Page 49 of Circle of Days
As Joia came closer, Ani realized that she was in a serious mood; no, more than that, she had suffered a shock. Ani was immediately worried. “What’s happened?” she said.
“Robbo killed a priestess, Inka.”
Ani was horrified. “Killed? How did that happen?”
“Robbo was trying to slaughter a heifer. We all told him it was wrong, but he took no notice, so Inka hit him with a club.”
“Herders don’t kill each other!” Ani said.
“It just escalated.” Joia was close to tears. “I couldn’t stop them. Nor could Han.”
“He was there too?”
Joia nodded. “He tried to intervene, but it didn’t work. Robbo put his knife to the cow’s throat, so Inka tried to stop him, but she failed. He cut the cow’s throat, and—” Joia sobbed, then went on: “And he cut Inka’s throat.”
“Oh!” Ani put her hand over her mouth.
“What do we do? I mean, what does the community do when there is a murder?”
“I’ve only known one,” Ani said. “I was young, about fifteen midsummers. There was a man, a very bad-tempered man, who had a row with another man about which of them owned a certain flint axe. The bad-tempered man killed the other with the axe.”
“But what did the community do?”
“Well, when the story got around, no one would speak to the killer. Whenever they saw him they walked away. They wouldn’t let their children play with his children. They didn’t share meat with him. One day he and his family walked away from Riverbend across the Great Plain and were never seen again.”
“It doesn’t seem much of a punishment.”
“It’s the best we’ve got. In the farmer community, the murderer is killed, usually by the victim’s family. But sometimes they get the wrong person. And sometimes the killer’s family takes revenge, and so the killing goes on. In the long run our system is better.”
“What do the woodlanders do?”
“I don’t know.”
“So Robbo and Roni and their children will just have to move away, out of the Great Plain.”
“Probably, yes.”
“I wonder what Robbo is saying to people about what happened.”
“That’s a good question. Let’s find out.”
Ani quickly tidied her work materials and they left the riverside, heading for Robbo’s house. Robbo was outside, butchering the heifer, watched by Roni and their children and a small crowd. He was telling the story.
Joia was about to speak to him when Ani held her back, and with a finger to her lips told her to keep quiet and listen. At first Robbo did not see Joia, and he went on with what he was saying. “She hit me twice with her damned club,” he said indignantly. “I thought that mad priestess was going to kill me.”
Joia spoke up. “It wasn’t quite like that, was it, Robbo?” she said. She stepped forward so that everyone could see her. “I was there,” she said. “My brother, Han, was actually holding Inka, restraining her, preventing her from hitting you, and then—when she was quite helpless—in your rage you cut her throat with your flint knife.”
There was a murmur of surprise from the crowd. Clearly Robbo had been telling people a different story.
“It was a fight,” he said. “I don’t recall the exact details, except that she started it.”
“I remember everything clearly,” Joia said firmly. “Inka was no danger to you once my brother had hold of her. She was helpless.The violence should have ended there, but you killed her in your rage.”
“That’s not how it was. You’re just saying that because Inka was a priestess.”
“I’m saying what I saw. You were killing a heifer, which was foolish and wrong. Inka wasn’t innocent—she should not have hit you with her club. But your life was never in danger.”
Keff, one of the elders, was in the crowd, and now he said: “This beast was a heifer?”
