The Gate to Women's Country (19 page)

“Hell, Besset, that was over two years ago we said you'd died.”

“Well, I haven't been anyplace close. The bunch I got in with moved around. We went up to Tabithatown and that, and then down the coast and cut back over to Annville. We picked up a man here, a man there. More'n half the men wanderin' around with those bunches are
from the garrisons, you know? And some of' em are just gone without leave and that, and some of ‘em are like me, keepin' in touch to let their Commanders know what's goin' on and that, so everywhere we went it was them tryin' to find out what I know and me tryin' to find out what they know.”

“And what did you all know?” drawled Stephon in a bored tone. “Not much, from the sound of it.”

“Not much,” Besset assented. “That's true enough. All the men I talked to feel pretty much the same way. They all think the women've got some secret or other they're not tellin' and that. Most of em think it's somethin' religious. Like the Brotherhood of the Ram, you know? Only for women.”

“We don't talk about the Brotherhood, Besset. Chernon here may be useful, but he's not a warrior yet.”

“I was just comparin'.”

“Well don't.”

“All right. That's just what some of ‘em say, anyhow. There's talk here and there about takin' over and that, but nobody's doin' anything about it. Up north, toward Annville, they don't even talk about it, because of that other time and that.”

“So? Where have you been?”

“Well, then we worked back east for a while, and it was pretty much the same thing.”

“You don't look like you've been eating all that well,” observed Michael.

“We're not exactly welcome in itinerants' town, are we? On the road it's what we can take, not what they give us. We had a couple of lucky bits, took over a wagoneer's family for a while, but he tried to get away and then she acted up and that, so we did them, and then one night their kids run off with the animals. Well.”

“So!” said Michael again, impatiently.

“So, I'm tellin' you. We were east of here. It was sometime back, before the Marthatown carnival and that, and we saw this wagon makin' for Marthatown. We thought it was some wagoneer family. One man and one woman and a kid.”

“Yes.”

“There was seven of us, so Challer—he's the one from Melissaville called himself the boss—Challer decides we
should have a few games and that with the woman and kid, then take the animals over and sell them at the donkey market in Mollyburg. We followed along until it got dark, then waited while they made camp and settled down.” The man called Besset drank deeply from his mug, the foam making a white ring around his dirty mouth.

“You didn't see who it was?”

“No, just that at least one of 'em was a woman. We heard her talkin', but it was too dark to see anything. Then we rushed the camp, or I should say they did, because I hung back. I thought maybe if they was from around here, they might recognize me, you know?”

“What difference would that have made?” Stephon asked in an interested tone. “You didn't intend to leave them alive, did you?”

Chernon flushed red, unnoticed in the fireglow. They were talking about murder! And Michael wasn't even surprised!

“I guess I wasn't thinkin', to tell you the truth. Well, so the men rushed the camp, and all of a sudden there was fire all over the place and that and this silver thing whirlin' around, and I heard Challer scream and then his head came bouncin' down the hill where I was, and I took off.”

“A silver thing?” Stephon asked in an ominous tone. “That's all you can tell us is some wagoneer had a silver thing?”

“I couldn't see any more than that. Just this silver thing, like a wheel, and the men screamin', and not a sound otherwise.” Besset took another pull at the beer, his hand trembling.

“Damn,” said Stephon, disgustedly.

“Wait, I'm not done yet. So I went away about half a mile and hid out in this kind of gully there was down there, and waited until morning. Long about first light, here went the wagon out of there and that, still three people in it, no sign of anybody else, but it wasn't no wagoneer. Least they wasn't dressed like wagoneer people. It was a servitor and a woman and a girl from Women's Country. I couldn't see who, but it was Women's Country people. And somethin' else. I swear there was nothin' in that wagon but them. No bodies, nothin'. But when I went over where they'd been camped, all there
was there was ashes from one campfire and that's all. Challer's head was gone. So were the rest of' em, gone.”

There was a lengthy silence, during which Chernon made himself small and inconspicuous, hoping they would not notice him again. He did not know what to think about what he had heard. It occurred to him that Michael might prefer that he hadn't heard it. The Commanders didn't even look at him, however, and he thought they had forgotten he was there. So, probably Besset wasn't even telling the truth, and that's why Michael didn't seem surprised. Besset was lying, or had been drunk, or had been eating mushrooms the way some of the Gypsies did to make them see visions. Maybe. Though, if he was telling the truth or something like the truth, it could mean the women had some kind of weapon nobody knew about. Or some kind of power nobody knew about.

Chernon wanted to believe it was some kind of power they had, something he could learn about and use. Later, when he listened outside the officers' quarters window, however, he learned that Stephon and Michael thought it must be a weapon.

“That's probably it,” Michael rumbled. “The thing they're hiding. The thing the women know that they're not talking about. Something left over from old preconvulsion times, most likely. Isn't that like them! Tell us we have to do without any preconvulsion stuff and then use it themselves! Hypocrites! We need to find out about that. We'll get this war with Susantown out of the way, then we'll concentrate on finding out what this is. Maybe send out some of the younger men. Maybe fix some of them up like itinerants….”

“How?”

“Oh, teach 'em to do some kind of act. Acrobats or something. Juggling, maybe. We've got a few young ones who are good at that.”

Chernon had not stayed under the window to hear any more. If they sent anyone, he wanted to be that one.

F
ALL CAME
with chilly winds and the leaves turning gold when the word swept through Women's Country like another kind of wind. The evil intentions of the
Susantown garrison had been confirmed. War was declared.

Every woman and child in the town was on
the wall
when the garrison marched out, staring down at the parade ground where the warriors assembled, banners flying, armor glittering like ten thousand sun-shattered mirrors, throwing shards of glory into their eyes. Barten was not wearing the device Myra had sewn for him, but he pointed to his pack when he saw her, indicating to her that he had it. Stavia thought he was very pale.

“He thought he had another year to make up his mind,” she surprised herself by saying to Morgot. “Then, all of a sudden, he didn't have any time at all.”

“Barten?” her mother asked. “That's true, Stavia. I spoke to Michael during carnival this summer, and he told me Barten did seem quite surprised when he was told he was a year older than he thought.”

The warrior drum and buglemen began their blammety blam, ta-ra ta-ra; the ranks wheeled into an endless line and began the march, di-da-rum di-da-rum di-da-rum. Before it seemed possible they could be gone, there was only the flutter of guidons down the road and a haze of dust to the east, showing which way they went. Then the wagons pulled out, full of food and blankets and extra boots, driven by old one-eyed, lack-armed, lost-footed warriors who hadn't died while the glory was still around them as they probably wished they had done.

The women's band struck up, “Gone Away, Oh, Gone Away,” and Stavia found herself singing.

Though Susantown wasn't some far-distant shore but merely sixty miles east, and the warriors wouldn't go more than half that distance, probably, before meeting the Susantown garrison coming west. Perhaps there would be a treaty and no one would be killed.

One of the Council members came up to Morgot and asked a question.

“Bandits?” Morgot said. “Yes. I did speak to the garrison Commanders about that, Councilor.”

The Councilor, an elderly woman whom Stavia had met half a dozen times but never really come to know at all well, mumbled something which Stavia could not hear.

Morgot answered, softly but clearly. “Oh, we all agree that's likely, ma'am, but there's no proof as yet.” Then she turned, letting Stavia surprise a look on both their faces, a shut-in, secret look which she had
seen
before on her mother's face, though rarely. Not for the first time, she felt the wheels of Women's Country turning beneath the city, turning silently, without her help.

As on that night on the road from Susantown.

“Which never happened,” Stavia reminded herself. “Which never happened.” For a long time after that night, she had caught herself imagining what might be going on. Men with tattoos from different garrisons, all together, almost as if they'd been selected to make up some kind of intergarrison team. For what? She had driven herself crazy wondering for what, finally deciding that if she couldn't talk about it, it was better to pretend the thing had never occurred at all. The actor part of her was able to do this easily. To the actor part, none of it had happened. The observer, however, found this selective memory difficult.

With all the men over twenty-five gone except for a few armorers and cooks, the younger warriors and boys left behind were more or less free to wander about the garrison territory as they liked, and Stavia found Chernon waiting for her on the armory roof the next time she and Beneda went to the wall. Her heart slowed, then hammered, and she felt terrified.

“Benny, let me talk to Stavvy alone, will you?”

“Stavia's too young for assignations, brother,” said Beneda, pretending that she had not brought Stavia to the wall at his request,

“I'm not talking assignations, now get lost, will you?”

Beneda flounced off, pretending to be annoyed. All her hopes for Chernon revolved around Stavia's influence on him. Or so, at least, she thought.

“Stavvy.” His eyes were so clear. The skin on the hand he reached up to her was as clean and soft as a child's.

She wanted him to touch her. Hold her. “I've missed you,” she faltered. “I wish you hadn't gotten mad at me.”

“I… I wasn't mad at you. Not really. I know what you were trying to do, Stavvy, and that's why I came today. I have to explain, you know?”

“Let her know you're not going to do what she wants you to, boy,” Michael had said. “Make it clear that she's not that important to you. Then shell break her neck trying to become that important. Women are like that.”

“Stavia's pretty… well, she's independent,” Chernon had objected.

“I don't care how independent, “Michael had laughed. “They're all the same.”

“You have to explain what?” asked Stavia, trembling.

“The fifteens have to choose in a few months. I have to explain to you why I'm going to stay with the garrison.”

Stavia heard him without real surprise. Well, there it was. What was the point of standing here listening to anything else? She might as well leave now, go home, get her grieving over with. Morgot said one had to do that, over and over. No sense drawing it out.

“Stavvy!” There was something withdrawn in her face which frightened him. Michael could be wrong. He could be. He didn't know everything. Michael couldn't get Morgot to talk, so he didn't know everything. “Stavvy!”

“Yes.”

“Don't look like that.” He temporized, trying to make it sound less bare and incontrovertible. Michael would not have played it this way, but Chernon thought it necessary. “Don't you see, if it wasn't for the war, I could have done it? But I can't do it
now
! Not with the war. Not with so many probably getting killed, not with men coming back wounded who'll need our help. I've got ten years left to make up my mind, Stavvy. I can return to Women's County later. After the war, when everything's settled down.”

“I don't understand what it is you can't do.”

“I can't let my friends down,” he said in a dedicated voice, as though he were taking the oath of a defender. “Not now.”

“But you think you will later?”

“Well… I wouldn't even then, Stavvy, except for the books. There are so many things I want to find out. Things you know. I know I have to come to Women's Country to do that. But I can't be selfish, either.”

“I see.” Her tone made it clear she did not.

“You don't see. But I hope you will. And respect me for it.”

“We respect the warriors,” she answered formally, a faint far ringing in her voice, like a knell. “Are you going to do that terrible thing to your mother? Tell her she's insulted your manhood?”

The question caught him off guard. With a good deal of anticipatory satisfaction, he had planned to do exactly that. “N-n-no,” he stuttered. “It's not obligatory. I wouldn't do that.”

“Well, that's something.”

“But you will go on bringing me books, please. Please, Stavvy. I can't make it without. I really can't!” His eyes were full of tears, his lips trembled. He really couldn't. He meant it.

Though every part of her longed to tell him yes, she shook her head. She didn't know. She would have to ask someone. Maybe Joshua.