Novu stepped forward and said, ‘The old causeway was a gift of the gods. What we did this time was to start again from the beginning. Of course the natural track was the starting point. We pushed rocks and gravel and brush into the mud. And then we laid logs over the top, pressing them down. Now the causeway’s stronger than before and higher. And it’s sturdier. You can feel that. It’s already withstood a couple of winter storms. I don’t know if it could survive another Great Sea.’ He glanced out at the placid ocean. ‘I’d like to find out.’
‘Don’t challenge the gods,’ the priest murmured, ‘lest they take you up on it.’
Knuckle asked Ana, ‘So how is your sister? Produced her Pretani pup yet?’
‘No. Well, not the last time I saw her.’ Which was another gift from the gods, as far as Ana was concerned. Zesi, fuming, frustrated, continued to oppose all Ana’s projects, and ranted at anybody who came within earshot about how their father wouldn’t have run things this way. She would have been particularly difficult this morning, for she had been central to the mess that had led to the death of Gut, Knuckle’s brother, at the hands of Gall the Pretani. But her long pregnancy was keeping her out of the way, and Ana was grateful to be able to get some work done.
They reached the island, and walked around its northern shore towards the holy middens, now half-rebuilt themselves. Cheek ran ahead along the sand, kicking at washed-up seaweed, and the dog ran after her.
Suddenly Ana saw oystercatchers, a pair of them flying low along the coast. They were big birds, black and white with distinctive orange beaks and a plaintive, repetitive cry. They were probably both males, this early in the year, preparing for their flight up the river valleys where they would stake out territory on a shingle bar, to build their ground nests. She felt her spirit expand, as if thawing out, at this latest sign of the turn of the season.
Knuckle watched the birds fly, his great head gleaming in the sun’s watery light. ‘We were coastal folk, like you, down in the south, before the sea drove us away. We live in the forest now. But the forest has its charms, even in the winter. You can see the squirrels run in the bare trees, and the nests of the rooks.’
The priest nodded. ‘It is said a rook always comes back to her old nest.’
Knuckle grunted. ‘Just as you have come back to yours - even though the ocean told you it didn’t want you any more.’
Ana said, ‘This is our home. Our ancestors’ bones are piled deep in the middens.’
The snailhead raised a shaved eyebrow. ‘That’s your choice. So why have you asked us here? I think you want something,’ he said bluntly.
‘I suppose that must be obvious,’ said the priest. ‘But you’re right. We have something to show you. Come. Just a little further.’
They walked away from the beach and cut south across the island, picking their way along a trail that led through sea-battered dunes, and then around the island’s central hillock.
They soon broke through to Flint Island’s south coast, where they had a clear view of the promontory just on the other side of the bay. On the narrow beach here logs had been heaped up, stripped of their bark. A couple of men were working on them, using heavy flint axes to sharpen one end of each log.
While child and dog ran off to play with another mound of seaweed, the adults shared skins of water, carried by the priest.
Knuckle looked around, sniffing the cold air. ‘Never came here.’
‘There’s no reason why you should,’ Novu said, stepping forward. ‘Yet it’s an important place.’ He waved a hand. ‘You can see we’re at the mouth of the bay. The narrowest point, where Flint Island comes closest to the mainland. When the tide rises the water rushes through here to fill up the bay. When the tide goes out the current is just as strong the other way. The kids like to swim here.’
‘Never much liked swimming myself. So what are those lads doing hacking away at logs?’
Novu took a deep breath, and Ana remembered how hesitant he had been when he had first described his grand scheme to her and the priest and Dreamer, in the confines of her house. It was all founded on Ana’s determination,