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Mog-ur picked up his staff and liht in and piled in a heap in an unused corner of the large cavern, and a shallow trench scooped out of the dirt floor Iza had been a first-ranked medicine woman Not only her position in the clan hierarchy, but her intimacy with the spirits dictated a burial place within the cave It guaranteed that the protective spirits that watched over her would linger near her clan, and she herself could look in on them froer would scatter her bones

The ician sprinkled red ochre dust inside the oval of the trench, then round where Iza would be buried, he hobbled over to a lumpy shape draped loosely with a soft leather hide He pulled the cover back to reveal the gray naked body of the s had been flexed and tied into a fetal position with red-dyed sinew The esture, then lowered hian to rub the cold flesh with a salve of red ochre and cave bear fat Bent into a fetal position and covered with the red that resembled the blood of birth, Iza would be delivered into the next world the same way she had arrived in this one

Never had it been more difficult for hi to Creb She knew him better than anyone She knew the pain he had endured without complaint, the shame he had suffered because of his affliction She understood his gentleness, his sensitivity, and she rejoiced for his greatness, his power, and his will to overcome She had cooked for him, cared for him, soothed his aches With her he had known the joys of fah he had never touched her as inti her cold body with salve, she had been more “mate” to him than many men had Her death devastated him

When he returned to his hearth, Creb’s face was as gray as the body had been Ayla still sat next to Iza’s bed staring blankly into space, but she stirred when Creb began to rus

“What are you doing?” shethat was Iza’s

“I’s The tools she used in this life should be buried with her so she has the spirit of them in the next world,” Creb explained

“I’ll get theether the wooden bowls and bone cups Iza had used to e, the round hand stone and flat stone base used for crushing and grinding, her personal eating dishes, a few i, and put theer pile that represented Iza’s life and work

“Those are not Iza’s tools!” Ayla gestured angrily, then juo, then shook his head and began to gather up Iza’s tools

Ayla crossed the streaone before She stopped at a stand of colorful hollyhocks on long graceful steathered an armful of different hues Then she picked the many-petaled, daisylike yarrow used for poultices and pain She ran through theic: white-leafed thistle with round, pale yelloers and yellow spikes; large, brilliant yellow groundsels; grape hyacinths, so blue they were almost black

Every one of the plants she picked had found their way into Iza’s pharmacopoeia at some time, but she selected only those that were also beautiful, with colorful, sweet-sain as she stopped on the edge of athe ti plants Her ar the basket Several blossoain and saw the tangled branches of a woody horsetail with its small flowers, and almost smiled at the idea that occurred to her

She searched in a fold, pulled out a knife, and cut a branch of the plant In the ware of thethe stems of the beautiful blosso network until the entire branch was a riot of color

The whole clan was astonished when Ayla ht to the back of the cave and laid it beside the body of theon its side in the shallow trench within an oval of stones

“These were Iza’s tools!” Ayla gestured defiantly, daring anyone to dispute her

The old ht Those were Iza’s tools, those hat she knehat she worked with all her life She ht be happy to have therow there?

Iza’s tools, the irave with the woan to pile the stones around and on top of her body while Mog-ur a Antelope toteuide Iza’s spirit safely to the next world

“Wait!” Ayla suddenly interrupted “I forgot so” She ran back to the hearth and searched for her , and carefully withdrew the two halves of the ancient rave beside Iza’s body

“I thought she ht want to take it with her, now that it can’t be used anymore”

Mog-ur nodded approval It was fitting, estures After the last stone had been piled on, the woan to lay wood around and on top of the stone cairn An e fire for Iza’s burial feast The food was cooked on top of her grave, and the fire would be kept burning for seven days The heat from the bonfire would drive all theit, and rendering it odorless

As the flaan a last, eloquent lament in motions that stirred the soul of every member of the clan He spoke to the world of the spirits of their love for the medicine woman who had cared for theh sickness and pain as estures, repeated in essentially the same form for every funeral, and so the men’s cere was conveyed Though the outward form was conventional, the fervor and conviction and ineffable sorrow of the great holy nificance far beyond mere form

Dry-eyed, Ayla gazed over the dancing fire at the flowing gracefulthe intensity of his e her pain and she identified with hih he had reached inside her and spoke with her brain, felt with her heart She was not the only one who felt his sorrow as her own Ebra began to keen her grief, then the other woh-pitched, wordless wail rise in her throat and with a burst of relief joined in the sympathetic lament Ayla stared vacantly ahead, sunk too far into the depths of her misery to express it She couldn’t even find the release of tears

She didn’t kno long she stared into theeyes Ebra had to shake her before Ayla responded, then she turned blank eyes toward the leader’s mate

“Ayla, have so to eat This is the last feast ill ever share with Iza”

Ayla took the wooden plate of food, autoed when she tried to s it Suddenly she juh brush and over rocks At first her feet started to take her along a fah mountain meadow and a small cave that had offered shelter and security before But she veered away Ever since she had shown the place to Brun, it didn’t seem to be hers anymore, and her last stay held too many painful memories She climbed instead to the top of the bluff that protected their cave fro down the mountain in wint

er, and deflected the strong winds of fall

Buffeted by gusts, Ayla fell to her knees at the top, and there, alone with her unbearable grief, she yielded to her anguish in a plaintive chanting wail as she rocked and rocked to the rhyth heart Creb hobbled out of the cave after her, saw her silhouetted against the sunset-painted clouds, and heard the thin, distant rief was, he couldn’t understand her rejection of the solace of company in her misery, her withdrawal into herself His usual perceptiveness was dulled by his own sorrow; he didn’t realize she was suffering frorief

Guilt racked her soul She blao to a Clan Gathering; she was a medicine woman who had deserted someone in time of need, someone she loved She blamed herself for Iza’s trek up the mountain to find a root to help her keep the baby she wanted so desperately, resulting in the near-fatal illness that weakened the wouilty about the pain she had caused Creb when she unwittingly followed the lights to the small chamber deep in the cave of the uilt, she eak fro fro, unsuckled breasts But evenfrom a depression Iza could have helped her with, if she had been there For Ayla was alife, and Iza was her first patient who had died

What Ayla needed most was her baby She not only needed to nurse hi her back to reality, to oes on But when she returned to the cave, Durc was asleep beside Uba Creb had taken hiain Ayla tossed and turned, unable to sleep, not even realizing that it was fever and pain that kept her awake Heron her sorrow and guilt

She was gone when Creb woke up She had wandered out of the cave and cliain Creb could see her from a distance and watched her anxiously, but he couldn’t see her weakness, or her fever

“Should I go after her?” Brun asked, as baffled as Creb by Ayla’s reaction

“She seems to want to be alone Maybe we should let her,” Creb answered

He worried about her when he could no longer see her, and when she still hadn’t returned by evening, he asked Brun to look for her Creb was sorry he hadn’t let Brun go after her sooner when he saw the leader carrying her back to the cave Grief and depression had taken their toll, weakness and fever had done the rest Uba and Ebra cared for the clan’swith chills and burning with fever She cried out if her breasts were barely touched