Page 50 of Circle of Days
Robbo said: “No, it wasn’t.”
Ani looked at the carcass and saw that it had been disemboweled and the underside was gone, so it was not possible to be certain whether it was a heifer. Robbo must have done it on the plain, before dragging it here. He had given some thought to how he would pretend innocence.
Joia said: “Of course it was a heifer, that was why Inka tried to stop you killing it.”
“You’re just making excuses for your brother’s part in this.”
“My brother tried to save you.”
“I don’t have to answer to you.”
“That’s true,” Joia said. “You don’t have to answer to me. You’ve murdered a priestess. You will answer to the gods.” She turned around and walked away.
Ani caught up with Joia and said: “Robbo is being very sly about this.”
“I’m going back to the Monument,” Joia said. “I have to speak to the priestesses.”
“I’ll talk to the other elders,” Ani said, and they parted company.
Joia’s mind was spinning. After talking to Ani she had felt satisfied that Robbo’s offense would be recognized by the community. She did not want him to be killed, as in the farmer custom, but she wanted the herder folk to acknowledge that he had done something terribly wrong. The murder of a priestess should not be lightly passed over. But Robbo was putting out a story in which he and Inka had been equally guilty.
As she strode from the village to the Monument, she saw many strangers, and she remembered that tomorrow was the Spring Halfway, and hundreds of people would be here for the Spring Rite. That opened up a possibility. The priestesses would have a chance to speak to the entire community of the Great Plain about the murder of Inka.
But the more she thought about it, the more she felt that it would not be a matter of logical argument. Robbo had an answer for everything, and he was clever enough to confuse people. In the end, how people saw this issue would depend on how they felt about the priestesses and about Robbo.
Tomorrow would be an opportunity, but not for a speech.
The glimmer of an alternative formed in her mind.
As soon as she reached the Monument, she sought out Soo, the High Priestess. She was sitting on the ground outside her house, enjoying the mild air of spring. In the last ten years Joia had come to see her as a friend and mentor.
Joia sat down without ceremony.
Soo said: “This is a terrible thing that has happened. Poor Inka. The novices are washing her body now.”
“Robbo is putting out a false story,” Joia said without preamble. Soo liked people to get straight to the point. “He’s saying that Inka tried to kill him and he had to defend himself.”
“But that’s not true,” Soo said. “I’ve spoken to your brother, Han, who carried the body here, bless his soul.”
“Robbo is trying to persuade people that what happened was a fight, not a murder. But I want Robbo’s crime to be acknowledged.”
“So do I,” said Soo. “I’m guessing that you have something in mind.”
“I think we should cremate Inka’s body here tomorrow as part of the Spring Rite.” Cremation was the usual method of disposing of the dead. The ashes were scattered. “It will give everyone the sense that something holy has been lost.”
Soo nodded slowly. “We have a very sad song for the death of a priestess.”
“I know it,” Joia said. She knew them all.
“Then you can lead the singing,” said Soo.
Pia was looking for Han. She adored him and waited impatiently from one Rite to the next to see him. In between she pictured him every day, with his blond beard and his big shoes; and in the daydream he leaned close to her and whispered in her ear, so that she could feel his warm breath as he told her that he loved her.
She smiled when she looked back at herself, not quite eightmidsummers old, asking him if she could be his girlfriend; and his embarrassed answer:No, that’s silly grown-up stuff. She had felt sure that in his heart he really wanted her to be his girlfriend but was too shy to admit it. So she had not minded his refusal, in fact she had cherished his words.
A few years later, when she had started thinking about boys in a different way, she had forgotten him for a while. She had flirted with farmer boys, and kissed them, and discovered her power to make them groan and spurt. Then she had talked to Han at a Rite, and the old bond between them had come back in a new form.
It was surprising how the enmity between herders and farmers had faded. It was not gone, not completely, but the two groups met frequently at Rites, watching silently as the priestesses danced and sang, and afterward did business amiably enough.
