The Rings of Poseidon (12 page)

I walked over to the hole we had dug. The
astronomer was very particular about the measurements and, even
though we were simply replacing a stake with a stone, she had
checked it all. I suppose I would be particular too if my
reputation depended on it as hers did. If she made errors the
priest might look a fool in front of the villagers, which was not
likely to please him at all and, besides his anger, she would look
a fool as well as him.

When the men arrived they looked ready for a
rest. "Right," I said, "Line it up with the hole and then I've got
something ready to eat." I called.

I don't think that stone would have been in
line so quickly if they had eaten first!

I dipped my bread in the stew absently, to
mop up the juices of the meat. I had put in some of those round
roots as well as the usual herbs and the result was pleasing. There
is a man I know who actually grows them. Round roots, I mean. He
uses an ox-shoulder bone to turn over enough soil to plant seeds,
like some villages have started doing with the grasses they use to
make bread, and he gets them growing in one convenient place.

When I mentioned this to the priest he said
that there were old tales of days before the disaster and flood
when our ancestors used to do that sort of thing in a big way. If
there is any truth in that it would still be done, surely? The
story is probably just an old priest's tale. When the goatskin was
passed round I took a good pull before I passed it on.

The sun was hot and we rested after we had
eaten. I lay back in the shade of a fruit tree with my hands
clasped behind my head and thought about growing the round roots.
Well, to be more accurate, the problem of preparing the ground for
planting them. I was thinking about the old priest's tale and how
you might grow things. I could see that it would be useful to have
all of one kind of plant growing in one place and we could do with
a lot more of some things too. It seemed to me that the only way to
plant enough and still have time to hunt while you waited for your
plants to grow was to use an ox to help you break the ground. If
you had a of sling made of hide and you let the ox pull it, a
strong man could hold a pointed log in the sling and use it to
break the ground for the seed. In a way it would be like opening a
woman for seed, if you see my analogy in all its detail, but not as
much fun as mating though.

I looked at the blueness of the sky through
the leaves of the tree and thought that, if this tree was watered
in dry weather, it might thrive better and we might get more fruit
from it. I thought that I'd try it some day when the goddess moved
me.

When the sun had dropped a bit I got to my
feet and said, "Right, let's get that stone raised and we're
finished for the moment."

My words were received with a distinct lack
of enthusiasm, but the gang roused themselves nevertheless and
wandered over to the stone. There was no sign of Po-atl but he had
probably found someone to play 'Snail up the Snake' with.

We edged the foot of the stone down the
sloped side of the hole until it was in place and then used logs
too wide to go into the sloped trench. We laid these at right
angles to the stone, so that it could be lifted and levered a
little at a time into an upright position. When it was upright we
filled in the hole around it and the slope as well.

The scheme was my idea and I was quite proud
of it. The plan had worked well on six other stones in the circle
and it worked well this time too but, before we had finished the
filling in, we had visitors. The priest and the astronomer arrived
to see how we were getting on.

"Well, well. And how is it going?" asked the
priest. Oh he does annoy me sometimes. He is no older than me, but
he's so patronising and, even though our jobs are completely
different, I'm his equal, aren't I? I don't think he likes the idea
of women doing anything non-domestic, which is why he is so caustic
towards the astronomer as well. I could see us women doing nothing
but having babies, growing food and cooking it if he had his way.
Apart from all that, he could see how it was going.

"All right," I said. "We've almost
finished."

"I don't see your apprentice." remarked the
priest, looking around.

"Po-atl? Well he was around at lunchtime. I
haven't had time to notice since."

"Probably playing 'Snail up the Snake' with
somebody or other," laughed the astronomer shaking her head.

"It's no laughing matter," said the priest
sternly and, I thought, rather sourly. "Itzapec is still remarkably
young but Po-atl is supposed to be learning the trade. He has to be
fit for the job."

He turned to me. "You've got to do something
about him this time." He will keep talking about me as if I'm not
there.

"Make him carve games on the stone, spirals
and holes for the counters," suggested the astronomer brightly.

The priest glowered at her but I was glad she
was not taking it too seriously. As a matter of fact that might be
just the thing to cure him once and for all. It would sound like
fun and might even be fun for a while, but I wouldn't mind betting
that the fifth or the tenth spiral would sound less of a good idea
than the first. I laughed a bit at the thought.

"I'll tell him you want the stone decorated
the moment he turns up," I said, and laughed again at the thought
of Po-atl's face when he got to the tenth spiral.

"We didn't come here to discuss Po-atl and
his silly games," interrupted the priest severely.

I was rather glad he was getting to the point
at last. I knew he hadn't come out to discuss Po-atl, though
actually he had brought up the subject. I knew that his enquiries
about progress were not the reason for his visit either, though
that was the only other thing he had mentioned so far.

"No," I replied noncommittally, and waited
for him to go on.

"There will be an eclipse next week." he
said.

"Yes?" I said and waited.

"It will be almost complete."

The astronomer had worked that out and told
him; he hadn't calculated that himself, I knew that.

"Yes?" Oh I can be very unhelpful at
times.

"When the villagers panic I will sacrifice
the prisoners."

"The prisoners are hardly responsible for the
movements of the sun," I told him. He was beginning to irritate me
and I couldn't help myself.

"People will naturally think there is a
connection between my sacrifice and the sun's return," he said.
"While the whole thing is fresh in their minds I shall tell them we
need a full, stone temple, as great as any in the old stories."

I stared at his tortuous thinking and
ambition. I looked at the astronomer but her face was impassive. I
wondered if she had made a mistake but it wasn't very likely. She
possibly guessed my thoughts because she said, "Three of the four
cycles meet and complete next week for the first time in nearly
three thousand years." I was impressed.

"The first time since.."

"Yes," she said, "The first time since
then."

Watching stars bores me. Personally I'd
rather sleep in the hours of dark or mate with a nice strong man if
I'm in the mood - that's how I got my daughter, but she's another
story altogether. Still, I'm glad we're not all the same and I
suppose you get used to staying up at night if you're an
astronomer. She knots strips of hide to remember where the planets
are, same as I do when I'm planning a building except, of course,
that she has a lot more to remember. She has strips of hide hanging
from two sticks across the whole width of her house. It's like
walking into a spider's web, going into her house. She uses the
stones and wooden posts to predict things like festivals and
seasons as well. That's not very complicated. Both the priest and I
can do it. Eclipses? That's another matter entirely.

The priest waited until the astronomer
wandered off to check her measurements yet again, hanging around
with something unsaid. There was a look in his eyes that I didn't
much like. Mind you, I didn't like the rest of him either.

"Itzapec," he said slowly, making the word
sound like a threat, "You have a circle round your finger. It's
properly called a ring and you got it from your mother." I glanced
at my hand. I don't know what kind of stone or bone it is, but it's
a pretty little decoration.

"Yes?"

"I want it."

"It's not for barter."

"I don't want to give you anything for it. It
is of no real use. When the eclipse comes around next week and I
make my sacrifices I will tell the people that there is something
angering the Gods and I must find out what it is. I will discover
it is the circle of stone on your finger - your ring, and demand
that you give it to me."

The look in his eyes was - was what?
Covetous? Evil? Calculating? Greedy? Ruthless? Cunning? It was all
of those things and something more that one could not quite put a
finger on - or in, perhaps. I resolved that he would not have this
thing - this 'ring'.

"Mark well now." He said, "I will have the
ring, even if I have to sacrifice you to get it."

So that was why he was so concerned about the
progress of my apprentice! Well, warned was warned. I didn't say
anything at all, but he was certainly not having it.

The eclipse was total, like the astronomer
said, and it came more or less when she said too. The priest was
ready for it. For a couple of days before he went about muttering
that the Gods were angry and when the eclipse began he sacrificed
the three prisoners like he said and three young men from the
village, which was pretty wasteful I thought.

Afterwards he took all the credit for
bringing back the sun and got the villagers to promise him a much
bigger temple with earthworks and a decorated stone circle. But he
also said that the Gods were still angry because something
important was being held back from them and he'd have to go into a
trance to consult the Gods at full moon. Then he gave me another
evil look.

But by the time of the eclipse I was ready
too. I didn't say anything, mostly because of my vows, but I had
made up my mind I wasn't going to build his damned temple for him.
Or be the sacrifice at its completion. Or let him take the ring. I
was leaving the village.

I'd been gone nearly a week before I gave any
thought to the 'ring'. That something has a name suggests that
there are others of the same sort, although I have seen no other.
To describe it in more detail I could say that it fits on my finger
as a decoration or possibly a symbol of some thing now forgotten.
If you could imagine a piece of hide tied round your finger, this
was a piece of very thin stone or bone that slipped on like that. I
wondered what it was and where my mother acquired it. I had
received it from my mother when she died. I had, as I said before,
never seen another one but I wasn't surprised the priest coveted it
when I thought about it. Strange that he should know its name,
though, and perhaps wanted it for some purpose.

I had traded two of my four oxen for the
horse I was riding and some hides. I'd loaded them, along with some
food and various other things, including my daughter, onto the
remaining two oxen, and set out north.

Strictly speaking the two I kept weren't oxen
at all, since there was a male and a female and the male wasn't
castrated, but you know what I mean. It sounds as if I rode off at
a steady trot but all I could actually manage was a shambling walk
and I had to drive the oxen to keep even that up for long. Still,
we made steady progress and, after a week, there was no sign of
pursuit. I wondered how long it would take the priest to realise I
had actually left - not long I supposed - and what he would do
about it. He might well get hunters from the village to hunt me
down. They had agreed to build his temple readily enough. At any
rate I put as much distance as I could between me and the
village.

The stories of those who had travelled
further afield was that the weather as you left the mountains and
crossed the far plain had improved in recent years with less rain,
warmer temperatures and much more sun. I didn't know how much
credence to give these tales because they were anything but first
hand. The teller at best 'knew somebody who heard it from a
reliable friend who had heard it from somebody who had actually
...' You understand me?

At first the country was the foothills of the
mountains proper to the south-east of us but as I left them behind
the countryside was increasingly flat, with gentle undulations and
more trees. I crossed one or two smallish rivers and saw only one
village in the first two weeks. Villages didn't worry me much,
because two people, both female - one, at eleven, more a child than
a woman - were hardly a threat. Groups of hunters I was not so sure
about. They might find two women with a horse and two oxen a
tempting prey and even if we escaped with our lives, my daughter
and I, females from another tribe, were often fair game when it
came to mating. It isn't that I have no liking for sex. I like it,
but I like to choose my men before I mate.

In point of fact I could have a lot to offer
the right group. I could measure out the ground for houses and
select stones for them; calculate seasons, raise huge stones in a
circle, make pots and, at a pinch, do most of those jobs usually
left to women as well. What's more, I could sling a stone as well
as most men. I am one of many talents, even if I do say it
myself.

The river was rather wide as well as looking
rather deep and fast. I studied it and decided to camp and postpone
making up my mind about a crossing until the next day, so we looked
around for a suitable spot. I am uncertain what made me choose a
shallow valley, almost hidden by bushes, but we not only set up
camp but did so discreetly. I built the lean-to of hides against an
outcrop of rock and tethered the horse and oxen among some scrubby
undergrowth. When I had finished the camp was almost invisible. We
gathered up a few sticks but, before I had lit a fire, I heard the
sound of a group approaching the river and decided not to strike
flint until I'd had a look.