"You did say you lived alone in a valley, didn't you? Where was this Clan that raised you, Ayla?" the donier asked.

"Yes, I'd like to know, too. Didn't Jondalar introduce you as Ayla of the Mamutoi?" Joharran said.

"You said you didn't know the Mother, but you greeted us with a welcome from 'The Great Mother of All,' which is one of the names we give Doni," Folara added.

Ayla looked from one to the other, then at Jondalar, feeling a touch of panic. There was a hint of a grin on his face, as though he was rather enjoying the way Ayla's truthful answers baffled everyone. He squeezed her hand again, but didn't say anything. He was interested in how she would respond. She relaxed a bit.

"My clan lived at the south end of the land that extended far into Beran Sea. Iza told me just before she died that I should look for my own people. She said they lived north, on the mainland, but when I finally did look for them, I couldn't find anyone. The summer was half over before I found the valley, and I was afraid that the cold season would come and I wouldn't be prepared for it. The valley was a good place, protected from winds, a small river, lots of plants and animals, even a small cave. I decided to stay for the winter, and ended up staying for three years, with only Whinney and Baby for company. Maybe I was waiting for Jondalar," she said, smiling at the man.

"I found him in late spring; it was near the end of summer before Jondalar was well enough to travel. We decided to make a small trek, explore the region. We made camp each night in a different place, going farther from the valley than I had gone before. Then we met Talut, the headman of the Lion Camp, and he invited us to visit. We stayed with them until the beginning of the next summer, and while I was there, they adopted me. They wanted Jondalar to stay, too, and become one of them, but even then, he was planning to return."

"Well, I'm glad he did," Marthona said.

"It seems you are very lucky, to have people so willing to adopt you," Zelandoni said. She couldn't help but wonder at the strange story Ayla was telling. She wasn't alone in her reservations. It all seemed rather farfetched, and she still had more questions than answers.

"At first, I'm sure it was Nezzie's idea-she was Talut's mate. I think she convinced him because I helped Rydag when he had a bad… problem. Rydag was weak in…" Ayla didn't know the correct words and was frustrated. Jondalar had never taught them to her. He could have given her precise words for various kinds of flint, and specific words for the processes of shaping it into tools and weapons, but medicinal and healing terminology was not a part of his normal vocabulary. She turned to him and spoke to him in Mamutoi. "What is your word for foxglove? That plant I always collected for Rydag?"

He told her, but even before Ayla could repeat it and attempt to explain, Zelandoni was sure she understood what had happened. As soon as she heard Jondalar say the word, she knew not only the plant, but its uses. She had a good idea that the person Ayla was talking about had an internal weakness with the organ that pumped blood, the heart, that could be helped by the proper extraction of elements from foxglove. It also made her realize why someone would want to adopt a healer who was skilled enough to know how to use something as beneficial, though potentially dangerous, as that plant. And if that someone was in a position of authority, as a headman's mate would be, she could understand how Ayla might be adopted so quickly. After listening to Ayla tell essentially what she had guessed, she made another assumption.

"This person, Rydag, was a child?" she asked, to confirm her final speculation.

"Yes," Ayla replied, feeling a moment of sadness.

Zelandoni felt she understood about Ayla and the Mamutoi, but the Clan still left her perplexed. She decided to try a different approach. "I know you are very skilled in the healing ways, Ayla, but often those who become knowledgeable have a mark of some kind so people will recognize them. Like this one," she said, touching a tattoo on her forehead above her left temple. "I see no mark on you."

Ayla looked closely at the tattoo. It was a rectangle divided into six smaller rectangles, almost squares, in two rows of three each, with four legs above that, if connected, would have made a third row of squares. The outline of the rectangles was dark, but three of the squares were filled in with shades of red, and one with yellow.

Although it was a unique mark, several of the people she had seen had tattooed markings of one kind or another, including Marthona, Joharran, and Willamar. She didn't know if the marks meant something in particular, but after Zelandoni had explained the meaning of hers, Ayla suspected they might.

"Mamut had a mark on his cheek," Ayla said, touching the place on her cheek. "All the mamutii did. Some had other marks, too. I might have been given one, if I had stayed. Mamut started training me soon after he adopted me, but I was not fully trained before I left, so I was never marked."

"But didn't you say you were adopted by the woman who was the mate of the headman?"

"I thought Nezzie was going to adopt me, and she did, too, but at the ceremony, Mamut said Mammoth Hearth, not Lion Hearth. He adopted me instead."

"This Mamut is One Who Serves The Mother?" Zelandoni asked, thinking, so she was training to be One Who Serves.

"Yes, like you. The Mammoth Hearth was his, and for Those Who Serve The Mother. Most people choose the Mammoth Hearth, or feel they have been chosen. Mamut said I was born to it." She flushed a little and looked aside, feeling rather embarrassed to be talking about something that had been given, which she hadn't earned. It made her think of Iza and how carefully the woman had tried to train her to be a good Clan woman.

"I think your Mamut was a wise man," Zelandoni said. "But you said you learned your healing skills from a woman of the people who raised you, this Clan. Don't they do anything to mark their healers, to give them status and recognition?"

"I was given a certain black stone, a special sign to keep in my amulet when I was accepted as a medicine woman of the Clan," Ayla said. "But they don't make a mark like a tattoo for medicine woman, only for totem, when a boy becomes a man."

"How do people recognize one when they need to call upon a healer for help?"

Ayla hadn't thought about that before. She paused to consider it. "Medicine women don't have to be marked. People know. A medicine woman has status in her own right. Her position is always recognized. Iza was the highest ranked woman in the clan, even higher than Bran's mate."

Zelandoni shook her head. Ayla obviously thought she had explained something, but the woman didn't understand. "I'm sure that's true, but how do people know?" : •

"By her position," Ayla repeated, then tried to clarify. "By the position she takes when the clan goes somewhere, the place she stands when she eats, by the signs she uses when she… talks, by the signals that are made to her when she's addressed."

"Isn't that all so awkward? This cumbersome use of positions and signs?" Zelandoni asked.

"Not for them. That's the way people of the Clan talk. With signs. They don't talk with words as we do," Ayla said.

"But, why not?" Marthona wanted to know.

"They can't. They can't make all the sounds we do. They can make some, but not all. They talk with their hands and their bodies," Ayla tried to explain.

Jondalar could see the bewilderment of his mother and kin growing, and Ayla getting more frustrated. He decided it was time to cut the confusion.

"Ayla was raised by flatheads, mother," he said.

There was a stunned silence.

"Flatheads! Flatheads are animals!" Joharran said.

"No, they're not," Jondalar said.