Page 84 of Circle of Days

“They left yesterday,” he said. “All except the children and people like me who are too old to walk long distances.”

“Where did they go?” Pia asked, although she thought she knew the answer.

“They didn’t tell me. All I know is that all the men had bows.”

Duff said: “They’ve gone to Riverbend.”

Pia indicated that they should move away, back toward their farm. When they were out of earshot of Bort, she said: “I did my best to warn Ani, shouting through the wall of the house, but I don’t know whether she heard.”

“Too late now,” said Duff. “If they left yesterday, they will be at the Monument, or near it, by now.”

“Then it’s in the hands of the gods,” said Pia.

When Joia woke up, the sun was high. She heard birdsong and the noise of a thousand people bargaining. She had slept for half the morning. Clearly there had been no farmer attack. Yet.

She felt refreshed and triumphant. But she knew she needed to fix people’s commitment, to move around and greet people and remind them of their early morning promise. She had won the hearts of more than a thousand, and now she had to make sure their enthusiasm did not fade.

And most of all she wanted to see Dee.

Sary and Duna were waiting to escort her. She ate a slice of cold pork and went outside with them. She walked around, stopping every few paces to clasp hands, listen to what people wanted to say to her, and answer their questions. She enjoyed it, and knew she would meet Dee today, sooner or later.

She noticed Scagga and Jara walking around the ridge of the earth bank, surveying the distant horizon.

However, she still had not come across Dee when the sun began to go down and people started packing up and getting ready for the feast. Would this be the moment when the farmers would strike?

There were hundreds of cattle, sheep, and goats tethered outside the Monument, but Joia went all around without spotting that head of light-brown hair and that wide smile. Now she was mystified and troubled. What could have happened? Was Dee ill, perhaps, or—gods forbid it—dead?

She sat through the feast and the poet’s recitation, then left the village as the revel was beginning.

She walked around the Monument and saw the folk who had stayed behind guarding the goods.

She ran into Scagga and Jara, still on the lookout.

Shortly they were going to get four younger members of their family to patrol all night.

But they did not think the farmers would come in the dark when they could end up killing one another.

Shooting arrows accurately was difficult enough in daylight.

If the farmers were coming, Scagga and Jara now expected that they would attack at dawn, before the volunteers left on their march and the rest of the visitors drifted away. If it was an atrocity that Troon planned, he needed to do it when the maximum number of people were here to suffer it.

Joia examined her feelings as she walked toward the communal house where she always slept. Her speech had gone well and the farmers had not attacked. But Dee was missing and the farmers could strike at the volunteers later. She wondered if she would be able to sleep.

Then she saw Dee, waiting by the house, moonlight silvering her wonderful hair. Joia trembled with pleasure and ran to her and kissed her.

Dee broke the kiss sooner than Joia wanted to.

Joia said: “Where were you? I’ve been looking for you all day!”

“I got here late last night and had to tie up my flock in the dark. I must have made a bad job of it, because this morning, after the Rite, I found that they had loosed their tethers and wandered everywhere. It’s taken me the whole day to find them all.”

“I’m so sorry! I’ve missed you every day since we said goodbye.”

“And I’ve missed you,” said Dee, but she said it coolly, reporting the fact rather than agonizing over the separation.

Something was wrong. “What is it?” Joia said. “I’m so happy to see you—aren’t you happy to see me?”

Dee did not answer the question. “I have just spent the most miserable year of my entire life.”

This was bewildering. “Is that my fault?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What have I done?”

“Nothing—and that’s the problem. In all the time we spent together last summer, you never gave me the least indication that you loved me.

You hardly touched me. We lay side by side every night and did nothing but talk.

I held your hand once, and all you did was fall asleep.

I waited day after day for you to say something.

I still hoped, right up until that moment that was our first kiss—a goodbye kiss!

Even then I thought you must say something.

But you maintained your calm, and I went home heartbroken. ”

It was all true, but Joia had not known she was doing wrong. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”

“Surely you know that people in love touch each other?”

“I didn’t know it was love! I only realized when you’d gone, and I missed you so badly, and it hurt so much, that it had to be love.”

“How could you get to the age you are without knowing the simplest things about love?”

“I don’t know,” Joia said miserably. “I always knew I was peculiar.”

Dee had tears in her eyes now, but her voice was still firm. “I find this very hard to understand. I’ll think about it.” She half turned to leave.

Joia said: “But you’ll come on the mission tomorrow?”

“I’ll think about it,” Dee repeated, and she turned her back and walked away.