Page 47 of Circle of Days
A moment later she heard the lowing of a cow in distress. They were herders and they instinctively followed the sound. They came across two people arguing about a cow.
The two were near a tall tree. From a stout branch, a young cow hung upside down, its hind legs tied to the branch with a rope made of honeysuckle vines. Joia could see by its small udders that it was a heifer, a cow that had not yet calved.
Directly under its head was a large pottery jar with a wide mouth. A tall man stood next to the jug, holding in his hand a large flint knife. The scene was commonplace: he was about to slaughter the cow, and the jug was to catch the nourishing blood.
The man looked familiar, and in a moment Joia placed him. He was handsome Robbo, who had been part of her adolescent circle and was now the partner of beautiful Roni. He looked angry.
The other person was a priestess: Inka, once Joia’s teacher, a middle-aged woman with a warm heart. She stood with her long legs apart and one hand on her hip, looking aggressive. She had a heavy stick in the other hand and seemed about ready to hit Robbo with it.
Joia said: “What’s going on?” She had to raise her voice over the noise the cow was making.
Robbo said: “None of your business, so just creep off.”
Han said: “Speak to my sister with respect, Robbo.”
Joia said: “There’s no need for a fight.”
Robbo said: “I don’t want a fight.” He pointed at Inka. “She’s the one with a weapon.”
Inka said: “And you’re holding a knife.”
“To cut the cow’s throat, obviously.”
“Which is the problem.” Inka turned to Joia. “This young fool wants to slaughter a heifer that’s young and healthy enough to calve. It’s a terrible waste, when the plain is dotted with beasts that have died of thirst. I’m not going to let him do it.”
Robbo said: “She has no right to stop me.”
Unfortunately, he was right. There was no rule about who could slaughter cattle or when. People killed a beast when they needed to eat. In times of plenty this worked well. All through Joia’s childhood there had never been arguments about meat. But the good times were over, and Joia was seeing more and more quarrels.
Robbo had not finished. “Anyway, she’s a priestess,” he said. “She does no work, but expects to be fed by the rest of us. The gods have given us no rain, and who is to blame for that if not the priestesses?”
Joia asked herself what her mother would do in this situation. Ani would gently talk Robbo round, probably. So Joia now said: “Robbo, be reasonable.”
Robbo said angrily: “I’ve got two children and a pregnant woman at home, and they need meat. Don’t tell me to be reasonable.”
Joia said: “You should butcher a carcass—there are many on the plain.”
“Children should have good meat.”
“But what will they eat when the cattle are all gone?”
“That’s in the hands of the gods.”
Han said quietly to Joia: “If you want me to knock him down, just give the word.”
“He’s got a knife.”
“I can take him.”
Joia was not certain who would take whom. Han thought he was invincible, but Robbo was almost as big. Anyway, she had her mother’s aversion to violence as a solution. “We’re going toresolve this question peaceably,” she said, and she could hear the desperation in her own voice.
Inka stepped closer to Robbo and the cow. Han moved in too. Joia was losing control. She said: “Robbo, if you put down the knife she’ll drop her stick. Then we can talk sensibly.”
It was useless, she saw. Robbo’s expression hardened. He grabbed the cow’s horn and stretched its neck.
Inka screamed.
Robbo cut the cow’s throat with one strong stroke of the flint knife. The plaintive lowing was abruptly silenced. Blood splashed into the pot.
