Page 40 of Circle of Days
“Mamma will help you when the baby comes. She knows all about it.”
“She should, she’s had three.”
Neen’s tears had dried by the time they reached the house. Ani was outside, stirring a pot, but she looked worried. Joia said: “What’s the matter, Mamma?”
“It may be nothing,” she said. “I went looking for Scagga, to speak to him about a matter to do with the elders, but I couldn’t find him. His mother told me he was off somewhere making birchtar.” Birch tar was a glue. “I saw his sister Jara, and asked her where I could find him, and she said: ‘Oh, he’s around here somewhere.’ But she was lying, I could tell.”
She took the spatula out of the pot and stared at it as if it could reveal secrets. “Scagga has vanished,” she said.
Pia woke up in the middle of the night and said: “What’s that smell?”
There was an instant of silence, then her father jerked upright. “Smoke,” he said. He snatched up his tunic and ran out of the house.
That frightened Pia.
Her mother came awake and said: “What is it?”
“Dadda says it’s smoke,” Pia said.
“I smell it.” Yana pulled on her tunic and shoes, and Pia did the same. She followed her mother out of the house, but then Mamma began to run, and Pia could not keep up.
In the moonlight Pia saw men, women, and children all running in the same direction. The smell got stronger as they ran. Pia heard the word “fire” several times. Of course, she thought, something must be burning—but what?
A few moments later she found out. It was the Break. The bean crop had sprouted and was now as high as Pia’s waist, and it was burning. She could see that the fire had started at the far end of the Break and spread south. But she did not understand how the leaves could be burning. Normally only dry things burned.
Her father was naked and trying to put out the flames bysmothering them with his leather tunic. Other men and women were doing the same. Yana said to Pia: “Stay well back!” Then she stripped off her tunic and joined those fighting the fire. Others had taken leafy branches from the wood and were using them to swipe at the flames. Everyone was coughing in the smoke.
Troon was walking up and down, angrily shouting orders, telling people to fetch leather mats or bring water from the river, and to run, run, run.
Someone brought a large pot of water and threw it on the blaze, but it was too little to make a difference.
Pia’s friend Mo came and stood beside her. Mo’s parents were in the field, fighting the fire. Mo was crying, and Pia put an arm around her.
Soon everyone in the village was there, attacking the flames with whatever came to hand. Pia thought they would never put it out, but after a while she saw, with relief, that they had stopped its advance. In the next few minutes the flames began to die down. Mo stopped crying.
Pia saw that about half the bean crop had been destroyed.
Only smoldering ashes were left in the north half of the Break. Everyone withdrew from the field. Pia’s father, Alno, was coughing.
Someone said: “How could a fire start in a field in the middle of the night? There was no lightning, was there?”
Troon said: “It was done deliberately.”
His wife, Katch, said: “You can’t know that.”
The people standing around contemplated that thoughtfully.
Pia’s mother, Yana, walked to the far end of the field, where the ashy remains bordered the herders’ pasture. The cattle had gone,frightened by the flames. She came back holding some shards of pottery. She stood squarely in front of Troon as if she was about to fight him. Others came closer to see what was going to happen.
Troon pretended not to care. He said: “What’s that?”
“A broken pot,” said Yana.
Pia wondered why that was important. Pots broke from time to time: it was normal.
Yana wiped the inside of a curved piece, sniffed her finger, then made a disgusted face, as if the smell was bad. She handed the shard to Troon.
Troon did the same. Then he said: “Birch tar.”
