Page 184 of Circle of Days

She said: “Perhaps Joia has a different plan.”

He laughed scornfully. “But you don’t know what it is, do you? I can tell.”

“No, I don’t. But I’ll find out before you do.”

“Hmm.” He went away, the limp wings of the dead swan flapping against his back as he walked.

Ani thought about what he had said, and decided it was so serious that Joia needed to know about it at once. She picked up her unfinished bag and the log it was draped over, and put both inside her house with the knife; then she headed to the Monument.

She could see the new stone from the outskirts of Riverbend. It stood up, grey and massive, above the ridge of the earth bank, and was probably visible from even farther away.

It occurred to Ani that Joia might spend her life rebuilding the Monument in stone. That might be a good thing. Joia would alwaysneed some endeavor upon which to expend her inexhaustible energy.

Ani wondered how Dee was going to fit into that future. It was no surprise that Joia had fallen for Dee, who was strikingly attractive. Not many people were as clever as Joia, but Dee was one of the few. Plus she was likable and kind and she laughed a lot. Ani had no doubt that Joia was deeply in love with her, though whether Joia knew it was another question. And Ani thought Dee probably loved Joia, too.

Ani would be glad if they became a couple. Joia deserved to be loved long and well by someone who knew how special she was. And it would be nice, Ani thought, to know that there’s someone to care for her when I’m gone.

She found Joia in the dining hall, supervising the cooking of the priestesses’ midday meal. She looked happy. It was a great thing, Ani thought, to see your child happy.

Joia left Sary in charge and took Ani outside. They entered the Monument and walked to the new giant stone. Ani stroked its cold surface, feeling its ridges and hollows. She wondered why the Earth God had put it in Stony Valley. Perhaps so that it could be found by Joia. You could never fathom the motives of the gods.

She told Joia what Scagga had said.

Joia looked anxious. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t even thought about this,” she said. “The crowd was so strongly supportive when we arrived that I imagined they would go along with anything.”

“And they would have, on that day,” Ani said. “But such hysterical enthusiasm wears off.”

“I suppose so. And we can’t sustain our mission if the elders oppose us.”

There was silence as the two of them digested that. Joia’s project to rebuild the Monument in stone could fail, despite the triumphant first stone that towered over them now.

Ani said: “I suppose you can count nine times five days.”

“Forty-five. But I don’t accept his assumptions. We won’t have the same two hundred people move one stone after another—it would take too long: Scagga is right about that.”

“So what’s the answer?”

Joia was thoughtful. “We’ll need several teams. But that’s possible. We’ll get many more volunteers next year, I’m sure of that. What we did is going to be talked about farther afield than the Great Plain. There will be at least a thousand volunteers.”

Ani did not know what a thousand was.

Joia was still figuring. “If we had six teams, and the first three came back for a second run, we could move nine stones in nine days. Say ten days, in case of unforeseen snags—though there shouldn’t be many of those, as we’ve now made the trip once and learned a lot.”

“Ten days is one working week. That might just be acceptable to the elders.”

“Good.”

“But are you sure so many people will volunteer? I can’t do numbers the way you can, but it seems to me you’ll need something like half the able-bodied population of the Great Plain.”

“That’s about right. But we’ll also have people from beyond the plain.”

“It’s a lot to hope for,” said Ani.

“I know,” said Joia.

After the midday meal Joia gathered the newer priestesses in the Monument to teach them a chant. This one was about the number twelve. There were twelve days in a full week—ten working days and two rest days. The chant was about how many days there were in two weeks, and three, all the way up to thirty.

The lesson was interrupted by Seft. Uncharacteristically, he was in a rage. He came striding into the circle, red-faced and furious. “What’s this nonsense about nine stones in ten days?” he demanded.