Page 56 of Circle of Days

Ignore the houses,” Bez whispered to the others. “The food is in the little stores.”

They were a small group of woodlanders, and they were at Farmplace in the dead of night. There was no moon. Bez had split them into three groups of three. The plan was that each group would rob one farm and they would rendezvous in the remnant of West Wood.

Bez was sounding more confident than he felt. This was their first attempt to rob farmers, and he did not know what difficulties they might encounter. He knew it was dangerous, but they had to do it or starve. If they got into trouble, he would try to save Lali and Gida.

“Let me show you how to deal with the dogs,” he whispered. “And from now on, silence.”

He had a plan, but he did not know if it would work.

He led them across a field of stubble, then approached a house with a dog tethered outside. The dog saw them and barked. Bez lay flat, and the others followed suit.

They watched as a man came out of the house and looked around. Seeing nothing, he muttered a curse at the dog and went back inside.

Bez stood up and walked closer. The dog barked again, and the woodlanders again lay flat.

The man reappeared, this time carrying a bow. He would not be expecting to see thieves, which were little known in Farmplace, but he was ready to shoot foxes or possibly a wolf.

He walked all around the house, then went to the nearby store, walked in a circle around it, and looked inside.

Bez hoped he would not come where the woodlanders were lying.

He seemed to look straight at them, and Bez held his breath, but a moment later the man turned away.

As Bez had hoped, in the dark they were indistinguishable from the ground around them.

Seeing nothing unusual, the man spoke angrily to the dog and returned to his house.

The woodlanders crept forward on their bellies. The dog probably could not see them, but could surely smell them. Confused now, it growled, barked briefly and uncertainly, and fell silent.

When they got close, Bez stood up. The dog barked loudly. Bez stepped forward, knife in hand, and cut its throat. It died quickly and silently.

He stared at the doorway to the house. The knife in his hand dripped dog’s blood. But the man did not come out.

Without speaking, Bez directed two teams to neighboring farms, then led his own team—himself, Gida, and Lali—to this farm’s store.

It was pitch dark, so they had to leave the door open for the sake of the little light it let in.

They stood still while their eyes adapted.

Eventually Bez dimly saw three large pottery jars.

On top of one was a cup with a long handle.

Bez picked up the cup, removed the lid of the jar, and dipped the cup into some kind of liquid in the jar.

He tasted the liquid: it was milk. He spat it out. Milk gave people stomachache.

The second jar contained curds and whey, milk that had soured and separated into lumps and a watery liquid. It was not part of the woodlander diet, and Bez guessed it would have the same unpleasant effect as milk.

But the third jar contained wheat grains, the staple food of the farmers. Woodlanders did not grow wheat but ate the grains of wild grasses. Cultivated grains were similar but fatter.

Meanwhile Gida and Lali explored the store, mainly by touch. Gida found a big leather bag full of apples, and Lali a wooden box containing cheese. They took all three prizes.

They left the store, Bez closing the door quietly.

They crossed the fields, staying away from the buildings. Bez kept looking around, fearful that some sleepless nightwalker might see them and raise the alarm. However, it was not a human but an animal that saw them.

They passed a farmhouse at a distance and then, from behind the house, came the biggest bull Bez had ever seen. Its shoulder was higher than his head, and its huge curved horns spread as wide as Bez’s legs were long. It bellowed, and Lali gave a little scream.

Bez realized it was an aurochs, a type of wild cattle that was rarely seen. He guessed it was on its way to the river to drink. He hefted his club, but knew that such a weapon would not save him from those mighty horns.

The beast looked at the three of them as if trying to decide whether they were food. They were paralyzed in its stare. Then, seeming to lose interest, it turned and trotted away, heading down to the waterside.

Weak with relief, the three woodlanders hurried on. Bez thought the people in the house must have heard the bellow, and possibly Lali’s scream too, but they seemed to have decided it was safer to stay inside than to investigate.

Lali whispered: “What was it?”

“A wild bull,” Bez said quietly. “A type called an aurochs. You don’t see them often.”

“I’m glad about that,” she said.

After that they reached the edge of the cultivated land without incident, and headed across the ashy former woods. As they got farther away from Farmplace, Bez began to feel safe. He hoped the other two teams had had the same luck.

They reached the little village at the far end of what had been West Wood. Bez woke Naro. “Get the children up,” he said. “We have food for them.”

The children came rubbing their eyes. They seized on the apples, and Naro gave them cheese too. The old folks tucked in, too, as did the pregnant woman and the nursing mother. Soon the children went back to bed with full stomachs.

The other two teams arrived safely, bringing smoked pork, nuts, and the carcass of a wild boar. They gave some of the loot to Naro, who wrapped it in leaves and dug a shallow pit in which to hide it, in case Troon came looking tomorrow morning.

Bez and his thieves left carrying the rest of the food. They crossed the plain in starlight and headed for their hideout.

The news spread across the fields on the following morning.

Pia heard that three families had lost precious stores, food laid away for the winter.

In each case a dog had been killed. The robbed people were especially anguished about the wheat they had lost. They had toiled all summer, carrying the water from the river to the fields, then reaping the wheat—stoop, slash, gather, bind, and stoop again, all in the heat of the sun—and now the reward for all that labor had been snatched away by people who came creeping in the night to steal.

She was grateful that she and her mother had lost nothing.

They had stores of wheat and cheese and root vegetables, for all of which they had worked until they ached, and they were relying on those stores to keep them and baby Olin alive through the winter.

It would have broken her heart to lose them.

Troon was angry—not blustering, as was his usual way, but coldly furious and determined.

What he was determined to do was not clear to Pia, nor to Duff or anyone else she spoke to.

But he gathered together the usual group of Young Dogs.

Even they did not know his intentions, though he had told them to arm themselves.

Perhaps they would go looking for Bez and his tribe. But how could Troon know where to find them? He could spend weeks searching and not come across any trace of them.

Some of the farmers gathered around Troon’s house as the Young Dogs prepared to leave. It was Duff who had the nerve to stand in front of Troon and say: “Who are you going to kill, Troon?”

Troon gave him an evil look and said: “You—if you don’t shut your mouth and get out of the way.”

Pia feared that he meant it, but Duff was not scared. He said: “The woodlanders are robbing people because they have to. Did you not think of that possibility when you decided to plow up their land?”

“I’m not answerable to you, you young fool.”

“The Big Man ought to explain himself to the farmer folk, don’t you think?”

Pia was full of admiration. Duff was not giving in.

Troon put the point of his knife to Duff’s chest, exactly over the heart, and Pia felt it would take only the slightest provocation for him to push it in. “You don’t tell me what to do,” he said. “I tell you what to do. Now get out of my way.”

There was a pause. Pia wanted to say Give in now, Duff, you’ve made your point, you don’t need to die for it.

Duff seemed to have a similar thought. “As you wish,” he said, and to Pia’s relief he stepped aside.

Troon grinned, as if he had made a fool of Duff, but Pia saw it the other way around. She said quietly to Duff: “Troon couldn’t defend his actions, and you made everyone see it.”

“Good.”

“Weren’t you scared when he drew his knife?”

“Terrified. But someone’s got to tell him. His foolishness makes trouble for all of us.”

“You’re very brave,” she said.

“I’m glad you think so.”

Troon marched down to the riverbank, followed by the Young Dogs. They turned west and headed upstream. They might have been going to the remnant of West Wood, but they would not find Bez there, not in broad daylight, Pia felt sure. So what was Troon up to?

As she walked back to the farm, she noticed that the sun on her back had lost some of its heat, and she looked up to see clouds in the sky. Her heart leaped. Could it be that rain was on the way?

She half expected Troon to be away for days, but he and the Young Dogs came back that afternoon. Everyone went to Troon’s house to see whether he had found the tribe. But Troon did not speak, and no one had the nerve to ask him questions.

After he disappeared inside, the Young Dogs went to their homes in silence. People who shouted questions at them were ignored. None of them spoke.

Once again they all returned to their homes.

It would come out one day, Pia thought.

Few things remained secret forever.