The Gate to Women's Country Page 8

  "What kind of secrets, did he say?" Stephen asked.

  "Just something going on that we don't know about. Something to do with the servitors and the Councils," Michael replied.

  "I don't know why we care what little secrets they have. Why do we put up with them?" Stephen's lips twisted in a grimace of distaste as he sneered, "Stupid sheep! Why don't we just take over the city? We could. Any garrison could. Why don't we?"

  Michael laughed, a burst of genuine amusement. "Oh, what an ambitious warrior he is! There is the little matter of Commander Sandom. Commander Sandom is perfectly comfortable, right where he is."

  "I've heard him," muttered Stephen. "One of the twenty-two asked him the other day why we let the women run things, and old Sandom said, 'I'm sitting here at my leisure, boy, wearing fabric I got from Women's Country, drinking beer made from Women's Country grain. Tonight little Bilby will fix my dinner and he'll do it with Women's Country meat and beans and cheese. You want to get out in those fields and dig? Get yourself all muddy and cold? You want to be a shepherd, boy? Let the women run things. They like it, and why should I bother?' "

  "He has a point," said Michael mildly.

  "From a lazy man's point of view, yes," sneered Stephen. "The trouble is with Sandom, he's got no ambition."

  "Well, say we did take over. Do you want to get out there and grub in the dirt?"

  "Don't be stupid. I wouldn't have to. The women do that."

  "Of course they do that," Michael said. "You think they'd go on doing that if we 'take over the city'? We 'take over the city' and we might have to take over what goes with it. We might find we had to work like women. No amusements except during carnival? You want that? Short rations when the harvest isn't good? The city takes the cut, you know; we don't."

  "In the first place, if we were running things, we'd take our amusements when we liked. And we'd set the rations to suit ourselves, too."

  "And you think the women would go on doing all the work?"

  Stephen replied, "I think there are ways the women could be encouraged to do what they do now even if we did take over."

  "You're saying you've got it all figured out."

  "I'm saying nothing right now. Except I don't see why we should stay out here in garrison country when it would be so comfortable inside the walls. Why be satisfied with Gypsies, when Women's Country is full of prettier things."

  Michael smiled, narrowing his eyes. "The problem with you, Stephen, is you don't sit around the fire at night listening to the old men. Men who remember things that happened thirty or forty years ago. You ought to listen more, Steph. Take what happened in Annville, for example."

  "When?"

  "Oh, twenty years ago at least. While you were still listening to your sleeper-in tell bedtime stories."

  "I was not!"

  Michael laughed, a long, lazy laugh as he rubbed his belly. "The garrison in Annville decided to take over the city. They did it, too. One night they just moved in through the gate and put a warrior in every house. Well, almost every house. And three days later they had the whole Tabithatown garrison camped outside the walls. A day after that, they had the Abbyville garrison. Anybody went out, they stayed out. Women went out to farm, they stayed out. Food ran out in the town. Pretty soon, the men started drifting out. Last thing was, the officers got hanged on the parade ground and the garrison got split up between Abbyville and Tabithatown."

  "I never heard that!"

  "You think it's something they want you to hear? Let me tell you something, Steph. I could take Marthatown. You could, too. I've thought about it. I might do it. But anytime I figure on taking over the town, I'd better have two or three things ready ahead of time. The first thing, I'd have to have all the other garrisons set to go along. Either that or they agree to look the other way."

  "And what else?"

  "There'd have to be plenty of food. There'd have to be a huge harvest. The fall trading among cities would have to be over so there'd be a lot of surplus food in the warehouses."

  "I don't see...."

  "Right now we're living from harvest to harvest, Steph. Use your eyes and ears. Listen to women talk. You may think the women would work if us warriors took over the city, and eventually they probably would. But it might take a good long while to convince them. Your men get hungry, they start drifting away. You're not going to hold a city without men, and you can't hold men without food!"

  "Hell," snorted Stephen. "All that might take forever."

  "Well, we're only talking," Michael replied with a slow smile. "I'm like old Sandom. I'm comfortable now. I'm young. I've got time. If I ever get involved, I say 'if,' in anything like, oh, call it taking our rightful place in the world if I ever do, I'll have everything planned out first. Talk about ambition all you like. If ambition means doing something stupid when the time isn't right, then I haven't got any more ambition than old Sandom has." He watched Stephen's face, seeing the slow agreement build in his eyes. Stephen was clever. He was a good tactician, one of the best Marthatown had. If Stephen was willing to relax and let things happen, well then, Michael might be able to use him. Michael was not as lazy or as unambitious as he appeared, but he had no intention of risking his life or position, either.

  "Something unfortunate would have to happen to Commander Sandom," said Stephen. "That's sure."

  "Well, yes. And not only to Sandom. To his cronies, too. Armory-master Jander. The head provisioner, Genner. Vice-Commander Thales. Maybe a few others. They're all popular, Stephen. And they're all senior to us."

  "They're all a lot senior to us. They won't live forever."

  "No. We could almost bet on that, couldn't we? Meantime," he yawned, "Chernon and the other pretty grubs'll see what they can find out. I've told them all to keep their ears open. Listen in on conversations, that kind of thing. Long term, I want Chernon in tight with that younger daughter of Morgot's...."

  "Morgot's daughter? She's your daughter, too, isn't she? Morgot never has carnival with anyone but you, does she?"

  Michael laughed. "Warriors don't have daughters. They may beget an occasional girl, my friend, but we don't have daughters. You ought to know that! No, you've got to use girls for what they're good for. Forget daughters. Stavia's nothing to me. Or Myra, either. Barten's courted Myra until she's eating out of his hand. He's done well, Barten."

  "With some protest," laughed Stephen.

  "Well, Myra wasn't his first choice. Let's put it that way," Michael agreed. "A bit screechy and bony, he thought. He had a lust for the juicy little Tally. It took some fatherly instruction, but Barten will do his duty to the garrison."

  "If you think Morgot knows so much, I don't understand why you can't get it out of her," Stephen said maliciously. "According to you, she can't leave you alone."

  "Morgot's good at some things, but she doesn't talk," said Michael. "But little girls with their first assignation..." He laughed, knowingly. "Oh, they talk, don't they? They chirp like crickets. You can't shut them up."

  "Has Barten found anything out?"

  "Not much, but he's got Myra all steamed up about how foolish the ordinances are. Stuff like that. If it runs in the family, Stavia might be another one. That's all we want, two lovesick little chickens, mad at their mama and cheeping their heads off to our young cocks!"

  "Maybe you should have gotten rid of Vinsas earlier, Michael. It would have made it easier for the boy to stay close to his family."

  "I don't take action against warriors because some woman asks me," he replied angrily. "I don't do anything because some woman asks me."

  "Of course not," said Stephen soothingly. "But killing that bastard Vinsas was a damn good idea, no matter what the reason."

  STAVIA TOLD MORGOT about Chernon's request to come home while they were fixing supper that same night. "He says that warrior, Vinsas, is dead."

  "That's odd," said Morgot. "I hadn't heard of any warrior deaths recently."

  "Chernon said it was during a bandit sweep?"

>   "I would have heard of it...." Morgot looked both puzzled and troubled, but seeing the concern on Stavia's face, she smoothed her own and went on. "Well. At least that's good for Chernon. Sylvia will probably agree to have him come home."

  "Is there some reason she might not?"

  "There's every reason, but I think she will. It's hard to take a son back and maybe have to grieve over him again when you've already done it and gotten over it."

  "I don't understand."

  Morgot got a faraway look on her face, her eyes sad. "You bear a son. When he's still a baby, you think of losing him when he's five. You grieve. You get over it. Then the day comes that your son is five and goes to his warrior father. You grieve. You heal. Then, every time he comes home for carnival, it's like ripping the wound open again. Each time you heal. And then, when he's fifteen, maybe he chooses to stay in the garrison, and you grieve again. You lie awake at night with your eyes burning and your pillow wet. You choke on tears and they burn. You worry about his going into battle, being wounded, dying. Every battle means... every battle means someone dies. Maybe your son, or your friend's son. Some women can't go on doing it over and over. Some women try to forget; they never speak of their sons again after the boys turn fifteen. Other women go on watching them, waving to them from the wall, sending them gifts." Her voice broke and she turned away.

  "Don't you think Habby and Byram will come back?" Morgot's distress was unexpected and frightening, and Stavia asked for reassurance, even though she already knew the answer.

  "I don't know, Stavvy. I hope so. But we just don't know." Morgot's eyes were wet as she sought a way to change the subject. "Why don't you go tell Myra to come peel these potatoes?"

  "I'd just as soon not. She's been pretty awful ever since that day," Stavia said in a glow of self-righteousness.

  "I think that's mostly just drama."

  "Well, whatever it is." She sneaked a look at her mother who looked more herself now.

  "Go get her anyhow."

  Stavia went, taking her time about it, giving Morgot time to get herself together. Myra came to the kitchen and peeled potatoes with a look of remote distaste. Stavia and Morgot talked about nothing much, their conversation swirling around Myra's silence like water around a half-submerged rock. Stavia thought their familiar babble might eat Myra away in a thousand years. Myra was blaming them for what Barten had done to Tally, blaming both Morgot and Stavia for being there when she found out about it. Not blaming Barten, though, which Stavia found aggravating.

  "Did you get down to the medical center today?" Morgot asked the silent girl.

  "No." A curt monosyllable.

  "Will you please go tomorrow?"

  "I haven't decided."

  "Myra, we've talked this over and over. If you don't want to be in detention during carnival, you've got to get down to the med. center for a checkup and get yourself stamped."

  "You're not stamped!"

  "No, because I have no intention of putting on skirts and taking part in carnival. Not this year. But you probably do."

  "I haven't decided."

  "You can't leave it until the day of carnival, Myra. You have to make the decision well in advance. That's just the way it's done."

  "And what if I don't?"

  "You know very well what if you don't. If you don't, you can stay in the house during carnival as you chose to do last year and the year before. That was fine then. You weren't interested in anyone particularly, and I'm not about to suggest that you should have played catch-as-catch-can in the taverns at age fifteen or sixteen. However, you're seventeen now, and you are interested in someone. I don't want you being angry at me because you won't obey the ordinances and then you want to have an assignation with Barten and can't!"

  "I'll stay in the house. The rules are stupid, anyhow."

  Stavia, who agreed that some of the ordinances were stupid but who never would have said so, was aghast at Myra's comment.

  "Fine. If that's your decision. If you go onto the street, you'll be picked up and taken to detention, and they'll probably assign you to a supervised labor team to clean the assignation houses."

  Myra slammed down the bowl of peeled potatoes and stalked down the hall to the sanitary closet.

  "She's hiding in there," said Stavia.

  "I know. Poor thing. She's all mixed up between what her body wants to do and all the romantic, dramatic notions Barten had helped her work up for herself. Deathless love. Undying promises."

  "That's just Myra," she said uncertainly.

  "Well, it's any of us, Stavvy. I've heard a few of those same promises from young warriors. I've had a few romantic or sentimental notions myself, from time to time. We all like to invent worlds that are better than this one, better for lovers, better for mothers.... For all I know, Barten believes it himself. Many warriors do."

  "Like the poets."

  "What poets?"

  "In Iphigenia at Ilium. Making what really happened to Iphigenia into something else. Really she was murdered, but that made the men feel guilty, so they pretended she had sacrificed her own life. Barten knows what would really happen to Myra if she went out to the Gypsy camp, but he makes it into something else in the stories he tells her."

  "Mmm. Yes. As a matter of fact, that's a very good comparison. It's one of the things we on the Council try to keep in mind, the need to keep sentimentality and romance out of our deliberations. Leave romance to the warriors: We can't afford it in Women's Country."

  "You could tell Myra she'd better get it while she can. There's no fucking in Hades."

  "Stavia!"

  Stavia flushed, then turned guilty white. The phrase was more literary than womanly. She heard a choking sound and turned to find her mother bent across the kitchen table, eyes flowing with tears, lost in silent laughter.

  ON THE LAST DAY POSSIBLE, Myra went to the medical center and was given an implant in her upper arm, vitamins, Morgot said, because she hadn't been eating properly. At the same visit she was sealed for carnival. The red ink of the stamp was hidden by a fall of auburn hair at one side of her forehead and was thus scarcely a visible matter. However, once she had it, she seemed to come to terms with herself and almost stopped flouncing about. She did stop twitting Joshua, though she didn't treat him with her old, affectionate respect. Still, it made life pleasanter for both Morgot and Stavia, as well, no doubt, as for Joshua himself. Carnival was never a comfortable time for the servitors. They stayed mostly in the residential or private areas in order to avoid any confrontations between servitors and the warriors they might once have known rather well. Not that any of Marthatown's garrison except Habby and Byram would know Joshua. Joshua had come from Susantown when he was only eighteen. Men who returned through the Women's Gate often chose to go to different cities from the ones they were born in, just to avoid seeing old acquaintances. If Habby returned through the Women's Gate, he could choose to be sent to Susantown or Mollyburg or to one of a dozen other cities. Morgot or Stavia could always visit him there.

  Beneda had delivered a message to Chernon, telling him he would be welcomed at home. Stavia passed her examinations in women's studies and physiology, and was commended for her gardening project. Her sketch for a setting of Iphigenia at Ilium was acceptable, as was her rendition of her assigned part. She managed to write from memory the assigned section of the ordinances, making only a few mistakes in punctuation. Then all studies and projects were terminated for one month to allow the instructors time to make their own carnival arrangements. Except for these semiannual holidays, school went on year after year, all year around. No matter how old they were, almost all the women in the city were studying something.

  "After the convulsions," Morgot said, "a lot of knowledge was lost because people didn't know anything outside their own narrow areas, and the books were gone. Even if you're seventy, you should be learning something more in case it's needed."

  The thought of still having to study when she was seventy made Stavia's head a
che.

  Chernon's arrival at his mother's house coincided with Stavia's having more time than usual to visit Beneda and visit Chernon, too, of course, since he was there. Since he had made a point of asking Beneda to invite her.

  "Why did you speak to me the day we brought Jerby to his warrior father?" she asked him. They were on the upper porch of Sylvia's house, hanging the washing out above the courtyard. Beneda had taken the wash-wagon to fetch the full baskets from the sector wash-house, and Stavia had offered to hang the load if Chernon would carry the basket up the stairs for her.

  He thought carefully for a moment, deciding what to say. He certainly didn't want to tell Stavia that he had spoken to her because Michael had suggested it. "I didn't dare go up to Mother, or Beneda," he temporized. "I didn't know if I'd be welcome, and besides, they were standing too far back. I was going to give you a message for them, but there just wasn't time." He shook out a wet sheet and handed her one corner of it.