Page 30 of Circle of Days

This often happened. The novices Joia taught would ask her for advice on personal problems, assuming she was an expert on those too. “Let’s sit down,” she said, and she led the way to the bank. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s Ello.”

Joia groaned inwardly. She knew what was coming. “Go on.”

“She came to me at bedtime and asked me to go to the empty house with her.”

Most people did not care if they were observed making love, unless they were doing something shameful—such as seducing young people. Ello would not care to be watched by disapproving eyes. It would spoil her pleasure. So she contrived to keep one house empty for her trysts.

Making the situation perfectly clear, Duna said: “Ello wants to have sex with me.”

“You’re a very attractive girl.”

Tears came to Duna’s eyes. “I’m sorry, but I don’t like her.”

“Don’t worry.” Joia patted her shoulder. “You don’t have to have sex with her if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t I?” Duna found this hard to believe.

“Absolutely not.”

“She’s insistent. She grabbed my hand and pulled. It hurt.”

“Oh, dear.” This was a pattern with Ello. About once a year she would develop a crush on a novice, then use her position as Second High Priestess to intimidate the poor girl. A few novices had left giving no very strong reason, and Joia suspected they had done it to escape Ello.

Joia had complained to Soo about this, but Soo had done nothing. Formidable though Soo was, she would forgive Ello anything.

Joia said: “If she asks again, tell her you’ve spoken to me, and I’ve said you can refuse her.”

“Will that stop her?”

“It has in the past. But if she continues to pester you, tell me, and I’ll speak to her myself.”

“Thank you so much.”

I can’t let Ello become the High Priestess, Joia thought. She would be even more powerful. She would bully more youngsters. I have to do something about this, regardless of what happens about the stone Monument.

Duna said: “You’re so kind. And smart, too. You should be High Priestess.”

“People would think I’m a bit young,” Joia said with false modesty.

Duna shook her head. “All the novices love you. You’re so beautiful.”

Joia smiled. She did not think she was beautiful.

Duna said: “Any of us would have sex with you if you wanted.”

Joia’s heart sank. She knew what was coming next. She had had this conversation before, more than once. Duna was about to declare her love.

She acted quickly to divert the conversation.

“Let me tell you something,” she said. Duna’s hand had wandered to her knee, and she gently took it off.

“My mother has been a widow for seventeen midsummers. When my father, Olin, died, everyone told her she should look around for another man she could love. She never did.”

“Why not? It’s what most women would do.”

“She says that some of us love only one person in a lifetime. My father was that one, for her. She can’t bring herself to want anyone else.

Another man would always be a disappointment, no matter how lovable he was, just because he wouldn’t be Olin.

So she has remained single—even on the night of the revel. ”

“Such love!”

“She says she’s a one-man woman. I’m like her. I’m not sure if it’s a man or a woman I’m waiting for, but I know I haven’t yet met the one for me. And when I do, I’ll be happy.”

Bez and Fell set out with high hopes. With the help of the priestesses they might save the tribe.

Fell was wearing a necklace he had made from the teeth of the bear they had killed. The four huge curved fangs were particularly striking.

Bez had made the trip across the Great Plain twice before. He always marveled at how the herders worked all the time, men and women and children too. The farmers were worse. What was the point, when there were deer in the woods and nuts on the trees?

The deer and nuts were scarce now, but the herders and farmers were no better off than the woodlanders. Bez was shocked to see the skinny corpses of cattle that had died of thirst or starvation, dotting the Great Plain; casualties of the battle with the weather.

“Herders have all kinds of rules about sex,” Bez said conversationally as they walked. “They can’t go with their aunt or their half sister or their brother.”

“What’s the point of such rules? Why don’t they just go with any willing man or woman, as we do? What’s the harm?”

Bez shook his head. “You know, sometimes herder women want to have sex with woodlanders.”

“Oh! Disgusting! They’re so ugly, with their pointy noses and their pale eyes.”

“And they have skinny legs like deer.”

They both laughed.

On the first evening they did what Bez had done on previous trips: they walked into one of the little herder settlements, looked for someone who was cooking, and sat down by their fire. Sooner or later, Bez expected, they would be handed bowls just as if they belonged here.

That had never worked with the farmers and now, they found, it no longer worked with the herders. The man cooking explained to him: “It’s the drought. We have rations, only just enough for ourselves. If we share, we go hungry. I’m sorry.”

Next morning they found some wild onions, which they ate while walking. In the evening Fell’s new dog killed a month-old roe deer fawn and dragged it proudly to him. They cooked it that night and shared it with the dog.

Woodlanders rarely hurried, and it was noon on the third day when they reached the Monument.

At the times of the Rites the place was busy, with people trading outside the earth bank, but now it seemed deserted. Probably everyone was at the nearby village of Riverbend, the largest settlement on the plain. But the priestesses should be here. Bez led the way to the village where they lived.

He felt nervous. This would be such an important conversation, and he had to make himself understood in the herder language.

No one among the herders or farmers could speak the woodlander tongue.

He knew that the most important of the priestesses was called the High Priestess, and he decided he would speak to her.

The priestesses were not in their houses—few people lived inside in warm weather, houses were for winter—and Bez and Fell found a cluster of women sitting on the ground in the middle of the little settlement.

All were wearing the long tunics that marked them as priestesses.

Bez and Fell were wearing the short tunics that most herders and farmers wore.

They had put them on for the trip: in summer they normally wore nothing but leather loincloths.

Bez was glad to have found the women so quickly.

They went quiet when they saw the woodlanders. One woman sitting with her back to Bez and Fell turned around and screamed with fright; but the others laughed at her, and after a moment she joined in the merriment.

They quieted down, and a small but confident woman said: “Hello. Do you need something?”

Bez said carefully: “May the Sun God smile on you.”

“And on you,” she replied.

“Are you the High Priestess?”

They all laughed.

“I’m not the High Priestess, no. My name is Sary.”

“I’m Bez and this is my brother, Fell. Can you take us to the High Priestess? It’s very urgent.”

“The High Priestess is old and very ill. I’m afraid she won’t be able to talk to you.”

This was a setback. Fell spoke to Bez in the woodlander language. “What did she say? I didn’t understand.”

“The High Priestess is too ill to talk to us.”

“Then we must talk to someone else.”

Bez turned back to the woman called Sary. “Is there someone else? We need to know about the migration of the deer.”

The women talked among themselves, and Bez understood one of them to say: “Ello knows everything.”

The others seemed to agree, and the one who had become their spokesperson said: “The Second High Priestess might help you. Her name is Ello.”

“Can you take us to her?”

“Of course.”

Bez was relieved.

Sary led them to one of the small houses. She looked inside and said: “Two woodlanders called Bez and Fell are here, asking to speak to you.”

Bez could not hear the reply, and worried that it might have been negative. He poked his head inside. He saw a very old woman lying down, and a middle-aged woman beside her. The younger of the two must be Ello, he guessed. She got up, and he stepped back.

Ello came out. Bez saw right away that she did not have a kind face. He said: “May the Sun God smile on you.”

She ignored that. “What do you want?”

“We’re from the place you call West Wood. Our tribe is starving because of the drought and—”

Ello interrupted him. “It’s the same for everyone. You’re wasting your time here. We can’t give you food.”

Bez was offended that she assumed he was a beggar.

He stood straight and looked her in the eye.

“We’re not here to ask for food. We will be able to feed ourselves when the deer migrate, which should be soon.

But we can’t tell exactly when. You priestesses know all the days of the year, I’ve been told.

Is that true? Can you tell when the deer will start on their journey to the Northwest Hills? ”

The woman’s face hardened. “We’re not here to serve you.” The way she said it was disdainful. “The herders feed us, and we give them information, but you people give us nothing. I’m not obliged to help you. I’ve got enough to do.” She turned her back.

Bez abandoned his pride. “Please,” he said. “We’re starving and all we’re asking for is information.”

Ello went inside and blocked the doorway with a hurdle.

Sary looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she walked away.

Bez was distraught. They had come all this way just to meet with a flat refusal. He dreaded the thought of going home and reporting failure.

Fell said: “What shall we do now?”

“I don’t know.” It must be nice to be the younger brother, Bez thought. In a crisis you ask what you should do and wait for the answer. “I suppose we’d better go to Riverbend.”

“They won’t feed us—we know that.”

Bez scratched his head. “They might trade, though.”