Page 116 of Circle of Days

Joia looked up. “I knew it!” she said through her tears. “They killed Han because Pia loved him.”

Bez said: “They would say he stole Pia from them.”

“As if she was their property.”

“That’s the way they think.”

Neen took the shoes from Ani and pressed them to her chest. “Oh, poor Han, our Han, our great big little brother.”

Denno, the older girl, said: “Mamma, why are you crying?”

“Because Uncle Han has died.”

Denno was uncomprehending. “Why? Why did he die?”

“A bad man shot him with an arrow.”

Denno said: “That must have hurt!” and she began to cry.

Joia was overwhelmed by a wave of grief. She had lost her brother. So had Neen. Ani had lost her only son, Denno had lost her uncle, and Pia had lost her man. She cried harder. She felt that she would never stop crying, a rainstorm of tears would never be enough.

Bez waited awhile, then said: “Fortunately, Pia is all right. And the baby.”

“The baby!” Ani said. “Of course—it must have been born this spring.”

“A little boy,” said Bez.

“A grandson for me,” she said. “Do you know what they named him?”

“He is called Olin.”

“My late man’s name.” She looked thoughtful. “Olin fathered Han, then Olin died; and Han fathered Olin, and Han died.” Her voice became bitter. “Is this the way the gods toy with us?”

Bez said nothing to that.

“Olin,” said Ani. “Olin.”

She was quiet for a while, and then she said: “I wonder if I’ll ever see him.”

Bez waited until the rest of the woodlanders returned from the hills, then he put his plan into motion. It was a good plan, though not without risks.

First he had to capture the guilty man.

Three evenings running, he left West Wood and went to East Wood. It was occupied by a different tribe, but woodland tribes living on the Great Plain were not hostile to one another. They had different languages, but managed to communicate—especially when they all went to the hills—in a pidgin that included words from the herder tongue. The East Wood tribes knew he was on their territory, but they left him alone.

He sat behind the shelter of the greenery and patiently watched. Farmers worked even more than herders, he noted. They plowed the fields and sowed seeds, carried water and pulled weeds, yet in the end they were no better off, in good times or bad. What possessed these people to waste their lives in toil?

Mostly he concentrated on the house where Pia lived with her mother, the baby, and Stam. The three adults labored all day, Pia carrying the baby. Each evening they ate supper together, then—to judge by the sounds coming from the house—Stam had sex with Yana. Soon afterward, by which time it was dark or nearly so, Stam left the house and did not return until daylight.

It seemed to be a regular pattern. That was very useful.

On the fourth evening, Bez returned with three strongwoodlander men. The four had smeared wood ash on their faces, hands, legs, and feet, so that they would be hard to see in the dark. Bez carried some lengths of strong cord made from the sinews of slaughtered deer, and a small piece of thin leather that bundled up to about the size of his fist. They waited in the wood, watching the house as the evening darkened. They were silent and still whenever anyone walked near their hiding place.

When they heard the sound of sex, it was time to move.

Bez scanned the darkening landscape. There was no one in the fields, down by the river, or on the far side of the water. “Let us go,” he said.

They came out of the wood, walking softly. As quickly as they could, they crossed the field to a point where there was a slight dip, just deep enough to hide a man lying flat. Then they spread out across the route Stam usually took.