Page 14 of Circle of Days
The potter looked guilty. “I might have. I don’t remember.”
The arrow maker said: “You never told me. If you’d said it, I wouldn’t have given you three good arrows.”
Ani took Keff and Scagga aside for a consultation.
Scagga said: “That potter is a cheat. He was trying to get rid of a flawed piece of work. He’s dishonest.”
Keff said: “It’s bad for our reputation if people get away with trading second-rate goods.”
Ani agreed.
She turned to the potter and said: “You have to give back the arrows, and he’ll return the pot to you.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Then you might as well pack up your goods and go home, because no one will trade with you if you defy our ruling. People would think you were dishonest.”
Scagga put in: “And they’d be right!”
“Oh, all right,” said the potter. He handed back the arrows and accepted the pot.
Ani said: “If you want to trade that pot, tell people that it’s not for fluids, and for that reason they can get it cheap.”
The potter grunted reluctant assent.
Ani was surprised to see Joia appear, looking ruffled. “Mother, you have to come,” she said. “And Keff and Scagga. Follow me, please—it’s urgent.”
They followed her. Ani said: “What’s wrong?”
“There’s been violence.”
There were often disputes at the Rite, but the elders did everything they could to prevent fights.
Joia led them to where half a dozen people stood around a pile of half-finished flints as if waiting to see what would happen. Ani had an unpleasant feeling that this might have something to do with young Seft.
Joia said: “This is Cog, the father of Seft. I met Seft a few moments ago, heading back to their pit. His face was cut and bruised and swollen and he was walking half bent over from a belly punch. He said his father beat him up.”
Ani said: “Where is Seft now?”
“He’s gone. He felt too ashamed to speak to people.”
Cog said indignantly: “It’s no one else’s business how I choose to discipline a disobedient son! And the boy hit me. Look at my nose.” Cog’s nose was bloody and bent. “It was a two-way fight,” he said defiantly.
Two ropemakers whom Ani knew were nearby, and now the woman, Fee, laughed scornfully. “Two-way?” she said. “The big stupid one held the boy still while the father beat the shit out of him. He was like a mad bull. The boy crawled away on his hands and knees!”
Cog, enraged, moved toward Fee with a fist raised, saying: “You call me a mad bull again and I’ll tear your ugly head off.”
Fee looked at Ani and said: “I think that proves my point, doesn’t it?”
Ani stepped between Cog and Fee and spoke to Cog. “The spirit of the Monument abhors violence.”
“I don’t care about the spirit of anything.”
“Evidently,” she said. “But you can’t come here if you disrespect the spirits of the place.”
“I say I can.”
Ani shook her head. “You must go somewhere else. And never come back.”
