Page 22 of Circle of Days
In the morning he would go to Wun’s pit.
The farmers’ wives and children took two days to get home after the Midsummer Rite. They had to walk the length of the plain, from east to west. A healthy adult could do it in a day, but children took longer, as did adults who were carrying children. However, it was a pleasant trip in summer and Pia was happy, walking with a girl of her own age, Mo. Her cousin Stam threw a tantrum and refused to walk and had to be carried all the way by his mother, Katch.
They passed several herder villages. Most were at the edges of the plain, near the three main rivers, the East River, the North River, and the South River, but a few were in the middle of the plain, always near a stream or spring. Each had just two or three houses, usually occupied by people from the same family. Pia’s mother, Yana, explained that the herders had to keep watch on their livestock, making sure they did not get into trouble or wander away; and after that Pia noticed that near the herd there were always two or three people, men, women, and children, keeping watch.
Pia and Mo were frightened of the animals and stayed near the grown-ups.
Pia told Mo about Han and his mother and sisters. “He’s really nice to play with, and he let me pat his dog.”
Mo said: “Are you his girlfriend now?”
“No. He says that’s silly grown-up stuff.”
Han’s mother had been kind, inviting Pia and Stam to stay for dinner. Pia had been surprised to realize that there was no man in the house, something that was not permitted among the farmer folk. In the farmer community every woman belonged to a man.
As they neared farming country she decided to ask her mother about it. “Why are herder families so different from ours?” she said.
“In what way?” Yana asked.
“When they make dinner, they just share it with everyone who’s nearby. We don’t do that.”
“That’s because a herder doesn’t have his own livestock. With so many cattle wandering all over the Great Plain, it would be impossible to keep track of who owns which cow. So the beasts belong to the whole community, and everyone’s entitled to whatever’s cooking. We don’t have that system. With us, each man has his own land, farmed by him and his woman and children and no one else. Why should we share our produce with people who haven’t helped to grow it?”
“Well, Han’s mother hasn’t got a man.”
“That’s not possible for us. We think every woman belongs to a man, either her father or her partner.”
“Han’s father died.”
“If his mother were a farmer woman, she would have to take another man within a year. That’s our rule.”
That made sense, but Pia thought Han’s mother had seemed to live happily without a man.
She asked a different question. “The way herder men talk to women is strange. Not like the way Dadda talks to you.”
“We think someone has to be in charge, and among us it’s the man who tells the woman what to do.”
Pia thought for a while, then said: “Why?”
Yana looked away, and Pia wondered whether this was one of those things children should not talk about. But after a moment Yana said: “Men are strong.”
“Well, if the woman is smart, she should tell the strong man what to do.”
Yana laughed. “Maybe, but just don’t say that in front of our men—they’ll get cross.”
That made Pia think that her mother did not completely accept the rules of the farmer folk.
Approaching farmer country, they passed into a gap between two woods. Pia knew that the woods were called East Wood and West Wood, and the gap between them was called the Break. Now she noticed that the Break did not look like it had when they left for the Rite. Then, the land had been grass. Now it was earth broken up and ready for sowing. She wondered why.
Her mother stopped dead and stared. After a moment she said: “So that’s what they were up to.”
“Who?”
“Our men. While we were away.”
Pia remembered Ani asking why the farmer men had not come to the Rite. At the time Pia had not thought much about it. Ani had made it seem like a casual question, but maybe it was not so casual.
Yana spoke irately, half to herself: “They wanted to do it while we were at the Midsummer Rite—so we couldn’t try to talk them out of it.”
