Page 37 of Circle of Days

I ’m going to have a baby,” said Pia.

“A baby,” said Han.

It was daybreak, and she could see his face. He was happy: a child was what he wanted. She kissed him.

Her pregnancy was hardly surprising. They had made love here, in the thicket, almost every night for a quarter of a year. The grassy scent of yarrow would mean sex to Pia for the rest of her life.

The woodlanders, back from their summer migration, had looked at them suspiciously at first, but quickly realized they were harmless and left them alone.

Stam had become suspicious. Twice he had woken in the night and seen that Pia was not at home.

The first time he had been ill with a fever, and by morning he was not sure what he had seen and what he had dreamed.

But the second occasion had been different.

Frantic barking from the dog had alerted him and Yana, and in the moonlight they had seen a family of wild boars in the field, a mother and three young, eating the crop.

It was dangerous to get close to boars, so Stam had shot arrows at them and Yana had thrown stones, making them run away, the mother with two arrows sticking in her back.

One of the young had been left behind, fatally wounded by an arrow, and when Pia got home Yana was cooking it.

And Stam wanted to know where Pia had been.

She had adopted Han’s suggestion and said she had a lover. Now he was desperate to know who it was. “Ask your friends,” Pia had said. “One of them knows.” That made him even more curious and steered him away from the truth.

All the same she was anxious. Stam was dumb but his father, Troon, was not. She feared that the secret might come out somehow. And the baby just underlined the precariousness of her position.

She said to Han: “It’s time for us to make some decisions.”

“I’ll become a farmer,” Han said immediately. “I’m big and strong, they’ll be glad to have me. I don’t know anything about farming, but I’ll be happy to learn.”

Pia was dead against this. “Three snags with that,” she said. She had foreseen this conversation and she knew what she wanted to say. “First, you would hate being a farmer. Men, women, and children work from sunrise to sunset every day of the year.”

“No rest days?”

“No. Herders who join the farmer community can’t get used to it and get a reputation for being lazy and unreliable.”

“I’m not lazy.”

“Not by herder standards, no. By farmer standards you do virtually no work.”

“Hmm.”

“Second, women are property here. They have to do what men tell them. If we had a daughter, that’s how she would be treated. You’re not used to that. It would offend you.”

“It does offend me.” Han was looking uneasy.

Pia went on: “But the most important reason is the third. I hate it here. I’m desperate to leave. I want a herder family, with everyone being kind and loving to one another.”

Han frowned, thinking. Pia listened to the morning chatter of the birds. Eventually Han said: “That settles it. We’ll have to go to Riverbend.”

Pia shook her head. “They would try to kidnap me, as they did Mo.”

Han looked angry. “They’d have to kill me first.”

“But they might do that. And whatever happened would be violent. It’s hard to predict how things would end up. Your mother’s an elder: if the farmers killed you, the herders might go to war. I don’t want our love to be the cause of a war.”

“Nor do I, but there’s nowhere else to go.”

“On the contrary, there are many places: north, south, east, and west.”

“You mean we should leave the Great Plain?”

“Yes.”

“But we hardly know what there is beyond the plain.”

“We know that the woodlanders spend every summer in the Northwest Hills. There’s an established path that they use, so we could find our way easily.”

“What would we do for food? The deer have already returned to the plain.”

“We could take a cow.”

“You mean steal one?”

“Would that be necessary? If you took Zad into your confidence, might he not feel that as a herder you’re entitled to one cow?”

Han grinned. “I think you’re probably right.” He turned serious. “But winter in the hills…”

She nodded. It was already getting colder here on the plain. “We’d have to build a house. I’m sure we could manage that.”

“Yes.” He looked thoughtful. “You and me and a cow…”

“And a baby.”

“It sounds cozy.”

Pia nodded. It sounded cozy to her too. She knew there would be difficulties and struggles, but the joy of being together and being free would give them the strength to cope with problems. Just the thought of it made her happy.

There was one big drawback. “I’ll miss my mother, though.”

Han clearly had not thought about Yana. “Can’t she come with us?”

“I’ve talked to her about it. She refuses. She says she’s too old. She can no longer walk very far or very fast—the carrying of water all summer has worn her out. She’s afraid she would slow us down, then we’d all be caught.”

“I don’t know…”

“She won’t change her mind.”

Han nodded. It made sense to him. But he said: “It may be a long while until you see her. Do you imagine we’ll live in the Northwest Hills indefinitely?”

“No. In a year or two we can return to the plain. Tempers will have cooled and a lot of people will have forgotten about us. We’ll have a baby, and that will change everything.

If Troon tried to take a mother and baby away from the father, the herders might well go to war, and Troon would know that. ”

Han said: “Anyway, that’s a long time in the future.”

Not so long, she thought, but she did not say it. “We’ll have to take some necessities. A cookpot, two bowls and two spoons, some flints, and a big leather bag to put them in.”

“And my bow and arrows. When shall we go?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“So soon!”

“Listen. It’s the Autumn Rite in four days.

We should leave tomorrow, but not go far, and hide in West Wood.

Next day they’ll search the farmer country and the woods, and visit herder settlements nearby.

Not finding us, they’ll think we’ve gone to Riverbend.

The following day they’ll go to the Monument for the Rite and search for us there.

Next day, after the Rite, they’ll come back here.

That gives us four clear days to get ahead of them. They’ll never catch us.”

“No,” he said. “As long as the Sun God smiles on us.”

The next day it rained.

There had been a few paltry showers as the summer cooled down, but this was a real storm. Farmers stood in the fields looking up, with their mouths open to catch the pure water. Everyone got soaking wet and no one minded.

The dry streambeds filled again. That solved a problem for Pia and Han: they would not have to search for water on their flight.

As night fell, the wind grew strong and the rain came down harder. Pia considered putting off their departure to another night, but she could not bear to. She was too close to freedom to postpone it. Anyway, the weather would make it more difficult for anyone to follow them.

As usual she lay down and pretended to sleep. The wind seemed to disturb Stam for a while, but at last his breathing became regular.

Like most people, Pia had a shearling coat that she wore over her tunic in cold weather. It hung from a peg in a rafter, and now she took it down and shrugged it on.

She knelt by her mother’s bed and kissed her. Yana stroked her face and whispered: “May the Sun God smile on you.”

“And on you, my beloved mother,” Pia breathed.

Then she got up and left. She wondered whether she would ever see her mother again.

She labored up the slope to the wood, bending forward into the rain and struggling to maintain a steady path as the wind buffeted her sideways. Soon her coat was heavy with water.

She reached the wood and was grateful for the shelter of the trees. She passed all the way through and found Han on the other side at his usual place. He, too, was soaking wet, as was Thunder.

The cattle had huddled in a close mass, sheltering each other and their calves.

Han said: “This wood is the first place they’ll look. We need to cross the Break and find a place to hide in West Wood.”

Pia agreed.

They moved along the north side of the tree line, gaining a little shelter from overhanging branches, heading west. In a flash of lightning they saw a herder, who waved amiably. They reached the Break and started across.

The cultivated field offered no shelter at all. Twice the wind almost knocked Pia off her feet, and from then on she clung to Han. At last they reached West Wood and entered with relief.

“We’re free,” Pia said. She was elated. There were hazards ahead, but she had at last broken away from the farmer folk.

Han said: “Wet, but free.”

They looked first for shelter. The trees still had most of their leaves, and the travelers found a spreading oak that kept off the worst of the rain. They sat with their backs against the broad trunk and rested.

Han said: “This won’t do as a hiding place, but they won’t come looking for us before daylight.”

“I’m trying to think what kind of hideout we might find,” Pia said, frowning. She had not considered this question when she planned the escape.

Han said: “Up or down. Up in a tree, or lying on the ground in some thick shrubbery.”

Neither sounded secure to Pia, but she could think of nothing better. Perhaps when they looked around they would come across something she had not thought of. She began to worry. How dreadful it would be if they were caught when they had got no farther than this.

They moved close together, and Thunder lay against Han’s side. Pia spread her sodden coat across their legs. They were cold and wet. As the night drew on, they dozed, waking frequently. The rain did not stop.