Page 32 of Circle of Days
Ello sat down next to Soo. Joia had the impression that the two of them dwelt together in this house.
The other two priestesses stood outside. There was no escape.
Joia felt she had to say something in her defense. “I only…” Her throat seemed constricted and her voice trembled. She tried again. “I only wanted to know how you can tell the number of days left until midsummer, or midwinter.”
Soo looked at her dispassionately. “So you’re the ringleader.”
Joia felt she was justly accused. She nodded miserably.
Soo said: “The rest of you, go home.”
They hesitated, as if they could not quite believe it. Soo noddedto Ello, who got up and escorted Vee, Roni, and Han out. Ello did not come back.
Joia was glad her little brother was being freed, but clearly she herself had been singled out for special punishment, and she wondered fearfully what form it would take.
But first Soo asked her a question. “Did you notice how many upright posts there are in the outer wooden circle?”
As it happened, Joia had counted them. She answered the question by holding out both hands, pointing to both feet, and holding out both hands again.
“Correct,” said Soo. “And that’s how many complete weeks there are in a year. Think how many days that is.”
Joia was baffled. She could not count that high. After hands, feet, wrists, elbows, all the way up to the top of the head, she ran out. “There aren’t enough numbers for so many days,” she protested.
“But there are better ways to count, not using your body.”
Joia was surprised. Everyone who could count indicated numbers by fingers, toes, and other parts of the body; everyone except the woodlanders, who could only sayone,a pair,another one, anda lot, which was hardly counting at all. “What other way is there?”
“I’ll show you.” Soo indicated a stack of pottery discs on the floor beside her. Joia had not noticed them before. Now she looked at them and realized they were the discs used in the ritual.
Soo said: “Count these as I lay them down.” She made a line of discs across the floor, and Joia counted from her left thumb across all her fingers to the right thumb.
Next, Soo picked up a disc similar except that it had a line carved across it. “Imagine,” she said, “that this is worth all the discs in that line.” She put down the marked disc and picked up the plain ones. “Now we carry on.” She put the plain discs back on the floor one by one as Joia counted them with her toes. Then Soo again replaced the plain discs with one marked disc.
But as she was repeating the process a third time, Joia touched the top of her head and said: “This is the highest number.”
“With discs, you never run out of numbers. And every number has a name. The first thing novice priestesses have to learn is how to name all the numbers.”
Joia was fascinated and thrilled. “So you can count all the days in the year!”
“Yes. You’re very quick to understand.” Soo seemed to be enjoying this conversation, and Joia dared to hope that she had forgotten the punishment.
Soo scooped up the plain discs and made a new line with the marked discs. Counting them, Joia went from left thumb to right thumb again. Soo then replaced the discs with one that had a cross engraved on its face. “This represents all the ones I picked up.”
“So…” Joia was rapidly taking all this in. “So you could go on counting… forever.”
“Exactly.”
Joia was bowled over. She was seeing the world in a whole new light. These were the secrets of the priestesses. And she was being told them.
Her mind leaped forward. “So when you dance and sing, you’re counting the days and weeks.”
“And marking how many have passed since the last solstice or equinox, and how many are left before the next.”
“And the big stones around the edge?”
“Those help us predict eclipses, which is a lot more complicated.”
“Are all stone circles used this way?”
