Page 94 of Circle of Days
“No,” he said. “As long as the Sun God smiles on us.”
The next day it rained.
There had been a few paltry showers as the summer cooled down, but this was a real storm. Farmers stood in the fields looking up, with their mouths open to catch the pure water. Everyone got soaking wet and no one minded.
The dry streambeds filled again. That solved a problem for Pia and Han: they would not have to search for water on their flight.
As night fell, the wind grew strong and the rain came down harder. Pia considered putting off their departure to another night, but she could not bear to. She was too close to freedom to postpone it. Anyway, the weather would make it more difficult for anyone to follow them.
As usual she lay down and pretended to sleep. The wind seemed to disturb Stam for a while, but at last his breathing became regular.
Like most people, Pia had a shearling coat that she wore over her tunic in cold weather. It hung from a peg in a rafter, and now she took it down and shrugged it on.
She knelt by her mother’s bed and kissed her. Yana stroked her face and whispered: “May the Sun God smile on you.”
“And on you, my beloved mother,” Pia breathed.
Then she got up and left. She wondered whether she would ever see her mother again.
She labored up the slope to the wood, bending forward into the rain and struggling to maintain a steady path as the wind buffeted her sideways. Soon her coat was heavy with water.
She reached the wood and was grateful for the shelter of the trees. She passed all the way through and found Han on the other side at his usual place. He, too, was soaking wet, as was Thunder.
The cattle had huddled in a close mass, sheltering each other and their calves.
Han said: “This wood is the first place they’ll look. We need to cross the Break and find a place to hide in West Wood.”
Pia agreed.
They moved along the north side of the tree line, gaining a little shelter from overhanging branches, heading west. In a flash of lightning they saw a herder, who waved amiably. They reached the Break and started across.
The cultivated field offered no shelter at all. Twice the wind almost knocked Pia off her feet, and from then on she clung to Han. At last they reached West Wood and entered with relief.
“We’re free,” Pia said. She was elated. There were hazards ahead, but she had at last broken away from the farmer folk.
Han said: “Wet, but free.”
They looked first for shelter. The trees still had most of their leaves, and the travelers found a spreading oak that kept off the worst of the rain. They sat with their backs against the broad trunk and rested.
Han said: “This won’t do as a hiding place, but they won’t come looking for us before daylight.”
“I’m trying to think what kind of hideout we might find,” Pia said, frowning. She had not considered this question when she planned the escape.
Han said: “Up or down. Up in a tree, or lying on the ground in some thick shrubbery.”
Neither sounded secure to Pia, but she could think of nothing better. Perhaps when they looked around they would come across something she had not thought of. She began to worry. How dreadful it would be if they were caught when they had got no farther than this.
They moved close together, and Thunder lay against Han’s side.Pia spread her sodden coat across their legs. They were cold and wet. As the night drew on, they dozed, waking frequently. The rain did not stop.
At first light they stood up. Back in Farmplace, Stam would be waking up and would see that Pia was not there. At first he would assume that she had gone to forage in East Wood, but soon he would wonder why she was gone so long. He would remember her previous nighttime disappearances. He would interrogate Yana, who would claim mystified ignorance, which he would not believe. The fact that Yana was not weeping anguished tears would confirm to him that Pia’s disappearance was not unexpected, but in fact planned.
Soon he would tell his father of his suspicions. Troon, quicker thinking than his son, would immediately organize a search party. So Pia and Han had to hide as soon as possible.
They heard dogs, and Thunder barked back. This was too soon to be Troon’s search party, so Pia guessed the dogs belonged to the woodlanders.
Then two woodlanders appeared from nowhere and stood in front of them, holding clubs. Pia told herself to be calm. Woodlanders were friendly, nearly always.
The shorter of the two was handsome, and probably vain, for he wore a necklace of some kind of teeth. He said something in the woodlander tongue.
