Page 9 of Circle of Days
He had seen naked women, usually when they were bathing in the river. They did not care about being seen, but it was considered rude to stare. Nevertheless, he had a pretty good idea what they looked like with their tunics off. However, he had never touched a naked woman. Now he did for the first time.
“Gently,” Neen said. “Stroke it gently.”
She kissed him while he touched her, and after a little while he noticed that she was panting. Then she said: “I can’t wait.”
She rolled him onto his back, pushed up the skirt of his tunic, and straddled him. As she sank down on him, he said: “Oh! It’s lovely!”
“It is with the right person,” she said; and after that, neither of them said anything coherent for a while.
It was still dark when Seft woke up. There was no birdsong—it was too early—but he heard the lapping of the nearby river. He felt Neen beside him, her soft warm body pressed against his, with a leg and an arm thrown over him. He was cold, but he did not care. He hugged her.
She stirred and opened her eyes. Looking at him, she stroked his cheek. “My sister says you look like the Moon Goddess,” she murmured.
He smiled. “What does the Moon Goddess look like?”
“Pale and beautiful, with a mouth made for love.” She kissed his lips.
He said: “I suppose we’re a couple now.”
She sat upright. “What do you mean?”
“That we’ll live together and raise our children.”
“Wait,” she said with a little laugh.
He frowned, puzzled. “But after last night…”
“Last night was wonderful, and I adore you,” she said. “And I want to do it again tonight. But let’s not rush into our future.”
He did not understand. “But you might be pregnant!”
“Probably not, after only one night. Anyway, that’s in the hands of the Moon Goddess, who rules over everything to do with women. If she wants us to have children, so be it.”
“But…” He was bewildered. “Does this have something to do with Enwood?”
She stood up. “Listen. Can you hear what I can hear?”
He stood silent and picked up the sound of a distant crowd of people walking and talking.
“Everyone’s getting up,” said Neen. “They’re all going to the Monument.”
Seft was confused, but he did not know what to say, how to get her to unravel the mystery. He followed as she led him to the river, where they drank the cool fresh water and washed quickly. Then they returned to the village and joined the crowd heading west. Everyone was chattering excitedly, looking forward to the big event.
Neen’s house was empty: her family had already left. She went inside and came out with two pieces of cold cooked mutton. She gave one to Seft and they chewed on them as they walked.
Seft consoled himself with the thought that she had said they would spend another night together. That meant she was serious about him. And perhaps they would talk some more about becoming a couple, and he might begin to understand her thinking.
Outside the village, everyone followed the straight southwest path. Cattle resentfully moved aside as the crowd spilled over the edges of the beaten track. People talked quietly and trod softly, as if fearful of waking a sleeping god; but all the same their collective noise sounded like a river tumbling over rocky falls.
The path led straight to the entrance to the Monument. People were sitting inside facing the entrance, the way they had come, which was the direction of the rising sun at this time of year. A priestess was kicking the pigs out.
The circle was filling up. In the crowd Seft and Neen could not pick out Ani and Joia and Han. Neen suggested going to the far side and sitting on the ridge of the earth bank, from where they would see everything.
The circle was about a hundred paces across. Just inside the bank was a ring of upright stones, spaced more or less evenly, each a little taller than a tall man. There were too many for Seft to count. Their surfaces had not been shaped or smoothed. The rock had a bluish tinge, and Neen told Seft that they were called bluestones.
In the middle was a wood circle, and this was completely different. Seft looked harder and made out a large ring of tree trunks, taller than the bluestones. The timber uprights were joined together at their tops by lintels, or crossbars, which made a continuous circle that was perfectly level. In contrast to the bluestones, these timber structures had been cut to exact sizes, and the surfaces had been rubbed smooth. The carpenter in Seft admired the work, but wondered how sturdy it was. If a crazed cow charged one of those tree trunks, how much of the circlewould fall down? No doubt everyone was careful to keep cows out of the holy place.
Within that circle Seft made out a second, smaller ring, an oval of freestanding pairs, each pair having a crossbar but detached from the others. These were just as carefully made but taller.
