Page 77 of Circle of Days

The people at Farmplace were agog to know how Joia’s mission had ended. Several young farmer men had joined the volunteers, and their parents, their wives, and their children were waiting to hear news.

The first to return were the Young Dogs, but their report was indecisive. They said they had so damaged the track that the sled could not possibly have reached the Monument. No one was sure whether to believe this.

Then Shen arrived. As he walked through the settlement to Troon’s house, people followed him until there was a small crowd. Pia was among them, with Yana and Olin. Troon and Katch came out of the house to meet Shen.

“She did it,” Shen said. “She got the stone to the Monument, and it’s standing there for all to see. And, my gods, it really is the biggest stone in the world.”

Troon cursed. “Where is that fool Narod?” he said, looking around.

Narod was in the crowd, and could not hide himself because of his height.

Troon said: “You told me you had stopped them!”

Narod protested: “We destroyed the track!”

Troon looked at Shen, who said: “They destroyed part of the track. The volunteers repaired it. That made them a day late, but no one cared.”

Narod said indignantly: “We wanted to smash up their sled. That would have ruined everything. But the sled was guarded all the time. We waited until halfway through the last day, then realized we were never going to get the chance, so we messed up the track.”

“Stam would never have been satisfied with a bit of petty vandalism,” Troon said. “You’re pathetic. Get out of my sight.”

Narod disappeared.

Shen said: “She wants to do it again next midsummer. She says she’ll bring nine stones then.”

Pia felt a glow of satisfaction. What a woman Joia was!

“This is intolerable,” Troon said. “One giant stone will be a huge attraction, but nine will be the wonder of the world. People will come to see it from…” He waved a vague hand in the air.

“…from over the water. The herders will be dominant again. We farmers will be regarded like the woodlanders, people of no account. Hardly anyone came to our midsummer feast this year—no one will come next year!” He paused for breath.

“That woman… she wants to be the ruler—the Big Man of the Great Plain.”

Pia murmured to Duff: “The Big Woman.”

“Well, we’re going to stop her,” Troon went on. He was breathing hard, as if he had been running. “We have a year to prepare,” he said. “Next time I won’t send a handful of boy thugs.” He looked as if he was going to announce a plan, but stopped himself. “We’ll have to think of something else.”

Ani had a little pile of leather offcuts and decided to make them into a bag.

Using a flint knife, she sliced the offcuts into thin strips, each the width of a baby’s finger.

Then she stood a wide log on end and draped some of the strips over it.

Next she had to weave the remaining strips into those on the log.

She had just begun the process when she felt someone watching her.

She looked up to see the frog-like eyes of Scagga glaring at her.

He had a dead swan slung over his shoulder and was holding it by the neck.

Irritated, she said: “Go and gawk at someone else, why don’t you?”

He ignored that. He said: “I doubt we’ll be hearing any more about nine stones.”

She wanted him to go away, but on second thought she decided she had better find out what he was getting at, so she played along. “Why do you think that, Scagga?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

He was probably saving his argument for the elders, but he looked as if he was bursting to reveal it. Ani said: “Oh, you’re just making this up.”

“No, I’m not. And you could work it out if you had enough sense.”

“I’m sure I could.”

He could hold it no longer. “She took five days to bring one stone to the Monument.”

“Everyone knows that, Scagga, and no one cares that she was a day late. What she did was heroic.”

“But it took five days,” he insisted. “And now she wants to bring nine stones. That will take nine lots of five days. All those people will be away from their work half the summer!”

Ani had not looked at it that way. She could not figure out nine times five—she would have to ask Joia—but it sounded like an awfully long time for the fittest of the herders to be away from their beasts. She felt quite sure the elders would balk at that—which was worrying.

She said: “Perhaps Joia has a different plan.”

He laughed scornfully. “But you don’t know what it is, do you? I can tell.”

“No, I don’t. But I’ll find out before you do.”

“Hmm.” He went away, the limp wings of the dead swan flapping against his back as he walked.

Ani thought about what he had said, and decided it was so serious that Joia needed to know about it at once. She picked up her unfinished bag and the log it was draped over, and put both inside her house with the knife; then she headed to the Monument.

She could see the new stone from the outskirts of Riverbend. It stood up, grey and massive, above the ridge of the earth bank, and was probably visible from even farther away.

It occurred to Ani that Joia might spend her life rebuilding the Monument in stone. That might be a good thing. Joia would always need some endeavor upon which to expend her inexhaustible energy.

Ani wondered how Dee was going to fit into that future.

It was no surprise that Joia had fallen for Dee, who was strikingly attractive.

Not many people were as clever as Joia, but Dee was one of the few.

Plus she was likable and kind and she laughed a lot.

Ani had no doubt that Joia was deeply in love with her, though whether Joia knew it was another question.

And Ani thought Dee probably loved Joia, too.

Ani would be glad if they became a couple. Joia deserved to be loved long and well by someone who knew how special she was. And it would be nice, Ani thought, to know that there’s someone to care for her when I’m gone.

She found Joia in the dining hall, supervising the cooking of the priestesses’ midday meal. She looked happy. It was a great thing, Ani thought, to see your child happy.

Joia left Sary in charge and took Ani outside.

They entered the Monument and walked to the new giant stone.

Ani stroked its cold surface, feeling its ridges and hollows.

She wondered why the Earth God had put it in Stony Valley.

Perhaps so that it could be found by Joia.

You could never fathom the motives of the gods.

She told Joia what Scagga had said.

Joia looked anxious. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t even thought about this,” she said. “The crowd was so strongly supportive when we arrived that I imagined they would go along with anything.”

“And they would have, on that day,” Ani said. “But such hysterical enthusiasm wears off.”

“I suppose so. And we can’t sustain our mission if the elders oppose us.”

There was silence as the two of them digested that. Joia’s project to rebuild the Monument in stone could fail, despite the triumphant first stone that towered over them now.

Ani said: “I suppose you can count nine times five days.”

“Forty-five. But I don’t accept his assumptions. We won’t have the same two hundred people move one stone after another—it would take too long: Scagga is right about that.”

“So what’s the answer?”

Joia was thoughtful. “We’ll need several teams. But that’s possible. We’ll get many more volunteers next year, I’m sure of that. What we did is going to be talked about farther afield than the Great Plain. There will be at least a thousand volunteers.”

Ani did not know what a thousand was.

Joia was still figuring. “If we had six teams, and the first three came back for a second run, we could move nine stones in nine days. Say ten days, in case of unforeseen snags—though there shouldn’t be many of those, as we’ve now made the trip once and learned a lot.”

“Ten days is one working week. That might just be acceptable to the elders.”

“Good.”

“But are you sure so many people will volunteer? I can’t do numbers the way you can, but it seems to me you’ll need something like half the able-bodied population of the Great Plain.”

“That’s about right. But we’ll also have people from beyond the plain.”

“It’s a lot to hope for,” said Ani.

“I know,” said Joia.

After the midday meal Joia gathered the newer priestesses in the Monument to teach them a chant.

This one was about the number twelve. There were twelve days in a full week—ten working days and two rest days.

The chant was about how many days there were in two weeks, and three, all the way up to thirty.

The lesson was interrupted by Seft. Uncharacteristically, he was in a rage. He came striding into the circle, red-faced and furious. “What’s this nonsense about nine stones in ten days?” he demanded.

Joia was not intimidated by Seft. She had known him since he was sixteen midsummers old and lovesick for her sister, Neen. “My goodness, that got around quickly,” she said. “Who told you?”

“Not you, obviously, though you should have spoken to me before anyone else.” He was really bitter about this.

Joia told the priestesses to leave, saying she would finish the lesson later.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Seft. “I talked to my mother, because she brought me the news of what Scagga was saying. I haven’t discussed it with anyone else.”

He was not mollified. “You’ve given people the impression that you had my agreement. I’ll look a fool when we have to confess that it can’t be done.”

“Why are you so sure it can’t be done? We learned so much the first time—like that two-legged giant you made for getting a stone upright—that everything will go faster the second time.”

“True, but we still can’t move nine stones in ten days.”