Page 123 of Circle of Days

“Trampled. I could see her face, though.”

“I’m sorry she’s gone. She had courage.”

“Courage doesn’t do a woman much good in Farmplace.”

Yana considered. “We’ll give the cow to Duff. His farm is in the Break. He’ll have lost everything.”

“He’ll probably share it with neighbors in the same position.”

“Good. I wonder what will happen tomorrow.”

Pia had the answer to that. “The elders of the herders should be here before sundown. Zad sent a quickrunner.”

“I hope Han’s mother is among them,” Yana said. “She might knock some sense into people.”

On the following day Ani crossed the Great Plain with Keff, Seft, and Scagga. She was ominously struck by how few cattle she saw. Joia had tried to count them and, as Ani did not understand the numbers, had simplified the result by saying: “Where before we had four cows, now we have one.” Ani had been jolted.

Only the hardiest cows were calving, and the number of young did not match the number that were slaughtered just to feed the herders. At some point there would be no cattle left.

The herd in the west had suffered from Troon’s plowing up the Break. They lost weight on the long roundabout route to the river. In good times, that could be tolerated, but now it had become crucial. The elders had to find a solution.

They went first to Old Oak. Zad had gone, Biddy told them, taking the herd out of the reach of the farmers, who wanted to seize cattle as compensation for their lost crops. “Ridiculous idea!” said Keff. “A thief steals your bow and, when it cracks, demands you give him a new one!”

Biddy walked with them to the Break. “There was wheat here as high as your thigh,” she said. “Now look.”

Nothing was left but trampled earth.

Pia and Yana met them crossing the Break. Pia was carrying Olin, now almost half a year old. Ani was thrilled to see her latest grandchild. She took him from Pia and he said: “Ba ba ba ba,” and tried to grasp her nose. “He looks just like Han when he was a baby,” Ani said.

They went to Troon’s house. He was waiting outside withShen, his minion, and half a dozen of the Young Dogs. Ani was not intimidated. Most of the farmer folk stood around, eager to see what would happen.

Troon did not offer a drink of water. He began by saying: “You have destroyed crops, and you must suffer!”

Ani said calmly: “We need to find a way to stop this happening again.”

Troon could not disagree with that.

She said: “Seft has devised a scheme.” In fact she and Seft had worked it out together, but she knew Troon was more likely to accept something proposed by a man. She had high hopes for this compromise; Troon ought to welcome it.

Troon had been expecting an argument about who was at fault, and he was not prepared for this. He just nodded.

Ani looked at Seft. She remembered when he had first appeared at Riverbend, a handsome but downtrodden youth who had captured the heart of her daughter Neen. He was now a much-respected man, one of the leading figures among the herder folk.

Seft spoke with relaxed authority. “You need to farm the Break, and we need to water our cattle. There might be a way for us both to have what we want.” He paused. The farmers looked interested. “The cattle don’t need the entire width of the Break to get to the river. All they need is a path about twenty paces wide.”

“Rubbish,” said Troon. “They would leave the path to eat the crops.”

“Quite so,” Seft said calmly. “That is why we would need to build a ditch-and-bank barrier between the path and the cultivated fields.”

Troon still looked sour, but Ani saw some of the farmer folk nodding.

Seft went on: “The ditch would have to be deep enough, and the bank high enough, to make it impossible for cows to cross the barrier.”

Troon looked at the Break, seeming to imagine the path. “It’s a huge project,” he said.

Seft said: “If the entire farmer community joined in the work, under my supervision, it could probably be done in about fifteen days.”

Troon was not thinking about the time it would take. “Twenty paces wide, plus a ditch and a bank that would add another ten paces at least. It’s a strip of fertile land thirty paces wide stretching from the plain to the river.” He shook his head. “It’s a huge area, as big as a farm that supports one family.”