She was tall, with shapely curves and well-defined muscles. Her large breasts still had the firmness of a young woman, and he'd always found a woman with a slightly rounded stomach appealing. Marona has always been considered the Beauty of the Bunch, he thought, no wonder she took such a dislike to Ayla from the beginning. She looked good in that winter underwear she got tricked into wearing, but that was nothing compared to really seeing her. Marona doesn't compare. My brother is a lucky man, he thought. Ayla is a fine-looking woman. But she is going to get a lot of attention at Mother Festivals, and I'm not sure how Jondalar will like that.

Ayla was looking at him with a puzzled expression, and it made Joharran realize that he'd been staring. He flushed slightly and looked away, and saw his brother coming, carrying a heavy load of stones. He went to help him.

"What are you doing here?" Jondalar said.

"Zelandoni wants to talk to Ayla, and Willamar would like to talk to both of you," Joharran said.

"What does Zelandoni want? Can't it wait?" Jondalar said.

"She didn't seem to think so. Chasing down my brother and his Promised is not the way I planned to spend the day, either. Don't worry, Jondalar," Joharran said with a conspiratorial grin. "You'll just have to wait a while. And she's worth waiting for, isn't she?"

Jondalar started to make protests and denials of his innuendos, then he relaxed and smiled. "I waited a long time to find her," he said. "Well, now that you're here, you can help me carry these stones back. I did want to take a swim and clean up a little."

"Why don't you leave the stones here for now. They won't go away, then you'll have an excuse to come back later," Joharran said, "and I'm sure you'll have time for a swim… if that's all you do."

It was near midday by the time Ayla and Jondalar, and Wolf, found their way to the main camp area, and from their air of relaxed contentment, Joharran suspected they had found time for more than a quick swim after he left. He'd told Zelandoni he had found them and passed on her message, and he had encouraged his brother to hurry. It wasn't his fault if Jondalar dallied, not that he could blame him.

Several people from the Ninth Cave had gathered around the long cooking hearth near the zelandonia lodge, and just as Ayla was approaching the entrance to let the donier know she was there, the large woman who was First came out, followed by several others with the distinctive tattoos on their foreheads of Those Who Served The Mother.

"There you are, Ayla," Zelandoni said when she saw her. "I've been expecting you all morning."

"We were upstream from the camp when Joharran found us. There is a nice spring-fed pond there. I wanted to give the horses a run and brush their coats. They get nervous around so many people until they get used to them, and brushing calms them, and I wanted to take a swim and clean up after the trek here," Ayla said. Everything she said was entirely true, though it may not have included all of her activities.

The donier regarded her, clean and dressed in the Zelandonii clothing that Marthona had given to her; then she saw Jondalar, also looking fresh and clean, and raised her eyebrows in a knowing look. Joharran was watching the One Who Was First and the woman his brother had brought home with him and realized that Zelandoni had a pretty good idea what had delayed them, and that Ayla didn't seem to care that she hadn't rushed. The large woman had an authoritative bearing and he knew she intimidated many, but she didn't seem to daunt the stranger.

"We were just stopping for a meal," Zelandoni said, walking toward the large cooking hearth, compelling Ayla to fall in beside her. "Proleva has organized the preparation and just informed us it was ready. You might as well join us. It will give me a chance to talk to you. Do you have one of your firestones?"

"Yes. I always keep a fire-making kit with me," Ayla said.

"I would like you to demonstrate your new fire-making technique to the zelandonia. I think it should be introduced to the people, but it is important that it be shown in the right way, with appropriate ritual."

"I didn't need a ritual to show it to Marthona, or you. It's not that difficult once you see how it's done," Ayla said.

"No, it's not difficult, but it is a new and powerful technique, and that can be disturbing, especially for those people who don't accept change easily and resist it," the donier said. "You must know people like that."

Ayla thought of the Clan, with their lives based on tradition, their reluctance to change, and their inability to cope with new ideas. "Yes, I know people like that," she said. "But the people I've met recently seem to enjoy learning new things."

All the Others she had met seemed to adapt so easily to changes in their lives, to thrive on innovation. She hadn't realized that there might be some who were not comfortable with a different way of doing things, who actually resisted it. It gave her a sudden insight, and she frowned at the thought. That could explain certain attitudes and incidents that had puzzled her, such as why some people seemed so unwilling to accept the idea that the Clan were people. Like that Zelandoni, the one from the Fourteenth Cave, who kept calling them animals. Even after Jondalar explained, she acted as if she didn't believe him. I think she didn't want to change her opinion.

"It is true. Most people do like to learn a better or quicker way of doing something, but sometimes it depends upon how it is presented," the First said. "For example, Jondalar has been away for a long time. He matured while he was gone and learned many new things, but the people he knows weren't there to see it, so some of them still think of him the way he was when he left. Now he has returned and he's eager to share what he's learned and discovered, which is commendable, but he didn't learn everything all at once. Even his new weapon, which is a valuable tool for hunting, takes practice to use. Those who have been successful and are comfortable with the weapons they know may not be willing to put forth the effort it will take to learn the new one, though I have no doubt it will be used by all hunters one day."

"Yes, the spear-thrower does take practice," Ayla said. "We know it now, but in the beginning, we worked at it."

"And that is only one thing," the donier continued, while she picked up a plate made from the shoulder bone of a deer and put some slices of meat on it. "What kind of meat is it?" she asked a woman who was standing nearby.

"That's mammoth. Some hunters from the Nineteenth Cave went north on a hunting trek and got a mammoth. They decided to share some. I understand they got a woolly rhinoceros, too."

"I haven't had mammoth for a long time," Zelandoni said. "I'm going to relish this."

"Have you tasted mammoth?" the woman asked Ayla.

"Yes," she said. "The Mamutoi, the people I lived with before, are known as mammoth hunters, although they hunted other animals, too. But it's been some time since I've had any. I, too, will enjoy this."

Zelandoni thought about introducing Ayla to the woman, but once she started, there would be no end, and she still wanted to talk to her about a ceremony using the firestone. She turned back to Ayla while she added some round white roots, ground nuts, to her plate, and cooked greens, nettles, she thought, mixed with pieces of brown-capped, spongy, boletus mushroom.

"Jondalar also brought you, and your animals, Ayla. You must know how astonishing that is. People have hunted horses, and observed them with other horses, but they have never seen horses behave as yours do. It is frightening, at first, to see those horses go where you want them to, or that this wolf will walk through a camp full of people and do what you tell him," she said, specifically acknowledging Wolf for the first time, though she had certainly seen him. He yipped a small bark when she looked at him.