the headland on the north side, one from the promontory to the south. A gap still lay between them, in fact there was more gap than line, but the intent was clear.
‘Novu’s folly,’ Zesi said dismissively. ‘I saw it before. From you standing on that mound of mud in the rain with a spade, all the way to this. And you brought me all the way up here just for this?’
‘Down on the coast all you can see is the problems. From up here you can see the dyke, the whole thing, as Novu dreamed of it.’
Zesi grunted. ‘ “Dreamed” is right. But it isn’t finished.’
‘Well, no. The work is going slower than expected – the snailheads may yet help us, they haven’t decided, we never have enough people-’
‘I know you don’t have enough people. Most of them have been out with me on the northern shores, hunting cockles at low tide. We can’t eat a stranger’s dreams. And we’re already past the equinox. You said you hoped to be finished by now.’
‘We did. It’s going to be harder to work through the days of the higher tide, but it’s not impossible. Novu says we can still finish it if-’
‘If, if, if. Always “if” with that fool. Never “when”.’
Ana sighed. ‘This is what you’ve been saying all winter. Even though nobody supported you at the meeting when you challenged me. You’ve been going around attacking the dyke, attacking me. Putting people off, word by word.’
Zesi patted the baby on her chest. ‘And I’m going to keep on saying it. Just be grateful I was stuck in the house for as long as I was, little sister, or that dyke wouldn’t have been started at all.’
‘Look, Zesi, I don’t care about beating you. I don’t even care if you beat me.’
‘Well, that’s good, because you will be beaten.’
‘All I want is for the dyke to be finished.’
‘It never will be. Get used to the idea. Are we done here? Then let’s go find the other idiots, and get this over with.’ She crumpled the empty water skin, threw it back at Ana, and began to stride down the trail that led to the mouth of the bay. Novu was waiting for them at the bottom of the trail. Zesi walked straight past him, ignoring him, and headed to where Dreamer and the priest were waiting further on, at the abutment of the dyke itself.
Arga was here, working with a heavy scraper at the end of a thick log. When she saw Zesi coming she ran to her cousin. Zesi smiled and leaned down, so Arga could see the baby in his sling; Arga made cooing noises, and tickled the baby’s face. Her knees were grimy where she’d been kneeling to work.
Ana followed with Novu, more slowly. ‘At least she behaves like a human being around Arga. But what’s Arga doing here anyhow? She hasn’t got the muscles for heavy woodworking.’
Novu shrugged, looking tired, unhappy. ‘Look around. Nobody to collect more logs, nobody to work on those we have left. Things aren’t going well.’
‘Maybe Zesi really is getting to them.’
‘Either that, or it’s just the turning of the seasons. People have other things to do, in the spring.’
‘Well, we must try to speak to Zesi. That’s why I brought her here.’
They joined the priest. He waited with Dreamer, who had left her own child at home this morning; she stood tall in a simple smock, her rich dark hair tied back, her arms folded.
‘So,’ Zesi said, looking around at them all. ‘You’ve got your whole gang here, little sister. Two outsiders, and a priest who’s away with the spirits.’
Jurgi just laughed. ‘Good morning to you too, Zesi.’
Dreamer stayed as ice cool as her name. ‘Outsiders? Were we outsiders during those long nights in the house, Zesi?’ When, as Ana knew too well, it had been the priest’s medical expertise and Ice Dreamer’s patient support that had got Zesi through her labour.
Zesi was too tough to be deflected by that. She sneered and turned away.
Novu said impatiently, ‘Zesi, you’ve come all this way. Let me at least show you what we’ve built. Come, walk with me.’ He led the way out onto the tongue of the dyke, which pushed out from the shore and out across the mouth of the bay. It was little more than a single pace wide, but it rose up above the water surface, offering firm footing.
The others followed, including a sceptical Zesi. Arga ran ahead of the others, skipping, confident.
Zesi at least seemed intrigued by the construction. ‘So this is what happened to all those logs we cut.’
‘Yes. Look – they have been driven into the seabed, sharpened end first. It wasn’t as hard as it looks for the bed is very soft here, thick with mud. We build two parallel rows, as you can see. We jam them in as close together as possible, and caulk them with tallow, as you would caulk the seams of a boat. Then we drop rocks into the space between them, gravel and mud and sand and brushwood – anything we can carry, really – to force the water out. And that’s the dyke, and it’s waterproof, or as good as. Look.’
They had already reached the end of the dyke, as far as it had been built. Looking out Ana could see the other side, reaching towards her from the promontory on the south side of the bay mouth. At least people were working over there, hauling big bags of rubble out from the shore.
Zesi patted her baby absently as she looked around. ‘The logs will rot in the water. The whole thing will just crumble and wash away.’
‘But this is just a start,’ Novu said eagerly. ‘We can pile on more material, more rocks and mud, over the logs to seal them in. That way they won’t rot at all, and even if they did it would make no difference. When the first dyke is established it will be easy to build on it in future years.’ He reached up. ‘It can go as high as you like, as we deal with freak tides – or with the sea rising.’
‘So when will it be done, brickmaker? You said it would be complete by now. You are no more than – what – a third finished? ’ She gestured at the heap of logs, abandoned on the shore. ‘Where are your workers? Where, indeed, are your logs?’
Novu sighed. ‘You know as well as I do. We made a good start. But in the spring there’s hunting to be done, fishing, boats and nets to be repaired. Nobody’s actually refused to carry on. But they’re drifting away. We can’t get everything done, and build the dyke – that’s what people started saying to me.’
‘And you’ve dragged me all the way to see this vain joke of yours because-’
‘Because we want your backing,’ the priest said simply. ‘You know, Zesi, you fight for the respect you feel is your due. But you don’t need to try so hard. You are respected. You are your father’s daughter; you are a strong woman in your own right. People listen to what you say – and it’s entirely negative about the dyke.
‘I know it’s a difficult year. It will be a long time before we have anything but difficult years. But we have to find a balance between the needs of the present and this plan for the future. For if we don’t do this, sooner or later we will have to abandon this place, our ancestors’ land, and become rootless, like the snailheads. We are a great people. Remember that, Zesi. We once built the Mothers’ Door! And we forgot about it, nearly. We need to be a people who can do something more than just survive-’
‘What we need is less talk from you,’ Zesi said bluntly. ‘If you thought you would sway me with this nonsense, this walk into the sea, you haven’t. I’m going to keep on arguing against you until this foolish distraction is abandoned, and we get back to what’s important in life. I’m going back.’ She held out a hand. ‘Arga. You come too. Enough of this.’
But Arga was staring south across the bay. She pointed. ‘Look!’
Ana turned. There on the water, coming around the point of the bay, was a small fleet of boats. Even from here she could see that the people paddling them were snailheads. And behind them came what looked like a raft, wide, thick, huge. It was logs, a mass of them, strapped together and floating on the water.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Dreamer said.
‘I do,’ Ana said, warm deep inside. ‘It’s taken a while for Knuckle to come through. But here are the snailheads, coming to help us.’
One of the snailheads was standing on his boat, waving and shouting.
Novu waved back. ‘I can’t hear what you’re saying, if that’s you, Knuckle. But I love you, even if you are an ugly lophead!’ He grabbed Ana. ‘You see what this means? With lumber, with more muscles, we’ll get this first barrier finished in a heartbeat. And then-’
Ana had to laugh. ‘Yes, Novu? And then? What dreams are you cooking up now?’
‘Not dreams,’ Zesi hissed. ‘More madness.’
She was seething, Ana saw. But while Zesi might be able to talk around some of the Etxelur folk, she had no
