The Gate to Women's Country (43 page)

“Hear Susannah kilt herself,” Elder Jepson remarked. “Why'd she go and do that?”

Elder Brome affected not to have heard. Unwisely, Vengeance said, “She left a note. Said she was tired of bein' hit.”

“Chastised,” corrected Elder Jepson.

“She said hit,” Vengeance insisted. “Said it 'uz better bein' dead because he couldn't do nothin' to her dead. Said she'd rather die than have Papa do his duty on her again.”

This time Resolution Brome knocked his son to the floor.

Cappy, meantime, was harboring a deep and abiding suspicion that when he had used the shovel on the devil… on the holy woman, he had done something very, very wrong, something wronger than Papa would ever admit to. He looked up and caught the swollen eye of his half brother, Vengeance Brome, finding in that glance a gleam of something hard and implacable. Vengeance, Cappy realized, hated Papa.

It was a revelation which Cappy was to ruminate over for some time, a revelation which would eventually be shared with others before spreading like a cancer through the Holyland. It gave them all someone on whom to blame the ultimate Armageddon.

T
HE NEXT TIME
Stavia woke, the vague grayness in which she was submerged included movement, a bumpy rocking. Someone was doing something to her head.

“It's all right,” said Joshua. “I'm cleaning this cut on your head, sweetheart. Be still. I'm sorry if it hurts.”

“Doesn't hurt,” she tried to say, through swollen lips.

“Luckily,” he went on in a soothing voice, “your head is already shaved. That means I didn't have to shave it. You've got a nasty gash here.”

“Hit me,” she explained. “When I got away from there, one of them hit me with something.” None of the consonants sounded right. Evidently she couldn't quite move her lips.

“Ah,” he said. “Well, that explains it.”

“Where's Chernon?” she asked. It seemed important to know that he was not here.

“Mumble?” asked someone.

“She wants to know where Chernon is.”

“The last time I saw him, he was running for his life with about six Holylanders after him.” A stranger's voice. “… angel coming to rescue her.”

“Angel?” she asked, fading into darkness once more.

“Angel,” affirmed Joshua. “We left angel feathers in that room you were in, just to prove it.”

There was nothing after that for a long time, then a cessation of movement, firelight, someone spooning something warm into her mouth. Four or five shadows, people moving.

“They'll find us,” she said, clearly.

Corrig leaned over her, smoothing her forehead. “No chance, love. They aren't even looking. They're all huddled in their houses hoping the devils don't come back and finish them off.”

“Devils?”

He started to explain, but she was gone again.

When the light came back, she asked, “Angel… feathers?”

“Septemius gave us a whole bunch of his stagy stuff….”

“Why did you do that?” she wondered.

Several voices, including Septemius', offered explanation: “… credulous and superstitious….” “… inbred to the point they'll only last a few more generations…”“… spread confusion and general dismay….”

She didn't hear the rest.

S
HE KEPT FADING AWAY.
It was only slowly, over a long period of time, that she began to understand and remember anything that they told her. There was something about her eyes being different sizes that Joshua was worried about. She was in Septemius' wagon. They were almost back at Marthatown. She was in the wagon, alive, because Joshua and Corrig had sensed her capture, felt it when Chernon had hurt her. Over all those miles, they had simply known. They had known when Cappy hit her, too, which had brought them running. In her delirium, this did not seem impossible. It did not even seem unlikely. They had known, that was all, and like the good servitors they were, they had come to get her.

Septemius was there, and nobody was trying to keep secrets from Septemius because he already knew about it. Whatever it was that Joshua and Corrig could do, Kostia and Tonia could do as well. It was a secret, but some people knew about it.

So much Stavia understood. Knowing certain things about Joshua that she did, it didn't take much understanding. The only thing that really surprised her was that Corrig was part of it.

From the time Chernon had cut her, it had taken almost forty days to track her down. According to Corrig, that part had been simple though time consuming. They could feel where she was, but not how far. And, at first, she had not stayed in one place. From some directions, they could not feel her at all. The new men had been invaluable, as they seemed to have a unique sense of distance that the others lacked. It had taken longer than they liked, but they had located her at last, luckily only a day after she had been struck down by Cappy.

On their way, in Septemius's wagon, driving relays of donkeys all day and all night, they had discussed what they would do, and how, thoroughly betraying themselves to the old man in the process and completely destroying any illusions he might have had about the nature of servitors. In the end, it was Septemius who suggested that they raid the Holyland in the guise of devils, leaving ambiguous evidence of the supernatural behind them wherever possible.

“They're superstitious,” he had said. “I remember that.
They're self-righteous and superstitious and fearful and vengeful as all get out. If you just go in and get her, they're likely to think in terms of retaliation, and that will put your sheep-camp women at risk. If devils and angels and whatnot go in and get her, the Holylanders won't know what to think or who to retaliate against. A good demonic raid could keep them confused for several generations!”

Joshua found this sensible. He thought it was particularly sensible after Septemius told him about Chernon.

“That boy didn't think this up by himself,” Joshua said.

“That's what my nieces and I decided,” Septemius agreed. “I thought he'd been put up to it, and they agreed. Not that it wasn't his own nature to go along. He's a smooth-talking little weasel, too. Both of the girls commented on that.”

“Then just in case he's been up to smooth talk down there among the barbarians, we'd best do what we can to discredit him.” Claiming Chernon as a friend of demons, they decided, would be useful in destroying any credibility Chernon might have established, Joshua did not want to report to Morgot that Chernon had been left alive among the Holylanders to fulminate more trouble, later on.

Once they had located her, they had waited only until dark to mount their rescue attempt.

“You almost waited too long,” she murmured to Corrig and Joshua. The other three servitors had left them to travel north at speed in order to arrive home long before Stavia, Joshua, or Corrig came there. As far as Marthatown was concerned, Stavia had had an accident while on her exploration trip and the family servitors had gone to fetch her. That other servitors had been absent simultaneously was purely coincidental. Servitors were always coming and going on one kind of business or another.

“I don't know if I'd have lasted much longer,” she murmured again.

“Sorry, love,” said Joshua, raising her on his shoulder to feed her more soup. “We didn't know you were going to try to escape.”

“Couldn't stand it,” she mumbled through the mouthful of vegetables and broth. “Couldn't stand him.”

“Yes,” said Corrig. “That's easy to understand.”

Sometimes it was Septemius who raised her head and fed her broth. It was to him that she whispered the terrible secret, the one she had forgotten until that moment and forgot again a moment afterward.

They entered Marthatown at night, driving the creaking wagon through dark streets to the small hospital where Morgot and a quiet little room awaited. Morgot took one look at Stavia and turned away, her voice coming oddly, as though from a distance. “Janine, Winny, will you attend to this, please?” Then she went away, not to return for a little, by which time Janine and Winny had Stavia bathed and gowned and stretched out on the clean, unmoving bed with her head on a proper pillow.

Morgot came back then, with her eyes red but her voice perfectly calm. “It's going to take you a while to heal, child. I suggest you go right off to sleep and start doing it.”

“C
HERNON ACCUSED US OF KNOWING SECRETS
,” Stavia said, rolling her head upon the pillow. She had tried to sleep, as Morgot had suggested, but she couldn't. She was feverish, restless. All through the night her eyes had popped open at every movement, every sound. Now that it was daylight again and Morgot was there, Stavia needed to tell her things. “He said the women had secrets. Things he wanted to know. To be powerful.”

There was a long, pregnant silence, one so reminiscent of other silences which had fallen from time to time when she had been very young (silences older people had imposed when they became aware she was listening) that she opened her eyes, almost expecting to find herself a child again. Morgot was looking at her intently. “We do have secrets,” she said. “Of course.”

“I know,” Stavia said. In the wakeful night hours she had thought about that, about the things she had said to Chernon, all unwitting. “I'm afraid I told Chernon a few of them.”

“Like?”

“Like how we know who a baby's father is—the blood test.”

Morgot didn't say anything for a moment. “Well, that's really no secret, Stavia. Chernon may never return here. If he does, and if he tells the warriors everything you told him about that, it doesn't really matter.”

“Like the contraceptive implants.”

“We would have preferred they didn't know, but it doesn't cause any major emergency. We use implants for
many things besides contraception. That can be managed, I think.” The expectant silence came again. “You are pregnant, you know?”

“I thought I might be. Chernon cut the implant out some time ago.”

“It was the shock and pain of that which Joshua and Corrig felt,” Morgot said. “I saw the wound. Not a neat job.”

“I don't think Chernon cared.”

“No, possibly not. The question is, do you want to have the child?”

Stavia turned her head wearily away. Did she want to have this child? Was there any reason not to want a child, except for her fury at Chernon, this blistering feeling she had when she thought of him, as though he were a wound that needed cautery, a boil to be lanced, something requiring an immediate, terrible pain so that healing could start. “Is there some reason of health that I shouldn't?” she asked, begging for an excuse.

“We're not sure yet. The wounds on your back are fairly superficial. Painful, because they're infected. Unless there's something else, something unforeseen, you could probably manage the pregnancy without any physical damage.”

“Well then. What was it Myra said that time? I've got to start sometime.” It wasn't what she felt, but she was too sick to feel what she felt. If she gave in to her anger, it would overwhelm her, wash her away, and she would never find herself again. Somehow, though she was conscious for longer periods each day, she felt no stronger, no more able to cope. She did not want to feel anything, decide anything.

“There are at least two differences between you and Myra.”

“I don't understand.”

“You were forced and she wasn't. And you're carrying a warrior's child.”

“Well so was Myra….” Stavia's voice faded away into aching quiet.

Morgot was shaking her head. No. To and fro like the pendulum of a clock. No.

The silence became deeper, more vibrant with meaning, things that were not said suddenly more important
than anything she had ever been told. Something she should have known, should have guessed.

“Myra's first child… little Marcus. He wasn't Barten's child.” She didn't say it as a question. It wasn't a question. “Not Barten's child. Not any warrior's child. The warriors father no children. Not for any of us.”

Stavia shut her eyes and the dizziness came again, washing over her in a series of little quivering perceptions, as though the room shook to a strong wind, now, again, again. Something was wrong inside. Something broken that she hadn't known about, that Morgot hadn't known about, something wrong in there, like a fire burning at her from inside. A hairline crack in some essential part which was now growing wider, letting the fiery darkness out.

When she spoke it was so softly that she didn't know if Morgot would even hear her. “Reindeer,” she said as consciousness fled away. “Reindeer.”