Page 145 of Circle of Days

In the morning there was hot soup and cold beef, then they set off on the final leg of the journey. Now the mood was somber: today they had to kill an entire woodlander tribe, or what was left of it, and there was no doubt that the woodlanders would fight back.

They passed Farmplace and saw the women and men in their fields. There were fewer farmers since the massacre.

Going west, they passed the shocking sight of the burned wood. The few trees left standing were black and leafless, stark monuments to the dead forest. In the distance, a green blur was the remnant of the wood. As they got closer they strung their bows and readied their arrows. Joia, who had no intention of killing anyone, stayed at the back of the march.

She expected that at any moment the woodlanders would burst forth from the greenery brandishing their clubs and axes, but the place was oddly quiet. Could it be an ambush? The herder army entered the wood cautiously and immediately came to a clearing with a couple of houses but no people.

Joia noticed flakes of black in the bushes and in the trees. Then she saw a flash of white on the ground. She thought about what these things might mean.

Scagga ordered his army to spread out and search the remainder of the woodland. Joia remained at the clearing, waiting for them to come back. She knew how it would be and, sure enough, they returned to report that there were no woodlanders anywhere.

The young men and women of Scagga’s army now looked bewildered.

Joia remembered that she was a priestess, and thought thatperhaps the gods had led her here for a reason. She decided to speak.

She raised her voice so that everyone could hear. “This is a cursed place,” she said, and she had their attention immediately. “Here the little children and the old folk of Bez’s tribe were murdered by the farmers.” She spread her arm to indicate what was all around. “Open your eyes. In the bushes, on the leaves, even in the trees, you see flakes of ash.” They all looked and saw what she meant. “So many people were cremated here that their ashes have not all blown away yet.”

Everyone knew about the massacre, but standing here where the helpless children and old folk were slaughtered brought it vividly to their imagination, and they looked appalled.

Scagga clearly did not know what to say.

Joia picked up the white object she had seen on the ground. “You may have seen this necklace before,” she said. “It’s made of bear’s teeth. A woodlander called Fell had it, and when Fell died it went to his brother, Bez, the leader of the West Wood folk. Somehow it survived the cremation.” She looked directly at Scagga. “You came here to kill Bez, but you’re too late. He’s already dead, and all that is left of him is his necklace.”

She paused to let that sink in, then added: “The rest of his tribe are either dead or gone away. There is no one left to kill.”

They were silent for a long moment.

Then Joia began to sing the song for the dead. Some of the marchers looked at her as if she were mad. But she kept on singing, for she could see people weeping. Another woman put down her bow and joined in the song, then a third and a fourth did likewise.Scagga was angry but bemused, not knowing what to do; and soon most of his army were singing, many crying at the same time. The birds fell silent in the trees, and the leaves quivered as the voices shook the air. The sad remnant of West Wood trembled with a lament for the people who now lay, silent forever, beneath the soil of their ruined homeland.

The sight of the burned Monument was heartbreaking to Joia: the timbers scorched, tumbled, broken, and scattered. It would have been worse if she had not intervened and berated Bez, but that was small consolation. The Monument was all-important. It brought everyone together on special days, and reminded them that they were part of a community. And it preserved their knowledge of the movements of the sun and moon, ensuring that precious learning was never lost.

Three things had to be done immediately: repair the damage, resume the ceremonies, and confirm that the Monument was the heart of the herder society of the Great Plain.

But long-term there was another vital task: to rebuild the Monument in stone, so it could never burn again.

“We must start repairing the timbers today,” Joia said to Ello.

“I don’t see the urgency,” said Ello languidly. “Everyone knows it’s not our fault.”

The High Priestess lay on the floor of her house, close to the fire, with her head on a leather pillow stuffed with straw. Joia stood to talk to her: she had not been invited to sit down.

Joia said: “We can’t restart the ceremonies until we have at least a temporary Monument.”

“Well, then, the ceremonies may have to lapse for a while.”

Joia was appalled. Let the ceremonies lapse? How could a High Priestess even think that? But her response was mild. “The trouble is that people might begin to imagine that the ceremonies don’t matter. Then they’ll ask why they have to feed priestesses who do no work.”

Ello could not help seeing the force of that. “Oh, very well. But it will take you more than a day to repair. Several weeks, more likely.”

“I know. So we have to do a makeshift job first.” Joia had thought about this. “Most of the timbers are not burned through. Some will be reusable, and we’ll begin with those. We may have to use untrimmed branches to finish, but we can have a temporary Monument in a few days. Then, as soon as we can, we’ll replace the damaged timbers with new ones.” Or stone ones, she thought.

“Well, all right.”

Joia had won her case. Ello was never going to enthuse about her plans, or even approve them, but as long as she did not actually forbid something, Joia considered herself authorized. “Thank you,” she said lightly, concealing her feeling of triumph. “I hope you feel better soon.” And she went out.

The priestesses were still in the dining hall. Some were missing: they had left, too frightened to remain. Breakfast was over but they were waiting for instructions. The normal routine had collapsed after the raid.

When Joia walked in, all conversation stopped and all headsturned to her. She made them wait a few moments, then she said: “Exciting news!”