Page 199 of Circle of Days

“I’m so sorry! I’ve missed you every day since we said goodbye.”

“And I’ve missed you,” said Dee, but she said it coolly, reporting the fact rather than agonizing over the separation.

Something was wrong. “What is it?” Joia said. “I’m so happy to see you—aren’t you happy to see me?”

Dee did not answer the question. “I have just spent the most miserable year of my entire life.”

This was bewildering. “Is that my fault?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What have I done?”

“Nothing—and that’s the problem. In all the time we spent together last summer, you never gave me the least indication that you loved me. You hardly touched me. We lay side by side every night and did nothing but talk. I held your hand once, and all you did was fall asleep. I waited day after day for you to say something. I still hoped, right up until that moment that was our first kiss—a goodbye kiss! Even then I thought you must say something. But you maintained your calm, and I went home heartbroken.”

It was all true, but Joia had not known she was doing wrong. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”

“Surely you know that people in love touch each other?”

“I didn’t know it was love! I only realized when you’d gone, and I missed you so badly, and it hurt so much, that it had to be love.”

“How could you get to the age you are without knowing the simplest things about love?”

“I don’t know,” Joia said miserably. “I always knew I was peculiar.”

Dee had tears in her eyes now, but her voice was still firm. “I find this very hard to understand. I’ll think about it.” She half turned to leave.

Joia said: “But you’ll come on the mission tomorrow?”

“I’ll think about it,” Dee repeated, and she turned her back and walked away.

Joia spent most of the night lying awake, listening for the sound of an approaching army. She was scared for herself, but much more for her family and Dee and everyone else. She remembered with horror the woodlander attack, the flames and the violence and the dead bodies.

Eventually she slept, then woke up suddenly, frightened, but there was still no sound. She got up in the dark and made her way to the Monument by starlight. There was no farmer army.

Troon might have changed his mind, but Joia thought it more than likely he had decided to attack the volunteers on their mission. They would have to be ready for anything.

She smelled cooking. Verila, who had become caterer to the volunteers, was now boiling salt pork to send them on their way.

Joia was still reeling from last night’s conversation with Dee. She felt mortified that she had caused such unhappiness to the one she loved. She had done it out of ignorance, but knowing that made it even worse. And she did not know whether the damage could be repaired, or even if Dee wanted to repair it.

At dawn the volunteers started arriving, and each was given a fragrant slice of pork. Scagga was not there but Jara, his sister, turned up. “He doesn’t like to rise early in the morning,” she explained.

Joia said: “There’s no sign of the farmer army, happily.”

“Good. However, they may attack the volunteers on the mission.”

“That was always a possibility.”

“So we need to arm the volunteers.”

Joia hesitated for only a moment. She hated weapons but she could not let her volunteers go defenseless. “Yes,” she said. “They should each have a bow, six arrows, and a leather protective wrist band.”

A moment’s thought told her they could not possibly have enough bows for the number of people she was hoping to take on the mission, and she went on: “When we run out of bows, we should tell people to bring axes or hammers, or even just clubs. I don’t want anyone to be vulnerable.”

“I’m coming on the mission myself,” Jara said, surprising Joia. “I’ll keep an eye on the volunteers’ preparedness.”

Jara would probably be a better military leader than me, Joia thought.