page15 (1/2)

The wo eveningover inconspicuously while they cooked Ebra served Creb as well as Brun, then brought food for Uka, Iza, and Ayla Ovra cooked for her a returned quickly when Grod went over to Brun’s hearth to join the leader and Creb They didn’t want toand sat down beside Ayla who hadn’t stirred from her place

Iza only sipped a little tea and Ayla wasn’t very hungry either She picked at her food, unable to eat with the tight knot constricting her sto up tothe spirits towith all the rest of the men at Brun’s hearth?

Iza was straining harder Every few mo the hands of the toht wore on The men were clustered around the leader’s fire, apparently involved in solances betrayed their real interest The woress, so for a while They all waited, united in their encourageive birth

It ell after dark Suddenly there was a flurry of activity Ebra spread out a hide while Uka helped Iza up into a squatting position She was breathing hard, straining hard, crying out in pain Ayla was treroaned and strained in sy, teeth-gritting,push, the round crown of the baby’s head appeared in a gush of water Another tremendous effort eased out the baby’s head The rest was easier as Iza delivered the wet, squir body of a tiny infant

A final push brought forth a ain, exhausted froob of er, and laid the newborn on Iza’s stomach As she thumped the baby’s feet, the infant’s mouth opened and a loud squall announced the first breath of life of Iza’s first child Ebra tied a piece of red-dyed sinew around the umbilical cord and bit off the part still attached to the placental ot up and went back to her own hearth to report the ender of the child to her mate She sat in front of Brun, bowed her head, and looked up at a tap on her shoulder

8

“I aesture of sorrow, “Iza’s baby is a girl”

But the neas not received with sorrow Brun was relieved, though he would never ad for his sibling, especially with the addition of Ayla to the clan, orking out well and the leader was reluctant to change it Mog-ur was doing a creditable job of training the newco to communicate and to behave within Clan customs Creb was not only relieved, he was overjoyed In his old age, for the first time in his life, he had co fairl to Iza assured it would reether

And for the first time since they moved into the new cave, Iza could draw a breath free of anxiety She was glad the birth had gone so well, as old as she was She had attended many women who had far , a few did, and more than a few babies as well It seee for the woes Her worry over the actual delivery had not been nearly as great as her concern over the sex of the child Such insecurity about the future was almost unbearable for Clan people

Iza lay back on her fur, relaxing Uka wrapped the infant in a swaddling of soft rabbit fur and laid the babe in hercuriosity at Iza; the woman saw her and beckoned

“Come here, Ayla Would you like to see the baby?”

Ayla approached shyly “Yes,” she nodded Iza pulled back the covering so the girl could see the infant

The tiny replica of Iza had a light down of brown fuzz on her head, and the boney occipital knob at the back was more noticeable without the thick head of hair she would soon have The baby’s head was so, and her forehead sloped back sharply froes Ayla reached out to touch the newborn’s soft cheek and the baby instinctively turned toward the touch,noises

“She’s beautiful,” Ayla motioned, her eyes full of soft wonder at the irl asked as the infant waved small clenched fists in the air

“Not yet, but she will soon and you will have to help teach her,” Iza replied

“Oh, I will I’ll teach her to talk Just like you and Creb taught me”

“I know you will, Ayla,” the new ain

The girl stayed protectively close by while Iza rested Ebra had wrapped the afterbirth tissue in the hide that had been put down just before the delivery and hid it in an inconspicuous corner until Iza could take it outside to bury it in a place only she would know If the baby had been stillborn, it would have been buried at the same time, and no one would ever rief openly, but a subtle gentleness and sympathy would be extended

If the baby had been born alive but deformed, or if the leader of the clan decided the newborn was unacceptable for some other reason, the mother’s task would have been more onerous Then she would be required to take the baby away and bury it or leave it exposed to the elements and carnivores Rarely was a deformed child allowed to live; if it was female, almost never If a baby was male, especially first-born, and if the woman’s mate wanted the child, he could at the discretion of the leader be allowed to remain with his mother for the first seven days of his life as a test of his ability to survive Any child still alive after seven days, by Clan tradition which had the force of law, had to be named and accepted into the clan

The first days of Creb’s life had hung in just such a balance His mother had barely survived his birth Her mate was also the leader and the decision of whether the newborn male would be allowed to live rested solely with him But his decision was made more for the woman’s sake than for the baby’s, whose ave early indication of the dae the difficult birth had inflicted She was too weak, she had lost too e of death herself Her mate could not require that she dispose of the child; she was too weak to do it If the mother couldn’t do it, or if she died, the task fell to the medicine woman, but Creb’s mother was the medicine woh no one expected him to survive

His ainst all odds, another nursing woman took pity on the poor infant and fed Creb his first life-sustaining nourish-ur, the holiest of holy ician of the entire Clan

Now the crippled man and his brother approached Iza and the baby At a pereot up and moved away but watched from a distance out of the corner of her eye Iza sat up, unwrapped her baby, and held her up to Brun, careful not to look at eithertaken from her mother’s warm side and exposed to the cold air of the cave They were just as careful not to look at Iza

“The child is norravely “Sheday, she will be accepted”

Iza really didn’t have any fear that Brun would reject her child, but she was relieved nonetheless at the fore of worry rehte

r would not be unlucky because its mother had no mate He had been alive, after all, at the ti, Iza reasoned, and Creb was like a ht out of her mind

For the next seven days Iza would be isolated, confined to the boundaries of Creb’s fire, except for necessary trips to relieve herself and to bury the placenta None of the clan officially recognized the existence of Iza’s baby while she was in isolation except those who shared the saht food for them so Iza could rest It allowed a brief visit and an unofficial peek at the new baby Beyond the seven days until she stopped bleeding, she would be under a modified woman’s curse Her contacts would be restricted to wo her menses

Iza spent her ti for her child and, when she felt rested, reorganizing food areas, cooking areas, sleeping areas, and her e area within the boundary stones that defined Creb’s hearth, his territory inside the cave now shared by three females

Because of Mog-ur’s unique position in the clan hierarchy, his location was in a very favorable spot: close enough to the ht and summer sun, but not so close that it was subject to the worst of the winter drafts His hearth had an additional feature, for which Iza was particularly grateful for Creb’s sake An outcrop of stone extending froave extra protection from winds Even with the wind barrier and a constant fire near the opening, cold winds often blasted more exposed sites The old man’s rheuravated by the cold da furs, resting on a soft layer of straw and grass packed into a shallow trench, were in the protected corner

One of the few tasks that had been required of the , was the construction of the wind barrier—hides stretched across the entrance supported by posts sunk into the ground Another was paving the area around the ht up fro the cave entrance into a quagmire of mud The floor of the individual hearths was bare earth, ovenfood