Page 61 of Circle of Days

The sight of the burned Monument was heartbreaking to Joia: the timbers scorched, tumbled, broken, and scattered.

It would have been worse if she had not intervened and berated Bez, but that was small consolation.

The Monument was all-important. It brought everyone together on special days, and reminded them that they were part of a community.

And it preserved their knowledge of the movements of the sun and moon, ensuring that precious learning was never lost.

Three things had to be done immediately: repair the damage, resume the ceremonies, and confirm that the Monument was the heart of the herder society of the Great Plain.

But long-term there was another vital task: to rebuild the Monument in stone, so it could never burn again.

“We must start repairing the timbers today,” Joia said to Ello.

“I don’t see the urgency,” said Ello languidly. “Everyone knows it’s not our fault.”

The High Priestess lay on the floor of her house, close to the fire, with her head on a leather pillow stuffed with straw. Joia stood to talk to her: she had not been invited to sit down.

Joia said: “We can’t restart the ceremonies until we have at least a temporary Monument.”

“Well, then, the ceremonies may have to lapse for a while.”

Joia was appalled. Let the ceremonies lapse? How could a High Priestess even think that? But her response was mild. “The trouble is that people might begin to imagine that the ceremonies don’t matter. Then they’ll ask why they have to feed priestesses who do no work.”

Ello could not help seeing the force of that. “Oh, very well. But it will take you more than a day to repair. Several weeks, more likely.”

“I know. So we have to do a makeshift job first.” Joia had thought about this.

“Most of the timbers are not burned through. Some will be reusable, and we’ll begin with those.

We may have to use untrimmed branches to finish, but we can have a temporary Monument in a few days.

Then, as soon as we can, we’ll replace the damaged timbers with new ones. ” Or stone ones, she thought.

“Well, all right.”

Joia had won her case. Ello was never going to enthuse about her plans, or even approve them, but as long as she did not actually forbid something, Joia considered herself authorized. “Thank you,” she said lightly, concealing her feeling of triumph. “I hope you feel better soon.” And she went out.

The priestesses were still in the dining hall. Some were missing: they had left, too frightened to remain. Breakfast was over but they were waiting for instructions. The normal routine had collapsed after the raid.

When Joia walked in, all conversation stopped and all heads turned to her. She made them wait a few moments, then she said: “Exciting news!”

They smiled and looked eager.

“We’re going to rebuild the Monument!”

They cheered.

“Not all the timbers are reusable, but today we’ll begin with what we’ve got.”

They liked the idea of starting right away.

“Our first job is to pick up the timbers—they’re all quite cold now, don’t worry—and lay them down where they need to go, one upright to each hole, and the crossbars in place too. If you’re not sure what I mean, I’ll show you now. Follow me!”

They all left the dining hall, chattering enthusiastically. They entered the circle and went quiet as they confronted the dismal state of their Monument. Only a handful of the seventy-five timbers remained in place.

“Come on!” Joia cried. “Let’s see how much we can get done today.”

They set to, picking up timbers and putting them in place.

Each piece of wood took at least four priestesses to move.

They chose the least damaged ones first, then those that might serve at a pinch.

They made a pile of those that were clearly too bad to be used at all.

The priestesses put their hearts into the communal effort, and in a surprisingly short time they turned a mess into something ordered.

Now Joia noticed a feature she had not been able to see before the Monument was wrecked: the flat tops of the posts each had two dome-shaped bumps.

They had been carefully carved, so must have a purpose, but she could not figure out what that might be.

She found a crossbar and examined it, and saw that it had two dome-shaped hollows.

Clearly the domes must fit into the hollows.

That would keep the crossbar securely in place.

I had no idea, she thought.

Following the original design, the crossbar reached from the top of one upright to the top of the next.

But when the priestesses tried fitting a crossbar to the tops of two uprights lying in place on the ground, they found that the pegs and holes did not meet.

Of course, Joia realized; Seft, or one of his cleverhands, had measured each individually, and a crossbar would fit only the pair of uprights for which it had been made.

It would be the work of the world to match them all up.

They could spend weeks moving huge uprights around trying to recreate the original sets. And not all the timbers were reusable.

She stood staring at the posts and crossbars, thinking hard, but she was stymied. And the priestesses could tell, and became restless.

She had to maintain their enthusiasm. “There’s a difficulty,” she said.

“But I know who can help us—Seft.” They perked up right away.

Everyone knew that Seft was the one to see if you had any kind of practical problem.

“Sary and Bet, go and find him, please. Tell him that Joia badly needs his advice.”

She knew he would come. He was fond of her in a brotherly way.

At that Midsummer Rite so many years ago, when he was trying to escape from his brutal family, she had been kind to him.

She had not done much, in her own eyes, but he had never forgotten it.

In those days few people had been kind to Seft.

The two priestesses ran off. Joia continued to study the salvaged wood.

When originally installed, the posts must have been all the same length, so that the circle of crossbars would be level; but now the partly burned timbers were of different lengths.

How would their tops be made level? Something else to ask Seft about.

Sary and Bet returned with Seft and his son, Ilian, a precocious boy who was learning his father’s craft.

Joia explained the problem, and Seft immediately came up with a solution.

“Turn the crossbars upside down and make new sockets to fit whichever posts you choose. The old sockets, on top of the crossbars, will be too high to be seen.”

It was obvious, Joia thought, once it had been said.

The new sockets would have to be made by a carpenter. Seft had already thought about that. “Ilian and I will make the sockets,” he said.

“That’s absolutely wonderful,” said Joia.

Riverbend needed a fillip. People were down in the mouth, apathetic, pessimistic. Ani could tell by the way they walked around, moving sluggishly, heads down, faces glum. They needed to be inspired.

“After the horror of the Midwinter Rite, we have to prove that we are back to normal,” she said to the elders. “We want people to forget the woodlander attack. We need a success. The Spring Rite must be the best ever.”

Scagga’s sister, Jara, said: “How would we achieve that?”

“Put the word out, attract lots of people, tell them there will be a big feast, with the best poets.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Scagga. “We’re in the middle of a famine. No one expects a great plateful of beef.”

Scagga drove Ani mad. “This attitude will ruin us,” she said forcefully. “Don’t be so pessimistic about everything. We’re not in the middle of a famine. We’re probably at the end of it.”

“We hope.”

The elders decided to give people just enough meat, and nothing else came out of the meeting.

On the day before the Spring Rite, Ani realized they would not need much beef anyway.

Normally people started arriving two or three days ahead of time.

They came early to be sure they did not miss it.

But this time, worryingly, there were only a handful of visitors on the morning before.

A few traders arrived during the day, but nowhere near the norm. This was very disappointing.

The opening ceremony, next morning, celebrated the Halfway, one of the two moments in the year when day was as long as night. It had never been among the most exciting rituals.

In reconstructing the Monument, the priestesses had made the best of a bad job: much of the timber was damaged and scorched. Ani began to feel that the place might truly be cursed. It was beginning to look that way.

Some of the traders packed up their goods and left at midday.

One way and another, the Spring Rite was a disaster.

Ani talked to the flint knapper El, whose granddaughter had been killed by the woodlanders.

El needed to buy unimproved flints—called “blanks” or “cores”—so that he could turn them into useful tools by shaping them and sharpening the edges.

As usual she marveled at how the knapper knew exactly where to hit the surface of the flint to make a flake fall away.

It took a long time to acquire the skill, and most learned by watching a parent for years.

Sitting cross-legged outside the earth circle, with his grandson Janno beside him, El had a fresh flint in his left hand and a round stone in his right.

His face bore the grey defeated look of grief.

“There’s only one man here selling cores,” he said.

“And his flints aren’t the best—not floorstone. ”

The hard black floorstone came only from underground mines. She said: “Where are the miners?”

“Some of them were talking about going to Upriver to trade.”

That would be it, Ani thought despondently. The village of Upriver was nearer to the mines, which were along the north side of the Great Plain. “But they’ve always come here in the past,” she said.