Page 46 of Circle of Days

“Yes,” said Yana. “He says it’s because Olin’s crying wakes him in the night.”

Katch shook her head. “That’s not the reason. He sleeps through anything. A baby’s crying wouldn’t wake him.”

“What, then?”

Katch looked at Pia. “He’s scared of you.”

Pia was incredulous. “ He is scared of me ?”

“He says you glare hatred at him all the time.”

Pia thought that was probably true. If so, she was not going to stop.

Katch said: “He’s afraid you’ll cut his throat in the night.” She glanced at Yana, doubtless remembering that Yana had once made such a threat.

Pia said: “Well, if I glare at him, it’s hardly surprising. He murdered my man, the father of my child, the love of my life.” She started to cry. “What do you expect?”

“Murder?” said Katch. “I expect there was a fight—”

Pia became indignant. “There was no fight! I was there. Stam shot him with an arrow in cold blood. It penetrated Han’s throat and he bled to death quickly. If my hatred is Stam’s only punishment, he’s getting off lightly.”

“An accident, perhaps…”

Pia made a scornful noise. “Stam also shot an innocent woodlander. And a dog. And he picked up baby Olin by the foot and threatened to cut him with a knife.”

Yana gasped with horror. Pia had not told her that part of the story.

Katch winced. As a mother herself she could hardly help reacting to talk of hurting babies. But she said: “You can’t live with hatred in the air. Can’t you put this behind you? Forgive him and start again.”

“What?” Pia could hardly contain her incredulity. She was momentarily silenced.

Yana spoke. “Katch, did Troon ask you to come here and talk to us about this?”

Katch looked embarrassed. “Yes, he did.”

“And he told you to ask us to forgive Stam?”

“Yes.”

That explained it, Pia thought. Katch was not expressing her own thoughts or feelings, she was saying what Troon had ordered her to say.

Katch said: “Troon’s awfully cross.”

Pia felt a pang of pity for the woman, living with that horrible man.

Yana said: “Look, Katch, why don’t you go home and tell Troon that we listened to you attentively and we promised to think very hard about what you said.”

Katch brightened. “Yes, I think he might be mollified by that.”

Pia gave her mother a glance of admiration. That had been very diplomatic.

Katch stood up. “May I say to Stam that you would welcome him if he wanted to come home for the night?”

Certainly not, Pia thought; but she left it to her mother to reply.

Yana said: “Best perhaps not to say anything along those lines. Words can be so easily misunderstood.”

“All right,” said Katch. “Anyway, thank you for listening. May the Sun God smile on you.”

“And on you,” said Pia and Yana together; and Katch left.

Pia stepped outside and watched her walk across the fields. It was full dark, but the nights were usually bright nowadays, because the stars were rarely hidden by clouds. When Katch was out of sight, a voice close to Pia shocked her. “It is I, Bez. Don’t be afraid.”

She spun around. It was him. “You surprised me,” she said.

“May I enter your house?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you.”

Yana greeted Bez and got him some water. Pia wondered whether Bez knew that his brother, Fell, had been killed. She might have to give him the news. She was not sure how to put it. Clumsily, she said: “About Fell…”

“I know,” he said. “Gida and I found the bodies.”

Yana said: “Oh, how terrible.”

“We burned them, and Gida sang a song.”

“I’m so glad,” said Pia. “Stam wouldn’t let me.”

“I guessed so. But it must have been you who laid them out so beautifully in the shelter.”

“It was all I was allowed to do.”

“I was comforted to see that my brother’s body had been treated with respect, and I thank you.”

Pia was glad that she had done something right in the midst of horror.

Bez said: “I placed the dog on the pyre at Han’s feet.”

Pia was crying. “Thank you,” she said.

“But I know only the end of the story. You must tell me the beginning. I need to understand.”

“Of course.” Pia wiped her tears with her hands and tried to marshal her thoughts.

“Fell brought us a deer—such a generous gift. We were sitting down, talking, when Thunder barked and we knew a stranger was coming. Han went to see who it was. I felt that something was wrong and I followed him. I found him lying on the ground with an arrow in his neck, bleeding to death. I’m sorry, I can’t stop crying. ”

“I’m so sorry to make you cry,” said Bez. “But I must know what happened. What else did you see?”

“Stam, standing there, putting another arrow to his bow.”

“So the killer was Stam?”

“Yes.”

“No one else was there?”

“No. That second arrow wounded Fell, and then Stam cut poor Fell’s throat with a knife.”

Bez nodded. “We thought it must have been Stam, but I needed to hear it from you.”

Yana said shrewdly: “Is there some reason, Bez, why you need to be absolutely sure who did this?”

“Yes,” he said solemnly. “The gods demand a balance. When there is a blow, it must be returned. And where there is a murder, the murderer must die. The hammer of the gods must fall upon the head of the guilty.”

On the day before the Midsummer Rite, the priestesses rehearsed their ritual.

The dance and the song that went with it were performed only once a year, so they needed to practice.

Joia took them through it, prompting them with the words and guiding them as they wove in and out of the timber posts.

They did it a second time. After the third she was satisfied, and they went into the dining hall for the midday meal.

They sat on the floor in neat rows, waiting, until High Priestess Ello came in; then dinner was served, a stew of cows’ brains and dandelions. Their numbers were reduced, because three older priestesses had died in the winter.

Conversationally, Joia said: “Perhaps we should recruit more novices. The Midsummer Rite is a good opportunity—people see us at our best.”

Ello observed sourly: “More priestesses mean we need more food.”

“But we have to preserve the knowledge that’s in our songs. If the priestesshood should die out, the knowledge would be lost forever.”

“I know that, Joia. Kindly refrain from instructing me.”

Joia persisted. “We should at least replace priestesses who die.”

“It would be wise to wait until the crisis is over.”

That was typical. Ello always had a reason for doing nothing. Joia said: “But—”

Ello interrupted. “No novices will be recruited until the drought has come to an end. That is my decision.”

Joia knew just how bad the crisis was. Before the drought, she had devised a way of estimating how many cattle the herder community had. The exercise had needed the highest of the new numbers Soo had taught her ten midwinters ago.

She had imagined an oblong with its corners at the Monument, the village of Riverbend, a riverside hamlet called Watermeadow, and Three Streams Wood.

She had walked the sides of the oblong counting every cow she could see.

Guessing that she had probably been unable to see half of them, she doubled the number and got ninety-six, which she rounded up to one hundred.

Then she guessed that the Great Plain probably encompassed about twenty oblongs, so the entire herd was two thousand cattle.

That had been before the drought. She had repeated the exercise a few days ago and arrived at a total of five hundred.

It was a frightening change. How soon would the number fall to nothing?

When dinner was over, and they all went outside, Joia saw her sister, Neen, waiting for her.

She was always glad to see Neen. Although their lives had gone in different directions, they still had the old affectionate relationship, in which Neen was the wise older sister and Joia the youngster who needed to be looked after.

They both loved Seft, but in different ways. Joia spent a lot of time with him and they shared a dream. Neen admitted that this had bothered her, once. She had talked to their mother about it. Ani had said: “A woman knows when a man loves her, and she knows when he stops.”

“Seft hasn’t stopped loving me.”

“Then don’t worry. He’s fond of Joia in a different way.”

Neen had related that conversation to Joia, who thought their mother was absolutely right, as she usually was.

Now Joia looked at her sister’s round face and lush hair and felt a surge of affection. Then she noticed that Neen was not wearing her habitual broad smile. “Is something wrong?” she said.

“You must come to Mamma’s house,” said Neen. “There’s a woodlander there, insisting on talking to all three of us.”

“It’s probably Bez,” said Joia. “I wonder what he’s doing here. He should be hunting deer in the Northwest Hills.”

They walked quickly to Ani’s house. Bez was outside, looking solemn. Neen’s two girls, Denno and Anina, were staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Denno had seen six midsummers; Anina was still a toddler. The eldest child, Ilian, was away with Seft.

Bez held in his hands a small package wrapped in leather.

They all sat down, and Bez unwrapped the package. It contained an old pair of shoes, very large and laced on top. “Those are Han’s shoes,” said Ani grimly.

Joia gasped, fearful, and Neen put an arm around her shoulders, hugging her.

Bez passed the shoes to Ani. Her voice was shaky as she said: “What is this stain? It looks like blood!”

Bez said: “I have come to tell you that Han is dead.”

Joia cried: “No!” Tears flooded her eyes. “He can’t be dead!”

“I’m sorry,” Bez said. “He was killed by an arrow.”

Joia turned her head in to Neen’s shoulder. “He can’t be dead, he’s my brother,” she said. Neen was crying too.

Ani’s voice was unsteady, but she had questions. “Was it an accident?”

“Not an accident.”

“Who shot the arrow?”

“Stam, the son of Troon.”

Joia looked up. “I knew it!” she said through her tears. “They killed Han because Pia loved him.”

Bez said: “They would say he stole Pia from them.”

“As if she was their property.”

“That’s the way they think.”