Page 28 of Circle of Days
The priestesses intrigued her. They always knew exactly when it was Midsummer Day and Midwinter Day, and the Spring Halfway and the Autumn Halfway too. If you asked them questions, they would say things like: “Midwinter will be in ten days’ time.” How did they do that? How did they know these things? Clearly they had secret knowledge that no one else possessed. The thought excited her.
Roni said: “But their rituals are holy secrets. We might displease the gods.”
“I don’t believe the gods would care about three girls peeking—do you?”
Roni was reluctant to concede the point. “I don’t know. You don’t know, either.”
Vee said: “I agree with Joia. We wouldn’t offend the gods. But the High Priestess might be angry with us. And then we could be flogged.”
Grown-ups were never flogged, but children sometimes were, for serious offenses: setting fire to a house, tormenting a cow, thatsort of thing. Joia had suffered this punishment twice, and it really hurt, but somehow that had not turned her into a rule keeper. “If the priestesses see us peeking, we’ll run away,” she said. “They won’t know who we are, they don’t know us, and they can’t run fast in those long tunics.”
Joia and her friends and everyone else wore a simple knee-length tunic, two pieces of leather sewn together with a bone needle, using the sinew of a cow as thread. The stitching left a hole for the head and two holes for the arms. The priestesses also wore leather tunics, but theirs were ankle-length and had sleeves, warm but constricting. Joia had never seen a priestess run.
Roni still looked dubious.
Joia said: “You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to.”
As Joia knew, Roni could not bear to be left out. She was unsure of herself—despite being so beautiful—and she needed the comfort of belonging to a group. “But I do want to go with you,” she said.
Vee said: “When shall we do it?”
“Tomorrow,” Joia said immediately.
Roni was dismayed. “So soon!”
“No point in delaying.” Joia did not want to give her more time to change her mind. “Let’s meet outside Vee’s house before dawn. We need to reach the Monument by daybreak or soon after.” The Monument lay to the southwest of the village, and to walk there took about the time needed to boil a pot of water.
The others nodded assent, and Joia stood up. “It must be nearly time to eat,” she said. The sun was high and she was hungry for the midday meal.
They left the riverside and went separate ways through the village.
As Joia walked she recalled the adventure of the Three Streams Wood. Looking back, she could see that she had been foolish to suggest it, and the others should not have let her talk them into it.
The woodlanders were normally gentle people. They sometimes came to the Rites, bringing nuts and game to trade. They needed flints—everyone needed flints, which were the only tools with a sharp edge—but there were no flint mines in the woods. They also liked to trade for bracelets and necklaces of beads made from carved bone.
However, people said that the woodlanders were easily offended, and then they could be violent. Joia had forgotten this when she led Vee and Roni into the wood.
At first they did not meet any woodlanders, though Joia saw evidence of their presence in the form of hazelnut bushes carefully pruned and trimmed to yield the maximum harvest—a skill only the woodlanders had.
There were three levels of vegetation, she noticed. The pine trees were highest. Oaks and alders were lower and wider. There was an understory of hazel, elder, and birch, and finally moss and lichen at ground level.
She began to feel that she was being watched, hidden eyes peering curiously at her through the foliage. She told herself not to worry. The woodlanders were probably shy. Perhaps they were even afraid of strangers.
The girls did not find a village and soon they were lost.
“We’re not lost,” Joia said firmly. “We just have to walk in a straight line until we come to the edge of the wood.”
A long time later, Vee said: “We’ve been here before. I remember that bog. We’re going around in circles.”
Roni began to cry.
For once Joia did not know what to do.
Then she saw the woodlanders.
They appeared as if from nowhere, moving silently, surrounding the three girls. The women and children were naked, the men wearing leather loincloths. Joia gave the polite formal greeting: “May the Sun God smile on you.”
The correct response was “And on you.” But a woman replied in the woodlander language, which Joia and her friends did not understand. Joia knew they had their own language, but the ones who came to the Rites had always spoken a few words of the plainspeople’s tongue. Now she realized that bilingual woodlanders must be exceptional.
