The Shore of Women

by Pamela Sargent

  I stood up quickly and went to the shrine’s entrance. The door opened and I retreated inside. The shrine seemed crowded and cramped; only five couches stood near the wall, and the fabric covering them was worn and shiny. An image of Hecate stood near the altar; I sat down on the couch in front of it. For the first time since I had met Arvil, I had accepted his touch without wanting to pull away; I had wanted my hand in his, and that frightened me.

  His footsteps sounded behind me as he came up to the altar. He gazed up at the image for a while, then turned to face me. “I have a question, Birana. Why did the spirit-women choose Tal as my guardian?”

  “It wasn’t the spirit-women who chose him. A woman now living would have chosen him. Those who spoke to you must have chosen him.”

  “Why was Tal chosen, and not another?”

  “It was thought that he could best care for you.” His eyes narrowed; I would have to say more and dreaded saying it. “I must explain something to you.” I looked past him at the altar. “It isn’t the spirit-women themselves who bring boys into the world. Those living in the city do that.”

  “I thought it must be so, now that I know you have bodies of flesh, but you must tell me how.”

  My cheeks burned. “Men are summoned to the wall, and their seed is taken from them while spirit-women…” I bowed my head, wanting to hide my face. “A woman then takes the seed of a man and combines it with her own, and carries the child that results inside her until it’s ready to be born—to come out of her body. When children are born, they’re small and unable to care for themselves, so all of them, boys and girls alike, those of your kind and mine, stay with their mothers in a city. When a boy is old enough, he is sent outside with a man as a guardian. All his memories of the city are taken from him so that he’ll be able to adapt more easily to his new life.”

  Arvil said, “Memories are taken from him so that he won’t know the truth.”

  “That is part of it as well.” I stared at my folded hands. “The girls stay, and the boys are sent out.”

  “And both the girls and the boys enter life in the same way?”

  I nodded.

  “Then a boy and a girl can come from the same woman’s body and grow up together, but the female remains in your world while the male is sent from it.” His voice was low, but I sensed his rage.

  “Animals must push their young from them when their offspring are old enough to survive. Even a girl must leave her mother’s side eventually.”

  “But she can live in her mother’s world.” He paused. “There is a man then who gave seed so that I could live, if what you say is so.”

  “There is. I think…” I forced myself to lift my head. His lips were pressed tightly together; a muscle along his jaw tightened. “You have a father, a man who gave his seed to the one who was your mother, and the seed of both gave you life. It is our custom, whenever possible, to give a boy to the man who was his father. You and Tal resembled each other strongly. I think he was your father. I think that Hasin, the boy you both brought out, also had Tal as a father.”

  He took a step toward me. “So Tal gave me life, and I brought him death. His seed is in me, his spirit, and this was hidden from me. What kind of sin have I done? He will haunt me even more!”

  I held out my hand. He moved toward me, as if about to strike it away, then lowered his fist. “Once,” he said, “female and male lived together, our legends say. I believed you were holy, but there is no holiness in what you do. Your magic is only a shield to hide what you are. Except for my member and your female parts, we are the same, as the stallion and mare are, or the buck and the doe. You could allow us to remain among you if you willed it. You could dwell among us.” He stared at me for a long time, then strode from the shrine.

  I was afraid to go to him. I ached; my breasts felt bruised and my abdomen had swelled a little. I thought at first that tension and fear had brought about the aches, and then realized that I would soon begin to menstruate. I had not bled at all since leaving the city and had worried that the rigors of my new life had affected my cycle, but I did not welcome this bleeding now. I remembered my happiness when I first experienced this sign of my womanhood; out here, it was only another sign of my weakness.

  At last I rose and went outside. Arvil had rendered the deer’s fat and stored it in entrails; he was now picking over what remained of the carcass for useful bones. He did not look up at me. I went to the edge of the clearing, collected more wood, and carried it back, setting the wood down near him. The day had grown warm; I took off my heavy coat and sat down on it.

  “Arvil.”

  He glanced at me. “You must cover yourself. Someone may come and see what you are.”

  “Arvil, listen to me. You ask me questions, and I answer them. You say you want to know the truth, but hearing it only angers you. I know how hard it is for you to bear, but you frighten me. If I anger you enough, you might injure me in your rage.”

  He looked up sharply. “I would not hurt you. I couldn’t, even now.”

  “I fear that you may without meaning to do so.”

  “Never.” He sat back on his heels. “Those garments you wear— you must change them. Only a small boy who has come from an enclave wears such things, and they reveal too much of your form.” He got up and went to Wild Spirit, then opened a sack.

  He returned with a shirt and pants he had taken from the men in the shrine by the plateau. He worked at them with a piece of bone and cut at the edges of the pants with a knife. “You should wear these.” I hesitated. “If you must hide your form from me, then put them on inside the shrine.”

  I stood up. “I must wash first, in the stream. It’s warm enough. Will I be safe?”

  “I shall stand guard,” he said. “You must be ready to cover yourself quickly.”

  I picked up my coat and my clothes and hurried into the shrine, relieved that his anger had passed. Taking off my cloth garments, I tore my shirt into strips, knowing I could use them while I bled and wash them out to be used again. I pulled on my coat and held it tightly around me as I went outside.

  Arvil picked up his bow and quiver, then followed me down to the stream. He turned his back to me as I dropped my clothes, took off my boots, then crouched by a tree to remove my coat.

  I tested the stream with one foot before plunging into the water. The stream was shallow, warmed a little by the sun. I sank down, letting the water flow over me, loosening my hair as I bent my head back. When I felt clean, I climbed out. Arvil was watching me; he turned away slowly. I hid behind the tree while making a loincloth with my belt and three thick strips of cloth; I looped the cloth through the belt and pulled it up between my legs.

  As I reached for the leather shirt, I realized that Arvil was looking at me again. I held the shirt to my chest, feeling shamed and vulnerable. “Please. You mustn’t look at me yet.” He did not look away. I pulled on the shirt and picked up the pants.

  “Why do you wear that loincloth under pants?” he asked.

  I blushed. “I must explain something else to you. Every twenty- eight days or so, a woman bleeds from her female parts.” He started and stepped toward me. I was burning with embarrassment but knew that I could not hide this from him for long. “It isn’t an illness, and the blood does not come from any wound. It’s something that happens to all women. Inside a woman’s belly there is a womb in which she carries her child, and from time to time the womb sheds its wall. I wear this cloth so that…” I could say no more.

  “Does it pain you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I ache sometimes. There was never much pain for me.”

  “I must wash,” he said suddenly as he handed me his weapons. He stripped off his clothes quickly, not troubling to conceal himself, and then walked into the stream. His arms thrashed at the water; he ducked under it and rose, his hair streaming.

  He climbed out onto the bank. His clothing had hidden how muscular he was, had made him seem leaner. His member seemed to swell a bi
t as he gazed at me; he walked out from under the trees and stood in the sun. I clutched at my coat and retreated to the fire. Still naked, he carried his clothes to the horses, took out the other shirt and pants, and went into the shrine.

  I stood near the fire, waiting for my hair to dry. My mother had once taken me to the wall, after I had become a woman, to show me the images of men who were inside after being called. Most women would have shrunk from showing such sights to a daughter that young, but Yvara had defied custom in this as she had in so many other matters. I had glimpsed Arvil’s body in the shrine where I first saw him, when he danced, before revulsion made me look away. I knew what a man looked like and had been prepared for what Arvil’s nakedness would reveal.

  I had not been prepared for my reaction to this sight of his body. The men I had seen on the screen had seemed ugly and misshapen, with their body hair, flat chests, and stiff members covered by tubes; they had been no more than providers of sperm for new generations. But Arvil’s body did not seem ugly to me. The water on his pale smooth skin had glistened in the sunlight, and, for a moment, I had seen beauty in his form, in the body hardened by his life.

  He came outside and sat down near me. I looked away as I tied my hair back with a leather thong. “Those clothes are looser on you,” he said. “They will hide much of your form, although I wish it did not have to be hidden.” He pulled the deer hide to him and began to scrape at the skin with stone. “You will need another garment to conceal what you are, and the weather will grow too warm for your coat. I’ll make you a garment from this hide.”

  I seated myself and watched as he worked at the hide, making it supple. He would make me a garment; I was strangely moved by the gesture. Occasionally, he glanced at me and opened his mouth, as though about to speak, and then he set down his tools and held his hands against his abdomen.

  “In here,” he said, “in this part of yourself—it is where you say a woman keeps her child before it is born, as an animal carries her young.”

  I nodded.

  “But you must put a man’s seed there with your own. How do you take this seed and put it inside you?”

  I kept my eyes down. “When you join with the spirit-women, it is taken from your male member. A woman who wants a child…” I swallowed. “The seed enters her body through her female parts. It’s taken from the man and brought to her. It is inserted with a syringe—a device we have—and then a child begins to form inside her.” I could hardly force these words out. “What the spirit-women do allows us to collect your seed.”

  “It is from the joining. I had wondered—there was a mystery in this joining, and now…” He was leaning closer to me; I could feel his breath on my face. “But why must it be that way? If seed comes during such a joining, why don’t you come to us yourselves instead of sending spirits? The spirit-women have pleasure with men, as we have with them… why could you not… ?”

  I jumped to my feet, disturbed and frightened by this turn in our talk. “There would be no pleasure in it for us,” I cried. “We can find that only with our own kind. We can no longer feel that with a man.”

  “Are you saying that once you…”

  “I don’t want to speak of this!” I paced by the fire, then spun around. He gazed at me as he picked up the hide.

  “You asked me not to grow angry at the truth,” he said. “Now it is you who grow angry at it.”

  I moved closer to him. “In ancient times,” I said as calmly as I could, “some women could bring themselves to enjoy a man, but it is no longer so. Men could use that pleasure to enslave women, and often they sought their own enjoyment whether or not the woman was willing. We’re free from that now.”

  “Perhaps men were also enslaved by it. You enslave us now with spirit-women in the shrines and enclaves. Even men with strong lusts and willing boys and men to satisfy them can find the Lady’s blessings greater. If we didn’t have the knowledge of the Lady’s pleasures, perhaps we would find more enjoyment with each other and more love. With your magic, you might find a way to take our seed and give us boys without such blessings, but you would rather bend us to your will with that reward.”

  He reached up suddenly and seized my wrist. I tried to pull away; he got to his feet. “I cannot wear the circlet now,” he continued, “without the risk of betraying you again. There will be no more spirit-women and their pleasures for me. I have no friends to love. You are all I have left. What am I to do, Birana? I can hold myself back, but I don’t know if I am strong enough to do it forever.”

  “You will find friends in time. It may be…”

  He pulled me to him. His hand gripped my hair, and my face was against his chest. “It is you I want now,” he said. “You tell me that women can love each other, and I have seen how the spirit-women perform with a man. Would it be so hard for you to show me what you do with another of your kind, and for me to give blessings to you, so that we could share some pleasure?”

  “What you ask is impossible!”

  He held my head so that I was forced to look up at him. “I saw how you looked at me when I came out of the water. For a moment, in your eyes, I thought I saw your spirit warm toward me a little.”

  I tore myself from his grasp and stumbled toward the shrine, huddling against the wall. I could hide nothing from him, not even my fleeting thoughts. Could he have seen something in me I could not acknowledge to myself? I was nearly sick at the thought.

  I knew then what I would have to say to protect myself. As he came toward me, I lifted a hand. “Listen to me,” I said. “If you shared any pleasures with me, you would want to join with me all the more. If that happened, if your urge was too strong to control and your seed ever entered me, a child would be created inside me. I’d be ill at first, and then my belly would begin to swell. I would be much more of a burden to you then, because my body would grow large and clumsy. There would be no physician to guide me through the birth; my pain would be greater than any you have ever felt, and it’s likely that both the child and I would die. Even if we lived, you couldn’t care for us, so we would die anyway. I would give birth in agony, and then I would die, for I would have none of the help a mother has in a city. That’s what joining would be for me. The pleasure you long for would mean my death.”

  His face was drawn, his gray eyes wide. “Birana…”

  “Think of that, and perhaps restraint will be easier for you—that is, if you want me to live.”

  “You know that I do. I’ll try to put these thoughts from my mind.” His voice was strained, his eyes unhappy. He turned away and went back to the fire.

  I waited for Arvil to tell us when we might ride on, but he seemed content to linger by the shrine, the most peaceful place we had yet found. From the deerskin, using a bone needle and strands of gut, he fashioned a coat for me. With the cat’s fur, he made a short cloak for himself. He led me through the forest bordering the shrine as he gathered plants, showing me how to recognize them and where they might be found; he fished in the stream with his spear, and found a berry bush with ripening fruit.

  He asked no more questions, and I grew easier with him during the days; but at night, I felt his eyes watching me and wondered what he might be thinking. We had taken to sleeping inside the shrine, one of us resting while the other kept watch by the door. Sometimes I would awaken and sense him standing near me and hear him sigh.

  My bleeding stopped at last. I washed out the last bit of cloth I had worn and put it in my pack with the others, then led each of the horses to the stream to drink.

  Arvil was walking Star around the shrine when I motioned to him. “This place has been a kind of refuge for me,” I said, “but we must look for another soon. The horses are growing restless.”

  “I wonder if we’ll find a place as peaceful.”

  “We must try.”

  “We shall leave soon. Now I’ll hunt for the last time in this place. I have seen ducks not far from here.” He took up his bow and arrows and vanished into the wood.
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  I tethered the horses, practiced with my sling, and then went back into the shrine. Ever since our talk of blessings and what they meant, Arvil had been careful not to come too close to me. He no longer smiled or took my hand for a moment, and I realized that I missed those signs of friendship. Why couldn’t he be my friend without longing for more? I knew the answer to that. It was my kind that had awakened such desires in him.

  I heard the door whisper open; Arvil could not be back so soon. Perhaps he had decided not to hunt. I turned, intending to smile and say something kind to him, and met a stranger’s eyes.

  I caught my breath and drew my deerskin coat around me. The man’s brown hair was plaited in two long braids; his blue eyes narrowed as he watched me. He wore a loincloth with leather leggings that reached above his knees, and a furry hide covered his shoulders. He did not look pleased at finding me there.

  I wanted to run from him, useless as that would have been. I waited as he walked toward the altar.

  The stranger set down his small pack and weapons, knelt in front of the image, and bowed his head. I might have run outside, but he could follow, and nothing would prevent him from harming me there.

  He finished his prayers and sat back on his heels. I sat down next to the altar, hoping the coat Arvil had made hid my breasts. “A truce while we speak,” I said in my own language.

  “There is always peace in Her presence.” He peered at me; I forced myself to gaze at him steadily. “You did not travel here alone.”

  “That is so.”

  “What are you called, lad?”

  I thought of the name Arvil had given me. “Spellweaver,” I replied.

  He nudged the spear in front of him with his foot. “I am Narid, and perhaps that is all I should tell you, for I have heard of the horsemen beyond the Ridge in the west who would rid the world of those on foot.”

  He did not look like a man who wanted a truce; I could not fight him. If he went outside, he could strike at Arvil when he returned, and if I tried to stop him, I would die as well. He had seen what we possessed and might take it all. I would have to reach a more lasting truce with this man and did not know how I could persuade him to one.