'I suppose I should empty the bowl and the night basket, while I'm at it,' he said, planting the end of the lighted torch in the ground.
'If you want, but hurry,' Ayla said, looking at him with a languorous yet mischievous smile. 'I think Jonayla is almost asleep.'
He felt an immediate tightening in his loins and smiled back. He brought the large, heavy waterbag to the main hearth and hung it on its accustomed place, a peg on one of the strong posts that supported the structure, then brought the second one to their sleeping place.
'Are you thirsty?' he asked, as he watched her nurse the baby.
'I wouldn't mind a little water. I was thinking of making some tea, but I think I'll wait until later,' she said.
He poured some water in a cup and gave it to her, then went back to the door. He poured the contents of the bowl into the night basket, then picked up the torch and went back outside taking the night basket and soiled bowl with him. Propping the torch in the ground, he dumped the large, malodorous night basket in one of the trenches the people used for passing their wastes. Dumping such wastes was a job no one liked to do. Picking up the torch, he then took them both to the lower end of the stream, far away from the place upstream that they had designated as their source of water. He rinsed them both out, letting the water flow through them; then with a shovel made of the scapula of some animal, with one edge thinned and sharpened, that was left there for the purpose, he filled the night basket something less than half full of dirt. Then, using clean sand from the bank of the waterway, he carefully washed and scoured his hands. Finally, with the torch to guide his way, he picked up the basket and bowl and headed back to the dwelling.
He put the night basket in its usual place, the bowl beside it, and the flaming torch in a holder made for it near the entrance. 'That's done,' he said, smiling at Ayla as he walked toward her. She was still holding the baby. He kicked off his sandals made of woven grass — the usual foot-coverings worn in the summer — and lay down beside her, propping himself up on one elbow.
'It will be someone else's turn next,' she said.
'That water is cold,' he said.
'And so are your hands,' she said, reaching for them. 'I should warm them up,' she added, the hint of suggestion in her voice.
He looked at her with glowing eyes, his pupils enlarged with desire, and the dim light inside the dwelling.
Chapter 12
Jondalar enjoyed watching Jonayla, whatever she was doing, whether it was nursing or playing with her feet or putting things in her mouth. He even liked to look at her when she was sleeping. Now he gazed at her trying to resist falling to sleep. She would start to let go of her mother's nipple, then suckle a few more times and hold on for a moment, then begin to let go, and repeat the process. Finally she lay quietly in her mother's arms. He was fascinated as a drop of milk formed at the end of the nipple and fell.
'I think she's asleep,' he said, softly.
'Yes, I think so,' Ayla said. She had packed the baby in clean mouflon wool, which she had washed a few days before, and wrapped her up in her usual swaddling night clothes. The woman stood up and gently carried her infant to a nearby small sleeping roll. Ayla didn't always move Jonayla out of her bed when she went to sleep, but on this night she definitely wanted their sleeping roll for just Jondalar and her.
When she went back, the man who was waiting watched her as she slipped back into her place beside him; she looked directly at him, which still took some conscious thought for her. Jondalar had taught her that among his people, and most of his kind — and hers — it was considered impolite, if not devious, if you didn't look directly at the person to whom you were speaking.
While Ayla was looking at him, she started thinking about how other people saw this man she loved, how he appeared, his physical look. What was it about him that drew people to him before he even said a word? He was tall, with yellow hair lighter than hers, and he was strong and well made, with good proportions for his height. Though she couldn't see the colour in the dim light of the shelter, she knew that his eyes, which always caught people's attention, matched the extraordinary blue of glacier water and the ice of its depths. She had seen both. He was intelligent and skilled in making things, like the flint tools he crafted, but more than that, she knew he had a quality, a charm, a charisma that attracted most people, but especially women. Zelandoni had been known to say that not even the Mother could refuse him if he asked.
He didn't quite know he had it — it was an unconscious appeal — but he did tend to take for granted that he would always be welcomed. Though it wasn't something he used on purpose, exactly, he knew he had an effect on people and benefited from it. Even his long Journey had not disabused him of the notion, or changed his perception that wherever he went, people would accept him, approve of him, like him. He had never really had to explain himself or find out how to fit in, and he never learned how to ask for pardon for doing something inappropriate or unacceptable.
If he seemed contrite or acted sorry — feelings that were usually genuine — people tended to accept that. Even when he was a young man and had beat Ladroman so badly that he knocked out his permanent front teeth, Jondalar didn't have to find the words to say he was sorry, then face him, and say them. His mother paid a heavy compensation for him, and he was sent away to live with Dalanar, the man of his hearth, for a few years, but he didn't have to do anything himself to make amends. He didn't have to beg forgiveness, or even say he was sorry for doing something wrong and injuring the other boy.
Though to most people he was considered an amazingly handsome, masculine man, Ayla thought of him in a somewhat different way. Men of the people who raised her, men of the Clan, had features that were more rugged, with large round eye sockets, generous noses, and pronounced brow ridges. From the first moment she saw him, unconscious, almost dead, after being attacked by her lion, the man had aroused an unconscious memory of people she hadn't seen in many years, a memory of people like herself. To Ayla, Jondalar's features were not as strong as those of the men with whom she had grown up, but they were so perfectly shaped and arranged, she thought that he was incredibly beautiful, like a fine-looking animal, a healthy young horse or lion. Jondalar had explained to her that it was not a word usually used to describe men, but though she didn't say it often, she did think he was beautiful.
He looked at her as he lay beside her, then bent his head to kiss her. He felt the softness of her lips and slowly moved his tongue between them, which she obligingly opened. He felt a tightening of his loins again.
'Ayla, you are so beautiful, and I am so lucky,' he said.
'I am so lucky,' she said. 'And you are beautiful.'
He smiled. She knew it wasn't quite the word to use, though she used 'beautiful' correctly in all other instances. Now, when she said it to him in private, he just smiled. She hadn't closed the ties at the top of the opening of her tunic, though her breast had slipped back inside. He reached in and pulled it out again, the same one she had just used to nurse, and ran his tongue around the nipple, then suckled on it, tasting her milk.
'It feels different inside me when you do it,' she said softly. 'I like it when Jonayla nurses, but it doesn't feel the same. You make me want you to touch me in other places.'
'You make me want to touch you in those places.'
He undid all the ties and opened her tunic wide, exposing both breasts. When he suckled her again, her other nipple dribbled milk, and he reached over to lick that one.
'I'm coming to like the taste of your milk, but I don't want to take what belongs to Jonayla.'
'By the time she's hungry again, more milk will be there.'
He let go of the nipple and ran his tongue up to her neck and then kissed her again, this time more fiercely, and felt a need so strong he wasn't sure he could control it. He stopped and buried his face in her neck, trying to regain his composure. She began tugging on his tunic to pull it over his head.
'It's been a while,' he said, sitting up on his knees. 'I can't believe how ready I am.'
'Are you?' she said, with a teasing grin.
'I'll show you,' he said.
