Page 31 of Circle of Days

“We’ve got nothing to trade.”

Bez looked at Fell’s throat.

Fell touched the necklace of bear’s teeth. “No.”

“If it’s that or starve?”

Fell looked as if he might weep, but he nodded assent.

“Let’s go.”

They headed along the path that led from the Monument to Riverbend. They walked with heads bowed. They were disheartened and very hungry.

Bez was contemplating theft. If he saw a way of stealing food without getting caught, he would do it, he decided. His brother loved that necklace.

Last time he visited Riverbend it had had a bustling, prosperous air, with well-fed men and women cheerfully making pots and tools and leather.

There had been pigs everywhere, he recalled, noisy and smelly.

Now the village had a shriveled look. People were skinny and seemed tired.

In places they were waiting with bowls and pots to receive a measured quantity of meat.

Bez went up to a man who was doling it out. “May the Sun God smile on you,” he said.

“You can’t have any of this,” said the man. “Sorry.”

“Would you trade?” Bez persisted. “We can offer my brother’s necklace.”

The man laughed, though not unkindly. “I can’t eat a necklace,” he said.

Bez looked at the people in line. “Anyone?” he said. “A necklace of bear’s teeth for some meat?”

No one wanted to trade. Bez felt completely dispirited.

A passer-by who had been watching spoke to Bez. He was a tall young man with big feet in shoes that were sewn differently from what was usual. “You men are really in trouble, aren’t you?” he said quietly.

Bez nodded.

“Come with me. I may be able to help.”

As they walked he said: “My sister sometimes gets game—hares, squirrels, pigeons—that aren’t covered by rationing. People give them to her man. She might be able to feed you something without taking it from her children’s rations.”

He led them to a house outside which a woman who faintly resembled him was cooking. Bez greeted her politely and gave his name and Fell’s. She was called Neen, and her kindhearted brother was Han.

When Han told her about the woodlanders trying to trade a necklace for food, she said: “I’m making a stew of a small hare. There’s not much meat, but you are welcome to some.”

They both nodded eagerly.

She gave them each a spoon and filled two bowls. They drank the fatty broth and chewed the morsels of meat. Bez felt better, until he remembered how he had failed in his mission.

Han asked where they were from, and when they told him he said: “You came all this way to trade a necklace?”

“No,” Bez said. “We’re hoping to hunt deer when they begin their migration, but we can’t figure out when they will move. You have to be ready for them, otherwise you can miss them. We thought the priestesses would be able to tell us.”

“I’m sure they could. That’s just the kind of thing they know.”

“Well, they wouldn’t help us.”

Han looked as though he did not believe them. “But that’s what they’re there for—to tell people the days of the year.”

“She would not advise us because woodlanders do not give the priestesses food.”

“That’s silly. Which priestess did you see?”

“Her name was Ello.”

“Oh, now I understand,” said Han. “That woman has a mean streak.”

“I can believe it.”

“Listen, don’t give up hope. I have another sister, who is a priestess. Her name is Joia.”

Bez brightened. “Do you think she would advise us?”

“She’ll help you if she can, I know it. She’s not like Ello.”

Bez said fervently: “Please take us to her!”

“Come on.”

They stood up. Bez thanked Neen for the stew. He knew that the herders were keen on small courtesies.

Bez and Fell walked with Han through the village and onto the pathway that led back to the Monument. The woodlanders had to hurry to keep up with Han’s long-legged stride. That was how the herders were, always in a rush even when there was no reason.

They reached the priestesses’ village and Han quickly found his sister. Bez immediately liked the look of Joia. She had a lot of curly dark hair and a lovely smile. He felt she must be a generous person.

Han said: “Bez and Fell have something to ask you.”

Bez explained: “Every year in the spring we hunt the deer as they go on their annual migration to the Northwest Hills. It’s important to have prior knowledge of when they’re going to move, so that we can lie in wait.

Usually we know by the spring grass on the plain, but that sign is no longer reliable, because of the drought.

However, people say that priestesses know all the days of the year. Do you know when the deer will move?”

“I think so,” said Joia.

Bez did not understand that. Either she knew or she did not.

She sensed his bewilderment and explained. “We have a song about all the natural things that happen in a year: the summer berries, the green beetles, the mushrooms, the birds flying south, the spring flowers, the birds’ eggs… I know the deer are in there somewhere.”

Han said impatiently: “Well, can you remember or not?” It was what Bez had wanted to say, but he was too polite.

Joia said: “I’ll have to sing the song. Come with me.”

They followed her into the Monument. Her song began with Midsummer Day, the first day of the year.

Although she was small in stature, her voice seemed to carry all around the circle.

As she sang, she danced around the Monument, touching the timber uprights, passing through the narrow gaps between them.

Bez was rapt. She sang of summer, autumn, and winter.

At last, she came to the season he was interested in, spring. He waited in suspense, then she sang:

Forty-eight days from the Spring Halfway, the deer go north to the hills,

Two days sooner if the spring is fine, two days later if the weather’s bad

She stopped there.

Bez said in frustration: “I understood everything except the first word.”

“Forty-eight?”

Han said: “I didn’t get that one either.”

“Forty-eight days is four herder weeks,” Joia said. That satisfied Han but Bez was still in exasperated ignorance. He had the answer and he could not understand it.

“I can simplify it for you,” Joia said to Bez. “Forty-eight days from the Spring Rite is five days from now. The drought is very bad weather, so we add two days, making it seven.”

Bez was still baffled. “We don’t have those number words,” he said. It was maddening. She had the information he needed but they could not communicate.

Joia said patiently: “Shall I show you how to count on your fingers?”

Bez nodded. That was how herders counted, he knew, on their fingers and toes and other parts of their bodies. Woodlanders never seemed to need that skill—but now he did.

“Give me your hands. Make fists, gently.” She pulled his left thumb and four fingers straight, then added two fingers of his right hand.

Touching them in turn, she said: “Tomorrow. The next day. The day after that. Another day. Another day. Another day. And then…” Holding the seventh finger, she said: “This day you hunt.”

Bez repeated what she had said. Then he showed his hands to Fell, saying: “Remember this, in case I forget,” and he again repeated what Joia had said.

Fell made the same shapes with his own hands and repeated the words. Then he said: “I’ll remember.”

They were elated. They had the answer to their question. Their trip was not a failure after all.

Joia said: “One more thing. The sun and the moon aren’t fickle—they always rise and set when we expect it—but the animals and plants are not so reliable. My date for the deer is likely to be right, but it’s not as certain as tomorrow’s sunrise.”

Bez understood. A deer might come to drink at a pond every night for a week and then, the night you lay in wait to kill it, it would not appear. He was prepared for disappointment.

He said: “I thank you, Priestess Joia, and all my tribe thank you, too.”

Joia said: “I wish you luck.”

Soo died that night.

Ello came and woke the other priestesses before dawn, but she would not let anyone help her wash the body for cremation. She wept constantly, inconsolably.

The priestesses built a funeral pyre inside the oval. At dawn six of them made a cradle with their linked hands and carried the body from the house to the pyre, laying Soo down with her head toward the east, while everyone sang to the Sun God.

Ello put a torch to the pyre.

Then they stood in solemn silence. Joia thought anxiously about what lay ahead.

Soo had been High Priestess for all of Joia’s time here—nearly ten midsummers.

This would be a big change. The most important thing, for Joia and for the people of the Great Plain, was that the knowledge of the days of the year should be preserved for future generations.

That must happen whether the new High Priestess was Joia or Ello or someone else.

The more they knew, the better they would be able to manage the crises that life threw at them.

Many priestesses wept now, as smoke rose and the flames devoured the corpse.

When the edge of the sun peeped over the horizon, the priestesses began a new song, asking the spirit of the wind to cherish the ashes of the High Priestess.

Soon there was little left, and the sun was up. The funeral was over.

Ello returned to her house, still weeping. The others went to the large rectangular building that served as a dining hall. The novices put out smoked pork and a salad of chickweed leaves. Everyone sat on the floor to eat and discuss who should be the next High Priestess.

The younger priestesses favored Joia. Others said tactfully that a High Priestess needed the wisdom that comes with age. The more humble among them felt that they should obey the dying wish of Soo.

Then Seft came in.

The conversation went quiet, and everyone looked at Joia. They knew that Seft was her sister’s man, as well as the leader of the cleverhands.