Page 42 of Circle of Days
They strolled hand in hand through the village. Seft said: “Is your mother worried about something?”
“She’s angry,” Neen said. “Scagga and some of his family went to Farmplace and set fire to the crop on some land called the Break, which the farmers stole from us.”
“To me that sounds justified,” said Seft.
“The elders decided to take no action. Scagga’s an elder but he defied his colleagues.”
“I see that.”
“Mamma says that revenge always leads to reprisals, and that’s how people end up at war.”
Seft did not know what to think about that and, anyway, he had something more important on his mind. They came to the concentric circles of tree trunks. They sat close together and kissed for a while.
Then Seft said: “Are there rules about people joining the herder community?”
“Well,” she said, “yes, I suppose there are. I mean, you have to work. Strangers can’t just come and move into a house and eat beef and lie around all day.”
“So I could join.”
“Yes. You could be a herder. We’d teach you.”
“I’d be glad to learn. But what I’m really good at is carpentry. I could make bows, and shovels, and chests for keeping precious things. And I’ve worked out how to make a doorway without straps.”
“You could do that. Like my mother makes leather.”
“There’s something really important, the most important of all.”
“Go on.”
“I want a family like yours, where everyone loves each other, and there’s no beating.”
“That’s what I want, too.”
“Last time we were together you said you weren’t ready to make a baby.”
“True.”
“When do you think you might be ready?”
She took his hand. “I’m already pregnant.”
He was shocked, and his heart seemed to thud. “From just that one night?”
She smiled. “From just that one night.”
Seft was filled with joy. “Well, then,” he said, “everything is just perfect.”
Joia was awakened by the sound of two women having sex. It would be a couple of novices, she guessed, too in love and excited to care who heard them. She wondered whether to tell them to hush, but someone else said it first, and they giggled and carried on, not quite in silence.
In the relative quiet, Joia heard a strange, muffled noise. It sounded like carpenters at work some distance away, hammering and sawing, chopping and chiseling. They were up early. Was it dawn already? She looked across the room at the doorway. She could see the edge of the moon, silver against a deep black sky.
This is the middle of the night, she thought; no carpenters are working now.
She stood up, pulled her long tunic over her head, and laced her shoes. As she crossed the room in the dark she stumbled over the drum they used in some of the ceremonies, and it fell with a resonant boom. Several sleepy voices told her to hush. Shepicked up the drum and its stick and put them by the door, in the moonlight.
She stood by the wicker gate and leaned out. She could hear the carpentry noise better, but it still seemed muffled. She lifted the gate, stepped outside, and replaced the gate.
Once she was out of the building she could tell which direction the sound was coming from. It seemed to be at or near the Monument.
