Page 71 of Circle of Days
She went on: “I’ve survived several droughts, but I think this one will be my last.”
There was a murmur of protest. No one wanted her to go.
“I never achieved my great ambition, to rebuild the Monument in stone,” she said. “But perhaps someone who comes after me will do that.”
She stopped and coughed, a hard, echoey cough that came from deep inside. Joia thought it had a doomlike sound, something a person might not recover from. She looked at Sary, who nodded discreetly: she, too, had sensed the seriousness of that cough.
“As to the question of who comes after me, you must decide that. Remember that you must have a consensus. A High Priestess needs to begin with the wholehearted support of everyone.”
Joia was daunted by the thought of getting them all to agree. Right now there were twenty-eight priestesses, not including novices, who had no say in the choice of a High Priestess.
Then Soo said: “But it must be obvious to all of you that there is only one serious candidate: Ello, who is already Second High Priestess.”
Joia was dismayed. Ello was unkind. She would change the atmosphere of the Monument. She would be a tyrant.
Soo was wrong, it was not obvious that Ello should succeed her. And a dying High Priestess did not have the right to choose her successor.
“I strongly recommend…” Soo started to cough again. This time it went on. Eventually she made a gesture to Ello, who helped her back inside.
The priestesses immediately broke into conversation. Sary said to Joia: “I’m not sure there’s only one suitable candidate.”
Joia was glad someone else had had the same reaction as she had. “Ello has put Soo up to this.”
“Ello and Soo have been lovers since before you and I were born. Perhaps Ello was once cheerful and kind, and Soo still adores the girl Ello used to be. Anyway, Soo wants to bequeath the position of High Priestess to her lifelong darling. It’s sweet, but we don’t have to go along with it.”
“True.” Joia wanted to think more about this before getting into any discussions. There was, in fact, a second obvious candidate, and it was Joia herself. The question was what she should do about it.
For her, the issue was not just who would be High Priestess. It was about rebuilding the Monument in stone. It was now almost ten midsummers since Dallo had persuaded everyone that the task was impossible. Now was the time to try again.
She needed to talk to Seft.
She found him harvesting timber. He had felled an ash tree, its hardwood preferred for construction, and was now trimmingit, using a long-handled axe with a large shiny blade of black floorstone flint. With him was his eldest child, Ilian, soon to see his tenth midsummer. He was using a flint knife to cut thin, leafy branches from the felled tree to be used as fodder for cattle. Ilian was strong for his age, and already shaping up to be a good carpenter, as Seft would say proudly to anyone who would listen.
Seft stopped work when Joia approached. She greeted him and said: “The High Priestess is dying.”
“Soo? I’m sorry to hear that.”
“This could be the moment to revive the project of a stone Monument. If Ello becomes High Priestess, it won’t happen. If I’m chosen, it will.”
“Good!” said Seft. “What do we have to do?”
“We need to convince the priestesses that now is the time. If they accept that, they’ll want me as their leader.”
Seft put down his axe and sat on the trunk of the ash tree. Joia sat beside him. Seft said: “We can tell them that I’ve determined the best route for transporting the stones from Stony Valley to the Monument.”
“And that’s important.”
“But what if they ask where we will find the people to drag the stones?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. The population of Riverbend is about four hundred, but if we take away the children, the old, those who are sick or away at the time, and the disabled, it comes to fewer than two hundred, which is not enough. So we need people from elsewhere.”
“How would we manage that?”
“Four times a year we have a huge influx of outsiders, for the Rites. The most popular is the Midsummer Rite, when we sometimes have a thousand.”
“I don’t understand these priestess numbers.”
“A thousand is far more than we need to pull a stone.”
