The Gate to Women's Country (11 page)

“Tell me about the Laplanders,” Stavia asked obediently, still wet-eyed, taking hold of Beneda's hand.

“They lived way up in the north where it was cold and snowy most of the time. They made clothes out of felt, like we do. Way back they followed these wild deer around, and it was hard to keep the animals together, so they picked the bulls that didn't run off and bred from those. And they milked them, too, the females, I mean, the cows. And they used deer hides to dress in. And the Lady knows what they did for fresh vegetables, because the book doesn't say….”

“I wonder if they're still there.”

“Where?”

“In Lapland. I wonder if they still exist. They might, you know.”

“Well, we'll never know. That was on the other side of the world. But the book says they guaranteed both their own survival and the animals' by domesticating them, so maybe they still exist.”

“Maybe one of these days, when the Women's Country exploration team goes out, they'll find a way through! Or maybe they'll decide to send a ship all the way across the ocean!”

“They did that hundreds of years ago, Stavia! The ship never came back!”

“Maybe they'll decide it's time to try it again. Things could have changed. Anyhow, when the next team goes in ten years, maybe I'll go along as medical officer.”

“Small chance.” Beneda made a teasing face.

“No, big chance. I think I'm going to Abbyville to the medical academy. Maybe in a couple of years. There could be a chance.” She stopped, her eye caught by movement on the parade ground below them. “Someone's waving at us.” Stavia jumped to her feet, surprised.

Someone was crossing the parade ground toward the stairs which led to the roof of the armory. From the armory roof to the wall top was only about twelve feet, which made the armory roof a favorite spot for the arrangement of assignations. “Is that Chernon?” Stavia
asked. She had seen Chernon only in his white ceremonial tunic. This boy wore dull tan sheepskin work clothes.

“Stavia?” he called as he came up the stairs. “Remember me?”

“Chernon?”

“Right. Is that Beneda with you?”

“Are you my brother?” Beneda leaned across the wall, and Stavia caught her around the waist, afraid she would tip herself over.

“I haven't seen you since you were about six or seven years old.” Chernon smiled up at her from under heavy eyelids, a measuring smile.

“Mother told me what happened. I'm so sorry, Chernon.”

“Me, too. That warrior, the crazy one, the one who was bothering me, well, he's dead now. He got killed during a bandit sweep. Would you tell Mother? Please. I'd like to come home this carnival. Or at least visit. Aunt Erica is fine, but I'd like to see you. And Mother.” His eyes were frankly pleading now, his lips quivering, ever so slightly.

“And the girls.”

“And the girls.” He cast a watchful look at the garrison grounds. “I can't stay here. Boys aren't supposed to be up here, only warriors. Besides, I'm on sleeper-in duty. I've got one quarter of the eight century to look after. Listen, there's a storeroom in the wall down past the west end of the parade ground. It's got some junk in it, but if you come to the outside wall there's a hole you can talk through or shove stuff through. Some of the warriors use it to make assignations. Bring me word there, will you? I can be there at noon, tomorrow….”

His voice trailed away as he heard a trumpet calling from behind the barracks. “The fourteens! My section,” he said, then called softly as he raced down the stairs and away, “Remember.”

The two girls stared at one another, scarcely believing the brief encounter. “Chernon,” breathed Beneda. “Oh, Stavvy, that's wonderful. I think he likes you, you know? The way he looked at you.”

“Let's find this place he spoke about,” Stavia suggested in a practical voice. Her insides did not feel at all practical. They felt liquefied. It was a strange, almost indecent feeling, and she did not want to deal with it, or even
consider it. “If you're going to be there at noon tomorrow to give him the message, then you'll need to know where it is.”

There were stairs from the wall down into a street slightly east of the plaza. From there they crossed the plaza, speckled with lunchtime sun-searchers, and found a twisting alley leading between the wall and a two-storied row of assignation houses, their doors and windows open for a semiannual cleaning prior to carnival. Along the alley were several locked doors and, at the end, an unlocked one. The room within was spider-veiled and full of rubbish, but someone had made a path through the trash to the far wall. The hole was at shoulder level, an opening the size of a hand, broken through a four-foot width of wall. Light came in from the far end, a pale spot marbled by wavering shadows.

“It's behind a tree,” mused Stavia. “That's why no one has reported it.”

“You won't report it, will you, Stavvy?”

“No. At least not until you've told Chernon whatever your Mom says.”

“I don't think you ought to report it at all,” Beneda said, examining the almost dust-free path among the rubbish, made by the prints of many feet of different sizes. “Somebody comes here a lot.”

C
HERNON WENT DIRECTLY
from the armory roof to report to Vice-Commander Michael who was sitting with Stephon and Patras under a spreading tree near the officers' residence. The slatted chairs and low tables under this tree were part of officers' country, and when they beckoned Chernon over, he hoped that some of his century were watching. It wasn't often that century Commanders were seen talking with a boy who was not even a warrior yet.

“You saw her?” Michael asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“And?”

“And… and what, sir?”

“How did she react?”

“Fine. I mean, she seemed interested.”

“Your sister?”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, Beneda was interested, too, but I thought you meant Stavia.”

“He did mean Stavia, grub,” smiled Stephon, a tall, angular centurion with a tight, narrow face, heavily lined around the eyes. “Your commander wants to know if you'll be able to get into her… good graces.” The smile turned chill, like a knife, and his smooth black eyebrows joined forces above his nose.

“Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

“You know what this is all about, don't you?”

“Yes, sir. Michael told me.”

“What did he tell you?” This with a confiding, easy glance at Michael, who lay back in his chair regarding Chernon under eyelids so heavy they looked almost swollen. When Chernon sought guidance from those eyes, they did not blink.

“He told me….”

“Spit it out, grub.”

“He told me the women know something. Something they're keeping from us.”

“All the women?” This was the third man, bulky, bearlike Patras.

“No. No, sir. That is, probably not. But the Councilwomen do. And Stavia's mother is on the Council. And Michael said maybe I can find out something if I get Stavia to visit me at home during carnival, or if I get to visit her….”

“Very good, Chernon,” murmured Michael. “And of course you'll tell us everything you find out?”

“Of course, sir.”

They waved him away, and he went, his head spinning with the honor and glory of it all. Most boys his age didn't even get to talk to the officers, much less do a special job for them.

“Not much chance of getting anything from that, is there?” bearlike Patras, furry Patras murmured to the other men as the boy went out of sight. Patras had hair where other men had skin, and even his voice sounded soft and growlly, as though there was fur in his throat as well.

“You never know,” said Michael. “We keep detailing enough of our best-looking men to court the Councilwomen and their daughters, we're bound to find
out something. They can't all be as tight-mouthed as Morgot
is.
The kid might pick up on something, or one of the others might.”

“And it might all be for nothing. Jik could be lying through his teeth, just to keep you from killing him.”

“That's possible. Likely, even.” Michael stretched, smiling his lazy smile. “Next time the fool cheats me on a woman, he'll lose some vital anatomy over it. Meantime, though, we won't disbelieve him just because he's a thief. He's been to Emmaburg and Annville. He's been to Tabithatown, which is a damn long way north of here. Jik hears things. If he says he's heard that the women are hiding something, he's probably heard just that. Secrets, he says.”

“What kind of secrets, did he say?” Stephon 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?” Stephon's lips twisted in a grimace of distaste as he sneered, “Stupid, baaing ewe 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 Stephon. “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 Stephon. “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?”

Stephon 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, Stephon, 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 Stephon. “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 Stephon's face, seeing the slow agreement build in his eyes. Stephon was clever. He was a good tactician, one of the best Marthatown had. If Stephon 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.