Page 198 of Circle of Days

“I think he’s gone,” she said.

Duff looked out. “No one there,” he said. “I’ll break us out.”

It did not take long. The gate was made of interwoven branches and secured with light withies. After a few kicks it fell over.

They all stepped outside: Pia, Duff, and Yana carrying Olin. The sun was shining. Pia half expected to see the guard on the ground, dead of some sudden seizure, but there was no sprawled corpse. “It must be Midsummer Day,” Pia said. “I think we’re free.”

She looked at the fields. They were overgrown with weeds. The sooner the family went back to work, the better.

First they went to the river to wash. It was a delight to be all together outside. Duff played a game with Olin, disappearing under the water then surfacing in a different place, which made Olin squeal with laughter.

When they got out, Pia looked up and down the river and across the fields, and said: “I don’t see many people.” There was an old woman washing laundry in one direction, and a man watering cows in the other.

Pia recalled Katch’s warning:Don’t let Duff go on the mission. The farmers were on the warpath, she felt sure.

They walked along the bank to the man, who turned out to be Bort. Pia said: “Where is everyone, Bort?”

“They left yesterday,” he said. “All except the children and people like me who are too old to walk long distances.”

“Where did they go?” Pia asked, although she thought she knew the answer.

“They didn’t tell me. All I know is that all the men had bows.”

Duff said: “They’ve gone to Riverbend.”

Pia indicated that they should move away, back toward their farm. When they were out of earshot of Bort, she said: “I did my best to warn Ani, shouting through the wall of the house, but I don’t know whether she heard.”

“Too late now,” said Duff. “If they left yesterday, they will be at the Monument, or near it, by now.”

“Then it’s in the hands of the gods,” said Pia.

When Joia woke up, the sun was high. She heard birdsong and the noise of a thousand people bargaining. She had slept for half the morning. Clearly there had been no farmer attack. Yet.

She felt refreshed and triumphant. But she knew she needed to fix people’s commitment, to move around and greet people and remind them of their early morning promise. She had won the hearts of more than a thousand, and now she had to make sure their enthusiasm did not fade.

And most of all she wanted to see Dee.

Sary and Duna were waiting to escort her. She ate a slice of cold pork and went outside with them. She walked around, stopping every few paces to clasp hands, listen to what people wanted to say to her, and answer their questions. She enjoyed it, and knew she would meet Dee today, sooner or later.

She noticed Scagga and Jara walking around the ridge of the earth bank, surveying the distant horizon.

However, she still had not come across Dee when the sun began to go down and people started packing up and getting ready for the feast. Would this be the moment when the farmers would strike?

There were hundreds of cattle, sheep, and goats tethered outside the Monument, but Joia went all around without spotting that head of light-brown hair and that wide smile. Now she wasmystified and troubled. What could have happened? Was Dee ill, perhaps, or—gods forbid it—dead?

She sat through the feast and the poet’s recitation, then left the village as the revel was beginning. She walked around the Monument and saw the folk who had stayed behind guarding the goods. She ran into Scagga and Jara, still on the lookout. Shortly they were going to get four younger members of their family to patrol all night. But they did not think the farmers would come in the dark when they could end up killing one another. Shooting arrows accurately was difficult enough in daylight.

If the farmers were coming, Scagga and Jara now expected that they would attack at dawn, before the volunteers left on their march and the rest of the visitors drifted away. If it was an atrocity that Troon planned, he needed to do it when the maximum number of people were here to suffer it.

Joia examined her feelings as she walked toward the communal house where she always slept. Her speech had gone well and the farmers had not attacked. But Dee was missing and the farmers could strike at the volunteers later. She wondered if she would be able to sleep.

Then she saw Dee, waiting by the house, moonlight silvering her wonderful hair. Joia trembled with pleasure and ran to her and kissed her.

Dee broke the kiss sooner than Joia wanted to.

Joia said: “Where were you? I’ve been looking for you all day!”

“I got here late last night and had to tie up my flock in the dark. I must have made a bad job of it, because this morning, afterthe Rite, I found that they had loosed their tethers and wandered everywhere. It’s taken me the whole day to find them all.”