The Gate to Women's Country (46 page)

“Hush, my darling,” he whispered. “Little bird, little fish, shhh.” As though she had been a baby.

“I'm not a bird,” she sobbed, trying to feel indignant.

“My bird,” he lulled her. “My little bird, my little fish, something dear and loved and rockable.”

“As big as a huge old jenny-ass,” she cried. “Like I'd swallowed a melon.”

“Or the moon, or the sun, or a bale of hay,” he crooned, the chair creaking as it carried them back and forth, a pendulum swinging. “Or an ancient elephant or whale. Leviathan, behemoth, huge she is, like the spread of a tree or the girth of a watering trough. Big as the moon. Monstrous huge….”

She could not stop the giggle which bubbled up unbidden. The tears dried and a wondering comfort replaced them.

“Corrig?”

“Hmmm?”

“When this is all over, will you still be here? With me?”

“Such is my intention,” he said. “I have this consistent hunger for you, Stavia. Maybe it's because of all the things Habby used to tell me about you.”

“What?” she demanded wonderingly. “What did he say?”

“Oh,” he resumed rocking, chuckling to himself. “All kinds of very interesting things….”

“And do you see what will happen to us?”

“Oh, and I do,” he said. “There will be a girl child. Yours and mine. And we will name her Susannah.”

“Poor woman. She did try her best for me.”

“We will go into the southland, Joshua and I and others, and we will bring back all the young women there.”

“Good,” she sighed.

“And we will have another daughter. Her name will be—Spring.”

“Ah. And what about this baby, Corrig?”

“This is a boy baby, Stavia.”

He rocked her gently while she cried.

It was the next evening that Corrig told her—tentatively, as one might offer a bit of food to a possibly dangerous animal—that Chernon had returned to the garrison.

“Where has he been?” she asked in a sick whisper. “I thought he was dead.”

“There was no point in upsetting you by talking about him. Actually, he's been traveling with a group of Gypsies,
but he has been in touch with the garrison officers from time to time.”

“Why did he come back!”

“You know why.”

“Because it would have been dishonorable to do anything else?” she sneered.

“And because he knows you're carrying his child, perhaps.”

Seemingly, that was not all.

Morgot came to Stavia's room that same evening and asked her to get dressed. “The Council wants to see you,” she said. “Ask you some questions.”

“About what?”

“Your brief sojourn with the Holylanders. They've been told all about it. It's just that there's a big decision coming up, and they want to be quite sure they have all the facts.”

“It's Chernon, isn't it? He's come back full of information about how women can be enslaved. How their heads can be shaved and they can be beaten. He's talking to everyone in the garrison.”

“He is, yes. He's evidently heard that you ‘can't remember anything,' so he's telling whatever story he pleases. He orates like something demented, but people are listening. He's been allowed to rejoin his century, the twenty-five. The servitors tell me the things he's saying are being widely accepted by a great many of the warriors.”

“Oh, by our most merciful Lady.”

“It may seem like a crisis to you, Stavia, but we've had worse. Now get your boots on.”

The meeting was a very short one, mostly questions about the Holylanders and the beliefs they had held. Toward the end of it, they asked Stavia to join the Council, not so much because she had earned the responsibility as because it would be helpful to have her as a member. She was still too young by at least a decade, they felt, but her unpleasant experiences had given her knowledge and insights that could be valuable to them. Besides, they wanted her under the Council oath for a whole variety of information. She, too weary even to argue, consented.

A
MAN CAME
to the garrison at Marthatown and knocked on Michael's door late at night, slipping inside like a shadow when the door was opened. He was, he said, from the garrison at Peggytown. Peggytown garrison was wavering. Her Commander wanted Michael and Stephon and Patras to meet him and help him out of a difficulty.

“What the hell?” sneered Stephon.

“Shh,” Michael directed. “What do you mean, they're wavering?”

“Some of the men think it's dishonorable. They may spoil the whole thing. Our Commander wants to talk to you about it.”

“We don't have time to….,” Stephon began.

“Shh,” said Michael again. “We need everything to hold together, Steph. We don't want a break.”

“That's what my Commander said. He doesn't think it's really serious, but he wants to know how you'd handle it. He thought you had the whole thing in your hand, sir. He said to tell you that. ‘Michael's got it in his hand. Those men of his—Stephon and Patras—they know exactly how to talk to my men. He'll know what to do.'”

“Where does he want to meet?”

“I brought a map. If you go straight south, he'll meet you on this line, here. Two day's travel, at most.”

S
TAVIA LOOKED AT THE MAPS
with an expression of wonder. “These are the maps they're giving to Michael? But the devastation isn't on this map. I mean, it's there, but it's in the wrong place.”

“Yes,” said Morgot.

“If they go on this trail that's marked, they'd go directly through it.”

“Yes,” Morgot replied. “They would. If they got that far.”

T
HEY DID NOT GET THAT FAR.
At the end of one day's travel, still north of the devastation and well away from the road which would have taken them to Emmaburg, in an isolated glen far from any human travel or habitation, the three settled into a spartan camp and drew lots for guard duty. Stephon had first watch. Michael took a whetstone from the donkey pack and set about sharpening his dagger. Patras amused himself with a bit of carving.
He was making a daggergrip out of bone. Stephon drank the last of his tea and looked about for a good place to sit while on watch.

“How long do you think this will take?”

“A day or two. We've got time.”

“I wish we'd found out about that weapon Besset saw.”

“I think I've come to agree with Chernon. Besset was drunk. Seeing things. Stavia didn't know anything about a weapon.” According to Chernon, Stavia had told him everything she knew about everything, none of which was important.

“Other people have heard….”

“I know. But when you ask them if they've seen it, no one has.”

“A myth?”

“Oh, probably not entirely. Probably truth in it.”

“I heard about a weapon once, something called a gun. It could shoot daggers a long way.” Stephon yawned.

“Not much good for what we want. We don't need to throw daggers a long way to take over the city,” Patras grumbled.

“Anyhow, the dagger I have in mind is a lot closer,” Stephon leered. “I'm planning on using it a lot.”

“On what?” said a voice.

“On any of them I can catch,” Stephon answered, laughing.

“Including that Morgot of yours, Michael, when you're tired of her.”

Silence fell. It occurred to each of them in the same instant that the voice which had asked, “On what,” had not been one of theirs. They rose, putting themselves back to back near the fire. Daggers and swords slipped from sheaths with a slithering sound, swords in right hands, daggers in left.

“Who's there?” asked Michael.

“I am,” said the voice again. “Don't you know me, Michael?” She came out of the dark into the nearer shadows, dressed all in black. Morgot. There was a hood over her head, hiding her hair. “After all we've meant to one another, I should think you would have known my voice,” she said gently.

“What are you doing here?”

“Come to ask you, what you are doing here, Commander
of the garrison?” There was a stump near where she was standing and she sat upon it, crossing her legs, leaning slightly forward, as she had done time and time again in the taverns, listening to their songs and tales of battle. “Tell me.”

“Garrison business,” he blurted. “None of women's concern.”

Stephon and Patras became aware of their martial stance, of their beweaponed selves. Somewhat asham-edly, they put the weapons away and stood a little aside. Whatever this was about, it was between the woman and Michael.

“Oh, Michael,” she said. “Dishonor is always our concern.”

“Dishonor,” he grated. “What would you know about that! What would any woman know about that!”

“Much. You are sworn to protect us, Michael. Why are you conspiring against us now?”

The challenge caught him by surprise. It was a moment before he could summon the necessary bluster. “What nonsense are you talking, woman?”

“Let me tell you some history, Michael.”

“We have no time to sit here while you tell stories,” said Stephon, nastily. “Get yourself back to Marthatown, Morgot. You have no business here.”

“Oh, you'll have time for this story,” she said comfortably. “Sit or stand as you please. But I will tell it.”

“Let her talk,” said Michael, regaining his composure. In his lazy, half-jeering voice, he said, “So, tell your story, Morgot.”

“Three hundred years ago almost everyone in the world had died in a great devastation brought about by men. It was men who made the weapons and men who were the diplomats and men who made the speeches about national pride and defense. And in the end it was men who did whatever they had to do, pushed the buttons or pulled the string to set the terrible things off. And we died, Michael. Almost all of us. Women. Children.

“Only a few were left. Some of them were women, and among them was a woman who called herself Martha Evesdaughter. Martha taught that the destruction had come about because of men's willingness—even eagerness—to fight, and she determined that this eagerness to
fight must be bred out of our race, even though it might take a thousand years. She and the other women banded together and started a town, with a garrison outside. They had very few men with them, and none could be spared, so some of the women put on men's clothes and occupied the garrison outside the town, Michael. And when the boy children were five, they were given into the care of that garrison.”

“Women warriors?” scoffed Patras. “Do you expect us to believe that?”

“Do or not, as you choose. When enough years went by, it was no longer necessary for the women to play the part, and it was left to the men. Except for those few who chose to return to the city and live with the women. Some men have always preferred that.”

“Cowards,” snorted Stephon. “We know all about that.”

“You don't know. Not really. No.

“In the first hundred years, the garrison twice tried to take over the city. But the women had not forgotten their years as warriors, Stephon, Michael. They fought back. Also, they greatly outnumbered the men. It is part of our governance to see that they always greatly outnumber the men.”

Michael said nothing. He was beginning to have a horrible suspicion, a terrible surmise. His eyes sought the shadows behind her. Was there movement there?

“In the two hundred fifty years after that, warriors have tried to take over this city, or other cities, time after time. None of the rebellions have succeeded, Michael. What kind of fools would we be if we were not aware and prepared for such things? Would we be worthy to govern Women's Country?”

“Who's with you, Morgot!”

“We,” said a voice from the darkness under the trees. “The humble. The lowly. Those who have left you.”

“Show yourselves,” cried Stephon. “Only cowards hide in the dark.”

“Cowards do many things,” said the voice. “Cowards kill their Commanders and make it look like a bandit attack. Cowards plot in secret. Cowards breed insurrection. Cowards plan the abuse of women.” One of the shadows under the trees moved. It was a man, or at least
of a man's height and bulk, dressed as Morgot was, all in black with a black hood over his head and only his eyes showing.

Behind him in the dark were other shadows. Michael counted six or eight. “I suppose it isn't cowardly to attack when you outnumber us.”

“I see no outnumbering,” said Morgot. “There are three of you. There is one of him. There is one of me.”

“I am required to tell you,” said the shadow confronting them, “what our code of behavior is. We never attack merely to wound or incapacitate. If we are driven to attack at all, there is no point in leaving our opponents alive. We never kill except in self-defense.”

“Self-defense!” snorted Patras. “Sneaking up on us in the middle of the night!”

“Self-defense,” repeated the shadow. “The defense of ourselves and our cities. The defense of Marthatown. The defense of Women's Country.”

Patras did not delay. He had been waiting a chance, waiting a moment's inattention, and he thought he saw it now. He lunged toward the figure before him, but it was suddenly not there. He turned to find it facing him with something in its hands, a short stick. The stick moved, spun, became a silver wheel, and Patras looked down at where his sword hand had been.

“Never to wound,” said the shadow. The silver wheel spun toward Patras' neck, and through it.

Michael grunted as though he had been kicked in the stomach. The man in black vanished into the darkness. Michael and Stephon held their breaths.

Morgot spoke again. “What you just saw? We call that one of our mysteries, Michael. Something the women warriors and the servitors learn and practice together. Martha Evesdaughter knew of these mysteries, and she taught them to her daughters. You have been asking our daughters about it. It and the other mysteries have their own honor. Never to be used for anything trifling. Never to be used for anything slight. For self-defense only, and always to rid Women's Country of those who are not and will not be part of it….”