their relationship. Sometimes, Zelandoni had suspected, it was the only thing they had had in common.
The Donier guessed that Ayla hadn't fully recovered from her ordeal in the cave. Her loss of weight and the gaunt hollows in her face would have given her away even if she hadn't seen it in Ayla's eyes. Zelandoni had seen too many Acolytes return from a calling, emerging from a cave or returning from wandering the steppe, not to know the danger of the ordeal. She, herself, almost didn't survive. Since Ayla lost a baby at the same time, she would very likely also be suffering the melancholy most women felt after giving birth, which was often worse after miscarrying.
But the One Who Was First had seen more than the suffering Ayla had endured in the cave in her eyes now. She saw pain, the sharp chilling pain of jealousy with all the related feelings of betrayal, anger, doubt, and fear. She loves him too much; it's not hard to do, the woman once known as Zolena recalled. The First had often wondered during the past few years how a woman who loved a man so much could be Zelandoni, too, but Ayla's talent was formidable. In spite of her love for the man, it could not be ignored. And if anything, his feeling for her was even stronger.
But as much as he loved her, Jondalar was a man with strong drives. It was difficult for him to ignore them. It was especially true when there were no societal constraints against it, and someone as intimately familiar with him as Marona was using every faculty she possessed to encourage him. It was too easy to fall into the habit of going to her rather than bothering Ayla when she was busy.
Zelandoni knew Jondalar hadn't mentioned anything about his ongoing liaison to Ayla, and instinctively, others who cared about them had tried to shield her. They hoped Ayla would not find out, but the Donier knew if he continued, it was a vain hope. He should have known it, too.
In spite of how well she had learned the ways of the Zelandonii and seemed to fit in, Ayla had not been born to them. Their ways were not natural to her. Zelandoni almost wished the Summer Meeting were over. She would like to be able to watch the young woman, make sure she was all right, but the last part of the Summer Meeting was a very busy time for the One Who Was First. She observed the young woman, trying to discern the extent of her feelings over her discovery of Jondalar's encounters with Marona, and what effects it would have.
At Proleva's urging, Ayla accepted a plate of food, but she did little more than push it around. She dumped the food and cleaned the plate, then returned it. 'I wish Jonayla would come back; do you know how long she'll be gone?' Ayla said. 'I'm sorry I wasn't here when she came.'
'You could go to Levela's and get her,' Proleva said. 'Levela would love it if you came to visit. I didn't see where Jondalar went. He may be there, too.'
'I'm really tired,' Ayla said. 'I don't think I'd be very good company. I'm going to bed early, but will you send Jonayla in when she comes?'
'Are you feeling all right, Ayla?' Proleva asked, finding it hard to believe that she would just go to bed. She had been trying to find Jondalar all day, and now she wouldn't even walk a little ways to look for him.
'I'm fine. I'm just tired,' Ayla said, heading for one of the large circular dwellings that ringed the central fireplace.
A wall of sturdy vertical panels made of overlapped cattail leaves, which shed rain, was attached to the outside of a circle of poles sunk into the ground. A second interior wall of panels woven out of flattened bullrush stems was attached to the inside of the poles, leaving an air space between for extra insulation to make it cooler on hot days and, with a fire inside, warmer on cool nights. The roof was a thick thatch of phragmite reeds, sloping down from a centre pole, supported by a circular frame of slender alder poles lashed together. The smoke escaped through a hole near the centre.
The construction provided a fairly large enclosed space that could be left open or divided into smaller areas with movable interior panels. Sleeping rolls were spread out on mats made of bullrushes, tall phragmite reeds, cattail leaves, and grasses around a central fireplace. Ayla partially undressed and crawled into her sleeping roll, but was far from ready to sleep. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was the scene of Jondalar with Marona, and her mind whirled with the implications.
Ayla knew that among the Zelandoni jealousy was not condoned, though she was not as aware that behaviour designed to provoke it was even less acceptable. People recognised that jealousy existed and fully understood its cause, and more important, its often damaging effects. But in a harsh land often overwhelmed by long and bitter glacial winters, survival depended on mutual cooperation and assistance. The unwritten strictures against any behaviour that could undermine the necessary goodwill required to maintain that unanimity and understanding were strongly enforced by social customs.
