Page 144 of Circle of Days

Ani stopped arguing. She knew, from conversations earlier that morning, that most herders felt the same as Scagga. For once she had no alternative to propose. Scagga could at last have the war he had been advocating for years.

He would be happy.

Bez sat with his back to a tree in the remnant of West Wood, with Gida by his side. He had been wounded in the raid. A herder had stabbed his backside with a knife. He had struggled to walk from Riverbend to West Wood. Next day the wound became swollenand painful, and soon the whole of his leg turned a nasty shade of brown. He felt hot.

When the wound began to stink, he knew his life was coming to its end.

The tribe no longer existed. Half had been killed by farmers in the massacre. Half of those who remained, the adult men and women, had died in their attack on Riverbend. The rest were drifting away in ones and twos. They talked loosely of leaving the Great Plain. Some headed for the Northwest Hills, where they knew the landscape. Others favored crossing South River. It was unknown territory, but that was its appeal. They would try to exist on squirrels and hedgehogs and wild vegetables, and hope that someday another woodlander tribe might welcome them.

Bez covered his leg with earth to suppress the smell. He had stopped eating, but he had a jug of water beside him. Gida sat with him during the day, and lay beside him at night, under their shearling coats.

She would not talk about where she might go after he died.

They recalled their life together, with its joys and sadnesses. “How lucky we are to have Lali,” said Bez. “So smart, and almost as beautiful as you.”

“Much more so,” Gida said with a laugh. “But how sad that Fell died.”

Bez touched the necklace of bear’s teeth at his throat. “Worst time of my life,” he said. “Until they burned our wood.”

Gida brought up a more cheerful memory. “Remember the time we tried to make love in a tree?”

Bez laughed. “We were young, we thought we could do anything.”

“I don’t believe we really considered how dangerous it was.”

“You held me so tightly!”

“I was afraid you’d fall.”

They ran out of memories and began to sing. There were songs about hunting deer, and finding birds’ nests, and falling in love. Sometimes they sang the songs that sent children to sleep.

As the afternoon darkened, Bez said: “The woodlander life is happy. We eat hazelnuts when we’re hungry, we make love with anyone who’s willing, and we accept death when it comes, as animals do. But our way of life cannot go on. Soon all the people will be herders or farmers, jealously guarding their cattle and their fields, working hard and living unhappily.”

“It’s a shame,” said Gida. “But we had a good life.”

“Yes, we did,” said Bez, then he closed his eyes, as if to sleep.

Joia watched the young men and women getting ready to march. They had been told that the survivors in Bez’s tribe had returned to the remnant of West Wood, and they were going there to kill them.

Some looked angrily determined, no doubt aiming to avenge the deaths of family members. Others were laughing and joking, happy to be part of Scagga’s army. Herders loved to go somewhere in a huge crowd on some mission. As they put arrows in quivers and measured bowstrings, they must have known that the object of the exercise was to kill and be killed; but that did not seem to spoil their mood.

No one in Joia’s family was involved. Neen and Seft were theright age, in their twenties, but neither wanted to kill woodlanders, despite what had happened on Midwinter Night. Ani was too old but she would not have gone anyway. Neen’s children were too young, happily. Joia wondered whether Ilian would be eager to fight in a few years’ time. So many adolescents were.

Scagga appeared and shouted: “Time to go—now! Everybody. It’s a short day and we don’t want to be walking half the night.”

They began to move through the village. People came to their doorways to wish them well. The marchers relished the attention, the cheers and smiles, the blown kisses and a few real ones.

On impulse Joia joined them. She did not know what was going to happen, but she wanted to be there and see it. And with Ello ill, there was no one to reprimand her. Without telling anyone, she walked with them out of the village.

They were about fifty, she counted. They sang rhythmic songs that helped them keep a steady pace, and they had funny chants that made no sense but rhymed. The effort of an all-day walk with nothing to eat was part of the fun.

The festive mood struck Joia as grotesquely inappropriate.

Water was scarce, and they followed a predetermined route that took in some of the few streams and ponds left by the drought.

It was dusk when they smelled roast beef and knew they were near the village of Old Oak. Joia guessed that Scagga had sent a quickrunner forward to tell Zad to slaughter a cow.

They all had to sleep in the open, but it did not rain, and as Joia drifted off to sleep she had the impression of some romantic activity around her. That would be another attraction of a long march.