At least, the man thought, the horses gave something back. Whinney and Racer carried them, and their gear; because of them, their Journey might not take as long. But except for flushing out an animal once in a while, Wolf didn't seem to contribute much. Jondalar decided, though, not to mention his thoughts.

With the sun behind the angry rolling black clouds, discoloring to a livid red and purple as though battered and bruised by the churning, it cooled off quickly in the wooded valley. Ayla got up and splashed into the river once more. Jondalar followed in after her. Long before, when she was growing up, Iza, the Clan medicine woman, had taught her the purification rituals of womanhood, even though she doubted that her strange and – even she admitted – ugly adopted daughter, would ever have need for some of them. Nonetheless, she felt it was her duty, and she explained, among other things, how to take care of herself after being with a man. She stressed that, whenever possible, purification with water was especially important to a woman's totem spirit. Washing, no matter how cold the water, was a ritual that Ayla always remembered.

They dried off again and dressed, put the sleeping furs back in the tent, and rekindled the fire. Ayla removed the dirt and the stones from the ground oven and, with her wooden tongs, retrieved their meal. Afterward, while Jondalar rearranged his packs, she made her preparations for an easy departure, including their usual morning meal of food from the evening before, eaten cold except for the hot herbal tea. Then she put cooking stones to heat for boiling water; she made tea often, varying the ingredients for taste or need.

The horses wandered back as the last streaks of the departing sun colored the sky. Usually they fed during part of the night, since they traveled so much during the day and needed large quantities of the rough grass of the steppes to sustain them. But the meadow grass had been especially rich and green, and they liked to stay near the fire at night.

While Ayla was waiting for the stones to heat, she contemplated the valley in the last glow of twilight, adding to her observations the knowledge gained during the day: the steeply sloping sides that abruptly joined the broad flat valley floor with its little river winding down the middle. It was a rich valley, reminding her of her childhood with the Clan, but she didn't like the place. Something about it made her uneasy, and the feeling worsened with the coming of night. She was also feeling some fullness and a little backache, and she attributed her disquiet to the slight discomforts she occasionally experienced when her moon time was coming on. She wished she could go for a walk, activity usually helped, but it was already too dark.

She listened to the wind moaning as it sighed through the swaying willow trees, silhouetted against silvery clouds. The glowing full moon, encircled by a distinct halo, took turns hiding behind, then brilliantly illuminating the softly textured sky. Ayla decided some willowbark tea might relieve her discomfort and quickly got up to cut some fresh. While she was at it, she decided to gather some flexible willow withes.

By the time their evening tea was ready and Jondalar joined her, the night air was damp and cold, cold enough for outer clothes. They sat close to the fire, glad to be sipping the hot tea. Wolf had hovered close to Ayla all evening, following her every step, but he seemed content to curl up by her feet when she sat near the warm flames, as though he'd done enough exploring that day. She picked up the thin, long willow twigs and began weaving with them.

"What are you making?" Jondalar asked.

"A head covering, to make a shade from the sun. It is getting very hot in the middle of the day," Ayla explained. She paused for a moment, then added, "I thought you might find use for one."

"You are making that for me?" he said with a smile. "How did you know I was wishing I had something to shade the sun today?"

"A woman of the Clan learns to anticipate the needs of her mate." She smiled. "And you are my mate, aren't you?"

He smiled back. "Without doubt, my woman of the Clan. And we'll announce it to all the Zelandonii at the Matrimonial of the first Summer Meeting we join. But how can you anticipate needs? And why must Clan women learn that?"

"It's not difficult. You just think about someone. It was hot today, and I thought about making a head covering… making a sun hat… for myself, so I knew it must be hot for you, too," she said, picking up another willow withe to add to the broadly conical hat that was beginning to take shape. "Men of the Clan don't like to ask tor anything, especially for their own comfort. It is not considered manly behavior for them to think about comfort, so a woman must anticipate a man's needs. He protects her from danger; it's her way of protecting him, to make sure he has the right clothing and eats well. She doesn't want anything to happen to him. Who would protect her and her children then?"

"Is that what you are doing? Protecting me so I will protect you?" he asked, grinning. "And your children?" In the firelight, his blue eyes were a deep violet, and they sparkled with fun.

"Well, not exactly," she said, looking down at her hands. "I think it's really the way a Clan woman tells her mate how much she cares for him, whether she has children or not." She watched her rapidly moving hands, though Jondalar had the feeling that she didn't need to see what she was doing. She could have made the hat in the dark. She picked up another long twig, then looked directly at him. "But I do want to have another child before I get too old."

"You have a long way to go for that," he said, putting another piece of wood on the fire. "You're still young."

"No, I'm getting to be an old woman. I am already…" She closed her eyes to concentrate as she pressed her fingers against her leg, saying the number words he had taught her, to verify to herself the right word for the number of years she had lived. "… Eighteen years."

"That old!" Jondalar laughed. "I have seen twenty-two years. I'm the one who is old."

"If it takes us a year to travel, I will be nineteen years when we reach your home. In the Clan, that would be almost too old for child-bearing."

"Many Zelandonii women have children at that age. Maybe not their first, but their second or third. You are strong and healthy. I don't think you're too old to have children, Ayla. But I will tell you this. There are times when your eyes seem ancient, as though you've lived many lifetimes in your eighteen years."

It was an unusual thing for him to say, and she stopped her work to look at him. The feeling she evoked in him was almost frightening. She was so beautiful in the light of the fire, and he loved her so much, he didn't know what he would do if anything ever happened to her. Overcome, he looked away. Then, to ease the moment, he tried to introduce a lighter subject.

"I'm the one who should worry about age. I'd be willing to wager that I will be the oldest man at the Matrimonial," he said, then laughed. "Twenty-three is old for a man to be mated for the first time. Most men my age have several children at their hearths."

He looked at her, and she saw again that look of overwhelming love and fear in his eyes. "Ayla, I want you to have a child, too, but not while we're traveling. Not until we're safely back. Not yet."

"No, not yet," she said.

She worked quietly for a while, thinking about the son she had left behind with Uba, and about Rydag, who had been like her son in many ways. Both of them lost to her. Even Baby, who was, in a strange way, like a son – at least, he was the first male animal she found and cared for – had left her. She would never see him again. She looked at Wolf, suddenly worried that she might lose him, too. I wonder, she thought, why is my totem taking all my sons away from me? I must be unlucky with sons.