Page 50 of Circle of Days

Ani and Seft were walking through Riverbend. Seft was explaining to Ani the concept of the sled, and how it would enable them to move giant stones much faster. Suddenly Ani put a hand on Seft’s arm to interrupt him. “Look at that,” she said.

She pointed at Cass, the brother of Vee, who was carrying a bundle of new green wood on his shoulder. The pieces were all about the same size, as long as Cass was tall. Some were entire trunks of young saplings, others the split trunks of slightly older trees. Seft said: “That wood is yew.”

“So it is,” said Ani. “Hello, Cass. Those look like staves for bows.”

“Yes,” he said. “They’re for the war.”

Ani suppressed the impulse to say What war? The elders had discussed war against the farmers, and had decided against, at least for now. But something was going on behind her back, and she would find out more from Cass if she pretended she was in the know. “How is that coming along?” she said.

“Very well. There are lots of young people working—more than I can count. I can hardly keep up with their need for wood.”

That was a surprise. Who was going to be killed by these weapons? Intrigued and anxious, she said: “We’ll walk with you and take a look.”

Cass led them to a clearing south of the village.

Sure enough, there was a crowd of young men and women busy making weapons.

Ani looked around, shocked and angry. Some were twisting together sinews from the legs of cattle to make bowstrings.

Others were smoothing hazelwood arrow shafts or sharpening flints into triangular arrowheads.

Someone was roasting the bark of a birch tree in an airless covered pit, turning the material into sticky birch tar.

Older people were doing the most crucial job: fitting each arrowhead into a slit in the shaft and gluing the two together with tar.

There were two piles of finished weapons, one of bows and the other of arrows.

The atmosphere was cheerful, a bunch of people engaged in a collective enterprise and enjoying it. You fools, Ani thought bitterly. War’s not fun. It’s smashed skulls and bloodshed and grieving families.

“Look who’s in charge,” she said to Seft.

“Scagga.”

“Of course.”

“He’s preparing for war.”

“And we have to stop him.”

She picked up a finished arrow. Holding it in her hands, she approached Scagga. “Are you expecting a war?” she said.

He looked guilty and defiant at the same time. “Expecting? No, not expecting it. I’m going to make sure it happens.”

“And who will be your enemy?”

“Troon and the farmers, of course.”

“I recall that you were present at the meeting when the elders decided against war.”

Scagga sneered. “Elders don’t decide. They advise. If I want to gather a band of brave youngsters to go and teach the farmers a lesson, I may do so. And I shall.”

Unfortunately that was true, Ani thought with dismay. Elders had no power to enforce their decisions: they relied on the respect people had for their wisdom. Mostly that worked. But it was not difficult for a blowhard like Scagga to whip up an aggressive fever among young herders.

Ani said: “You might have had the courtesy to tell your fellow elders that you planned to go against our decision, defy us, and undermine our authority.”

“Elders?” Scagga raised his voice so that those around could hear him.

“The elders yielded to the farmers eleven midsummers ago, when Troon plowed up the Break.” Ani heard murmurs of agreement.

That episode had not been forgotten. At the time, Ani and the other elders had acted for the best, avoiding war.

But some people had felt that the herders had been humiliated.

“That’s when we should have made war,” Scagga went on.

“The farmers have only got more arrogant since.”

“I agree that they’ve become more arrogant.” Ani touched the sharp flint arrowhead carefully. “I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to send our young people to have their flesh torn by arrows like this.”

“Troon said the farmers would slaughter any of our cattle that crossed the Break again.” Scagga raised his voice more, and Ani realized he was now speaking mainly for the benefit of the audience around him. “But our beasts must have water, even if we have to fight for it.”

“If fighting would make it rain…”

One of the listeners laughed.

The laugh annoyed Scagga, and he became more belligerent. “We outnumber the farmers. There are ten of us for every one of them. We can’t lose!”

Some of the listeners cheered.

Ani asked her usual question, with the sourness she always felt.

“And when we have won, how many of these young folk”—she looked hard at them, meeting their eyes—“how many will bleed to death on the battlefield, screaming in pain and crying for their mothers?” They were taken aback. They had not thought of war that way.

Scagga saw that Ani had scored a point, and he said quickly: “That’s a coward’s question.”

“It’s a mother’s question.”

“Mothers may be cowards.”

Insults of that kind had no effect on Ani. She said reasonably: “We just think that violence should be the last resort, not the first.”

“And I just think we should kill the farmers!” Scagga shouted, and the youngsters cheered. “Kill them all, burn their houses, and return their land to pasture for our herd!” They cheered more.

Ani wanted to howl with frustration. Scagga refused even to think about the consequences of what he proposed, and his supporters seemed not to notice his stupidity.

But she was defeated. Dismally, she decided not to argue further.

Anything she said now would be a cue for Scagga to rant more.

She consoled herself with the thought that the issue would not be decided by Scagga and this group of young people.

The majority of the herder folk would not be so eager for battle, and might decline to go to war.

She was getting ready to leave when Seft spoke.

He had been listening to the argument with a thoughtful look, and now he said: “The herd’s way to the water is blocked by the woods.

There is a gap in the woods, called the Break, but Troon now claims it as farmland, so we can’t use it.

But we don’t need a war. We just need a new Break. ”

Scagga thought he had won the argument, and so became emollient. He said: “Look, I’d be in favor of a peaceful solution, but we tried that, and the farmers refused to cooperate.”

Seft shook his head. “I’m talking about a different solution.

The new Break could be in another location.

We could clear a strip at the edge of West Wood.

Cut down the undergrowth, the bushes and saplings, but leave the big trees—the cattle can walk around them.

That would allow for a path twenty paces wide plus a ditch and bank to keep the beasts off the crops.

And Troon could hardly object. We would not be stealing his land. ”

“No,” said Ani. “But we’d be stealing the woodlanders’ land.”

“It’s a big wood. They’d hardly notice.”

“You’re wrong. The wood is their livelihood. They’d notice if a strip was taken from them. They would be outraged.”

“I suppose so,” Seft conceded. He frowned. “Could we give them something by way of compensation? You could negotiate with Bez.”

Ani nodded. “The prospect of, say, some cows would be a big help to them in this drought.” Seft’s idea had the makings of a solution, and her hopes rose. “And perhaps the tribe could afford to lose a narrow strip of woodland.”

Scagga said: “You two aren’t thinking straight. You’re talking about cutting down a mass of vegetation, from the plain all the way down to the riverside. Cutting it is hard enough, but to clear it all away is a huge job. Who do you think is going to do it?”

Ani looked around. “There’s a small army of strong young people right here.” She adopted a challenging tone. “You said you’d support a peaceful solution, Scagga. Did you mean it? Could you take all these youngsters and put them to work clearing a new Break? Could you manage that?”

He hesitated, looked trapped, and said: “Of course I could. We could do it in a few days.”

“That would be something to boast about. You could resolve the dispute without any of these young people getting killed.”

Scagga nodded reluctantly. “Perhaps I could,” he said.

And so it was settled.

West Wood covered a large area, and Ani wondered whether she would be able to find the woodlander village. Struggling through the vegetation, she looked for signs of human settlement.

She hoped desperately that Seft’s new scheme could work. The herd needed access to the river, especially now, in the crisis of drought. But the essential first step was the consent of the woodlanders. And that was her task today.

She passed a pond that still had water in it, and she guessed the woodlanders would have settled near it. Sure enough, a little later she came to the village, just half a dozen houses around a central clearing. She paused at the edge, took a deep breath, and walked in.

Bez welcomed her warmly, as the mother of Han and Joia, but he was also wary. Gida was with him, and they all sat on the ground. Woodlanders gathered nearby, even though they could not understand the language. As always in warm weather, the women and children were naked, the men nearly so.

Ani’s job was delicate. The woodlanders were friendly, but they did not think as herders did, and one could never be sure which way they would jump. She had to tread carefully.

She began by asking whether Bez had seen the stampede. Yes, he said, the whole tribe had watched it from the edge of the wood. “Animals must drink,” he said. “Just like people.”

Ani nodded. “And that’s why I’m here. We need to give our herd a new path to the river.”

“But how could you do that?” said Bez. “Where would the new path lie?”