Page 49 of Circle of Days

Pia was aghast to see both Mo and Pilic disappear beneath the pounding hooves. The dust was so thick, and the scene so chaotic, that she could not see what happened after they fell, but she knew they could not possibly survive.

She backed into the trees, clutching Olin fearfully.

The fugitive herders and farmers did the same, their fight forgotten.

The cattle came frighteningly near, trampling the vegetation at the edge of the wood, crushing everything, but Pia got behind two big tree trunks, which the beasts avoided.

All the same she was terrified. The cattle seemed mad.

Their lowing now sounded more like hooting.

Pia stepped farther back so that Olin would not breathe the dust.

Then the herd passed. The thunder moved south, and the dust settled. The children around Pia were crying, but they were safe.

Zad spoke to a younger herder who was strong-looking and long-legged.

Pia guessed he was a quickrunner and she was right.

Zad asked him to run to Riverbend and tell the elders what had happened.

“You could be there before dark today, couldn’t you?

” The boy agreed. “Then the elders might be here by tomorrow evening.” The boy ran off, heading east.

Everyone else began to move south, following the cattle.

Pia followed slowly, walking over the field.

She looked with dismay at the destruction of the ripening stems of wheat, trampled and torn up by hooves.

It was heartbreaking. She thought of the people who farmed these fields, and all the days they had spent carrying water from the river.

Their efforts had gone to waste in a few short moments. What would they eat?

She was horrified to discover the corpse of Mo, badly trampled.

Her body was completely crushed, barely recognizable as human, but strangely her face was untouched, and Pia could even see her freckles.

Somehow this was worse than all the rest of the carnage, and Pia was suddenly too weak to stand.

She sat down, feeling ill, staring helplessly at Mo’s freckled face.

Mo had seen only eighteen midsummers; she had been savagely mistreated by Troon; and now her life was over.

After a while Pia stood up again. She looked ahead and saw that the cattle had reached the river and were at last quenching their maddening thirst. The danger now, she felt, was angry humans, both farmers and herders.

When she caught up, she saw that the cattle had spread out.

Many were just standing in the shallows, drinking.

Some had swum to the far side. Others had gone upstream or downstream to find places where they could bend their necks and suck up the water.

They were calm now, their panic diminished, their mad rage spent.

On the east side of the Break, in the fields that lay between the woods and the river, the crops were undamaged.

Unlike the animals, the humans had not calmed down. Men and women were weeping; others gave in to apoplectic fury. Troon was raging at Zad. “People will starve because of what you’ve done!”

Zad was badly shaken, and bleeding from his shoulder wound, but he was not willing to take the blame. “Who was the stupid fool who decided to plow up the Break?”

“That’s ancient history. It’s our land now.”

“Don’t tell me, tell the cows.”

“None of that makes any difference. You’ve destroyed people’s fields, so now you have to save them from famine. You’ll have to give this herd to us farmers, to compensate for the destruction you’ve caused.”

“You will not take a single one of these beasts,” Zad said angrily. “If you do, it will be theft. And we know what to do with cattle thieves.”

“Be careful. Don’t threaten me.”

“Then don’t threaten to steal cattle.” Zad glanced to the edge of the herd. “Look!” he said, pointing. “That man is trying to lead a cow away!”

“Good for him,” said Troon.

Pia recognized the man. It was Bort.

Zad looked at Biddy and nodded. She put an arrow to her bow. Troon tried to stop her, but Zad stood in his way. Biddy released the arrow. It was a long up-and-down shot, and the arrow stuck into the ground next to Bort’s foot. He was unhurt, but all the same he left the cow and ran away.

Troon said to Biddy: “Lucky for you that you missed him, woman.”

Biddy replied: “Lucky for him that he ran away before I could take a second shot.”

An arrow shot by a farmer curved through the air and landed next to Pia. She screamed, hugged Olin to her, and ran away, out of the herd and downstream. Then she looked back.

Another farmer tried to get away with a cow. Pia could not see his face and did not know who he was. A herder shot at him, and this time the arrow hit. The farmer fell.

After that, no one else tried to steal a cow.

No more arrows were shot. The drama was over, except that it left a crowd of people facing starvation.

The afternoon darkened as the sun went down. The herders rounded up the cattle and drove them back through the Break. The farmers did not interfere.

Yana appeared at Pia’s side. Pia said: “Where have you been? The cattle stampeded. The crops in the Break are all gone, ruined.”

“I saw the whole thing,” Yana said. “Come home with me. I’ve got something to show you.”

They walked along the bank of the river until they drew level with the house, then followed a narrow path up the slope. “Look inside the house,” Yana said.

Pia looked inside and saw a cow.

She turned and grinned at her mother: “You stole it!”

Yana nodded. “Before the herders reached the riverside.”

“We can’t keep it, though,” Pia said. “Others need it more than we do.”

“I thought we’d give it to Mo,” said Yana. “She and Bort have lost everything.”

“Mo’s dead,” said Pia.

“Oh, no!”

“Trampled. I could see her face, though.”

“I’m sorry she’s gone. She had courage.”

“Courage doesn’t do a woman much good in Farmplace.”

Yana considered. “We’ll give the cow to Duff. His farm is in the Break. He’ll have lost everything.”

“He’ll probably share it with neighbors in the same position.”

“Good. I wonder what will happen tomorrow.”

Pia had the answer to that. “The elders of the herders should be here before sundown. Zad sent a quickrunner.”

“I hope Han’s mother is among them,” Yana said. “She might knock some sense into people.”

On the following day Ani crossed the Great Plain with Keff, Seft, and Scagga.

She was ominously struck by how few cattle she saw.

Joia had tried to count them and, as Ani did not understand the numbers, had simplified the result by saying: “Where before we had four cows, now we have one.” Ani had been jolted.

Only the hardiest cows were calving, and the number of young did not match the number that were slaughtered just to feed the herders. At some point there would be no cattle left.

The herd in the west had suffered from Troon’s plowing up the Break. They lost weight on the long roundabout route to the river. In good times, that could be tolerated, but now it had become crucial. The elders had to find a solution.

They went first to Old Oak. Zad had gone, Biddy told them, taking the herd out of the reach of the farmers, who wanted to seize cattle as compensation for their lost crops. “Ridiculous idea!” said Keff. “A thief steals your bow and, when it cracks, demands you give him a new one!”

Biddy walked with them to the Break. “There was wheat here as high as your thigh,” she said. “Now look.”

Nothing was left but trampled earth.

Pia and Yana met them crossing the Break. Pia was carrying Olin, now almost half a year old. Ani was thrilled to see her latest grandchild. She took him from Pia and he said: “Ba ba ba ba,” and tried to grasp her nose. “He looks just like Han when he was a baby,” Ani said.

They went to Troon’s house. He was waiting outside with Shen, his minion, and half a dozen of the Young Dogs. Ani was not intimidated. Most of the farmer folk stood around, eager to see what would happen.

Troon did not offer a drink of water. He began by saying: “You have destroyed crops, and you must suffer!”

Ani said calmly: “We need to find a way to stop this happening again.”

Troon could not disagree with that.

She said: “Seft has devised a scheme.” In fact she and Seft had worked it out together, but she knew Troon was more likely to accept something proposed by a man. She had high hopes for this compromise; Troon ought to welcome it.

Troon had been expecting an argument about who was at fault, and he was not prepared for this. He just nodded.

Ani looked at Seft. She remembered when he had first appeared at Riverbend, a handsome but downtrodden youth who had captured the heart of her daughter Neen. He was now a much-respected man, one of the leading figures among the herder folk.

Seft spoke with relaxed authority. “You need to farm the Break, and we need to water our cattle. There might be a way for us both to have what we want.” He paused.

The farmers looked interested. “The cattle don’t need the entire width of the Break to get to the river.

All they need is a path about twenty paces wide. ”

“Rubbish,” said Troon. “They would leave the path to eat the crops.”

“Quite so,” Seft said calmly. “That is why we would need to build a ditch-and-bank barrier between the path and the cultivated fields.”

Troon still looked sour, but Ani saw some of the farmer folk nodding.

Seft went on: “The ditch would have to be deep enough, and the bank high enough, to make it impossible for cows to cross the barrier.”

Troon looked at the Break, seeming to imagine the path. “It’s a huge project,” he said.

Seft said: “If the entire farmer community joined in the work, under my supervision, it could probably be done in about fifteen days.”

Troon was not thinking about the time it would take.

“Twenty paces wide, plus a ditch and a bank that would add another ten paces at least. It’s a strip of fertile land thirty paces wide stretching from the plain to the river.

” He shook his head. “It’s a huge area, as big as a farm that supports one family. ”

Seft said: “It’s a tiny part of the entire farmer region.”

Troon shook his head. “We need more land, not less. I can’t lose that much precious fertile soil to make a road for cows.”

Ani was frustrated and depressed. She and Seft had felt this must appeal to Troon as a solution to a problem. But Troon was too greedy. No matter how much land they had, the farmers always needed more to feed their growing families.

Scagga was angry. “You’re crazy, Troon,” he said. “You’re the farmers’ worst enemy. Here you have a fair offer that gives you nearly everything you want, and you say no.”

“I rule this land. The herders have the entire Great Plain. This is mine and I decide.”

Scagga waved an arm, indicating the devastated Break. “Don’t you understand? The cattle decide, not you. If you go ahead and seed the land now, they’ll probably trample it again this time next year.”

Some of the farmers murmured agreement, but Troon was obdurate. “Next year we’ll be prepared. We’ll kill your cattle before they get near our fields. I’m warning you. We’ll slaughter them, and any herder who tries to stop us.”

Ani despaired. This was the opposite of what she had hoped for. Instead of a cooperative way forward, they had an angry standoff.

She could see that some farmers were dissatisfied. They would rather have the security of protected fields. But she could also see that they did not dare to defy their leader.

The conflict continued.

She would have to think of something else.