Page 29 of Circle of Days

Many frail old people fell ill in the drought, and one of them was Soo, the High Priestess. The poor diet that weakened everyone could be fatal to the elderly.

Soo stayed in her house, and Ello took her food to her. The priestesses noticed that her diet changed from the usual meat to soups and soft berries, indicating that she could no longer eat regular food, and that made them think she might be dying.

Joia was sad. Soo had seen into her heart, and had quickly recognized her need to lead a life different from the norm. Ani, Joia’s mother, understood her, but Soo went further; she accepted her.

Others felt similarly. Soo was wise and kind. There was no one quite like her in the priestess community.

One morning she asked to speak to them all, and they gathered outside her house. Joia sat with Sary, who had once been a fainthearted novice and was now a confident woman who gathered herbs for healing potions.

Ello came out of Soo’s house carrying a log, which she placed in front of the doorway. She had the confident air of one who knew her destiny.

Ello brought Soo out and helped her sit on the log. Joia was shocked by Soo’s appearance. Most of her hair was gone, and her shoulders were bony. Joia could see that the other priestesses were equally upset.

“I’ve been here for almost sixty midsummers,” Soo began.

Her voice was faint, and they all moved closer.

She went on: “I’ve survived several droughts, but I think this one will be my last.”

There was a murmur of protest. No one wanted her to go.

“I never achieved my great ambition, to rebuild the Monument in stone,” she said. “But perhaps someone who comes after me will do that.”

She stopped and coughed, a hard, echoey cough that came from deep inside. Joia thought it had a doomlike sound, something a person might not recover from. She looked at Sary, who nodded discreetly: she, too, had sensed the seriousness of that cough.

“As to the question of who comes after me, you must decide that. Remember that you must have a consensus. A High Priestess needs to begin with the wholehearted support of everyone.”

Joia was daunted by the thought of getting them all to agree. Right now there were twenty-eight priestesses, not including novices, who had no say in the choice of a High Priestess.

Then Soo said: “But it must be obvious to all of you that there is only one serious candidate: Ello, who is already Second High Priestess.”

Joia was dismayed. Ello was unkind. She would change the atmosphere of the Monument. She would be a tyrant.

Soo was wrong, it was not obvious that Ello should succeed her. And a dying High Priestess did not have the right to choose her successor.

“I strongly recommend…” Soo started to cough again. This time it went on. Eventually she made a gesture to Ello, who helped her back inside.

The priestesses immediately broke into conversation. Sary said to Joia: “I’m not sure there’s only one suitable candidate.”

Joia was glad someone else had had the same reaction as she had. “Ello has put Soo up to this.”

“Ello and Soo have been lovers since before you and I were born. Perhaps Ello was once cheerful and kind, and Soo still adores the girl Ello used to be. Anyway, Soo wants to bequeath the position of High Priestess to her lifelong darling. It’s sweet, but we don’t have to go along with it.”

“True.” Joia wanted to think more about this before getting into any discussions. There was, in fact, a second obvious candidate, and it was Joia herself. The question was what she should do about it.

For her, the issue was not just who would be High Priestess. It was about rebuilding the Monument in stone. It was now almost ten midsummers since Dallo had persuaded everyone that the task was impossible. Now was the time to try again.

She needed to talk to Seft.

She found him harvesting timber. He had felled an ash tree, its hardwood preferred for construction, and was now trimming it, using a long-handled axe with a large shiny blade of black floorstone flint.

With him was his eldest child, Ilian, soon to see his tenth midsummer.

He was using a flint knife to cut thin, leafy branches from the felled tree to be used as fodder for cattle.

Ilian was strong for his age, and already shaping up to be a good carpenter, as Seft would say proudly to anyone who would listen.

Seft stopped work when Joia approached. She greeted him and said: “The High Priestess is dying.”

“Soo? I’m sorry to hear that.”

“This could be the moment to revive the project of a stone Monument. If Ello becomes High Priestess, it won’t happen. If I’m chosen, it will.”

“Good!” said Seft. “What do we have to do?”

“We need to convince the priestesses that now is the time. If they accept that, they’ll want me as their leader.”

Seft put down his axe and sat on the trunk of the ash tree. Joia sat beside him. Seft said: “We can tell them that I’ve determined the best route for transporting the stones from Stony Valley to the Monument.”

“And that’s important.”

“But what if they ask where we will find the people to drag the stones?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. The population of Riverbend is about four hundred, but if we take away the children, the old, those who are sick or away at the time, and the disabled, it comes to fewer than two hundred, which is not enough. So we need people from elsewhere.”

“How would we manage that?”

“Four times a year we have a huge influx of outsiders, for the Rites. The most popular is the Midsummer Rite, when we sometimes have a thousand.”

“I don’t understand these priestess numbers.”

“A thousand is far more than we need to pull a stone.”

“But how would we persuade them to help us?” Seft was a master of inanimate objects such as trees and rivers, but he could not manipulate people.

However, Joia could. “I’ll speak to them after the Rite.

I’ll tell them that this is a holy mission, something the gods want us to do.

I’ll say it’s an extension of the Rite and of the celebrations that go with the Rite, including the revel.

I’ll tell them that we’re going to sing and dance as we march to Stony Valley.

They’ll love the idea, especially the young ones. ”

Seft nodded. “I can imagine.”

“We could do it every year, after the Midsummer Rite, a few stones a year until we have enough.”

“People might look forward to the march the way they look forward to the Rite.”

“I’m sure they will.”

Seft nodded. “So,” he said, “we have to put this to the priestesses?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Let’s keep it to ourselves while Soo is alive. Then, after her funeral, when the priestesses start to think seriously about her successor, we’ll speak to them together.”

“Very good,” said Seft.

Joia left him, feeling bucked, and headed back to the Monument.

Duna was waiting for her. A promising novice, she was a jolly girl with a lovely singing voice. Today Joia had to teach her about eclipses. She put everything else out of her mind.

“Eclipses of the sun and moon are portents,” Joia said. “They herald floods, plagues, and earthquakes. A year of no eclipses is a peaceful one. A year with many is dangerous. So we need to know what dangerous years are coming.”

Instead of entering the central timber circle, Joia led Duna to the outer circle of bluestones that stood just inside the bank. Each stone was taller than a tall man. Duna said: “How did these big stones get here? They must be awfully heavy.”

“No one really knows,” said Joia. “Perhaps they came upriver on boats.”

“Then they had to be brought from the river to here.”

“It happened long before anyone alive today was born. But the stones must have been dragged across the ground, presumably with ropes.”

“It sounds very difficult.”

“Certainly.” This was an interesting discussion, but Joia had a lesson to teach. “Did you notice how many bluestones there are?”

“Yes,” Duna said eagerly. “Fifty-six.”

“Well done.”

“We were told we had to know the number of everything we see,” Duna admitted.

“A good principle for a priestess. Now, most of our dances take place around the timber circle, and they tell us about the sun. And bluestones numbers twenty-eight and fifty-six are in line with the rising sun on Midsummer Day. But, despite that, the circle is mostly about the moon. And the number fifty-six is very important in the study of the moon.”

Joia did not know why the Moon Goddess had picked that special number. Fifty-six was twice twenty-eight, and a lot of people vaguely thought that twenty-eight days was a lunar month, but that was not quite right: the cycle from one new moon to the next was twenty-nine and a half days.

Nevertheless, the people who had performed the giant task of bringing the bluestones to the Monument had known the Goddess’s secret numbers, and Joia was now going to explain them to Duna.

“You see that a large pottery disc has been placed at the foot of some of the stones.”

“Six of the stones,” Duna said.

“Well done. Can you figure out the arrangement of discs?”

“Yes,” Duna said eagerly. “There’s a disc at every ninth stone. No, every tenth! No…”

Joia put her out of her misery. “The intervals are nine, nine, ten, nine, nine, ten. If you add them up, it comes to fifty-six.”

“Oh!”

“We move each disc backward one place every year. It’s a special dance that’s always done at night, to the full moon.”

Duna nodded. She understood, Joia could see, but she was wondering what the point of it all was.

Joia said: “Whenever there is a disc at stone number twenty-eight or stone number fifty-six, there will be a year of eclipse, certainly of the moon and perhaps of the sun.”

Duna was impressed. “But what can we do? We can’t stop floods or prevent plagues.”

“We tell people to be cautious. Don’t start a war, don’t move to a new house, don’t voyage across water. Don’t take unnecessary risks. They appreciate the advice.”

Duna looked hesitant, then said: “Can I ask you about something else?”