Page 74 of Circle of Days

This is the last day, Joia thought as soon as she woke up. Today we will deliver the giant stone to the Monument—and I will have done it in four days, as I promised the elders.

People who said it was impossible will admit that they were wrong. Visitors will come from far away just to look at it. More people will come to the Rites, more trading will be done, more girls will want to become novice priestesses. This will be a rebirth for the people of the Great Plain.

And if we can move one stone, we can move more. We can rebuild the entire Monument. But not right away. The volunteers will want to go back to their everyday lives. The only way we can get enough people will be by doing this every midsummer. But if we can do that…

Nothing must go wrong today.

Beside her, Dee woke up with a moan. “I ache all over,” she said.

Joia was not sure why Dee always slept beside her. Dee had made friends with several people on the mission, and chatted amiably to everyone, but last thing at night she always lay down by Joia, who tried to hide how much this pleased her.

Now she thought of offering to rub Dee’s shoulders, but she hesitated; and Dee got up, so it was too late.

A lot of the volunteers were stretching their legs and backs, trying to relieve aching muscles. Joia realized that if she had rubbed Dee’s shoulders, Dee might have done the same for her. How nice that would have been.

Her hands were sore, and the fatty meat on offer for breakfast gave her an idea.

She took a particularly greasy piece and rubbed it all over her hands.

Then she took Dee’s strong, broad hands and shared the fat with her.

They smiled at each other while they rubbed hands, and it made Joia feel happy.

At sunrise they moved to the sled and took up the ropes.

The ground alongside the river was mostly flat, but they had stopped the sled on a slight downward slope, which was now standard practice, so rocking was not needed and they got the stone moving quickly, albeit with a lot of grunting and groaning.

The terrain was easier today, and Seft’s track of branches ran straight, and leveled out the bumps and dips in the ground. And the task was now familiar.

They stopped briefly at midmorning and then for a longer break at noon. While they were eating, Joia spotted Narod and his friends quietly slipping away.

She frowned. What did that mean?

She got up and sought out Duff. “The Young Dogs seem to have left us,” she said.

Duff was surprised. “Which way did they go?”

“South, toward the Monument.”

“I can’t think why. I don’t really know why they came in the first place.”

“Nor do I, which worries me.”

“They didn’t achieve much by their negative comments, except to make the volunteers dislike them.”

“Troon may have told them just to keep an eye on the mission.”

“Well, I’m glad to see the back of them.”

Joia nodded. All the same she had an uneasy feeling as the volunteers set off again, pulling the great stone along the bank of the river.

Before the midafternoon break their progress stopped dead.

Someone had destroyed the track.

The branches had been scattered all around, some thrown in the river.

The damage continued along the riverside path as far as they could see.

Joia stared in dismay. She could hardly believe her eyes.

They were less than half a day’s journey from the Monument, yet the mission had been wrecked.

The volunteers dropped their ropes. Joia sat on the ground and cried.

Seft approached her. She wailed: “What are we going to do?”

Seft was calm. “Repair the track,” he said.

She was almost angry with him for not being more upset. “We won’t get to the Monument by the end of today, so we won’t have done the job in four days.”

“We should still repair the track and continue on. Or do you want to leave the giant stone right here?”

She realized she was being silly. “I just can’t bear to hear that fool Scagga say: ‘I told you so.’”

“I feel the same. But let’s put that behind us.”

Joia sighed. “You’re right, of course.” She wiped her eyes and got to her feet.

“We’ve got a workforce of two hundred,” Seft said. “It won’t take us long to repair the track.”

Joia nodded. “I’ll tell them what to do.”

“We can reuse all the branches we can find, and I’ll send some cleverhands forward to cut extra ones. There are plenty of trees along the river.”

Joia stood on a tree stump and shouted: “Listen, everybody. We have to repair the track.”

There was a collective groan.

“Consider it a rest period. It’s easier than pulling the stone.”

They laughed at that.

“Collect up the scattered branches and lay them back where they were. Don’t separate them, but push them together so that they interlock, then stamp on them. Throw earth on top to make it more stable. Tread everything down. Come on, let’s get started. We’re nearly home.”

She got down on her knees and began work on the nearest damaged section, showing people how to do it; and volunteers watched her for a while, then moved farther along to do the same.

Dee knelt beside Joia. “How do you think this happened?”

“I know how it happened,” Joia said. “Narod and his friends did it. I saw them leaving at midday. Obviously they went ahead to do their dirty work. Troon will be pleased with them.”

Dee did not understand. “But why would farmers want to stop us doing this?”

Joia thought for a moment before replying.

It was a serious question and Dee deserved a considered answer.

She said: “After the woodlanders burned the Monument, people stopped coming to our Rites, and the farmers started their own midsummer feast. Troon saw a chance to increase his power and influence. I feel sure he dreams of being Big Man of the entire Great Plain, not just of Farmplace. So he doesn’t want the Monument to be rebuilt in stone.

He doesn’t want it to regain its status as the focal center of the people of the plain. Our mission threatens his dream.”

Dee was shocked. “I had no idea.”

In silence they continued repairing the track until they caught up with the people in front, then they stood up. Joia said: “I need to know how far this damage continues. Come with me and we’ll walk to the end.”

Trees shaded them as they went along the riverbank. Dee observed: “Wrecking this track was a quicker job than rebuilding it.”

Joia nodded. Somehow that made the destruction more reprehensible.

To get to the end of the damage took as long as it takes to boil a pot of water. Suddenly the track ahead was pristine. “They gave up here,” Joia said. “They got bored, and told themselves they had done enough.”

Dee said: “Why did you want me to come with you?”

“So that I can teach you to count on the way back.”

“Oh, good!”

“And at the same time we’ll find out how many paces it is.”

She counted each step, Dee repeating the number. They stopped when they reached the point where the track was already repaired. Joia said: “One thousand two hundred and eighty-four paces.”

Dee was dazzled. “How can you keep such numbers in your head?”

“It’s not so difficult when you get used to it.”

Seft came up and said to Joia: “How much more to do?”

She repeated the number.

Seft looked at the sky, and Joia did the same. The sun was sinking in the west. Seft said: “I don’t know…”

“Nor do I,” said Joia.

Ani was at the Monument, looking out for the volunteers and the giant stone.

Seft’s track skirted the village of Riverbend and approached the Monument from the north across the plain.

It ran through the entrance to the Monument all the way to the large hole in the ground where the giant stone would be erected.

Ani could hardly wait for the sight of the sled appearing in the distance, pulled by a crowd of excited volunteers with Joia at their head, and storming over the plain like a cloud across the sky.

Even more thrilling would be the knowledge that her daughter had achieved the ambition that so many people had thought unattainable.

Ani was not the only one eagerly waiting.

Her daughter Neen was here to greet her man, Seft, and their three children were looking out for their Dadda.

A crowd had gathered at the Monument in the late afternoon.

They were sitting or standing on the earth bank, all looking north.

This was easily the biggest event of the year, if not the biggest ever.

Just about everyone in Riverbend was here, and some from more distant villages.

There was a smell of roasting meat, but it was not for the crowd.

Chack and Melly were preparing a meal for the exhausted volunteers when they finally arrived.

Expecting a wait, some families had brought their supper with them.

Neighbors chatted, youngsters flirted, and children climbed the bank and rolled down again.

And there were some hoping that Joia would fail. Scagga was present, wearing the scowl that seemed now to be permanent. He had his family around him: they always supported him, though sometimes with a lack of enthusiasm they could not quite hide.

She wondered what was behind Scagga’s hostility.

It was likely he resented Ani, who was the longest-serving elder after Keff and was generally expected to be Keff’s successor as Keeper of the Flints.

He probably thought he should be Keeper of the Flints, and felt unjustly overlooked.

Ani’s influence was all the greater for having a High Priestess as her daughter.

And Scagga’s belligerent attitude did not win him many friends.

Keff appeared and sat beside Ani. “Well,” he said, “will she do it?”

“Or die trying,” Ani replied. She looked west, and saw that the sun was setting. “Although she doesn’t have much daylight left.”

“We need people like her,” Keff said. “Sometimes she upsets folk, but she tries new things, and such people are essential. They keep us from becoming complacent and lazy.”