Page 81 of Circle of Days

He walked toward her. “It’s Pia, by the voice—and the attitude.

” She realized that she had had a chance to run away unrecognized, and had missed it.

“Spying?” he went on. “I suppose I am. Troon likes to know who’s going in and out of the farmer territory.

You’re going out, I see. He’ll be interested in that. Women are supposed to stay home.”

“Don’t give away my secret, Hob. I’m in love with a herder boy.”

“Well, if that’s the case you’d better go home. You know Troon has banned fraternization with herders.”

A question occurred to her. “If I’d gone another way you wouldn’t have seen me, would you?”

“I’m not the only sentry, lass. There are six of us at different points on the perimeter. You’d be very lucky not to be seen by one of us.”

This was bad news. “I didn’t know Troon had set guards on us,” she said, not hiding her disapproval. “It makes Farmplace seem like a pen to stop animals wandering. Is that what we’ve come to, Hob? Are we to be treated like animals now?”

“Don’t ask me, I just do as I’m told. And you’d better do the same. Start by going back to your house.”

“Very well. Good night, Hob.”

“Good night.”

Defeated and depressed, Pia headed back through the wood to her home.

Troon came visiting in the morning.

Pia and her family were depressed as they ate the usual cold leftover porridge for breakfast, sitting outside the house in weak sunshine. They had failed and they did not know what to do next. Only Olin was carefree.

Pia had been caught the moment she left farmer territory, but she was determined to try again.

She would need to evade Troon’s guards. Was there a chance she could slip between two of them, perhaps on a particularly dark night?

Could Duff distract one long enough for her to get away unseen?

She would have to think of something. Troon could not be allowed to commit mass murder.

He appeared while she was trying to think of a way to outwit him.

He came with Shen and Hob. Hob was carrying a stick of oak, shaped and smoothed, clearly a club meant to hurt people. They sat down uninvited.

“So, Pia,” Troon said with pretended amiability, “you were on your way to see your herder lover last night, when Hob here met you.”

She said defiantly: “I didn’t know that we farmers are penned in like animals that must not stray.”

Troon ignored that. “Your man Duff here doesn’t seem very upset about your lover.”

Pia said impatiently: “What are you doing here, Troon? What do you want?”

“You’re a cocksure bitch,” he snarled. “But you’ll suffer for it.”

Yana said: “People never used to talk like this in Farmplace. Whatever happened to good manners?”

Troon did not reply to her. He said to Pia: “You weren’t going to Riverbend—you had no food with you for the journey. So you must have been going to Old Oak. But which herder is your lover?”

“Zad,” she said.

“If that was true you wouldn’t have said it so fast.”

Pia realized that he had outwitted her. Because he was brutal she was inclined to underestimate his brain. Brutal men could be cunning too. She needed to remember that.

Troon went on: “No, you didn’t go there for romance. So what was your purpose? I wonder if you were planning to send a message—to Ani, perhaps, the mother of your man Han, the one who died.”

“Murdered by your son, Stam.”

“Oh, let’s not rake up the past. But what might you have to tell Ani that was so important?”

“A lot,” said Pia. “I haven’t seen her for years, because you forbid women to go to the Rites. So she doesn’t even know that her grandson has all his teeth now.”

Troon’s face twisted in a smug grimace, and Pia knew he was about to say something he thought would shake her. He said: “Katch paid you a visit yesterday.”

Pia was horrified. How did he know that?

Troon answered her unspoken question. “Shen happened to see her.”

Shen nodded and smiled, pleased to be noticed.

Shen seemed to see everything.

Pia quickly collected her thoughts. “Yes, your woman wanted to trade a piglet for a goat kid.”

He stared at her with his little dark eyes. “So it’s just a coincidence, is it, that you tried to leave Farmplace just half a day after Katch visited you?”

“It’s not much of a coincidence.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all. It looks to me more as if a message was to be passed: Katch to Pia, and Pia to Zad, then Zad to that quickrunner Fali, and finally Fali to Ani at Riverbend. Very neat, and all in a couple of days.”

“And all in your imagination.”

But that was bravado. He knew the truth; he had worked it out. What would he do now? She began to feel scared. She decided to stop challenging him. He would always win.

Troon said: “So what shall I do with you? Left alone, you’ll try again. Even now you’re dreaming up ways to get past my guards.”

She almost shuddered. He knew what she was thinking.

He went on: “Given long enough, you’ll probably succeed. You may be foolish, but you’re sly.”

That was not unlike the way she thought of him.

“So how do I make sure you don’t have a chance to betray me to my enemies?”

Pia had a nightmarish premonition of what Troon was about to say.

“I have to tether you, like wandering goats.” He stood up. “From now until after Midsummer Day you will all be kept in your house, with the door permanently in place, and an armed guard outside.”

Duff said: “You can’t do that!”

“Shut your mouth, you young fool, or Hob will shut it for you with his stick.”

Hob hefted his club.

Duff still looked outraged, but he said nothing.

Troon went on: “You’ll be let out, one at a time, to go to the river and wash each morning, supervised by a guard. Yana can also milk the goats.”

Yana said: “But what about the wheat growing in our fields?”

“It will still be there after midsummer. You’ll just have a lot of weeding to do.” He bent and swiftly picked up Olin. Pia screamed and Olin cried. “Now get inside, all of you,” Troon shouted, “or I’ll smash this little brat’s skull.”

Yana, Duff, and Pia went into the house. Pia stood in the doorway and reached out for Olin. Troon handed the boy to her.

Pia said: “But it’s still many days to midsummer. What are we supposed to do, stuck in this house all that time?”

“You can reflect on how foolish it is to go against me,” Troon said, and he walked away.