I had forgotten. I had endured my schooling, not enjoyed it. “Then we have changed the rules once, and we can do it again.”
“We can,” my mother agreed. “And I think we will, but it won’t be easy, for any of us.” We paused outside her house. “Maya is right. At the end of this, even if we are victorious, the world will have changed.” She opened the front door. “I am very tired, Lena. Try to rest.”
But I could not. At the first light of dawn, I slipped down to the kitchen, brewed tea, found some bread left over from dinner, and went to the boats. I was scrubbing the hold, brush in hand, when Maya joined me several hours later.
“Did you sleep?” I sat back on my haunches.
“A bit,” she said. She re-tied her hair, not looking at me. “Did you?”
“No. I got back fairly late and couldn’t stop thinking.”
She met my eyes. “Can we just work and not talk about it?”
I sighed. “If you like.” I knew from experience that when Maya did not want to talk, insisting on it would just irritate her more. “Can you see if any of the ropes needs splicing? I thought one was fraying yesterday.” She nodded, turning away. I held my tongue, channelling my frustrations into my scrubbing.
We worked until the noon bell rang, talking only of the boat and the fishing, calmly but distantly. The routine of the work eased my irritation. Around us, other fisherwomen went about their daily chores. To an outside eye, the life of the village would have appeared to go on as normal. When the bell rang, I gave the hold one last swipe. I dumped the dirty water overside and put the bucket and brush away. Maya, on the dock, coiled the rope in her hands, stowing it neatly. We walked back up the hill with a half-dozen other women and apprentices. The illusion of normalcy had vanished. The tension crackled like summer lightening, and few of us spoke in more than brief murmurs or sharp retorts as we returned to our houses. Tali had put bread, cheese, and fresh radishes on the table. My stomach growled at the sight.
“Maya?” I asked. “Do you want some food?”
“No.” She turned away to climb the stairs.
“Tali?”
She leaned against the sink, drinking tea. She shook her head. “I don’t think I can eat,” she admitted.
I sliced the radishes thinly onto the bread, layered cheese on top, and sat outside on the steps in the noon sun to eat. I wanted space, not walls. Maya came back down the stairs, her footsteps resonating on the pine planks. I ate half the food, and suddenly, I had had enough. I took the remainder back to the kitchen, wrapped it in a cloth, putting it on a shelf. Tali hadn’t moved. She had lighted a candle in the small shrine by the hearth, an offering to the goddess. She looked at me, and in her eyes I saw both fear and resolve.
“Time to go,” she said quietly. I nodded. Maya emerged from another room. She had pulled her hair back and braided it tightly, accentuating the pale planes of her face. Without a word, she walked past us and out the door.
“Maya,” Tali’s voice was almost pleading and so quiet I did not think Maya could have heard. I looked at my aunt. Tears gleamed in her eyes.
“Tali?” I said. “What is it?”
She brushed a hand across her eyes. “I’m so afraid for her,” she said. “Of what she might do.”
“So am I,” I said slowly. “But even if we vote to defend Tirvan, she won’t need to fight. Someone will have to take care of the babies and cook.”
“Maybe,” Tali said. “Maybe.”
Maya waited for us on the porch, standing apart from the other women who had gathered there. When we entered the hall, she walked beside her mother. We stopped just inside the door, letting our eyes adjust to the dimness. Women sat on the benches or stood in small groups around the walls, talking in low tones. Tali saw my mother across the room and went to join her. Maya slipped onto a bench. When I sat beside her, she slid an inch or so over. I reached over to take her hand. She shot me a cold look, giving a tiny shake of her head. I felt a spurt of anger. We’d had arguments before, of course, but usually she accepted my gestures of reconciliation. I shrugged, and increased the distance between us on the bench, bumping into Kyan. I murmured an apology. Kyan made space for me, sliding closer to her partner, Dari.
Gille rose to speak. “We meet here this afternoon under the rules of the council,” she said formally. “You were all here last night. You know what Casyn, in the name of the Emperor, has asked. Gwen and Sara and I have met with Casyn for much of the morning, but there is little I can add to what he told us yesterday. There is good reason to believe that Leste is planning to attack the women’s villages in the autumn, after harvest, to take food for their land. We are being asked to defend ourselves, to allow the men to subdue Leste and, at the same time, keep the northern Wall manned. This afternoon, we need to debate and discuss this, and then vote.” I heard a few whispers as Gille spoke, but mostly we kept to the rules and did not interrupt. I looked at Maya. Her face was grim, and a muscle worked in her cheek. “That is our task,” Gille reiterated. “Who wishes to speak?”
A dozen women stood, scraping benches. Sara scanned the room. In council, we speak from youngest to oldest. Maya did not stand. Sara nodded. “Cate,” she acknowledged.
“The men were here so recently.” She frowned. “Why did we hear nothing from them? Even rumours? All the talk was of the Wall. How do we know this is true?”
“Aye!” The agreement came from several places in the circle. A good question, I thought. At Festival, the men had many stories, told publicly and, no doubt, I assumed, privately. I knew only the songs and the tales told in the public gatherings, but Cate spoke truly. The Wall loomed large in those. Occasionally stories of Casilla, the only true city of the Empire, down on the Edanan Sea, took centre stage, but I remembered nothing about Leste.
“Casyn spoke as an Emperor’s Messenger,” Sara reminded us. “They are bound to speak the truth. As to why we heard nothing from the men, it is simply that they did not know. Only the Emperor and some men of rank were fully aware.”
“That’s what he says, is it?” I turned to see who had spoken out of turn: Minna.
“Mother!” her daughter hissed. Minna muttered something, then subsided. I turned away. Minna’s mind wandered, we all knew; she could not be held responsible for the lapse of council etiquette. The murmurs of assent audible in the room, though, told me many shared her doubt. I turned to Maya again, hoping to see some reaction, but she stared at the floorboards, not looking up.
Ranni spoke next. Six months into a difficult pregnancy, she leaned on her partner’s shoulder for support. “If it is food they need,” she asked, “why can’t they just trade for it? Or we could just give it to them.” A louder wave of murmurs swept the room. Gille raised her hand, requesting silence. Feet shuffled, bodies shifted. Gille waited for the room to calm.
“They have little to trade, or little that we want,” Gille answered. “Even the military needs only so much dried fruit, or spices, or wine. And we have only so much extra without going short ourselves.”
Ranni nodded and sat. Her partner put her arm around her. Sweat beaded on my forehead and neck. Again, Gille waited for silence. “Mella,” she indicated, nodding to another pregnant woman.
“Does an Emperor’s Messenger have the right to ask this of us?” she said simply. “Does even the Emperor have the right to ask us to break the precepts of Partition?” She cradled her unborn child with both hands, looking down at her swollen stomach. “How would I explain that, to her?”
“You can’t,” someone called.
“Quiet!”
“There’s reasons!”
“It’s not right!”
The hall resounded with voices. I’d never seen us break order before. Startled, I turned again to Maya, but she seemed unaware, still locked inside herself. When I put my hand on her rigid shoulder, she pulled away again without looking at me. I felt tears threaten, tears of fear and sudden loneliness. I scanned the room, searching for Tali, or my mother, and met the eyes of
Tice, our new potter, sitting alone across the circle. Her face showed no emotion, but she cocked her head slightly to acknowledge me. She gazed back at me steadily. I looked away, embarrassed that she might have seen the tears glinting in my eyes.
The clang of the meeting bell reverberated through the room. When the last vibrations had stilled, and with them the voices, my mother spoke, quietly and firmly. “All of you,” she reminded, “learned the rules of Partition in your school days. Siane,” she addressed a seated woman, “your Lara is still a student. Have you helped her learn the rules, as they were written at the Partition assembly?”
“Yes,” Siane replied.
“Would you remind us what it said, regarding food?”
Siane did not rise. She had been a herdswoman before a berserk bull smashed her left leg to pieces, and now stood and walked with difficulty. She kept the village accounts and breeding records, and had a prodigious memory. “Whatever foodstuffs a village produces, whether meat or grain, fruit or vegetable, is theirs to keep and trade among the villages. No tithe will be given to nor expected by the Empire’s armies, fleets, or messengers, or by the Emperor himself,” she recited. She looked questioningly at my mother, who nodded. “This was superseded some fifty years later, as a benefit to both the villages and the men. Many villages produced much more food than they needed, and the men fighting the northern peoples and building the Wall could not farm as well. But,” she paused, “I do not know how that change was made.”
Several of the women waiting to speak sat down again, relinquishing their opportunity to be heard. Casse, nearly eighty, leaned on her stick. Once a council leader, her thoughts bore weight among us.
“Casse,” my mother said.
“When we move the herds to the hills, in the spring,” she began, “we send the apprentices with them, to guard them against the eagles and the wildcats that prey on the newly-born lambs and calves.” Casse spoke in a strong voice that belied her years. “We give those apprentices weapons: slings and sometimes staves. Those are enough, even in the hands of a twelve-year-old, to keep those hunters off. But nearly seventy years ago, when I was first apprenticed to the herds and the hunt, they were not enough, because wolves, packs of wolves, still roamed the hills and took even fully-grown sheep and cattle. Shepherding then needed an adult woman, or several, who had skill with spear and knife and bow. We defended our animals, and ourselves, with weapons.” She thumped her staff on the floor. “I have killed a wolf or two in my time, and I would again. Why is this any different, except this time the wolves have two legs?” She gave a sharp nod and sat down.
No one else remained standing. My mother looked around. I followed her gaze. Around the room, women leaned forward, tense and focused, or huddled with their eyes downcast. Some grasped hands, others hugged. Some sat alone. I could smell the tang of sweat and fear in the room. “You have questioned Casyn’s veracity, and his right to ask this of us,” she said. “You have suggested that food be traded, or given, to turn aside the threat of invasion. You have been reminded that the rules of Partition are not fixed but have been changed before when there was benefit perceived for both the villages and the men. And that, sometimes, killing is necessary for survival.” Beside me, Maya flinched. I reached for her hand again, and this time, she let me take it. I slid a little closer to her.
“I speak on behalf of your council leaders.” She glanced at Sara and Gille. “Our thoughts, as always in a council vote, are only to guide you, not to direct you. We recommend that Tirvan accede to the Emperor’s request, that we learn the skills and tactics needed to defend our village against invasion, even though this goes against the precepts of the Partition agreement. If we do not, if we refuse to defend ourselves, and the invaders are victorious, we will have no voice and no choice in what happens to us after that. If the Empire wins, we can write a new agreement. So say I, Gwen of Tirvan, Council Leader,” she ended, with the formal words.
“And I, Sara of Tirvan, Council Leader.”
“And I, Gille of Tirvan, Council Leader.”
The formal recommendation of the council leaders signalled the preparation for the vote. Gille and my mother walked the circle. Gille handed each of us a dark pebble for no, my mother a light one for yes. The stones felt cold against my palms. Sara unlocked the two voting boxes, one for the vote, one for the discarded pebble, showing the room that both were empty. Then she locked them again, standing them on a table. Sixty light pebbles in the voting box meant no further debate, no second vote.
Separating the pebbles meant letting go of Maya’s hand. She did look at me then. Her eyes were anguished, but dry. I reached out to hold her, but she shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “Not now.”
“Maya,” I pleaded. “Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry. Not at you. I just can’t—” She broke off, took a breath. We walked toward the boxes, pebbles hidden in our hands. Maya’s knuckles were white. Mine were, too. My pebble dropped into the voting box, where it clicked against the others already there. I dropped the dark one into the discard box. I watched Maya flatten her palm against the hole and heard her pebble drop.
We sat again to watch the others vote. Finally, the council leaders opened the boxes, pouring the pebbles onto a cloth. Maya moaned. I could hear my heart beating out the seconds. It took less than a minute of those beats to count, one by one, the sixty-three white pebbles.
Sara stood. “All women of age in Tirvan have witnessed the count. Tirvan votes to accede to the request of the Emperor.” The required words spoken, she hesitated. “We have voted to change the rules of Partition, for only the second time in two hundred years,” she said. “Whether this was wisdom, or no, only the future will tell us. But it is our choice.”
“Not all of us,” Siane reminded her. Tears glistened on her cheeks, but she spoke clearly. “Seventeen of us voted no. What of us?”
Gille stepped forward. “Siane, must we do this now?”
“Yes!” Maya said defiantly. “We need to know. I need to know.”
Gille sighed, and turned away, speaking softly to Sara and Gwen.
“Maya,” I cajoled, “can’t this wait? Let’s see what Casyn wants us to do.”
“No,” she said, her voice high. She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her knees up, rocking slightly on the bench. “It’s not what Casyn wants, Lena, it’s what the village wants. What the rest of you, who voted to fight, want of me, and Siane, and whoever else said no. That’s our choice, not his, not the Emperor’s. Ours,” she repeated. Her eyes glittered. She looked feverish. At the table, the council leaders’ talk ended. They turned towards us.
“Siane,” Gille said. “You will lead the group who decides this. For the women of age who voted no, and for the apprentices who hold the same views, what will we ask? Casyn told us last night he believes we should train all girls over the age of thirteen. What you, Siane, and seven more must decide is how we handle this. Do we excuse some from the training, and if so on what grounds? Do we make training compulsory, and if so, what are the consequences for refusing? It will not be easy, nor will whatever you choose be accepted easily by all.”
Siane nodded in acceptance. “I will do this,” she confirmed. She pushed her stocky body up and bent to hold Dessa, murmuring something. Then she took her stick, limping out to the porch to await, by our customs, the rest of the chosen group. I looked around. In theory, I knew how this worked, how we chose the women who now would decide the question given them. In practice, I’d never seen it happen. Four of the eight walls of the hall had doors. The chosen leader sat outside the north door, away from the village; one council leader standing at each of the others. Which door we exited from depended on where we sat in the hall.
“We go east from here, don’t we?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Kyan said beside me, stretching. “You remember the rest?”
“Two hands,” I murmured. Each of us offered a hand to the council leader as we left the hall. If she
grasped it with one hand, we continued on. But if both her hands covered the offered hand, we did not leave.
“Right again,” Kyan said. She ran a hand through her cropped, fox-red hair. “Difficult one, this.” She worked in wood, building boxes or barns with equal skill, and on long winter nights made our hunting bows. Slight, dark-haired Dari worked with her.
In joining the line, Dari had moved forward to speak to Maya, and now both she and Kyan stood between us. I could just see Sara take Maya’s hand with her right, touching her gently on the shoulder with her left. Just perceptibly—to me, at least—Maya relaxed. She glanced back at me, but protocol said she could not wait near the porch.
“Maya,” I heard Dari call. “Come for tea.” Good, I thought. I can catch up with them on the path. Kyan blocked the light for a moment, then went on her way. I held out my hand to Sara. She took it in both of hers. I froze.
“Sara,” I said, “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can,” she replied quietly. “I know Maya is one of the seventeen. That is, in part, why we chose you.” Unexpectedly, she touched my cheek. “You are very much like your mother, Lena. The mix of pragmatism and compassion that makes her both an excellent midwife and an excellent council leader is in you, too. Find Siane and begin what you have to do.”
Someone had arranged chairs in a circle on the porch. Six other women were with Siane, Casse and Mella among them. I was the eighth. The porch held the warmth of the day. Someone brought out a jug of water and cups. I poured myself a cup and sat. My mouth was dry.
“You are the last of our group,” Siane said. She held her injured leg out in front of her. I could see the twist in it, where the bones had knitted wrongly. Her partner, Dessa, a woman of strong views, would almost certainly have voted to fight. Maya and I were not the only partnership in the village to be divided in this matter. Somehow, that thought made me feel less alone. “You all know our task?” Siane asked, glancing around the group. We nodded. “There are several issues here,” she continued. “Casyn expects the attack to come in late September. At that point, we will have three women, Mella among them, with new babies, and several more, I assume, who will be nearly six months pregnant. Lena, do you know how many?”
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 3