Page 204 of Circle of Days

Joia pointed across the plain. “Because the farmer army that killed Lim’s mother is on the plain, somewhere west of here, not very far away. There will be fighting. You told me that your home is a short distance from here. Go there, please, and be safe with your brother and his woman. And we’ll meet again when the danger is past.”

Dee shook her head. “I love you for saying that, but you haven’t thought enough about what it means to be a couple. From now on we do everything together: wonderful things, like last night, and dangerous things, such as we’re doing now.” She looked solemn. “If I’m going to die, I need you to be with me when it happens; and if you’re going to die, I want to hold you as you take your last breath.”

Joia had a choked feeling. It was a few moments before she could speak. She wanted to argue but she could not. Dee was right. Living together should include dying. She had not thought of it that way. She took Dee’s hand. “I used to think I was wise,” she said ruefully.

They stood like that for a moment, then Dee went back to mending the track.

A long stretch had been destroyed, and it took until late afternoon to repair. Joia decided to resume moving the stone for what was left of the day. At the same time she sent Boli, the quickrunner, to Upriver to tell the cooks there to bring food as the volunteers would not reach there today.

Before leaving, they cremated Dab and Revo. Dee took Limbehind the stone so that she could not see. Joia and the others stood around the pyre and sang the song for the dead. They had to leave before the bodies were consumed: they could not spare the time.

The sled made good progress in the cooling afternoon, and they stopped when the sun went down. Joia looked back across the plain and was pleased to see the second stone catching up with them.

The food arrived from Upriver. The patrolling lookouts were called in, and fresh people took over. Dusk turned to night.

Joia and Dee lay wrapped in each other’s arms, with Lim alongside them. “I don’t think I can sleep,” Joia said. “I’m too nervous, wondering where the farmers are.”

“Me, too,” said Dee. “I think I’m too nervous for sex.”

“That’s how I feel.”

They held each other close. They could hear the volunteers all around them, shuffling and murmuring, and the cattle grunting and lowing. Joia touched Dee’s hair. A full moon rose. They kissed a little, and eventually they did have sex, after all. It was different this time. Joia no longer felt embarrassed about her ignorance, and did just whatever occurred to her. Dee responded to her relaxed mood by being more spontaneous.

In the end they did sleep.

Joia woke up with a frightened start, again, then realized the farmers were not there, and tried to stop her heart thumping.

They had breakfast, then two teams of volunteers heaved on the ropes and pulled two sleds, each bearing a giant stone, away across the plain. Forty people stayed behind, twenty from eachteam, to maintain the day and night patrol. Their strength was missed, but the hardest terrain was behind them, and the depleted teams managed.

Joia, Dee, and Jara did not leave with the stones. Dee passed Lim to Sary, who was thrilled to take charge of her and carry her to safety at the Monument. “Do you think we might keep her?” Sary said with bright eyes.

“Perhaps,” said Joia. “We’ll talk to the other priestesses.”

“Just think,” said Sary. “We could raise her, all of us. She would have many mothers.”

Joia could not give thought to this right now. “I don’t know,” she said. “We’ll discuss it later.”

Joia and Dee walked with Jara back along the track as far as the two hills. There they met the third team, which had started from Stony Valley that morning. They returned with that team across the plain, and to Joia’s surprise and relief they saw no sign of the farmers. They left the third team not far from Upriver, and returned again for the fourth.

With the fourth they stopped halfway across the plain and waited for Seft and Tem and the fifth team. This meant they had two teams, four hundred people, in case the farmers attacked.

However, Joia felt hopeful. There had been no trouble in the past day and night. Perhaps there would be no more.

Joia and Dee had supper, lay down, made love, and fell asleep.

Seft climbed the fifth stone, grabbing the ropes to pull himself up, carrying his bow slung across his shoulder and a quiver of arrows at his belt. Tem followed him up. At the top they stood upright and looked around. There was a full moon that intermittently disappeared behind clouds.

All around the fourth and fifth stones hundreds of volunteers lay on the ground, most of them sleeping, all with weapons beside them. Jara had picked out the strongest and most aggressive young men and placed them at the western edge of the camp, forming a front line. Beyond the camp, the herd stretched west across the plain as far as Seft could see. The cattle were quiet and calm, undisturbed, which meant the farmers were not yet on the move.

Seft was deeply unhappy. When he had left his father and formed a couple with Neen, he thought he had left violence behind forever. That was how he had lived, never even smacking his children when they were naughty. Now he was preparing for a battle.

When he thought of all the problems he had solved, and theobstacles he had overcome, to bring the stones to the Monument, it seemed outrageous that all his efforts might be brought to nothing by jealous farmers with bows.

Neen and the three children were not here, but in Riverbend, which was a comfort.

He stared across the plain. Was there movement in the distant herd? Darkness could play tricks with eyesight. He thought he saw a black mass within the dappled herd. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and he saw that he was right. A dark wave was moving slowly through the cattle, and he thought he heard the distant hooting of protesting cows.

He said to Tem: “Do you see what I see?”