Page 58 of Circle of Days

The men and women of Bez’s tribe sat in the clearing in the remnant of West Wood. It was cold, but they had lit a big fire and huddled around it.

There were no children or old people: they were all dead.

They had been killed here in this clearing, and farmers were the murderers.

Pia had confirmed that to Gida. The Young Dogs had been silent at first, but they had not been able to keep their foul secret very long, and the truth had come out in whispered confessions to mothers and wives, until everyone in Farmplace knew it.

The faces around Bez were pale and tense with grief. They had all lost parents or children or both. So many bodies had been cremated here that there was still ash in the bushes and trees.

“I have never known anything like this,” Bez said.

None of them had.

“The balance is not just upset, it has been destroyed.”

Omun said: “Where there is murder, there must be killing.”

Gida said: “But who should die? The hammer of the gods must fall upon the guilty.”

Several people in the crowd repeated the familiar phrase: “The hammer of the gods must fall upon the guilty.”

Bez said: “The herders are guilty, because they burned our wood.”

Many people nodded. Bez waited for someone to disagree, but no one did.

“The farmers are guilty, because they murdered our children and old people.”

The crowd agreed.

“To restore the balance, we must kill herders and farmers.”

Several people shouted: “Yes!”

Bez said: “And they will all be at the Monument for the Midwinter Rite.”

The High Priestess, Ello, was ill, too ill to get up. Joia had been doing Ello’s job for some weeks. It was Joia who had proposed painting all the crossbars with red ocher. The priestesses had enjoyed the work, and the color enhanced the Monument.

Today she rehearsed the priestesses for the Midwinter Rite. This was an evening ceremony, so the practice took place in the morning. Outside the circular bank, trading was in noisy progress.

Joia tried not to think about Ello dying. It would be wicked to hope for such a thing. But she knew she would be the next High Priestess, and then she would be free to pursue the tremendous project of a stone Monument. Still, she must leave everything in the hands of the gods.

That autumn it had rained as it used to, before the terrible years of the drought.

The cattle were healthier, though not fatter: the grass would not grow again until spring.

Supplies of fodder were low, and many beasts would be slaughtered at midwinter and turned into smoked beef, because they could not be kept alive until spring.

The famine was not over, but perhaps its end was in sight.

Optimism was in the air as people gathered for the Midwinter Rite at the Monument. Many farmers were there, though men only.

Herders from distant regions to the north, which had escaped the worst of the drought, brought fat sheep and cattle to trade for flints and pottery.

The gossip was about a rumor that had spread all over the plain and even farther.

Terrible evil had been done, people said.

No one had seen it, but everyone spoke of it.

Children and old people of Bez’s tribe had been slaughtered.

Farmers said they knew nothing about it, but rumor said the Young Dogs had done it on Troon’s instructions.

The thefts had stopped abruptly. Cattle no longer vanished from the herd at night, and there were no more raids on farmers’ stores.

Some woodlanders left Bez’s tribe and wandered on the plain.

Joia saw a couple grubbing for roots in the grass, and Seft said he saw one trying to catch fish in a stream that had been refreshed by the storm.

It was unusual to see woodlanders outside their territories, but the reason was obvious to Joia: Bez’s tribe had lost their territory.

Today was the shortest day of the year, and people began to gather inside the circular bank as soon as the sky darkened.

The ceremony celebrated the setting of the sun on Midwinter Day, but more often than not the sun was behind clouds in winter, so its setting had to be assumed.

Today, however, the cloud cover broke in the west, and the crowd looking southwest watched, mesmerized, as a huge red sun, seen against bloodred and flint-grey clouds, slowly sank beyond the Monument and disappeared over the edge of the world.

Going from the Monument to Riverbend for the feast, Joia found herself walking next to a farmer called Duff, an amiable young man she had met before. She asked him about the rumored massacre. “It was a tragedy,” he said.

“But who did it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his amiability diminishing.

“But you must have your suspicions,” she persisted.

“It’s best not to discuss suspicions.”

“Of course,” she said, backing off. “I hope I haven’t embarrassed you.”

With a sudden access of candor, he said: “Thank you for not forcing me to lie.”

That was a complex remark, and she moved away from him to think about it.

He was intelligent and honest, she thought, and he knew who had committed the massacre, but if he said it he would be putting himself in some kind of danger.

And what danger could a young farmer fear?

It could only be some threat from Troon.

A few moments later Troon’s minion, Shen, came alongside her and said: “So, you’ve been talking to Duff.”

Troon’s people did not miss much, she thought. “I’ve been trying to talk to him,” she said. For his sake she would make it clear that he had told her nothing. “He’s a very ignorant young man, isn’t he?”

Shen seemed surprised. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, every time I asked him a question he answered: ‘I don’t know.’ Is he always like that?”

“I don’t know,” said Shen.

“Oh, go away.”

Shen went away.

At the feast Joia joined with her family: her mother, Ani, plus Neen and Seft, with their three children.

As always they sat cross-legged on leather mats, with bowls and spoons.

Joia remembered the ones who were not there: her brother, Han, and her father, Olin.

But she kept her sad thoughts to herself.

After the meal a poet told of a time when people were giants and could fight bulls and bears and wolves, and kill them with their hands.

But the people became arrogant, the poet said, and they started to say: “We are bigger and stronger than any other living thing, and we fear nothing, so we should be called gods.”

The listeners murmured their disapproval. They knew that arrogance was a mistake that would be punished, at least in a story.

There was a man called Ban Highspeaker who could talk to the gods, and he said to the Earth God: “We are gods.” This offended the Earth God, who made people small to teach them a lesson.

The result was dreadful: a bear could kill someone with one blow of its huge paw; a bull could gore a person with its horns; a wolf could tear anyone’s throat out with its teeth.

The people said: “We have learned our lesson, and we will never again call ourselves gods.” Then Ban Highspeaker reported this to the Earth God, and said: “We want to be giants again.” However, the Earth God refused, because he knew that if he made them big they would just become arrogant all over again.

Many listeners nodded agreement.

Then he thought to himself: I wonder what would happen if I made them the smartest of all living things.

“Yes!” said one of the listeners, and others repeated it.

When they were clever they made arrows to kill bears with, and sharp flints to cut off the bull’s testicles, and they stole puppies from the wolves and fed them and made them friends, and called them dogs, so that when a wolf came to the village the dogs would chase it away.

And the people said: “We don’t want to be giants and we know we are not gods but we want to stay clever. ”

And Ban Highspeaker spoke again to the Earth God and said: “We are happy now.”

The Earth God said: “Why are you happy?”

And Ban Highspeaker said: “It is better to be clever than big.”

By the time the story ended, a half-moon shone irregularly through gaps in the clouds.

Seft and Neen took the children home. Anina had fallen asleep during the poem, and Seft picked her up without waking her. A secret that not even Neen knew was that Anina was his favorite child, and he hugged her close as he carried her.

He often recalled how badly he had longed for this, a family who loved one another and were kind. Now when he thought of his childhood it seemed like something that had happened in a bad dream. This was real life, Anina in his arms and Neen walking beside him holding the hands of Ilian and Denno.

When they reached the house, Ilian and Denno lay down immediately. Seft put Anina down beside them. He said to Ilian, the eldest: “Did you like the story?”

“Oh, yes! I can remember all of it.”

Denno said: “Can you tell it? I want to hear it again.”

Seft said: “Tell it again, Ilian.” It would send Denno to sleep.

“All right.”

Seft kissed each of them, and Neen did the same, then they got ready for the revel.

They took their tunics off and put their shearling coats back on for warmth.

Neen picked up a hefty stone that she carried in a pouch; it was for men who forgot, in their excitement, that a woman could say no, even at a revel.

They headed for the outskirts of the village, where the action would be getting underway.

When they were first together, Seft had not wanted to take part in the revel, feeling that sex with Neen was all he would ever desire.

But after a couple of years he had begun to feel differently.

He had kept this to himself for a while in case Neen would be hurt but, when eventually he told her, she confessed that she, too, wanted to go, and they had been enthusiastic participants ever since.