The Shore of Women

by Pamela Sargent

  Zoreen looked down. My cheeks burned. I had read some history, finding myself oddly drawn to a few of the old stories, but had never intended to study it.

  Shayl glanced at me. “You should do physics,” she went on. “That way, we could study together.” I gazed uncertainly at her. “Well, we are going to share rooms, aren’t we? I thought we’d decided that a while ago.”

  She spoke casually. I wanted to leap up and throw my arms around her but only smiled instead. “Of course.”

  “Look!” Miri shouted.

  Button had wandered out of his room. He rubbed his eyes sleepily as he watched us and pulled at his brown nightshirt with his other hand.

  “Come here,” Jenna said as she held out her arms.

  Button toddled to her. As he reached out to touch her long brown hair, Jenna pushed him away with both hands. He sat down hard on the carpet. “What a little beast he is. He looks even uglier than my brother.”

  “Do you know what’s going to happen to you?” Carlea murmured as she crawled over to him. “Do you know?”

  Button’s eyes widened; he did not speak.

  “You’re going to get sent outside,” Carlea shouted triumphantly. “You’re going to live with big, hairy, wild men, and, if you don’t do what they say, they’ll kick you and beat you.”

  “Look at him,” Shayl said as she leaned over and lifted Button’s shirt. “Isn’t it wretched? It just hangs there like a little sausage.”

  Everyone giggled. Button turned toward me; his gray eyes glistened. I wanted to get up and lead him back to his room, where I could have comforted him a little, but couldn’t bring myself to move.

  Carlea got to her feet and lifted Button, swinging him in a circle before throwing him to Shayl. Zoreen watched silently; unlike the others, she was not laughing. Shayl swung Button in an arc, and he screamed. As she set him down, he kicked her leg hard with his bare foot and then slapped her hands away.

  “Button!” I cried out.

  “He’s already getting nasty,” Miri said. “He should have been sent out a long time ago.”

  Button glared at me. I did not speak. He ran back to his room and shot an angry glance at me before the door slid shut.

  “Of all the things we’ll have to do,” I heard myself say, “bearing boys is by far the worst.”

  Everyone began to murmur in agreement, but I hated myself for saying it.

  I began to worry again after my friends had left. I should have been happy, but I was thinking of Button and was suddenly angry with Mother for not sending him away sooner. Because she had grown to care about Button too much, she had brought me to care about him, too, and had endangered us both in the process.

  I found Mother in her study. She was slumped in a chair by the mindspeaker console; her long auburn hair hid her face.

  “I came to say good night.”

  She looked up at me. Her eyes were red; her face seemed swollen. “Did you have a nice party?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes. Shayl still wants us to live together. Her rooms are in the south quadrant, too, so we’ll be close by.”

  She stared at the floor. “Button’s father has already received my message. He should reach the wall in a few days, and then Button…” Her voice shook a little. “He’s looked after your twin. Button will have two men to look out for him.” She stared past me. “I did what I had to do. There won’t be any more warnings from Eilaan. We needn’t concern ourselves with that any more. I did it for you, Laissa. I wanted you to have your celebration without worrying about this.”

  I kissed her and went to my room, then remembered that I had left a jade bracelet, Shayl’s present, in the outer chamber.

  My door slid open. Mother stood in front of Button’s room, weeping.

  Both Shayl and my tests dominated the next few days.

  When I got up, I walked through the botanical gardens near my tower to a training center and sat before screens and scanners while cyberminds tested my brain chemistry, reactions, and reflexes, then displayed questions for me to answer. The lenses and lights of the artificial intelligences winked at me as their questions and diagrams danced across the screen, and their soft but stilted voices chattered. I had been tested often enough before and could not imagine what else they would learn about me, but these tests were longer and more extensive than those I had undergone earlier.

  During the afternoon, I would put on a circlet and find myself in a ship about to crash, then in a garden tending flowers, then with a small infant, then with a patrolwoman aiding a lost child. I moved through so many scenarios that I soon lost track of the number.

  At the end of each day, several old women, all psychologists, questioned me; their inquiries seemed either obvious or silly.

  “What is a boy?”

  “Which would you rather be, an architect or a veterinarian, and why?”

  “If a close friend lied to you about a trivial matter, and you discovered the lie, what would you do about it?”

  “If you were in love with someone, and she didn’t love you, what would you do about it?”

  “Why must men live outside?”

  In the evening, I came home to dinner and then a visit from Shayl. One night, she took me over to her rooms, which were near the top of her tower, and we stood on her balcony and looked up at the stars. On another night, we went through my possessions as she advised me on what I should leave behind.

  I had no time to think of Mother. She was a silent presence at dinner, and withdrawn at other times. I assumed that she was trying to reconcile herself to the loss of Button whenever I thought about her at all.

  On the last day of my tests, I was sent through the curving corridors of the center to a small room.

  An old woman I hadn’t met before was sitting behind a desk. Her face was wrinkled, her chin sagged, and her hair was gray. She, like Eilaan, had reached that time in her life when rejuvenation begins to fail and a woman starts to prepare for death. This woman, I was sure, had seen almost two centuries of life, and I wondered if she would be sorry to leave it. Then I asked myself why, if we could live this long, we could not find a way to live as long as we chose. Before I could ruminate on an answer to that question, I was thinking of the men outside and of how short their lives were in comparison to ours.

  “My name is Bren,” the old woman said as she stood up and led me to the couch. A console with a small screen sat on the table before us; Bren pressed a few keys, gazed at the lettering, then turned toward me. “I am to be your adviser, Laissa. I’m here to deal with any problems you might have during this time of transition, when you’re preparing for the future course of your life.”

  I said, “I’ve already decided to do physics.”

  “Let me ask you something, then. Are you planning to do physics because you really want to, because something in you cries out for a deep understanding of the physical universe, or because your friend Shayl is studying that subject?”

  I hesitated. At last I said, “I would have considered it anyway, but I’ll do better at it with a friend to help me.”

  Bren’s smile seemed stiff; her small black eyes were glassy. “I recommend that you consider the general science course instead. You’ll get some physics there, and you can always explore the subject in more depth later. But I would also suggest that you supplement your studies with some work in history and human culture.”

  I was stunned. Swallowing hard, I tried to compose myself. “I’m not interested in that, Bren.”

  “That isn’t what your tests show.”

  “Anyway, you know how everyone feels about that. They think it’s odd to study those things, that a normal woman wouldn’t be interested in them.”

  “I once expected to hear such talk only from those we serve, but it seems more and more of the Mothers of the City feel the same way.” She leaned back. “I did some work in human culture myself, and you might be surprised at some of the others who have dabbled in it. Oh, I know that many young ones find it strang
e and disturbing—they can’t imagine what it has to do with their lives now, and they want to fit in. When one gets older, though, one sometimes wants to understand the past, and what made us as we are.”

  I brushed at my sleeve nervously. “Well, I’m not old. Besides, what would I use it for? I don’t want to be a recordkeeper or a historian, and I’d have to learn at least a couple of the old languages to read the records anyway.”

  “There are translations, but your tests indicate that you have an aptitude for languages. And a knowledge of history and human culture can be useful.”

  “But what would I use it for?” I repeated.

  Bren put her hand on my shoulder. The gesture seemed rehearsed. I imagined her thinking: Now I should pat her on the shoulder, now I should smile and look reassuring. She smiled and tilted her head to one side. “Everything on your tests shows that you might make a fine chronicler. By looking at the past, you will come to understand why we are as we are. By writing about your feelings, your perspective on our life, you might illuminate…”

  “But I don’t want to be a chronicler. I never thought of doing that, ever.”

  Bren drew back. “Some seem to be born with the desire, while others come to it later. I can only tell you what your tests show. Chroniclers are rare, and their stories now are often repetitions of what has often been told.” She paused. “Be honest, Laissa. Do you passionately long to understand the principles of matter, the underlying structure of the universe, or are your questions about us and our ways?”

  I leaned away from her.

  “Don’t you sometimes feel as though you’re an observer, someone apart?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “Don’t you have your doubts about the way we live?”

  “No,” I said forcefully. “Not really. Not any more than anyone else.”

  “You can’t lie to me, Laissa. I know that you doubt. Your responses to many questions show that.”

  I wondered how that could be. I had answered carefully, going out of my way to seem conventional.

  “Listen,” Bren continued, “you’re not alone. There are others who doubt. They ask why we cannot live outside our cities, why men cannot live as we do, why some women rebel, why we have grown complacent and unadventurous. Some of those who doubt chronicle their feelings or embody them in stories, and others read them and are enlightened. They come to see our world as an outsider might see it and thus gain a perspective on our lives. They come to see what we have kept of the past and what we have rejected. They question and, by questioning, may come up with a way to make things better. Sometimes, one has to doubt, go through a painful questioning of everything one holds dear, in order to come to acceptance of our way. You see, we can make use of doubt—expose it to the light, so to speak—so that it doesn’t fester below the surface and poison us. Chroniclers—good chroniclers—are usually doubters. They show others who have questions that they are not alone, and aid them in reaching an acceptance of our way in the end.”

  The conversation was making me uneasy. If a chronicler’s doubts were supposed to lead to acceptance, then what would happen to a chronicler who could not overcome her doubts? I pushed that question aside.

  Bren was making me doubt. It was another test; it had to be. I had read some of the tales of chroniclers; their stories were little more than recollections of individual lives, mingled with dubious ideas, or recountings of experiences they had never had or had made up altogether. There could be nothing in my tests to show that I was such a person; Bren was only trying to see if I knew my own mind.

  “I know your mother, Dorlei, has had her own questions,” Bren was saying. “Perhaps that has influenced you. Or maybe it’s a quality you carry in your genes. Diversity is important for survival—we must have doubters, as well as followers and leaders. Doubt can show us how we might make things better.”

  “Mother doesn’t doubt, not really.” I felt that I had to say it. “She does what she must. And I don’t want to be a chronicler.”

  “I cannot force you to be one. Force would be useless for such work in any case. I simply advise. We give our tests so that we can save young women from painfully attempting work for which they aren’t suited. You may not believe this now, but in time you are likely to find yourself growing more interested in our history, and wanting to record your thoughts, and then you’ll regret the time you lost. Study physics, if you must, but you may find that it’s not where your true talents lie.” She waved a hand, dismissing me.

  My life was beginning, and I was suddenly afraid of what it might hold.

  ARVIL

  The home of the strangers was six days’ journey on horseback to the south. We took what remained of our provisions and left our camp with them. The strangers shared some of their food with us as we traveled and sheltered us in their tents during the night; we shared our food with them in return.

  The Stalker and Cor cuffed me often. I accepted the blows, knowing that Tal had given me to the Stalker rather than to Eagle Eyes or Arrow because the Stalker was stronger. Tal had done only what he thought was best, but I felt anger toward him. He spoke of keeping to the Lady’s path, yet he had abandoned me.

  The leader of our new band was called by the name Truthspeaker. On the first night we camped together, he went into a trance and spoke in the holy tongue. “Our sin is to be washed from us,” he chanted. “The day approaches when we will live with the Lady and all Her aspects, and men will fight other men no more.” That was all I could understand, for Truthspeaker then fell to the ground and uttered a stream of gibberish while two of his men held his arms and legs. I made a sign and prayed silently, but my mind was not only on guarding myself from unholiness. My thighs burned from riding on a horse behind a stranger all day, and I ached as I thought of the journey still ahead.

  The stranger with whom I had ridden came to my side while Truthspeaker was still babbling. “It is said that Truthspeaker was felled by a powerful blow to the head by an enemy long ago,” the stranger murmured to me. “He lay as one dead and then arose, and it was as if he had come back from the realm of the dead with visions of the truth.”

  This man, named Bint, took a liking to me. I was shy of him at first. Geab and the Stalker had sometimes taken their pleasure roughly with those in my band who were younger, but Bint did not force himself on me. He treated me as if he were my guardian and thus forbidden from using me in that way.

  By the third day of our journey, I was at ease riding with Bint and had overcome my fear of his beast. He pointed out landmarks as we rode and even prayed with me before we slept. The Stalker was content to leave me with Bint much of the time, although he would strike me once in a while just to remind me that he was still my guardian.

  Bint spoke our speech but called on me for words he did not know. He told me much about life in his camp. “See this?” he said once, pulling his coat open. “Sheepskin. We keep sheep. We keep them with us and always have food and coats.”

  “Did you always live with this band?” I asked.

  “Ever since I was a boy. I, too, am from the north, but I cannot remember much of that life. This band was smaller then, but two bands have joined since—yours is the third. You will like it in our camp. You’ll learn how to grow some plants and grain, which is hard work, but when the ones below us are shivering through winter, you’ll be in a warm hut with plenty of food. But you will have to do as you’re told.”

  “Will Geab tell us what to do?”

  “The council will, and he will follow them. Work is given to you. If you disobey, there are punishments according to what you have done wrong. But you won’t be punished without a hearing—that means you get to tell your side of the story and can call witnesses. Of course, if you’ve done an evil deed, you might die for it, but you will have a hearing first. We practice justice.”

  It all sounded strange and wondrous. It came to me that, with a band as large as theirs, things were not so simple.

  “Don’t
other bands try to take what you have?” I asked.

  Bint laughed. “Oh, they can try. They don’t if they are wise. We train to defend ourselves. Some are archers, others fight with spears, and some fight on horseback.”

  “We can each fight with spears, and knives, and arrows, as well as with slings.” I spoke with pride. “We do not fight in only one way.”

  “Our way is better,” Bint said. “We train each in what he is best at, and, when we fight, we work together, but with a plan. It is not just every man fighting for himself or his young charge. Maybe, if the other bands got together, they could give us a battle, but they never do. They fight each other while we grow stronger.”

  I thought of Tal often during the first days of our journey, squeezing my eyes shut at night before sleeping so that I would not cry. Soon, I no longer thought of him, and even came to think that he had been wrong not to promise to join us when he left the enclave. Bint was a good man. He prayed every night and told me he had been called to an enclave three times. I began to believe that Tal would come to see that he had made a mistake and would seek us out after all.

  We left wooded hills by the fourth day of our travels and then rode across a snowy plain. On the last day, we prayed at a shrine to the Witch before going on.

  Here, in this shrine, I was again uneasy. Hecate glowered at us as my band knelt before Her, and then I saw that Truthspeaker’s men did not kneel but gazed directly at Her image as they prayed. We lay on the Lady’s couches, wearing Her circlets, but She favored no one, and no one was called.

  The shrine was on the plain. Above it, to the south, was a high plateau. Bint gestured with one arm. “Up there,” he said. “Our settlement, Arvil. Our town.” I could dimly make out a barrier near the plateau’s edge.

  We rode to a path leading up to the camp. This passage wound among the rocks along the steep incline, as if a large hand had carved it out with a giant stone. We passed snow-covered boulders as the horses climbed with sure feet. I did not dare to look to my side or toward the land so far below. We came to a cave guarded by two men; one of them mounted his horse and rode ahead of us. We passed another cave where others guarded the way, and they shouted a welcome in the holy speech.