Page 23 of Circle of Days

Cam explained: “We haven’t had a decent meal for weeks. We’ve no food and nothing to trade.” He scraped his bowl with his spoon.

“And why is that?” Seft asked. “You’re miners, and people will still give food for the flints they need.”

Cam put down his empty bowl. “After Dadda died, we carried on in the pit until the seam ran out.”

“And then you dug another pit, I presume.”

“Yes, but it was a dud. No flint seam. So we dug another pit. Same result.”

Seft said: “Did Dadda never show you how to find a flint-bearing seam?”

Cam shook his head from side to side.

How did I learn? Seft wondered. I think I just watched as my father looked at locations and chose one, and perhaps I heard him muttering to himself as he did so. Anyway, it’s quite simple. But clearly these two paid no attention until it was too late.

He said: “You could work for another miner—like Wun, for example.”

“We asked him. He refused. We tried others, too, but they seemed to be prejudiced against us.”

They know what you’re like, Seft thought. The mining community is small, and word gets around.

Cam said: “We need you to help us.”

So that’s it, Seft thought. He said: “In the name of the gods, why should I help people who terrorized and persecuted me for years?”

Olf adopted a threatening tone. “You have to save us. You’re our brother.”

Seft said sharply: “I don’t have to do anything for you, Olf, so you’d better drop that attitude right now.”

Olf looked away and said no more.

Neen told the children to take the bowls to the river and wash them. Seft stood up and said to Neen: “Come and talk with me.” They stepped away from Olf and Cam and stood where they could not be overheard.

Seft said: “They just need me to teach them how to find a seam of flint.”

“I think it’s outrageous. After all they put you through.”

“You don’t think I have a duty to help them?”

“Certainly not! They haven’t even said they’re sorry.”

“They may starve to death. Or they might try to steal one of our cattle, and get shot by a herder with a bow.”

“Would you care?”

Seft hesitated, feeling again the sense of loss at his father’s death. “I don’t know,” he said. “They’re vile, but they are my brothers.”

Neen was thoughtful for a few moments, then she said: “I would never try to stop you doing something you saw as your duty.”

Was it his duty? He was clear about his duty to Neen and his children, but not to his brothers. He needed time to think.

He returned to the brothers and said: “Go away and don’t come back until sundown. We’ll give you a small supper and you can sleep in the house tonight. I’ll tell you my decision in the morning.”

Olf said: “Where are we supposed to go all afternoon?”

Seft said impatiently: “I don’t care. Go and look at the Monument. Just stay away from my house until suppertime.”

They got up grumpily and walked away.

Seft said to Neen: “I’ll go and see how Tem is getting on.”

“Thanks for getting rid of those two,” she said. “I’m not comfortable with them hanging around.”

“They’ll leave tomorrow, with or without me.”

“Good.”

Seft left her and walked to the river. The cleverhands had stopped to eat their midday dinner, but they were getting on well, and they might finish in another two or three days. He sat beside Tem and said: “I may have to go away for a few days.”

“Why? Where?”

Seft told him the story of the destitute brothers.

“Well,” Tem said, “not many people would be so forgiving. Half of me admires you and the other half thinks you’re a fool.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Yes, you have,” said Tem.

It took them a day to walk to the northern edge of the plain. On the following morning Seft told them how to find a flint seam.

“You’re looking for three things,” he said. “First, a steep hill or bluff. It doesn’t have to be very high, but it must be steep. A gradual slope’s no good. Second, a stream running along the foot of the hill.”

Cam said: “All the streams are dry.”

“If it only has a trickle of water, it may suffice, as long as it has the third thing you’re looking for, a few loose flints in the streambed.”

“Someone might have taken the flints.”

“Perhaps. But a miner would know they are a sign of a rich seam nearby.”

They came across a streambed that was almost dry, with just an intermittent trickle of water.

Seft followed it to a low cliff. “Look at this,” he said.

Water was seeping out of the side of the cliff into the streambed.

“That’s called a springline. Water gathers any place where two layers of different rock meet.

It might be chalk and clay, in which case it’s no good to you. But we’re hoping it’s chalk and flint.”

Cam said indignantly: “You mean we can’t be sure?”

“Yes. Dadda made that mistake sometimes, don’t you remember? We’d dig through chalk for weeks and come to a bed of useless clay.”

“But there are flints in this stream. Only a few.”

“Which is a good sign. The place to start digging will be a little way beyond the edge of the cliff. Let’s go up and look.”

The three brothers scrambled up the hill and crossed its peak.

“Well, we were right,” said Seft. There was already a pit at the spot.

He saw a hill of excavated chalk and a stack of new flints.

They went to the edge of the pit and looked down.

There was a climbing pole, and five miners were energetically breaking up the seam of flint at the bottom of the hole.

Olf said: “Well, that was a waste of time.”

“Was it?” said Seft. “Haven’t you learned what to look for when you’re trying to decide where to dig? And wasn’t that what you needed me to teach you?”

Olf grunted.

They walked along the top of the rise, passing three more pits, each being worked by a different family, before the ground sloped down again.

They had started in the most thoroughly exploited area, and Seft realized they would have to go farther west to find unexplored territory.

Olf and Cam, never patient, became irritated with the number of times they found good flint terrain that was already being dug.

But, Seft reflected, they were becoming better at identifying promising sites.

Around midafternoon they came across a hill with a springline and found no one digging. Seft said: “Look at the whole length of the spring, and decide where the middle is. That should be the center of the seam. Walk straight up the hill, not wandering left or right.”

He showed them and they followed.

“We start the pit a few paces from the summit.” He used a sharp stick to scratch a rough circle in the earth.

Olf said: “Let’s rest now.”

“Good idea,” said Seft. “We’ve walked a long way today.” They ate some of the food they had brought with them, then lay down. The weather was warm and there was no sign of rain—sadly—so they slept comfortably in the open.

Next morning Seft took his leave.

Olf said: “Aren’t you going to help us dig?”

“No,” he said. “I’m going back to my family.”

Cam said: “What are we going to eat?”

“I don’t know,” said Seft. He guessed they would survive on roots and leaves, and perhaps kill a hare or a squirrel occasionally. In any case he had done all he could for them.

“Good luck,” he said, and walked away.

“You’re abandoning us!” Cam said plaintively.

Seft shook his head bemusedly and walked on.

He had not told anyone, but he wanted to take another look at Stony Valley.

All those years ago, Dallo had laid out very clearly why it was impossible to rebuild the Monument from stone. Yet even then Seft had thought Dallo gave up too soon. The problems Dallo had described might have solutions. Seft knew that Joia thought as he did, that Dallo had been too pessimistic.

Now, when the community was in a profound crisis, Seft knew something was needed to reunite them. The murder of Inka had been a warning. The collective spirit of the herder folk was ebbing away. The rebuilding of the Monument could bring everyone together again.

He crossed the North River and reached a steep hill called the Scarp, then followed it east until it became no more than a series of hills.

His eye for landscape had been sharpened by the search for signs of a flint seam.

Eventually he recognized the territory through which he was passing, and he turned north.

He began to examine the terrain with a view to dragging giant stones through it.

At first glance he was dismayed. The area was hilly and there was nothing that could be done about that.

He remembered Dallo saying how difficult it had been to move a stone across a field.

Now Seft thought about how hard it would be to move even bigger stones up and down these hills, through woods and across fields; and he felt discouraged.

He reached Stony Valley at midafternoon and sat with his back to a tree, thinking about the problem. The first thing to do, he decided, would be to find the least difficult route.

The sheep who grazed the valley were presumably owned by someone, but Seft had not met a shepherd on his two previous visits. However, this time a man in a sheepskin tunic appeared. He smelled very bad, and Seft guessed that, not living near a river, he never washed.

The shepherd gave him a slab of raw mutton.

Seft was surprised to be given food in the drought. “This is a generous gift,” he said.

“Ah, well,” said the shepherd, “it’s so you don’t feel tempted to kill one of my sheep for your supper.”

That was shrewd. But Seft said: “All the same, I appreciate your kindness.”

“My name is Hol,” said the shepherd.

“And I’m Seft, a herder.”

The shepherd nodded and went back the way he had come.

Seft made a fire and roasted the meat. He ate some and saved the rest for tomorrow.

He woke early and set off right away, chewing mutton.

As far as possible, the stones should follow the valleys.

But they would have to avoid swamps, woods, and rocky ground.

And those pulling would get thirsty, so they needed always to be near water.

From Stony Valley the stones would have to go southwest up a rise, a challenging start on rough ground. But from then on it was mostly downhill. He saw how to avoid two steep hills by passing between them.

Soon after that he came down into the northeast corner of the Great Plain, uneven but grassy. By then he thought he had covered about a quarter of the distance. The plain was not flat but rose and fell gently. A large herd browsed what little growth there was.

He talked to a man called Dab and a pregnant woman called Revo, both carrying long, flexible herding sticks. “We moved the herd here a few days ago,” Revo said. “There’s always some spring growth here, although this year it’s not much. How long will this drought go on?”

Seft did not know.

He reached the East River shortly before coming to the village of Upriver, and now he reckoned he was halfway home.

Beside the river was a large meadow, and he sat there to rest and eat his remaining mutton.

The villagers were not unfriendly, but no one questioned him about what he was doing or where he was going. Perhaps they saw a lot of travelers.

East River ran more or less straight from Upriver to Riverbend.

The easy way to transport the giant stones would have been to float them downriver on rafts.

But he saw immediately that East River was too narrow and bendy.

Any raft big enough to carry the enormous weight would be wider than some stretches of the river.

He had never walked the entire distance, but he knew that a pathway ran alongside the river. A riverside path was bound to be flat, and he guessed that would be the best route for the second half of the journey.

Moving on, he encountered several other travelers, and he concluded that he was on a much-used route.

However, he saw that in some places the path was narrow, much too narrow for a giant stone. It would have to be widened by felling trees and clearing bushes. Also, they might have to dig into the adjoining slopes to make room.

It would be a lot of work, but he saw no obstacles that could not be removed.

When he got back to Riverbend he felt he had probably found the best route.

Neen welcomed him with hugs and kisses. “I was afraid those two would kill you,” she said.

“I found them a pit,” he said. “It should keep them busy for many years.”

“Thank the gods for that.”

Seft was bursting with what he had learned that day, and wanted to share it. “I’d like to invite your sister, Joia, for supper,” he said.

“I’d be delighted—especially if she could bring something to put in the pot.”

“Good,” Seft said. “I’ve got a lot to tell her.”