Page 35 of Circle of Days
Ani put down her spatula and came to sit by Joia. “Seriously,” she said. “Could you be happy, living with a group of women, repeating the same songs and dances?”
“Yes. I’m quite sure I will like it a lot better than herding cattle or making leather.”
“You know that priestesses aren’t allowed to have children. If you get pregnant, you have to leave.”
“I don’t want children. I never have.”
“Do you realize that many of the priestesses are women who love women?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Of course not, but are you that type?”
“I don’t know what type I am.”
“All the more reason to delay your decision.”
“I won’t have to stay if I don’t like it. Soo said priestesses can walk away anytime.”
That made Ani think. After a moment she said: “So if you become a priestess—”
“Novice, I suppose.”
“If you become a novice and three weeks later you change your mind, the High Priestess will say: ‘That’s fine, don’t worry, thank you for trying.’ Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I don’t know what she would say, but in any case—”
“I want to know exactly what she would say.”
Joia realized she had moved her mother from No to Perhaps. That was progress. “So you’ll talk to her and ask her?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Joia.
Seft rejoiced in his freedom, but he knew that his father would not accept his escape. There would be a confrontation sooner or later, and he had to be ready for it. Every night he slept with a flint knife close to hand.
He was happy at Wun’s pit. His system of mining was superior. Chalk removed by the digging of new tunnels was disposed of in abandoned tunnels, so that it did not have to be laboriously carried up the climbing pole to the surface.
The work was satisfying and the atmosphere even better. The men liked one another. They even seemed to like Seft. He had made a friend his own age: Tem, a nephew of Wun’s. They sat together in the evenings, eating the dinner cooked by Wun, who was too old to dig. They all slept in the open, and Seft and Tem generally lay down side by side and talked quietly until they fell asleep.
Some of the miners were single young men such as Seft and Tem; others had families they visited whenever they could. There were no women at the pit. A few women were strong enough for the work, but not many.
Seft’s family showed up one evening at dinnertime.
He felt a cold hand grip his heart as he saw the three of them approaching: stern Cog, with a face like war; big shambling Olf, always hoping for a fight; and scrawny Cam, looking at Olf to know what to think. The setting sun threw long shadows behind them. They strode across the grassland like an army come to destroy Seft’s new life.
For a little while he had lived in a place where there was no hatred. Was that over now?
He put down his dinner bowl and stood up. Tem, beside him, stood too, and Seft was grateful, for that would show Cog that Seft had at least one person on his side.
For the first time, Seft noticed that his family’s clothing was grubby. Here at Wun’s pit the men took off their tunics in the evening and cleaned the chalk dust off them, using leaves dipped in the stream, and Seft had taken up the practice to be like the rest. Now he felt that his family were just dirty.
Cog looked as determined as a cornered wild boar. Olf swung his arms from the shoulders, limbering up. Cam was trying to look threatening, with little success.
Seft hoped that he himself did not look too scared.
Cog said to him: “You have to come home with me.”
