Page 76 of Circle of Days
“We’ve got nothing to trade.”
Bez looked at Fell’s throat.
Fell touched the necklace of bear’s teeth. “No.”
“If it’s that or starve?”
Fell looked as if he might weep, but he nodded assent.
“Let’s go.”
They headed along the path that led from the Monument to Riverbend. They walked with heads bowed. They were disheartened and very hungry.
Bez was contemplating theft. If he saw a way of stealing food without getting caught, he would do it, he decided. His brother loved that necklace.
Last time he visited Riverbend it had had a bustling, prosperous air, with well-fed men and women cheerfully making pots and tools and leather. There had been pigs everywhere, he recalled, noisy and smelly. Now the village had a shriveled look. People were skinny and seemed tired. In places they were waiting with bowls and pots to receive a measured quantity of meat.
Bez went up to a man who was doling it out. “May the Sun God smile on you,” he said.
“You can’t have any of this,” said the man. “Sorry.”
“Would you trade?” Bez persisted. “We can offer my brother’s necklace.”
The man laughed, though not unkindly. “I can’t eat a necklace,” he said.
Bez looked at the people in line. “Anyone?” he said. “A necklace of bear’s teeth for some meat?”
No one wanted to trade. Bez felt completely dispirited.
A passer-by who had been watching spoke to Bez. He was a tall young man with big feet in shoes that were sewn differently from what was usual. “You men are really in trouble, aren’t you?” he said quietly.
Bez nodded.
“Come with me. I may be able to help.”
As they walked he said: “My sister sometimes gets game—hares, squirrels, pigeons—that aren’t covered by rationing. People give them to her man. She might be able to feed you something without taking it from her children’s rations.”
He led them to a house outside which a woman who faintly resembled him was cooking. Bez greeted her politely and gave his name and Fell’s. She was called Neen, and her kindhearted brother was Han.
When Han told her about the woodlanders trying to trade a necklace for food, she said: “I’m making a stew of a small hare. There’s not much meat, but you are welcome to some.”
They both nodded eagerly.
She gave them each a spoon and filled two bowls. They drank the fatty broth and chewed the morsels of meat. Bez felt better, until he remembered how he had failed in his mission.
Han asked where they were from, and when they told him he said: “You came all this way to trade a necklace?”
“No,” Bez said. “We’re hoping to hunt deer when they begin their migration, but we can’t figure out when they will move. You have to be ready for them, otherwise you can miss them. We thought the priestesses would be able to tell us.”
“I’m sure they could. That’s just the kind of thing they know.”
“Well, they wouldn’t help us.”
Han looked as though he did not believe them. “But that’s what they’re there for—to tell people the days of the year.”
“She would not advise us because woodlanders do not give the priestesses food.”
“That’s silly. Which priestess did you see?”
